Callie Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 I am totally in favour of this, I hate having to have a pseudonym that I created only to split my collection then be used as a credit line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Carlsson Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 I've never used any name on Alamy except my own: Ed Rooney. Does this proposed change mean that (1) things can stay the same for me, (2) I will have to chose a new name, or (3) I must reregister with my present, real name? Granted this goes ahead and you'll be the first to secure "Ed Rooney" as your username everything should be the same with the added benefit of Google finding your images easier and that you can link back properly to alamy.com/edrooney and all your images will show up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 It works for me as I am actually an agency, for historic reasons, and in any case I want to use my business name here on Alamy for my more generic, 'commercial' and older work on Alamy. I will use my own name for my personal work and art elsewhere; for that I want it to be associated with me personally. I want to keep the two elements of my work separate. So the idea works for me. I agree with Allan that the longer established contributor should get 'first dibs' on any name where there is a conflict. That should not be an issue for me. It should probably default to the current account name in the first instance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Rather not. As well as having my collection split up like vpics I represent a couple of others images here, who have separate pseudonyms. I'd rather not have to set up new accounts. regards from a traffic jam just outside Medellin, Richard I suspect that there may need to be a different model for true agencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Congrats to Alamy for consulting on this before going ahead. I'm happy with the idea, but then I only have one pseudo anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckshot Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 As long as "username for url" stays separate from the photo credit line, cool. I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 For myself, I'm in favor of a global pseudonym for use in URL and CREDIT LINE on Alamy, just as long as contributor can provide the pseudonym and/or okay the one Alamy plans to use for him or her. For example, I'd be okay with my "first middle-initial last name" or "first last name" - but would want to be sure it's one of those before global pseudos went live. And if two or more contributors FORMALLY NOTIFY Alamy (by whatever deadline Alamy picks) that they want exact same pseudonym, I agree it should be based on seniority of when each became a contributor. - Ann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Yates Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 I am in favour of the change, I currently have 10 pseudonyms and would welcome one credit line. However I might change my name to Keith Morris Regards Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 This sounds like a very good idea as long as we can specify what we would like our global USERNAME to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avpics Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 I run just two pseudonyms, a main one for 'stock' and one for Live News. The Live News images tend to be one hit wonders, with a greatly lower CTR figure. I'd rather not have the two lumped together as it would drastically lower my rating. I guess I could run two different accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSnapper Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 "However I might change my name to Keith Morris..." hahha km Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 I run just two pseudonyms, a main one for 'stock' and one for Live News. The Live News images tend to be one hit wonders, with a greatly lower CTR figure. I'd rather not have the two lumped together as it would drastically lower my rating. I guess I could run two different accounts. I don't think that they would be lumped together. Your two collections would remain separate with each maintaining its own CTR, etc. However, sales from both would be credited using your global USERNAME. At least that is how I read Alamy's posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Everything funky said Remember some contributors left the forum or did not join the new forum because it showed their complete collection to everybody? (By clicking on the blue number.) Remember there are some who have a blue number of 0, just to restrict access to all of their pseudos? Only a tiny part of all contributors are here: this forum currently has about 3418 members, of which about 5% - 170 are more or less active (my guesstimate). What about the others? So nothing changes apart from that a pseudonym is not showing as a byline anymore? Whether it's now called a collection or a pseudo. Just the User Name is showing. Isn't that just the reason pseudonyms exist? So that some can call themselves silly different names, so their mother; former classmates; the local biker gang; regular clients; competitors; other agencies or the HMRC can not readily see what they're up to? Whether it comes with life online or with the crowd sourcing model, pseudos are a reality on the web. There are far more pseudonyms than real names. OK now for some good reasons: ever thought of why there are so many brands of washing powder? Soft drinks? Computers? Phones? Handbags? Why there are so many brands of everything? Why people really believe that Apple; Louis Vuitton; Stolichnaya; Aldi; BMW; McDonalds; Guinness is far better than that other brand? Yes Brands. A brand is often the most valuable asset on the