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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
6601
« on: March 17, 2011, 11:16 »
Apparently new uploads are no longer automatically available for EL. If I could find my control panel I would re-select ELs for my whole port every time I got new images approved.
But I have no idea where the control panel has been hidden away. Can someone tell me? Thanks!
The UI on this is abysmal. I always have a hard time finding it. On the bottom left, click My Account, then select Preferences from the menu, then click on the My uploads tab. Near the bottom there are all-on all-off buttons for ELs. Deep Meta just applies this preference to every upload. Very handy given the site's busted. I do all my keywording in Photoshop, but let DM read it and then disambiguate there. Even for an independent, it might be a time saver.
6602
« on: March 16, 2011, 18:12 »
Where is this keyword slider people are talking about? I don't see it. Display settings, bottom left on any search results page. Click on the triangle to open up a panel.
6603
« on: March 16, 2011, 16:20 »
new files are buried - best match sort is more like by downlaods.
My port is 13 pages @ 200 per page and my new files from the last ten days show up half way through page 11
6604
« on: March 16, 2011, 16:18 »
Now we need a campaign to get jsnover in on that call, get them to admit how the voting went!
While I completely agree I would have liked to see her on that call, I think it is a waste of time to campaign for her. Our time would be better spent organizing an audit. The whole phone call thing is an intentional distraction.
Agreed. Let's see what the call produces and then move forward from there. I guess honesty about ambivalence makes one a little less exclusive than the rest ( All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others). As long as they keep paying me, they can be as rude about me as they like 
6605
« on: March 16, 2011, 14:51 »
Elena's portfolio is still there. I checked a few other known names and didn't find anything. I have very, very bad memories of Albumo and trying to close my account (after my time commitment was up). They were bad news - I think anyone buying the assets would want to change the name
6606
« on: March 16, 2011, 14:41 »
Just wanted to add my comment that I have confidence in the people selected. I am guessing it wasn't strictly a tally the votes process, but as long as Sean's leading the parade, I can't imagine anyone will be able to pull any fast ones. If they were going to hand pick people, however, why go through the process of asking contributors for input? Does make me wonder who I've pissed off though
6607
« on: March 16, 2011, 12:41 »
I didn't PM them and refuse. I did make two posts; the first saying I thought it should be a discussion about multiple issues, not just fraud (i.e. search problems being so bad for so long) and a second where I said I could sign the NDA if it were clear what was proprietary and what not during the phone call. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they made the decision they did.
6608
« on: March 15, 2011, 22:12 »
So do you know who else - you, Sean and ??
Nope. I haven't signed the NDA yet, so that's the truth  [/quote] Nano just posted that she's on the list
6609
« on: March 15, 2011, 19:43 »
Actually, I'm not Canadian, just a Canuckophile  I live in a border state, though (Washington). I'm on the call and it will be 7 AM my time yikes.
So do you know who else - you, Sean and ??
6610
« on: March 15, 2011, 18:30 »
I started uploading editorial images as I'm curious to see how they do - didn't start until they went live as I didn't want to waste time if it was going where Logos went. That means grabbing things I already have (for the moment) rather than shooting new stuff, but it's been absorbing - particularly the need to do a little research, and keep a record of it, for the caption information. Takes my mind off the D-R-A-M-A a little. But yes, the current situation is deeply demotivating 
6611
« on: March 15, 2011, 17:54 »
6+ years, independent until August 2008.
November is always #1 for me, typically October 2 and March or December 3rd
January, & August are typically slower.
Bear in mind that if you have things with a strong seasonal pull in your portfolio (tons of Christmas images for example) that may skew your results.
March has almost always been great, but so far this month not so much (but I'm exclusive at IS and their search is royally effed up at the moment).
6612
« on: March 15, 2011, 16:05 »
You won't get any argument from me that IS is truly hopeless at communications, including updating wiki's, setting out the rules for new procedures, etc.
However, I've uploaded a bunch of editorial images over the last week or so and to date, none of the captions has caused a rejection. I'm using Deep Meta, I'm just entering city, state, country (leaving out state where not applicable) and it seems pretty straightforward using that workflow.
6613
« on: March 15, 2011, 15:57 »
So let's try to get the English aristocracy straight please The venerable Debrett's can assist.
Lord Humphemhumph is a peer - a Baron (life or hereditary). Sir Floppyears Humphemhumph is a knight - awarded a knighthood lifetime only
Peerages use last name, not first - Lord Locke - knighthoods first name - Sir Sean. The peer is "of Someplace" - as in Lord Locke of St. Louis (which sounds rather odd)
And as a US citizen (I presume) the esteemed Mr. Locke isn't elgible for anything but the honorary form
Well I dont want to brag or boast but I actually originate from the 13th centuary Clan of MacLomond, which in later years became known as Montrose and an arch enemy of Rob-Roy.
