Live News confusion

[John Mitchell]

I'm totally confused. On November 11th, I uploaded a batch of images to "Live News." They were accepted as newsworthy and, as in the past, I was prompted in "Track Submissions" to manage my images as they had "Bypassed QC." I went ahead and keyworded them, etc. Today, I noticed that their status in Tracking Submissions has been changed to "Awaiting QC" even though they are now in the general collection, come up in searches, and appear to be available for customers to lease.

 

I should mention that I already have a separate stock submission that has been "Awaiting QC" since November 7th, so it has probably failed. However, I can find nothing in the Alamy guidelines saying that news images will be subjected to the usual QC check once they have been accepted and tagged as having bypassed QC. As far as I can see, only news images that have been rejected as "not newsworthy" must undergo the usual QC process.

 

This flip-flop policy does not seem fair to me. Has anyone else had this happen?

[Guest GPK]

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/news-images-qa.asp#leave

"Removed images
Your images will be removed from the news feed by Alamy staff if they are considered to be non-newsworthy or they are more than 48 hours old. If you have news web upload privileges only, any rejected news images will be transferred to the QC queue. Here they will be subject to the ‘regular’ QC criteria of images in the main collection"

[John Mitchell]

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/news-images-qa.asp#leave

 

"Removed images

Your images will be removed from the news feed by Alamy staff if they are considered to be non-newsworthy or they are more than 48 hours old. If you have news web upload privileges only, any rejected news images will be transferred to the QC queue. Here they will be subject to the ‘regular’ QC criteria of images in the main collection"

Yes, I saw this. But it is not relevant to my situation.  My images were not deemed "non-newsworthy" and they were not more than 48 hours old. That is to say, none of the images now "Awaiting QC" were rejected. Please reread my original post. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

[losdemas]

 

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/news-images-qa.asp#leave

 

"Removed images

Your images will be removed from the news feed by Alamy staff if they are considered to be non-newsworthy or they are more than 48 hours old. If you have news web upload privileges only, any rejected news images will be transferred to the QC queue. Here they will be subject to the ‘regular’ QC criteria of images in the main collection"

Yes, I saw this. But it is not relevant to my situation.  My images were not deemed "non-newsworty" and they were not more than 48 hours old. That is to say, none of the images now "Awaiting QC" were rejected. Please reread my original post. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

 

 It was perfectly clear, John.  I imagine it's just a glitch somewhere and not to be concerned about.  However, just in case you have a fail in regular submissions and a glitch is affecting your news upload transfer to regular stock, then a quick e-mail off to MS might be in order?  News images should definitely by-pass QC and I can't see why your regular submissions should affect this.

[John Mitchell]

 

 

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/news-images-qa.asp#leave

 

"Removed images

Your images will be removed from the news feed by Alamy staff if they are considered to be non-newsworthy or they are more than 48 hours old. If you have news web upload privileges only, any rejected news images will be transferred to the QC queue. Here they will be subject to the ‘regular’ QC criteria of images in the main collection"

Yes, I saw this. But it is not relevant to my situation.  My images were not deemed "non-newsworty" and they were not more than 48 hours old. That is to say, none of the images now "Awaiting QC" were rejected. Please reread my original post. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

 

 It was perfectly clear, John.  I imagine it's just a glitch somewhere and not to be concerned about.  However, just in case you have a fail in regular submissions and a glitch is affecting your news upload transfer to regular stock, then a quick e-mail off to MS might be in order?  News images should definitely by-pass QC and I can't see why your regular submissions should affect this.

I agree. The guidelines clearly state that news images that have not been rejected will not be submitted to the same QC process as stock images. I've just e-mailed MS and am awaiting a reply. Perhaps Alamy was thinking that I was trying scam their system, which I wasn't.

[MariaJ]

John, the same thing happened to my recent submission to the live news (also Remembrance Day photos).  I had 4 photos up there for a couple days, they were listed as "Bypassed QC", I got the email they were ready for keywording (which I did), and then they switched to "Awaiting QC".  I could no longer access them through Manage Images.   I emailed MS because this is the second time its happened to me recently.  I was told there was nothing to worry about.  I don't know if its a glitch or they've changed how they process news images.

