Author Topic: Is it in a book or what? (Read 7845 times)

Freedom · « **on:** October 22, 2010, 11:37 »

I have always wondered about this.

It is nice to see that someone gives you a 5-camera rating on your work. However, many ratings come from relatively new contributors who have very few images of their own but have huge amount of ratings for their images. I imagine that they must be very active in giving out ratings to other people's work, while human nature makes others want to reciprocate by giving them high ratings back.

Is this trick in some stock photo books or blogs? Otherwise, how do these new member know this? Does it help sales?

What will you do? Do you reciprocate their ratings?

pet_chia · « **Reply #1 on:** October 22, 2010, 13:45 »

I would like to know what effect ratings have on best match algorithm (if any). I would be happy to spend a bit of time looking at people's photos and giving their best ones 5 stars (nobody seems to give anything less than that) but I have no idea if this means anything in the scheme of things. I would think that sales to actual customers are a lot better indication that a photo is worth looking at than ratings by other contributors.

Pheby · « **Reply #2 on:** October 22, 2010, 13:50 »

There is (or at least there used to be) a category among the most successful images, "highest rated" which of course means a bit of promotion. But you'd have to make rating one of your priorities for an image to get there. An image appearing there is the only advantage I can imagine someone to expect by wild ratings like that. I'm sure it doesn't help sales. It says a lot that the people with absurd amounts of ratings relative to portfolio size are mostly newbies, they must assume that it pushes them up the ladder faster. Most of them have an absurd number of "friends" aswell in relation to the amount of time they have been contributors.

I don't give ratings as a favour.

ShadySue · « **Reply #3 on:** October 22, 2010, 14:01 »

Although ratings used to factor in to best match placings, they have categorically stated for a couple of years that it no longer does so (there were 'rating rings'). I rate when I see something I like - purely subjectively.

melastmohican · « **Reply #4 on:** October 22, 2010, 15:40 »

They should remove this option if it is no longer used. If I need need peer ratings I can post images on Flickr.

Freedom · « **Reply #5 on:** October 22, 2010, 15:50 »

How did they get the idea that they should rate others?

Some of my desinger friends who have been on Istock for many years didn't even know the option when I mentioned it.

Sorry my typing has been awful, full of errors.

gaja · « **Reply #6 on:** October 22, 2010, 15:51 »

I got a few ratings on the first pictures I put into IS, with a request from the rater to do the same to her pics. If other newbies recieve the same "training", that could be a reason that this continues.

crazychristina · « **Reply #7 on:** October 22, 2010, 16:14 »

Ratings have been a feature of sites with user contributed content for years. Youtube for example. Anyone familiar with any of these sites would exptect some kind of ratings/popularity mechanism to be in place. And they probably didn't read about that in a book.

As far as ratings on istock are concerned, two people are responsible for half my ratings. Both of them have images in the highest rated images list. They probably keep an eye on newest uploads and click on anything that looks vaguely interesting.

Sadstock · « **Reply #8 on:** October 22, 2010, 16:42 »

Ratings used to be one of the top criteria in best match and once people figured it out they were able to achieve spectacular success. Once this became common knowledge and more and more ratings gangs sprang up, IS reduced the significance of ratings in I think the fall of 06, leading to one of the biggest best match shakes, but did not eliminate the effect of ratings entirely. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=43928&page=1

A big ratings buying gang was busted in November 2007 (thread maybe was deleted?) that consisted of a number of contributors who had effectively figured out the best match formula in use at that time by buying their just uploaded images through a dummy account and giving 2-3 5 ratings all within the first 12 hours or so. Their images would go to the top of the best match and stick for quite a while leading to big big sales.

This resulted in another big best match shake that all but eliminated the impact of ratings. While some have said the impact of ratings is gone, some admins have used weasel words to suggest that the impact of ratings is so small that they have virtually no effect.

The current volume ratings people have me baffled. I can’t figure out why anyone would invest that kind of time in something with so little apparent value. Are they so desperate to be approved of that they are willing to bribe people (giving out ratings) to get some recognition?

pet_chia · « **Reply #9 on:** October 22, 2010, 18:45 »

Quote from: Sadstock on October 22, 2010, 16:42

...

A big ratings buying gang was busted in November 2007 (thread maybe was deleted?) that consisted of a number of contributors who had effectively figured out the best match formula in use at that time by buying their just uploaded images through a dummy account and giving 2-3 5 ratings all within the first 12 hours or so. Their images would go to the top of the best match and stick for quite a while leading to big big sales.

...

That's what you get for being contributor-driven instead of customer-driven. What good would the book ratings be at a place like amazon.com if you knew that they were mostly done by the authors and publishers instead of buyers?

That's why in microstock the acceptance reviews, the star ratings and even the best match algorithm should be done by and for the buyers (long-term buyers), not the contributors or (worst of all) by and for the interests of combined contributors/corporate insiders.

crazychristina · « **Reply #10 on:** October 22, 2010, 19:23 »

I don't think that 2007 bust involved ratings. The scam was that a group of contributors would all buy each others recent uploads at XS size (a relatively small outlay). The resulting high dls/day and dls/view figures these files got would put them at the front of a best match search. The positve feedback loop (buyers buying off the first page) would keep them at the front of the best match and rapidly repay their investment. I think they were mostly Christmas themed images, so lots of people were grabbing the first thing they saw.

cathyslife · « **Reply #11 on:** October 22, 2010, 19:27 »

Quote from: pet_chia on October 22, 2010, 18:45

That's what you get for being contributor-driven instead of customer-driven. What good would the book ratings be at a place like amazon.com if you knew that they were mostly done by the authors and publishers instead of buyers?

