MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: stockuser on December 05, 2014, 16:18
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Out of interested what comes FOURTH? Anyone reached the fourth warning here?
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After the third I got so scared that I stopped uploading. It's been a year now.
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Out of interested what comes FOURTH? Anyone reached the fourth warning here?
They give in and let you add 100 irrelevant keywords to all your new uploads? Seriously though, hopefully they close your account.
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If you're looking for help or sympathy, you may be in the wrong place. Spamming and keywording badly on purpose is a massively destructive thing to do and why anyone would get beyond one warning is a mystery to me.
Perhaps you can tell us what happens if you keep on *
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Spamming keywords is a bit like steroids in sport, agencies should come down on offenders much harder than they do presently
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Haha I don't do better or worse keywording than average but I started to submit to istock after a 7 years break in the beginning of this yer I never used more than 50 keywords nowadays its a maximum of 30. Older images are poorer keyworded than new ones (that is probably the same for all of us).
It is true that I don't care about their disambigution crap at least not for 16% and let do this automatically. But of course I'm the bad guy haha!
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BTW nobody answered my question what is happening with a fourth warning does anyone have any experience with it?
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flogging
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flogging
lol flogging is not sustainable!
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I would expect that your account will be closed if you continue to keyword the images the way you have been. 3 warnings seems pretty generous to me if it's obvious you are doing it intentionally.
I can tell you without a doubt that customers HATE when images come up in their search that have nothing to do with the search term they have entered. Keyword spamming does not benefit you in any way, shape or form. It makes the customers frustrated, the agencies angry and you lose the respect of the photography community.
Do yourself a favor..if you are spamming the keywords, knock it off!
-Mat
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BTW nobody answered my question what is happening with a fourth warning does anyone have any experience with it?
Obviously you are not the sharpest tool in the shed, so my advice is keep doing what you already know is wrong and see what experience your fourth warning is, and share that. Most people would have figured it out by now. If anything, I think IS has been more than tolerant with your spamming. If it was my play, I'd say strike three and you are out of there.
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Haha I don't do better or worse keywording than average but I started to submit to istock after a 7 years break in the beginning of this yer I never used more than 50 keywords nowadays its a maximum of 30. Older images are poorer keyworded than new ones (that is probably the same for all of us).
It is true that I don't care about their disambigution crap at least not for 16% and let do this automatically. But of course I'm the bad guy haha!
or a troll.
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I do nothing intentionally! I do get these warnings extremly rarely I stopped and deleted my port there seven years ago and decided this year that iStock is actually less evil than Fotolia and Deposit and put my portfolio up again, because of this I uploaded a HUGE portfolio in a very short time. Some of the older images have been maybe poorer keyworded but that was the standard for all of us at that time. All my newer images are much better relevant keyworded than most of yours and I'm not a native speaker!
I let Stocksubmitter do the submitting so the disambigution is automatic but that is the standard for most high volume producers nowadays.
So who wanna throw that stone again?
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I think this thread shows the state of the industry and how bitter contributors are. The first question should be: 'what you are charging 84% and you can't do your keywording yourself?' but instead people are so brainwashed here that they are blaming each other.
Keywording btw used to be a profession by itself and it should be, it is just a different skill than photographing, 3D, painting etc. And one should ask how it can be that though the agencies get most of the money why they can't at least offering the most basic service for their contibutors like keywording. Instead the force people to do something that isn't their main skill and they can't it even do in their own language they have to do in English. And for what again for 1% Commission (Depositphoto), for 3% Commission (Fotolia) or 15% Commission (iStock).
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Instead the force people to do something that isn't their main skill and they can't it even do in their own language they have to do in English.
Point of information: You don't have to keyword in English. You can keyword in any of the eleven (twelve if you separate UK English and US English, both of which are supported) community languages.
Of course, that's no consolation if you don't speak any of these.
I don't think you've caught on that iS/Getty aren't in the business of helping us in any way that would cost them a cent: we're just helping the owners to pay off massive debts.
It's pointless uploading if you don't keyword properly. Your keywording must be spectacularly bad - I often see files on iS which have over twenty totally wrong keywords, i.e. objectively wrong nouns, not subjective adjectives like 'adorable' or 'beautiful'. Presumably once you got your first warning, they're onto your case and someone who actually gives a d*mn checks from time to time.
