You will not see this prompt again unless you have logged out.

that is what it said when I went to check  - even though I didn't log out, so credibility is already a bit low.

The numbers they reported matched the numbers I had written down for each month this year, so either they hadn't changed them or they changed them before I wrote them down - possible for Feb and Mar as I was away from my computer and then had a hard drive crash keeping me from keeping records for a bit.

They tweaked something as my previous best seller went from upper half of page one to top of page 2.  (it has  been slowly sliding down from the first line of page one ever since it was kicked off of relevant (for at least the first 10 pages or so)). Unfortunately this is one of the seasons for sales for it, so this might be the end for that file. oh well, it was a nice run while it lasted.

Last weekend was particularly low, but it also seems like more variability in sales this month than previously. Almost like they are moving to a DT sort of system where they turn various ports on and off for subs and OD sales.

Well, I did manage eventually to get to the images are in the queue page (although it kicked me back a step a few times for no apparent reason).

You really should remove the text that says "you will not see this again unless you log out" since it seems to be completely untrue.

Good luck getting a fast, reasonable, reliable, and stable upload system working. With your extra 30% or so I expect nothing less.

It seems that Istock has a future as a front for the PP.

worst month of the year so far. SS was decent, DT ok, Alamy up a bit but still disappointing, Veer really plummeted. Still not too bad overall as long as it isn't the start of a falling trend.

There are a number of legitimate reasons to remain anonymous, to prevent copying, to keep sites from retaliation - and it does happen - at least from Fotolia, if for some reason (like you are a macro shooter) you want to keep your micro participation on the down low, etc. However it would be nice to keep the worst of the trolls from constantly signing up with new or multiple accounts and just stirring the pot.

I don't know an easy way to allow people to stay anonymous without allowing at least some of the latter. Certainly there are some long term anonymous posters that have constructive and valuable contributions to MSG and it would be a shame to lose them. Even if I don't know who they really are, I have an idea about their MSG persona.

Perhaps there could be a way to grandfather accounts in. I think if everyone was forced to out themselves the forum would lose some of it's character and would be a little more whitewashed as far as legitimate criticism of the sites went. It would also probably be a little more civil and lose a few trolls, but I am not sure it is worth it.

Perhaps having a section that you can't comment (or read?) without confirming your identity would be a way around this.

It would be nice to have a more civil and constructive troll-free forum but I am not sure that forcing people to identify themselves is the best way to do it.

Having volunteered at soup kitchens/food banks I can say there are some wonderful characters that would make great photographic subjects, although not necessarily good for microstock. Also the model release/PR would be a pain. Homeless people often don't have addresses and phone numbers among other things. If I knew I could get real money for sales it might be worth the effort, but for the likely few bucks at microstock it isn't. I am pretty shy about asking strangers for MR anyway though. Also they were pretty dimly lit, so it would take some effort to get decent lighting in there.

So decreasing royalty rates is now "unsustainable". I wonder if photos will follow. I doubt it, but it would be nice - probably too little too late for most of us by now though.

Istock could have completely ruled the microstock universe had they not become greedy and stupid.

Personally my sales at SS have been fairly steady lately, although a number of bigger OD and EL sales might be propping things up.

I agree that we can't expect the search engines to never change. What we can hopefully expect is that sites don't do like IS and FT and tweak the searches to hurt broad classes of contributors (non-exclusives, emeralds...).

Every image should rise or fall on its own. Of course many factors we can do nothing about effects this too, but over the long haul those should even out.

If SS feels that old sellers need to be pushed down in the search to make room for newer images I hope they would do so gradually to decrease the wild drops that I experienced at IS regularly.

It certainly makes it harder to plan when regular sellers stop. It also makes it hard to make any headway when new images never see the light of day.

Well, I sure hope they don't buy any other sites if the end result is going to be like bigstock - even cheaper subs.

I haven't had any success with ftp there for a while. The web uploader seems to work about 50% of the time. Rather frustrating. I did have a good month there last month though, so I am persisting despite the technical roadblocks they throw up. I do wish the ftp worked.

The question is what happened in the first place that required all this public best match modification and manipulation?

Originally I think it was the fact that the best match was rather easily gamed and also it was a positive feedback system - both good reasons to change it. 

Later they kept making changes for reasons other than getting the best images in front of buyers - like boosting exclusive content or various collections. Combined with attempting to boost new files, or old files, or who knows what it became a monster that with one change could make or break your sales.

Why would you exclude PP when you have no choice but to participate? That is sort of like saying my SS RPD is 28$ - but I am only counting ELs.