There of my half British/Scotish ancestry.
didnt know that, did you.
I most certainly didn't I'm a mongrel - Yorkshire ex-Vikings, gypsy, French & German - not a drop of anything noble in sight!
6614
« on: March 15, 2011, 14:57 »
...It must seem comically ridiculous to citizens of the US where the highest title is 'Mr' __ as in 'Mister' President.
Seems pretty antique and cobweb-draped to me, and I grew up with this stuff
6615
« on: March 15, 2011, 14:37 »
So let's try to get the English aristocracy straight please The venerable Debrett's can assist. Lord Humphemhumph is a peer - a Baron (life or hereditary). Sir Floppyears Humphemhumph is a knight - awarded a knighthood lifetime only Peerages use last name, not first - Lord Locke - knighthoods first name - Sir Sean. The peer is "of Someplace" - as in Lord Locke of St. Louis (which sounds rather odd) And as a US citizen (I presume) the esteemed Mr. Locke isn't elgible for anything but the honorary form
6616
« on: March 15, 2011, 13:18 »
But as we stand today what are you going to sue them for, as I said earlier from what we know so far they've acted legally by removing the royalties for the relevant transactions, and what they've done is within the boundaries of the contract we signed with them. Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know (even over on your side of the pond) being incompetent, bad at communication and generally annoying your suppliers is not a crime, negligence is another matter but as yet we don't know whether they have been.
So you don't feel they have been negligent? Or that negligence would be actionable? I would think their public announcement that everyone at HQ would be going on vacation for three weeks over the holidays and nobody would be minding the store is an example of their negligence. Considering that was when the theft seems to have started in earnest, and was allowed to go on unchecked for over a month, that appears to be a good place to start.
Maybe because you are in the UK and I am in the US we see this differently. People sue for all kinds of reasons over here, and most of them a lot less provable or damaging than what Istock has done.
Not sure if you saw this attorney's (and diamond exclusive) post on his view here. I think that he's in the US and I don't know if Canadian law differs materially in this area. I also don't know if we were to sue whether it would have to be in Canada or could be in the US given Getty's location. I think it wouldn't be hard to prove negligence given the length of time the same problem has been around and the fact that they didn't take adequate steps to address it.
6617
« on: March 14, 2011, 22:58 »
Some sort of black band over your avatar perhaps? Like the black arm bands worn sometimes?
6618
« on: March 14, 2011, 22:54 »
Is queue for editorials same as normal one? If I have to wait 2 weeks and submit in 20 images batches it will not be newsworthy anymore when I am done :-)
They specifically don't want newsworthy photos, so no worries on that account As far as the rules, they're pretty easy to follow. Some of their initial instructions were wrong, but that's largely sorted out now. If you use Deep Meta it will read the EXIF date and fill in the caption format for you (you just need to enter City and Country and the caption text). I know you said you won't submit again, but I thought I'd note this for anyone else reading this. There are some examples in the editorial forum here and rules summary here. Lots of people have asked for permission to edit the caption in the queue; I think in time they'll relax about this as it really doesn't make sense, but for the moment no luck.
6619
« on: March 14, 2011, 20:15 »
If by Agency contributor, you mean one of the Getty-ingested pseudo exclusives, I'd ignore anything they had to say as it pertained to iStockphoto.com
6620
« on: March 14, 2011, 19:06 »
Really insightful list of questions JoAnn. Wish you'd reconsider the panel.
+1. So do I.
rogermexico has said he'll post the NDA; perhaps the document will be narrowly drawn enough to make it reasonable (from my point of view) to sign. I just don't want to have any trust people may have in me hijacked by an organization a little short in the trust department to use for their benefit. I think if they were to do some positive things - facts on the ground - it might go further than words anyway. After so many things that were coming "soon" and never did (editorial being a recent exception), I think delivering bug fixes, transparency in sales information ( my long-ignored suggestion), improved communication with buyers and contributors, etc. is what's needed to rebuild trust. Oh, and a promise of no more fraud chargebacks, where the large potential loss for them provides the incentive to really spend some money to tighten up their financial procedures.
6621
« on: March 14, 2011, 16:56 »
There are others posting in the help forum about what appears to be some sort of server inconsistency problem - happened last week too. Keep an eye on it, but it should eventually settle and show the right amount consistently.