[John Mitchell]

John, the same thing happened to my recent submission to the live news (also Remembrance Day photos).  I had 4 photos up there for a couple days, they were listed as "Bypassed QC", I got the email they were ready for keywording (which I did), and then they switched to "Awaiting QC".  I could no longer access them through Manage Images.   I emailed MS because this is the second time its happened to me recently.  I was told there was nothing to worry about.  I don't know if its a glitch or they've changed how they process news images.

Maria, many thanks for the feedback. Hopefully it is just a glitch. However, I see that my images now have a "This image is not for sale" banner that has been affixed to them within the last few hours. Here is an example: DHJEHH (click on thumb and you will see what I mean).

 

I'm hoping to hear back from MS tomorrow. Shall let you know what they say. I've combed the news images guidelines and cannot find any reference to existing submissions awaiting QC affecting news images that have already been accepted. It's all a mystery to me.

 

P.S. Maria, is DHJJEY one of your images? I see that it has the same "not for sale" message attached to it.

[MariaJ]

OK, I just checked those 4 recent news images that are now in my regular portfolio and they all have the red "This image not for sale" note on them as well. I don't understand why. I assume that notice will come off once they go through Qc but I had already been told they bypassed QC, and they were previously listed as On Sale in Manage Images. Now they aren't accessible in MI.

[MariaJ]

I just checked again, less than an hour later, and those 4 images have disappeared from my portfolio!

[losdemas]

I can't access either of those two referenced images,either.  Clearly a glitch that will hopefully be sorted for you both (and doubtless others) pre-weekend.

[Paulstw]

All my news feed images, while I had a fail waiting for 2 weeks, went through to manage images literally right away in the last month.
I've only ever had one set of news images that were borderline news and they got moved to stock, bypassing QC. 

 

You're situation seems really odd and could be a wee hiccup. 

[DavidC]

....looks like another case where 'asking the oracles' would be the logical step -  to add some further confusing conjecture - perhaps you have entered a period of QC punishment and the algorythemythingies have kicked-in and noticed that you have images entering the system when their masters say that you are banned ! 

 

Just another confusing thought to add - I'd just ask MS myself - us lot are not the founts of all knowledge.....especially in the "Ways of Alamy"

[John Mitchell]

The answer that I received from MS today was that my images were moved to "Awaiting QC" because they were considered non-newsworthy. If that was the case, why were they kept in the "Live News" feed for 48 hours? And why did I receive an e-mail (see below) stating that my images had passed QC and were ready for annotating instead of one telling me that my images were not newsworthy? None of this makes any sense to me at all I'm afraid.

12-11-2013
The following media which contain Reportage/Archival images have now been processed by Alamy.

DATE RECEIVED                 ALAMY MEDIA REF               STATUS

11/11/2013                    OL2435418                     Passed QC

Your images are now ready to be annotated (including captioned and keyworded) in the
“Manage Images” section of “My Alamy”.  

You can monitor the progress of all of your submissions in ‘Track Submissions’ in ‘My Alamy’.

Kind regards

Alamy

[John Mitchell]

I just checked again, less than an hour later, and those 4 images have disappeared from my portfolio!

I just checked and the same thing has happened to mine. I guess yours were considered to be not-newsworthy as well.

[DavidC]

I'm sure it's not the case with you, but it is just possible that a few folk are are trying the News route to avoid QC, strange that they were deemed to be newsworthy - and then not so....

[John Mitchell]

I'm sure it's not the case with you, but it is just possible that a few folk are are trying the News route to avoid QC, strange that they were deemed to be newsworthy - and then not so....

Yes, I realize that. Avoiding QC was not my aim. For some reason, I thought that a national holiday (Remembrance Day) commemorating those who have sacrificed themselves for freedom was newsworthy. If my pics weren't newsworthy enough, that's fine. I'm not pretending to be a "real" news photographer. I just don't understand the flip-flop from "PASSED QC" to "AWAITING QC." It doesn't seem a fair way to treat contributors. Even an apology would help.