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Give us a sample of a violation!! ;D ;D ;D We can help you!
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They don't give you a sample it's just a generic text!
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Give us a sample of a violation!! ;D ;D ;D We can help you!
I don't get the impression that he wants help.
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I don't need help and I didn't asked for it this is true!
I asked if anyone knows what comes fourth with no hidden agenda or anything else I was just curious. And the only relevant answer I got was from a user who stopped submitting after the third.
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Someone else has had three warnings:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=364143&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=364143&page=1)
Don't know about four.
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Thanks second relevant answer :)
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the key reason for why microstock agencies are a joke is that they don't keyword in-house.
if you're supposed to be a photo archive a strict keywording policy is the most important factor, even more important than the quality of the images.
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I had two keywords problems in the past...
1-. Warning with google translations!!
Example: Spanish "padre coge a bebé" Google Translator "Father f/u/cks baby" Correct "father lifting baby"
or "Mujer madura" Google say: "MILF woman" correct is "mature woman"
2-. Shutterstock Suggest Keywords: this is the biggest keywords spam problem. Is easy that not relationed keywords appearin your photos.
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I'm glad to see iStock are doing something about bad keywording. They need to do a lot more IMO.
If you don't like the system, or can't follow their rules for whatever reason including "I'm too cool to bother with rules", then don't upload there.
It really is that simple.
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I'm glad to see iStock are doing something about bad keywording. They need to do a lot more IMO.
If you don't like the system, or can't follow their rules for whatever reason including "I'm too cool to bother with rules", then don't upload there.
It really is that simple.
bad keywording and spam is THE reason why sites like Flickr or Instagram will never be possibly a competitor to stock agencies and same goes for most of the PODs.
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bad keywording and spam is THE reason why sites like Flickr or Instagram will never be possibly a competitor to stock agencies and same goes for most of the PODs.
The social media (including Flickr, Instagram and similar) already are competing with and taking business from stock agencies.
Today many companies and organizations barely bother with their websites. The bulk of their client facing activity is now via Facebook. And much of the content which they use is stuff which the staff and clients ('friends') have shot and shared on their iPhones. The social media has directly and indirectly reduced the demand for content - especially for the sort of low cost content which microstock used to be about. Simultaneous these organizations have in general significantly reduced their printed output - eg documentation, media etc.
In this example the direct recommendation (share, like etc) replaces the need for keywording. The ubiquity of Facebok, especially in a business context, post dates the financial collapse of 2007/08 and the world recession which followed. Back then many more companies (even small businesses) still thought they needed an old fashioned website - and someone to build it for them. That is a lot of business which does not exist anymore.
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The social media (including Flickr, Instagram and similar) already are competing with and taking business from stock agencies.
Today many companies and organizations barely bother with their websites. The bulk of their client facing activity is now via Facebook. And much of the content which they use is stuff which the staff and clients ('friends') have shot and shared on their iPhones. The social media has directly and indirectly reduced the demand for content - especially for the sort of low cost content which microstock used to be about. Simultaneous these organizations have in general significantly reduced their printed output - eg documentation, media etc.
In this example the direct recommendation (share, like etc) replaces the need for keywording. The ubiquity of Facebok, especially in a business context, post dates the financial collapse of 2007/08 and the world recession which followed. Back then many more companies (even small businesses) still thought they needed an old fashioned website - and someone to build it for them. That is a lot of business which does not exist anymore.
mediums come and go, and the businesses are just following their users wherever they go, no matter if today it's Flickr/FB and yesterday it was MySpace and ICQ, pretty much anyone is basically test driving any option and seeing what sticks on the wall.
ultimately the collapse of printed medias and the traditional medias is irrilevant in the eyes of the younger generations as they're pretty much happy with netflix, youtube, and the socials.
the only ones still watching tv are women and babies, the only ones still buying newspapers are over-40 men.
what we're seeing now is just a transitional era that started being taken seriously just after the 90's and will go on for another decade in my opinion, let's say in 2020 paper will be definitely dead and forgotten and everyone will be online with 5G connections as fast as 1Gb, that means an unlimited supply of multimedia content, paid or free.
so what about photos ? photos will be more and more consumed and in demand BUT how this demand will be eventually monetized is still the million dollar question.