That's why in microstock the acceptance reviews, the star ratings and even the best match algorithm should be done by and for the buyers (long-term buyers), not the contributors or (worst of all) by and for the interests of combined contributors/corporate insiders.

Well said.

Freedom · « **Reply #12 on:** October 22, 2010, 20:33 »

Agree, too. Perhaps someone should start a website, similar to tripadvisor.com, to rate the photos independently. That being said, we should keep in mind that the standards are often subjective. In art history, ground breaking artworks were often initially considered unacceptable or ugly.

Quote from: cclapper on October 22, 2010, 19:27

Quote from: pet_chia on October 22, 2010, 18:45
That's what you get for being contributor-driven instead of customer-driven. What good would the book ratings be at a place like amazon.com if you knew that they were mostly done by the authors and publishers instead of buyers?

That's why in microstock the acceptance reviews, the star ratings and even the best match algorithm should be done by and for the buyers (long-term buyers), not the contributors or (worst of all) by and for the interests of combined contributors/corporate insiders.

Well said.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #13 on:** October 23, 2010, 00:53 »

Quote from: crazychristina on October 22, 2010, 16:14

Ratings have been a feature of sites with user contributed content for years. Youtube for example. Anyone familiar with any of these sites would exptect some kind of ratings/popularity mechanism to be in place. And they probably didn't read about that in a book.

As far as ratings on istock are concerned, two people are responsible for half my ratings. Both of them have images in the highest rated images list. They probably keep an eye on newest uploads and click on anything that looks vaguely interesting.

Ah, that explains it. I thought it was something with the reviews, because I would get a photo accepted and out of the new batch, I'd get one with a rating, the rest would get nothing, and I always wondered why from a series, it seemed like a random single image would get a review and 5, and the rest would be ignored. So it's people watching new images. Makes sense.

OK I'll assume that all should have been ignored, considering the source. (that's me)

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #14 on:** October 23, 2010, 07:57 »

Quote from: Sadstock on October 22, 2010, 16:42

The current volume ratings people have me baffled. I can’t figure out why anyone would invest that kind of time in something with so little apparent value. Are they so desperate to be approved of that they are willing to bribe people (giving out ratings) to get some recognition?

Not sure either. Doesn't make sense to me.

I have a couple of people who regularly give me ratings and that seems to be their focus - ratings. My goal is sales so I see no reason to spend time on ratings. A lot of these ratings people seem to have thousands of ratings but like 50 files and 25 downloads in a year or two.

If you want to do ratings why not just hang out on Flickr?

rubyroo · « **Reply #15 on:** October 23, 2010, 09:13 »

I've always been confused in that I have some people who regularly give me ratings within about half an hour of an image being accepted.

How do they follow my accepted images so closely? They're not in my CN.

Xalanx · « **Reply #16 on:** October 24, 2010, 13:27 »

The only rating that has some value for me is the initial rating.

ShadySue · « **Reply #17 on:** October 24, 2010, 13:44 »

Quote from: rubyroo on October 23, 2010, 09:13

I've always been confused in that I have some people who regularly give me ratings within about half an hour of an image being accepted.

How do they follow my accepted images so closely? They're not in my CN.

I think they just watch the newly accepted images.

loop · « **Reply #18 on:** October 24, 2010, 15:47 »

You can search by rating. I always do it when I'm looking por images to buy. Maybe you don't get the best photos, but you get very good photos.

Zanister · « **Reply #19 on:** October 24, 2010, 16:17 »

Quote from: loop on October 24, 2010, 15:47

You can search by rating. I always do it when I'm looking por images to buy. Maybe you don't get the best photos, but you get very good photos.

Maybe a search by downloads is gonna yield better results, no?

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #20 on:** October 24, 2010, 16:57 »

Quote from: loop on October 24, 2010, 15:47

You can search by rating. I always do it when I'm looking por images to buy. Maybe you don't get the best photos, but you get very good photos.

I don't think the majority of buyers use ratings to search. I see a lot of contributors with a ton of great ratings and pretty poor sales.

Most buyers probably use downloads to just pick a safe bet of what everybody else is buying or age to try and find something new that isn't already all over the place.

Freedom · « **Reply #21 on:** October 25, 2010, 00:08 »

How? I have a bunch of initial ratings, but have no clue if it helps sales. I'd rather see they were accepted in Vetta or Agency.

Quote from: Xalanx on October 24, 2010, 13:27

The only rating that has some value for me is the initial rating.

qwerty · « **Reply #22 on:** October 25, 2010, 01:35 »

I've got 240 ratings on my photos
239 of them are 5/5
someone gave me a 4/5

Imagine if you gave someone a 1/5 wouldn't that be a nice way to make friends.

The other nice way to make friends is flag peoples photos on dreamstime for incorrect keywords.
I will never do that again.

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Author Topic: Is it in a book or what? (Read 7845 times)

Freedom

pet_chia

Pheby

ShadySue

melastmohican

Freedom

gaja

crazychristina

Sadstock

pet_chia

crazychristina

cathyslife

Freedom

RacePhoto

PaulieWalnuts

rubyroo

Xalanx

ShadySue

loop

Zanister

PaulieWalnuts

Freedom

qwerty

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