Like it or not, you are feeding and profiting from the capitalist system.

So we have to be outside a system to critique it? Only non-istockers allowed to talk about what they are doing?

Personally I don't see problems with Capitalism, but I see many problems with corporations and how they behave.  What is needed is a way to bring them under control...though I don't have any idea about how to accomplish this.

Yeah it is such a PITA... my internet is so slow that it takes hours to upload, then wait a week or so for review to find them rejected for such a bogus reason.

Too bad there wasn't a way for us to review the reviewers.....

Oh well, another reason to work on my Symbiostock site.

And I can't be bothered to watch the film either. If it is an attack on capitalism then Tror should bear in mind that stock photography exists to serve one of the most quintessential capitalist activities 

Microstock is such a perfect example of Capitalism.    And this forum points it out perfectly.

We have one thread where the founder of Shutter Stock is a billionare.
We have many threads where people are complaining about not being paid enough.
Prue Capitalism.

But don't watch the film. It might make you think and we all know how bad thinking is....   

Disclaimer.......I tried to watch the film, but I couldn't get past the production, but I am familiar with its themes.

I came very late to the Microstock market... started off as an exercise to keep away the Christmas blues this year.

My expenses are very low ( I can live nicely on $10 a day) so I am really considering putting the push on to be a serious Microstocker. 

One of the things that is holding me back is burn-out. The last time I lived off of the proceeds of my photography I ended up hating my camera and losing the desire to shoot.

Now that my camera and I are friends again, I don't want to destroy that relationship.

I thought the current wording was very definitive

GREEN:    Viewable by all audiences.
YELLOW:    Content rated YELLOW may contain individuals who are minimally clothed (e.g., low cut tops, underwear or revealing bathing suits). Content rated YELLOW should not contain nudity, including exposed buttocks, genitalia, or areola.
RED:    Shows exposed areas including exposed buttocks, genitalia, or areola.

The problem is the wording is too definitive.

Most of my Artistic images on http://peopleimages.grsphoto.ca/ would fall into the RED
While the images that I have that would likely cause the most offense would, by these definition, be green ( lips and a popscycle and did it ever cause me a lot of grief... I was after colour and didn't see the sexual connotation until it was published)

Leo, you have done great work and I applaud what you have done loudly and long many times and in many places.  You have worked hard and I really appreciate what you have done, and I don't want to come across as a sever critic.

B. The rating system is an honor system and probably will not get filtered by 90% of webmasters.

Except that your have set it so that it is full on censorship when the theme is installed!

With all the other things a new user has to learn this is another, and how many are going to change a setting from green to red?

I understand what, and why you are doing this, but the wording on the labels, the instructions besides the buttons seem very deliberate.

I have, in the past, tried several times to have conversations about how best to deal with this so that something like this would not be imposed.

Instead of a colour designation how about calling it "safe search level"  with open being the standard default, and the two more restrictive levels.

I would also like to see a rewording of the acceptable images for each classification... maybe open, sexy nudity, and erotic being the three levels.

I am not sure what I have done, I have clicked and prodded in different places.  The search still seems a bit "buggy" but I can't put a finger on what is going on.... maybe it just takes time to settle down.

One of the problems is "Rank" didn't stick and got reset to 2.

If people want to check their setting if you search for "bath"  the lady sitting in the tub is 1st but Red, the lady standing is 2nd but yellow.   

So if your set to green neither of these images should show up.... yellow, lady standing, Red lady sitting

the latest update broke my search function.

The 1 image I made changes to has now gone from the search. 

leo's putting some tracking in place that can help us quantify this -- much more than any agency has ever done for its contributors

This is were some of the gold lies hidden in this project.  We will have access to the information that we need to help us steer our course!!

Quote from: grsphoto on June 30, 2013, 21:53

Instead of a morality rating system ( which will be bypassed by some irresponsible people ) why not add a "safe search" into the search system.  With safe search on images with specific keyword will be left out.

This way I have much more control over what gets seen on my site.

I'll add a field into the network panel which will provide some default values which you can override.

Also please understand that I'm very aware we all come from different backgrounds and am not trying to enforce morality. This is simply a system to show consideration for the others, and a way to control what comes onto your own site, since we all have different values.

We should assume that we are mostly adults on the network.  We can also assume that most of the buyers will be  adults as well.  I think that it would be better if the system was set as open, and we could close it as we go instead of closed ( default values) which have to be over written. 

I would be much happier if the editing of images, keywording, releases etc was working better before we started adding another layer on top of the images.

Having to go back through and setting each image with the present system will be such a PITA

Group Hug!!!!      

I have to say that I am amazed and impressed with where we are.  I wish I was a coder instead of a photographer so I cold jump in and get my hands dirty...