Non descriptive return notice

I have submitted a few video clips a while back (9) and most were approved (6) and are now online

On the remaining 3, they were returned with the following message

Curator comments:
Editorial captions must include day, month, year, and geographic location information and a description. Descriptions, keywords, categories, and locations must be accurate, descriptive, and relevant to the subject matter, and must be in English. They should not contain any potentially objectionable or offensive language. Remove special characters or repetitive words/phrases and check spelling/grammar errors.

The particular videos weren’t marked as editorial (therefore don’t need a date and location data), all data is accurate and relevant as far as I know, and all of it is in English, and I haven’t used any offensive language

The only thing listed that seems to pertain to me (that would cause it to be returned) was “special characters”, as I used quotation marks and the cent symbol (¢), I used quotation marks in the title/description of two videos and the cent symbol in the description and as a tag in another video, and these were the 3 videos returned

I went in and edited the title/description of the two videos with quotation marks to remove them and resubmitted them (I have not edited and resubmitted the one with the cent symbol yet)

These videos were titled/described…

Title: “Edison” Steam Locomotive In Greenfield Village

Description: “Edison” No. 1 Steam Locomotive in Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, manufactured by Manchester Locomotive Works and modified by Ford Motor Company

And

Title: Model “Extinction” Train Going Around The Track At Columbus Zoo And Aquarium

Description: Model “Extinction” train going through the “Extinction Tunnel” and around the track, in Asia Quest at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

Which I changed to

Title: Edison Steam Locomotive In Greenfield Village

Description: Edison No. 1 Steam Locomotive in Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, manufactured by Manchester Locomotive Works and modified by Ford Motor Company

And

Title: Model Extinction Train Going Around The Track At Columbus Zoo And Aquarium

Description: Model Extinction train going through the Extinction Tunnel and around the track, in Asia Quest at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

These two videos were just restricted with the following message

Curator comments:
This content has been previously returned. Please do not resubmit without making the required corrections. **

But as shown above, I did make the required corrections, otherwise I’m not sure what corrections I need to make

I wonder if there is a glitch, as my editorial footage, with all details filled out correctly, were also returned. 32 clips in total. I sent a message to Pond5, and just waiting to hear back if it has been sorted out. Very strange.

Hopefully so (and that they fix it), very strange indeed

I tried adding a note to the curator and resubmitting them, but it won’t let me submit them (I guess because they’re marked rejected), I might try deleting them and reuploading them with the updated title/description and see if that works

Let me know if you get a response and what they say about it

@Michael47340, will do. I sent another message to pond5, as have no idea why it is taking so long to sort out. The reviewer has made the mistake. All editorial details are there, plus same clips accepted at SS without any problems.

I have had similar nonsense happening. Shots returned and yet similar with tags have been accepted.

To be honest, it has occurred to me that one of the curators is young, over-zealous or simply doesn't understand what is required. I have had shots returned and am greatly irritated for one or more reasons. Firstly, I do not think it is right and secondly I am at a loss to know what is wrong.

I submitted some shots of Haunebu flying saucers. There are photographs of these craft and eyewitness accounts, even the names of the German designers are known. Haunebu is the name of this craft, supposedly because the test range was in Hauneburg. Is someone objecting to this as a brand name?!!! Or are they objecting because it is a German word? Would they object to the word Mercedes or Messchershmitt?

I submitted a TicTac UFO. This too was returned. That is the name by which US Navy pilots refer to them and if I type Tictac into the search engine, loads of shots appear with tictac in the title. Why are my shots being returned?

Please, Pond5, sort this out. At the very least, stop giving such vague reasons. If you object to a tag or tags, state which ones you want removed. We are not mind readers.

I also submitted Area 51 Bob Lazar flying saucers. These too have been returned. There are LOADS of shots which come up if you type Bob Lazar in.

I am so sick of this.

I've also had ufo-related shots rejected with the reason: "we are no longer accepting this type of content".

But these clips were accepted on SS. It's getting harder to get things accepted on P5 these days. Crazy times.

@ Michael47340, all clips are now online. Pond5 sorted out the error. Hope you get help too.

