Author Topic: Surprise, Surprise, Credits Reset to 0 (Read 11659 times)

KarenH · « **Reply #25 on:** January 26, 2012, 23:28 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 26, 2012, 19:55

Maybe the wrong people were retained.
Why can't they fix something as easily as they break it?
Why don't they test things thoroughly before pushing them live?
Why were they fiddling in there anyway? (OK, RCs had been 'sticky', sometimes coming down a couple of days at a time, like stats.)
Why do they consistently break things?
It's pathetic and sad, if not so maddening.

And why why WHY do they never seem to operate with a backup to fall back on when their "fixes" fail? I will never understand that.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #26 on:** January 27, 2012, 00:13 »

Downright SAD.

FD · « **Reply #27 on:** January 27, 2012, 00:58 »

Quote from: Pixart on January 26, 2012, 19:20

Can't they get anything right? I'm back down to 15% with 0 Credits.

I never liked this kind of board games where you're suddenly at square one near the end when you're almost canistering your grandfather.

Microstock Man · « **Reply #28 on:** January 27, 2012, 01:08 »

iStock. Worst I.T. Department Ever.

BrianM · « **Reply #29 on:** January 27, 2012, 01:38 »

Quote from: dcdp on January 26, 2012, 19:59

To break something they have to release new code.

Not true. Servers can be flaky, especially with distributed systems, huge databases, NAS, SAN, and perhaps overloaded or flakey network gear tying it all together.

It seems sales are all calculated by a base royalty rate plus offset. When the RC level lookup fails, because the database that has that table is offline or unreachable, the offset is considered zero. That shouldn't be a possible failure mode.

Would be nice of the base royalty was instead the max (45% exclusive, 21% non-ex) and the RC based offsets were negative, that way when the lookup failed and returned zero, contributors would get paid the max royalty.

Contributors would pocket the difference on each bug affected sale, but iStock would save in not having to spend weeks manually calculating the differences and manually adding funds back to every contributor's account that had a sale. The bug would bother contributors less if it was a temporary error in their favor.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #30 on:** January 27, 2012, 02:29 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 26, 2012, 19:55

Why can't they fix something as easily as they break it?

Because of the Second Law of thermodynamics

fujiko · « **Reply #31 on:** January 27, 2012, 02:34 »

The whole credit pricing structure is designed to make such bugs profitable and hard to notice. As each sale can have a different price, how do you know if the amount is the correct royalty?

RapidEye · « **Reply #32 on:** January 27, 2012, 03:14 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on January 27, 2012, 02:29

Quote from: ShadySue on January 26, 2012, 19:55
Why can't they fix something as easily as they break it?

Because of the Second Law of thermodynamics

That's the wittiest thing I've heard all week.

wut · « **Reply #33 on:** January 27, 2012, 04:09 »

Quote from: fujiko on January 27, 2012, 02:34

The whole credit pricing structure is designed to make such bugs profitable and hard to notice. As each sale can have a different price, how do you know if the amount is the correct royalty?

That's their plan, that's how they do it. I guess they're loosing so much money, they have to resort to such tricks

travelstock · « **Reply #34 on:** January 27, 2012, 05:18 »

Well the thread has been locked on IS - am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?

borg · « **Reply #35 on:** January 27, 2012, 05:27 »

My sales are on 30% of usual for this month...- 70% can't be normal even with big "beast match" shifting!

So, I think they probably lose our sales also... Who can check this, we can't...

rubyroo · « **Reply #36 on:** January 27, 2012, 05:32 »

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Just.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

ShadySue · « **Reply #37 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:07 »

From Lobo:
"Im going to put this discussion on hold until the morning. No good is going to come from leaving it open.
Let me see what I can find out in 5 hours.
You can send me a site mail if you want to yell at someone in the meantime."

How is it that they are allowed to screw up something a minute before lousin time, then swan off?
They shouldn't be allowed to push something (which they clearly hadn't checked rigrourously enough) just before the end of the working day. Or whoever was the original cause of the issue and the alleged checker should be made to fix it without overtime. Why should only contributors take financial cuts?

They chose to introduce the RC system, not us.

wut · « **Reply #38 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:11 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 27, 2012, 06:07

From Lobo:
"Im going to put this discussion on hold until the morning. No good is going to come from leaving it open.
Let me see what I can find out in 5 hours.
You can send me a site mail if you want to yell at someone in the meantime."

Home address would be even better, so I can go on denailing you all night long

john_woodcock · « **Reply #39 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:19 »

Quote

am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?

You are wrong in thinking that, yes.

Artemis · « **Reply #40 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:27 »

Quote from: john_woodcock on January 27, 2012, 06:19

Quote
am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?

You are wrong in thinking that, yes.

No he isn't. I'm still waiting.

travelstock · « **Reply #41 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:35 »

Quote from: john_woodcock on January 27, 2012, 06:19

Quote
am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?

You are wrong in thinking that, yes.

Did they send you an email detailing the adjustments?

john_woodcock · « **Reply #42 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:37 »

Quote

No he isn't. I'm still waiting.