6622
« on: March 14, 2011, 16:47 »
Perhaps Istock will reconsider adding an independent to the five. FWIW, I think LisaFX would be an excellent representative for the non-exclusives.
I'm a fellow Floridian btw. ( I saw you post that in another thread.)
Don't suppose I'd get a vote in that, but she absolutely would. Plenty at stake; has been around microstock since 2005; articulate and reasonable but with good BS radar and an unwillingness to be pushed around.
6623
« on: March 14, 2011, 16:05 »
If I thought it was turning into the same black hole as the suggestion forum - where tons of good ideas have gone ignored for years - then I'd bail.
But see, that's the thing. They've had countless (free) suggestions from the forums. And it hasn't helped a bit. I don't know why these panels would be any different, aside from the fact that instead of wasting your valuable time typing, you'd be doing it sitting on the phone. Still not getting paid. At this point, I think that place is beyond fixing, but a few "feel good" gestures might hold the contributors at bay for a while longer (at least until they can cook the books  )
I'm married, and I think there's a similar set of issues in the maintenance of long term personal relationships - are you better off with him or without him. And sometimes, even if people have been truly sh*tty, you try to patch things up and make it work. I wouldn't argue with you that iStock has behaved unbelievably badly over the last 7 months or so. The fact that they're largely unrepentant makes it worse. However, I'm not yet ready to give up on them. I have a lot to gain if they turned it around. If they don't, I'll at least feel that I gave it my best shot. And BTW this marriage is my 2nd, so I do know about the process of deciding that it just isn't going to work and moving on - I'm not a hopeless pollyanna
6624
« on: March 14, 2011, 15:59 »
1. Are new iStock accounts handled differently from established ones? If not, why? Explain why having a few restrictions on new accounts only would not be a good solution to this problem.
2. Are iStock's procedures for handling credit card transactions the same as Getty's? If they are not, why is that and will they change to be the same?
3. If there have been frauds at Getty Images, how were contributors charged back (or not)? If there's a difference, why is that?
4. The site listing credit card problems showed incidents similar to the ones occurring in December 2010 going back many, many months. Why were steps not taken sooner? If they were taken, why weren't they adequate?
5. Why did fraud occur again in January and again at the end of February 2011? Given that whatever measures taken previously have failed, why is there any confidence that this problem will not recur?
6. Have outside experts in prevention of credit card fraud in online business (with card not present transactions) been consulted or hired? If not, why not.
7. There are many huge internet businesses (amazon.com, iTunes) which deal with online delivery of content purchased with a credit card in a card not present transaction. If they can make this work, iStock does not need to invent the wheel and can use industry best practices. What has been done to learn and follow those industry best practices.
8. Given that in the past frauds have not be charged back to contributors, why was this different?
9. What information do you have on what happened to the downloaded images? Is there anything that can be done to retrieve them.
10. Why don't you use the image tracking software that Getty uses? If it's a matter of cost, then given your newly increased percentage of the gross, don't you think you owe it to contributors to start doing what Getty does?
11. Has any analysis been done on the download patterns - going for the top sellers from many contributors portfolios, or downloading a bunch of themed images in quantities beyond anything typical for the site - to try and catch the fraud based on the downloads even if it escapes the first line of defense (purchasing the credits)? If not, why not?
If I think of more, I'll post
6625
« on: March 14, 2011, 15:35 »
What I also find amazing is that so many people seem to be so willing to give iStock their time and expertise FOR FREE (in the form of these panels). Are they not taking enough from you already? Do people need to be reminded that this is a multi-MILLION dollar company (who are already taking the bulk of the selling price of your photos)? This is not the up-start company where people were sharing files anymore and need all the free support they can get. I've never understood why people are so willing to do stuff for big corporations for free. It's genius marketing. Corporations pay companies big bucks for consulting (or to run focus groups if that's how you want to look at it), yet iStock's going to get it for free. Amazing.
I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to give iStock anything for free for the reasons you mentioned, however it might be in my best interests to do so. While that may sound contradictory, to the extent that I can help get them back on track - and it'd have to be the most blinkered soul who'd argue about them having severely lost their way - I benefit from that. I don't know if I'll be participating in any of those future panels (if they occur), but I would definitely consider it if I thought it could help get problems addressed faster. People who know the site and can prioritize the things that will make the most difference; consultants will take a bunch of time to come up to speed (or will suggest things like redesigning the my_uploads page). If I thought it was turning into the same black hole as the suggestion forum - where tons of good ideas have gone ignored for years - then I'd bail. And as far as Lisa's reaction to the anti-independent sentiments, see here for my take on that.
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