[losdemas]

Just me and another of my wild guesses!    :

 

In January of this year (18th, to be precise) we had some unusually heavy snow across the UK.  Many UK-based Alamy togs were sending in lots of pictures to the news feed and (forgive the pun) I believe they were getting snowed under in the deluge at Live News.  I too submitted quite a few and some of my pictures got bounced around: some which were taken at differing times of day and which justified different IPTC headlines were grouped together under the same headline.  I was told at the time that this was due to unusual circumstances and not something which would normally have taken place.

 

Just wondering if perhaps in this case something happened which would not normally have occurred, and a large number of submitted remembrance pictures (I know that there were quite a few), caused some to be bounced down or off the list?

 

I dunno, I guess only the news team can really tell you what actually happened.  It does seem strange, and the way that it has happened doesn't seem right.

[MariaJ]

Mine have now passed QC but still haven't been put back into my portfolio as they are now in post-QC queue for that.

 

Member services has told me they were going to look into it.

 

John, they didn't tell me that my images were not newsworthy (though I've received that message before for another image).  Since your images were on the same topic as mine, and I saw other Remembrance Day/Armistice Day/Veteran's Day images in the newsfeed for a couple days, that doesn't seem right to me.

[John Mitchell]

Mine have now passed QC but still haven't been put back into my portfolio as they are now in post-QC queue for that.

 

Member services has told me they were going to look into it.

 

John, they didn't tell me that my images were not newsworthy (though I've received that message before for another image).  Since your images were on the same topic as mine, and I saw other Remembrance Day/Armistice Day/Veteran's Day images in the newsfeed for a couple days, that doesn't seem right to me.

Yes, I uploaded an image last year that was deemed "not-newsworthy," and Alamy sent me an e-mail right away explaining that it would be rejected. I had no problem with that. No such e-mail this time, though, just the one telling me that that my news submission had been processed and had passed QC. The photos then remained on sale in the live news feed for at least 48 hours. They were then moved to the general stock collection and now have been deleted.

 

Glad to hear that Alamy has done the right thing and reinstated your images. My "passed" images are still "Awaiting QC," unfortunately, with a different media reference number and a new upload date (Nov. 14th) assigned to them.

[NYCat]

Since I've only done it once I am probably not the one to answer this but all those Brits are probably asleep now so I'll give it a try. You can put a very LONG caption on the news images and you can presumably get the necessary facts in that way. They are not looking by keyword I suppose but one nice thing about being up on the news page is that any keywords you add go live immediately.

 

Paulette

[MariaJ]

>  I had 4 photos up there for a couple days, they were listed as "Bypassed QC", I got the email they were ready for keywording...

 

Concerning News Feed:

 

1. don't images need to ARRIVE correctly keyworded?  how can they

be newsworthy if they are keyworded after "a couple of days"?

Submitted news images must have certain IPTC fields completed - such as the description and headline.  I do add some keywords then, which end up in the Comprehensive box.  The email I'm referring to is the one that says:

 

Your images are now ready to be annotated (including captioned and keyworded) in the “Manage Images” section of “My Alamy”.  

 

At that point I fill in the rest of the MI information, such as essential keywords, how many people are in the image, etc.

[John Mitchell]

>  I had 4 photos up there for a couple days, they were listed as "Bypassed QC", I got the email they were ready for keywording...

 

Concerning News Feed:

 

1. don't images need to ARRIVE correctly keyworded?  how can they

be newsworthy if they are keyworded after "a couple of days"?

 

2. does Alamy provide contrib with a "letter of assignment" on Alamy

stationery if that's what an event requires for press credentials?

(delivered as email attachment to contrib for presentation to event media center)

 

sidebar: does a dyslexic bloke or bird see "center" as centre & think, "Gawblimey the Yank knows how to spell it!"...?

