What do you mean, RC totals are in your stats.  They aren't broken down by date or sale anywhere, just the total.  The cutoff is the end of the year.  I'm pretty sure you have been credited for the days that were missing although the full details won't show up until Tuesday, hopefully. 

I think a lot of people have been asking for more complete stats but as far as I know no one from IS has said that there will be anything new.

You have no way to verify your RC numbers, especially when credits change at some point during the year (as they did this year for certain sizes of certain types of files - 20 credit vectors to 18 for example).

Flogging a dead horse, I know, as I believe iStock is well aware it is in its own best interests to avoid giving a full accounting to contributors, but it is imperative that we have detailed, downloadable stats for our accounts.

I completely agree, but aren't # of credits and redeemed credits the same thing? And aren't all of those stats already given to us on the normal download details page of each image (when the site is working correctly, that is)?

No, there is no record of credits used.  Just size or type.

Ok, forgive me for being dense, but if somebody downloads a 15-credit vector from me, that's 15 RCs, right?

Quote from: FreeTransform on December 11, 2011, 16:34

Ok, forgive me for being dense, but if somebody downloads a 15-credit vector from me, that's 15 RCs, right?

No __ otherwise they'd just be called 'credits' rather than 'redeemed credits'. As I understand it RC's roughly translate into $'s (or some fictional Istock currency)so that they take account of whatever discount is applied to the credits at purchase.

Are you sure? I thought redeemed credits meant just that, the number of credits which were used to purchase your image, no matter how much the credits cost?
So we lose out for sure on $$$ if the credits were bought at a discount, which they probably always are given that the discount codes are disseminated over the web, but one RC is one RC no matter the price.

Quote from: gostwyck on December 11, 2011, 16:42

Quote from: FreeTransform on December 11, 2011, 16:34

Ok, forgive me for being dense, but if somebody downloads a 15-credit vector from me, that's 15 RCs, right?

No __ otherwise they'd just be called 'credits' rather than 'redeemed credits'. As I understand it RC's roughly translate into $'s (or some fictional Istock currency)so that they take account of whatever discount is applied to the credits at purchase.

Are you sure? I thought redeemed credits meant just that, the number of credits which were used to purchase your image, no matter how much the credits cost?
So we lose out for sure on $$$ if the credits were bought at a discount, which they probably always are given that the discount codes are disseminated over the web, but one RC is one RC no matter the price.

Oops sorry, my mistake, it is the credits actually used or 'redeemed'. Not that it really makes any difference as the 'targets' are a moveable feast that Istock can change at will.

Wait a minute:

What are Redeemed Credits?
Your redeemed credits total represents all the credits that have been used by iStock customers downloading your files. It tracks the actual number of credits used in each download, depending on the file size, collection, and any extended license options.

Example: If you are a non-exclusive contributor and someone downloads an extra-small photo, your redeemed credit total will increase by 1. If they download an extra-large photo, your redeemed credit total will increase by 15.

Example: If you are an exclusive contributor and someone downloads an extra-large Vetta photo, your redeemed credit total will increase by 100.

Isn't this saying, for example, if you sell an XL Vetta, the cost of which is 100 credits, your RC total will go up by 100. It says nothing about how much the buyer paid for each credit.

"Isn't this saying, for example, if you sell an XL Vetta, the cost of which is 100 credits, your RC total will go up by 100. It says nothing about how much the buyer paid for each credit."

As already said, it has nothing to do with price per credit.  However, over time, the RC of an XL Vetta ( or whatever ) will change, so it is hard to figure out RCs historically.

Right, it has nothing to do with price per credit. But the credit price of the file � and by "price," I mean how many credits it sells for � is how many credits the contributor gets. Your earlier post seemed to suggest otherwise.

So on your file_downloads page for a particular image you'll see "Small Regular $1.35" and have no idea how many credits Small sold for.

Was that image in Photo + then or not? Was there a sale on or not? In the case of price-in-credits changes for certain sizes such as we had a month or so ago, was that sale date before or after? And given site hiccups, you can't ever be sure exactly when the new prices were applied. At the end of 2010 there was a big Vetta sale - with double RC credits given. Again no way to track.

And for extended licenses at any time, without contacting CR for every single EL sale you will never know. We get a report of an extended license sale, with the number of credits for the EL, but not for the image itself which doesn't register as a download in the counts and the credits for which are never shown anywhere to a contributor.

As it stands right now, without contacting CR for every single EL sale, a contributor cannot calculate their RC total, only estimate it. Pretty shabby situation.

The Livestock app for the Android platform tracks individual RC totals on each sale.

Sean: sounds like a great new script idea

^^ Good point, but it would be possible to at least have correct stats for CURRENT credit prices.
It means that from when IS changed (recently) the photo prices and back, the data of the script would provide inaccurate results of course.

in this way could afford to increase the RC canister level without having too much discontent

You really think so?
You think people would be happy at yet another cut as long as they could see more stats?
Give me the money any day. It's the only thing that has any chance of making me remotely happy re iStock.
Of course,  it's crucial for people who are on the cusp of a target on Dec 31st.
For most of us, who fall well between targets, it's not that important.
Unless we want to be masochistic and work out how much more we'd have this year if they hadn't set up the RC system.
A sobering calculation.