UPDATE

Well, everything’s a mess now

So since I couldn’t resubmit them (since they were rejected), I decided to delete and reupload them, then copy over my changes

When I attempted to reupload them, despite the fact I deleted them, I got a dupe alert, so I tried renaming them (twice) and still got the dupe alert (apparently they check by the video content and not the filename)

I sent an email to support and got this response

Madita (she/her) (Pond5 Support)
May 29, 2024, 7:21 AM EDT

Hello Michael,

Thank you for contacting the Pond5 Customer Care team.

It appears the files were returned as they still don't meet the Editorial Guidelines.

You are welcome to check out our Guidelines (not just for Editorial Content) here in the Contributor Portal: https://contributor.pond5.com/getting-started/legal-guidelines/

Regarding the Editorial Items:
Editorial caption is metadata in your title or description in this format:
Day, month, and year the image/video was taken (if content was shot before the year 2000, only the year/decade is required)
City, state/country of where the content was taken
A factual sentence that describes the content’s subject matter
The Editorial Checkbox must be checked

Don't worry so much about the Location and Date fields on the Edit Item page; it is more important the information is in the Title and/or Description.
Here is an example of a clip with an editorial caption https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/258181124-pena-palace-sintra

If you can add this information, we can then help you send the files for further review.

Kind regards,


Madita (she/her)
Technical Customer Care Advocate | Compliance Analyst

A couple problems here

1. I’m not sure what triggered them as Editorial (the one I haven’t resubmitted yet could be considered editorial as it references a brand name, but the ones I mentioned shouldn’t as they weren’t really any different than a few videos that were approved)

2. Like @PiaPoi said, we aren’t psychic/mind readers, you can’t just return/reject something, post a boilerplate message as the reason and just expect us the know the reason why, then when we try to fix the issue, say that we didn’t make the change (that we had no idea we needed to make)

Okay, but now since Madita finally told me what the issue was directly without yet another boilerplate response (which I don’t fully agree with, but whatever, I don’t mind making those changes now that I know), they should have cleared the dupe alert and I can reupload them to make the changes I now know I need to make, right?… RIGHT?!?!?!

NOPE!!!

Just tried reuploading the videos so I could make the changes Madita asked for and got another dupe alert

So I can’t upload the videos or it will just trigger the dupe alert, the videos are no longer there because I deleted them, and I don’t think I can continue the ticket with Madita as I think she closed it (I might be able to, not too sure)

Welcome to...The Twilight Zone

Another update

So I replied to the message from Madita (hopefully the ticket is still open) asking if those two videos could be relisted or if the dupe alert could be cleared so I can reupload them, so now I’m just awaiting a response

In the meantime, I did some research on what content is required to be marked as editorial and found this

Content marked as "Editorial Usage" is content that is newsworthy or of general public interest and is not cleared for advertising, promotional, merchandising or any other commercial uses.

These files have uncleared faces, voices, music, or logos in them that would need to be obscured or cleared using model/ property releases to make the clip acceptable for commercial use. This content is intended to be used only in connection with events or topics that are newsworthy or of general public interest such as Documentaries, News stories or Educational productions.

So as I suspected, the video I did not resubmit yet was returned because it has a logo (classic McDonald’s logo with Speedee), fair enough

The Edison train video was returned because it contains “uncleared faces” and I don’t have a release for them, I kind of knew this going into it, but thought it might slide by as it is a group of people and the focus wasn’t on any particular person or group of people (some stock media sites allow this so I wasn’t sure), so again, fair enough

The model Extinction train video on the other hand I feel was mistakenly returned

• There are no people in the video, therefore no “uncleared faces”

• All the videos I have uploaded (including this one) I have silenced before uploading (I have read from the P5 blog they prefer you to do this anyway unless the audio is required for context or is in some way relevant to the video), so no voices or music

• There are no logos (or any mottos or trademarks, registered or not, related to any company) anywhere in the video, I think they are getting hung up on the word “extinction”, thinking it’s some sort of brand name or something, like that it’s the name of the company that made the model train or is the train brand or something, really it’s in reference to endangered and extinct animals (the model train is in an exhibit at the zoo, not shown in the video, as it’s above the model train, is a “departure” board for animals that are either endangered or extinct)

Like I mentioned earlier, once (or if) I can, I plan to just submit these three videos as editorial in order to comply to their requirements, but I feel they need to communicate better with us and not make decisions on things they may not understand, the curators may be experienced, but it’s not like they know everything