I can only answer your 1st question. My images "arrived" with headings and captions as specified in Alamy's news guidelines. I had also supplied basic keywords. As always, after being notified that they had passed QC and were ready for further annotation, I added more keywords, filled in location field, and set attributes in "Manage Your Images." The images then remained on sale in the news feed for the specified 48 hours (at least). 

[Ed Endicott]

John, I had something similar happen to me a couple of months ago.  At noon, I heard on the news of a U.S. Federal Court decision against two restaurants in my area (one being about 4 miles from my home).  Around 3:30pm, I was able to get time to drive to the restaurant.  I took two images while standing next to a FOX News van and I submitted the images.

 

The next morning I noticed that the images were removed from the live news feed and added to the standard queue with a submission date of two months prior.  I contacted Member Services.  The response I received after correspondence going back and forth was....

 

"I understand your frustration...Even though there might be a current news story about restaurant chain. Those images looked just looked too much like stock images. We do the same thing when photographers filed pictures of “Kodak” film when they went out of business as well as more recently pictures of vaccines that have just been released on the market. I know you took them yesterday, but they could have been taken any time...Equally we try to keep the feed looking as newsy and active as possible to entice picture desks to buy images.  The Huffington Post would not expect to pay Live News rate for what is a stock image...I hope that answers your question."

 

Quite frankly, I was livid - mostly because this story ran for three days in all the local papers and major television stations (while my images were in QC - and alternative images on Alamy did not illustrate the story), and it appears every day when I look at the live news feed, the weather in the UK is newsworthy - fog in the UK, first snow in the UK, rain in the UK, etc...but a United States Federal Judge's decision is not newsworthy?  That doesn't make sense to me.  The local news agencies ended up using images they acquired from Facebook and the company website (presumably for free).  The good thing is, I don't submit exclusively to Alamy and the images were picked up by another news agency.  That's why I'm not exclusive.

[John Mitchell]

John, I had something similar happen to me a couple of months ago.  At noon, I heard on the news of a U.S. Federal Court decision against two restaurants in my area (one being about 4 miles from my home).  Around 3:30pm, I was able to get time to drive to the restaurant.  I took two images while standing next to a FOX News van and I submitted the images.

 

The next morning I noticed that the images were removed from the live news feed and added to the standard queue with a submission date of two months prior.  I contacted Member Services.  The response I received after correspondence going back and forth was....

 

"I understand your frustration...Even though there might be a current news story about restaurant chain. Those images looked just looked too much like stock images. We do the same thing when photographers filed pictures of “Kodak” film when they went out of business as well as more recently pictures of vaccines that have just been released on the market. I know you took them yesterday, but they could have been taken any time...Equally we try to keep the feed looking as newsy and active as possible to entice picture desks to buy images.  The Huffington Post would not expect to pay Live News rate for what is a stock image...I hope that answers your question."

 

Quite frankly, I was livid - mostly because this story ran for three days in all the local papers and major television stations (while my images were in QC - and alternative images on Alamy did not illustrate the story), and it appears every day when I look at the live news feed, the weather in the UK is newsworthy - fog in the UK, first snow in the UK, rain in the UK, etc...but a United States Federal Judge's decision is not newsworthy?  That doesn't make sense to me.  The local news agencies ended up using images they acquired from Facebook and the company website (presumably for free).  The good thing is, I don't submit exclusively to Alamy and the images were picked up by another news agency.  That's why I'm not exclusive.

Interesting story, Ed. I can understand why you felt frustrated. My case is a bit different, though, in that my images were initially accepted (i.e. designated as "PASSED QC") and kept in the news feed for the standard 48 hours. It was only after they had been moved to the general stock collection that the confusion and flip-flops began.

[John Mitchell]

Just in case anyone is still interested in following this ongoing saga, I have e-mailed MS again and requested that someone call me to discuss what happened. The e-mail answers I've gotten back so far are not satisfactory IMO.

 

I shall post the results of the conversation here FBFW (hopefully FB).