Quote from: GrantP on May 14, 2015, 15:35

Dirkr -

I sent this thread to the keywording team. They may be trying a few things on their end to understand your specific issue.

I will ask them and see if they can give me an update.

Any update?

Now I see that many of my files have today's date although they are online for quite a while.
And the missing keyword thing goes on.
Many of my wildlife shots have been stripped of the species names of the animal on the picture. A search for those does not deliver results.

It's getting totally ridiculous. Is it some kind of obscure strategy to hide the content from buyers?

Bump.

Grant, if you are reading, any update?

As long as Veer keeps stripping essential keywords from images I will not upload any more.

On top of that, I'd like to hear how Veer wants to add back those keywords they have removed to make existing files searchable by their main keywords again.

I am not 100% sure, but if I remember correctly, opt out was per e-mail and not on the site.

Hello everyone,

As you are aware, contributors that had opted out of Dollar Photo Club were inadvertently opted in for approximately 20 hours. Initially when the bug was discovered it was thought that this only impacted the search engine and that buyers received a 404 error if they attempted to purchase a license to use the file. We recently discovered however that some images were downloaded and licensed.

We are very sorry to everyone that this has impacted. To demonstrate our sincerity, any images belonging to opted out contributors that were downloaded while this bug was active were paid a subscription commission and now Fotolia will add a full resolution credit sale commission (standard license) to those effected. Those effected will see the additional commission in the next few days.

My role at Fotolia has recently changed. I have switched into a full-time contributor relations role. Contributors are an important part of Fotolia and I would like to personally prove that to you as we move forward. I can be reached directly via email should you have any questions, comments or concerns: [email protected]

Kind regards,

Mat Hayward

Mat,

I do appreciate you coming here as the official voice of Fotolia and acknowledging the mistake that was made.
I also appreciate that Fotolia wants to compensate contributors for files downloaded on DPC although they were opted out.

Being a long term member of this board you will know (and can easily read in this very thread - as well as in many others) how much trust was destroyed over the years by Fotolia.

And re-building trust is so much harder than losing it in the first place.

So if your statement "Contributors are an important part of Fotolia and I would like to personally prove that to you as we move forward." is sincere, talk to those who make the decisions at Fotolia (and Adobe) about what needs to be done.

Actions speak louder than words.
Re-building contributors trust requires showing them you care for their needs.
Essentially that means re-doing the anti-contributor moves Fotolia has introduced over the years.

I am a contributor to Fotolia since 2007, and I have experienced many such moves:
- lowering royalty percentages
- moving goalposts for next levels
- introducing subs without opt out
- counting subs only as a quarter download for achieving the next level
- introducing "monthly packs" - nothing else then slightly changed credit packs - and only paying subs royalties, resulting in insultingly low percentages
- introducing DPC, with the clear aim of grabbing marketshare from competitors at the cost of contributors (by aiming at low volume buyers and reducing credit sales royalties by subs royalties)
- ...

just to mention the most important moves.

A long list of to dos.

Let me repeat: Actions speak louder than words.

I believe the big majority of contributors reading here will not believe a word you say. Me included. Due to the history of FT, which never included any positive moves for contributors.

But once FT / Adobe starts to act, that might change.

Best Regards,
Dirk

Looks like my port is gone from DPC now.

Same for me, can't find any images of mine on DPC anymore.

BTW, is there a way to see "rejected" or something files?
Uploaded contents
    1,764
Validated contents
    1,677

Where are the missing files?

OT: click on the little monitor icon on the top line when looking at "my files", that let's you choose to see deleted files.

She tried to explain that she was only using the image temporarily ...

You should have refused to pay her and say you are going to keep her food only temporarily... 

Dirkr -

I sent this thread to the keywording team. They may be trying a few things on their end to understand your specific issue.

I will ask them and see if they can give me an update.

Any update?

Now I see that many of my files have today's date although they are online for quite a while.
And the missing keyword thing goes on.
Many of my wildlife shots have been stripped of the species names of the animal on the picture. A search for those does not deliver results.

It's getting totally ridiculous. Is it some kind of obscure strategy to hide the content from buyers?

They are accepting too many images - in some cases.
They are rejecting too many images - in some cases.