it's logic that in a vast ocean of images, i mean trillions or gazillions of free or paid images, keywording will be THE factor and this cannot be expected to be provided in any way by amateurs and random people uploading snapshots on Flickr or Instagram, it just takes too much time and it's no fun and even if they try they need a background on what a proper keywording is all about.
so, if keywording is terrible nowadays for free/semi-free images you can bet it will go totally down the drain in the next years until it will become just impossible to find what you need due to spam and bad keywording.
this cannot be solved by any magic algorithm as the search engines did with text content.
there's no artificial intelligence software able to classify images, the best you can get at the moment is face recognition and good luck with that ...
editing, selection, keywording, these things just cannot be automated in any way.
end of the story, and same goes for music and many other things, there will be always a place for agencies and people providing solutions to their customers.
i'm the first one saying you can find great free pics on PODs and Flickr/Instagram but that means wasting a few hours on those sites while you can buy an excellent stock image for 5-10 bucks in hi-res with a proper licence and you dont have to worry if the image is on focus or if it's noisy etc as it's been inspected and picked up by professionals before going on sale.
strictly speaking, you can't beat agencies in any cost/benefit analysis.
the many bloggers and tech writers ranting and raving about a future where everything is free and provided by freetards is total bollocks, makes sense for bloggers and other things where quality doesn't matter but for anything else and especially for serious buyers agencies are here to stay.
as for FB/Twitter/LinkedIN replacing corporate websites, yes i agree and it's happening but it's a double edge sword because you can judge the value and professionalism of a company just by looking at their web site and FB page, so don't worry they will all reap what they saw and those don;t even have a proper web sites are just telling their clients they're a fly by night company who can't even afford to pay a web guy to make a few static html pages !
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What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
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Good question. Worst I ever had was one rejected for something about keywords being inappropriate, not describing the image.
Never a warning.
It must take some hard pushing to get a warning? And three? I'd love to see what it takes and how far off someone has to be to get repeated keyword warnings?
Not a personal attack, I'd just like to see what set them off?
What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
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Similar here. The odd "wrong keyword" note. I'm exclusive so we don't get rejected for the odd word.
Can't understand why someone would even want to keyword as badly as some I've seen there. It's shooting yourself, and everyone else, in the foot as far as I can see.
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I should add that the image was rejected for something else and the keyword part was added as I'll assume, advise. I might be misleading what actually occurred with that one. It hasn't happened often, at most twice. One of the regulars on the IS forums corrected me.
I've had more Editorial returned for "misleading caption" when I left the USA out (I know strange way to tell me if left the country out) And two for misleading caption, lacking information.
They call something missing "misleading" it's a generic rejection catch all.
Similar here. The odd "wrong keyword" note. I'm exclusive so we don't get rejected for the odd word.
Can't understand why someone would even want to keyword as badly as some I've seen there. It's shooting yourself, and everyone else, in the foot as far as I can see.
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I think, but I'm not sure, that non rejection for one or two incorrect keywords is supposed to be an exclusive "perk". Whatever the case, TBH I reckon the main thing is that they are actually inspecting for keywords. They can tighten up the image inspections for everyone a bit as well as far as I'm concerned as well.
Editorial captions are a bit of a black art. Like some sort of magic spell you turn into a warty toad if you get the incantation wrong! :)
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What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
At first he said he wasn't going to disambiguate for 16%, which in the old days would have meant the disambiguated words wouldn't have been searchable, but not nowadays.
Then he said, "I let Stocksubmitter do the submitting so the disambigution is automatic"
In the past, when keywording was regularly inspected there, by more than just Keywordzilla, a lot of people used to complain about keyword rejections by saying they were using somesort of keyword suggester or program, which never seemed to be up to the task. I have no idea if Stocksubmitter is better than the rest of the bunch. (Nieces and nephews also came in for blame rather often.)
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What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
At first he said he wasn't going to disambiguate for 16%, which in the old days would have meant the disambiguated words wouldn't have been searchable, but not nowadays.
Then he said, "I let Stocksubmitter do the submitting so the disambigution is automatic"
In the past, when keywording was regularly inspected there, by more than just Keywordzilla, a lot of people used to complain about keyword rejections by saying they were using somesort of keyword suggester or program, which never seemed to be up to the task. I have no idea if Stocksubmitter is better than the rest of the bunch. (Nieces and nephews also came in for blame rather often.)
The words that aren't disambiguated are seachable? I thought they were ignored.
