Frustrated With Street Articles - Help!
On Wednesday I submitted an article to SA. I included an image from Free Digital Photos.net.
Their TOS require a simple acknowledgement or rather an attribution. I spent an hour searching the SA site for information on doing this.
First, anything entered into the on site search, searches other articles. I can't find a help section other than "Publishing Guidelines". These guidelines explain what you have to do, but not how to do it. they don't address my issue. So, my first question to my WA family - does anyone know how to insert an image and provide the required attribution to the source of that image?
I copied a snippet of code from Free Digital Images and inserted it at the end of my article, but the moderator didn't like the result. Having been unsuccessful finding my answer on SA, I came to WA. I searched training and the forum and struck out. Apparently I am the only person in the world who has ever dealt with this problem.
I sent emails to SA. First from their on site contact form. Returned undelivered. Then I replied to the email that I received explaining that my article needed additional work. Returned undelivered. I originated an email to support@streetarticles.com from my email program. You know what happened. Returned undelivered. I keep knocking, but nobody's home.
My submitted article does not appear in my dashboard. Can anyone tell me how to access this article? Is it inaccessible because it has been submitted but not approved? If I can access it, I may find another image to substitute that doesn't require attribution. But at this point I don't even know where my article is hiding.
This is only my second experience with Street Articles. I understand that it is a learning process and will get easier as I submit more articles. My first article went through with only a minor problem, I had to reposition my links. No big deal.
I hope that someone can help me with this. I'm sure there is an easy fix, I just don't know what it is.
To Kyle and/or Carson: Adding a Help Center to SA would definitely benefit your contributors. Not trying to compare you guys, but that other article directory has an extensive library of help topics. I really want to use SA first; I feel disloyal going to the other guy, but you have to meet me halfway.
Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to read this. I welcome your comments below.
Recent Comments
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I forgot my password for street articles. Try as I may, I cannot retrieve it. When I entered email to get it, message said it was sent, but no mail. Tried numerous times, to no avail! Then I thought to heck with that, I tried to open up a new account, and then I get a message that my email is already in use. As things stand now, I have no access to Street Articles. Very frustrating.
I wrote an article two months ago and it was submitted to street articles.Unfortunately, it was returned undelivered and I never bothered to write again.
Merci!
I don't understand why I can credit myself as text author and can't do the samel for images.
In an age when everybody can literally take a picture of everything (just think of smartphones!), forbidding the ability to credit as author of your own images seem rather out of time......
It looks like, and it bothers me a lot, that I should be forced to actually buy pictures just to witness I have some usage properties on them.....
Not sure what to tell you. I usually just use photos I take myself or photos I've purchase a license for through istockphotos. Hopefully, you'll get a response back soon.
Scott ~ I really wish I could help you with this. I know when my article was rejected it stayed under My Dashboard with a Rejected Status. Curious to see what the answer is though.
Hi Scott.
You have my respect and admiration for not blithely following the "I'll publish and be damned" school of thought. I'm passionate about credit where credit is due!
I won't submit articles to SA for this very reason. I'm an amateur photographer but I know several professionals who earn their living from it and are members here at WAU.
I've surprised several of my fellow WAU'ers with my vitriol when I catch them advising newcomers to just snag a pic from a Google search. It's bad advice. It's often theft.
I have one picture out there in the wild that I sometimes see used without my permission. I send a DMCA. I'm hoping shortly that Google will let me register DMCAs with them and name the sites which have stolen my work. Hopefully it will affect their rankings and make them think twice before doing it again.
If someone wants a specific picture they should be willing to pay for it. That's what stock libraries are all about. Oh, and a warning for the Google snatchers, stock libraries are not adverse to sowing their own seeds in the hope of harvesting large fines from the unwary.
If you don't want to pay, that's fine too. There are many, many brilliant sources of free images. There's absolutely no need for anyone to "steal" them. Flickr is a great resource, if you click the Creative Commons box in their advanced search you'll usually find something fantastic that will fit your bill. For free.
All the photographer is asking for in return is to be acknowledged as the creator of the work with a credit such as Photo: @RICH (Flickr).
I don't think it's too much to ask that Street Articles should accommodate that requirement.
Best.
Rich.
Good point, Rich. There needs to be an author box to do just that. I have been guilty of just grabbing pics from the big G. I will definitely change my ways.
Mac
Even Flickr will usually require an acknowledgement if the image is being used for commercial purposes. I don't know if this use would be considered commercial since I didn't include any self serving links. I just wrote and submitted for the experience.
I think of images much like music or writing. They are an asset with value. If the owner wants compensation they deserve it, just like an author or musician deserves to be paid for their work. If all they ask is an acknowledgement of them as the source, it seems like a very small price.
If you wrote an e-book to sell and someone else managed to download it for free and then distributed that e-book for free across the net (without your permission) that would probably tick you off. If they gave it away to promote their own business that would probably tick you off even more. Bottom line - it's just stealing. I don't see a moral gray area here.
If I were promoting a specific product, I wouldn't have a problem lifting an image from the manufacturer since they routinely provide images to retailers to assist in the sale of that product.
I just don't know that SA allows for that attribution. Don't know why they wouldn't - seems very unprofessional to not allow. Maybe because images are generally inexpensive to license they expect contributors to do so. I think it was only $3 to license the image that I was using and that would allow use without acknowledging the source.
In the end I want to do the right thing. I don't want to start down a slippery slope of gray that moves me ever closer to black hat tactics.
As far as I know there is not a way to do what you are saying. You can't attribute authorship to the picture. Just download and go. The same issue comes when you quote something famous like the constitution or quotes of famous people. If there is too much "published content" the article will be denied. Even with putting quotes and sourcing the quote. I think I saw where Kyle said this is something that is being worked on.
Hope this helps. I do not think the authorship of pics are an issue in the overall scheme of things. Just be sure there are no watermarks or other identifying marks in the photo.
Mac
It may be a little more work on the front end, but I download all images to my computer and then upload them as a jpg or gif. Maybe I'm technologically challenged but it has worked for me so far.
Yeah, I downloaded it to my desktop. i resized it with Paint. My problem isn't with the mechanics of the image upload, rather with the required acknowledgement of the source.
I am guessing it has something to do with the code you inserted and where you inserted the code... would you be able to pm me and the code snippet and let me take a look?
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I have just tried it. It appears to suck out loud. I don't even see the point of it. Pure junk, to be honest.
It takes enough time writing decent posts for my site with hyperlinks and all, only to have S.A. reject everything and have me reformat everything, and then tell me I've included affiliate links, when I haven't. An excercise in wasting time for no good purpose... time I didn;t have to waste in the first place. Not impressed at all.
The S.A. editor is pretty awful, too. Just sayin'.