Author Topic: How to you deal with ratings on istock (Read 5706 times)

leaf · « **on:** February 15, 2006, 02:59 »

I have a few images that are rated 2/5 on Istock. Is it worth it to delete these files so that my overall rating goes up???
Isn't the search rankings somewhat dependant on your rating?

Some of the files have been downloaded very little, so I don't think it would hurt to take those files off, but some of the others have been downloaded a number of times, so I am unsure if I should delete those...

any thoughts?

bergeror · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2006, 16:06 »

Personally, I ignore the ratings completely. I don't think that they matter in a search unless the person doing the searching explicitly chooses to sort by rating.

I definitely would NOT delete low rated images just to improve your average rating. All that would accomplish is to reduce the number of your images available for purchase.

leaf · « **Reply #2 on:** February 21, 2006, 16:19 »

I was pretty sure they changed the ranking systema while back to favor highly ranked images... but i am not sure. I will try and find some info about that, if it is true.

stockslave · « **Reply #3 on:** February 08, 2007, 20:35 »

I look at the rating system on IS as biased and really not accurate by any account, since many things are subjective, though there isn't much that can be done about that. It's easy enough to rate up people that you like or rate people down that you dislike.

All ratings I received were 5/5 in general, but recently I noticed one person (giving no reasons why) rated me down on a vector image (I'm purely a vector artist there).

Curious as to why this person rated me down (as it is one of my best selling images on other sites, and frankly one of my better images!)... I looked at their portfolio.

Interestingly, I found that the person was a photographer/illustrator... whos vectors are frankly...hm, surprising that they were passed into istock at all - I say that based on technical standards as well as artistic standards.

Nevertheless, I did not retaliate ...hehe

But interesting to find out on this thread that the ratings actually make a difference in the search. heh.

*sigh...what can you do... Keep going and ignore the ratings!!!

Allsa · « **Reply #4 on:** February 08, 2007, 21:04 »

Sometimes a low rating is unintentional. I found that out when I recieved a '1' rating for one of my most popular images. Sales dropped soon after. I wrote to the person and asked them why they had given the image such a low rating. I didn't hear anything for a long time --- finally I recieved a sitemail at iStock from the person. It turns out that the low rating was a mistake, and he apologised, and even went back and changed the rating from '1' to '5' and left a nice comment.

madelaide · « **Reply #5 on:** February 08, 2007, 21:55 »

I received a 3 on this one, and I think it's the only one that was rated that did not get a 5. I guess people don't bother rating if they don't like the photo.

Regards,
Adelaide

LanaLanglois · « **Reply #6 on:** February 12, 2007, 08:05 »

Here is my opinion:

Your images has been reviewed and approved, so it mean they meet Istock criteria.

If those low rated photos are also accepted somewhere else, you can figure they are not so bad at all.

If you personally really think they are very bad, take them out. We should stay proud of our portfolio. But if you are not to shame to show those images to others and you think they are good enough, than leave it there.

To obtain a fair rating, all photos should be rated by the same person(s) with the same criteria. This is not the case here, so don't bother too much with it. - I believe a very fair rating should give many 1, 2, 3, some 4 and few 5. Don't forget that a "1" don't mean the worst of the worsts, but the worst of the bests because all those photos has been reviewed.

madelaide · « **Reply #7 on:** February 12, 2007, 15:11 »

I agree that once the image has been approved by inspectors, it doesn't make much sense to use ratings and even less to give them any priviledge in the searches. The only rating that would matter at this point would be that of the buyer's.

Regards,
Adelaide

roman · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2007, 06:23 »

Adelaide is correct. You can actually register as a buyer and wipe out your competition using a proxy name by giving competing images poor ratings. I confess there was a brief period (remember our ratings bonanza a couple of weeks ago) when I rated all images of people on my CN at 5 stars. I would never give an image rating lower than this... but I would never rate an image that I did not like. Now, I just rate stuff in the new uploads section of my CN. At present, the entire ratings system is very flawed... I see a potential for disaster.

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Author Topic: How to you deal with ratings on istock (Read 5706 times)

leaf

bergeror

leaf

stockslave

Allsa

madelaide

LanaLanglois

madelaide

roman

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