balance sheet says Wikipedia in the understatement of the year consumer age. Companies exist because of their brands. Companies are their brands. And if that's not true, it's because they own many brands. My guess is that before you know it you will have to re-introduce pseudonyms because they are brands. And we can not function in the current market without them. Practicalities: so some contributors will create 10 or 50 new accounts to house their pseudo brand. It will be impossible to shift images from one account to the other when they are not performing or performing differently than envisioned. It may take a while before each account will reach the payout limit. If having pseudonyms are hampering SEO, are you stopping new contributors from signing on? Because it must be that more different credit lines are confusing Google. Somehow I think you have it backwards: more credit lines will increase exposure on Google. Its algorithm is not that different from Alamy's own in that respect. Which is exactly why some contributors have more pseudonyms. So not because of brands, but because of SEO within Alamy. Names like Wiskerke zfivez; Wiskerke 4 of 6, or Wiskerke 13 are pretty obvious. They don't want to lose the brand, but they do want the SEO benefit. Is this: a - Alice Addertongue b - Anthony Afterwit c - Benjamin Franklin d - Busy Body e - Caelia Shortface f - Martha Careful g - Polly Baker h - Richard Saunders i - Silence Dogood j - All of the above My guess is you just do not like pseudonyms. Another possibility is that the new Contributor Experience doesn't like pseudonyms. Why not just add the new unique username into the mix. Time will tell whether it's a success or not. If you're right about SEO re: Google, the contributors that do not want to go along initially, will only have themselves to blame. It cannot harm Alamy as a whole: The entire collection far too big for that. Agencies probably forming the majority already. What would change for agencies btw? For myself I would like the new system for most of my collections/pseudos, but not for all. And I would definitely not want to give up the possibility of shifting images from one collection to another. Which would be impossible between accounts. wim correct answer: j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MariaJ Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 +1 Wim. I would prefer the option of having different pseudos, even just at least one different pseudo than the main one. For some of the reasons mentioned, I am happy to have my real name credited to many of my images, but would prefer a pseudonym for others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 iii) Others have mentioned this... will all be lumped together for the purposes of ranking? The following suggests that everything wouldn't be lumped together, but it would be great to have some clarification re ranking: "We would change the term 'Pseudonym' to something like 'Collections' so you could still split your images into different sections in order to view AlamyMeasures stats for different sets of images, but you would have a global, single credit line that would be applied to all the images." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panthera tigris Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 I would not have a problem with this in theory, my only concern would be that there is at least one other contributor with exactly the same "real" name as myself, what if we both wanted to be known by that? Thats a very good point! It a very common name though. "Another" Paul Thompson :+) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 No worries here, other than that about the transfer of ranking. I don't use multiple psuedos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 +2 Wim. Quite happy to have my name used for my main pseudo or colelction but I have a separate pseudo for horticulture and I don't want my name used for that. Google works both ways, having a difference means it's easier for me to attribute sales. I only put those images on here for the UK editorial market, quite willing to pull those images, as before, if I have to have one encompassing creditline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 In some ways, this does seem to be a solution looking for a problem. Whilst I can see that Alamy want to try and get rid of a number of confusing and unprofessional pseudonyms, it does ignore the reason why some people use pseudonyms in the first place. Where many simply use them as a way of splitting their images into discrete collections, there must be a sizeable minority who use them to remain anonymous. A couple of my early aliases were established for this very reason - one because of commercial confidentiality and another to prevent possible retaliation for having taken politically sensitive images. Whilst I could establish another account for those images, I'd definitely lose my good ranking and it would make things more administratively complex. Since most members on this forum forewent their anonymity when it changed format a few years ago, it's not really a representative sample of contributors. It's hardly surprising that many see no problems, except for technical issues such as rank etc (which, to be fair, Alamy did explicitly state shouldn't be affected: "We’re not envisaging that this would change how AlamyRank works".) The other negative, as GeoffK and others pointed out, is that many might want different pseudonyms associated with different styles or type of image and lumping them all together certainly doesn't help to create a discrete online identity With regard to the potentially positive benefits, I can't really see those for the individual contributor. In promising better SEO, I can see it helping Alamy as a whole but not necessarily the small contributor. As for what other stock sites do, I'm afraid that's of absolute no interest to me and I can't see it being an issue for buyers. I agree that pseudonyms can be confusing to some, but there's no guarantee that any new system wouldn't cause an equal amount of confusion - there already seems to be some around exactly what is being proposed and what this would mean. There's also no guarantee that, for the sake of anonymity, contributors wouldn't still choose silly and childish master usernames. So, I for one, would not be in favour of the change unless these concerns can be addressed. Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 As I have already said it is not really an issue for me I do wonder whether such a change to pseudonyms is best use of Alamy development resources when we have much more pressing issues with the search engine and the presentation of our images. The issues there will impact sales; pseudonyms are essentially an internal administrative matter and of little interest to buyers I would contend. Just thinking out loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mayall Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 If pseudonyms help with making sales i must ask why the big corporates here on Alamy do not have pseudonyms? they just have their name, e.g. Robert Harding. I have several pseudonyms, i am sure it makes no difference to sales, it just makes it a bit easier when editing my work. Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 If pseudonyms help with making sales i must ask why the big corporates here on Alamy do not have pseudonyms? they just have their name, e.g. Robert Harding. I have several pseudonyms, i am sure it makes no difference to sales, it just makes it a bit easier when editing my work. Paul. Not true. Robert Harding R H Productions Robert Harding World Imagery Robert Harding Productions Christian Kober Tony Waltham Yadid Levy Jane Sweeney Gavin Hellier Patrick Dieudonne and about 250 (my guesstimate) other individual photographers or collections. But you are right that this is exactly the solution Alamy proposes. So it is easy to achieve it: give individual contributors agency status if they want to. It hasn't always been like that. Before the second or third last changes to the layout of the zoom page, the photographer was named more prominently and much closer to the image. Read back some of the posts here from Philippe, who has his own agency Arterra. He was even in favor of giving the photographer credit in stead of the agency, if the credit lines became too long. (Instead of © Philippe Clément / Arterra Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo/ Mauritius it should at least read © Philippe Clément / Mauritius - different discussion here) There you have the dilemma for the agency: credit to the agency's brand or to the individual photographer who made the image and owns the copyright? To add to the confusion there are contributors here that do have agency status, even if there just a single contributor and there are single contributors who also have the work of assistants or wife/son/daughter/brother as pseudos. There are contributors who have at least 200 pseudos. It has been possible to see those at one point when the photographer was named along with the pseudo. They may now have many hundreds or gone back to one - who knows? At least they chose not to be on the forum anymore when the blue numbers appeared. There must be hundreds operating like that with their own work or with found footage. Try searching for imagery that is labeled for free on Flickr or Wikipedia (don't know the exact license names). There are many thousands of those on Alamy. All with fancy names, none of which is the photographer. Like Nasa; the White House and all those plane and train spotters. They would certainly want to remain hidden behind their pseudonyms. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mayall Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Thank you Wim for correcting me. Have a good weekend! Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Thank you Wim for correcting me. Have a good weekend! Paul. And thank you for letting me see the obvious: that we already had it all along. Posting here sometimes helps me to get some order in the brain. Other times however the thinking comes hobbling behind (sorry - dutch idiom) my already very slow and creaky typing. ;-) Have a good weekend too! wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Brooks Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 One of the problems of being a stock photographer is that stock photographers are largely anonymous. A stock photographer could be the top earning photographer in the country, have his images everywhere, and very few art directors will know who they are. Building a good business where you are also anonymous makes you very vulnerable should the photo library run into financial troubles, go out of business, decide to cut your percentage, or sell themselves to new owners. Selling your images under a pseudonym or multiple pseudonyms makes you more anonymous and dilutes your brand. Sometimes when photo editors have an assignment they will cruise the stock libraries to see who is shooting the particular subject matter in the style they are looking for. I always direct any interested parties to my entire collection My name really is Bill Brooks. I have two pseudos at Alamy, “Bill Brooks” and “William Brooks” but only for CTR purposes. If Alamy institutes the changes, the credit will be USERNAME = “Bill Brooks” only for the credit, while retaining my two pseudos. This way I can use the two pseudos to bump up my CTR, without diluting my brand between the two names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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