All in all their review process is broken.
That's what it is about.

Thanks.

Quote from: Shelma1 on May 14, 2015, 12:50

Veer has very low sales and serious keyword issues. Instead of arguing with us why don't you fix things? Time better spent, IMO.

I have passed this thread on to many others at Veer. I have done my part. For now, I will keep answering questions the best I can.

Grant,

I have posted an example from my port further up in this thread.

Example:

http://marketplace.veer.com/stock-photo/Australian-water-dragon-Physignathus-lesueurii-9383494?slot=01&pg=1&SearchId=94e74995&skeywords=9383494#

The search for "australian water dragon" shows a total of five results, none of that my image.

The search for the scientific name ("Physignathus lesueurii") shows no results at all.

Obviously, both of these were in the keywords when I uploaded the file.
It's not only that some keywords seem to be missing, it's the main keywords.

And @Grant: checking keywords for each file after submission is way too much effort. Sorry to say, but your sales volume is much too low to make that effort worthwhile.

When you report to your development team, I'd suggest whatever they plan to do to your CV, please make sure that images do appear in searches for the exact keywords that were existing at upload time.
If there is any fancy CV that adds additional search terms on top, fine with me. But please:
a) don't change / delete any of the existing keywords
b) don't expect us to spend additional effort after submission.

Thanks for listening, I just hope your folks back at Veer don't just ignore the input you are gathering...

I looked at the image again. Now the words "australian", "water", "dragons" have been added to it.
Did someone on Veer side add those words as a reaction to this thread?
If so, thank you for that.
But the image still does not show if I search for "australian water dragon". Neither when searching for the scientific name.

And anyway, manually fixing single images when reported cannot solve the problem. Who knows how many images are affected...

Example:

http://marketplace.veer.com/stock-photo/Australian-water-dragon-Physignathus-lesueurii-9383494?slot=01&pg=1&SearchId=94e74995&skeywords=9383494#

The search for "australian water dragon" shows a total of five results, none of that my image.

The search for the scientific name ("Physignathus lesueurii") shows no results at all.

Obviously, both of these were in the keywords when I uploaded the file.
It's not only that some keywords seem to be missing, it's the main keywords.

And @Grant: checking keywords for each file after submission is way too much effort. Sorry to say, but your sales volume is much too low to make that effort worthwhile.

When you report to your development team, I'd suggest whatever they plan to do to your CV, please make sure that images do appear in searches for the exact keywords that were existing at upload time.
If there is any fancy CV that adds additional search terms on top, fine with me. But please:
a) don't change / delete any of the existing keywords
b) don't expect us to spend additional effort after submission.

Thanks for listening, I just hope your folks back at Veer don't just ignore the input you are gathering...

How is this even possible?
They say they pay always 50%. So the image price would have been �0,02.
The cheapest package advertised on their site is 250 images / month for $289 / month. Still more than one dollar per image.

So if they sell individualized packages that only cost �0,02 per image, that would be a rebate of 98% on that already heavily reduced price.

Has somebody from Mostphotos ever made a statement about this?

@dirkr...

what do you think? fun twisting things isn't it. to simplify it for you, let's just put in the parking and time. still with me? total expenses assuming you will pay yourself a below minimum wage of $10 per hour is $47.50, assuming you have no other expenses at all and don't need to eat.

so let's aim high here assuming ss pays you $1 per download on average, that means you have to sell that shot 48 times to break even or perhaps let's just say 55 times pre-taxes.

now that is only for one basic nothing new not inventing the wheel there are thousands of them out there skyline shots. pray tell how that shot alone will sell 55 times the first year without just plain and simple dumb luck.

i doubt very much the average shot sells 55 times per year on SS.

twisting? you brought up needing to make $5000+ to break even on that shoot.

Now if that shoot leaves you with "one basic nothing new not inventing the wheel there are thousands of them out there skyline shots", well good luck breaking even with that on IS.

And how does that match your "quality over quantity" argument?

I get you don't want to sell on SS due to their subs model. Fine. Your choice. But if you pull completely unrealistic numbers out of the air to support your claim that SS is evil, don't expect others not to challenge that.