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What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
At first he said he wasn't going to disambiguate for 16%, which in the old days would have meant the disambiguated words wouldn't have been searchable, but not nowadays.
Then he said, "I let Stocksubmitter do the submitting so the disambigution is automatic"
In the past, when keywording was regularly inspected there, by more than just Keywordzilla, a lot of people used to complain about keyword rejections by saying they were using somesort of keyword suggester or program, which never seemed to be up to the task. I have no idea if Stocksubmitter is better than the rest of the bunch. (Nieces and nephews also came in for blame rather often.)
The words that aren't disambiguated are seachable? I thought they were ignored.
They certainly seemed to be ignored (unsearchable), but I think that's been changed.
One problem is that new words are constantly being added to iS's CV (but not in parallel at Getty, I wonder if that will be brought into line), accelerating with editorial words and locations. They used to produce a list of new words every couple of weeks or so on the keyword forum, but AFAIK, they haven't done that for a while.
What can happen therefore is that a word which didn't have any DA when you uploaded a file now has a choice and you don't know about it. Therefore your file can show up on a wrong keyword, because you didn't know there was a DA, therefore your file now shows up on a search for another DA of the word you correctly keyworded on upload.
This means that even strict keyworders can have their files showing up on wrong searches, but it would be unfair if your file was ignored in a search because you had no way of knowing that a keyword you had appended correctly years ago was now subject to disambiguation.
That problem often occurs with e.g. locations - e.g. Scotland could now be Scotland (UK) or Scotland (Texas) whereas when I started, there was only Scotland. (I see that Scotland (Texas) is only a tiny village of about 500 people, so I can't imagine why it was added to the CV.)
It is a real mess, though.
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The biggest problem with the iStock keywording system is the word association. For example, on an image for Christmas Cupcakes in a party setting, PARTY FOOD becomes BUFFET, and FESTIVE becomes CELEBRATION, and then you get keyword rejection on BUFFET and CELEBRATION, when that was not intended.
Can someone tell me what to do about that?
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The biggest problem with the iStock keywording system is the word association. For example, on an image for Christmas Cupcakes in a party setting, PARTY FOOD becomes BUFFET, and FESTIVE becomes CELEBRATION, and then you get keyword rejection on BUFFET and CELEBRATION, when that was not intended.
Can someone tell me what to do about that?
Either I decide not to bother with that keyword, or if it's vital, I usually quit the upload and send to Alamy RM instead, if possible.
However, presumably you are able to post to the Keyword forum over on iStock? And to SM ducksandwich directly.
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Frankly, I am just getting tired of all the iStock problems. Is it all worth my time and hassle? Probably not.
FESTIVE is a word that buyers frequently search on. I used to be a buyer, and also on another site that tells you what buyers search on to buy your image, FESTIVE comes up a lot.
So, if the only solution is to add notes to the reviewer or keep posting on forums, I don't have the time to waste on that. So I wont use that keyword. I will just give them few images a week (because its too time-consuming to re-keyword everything you give to other agencies) and only use 3 or 4 keywords per image and leave it that. But I think iStock is shooting themselves in the foot, if that's what other contributors end up doing.
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The biggest problem with the iStock keywording system is the word association. For example, on an image for Christmas Cupcakes in a party setting, PARTY FOOD becomes BUFFET, and FESTIVE becomes CELEBRATION, and then you get keyword rejection on BUFFET and CELEBRATION, when that was not intended.
Can someone tell me what to do about that?
That crap happens all the time and relevant keywords become irrelevant. Quite silly and limiting.
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Also be aware that a keyword isn't in the CV, or someone hasn't already had it accepted 'for their own use', it can't now be found because of a bug. It's around a year since I reported this to CR and they confirmed it was a bug and said they'd pass it on to the developer team, but either they forgot, or it's not considered important.
So if you have an image of a prungkt from Snics, tough.
If you don't believe me, try to find Moussier's Redstart on iStock.
Can't be done, huh?
But I have two, e.g.
(http://www.lizworld.com/M1a.jpg)
And I attempted several ways to get the keywords to show [1] way back in April when I uploaded it:
(http://www.lizworld.com/M1.jpg)
[1] In the Old Days, if a word wasn't in the CV (though there was a problem with apostrophes, often difficult with species or places), you could have it 'for your own use', which meant it wouldn't be translated and you had to search for it in quotes if it was a phrase.
