How do I earn 5 star status?

[Russell]

Has anyone yet managed to work out Alamy's criteria for the award of 5 QC stars? I've not had a QC failure in 5 years, and submitted over 300 (albeit small) batches. But I'm resolutely stuck on 3 stars, and I'd quite like the faster turnround that ***** brings.

 

Any suggestions?

[Betty LaRue]

Umm, stand on your head while wiggling you’re ears and singing your national anthem?
That makes as much sense as anything else I can think of.

Maybe Alamy is rolling out the function and you are in the caboose. Or maybe they rolled it out to some, but not all, as a test. When evaluation of test subjects is done, depending on results, they could remove the function or roll it out to the rest who have good QC results.

if I didn’t have it, I’d be irritated, too. Your QC record is probably better than mine, although mine is good. Your port is quite a bit smaller than mine. I’m wondering if frequencies of uploads or port size plays into it.

Betty

 

[Michael Ventura]

Russell, I wish I knew the answer.  I do have the five star status and I have also had QC failures, in the past, but it has been quite some time since my last failure.  Perhaps Betty is correct that it is a slow rollout, or the size of your port.  Maybe best to ask Alamy directly.

[Ed Rooney]

I would give you 5 stars, Russell. Your pics look terrific. And I have 5 stars with maybe one or two fails in the past 5 years.

 

Soooo . . . the answer must be that you need to be more consistent uploading and have a portfolio of a certain size (?).  

 

Good luck,

 

Edo

[geoff s]

Having just checked, I have 5 stars though I've no idea how I've achieved such an accolade. I'm more of a sporadic uploader  and don't have a massive portfolio.

Guessing it doesn't have any impact on one's rank ?

Still, I think I might sew a row of pips onto my camera strap  

[Harry Harrison]

I'm not sure that Alamy have even acknowledged officially that 5 stars even exist, let alone suggest what one might need to do to attain them. I've got a similar sized port to yours so I'm not sure that is a factor, a couple of QC fails very early on but none for 18 months or so, reasonably regular uploading. I keep checking if they're still there, what Alamy giveth, Alamy can taketh away!

[Russell]

6 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Your pics look terrific

Thanks for the compliment Ed, though I'm not sure I deserve it.

13 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

Maybe best to ask Alamy directly

I think this is the next step. I'll report back if there is any meaningful answer.

 

Thanks all for reading and commenting.

[Joseph Clemson]

Just to say you are not alone. I have never had a QC failure and have successully submitted two batches of images since the five-star status started being reported by others. Still my QC status remains at three old-type stars. To wait the extra 24-36 hours not a big deal for me, but it would be nice to know why. Also, makes me wonder if the five star privilige carries any other (less obvious) benefits.

[Allan Bell]

I still have the one star I originally started with and never even went on to have two let alone three stars so I shall never achieve four or even five stars.

 

Who cares I still sell images.

 

Allan

 

[Johnnie5]

Alamy explains the star rating system here.  https://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/alamy-quality-control/

[Harry Harrison]

7 hours ago, Johnnie5 said:

Alamy explains the star rating system here.

Thanks, an update, that wasn't there last week. So 4 stars do exist.

[pazmander]

It’s not clear from Alamy’s explanation why a contributor who has never had a QC fail is on three stars.

[meanderingemu]

8 hours ago, pazmander said:

It’s not clear from Alamy’s explanation why a contributor who has never had a QC fail is on three stars.

 

i assume they need a certain number of submissions within their analysis time frame to make the assessment of 

 

"You obviously check your work thoroughly before you upload,"

 

but neither the ordinals nor the reviewed time line have been volunteered from them, possibly to make it harder to game the system.  

[AlexG]

On 04/01/2020 at 09:45, Allan Bell said:

I still have the one star I originally started with and never even went on to have two let alone three stars so I shall never achieve four or even five stars.

 

Who cares I still sell images.

 

Allan

 

 

I am stuck on 3 stars from early last year, and it doesn't seem that my clean slate since then has made any difference. Like others point out, perhaps they evaluate accounts early on and then maybe never after that. Shrug

[george]

On 08/01/2020 at 20:07, AlexG said:

 

I am stuck on 3 stars from early last year, and it doesn't seem that my clean slate since then has made any difference. Like others point out, perhaps they evaluate accounts early on and then maybe never after that. Shrug

Alex have you not noticed you have won the December challenge? Who needs 5 stars eh?  

[Brasilnut]

I don't care about 5 stars, I want 5-figures

[spacecadet]

Just had a batch hauled in for QC.

I haven't seem this spiel before:

"Thanks for submitting xx stock images. We're processing them now and will update your account when complete. The better your QC rank the faster your submissions will be reviewed."

So it happens to the best of us😉

However it has put me behind as I'd expected to be tagging them today and I have no backlog.

Edited January 10, 2020 by spacecadet

[spacecadet]

False alarm- went through in 3 hours. So I assume it was just stuck in a queue. Unless we 5-starrers just occasionally get parked in the first-class lounge. But without the wine and cake.

[Niels Quist]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

False alarm- went through in 3 hours. So I assume it was just stuck in a queue. Unless we 5-starrers just occasionally get parked in the first-class lounge. But without the wine and cake.

 

- at some point there has to be a QC just to check that our standard persists. I tried for the first time these new terms yesterday evening - went through in a few minutes - and server updated early this morning.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Niels Quist

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

False alarm- went through in 3 hours. So I assume it was just stuck in a queue. Unless we 5-starrers just occasionally get parked in the first-class lounge. But without the wine and cake.

 

as a 5Star regular uploader I've gone through QC every 7-10 days so far, by "coincidence " all most recent only one image 🤔 (but being in North  America had to wait until next morning)

 

 

[John Richmond]

"Doveryai, no proveryai" - Trust, but verify.  Seems to be the Alamy standard for the new 5 star QC rating.

 

No complaints with that.

[meanderingemu]

Funny how quick things become the new normal process.  My friday morning upload (NA central time) hit the QC queue for my random review,  and sadly wasn't reviewed before end of business UK time, which mean now all my new uploads are hitting the queue, and i can't process the Supertags and the other information.  so back to waiting until Monday, like the good old days a 2 months ago... 

 

😁