It has come to our attention that some unsavory users have been using our messaging features inappropriately.

Some spamming, some abuse, some people just being mean, things like that.

We take our job very seriously.  We do everything we can to monitor the usage of our systems and ensure they are being used for their intended reasons.

In our effort to keep our systems clean, we have added a new feature on the messaging panel.  It allows you to report abuse from a user.  You may report any user that has sent you a message.  You can report a user only once.

If you choose to report abuse from a user, click on the “Report Abuse” link under the display of who sent the message.  Then enter a detailed reason as to why you feel this user has abused the messaging system.

After you submit the Abuse Report, a member of our staff will review it take any needed action.  The action may be up to and including banning a user depending on the action taken. We will take abuse reports very seriously. Each and every one will be investigated and reported to the reporter and reportee  (in email form) as to what the resolution of the Abuse Report is.

We hope this will help stem abuse of our systems.

Filed under: Suggestions by PrimeModeling Date 21 July, 2008
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In our continued strive to make the site easier and faster to use, we have added another link on the browse page that enables agencies to contact a member right from the browse page.

Prior to this change, agencies would have to go to the model’s profile page to initiate contact.  Now, they can cut out a step to make it easy and faster.  This will ultimately lead to more agencies contacting more members.

Filed under: Messages> Usability by PrimeModeling Date 9 July, 2008
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Sometimes as websites grow in visitors, they are presented with issues they never thought of.

We’ve been experiencing a higher number of ratings than we are used to. As a result, we have been forced to adjust how we accept ratings.

We always have to walk the line between open and easy user actions, being fair to everyone, and making it as hard as possible for bots to wreak havoc on information.

Without getting too specific, we can tell you that now, how often your profile is rated effects how important that rate is.  Various things like IP address, number of ratings, frequency of ratings, and more are all factored in.  We try our best to structure these rules given normal rating behavior so that most visitors never notice.  The vast majority of website visitors and profiles are rated normally. But we just thought you should be aware of the small enhancement to ensure as genuine and as valid of data as we can.

Filed under: Ratings by PrimeModeling Date 2 July, 2008
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We apologize once again for the site being slow over the past couple of days.

For some reason, someone was running a denial of service attack on our servers, and it was slowing things down.  We increased and tweaked our firewall settings and now are happy to announce that it has been fixed.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Filed under: Main by PrimeModeling Date 14 May, 2008
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We’ve received several comments from agencies that we needed to enhance the “Saved Profiles” functionality.  We put this in place so that agencies could keep track of profiles they’re interested in with a simply click of a mouse.

Today, we upgraded and enhanced the functionality of the Saved Profiles by allowing agencies to easily email and remove profiles they have saved.  This makes it easier for them to manage the members they are interested in.

Filed under: Suggestions> Usability by PrimeModeling Date 9 May, 2008
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As the internet expands into more and more pages, it becomes more and more important to hear from word-of-mouth references where to go and what to do while on the internet.

To make this sharing of information easier, you will now notice your profile pages have a “Share” widget in the “Quick Links” area at the top-right of the page.  This widget allows you to easily bookmark, email, share on Facebook, MySpace, or Blog any profile you wish.

It is our goal that this will help the outstanding profiles get noticed easier because it allows anyone that sees the profile to easily share it with his or her friends.

Filed under: Suggestions> Usability by PrimeModeling Date 5 May, 2008
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For awhile yesterday (Apr 21), you may have noticed that the site was acting a little slow, and and some of the ratings functionality was haphazard.  We were a little baffled by this for awhile.  However, we found the cause of the problem and now the site loading fast as normally and back to fully functioning.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

Filed under: Main> Usability by PrimeModeling Date 22 April, 2008
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We’ve changed the look a little bit of the ratings box. We’re trying to draw a little more attention to the ratings box on the both rate page and the browse page so that visitors will be more likely to rate and give everyone a better idea of who is the highest rated.

We have received some comments from both members and agencies that the rating functionality was not prominent enough and this is our attempt to fix it. You’ll notice now it has a black border and the background is white.  The white background helps when the rating is on a highlighted listing.

Filed under: Ratings by PrimeModeling Date 13 April, 2008
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Today we are rolling out a new feature–The Highlighted Listing.  The highlighted listing helps your profile stand out by giving your listing on the browse window a different background and different border.  This is a great, easy, and affordable way to draw more attention to yourself and your Prime Modeling profile.

To purchase a highlighted listing, login, then click on “Gain Exposure”.  From that page you can see how many highlighted listings you have left as well as purchase more.

This is our solution to a growing number of users that want to stand our from the crowd.  Modeling, like many things in life, is about differentiating yourself from others.  You want agencies to see you more and to see that you’re committed to promoting yourself and your career.

Filed under: Main by PrimeModeling Date 10 April, 2008
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In general, the modeling industry has its fair share of bad apples.  There are those willing and unfortunately even eager to take advantage of people.  We are 100% fully committed to the safety and well being of our members.  We try our best to provide a valuable service.  We connect prospective models with agencies interested in them.

While we try as hard as we can to police what goes on on Prime Modeling, we simply cannot monitor everything.  We do our best to check into agencies when they sign up to ensure that they are indeed real agencies and not scam artists.  We like to think that we do a pretty good job.  But because of the amount of members, agencies, and messages that use our system on a daily basis, we know we don’t catch everything.

Here are some tips to make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of:

• Be careful giving out personal information.  Agencies don’t need your social security number.
• Be very leery of anyone asking you to pay them.  ESPECIALLY if it requires wiring money to someone.  If someone needs you to wire money to them, it’s probably not a good idea to.
• If meeting an agency or rep of some sort,  make sure it is in a public place or a real office somewhere.  Modeling agencies have offices and do business during business hours. Make sure it’s legit and safe to protect yourself.

With this being said, we wholeheartedly believe that well over 99% of the activity on Prime Modeling is 100% legit.  We’re just trying to look our for you and for us.

Filed under: Main> Suggestions by PrimeModeling Date 9 April, 2008
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