However, nowadays (and for a while) you can't add the word 'for your own use', it blues out as above and doesn't show in the keywords on the file's homepage, and it can't be searched:
(http://www.lizworld.com/M2.jpg)
So the only chance it has of being found is either if someone makes a generic search like Redstart (unlikely as 'Redstart' implies 'Common Redstart', a different species) or eg, Bird, Morocco.
And I know you don't believe me, so:
Can you find Moussier's Redstart or Phoenicurus moussieri via iStock's search?
(It can be found via Google, Moussier's Redstart iStockphoto)
Try adding a nonsense word and a nonsense phrase to one of your files. (It's not spam as it doesn't exist, so you're not fouling a search, and you can delete it later). After a couple of days when the database has changed, search for your nonsense word.
Sadly that bird was too far away, across a barrier and a gully, so I had to crop in far too far to be able to send it to Alamy. :(
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Frankly, I am just getting tired of all the iStock problems. Is it all worth my time and hassle? Probably not.
FESTIVE is a word that buyers frequently search on. I used to be a buyer, and also on another site that tells you what buyers search on to buy your image, FESTIVE comes up a lot.
So, if the only solution is to add notes to the reviewer or keep posting on forums, I don't have the time to waste on that. So I wont use that keyword. I will just give them few images a week (because its too time-consuming to re-keyword everything you give to other agencies) and only use 3 or 4 keywords per image and leave it that. But I think iStock is shooting themselves in the foot, if that's what other contributors end up doing.
I have some like that where none of the coices are right and I leave them uncheck, then the word is not searched. Or pick a bad disambig and have the word found. It's broke.
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^
I used to think that the CV was a strong idea. But today I wonder whether it is an over-engineered and over complex solution vs the lightweight simplicity of free text. The staffing and technical overheads must also be significant and I wonder whether it will ultimately be phased-out ?
The Party Food example above is a good one. Party Food and Buffet should bring up subtly different mixes of images. And there will be many similar examples. The CV eliminates this sort of granularity by making things the same which are actually potentially different. In this example a complex implementation of simplicity creates ambiguity.
And changes to the structure of the CV potentially result in existing images being effectively orphaned. For example, even if Party Food were to be retrospectively given its own place in the hierarchy, those images which are already primarily keyworded Buffet would not necessarily be mapped to the new item. For instance, many who knew that Party Food = Buffet in the iStock CV, or used copy,would not have included the potentially more descriptive term. And they would have no way of knowing that they should revise their keywording. Because these changes are not effectively communicated to those with content which might be affected.
I think that the idea of a CV potentially made sense at a managed library like Getty Images where it was originally implemented and where the keywording was done by staff. I am not so sure that it makes sense at a site like iStockphoto where thousands of images are uploaded and keyworded every day by the contributors themselves.
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What kind of keyword spamming are we talking about? I have seen no examples? How do you keyword your images?
At first he said he wasn't going to disambiguate for 16%, which in the old days would have meant the disambiguated words wouldn't have been searchable, but not nowadays.
Then he said, "I let Stocksubmitter do the submitting so the disambigution is automatic"
In the past, when keywording was regularly inspected there, by more than just Keywordzilla, a lot of people used to complain about keyword rejections by saying they were using somesort of keyword suggester or program, which never seemed to be up to the task. I have no idea if Stocksubmitter is better than the rest of the bunch. (Nieces and nephews also came in for blame rather often.)
I use Stocksubmitter as well, and it has the same disambiguation system as the regular Istock submitting page.
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ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich. With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago. You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do.
There is a quick and easy way to fix your problems but you choose not to do it, I don't get it. Why spend your time shooting, editing, keywording, uploading, complaining, searching, etc.. etc.. for your images if you won't do something so simple that might be necessary for it to be licensed?
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As you well know I am banned sine die from the forums and sitemail - four years and counting. I contacted the address I was given to discuss this and got no reply. One time apparently because of a bug I accidentally got back on. Thinking the ban was ended I made an innocuous post and got a nasty email from the banner telling me he had no idea how I'd got on but he wasn't having it and would ensure I was kept off. Interesting, with all the major bugs on the site that one was top priority.
Truth is they never added keywords which weren't likely to be widely used, but as noted above before this low priority bug you could always add a keyword 'for your own use'.Still it's only where I have to crop in tightly that there's a problem. Otherwise like I said above I abort the upload.
