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...on the news desk? Is it broken/technical issues? Totally appreciate they are stretched and also that pic sets getting send out directly to clients take priority over any sorting on the web interface, but since yesterday late afternoon/eve, nobody appears to have sorted the news feed.  as of 10.53 am/now, there are pics with headings in German, pics with watermarks left in, pics that were re-uploaded with correct heading but the previous set is still there, pics that need to be pushed together, and I don't think anything new has appeared on the feed in the last hour or so which seems strange....hmm. As I said, completely appreciate it is a lot of work and yes it's the weekend, but this doesn't really look professional and is pretty disheartening for many of those who've bothered filing. My 5p.

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32 minutes ago, imageplotter said:

...on the news desk? Is it broken/technical issues? Totally appreciate they are stretched and also that pic sets getting send out directly to clients take priority over any sorting on the web interface, but since yesterday late afternoon/eve, nobody appears to have sorted the news feed.  as of 10.53 am/now, there are pics with headings in German, pics with watermarks left in, pics that were re-uploaded with correct heading but the previous set is still there, pics that need to be pushed together, and I don't think anything new has appeared on the feed in the last hour or so which seems strange....hmm. As I said, completely appreciate it is a lot of work and yes it's the weekend, but this doesn't really look professional and is pretty disheartening for many of those who've bothered filing. My 5p.

 

That's unforgivable!  There was an ad for a job on the Alamy news team a few months ago, maybe the new employee is covering it today and something has gone wrong?

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Hmm...I think someone overslept. ;) It was specifically the public news interface I was talking about, and shortly afterwards, some of the above were rectified. As I said, I know and appreciate they put more emphasis on actually sending out news images to potential clients, and in such a competitive environment few pic editors are likely to browse the web interface.

 

But still - it's a public site, it can be seen by everyone and as such it is a store front (of which, incidentally, I had to identify quite a few to get into the forum just now... they're after me, I'm sure...there's a knock on the door now...help!) Hence the store front should be kept tidy, imho, if you want to be a John Lewis, rather than a Poundland. Looks a lot better this morning, though.

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On 2/12/2018 at 06:18, Graham said:

Probably a technical issue.  I have a normal (not news) submission which is still “processing” rather than awaiting QC some 18 hours or more after upload.  I am sure they will sort it out on Monday!

 

Graham

Hi there, I have had images in "Processing" status since Sunday night (Australia time) and Its now Tuesday morning and nothing has changed. I have emailed them so will be patient and wait for a response.

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Hi everyone

 

We are not fully staffed on the news feed over the weekends, and they also start a little bit later than normal. Normally this is not an issue, but because of the Olympics, working through the feed took a bit longer than normal this weekend.  If any of you are experiencing issues with upload and processing, we would recommend to drop an email to news@alamy.com to notify them. 

 

Thanks

Alamy

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/02/2018 at 10:56, imageplotter said:

...on the news desk? Is it broken/technical issues? Totally appreciate they are stretched and also that pic sets getting send out directly to clients take priority over any sorting on the web interface, but since yesterday late afternoon/eve, nobody appears to have sorted the news feed.  as of 10.53 am/now, there are pics with headings in German, pics with watermarks left in, pics that were re-uploaded with correct heading but the previous set is still there, pics that need to be pushed together, and I don't think anything new has appeared on the feed in the last hour or so which seems strange....hmm. As I said, completely appreciate it is a lot of work and yes it's the weekend, but this doesn't really look professional and is pretty disheartening for many of those who've bothered filing. My 5p.

Same today with a lot of single image uploads from one event badly captioned and flooding the pages. :(

 

 

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Hm. Confused now. So what that tells me, as a contributor, is don't bother sending news images on the weekend, we're not too interested and hence have reduced staff. Because...? News doesn't happen on the weekends? There is more and more imagery flooding into the news feed, from more and more countries and challenging markets such as China, which, I am sure, makes it very challenging in return for the team on the news desk to sift through and identify what is actual news, deal with a plenitude of languages and agency v individuals etc., all appreciated. But at the end of the day the message I read as a contributor is still the same...you may have just spent 5 hours in the cold ruining your expensive equipment to shoot something but it's the weekend and we're not staffed. Sadly, I'm getting more and more disillusioned with this, and the direction alamy is taking. I can't even bare to think of the number of hours, days, weeks I've spent shooting, editing, freezing, getting wet, buying equipment, spending cash on getting to/fro. My last sale this month, my worst month for a while, was for the illuminating sum of $3.52 gross. Flat rate bulk discount, yay. An ex news image that was used once before, just after the 48hr news period, of course, so sold for a pittance and then sold again for $3.52. That makes my share in £ ....I won't even go there.  And sure, KM will come back time and time again on this and tell us all how it's so worth it and how much can be made. Sure. If you happend to find a tiny niche about 10 years ago and send it a gazillion versions of the same image day in, day out. No thanks. Bitter much, me? Yes. Bothered much any more, no.

  

To clarify, I have every admiration for alamy staffers, both on the news desk and in stock. They try their best, they are friendly and helpful and responsive. And I'm sure they all work very hard in an industry that is fast changing and is a poor shadow of its former self. They do not take decisions on staffing levels nor do they set the priorities and direction of a company.  Over and out for a while, not putting any more effort into this.

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That is why doctors surgeries are closed at weekends too. Nobody becomes ill at weekends.:D

 

Allan

 

 

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Hi everyone,

 

In case anyone is confused, the Live News desk is staffed all weekend UK hours 10am until 9pm. Any issues with Live News please contact the news team directly as they don't check the forums. In that way they can action quickly if needed. 

 

Many thanks

Alamy

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50 minutes ago, Alamy said:

Hi everyone,

 

In case anyone is confused, the Live News desk is staffed all weekend UK hours 10am until 9pm. Any issues with Live News please contact the news team directly as they don't check the forums. In that way they can action quickly if needed. 

 

Many thanks

Alamy

 

I appreciate the Live News teams efforts and I have never had any real problem getting a response even at the weekends; usually when I have made a mistake with a submission and need their help to correct. So I do not criticise.

 

But, surely news has always been a 24x7 business and never more so than in our digitally connected, globalised world? Is UK 10:00-21:00 really enough when contributors are submitting from all around the world. For many those times equate to 10pm to 9am! I appreciate most of A|amy's news is not the hottest breaking news of the "stop the presses" importance but even so...

 

I guess the issue is less when people are submitting and more about when clients are in position to receive and use a news feed. If the target client base is European then 10:00-21:00 at weekends is fine, the papers have gone to press by 21:00 and the web sites, too, are pretty dormant. But it isn't if there are Alamy clients in USA, Australia/New Zealand and Asia.

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56 minutes ago, phomme said:

I have often submitted news items on the weekend without any issues. 

 

Same here.In fact, since I'm about 5 hours behind, many of my news submissions are outside office hours.

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