Well in that case i apologise, but I know of no one else in that position and I think the forums would have been pretty red hot were there many others. I assume you have contacted IS, so what is their reason for not paying you what is owed?

travelstock · « **Reply #43 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:42 »

Actually I think I was sort of wrong - I just dugg through the emails from iStock and found 5 from 13 December 11 with some royalty adjustments. They don't really detail what files or what dates they relate to, but I assume this was it.

john_woodcock · « **Reply #44 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:42 »

Quote

Did they send you an email detailing the adjustments?

I received an email as far as I can remember telling me the adjustment would be put in my account and it was. I can't remember if the amount was broken down into individual amounts per file sold, but I can assure you if I hadn't been happy with the amount I would have been kicking up a serious fuss, so I was OK with it, as were others I know.

traveler1116 · « **Reply #45 on:** January 27, 2012, 08:26 »

Quote from: holgs on January 27, 2012, 06:35

Quote from: john_woodcock on January 27, 2012, 06:19
Quote
am I wrong in thinking they still haven't back-paid the difference in commission from the last time this happened?

You are wrong in thinking that, yes.

Did they send you an email detailing the adjustments?

I think there was a problem at the beginning of this year for people that reached a new level and those haven't been paid yet as far as I know. As to the emails from last year, I sent two of them and waited 2 months with no response but then an hour after posting in the forums that I never received any info an email was sent.

JPSDK · « **Reply #46 on:** January 27, 2012, 08:31 »

that sounds like something a used cars dealer would do, when the creditors began to scratch the gate.

cmannphoto · « **Reply #47 on:** January 27, 2012, 09:02 »

Quote from: BrianM on January 27, 2012, 01:38

Quote from: dcdp on January 26, 2012, 19:59

To break something they have to release new code.

Not true. Servers can be flaky, especially with distributed systems, huge databases, NAS, SAN, and perhaps overloaded or flakey network gear tying it all together.

It seems sales are all calculated by a base royalty rate plus offset. When the RC level lookup fails, because the database that has that table is offline or unreachable, the offset is considered zero. That shouldn't be a possible failure mode.

Would be nice of the base royalty was instead the max (45% exclusive, 21% non-ex) and the RC based offsets were negative, that way when the lookup failed and returned zero, contributors would get paid the max royalty.

Contributors would pocket the difference on each bug affected sale, but iStock would save in not having to spend weeks manually calculating the differences and manually adding funds back to every contributor's account that had a sale. The bug would bother contributors less if it was a temporary error in their favor.

With the very long "Bug List" which seems to get longer everyday, you have to wonder how many little code tweaks they have to be adding everyday. I know wishful thinking on my part, that they are actually trying to fix the mess.
So really you both could be right.

As far as making the problems in the contributors favor will never happen. They hope contributors don't closely check their sales and if they don't iStock benefits.

helix7 · « **Reply #48 on:** January 27, 2012, 09:59 »

Quote from: THP on January 27, 2012, 01:08

iStock. Worst I.T. Department Ever.

I don't suspect that their IT crew is any worse than any other microstock IT dept. But they're not sufficiently capable enough to handle the complex system istock HQ wants to employ. If they want to have the most complex and feature-rich site in the business, they need to have the best talent available for this sort of thing. Obviously they don't. Their IT folks may be good, but they might also not be of the caliber required to pull off the vision HQ has had for the site for years.

It's more an issue of knowing your limitations and working within them. Aside from the fact that such a complex site is probably not even giving them a competitive advantage anyway, a smart company knows when they're in over their heads and when to pull back on an aggressive development plan. istock will never admit that they can't do everything they want and keep things humming along smoothly, so they'll always stumble along like this with constant bugs and an almost monthly major issue cropping up.

briciola · « **Reply #49 on:** January 27, 2012, 10:15 »

Quote from: helix7 on January 27, 2012, 09:59

Quote from: THP on January 27, 2012, 01:08
iStock. Worst I.T. Department Ever.

I don't suspect that their IT crew is any worse than any other microstock IT dept. But they're not sufficiently capable enough to handle the complex system istock HQ wants to employ. If they want to have the most complex and feature-rich site in the business, they need to have the best talent available for this sort of thing. Obviously they don't. Their IT folks may be good, but they might also not be of the caliber required to pull off the vision HQ has had for the site for years.

It's more an issue of knowing your limitations and working within them. Aside from the fact that such a complex site is probably not even giving them a competitive advantage anyway, a smart company knows when they're in over their heads and when to pull back on an aggressive development plan. istock will never admit that they can't do everything they want and keep things humming along smoothly, so they'll always stumble along like this with constant bugs and an almost monthly major issue cropping up.

I'm not sure that they aren't worse, from what I've seen, the IT dept in IS couldn't implement the changes we've seen over at SS - the map, tracking your sets, the darkroom features - certainly not smoothly and without a ton of new bugs being introduced.

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Author Topic: Surprise, Surprise, Credits Reset to 0 (Read 11659 times)

KarenH

Noedelhap

FD

Microstock Man

BrianM

BaldricksTrousers

fujiko

RapidEye

wut

travelstock

borg

rubyroo

ShadySue

wut

john_woodcock

Artemis

travelstock

john_woodcock

travelstock

john_woodcock

traveler1116

JPSDK

cmannphoto

helix7

briciola

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