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Truth is they never added keywords which weren't likely to be widely used, but as noted above before this low priority bug you could always add a keyword 'for your own use'.
That's not at all the truth, I've had lots of keywords added where only one or two images would be affected.
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"Phoenicurus moussieri"
I'll bet you $20 nobody has ever in the past, or will in the future, search for that term, aside from keyword experimentation.
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Truth is they never added keywords which weren't likely to be widely used, but as noted above before this low priority bug you could always add a keyword 'for your own use'.
That's not at all the truth, I've had lots of keywords added where only one or two images would be affected.
Interesting, in the old days, Duck would demur on a keyword or DA if he didn't think it would be used often.
Indeed, he flat refused (though often very helpful) to include Glasgow as a DA of West End, although it is a very well defined area and is often refered to, officially and colloquially, as such.
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"Phoenicurus moussieri"
I'll bet you $20 nobody has ever in the past, or will in the future, search for that term, aside from keyword experimentation.
It's an unprovable bet, but why wouldn't they? It's by far the best way to search on species, as far fewer people bother to spam scientific keywords, so you normally get a much cleaner search other than 'genuine mistakes'.
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ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich. With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago. You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do.
Actually, I only made the above post to make other people aware of this long-standing bug. Most people don't know about it and think the words are still being added 'for their own use', though the interface doesn't give that impression.
In fact, I very seldom "complain about keywords not being in the CV here" on my own behalf, since normally it just means my file will go to Alamy not iStock. I do often observe CV problems here so that other people are aware of some of the issues.
I have complained that some of my mirrored files are unfindable on Getty because keywords have disappeared in the transfer. CR replied that Getty has its own CV and that neither iS nor I can do anything about it.
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Does this work for missing CV - DA definitions too? I have a few that would make my life better. But of course only people who upload race cars and racing would be interested. They would be fairly racing related DAs but common for anyone who needed them or used that kind of material.
ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich. With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago. You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do.
There is a quick and easy way to fix your problems but you choose not to do it, I don't get it. Why spend your time shooting, editing, keywording, uploading, complaining, searching, etc.. etc.. for your images if you won't do something so simple that might be necessary for it to be licensed?
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Does this work for missing CV definitions too? I have a few that would make my life better.
ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich. With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago. You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do.
There is a quick and easy way to fix your problems but you choose not to do it, I don't get it. Why spend your time shooting, editing, keywording, uploading, complaining, searching, etc.. etc.. for your images if you won't do something so simple that might be necessary for it to be licensed?
It all depends on the case I'm sure but for ShadySue's example I think they would probably add the common and latin names for a bird species that was already accepted into the collection. Some different definitions aren't different enough to warrant an extra term but it only takes a second to request a keyword to be added so it can't hurt to try.
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Truth is they never added keywords which weren't likely to be widely used, but as noted above before this low priority bug you could always add a keyword 'for your own use'.
That's not at all the truth, I've had lots of keywords added where only one or two images would be affected.
Why should that responsibility be thrown on us? They are the ones who invented this new vocabulary. If they accepted general English keywords that would be a BIG ADVANCEMENT for Istock. Instead they invent a caddywhompus system that required/s contributors to learn a new method of key wording. Istock should do what they used to do (maybe they still do as I don't get rejections on key wording anymore) and have tough scrutiny at submission, but with a general english key wording system. "Beauty in nature"? And you kidding me? What contributor would EVER know
1. That this key phrase exists
2. When to use it?
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just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich
As I have tried to explain in my previous post, there can be an issue with new keywords being added to hierarchy. Especially if this results in mapping being changed. The problem is that it can mean that existing images in the library end up effectively orphaned. Because CV hierarchy changes are not adequately communicated to people with existing images which may be affected.
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Why should that responsibility be thrown on us?
That's the just the way it is. You can cry and moan about it or you can work within the system and get your images seen. I choose to put my work on iStock and since I want my images licensed I do the keywording how they want and if there aren't keywords in the CV that I think should be there I request them to be added. I don't see much point in whining about it, I'd rather spend my time getting my images sold.
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It all depends on the case I'm sure but for ShadySue's example I think they would probably add the common and latin names for a bird species that was already accepted into the collection.
As you say, it all depends on the case.
One of my old CN didn't get a batch of South American birds (which he'd had accepted) added.
AFAIK he now submits elsewhere as a matter of course.
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Why should that responsibility be thrown on us?
That's the just the way it is. You can cry and moan about it or you can work within the system and get your images seen. I choose to put my work on iStock and since I want my images licensed I do the keywording how they want and if there aren't keywords in the CV that I think should be there I request them to be added. I don't see much point in whining about it, I'd rather spend my time getting my images sold.
I am not crying and moaning, I am stating a fact. I have adapted because it is necessary that one does. All I am saying is that they didn't have to create this monstrosity of a system called controlled vocabulary. Even you, Ticktock, I am sure would love to have a more user friendly system at IS, specifically the key wording strategy. They have complicated things by now requiring prioritizing words, forcing contributors to go through that time consuming process. Many people like me who have been in this for, say, more than 8 years, have to keep two sets of keywords, one for IS and one for everyone else. You can defend them all you want (as you always do) but their system SUCKS!!
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They have complicated things by now requiring prioritizing words, forcing contributors to go through that time consuming process.
Nope, that was just a blip in the continuum.
http://www.istockphoto.com
/forum_messages.php?threadid=351851&messageid=7026088#post7026088 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351851&messageid=7026088#post7026088)
Referred to by Kelvinjay in this October thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=363509 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=363509)
Actually, I think prioritising is a good idea, in theory, but with the system as mucked up as it is now, who knows what would break if they tried it.
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^
I used to think that the CV was a strong idea. But today I wonder whether it is an over-engineered and over complex solution vs the lightweight simplicity of free text. The staffing and technical overheads must also be significant and I wonder whether it will ultimately be phased-out ?
The Party Food example above is a good one. Party Food and Buffet should bring up subtly different mixes of images. And there will be many similar examples. The CV eliminates this sort of granularity by making things the same which are actually potentially different. In this example a complex implementation of simplicity creates ambiguity.
And changes to the structure of the CV potentially result in existing images being effectively orphaned. For example, even if Party Food were to be retrospectively given its own place in the hierarchy, those images which are already primarily keyworded Buffet would not necessarily be mapped to the new item. For instance, many who knew that Party Food = Buffet in the iStock CV, or used copy,would not have included the potentially more descriptive term. And they would have no way of knowing that they should revise their keywording. Because these changes are not effectively communicated to those with content which might be affected.
I think that the idea of a CV potentially made sense at a managed library like Getty Images where it was originally implemented and where the keywording was done by staff. I am not so sure that it makes sense at a site like iStockphoto where thousands of images are uploaded and keyworded every day by the contributors themselves.
It is one of these things that should never have got past the "idea" stage.
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Why should that responsibility be thrown on us?
That's the just the way it is. You can cry and moan about it or you can work within the system and get your images seen. I choose to put my work on iStock and since I want my images licensed I do the keywording how they want and if there aren't keywords in the CV that I think should be there I request them to be added. I don't see much point in whining about it, I'd rather spend my time getting my images sold.
I am not crying and moaning, I am stating a fact. I have adapted because it is necessary that one does. All I am saying is that they didn't have to create this monstrosity of a system called controlled vocabulary. Even you, Ticktock, I am sure would love to have a more user friendly system at IS, specifically the key wording strategy. They have complicated things by now requiring prioritizing words, forcing contributors to go through that time consuming process. Many people like me who have been in this for, say, more than 8 years, have to keep two sets of keywords, one for IS and one for everyone else. You can defend them all you want (as you always do) but their system SUCKS!!
I actually like the CV, I would rather see the uploading process be even more time consuming if it gave better results. I like that Alamy makes you break your keywords up into different categories, it's better now that iStock has some keywording order relevance. If you are going to spend time, money, and effort to make your images it doesn't seem like too much to spend a few minutes keywording your images well if it will help them sell.
The CV for instance has the same results if you search in English for 'USA' and in Spanish for 'estados unidos' whereas on Shutterstock those two searches come up with radically different results. The search in Spanish on shutterstock comes up with many irrelevant images first and more than 4 times the total number of results. The point of the CV is to have it translated into many different languages and continue to get good results, in this case it looks to me like the iStock search has done much better. The English search at SS looks good but the Spanish search looks pretty bad overall.
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Yes their CV rocks like everything else they offer...
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