"Through most of the threads it's been stated that this is not about Legume but about the poll being pulled before the members had a chance to finish voting...but it always seems to come back to Legume not winning." Nope. This certainly isn't what I've been saying--can't speak for anyone else. I've said over and over that I don't care who wins, but that the timing sure looks fishy, and the appearance is that the poll was pulled because the wrong finalist was making a strong run at AOY. Not sure how long you've been around, but R'osity also changed the nomination process for AOM shortly after Legume won, and that looked fishy, too. "My beef is let's make the controversy clear; if it's the PTB's attitude towards Legume...fine...if it's the voting not being left up to the members...fine...if it's a crusade to make Legume the AOY...that's fine too. Let's just call the controversy what it is and stick to it." What concerns me are the first two issues; it's not so easy to seperate them here. I could care less who wins the AOY--all of the finalists are very good.

tammymc: How can management possibly go ahead with selecting an AOY at this point? What's the point? Isn't the whole thing descredited--no matter who wins (even Legume)?

Good. :) Let me get this straight: The AOY voting began and then Legume came into the lead and then the voting was cancelled, or restarted or something? (Hey, what can I say, I wasn't paying attentiion) So now, it's like, foul on R'osity for fixing yet another contest, and the natives are restless once again? Man, there are, like, people starving, and being bombed, and harassed by UN weapons inspectors all over the world, and everyone's upset about this AOY thingie? Y'all oughta be ashamed of yourselves. ;)

MikeJ....you are not allowed to bring up the idea that there are more important things than AOY. We have already be admonished that just because there is war and famine, that we have the obligation to feel equally upset about who wins the AOY contest. You must not put things in perspective or show a global view. Do pay attention...or you might have to sit through the whole discussion on this point again. This is important stuff.

I think people are more upset about "Okay, let's vote for AOY! Hang on, let's not and say we did!"

Attached Link: Proposed Changes to AOY voting

I gotta say, it always tickles me when somebody reads through all 226 posts of a long thread and then says, "what's the big deal? People are starving in N. Korea!" It's true, compared to people starving in North Korea, AOY is NOT a big deal--but if I wanted to write about THAT issue, I'd go to www.starvinginnorthkorea.com, right?

"It sounds to me like R'osity never intended to change anything; member input or not." They'll find a way to fix it, Cyberstretch. Next year.

I gotta say, it always tickles me when somebody reads through all 226 posts of a long thread and then says, "what's the big deal? You're right, this is serious shit, and I didn't by any means intend to negate the seriousness of it. But, you know, here I am, sitting here bored, looking for something interesting to poke my nose into and I find this. Lacking any serious input, or any kind of intellectual insight, and not being in the mood for a fight, I bring up the troubles of the world. Ya know? Nobody's gotta take it seriously, just accept it as one stupid, silly post out of 220-something. Pretty good odds, I'd say. :)

Probably not, Illusions, and that's sad. ;]

COol. I'm making smores. ;]

" can't help but wonder if Legume had not been one of the contenders whether this issue would have been raised to this level, or if it would have been raised at all! " welp it has come up in the past and i have spoken out on it in the past but it never reached this level before shrug . I guess i made your point! For whatever it's worth- if this is what it takes to get contests run fairly and equitably then that's a good thing, in my opinion.

"I can't help but wonder if Legume had not been one of the contenders whether this issue would have been raised to this level, or if it would have been raised at all!" And I can't help but wonder, if Legume had not been one of the contenders, whether the vote would've been yanked in the first place. You're laboring under the misapprehension that Legume or I created the issue here--in fact the issue is management's inability to run a fair and honest contest.

The question is never answered, what would be the motive to conspire against Legume? You keep making the point over and over and over again that the whole series of mistakes around the AOY has to do with Legume, but never is there any rationale for doing so. Is he blackmailing Tammymc? Did he have an affair with someone and this the result of an aborted love triangle? Did he threaten to build a nuclear bomb? Why would they create such a ridiculous series of missteps just to keep Legume out of the AOY, and irritate you? The whole thing is just too absurd. I like farce as much as the next person, but this stinks as a plotline. I'd like my marshmallows floated on hot chocolate in my new Viking Kittens mug, please. "Vahalla, I am coming."

Legume upsets people. Legume is beyond politically incorrect--sometimes he's flat out offensive. Legume makes pictures of talking turds. Legume makes trouble. Legume is antithetical to and contemptuous of R'osity's officially approved, product-driven aesthetic and shiny new corporate image. Legume is a huge pain in the ass. As AOY, Legume would represent the best and brightest that R'osity has to offer--the site would be obliged to promote him and his work, and give him lovely prizes at their not inconsiderable expense. Picture Legume walking the aisles at Siggraph wearing a "Renderosity Blows" t-shirt. THAT's the motive. Legume is a Big Scary Freak and R'osity would rather bathe in a tub full of scorpions than let him be AOY. If you ask me. And you did.

If you think I'm making this up, by the way, just remember the utter shitfit a chunk of the membership threw when Legume won AOM--people actually flamed him in the "congratulate the AOM" column; look at all the hatemail he gets in the form of gallery responses; look at R'osity's changes to the AOM nominating process DAYS after Legume won. Hey, I wouldn't want him promoting my business, either. But that doesn't make it fair.

Yeah, Legume is so powerful that all the Renderosity community shakes at the sight of him. It would make great sense to draw as much attention to him as possible in order to keep him from being AOY--because, of course, everyone was educated in the school of the Three Stooges. Not buying it. Makes no sense. Legume enjoys attention. He likes to stir up controversy. He posts what he wants to post whether messages or graphics. He hasn't been censored any more than anyone else on this site, maybe a little bit less (because he is big bad Legume?), and he promotes himself without restriction. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it...his stuff doesn't interest me but I know a lot of people find him a great wit and a talented artist. I'm no artist...I won't argue that point. But is this a person I'd make a clumsy attempt to keep out of AOY in order to bring him even more attention?....I don't think so. Not unless I had a lobotomy. I think you're sincere in your conspiracy theory. I don't doubt your passion for a second. Legume is lucky to inspire such advocacy. But do I believe it? No. It just doesn't hold up as an idea for me. I'd need more proof than what you just offered to buy into such nonsense. People make mistakes and in trying to correct their mistakes, they often make them larger rather than smaller. In this case, human stupidity seems a more likely culprit than the conspiracy theory just set down before me. That's my opinion, worth nothing on these forums, and I'm going back to Dr. Geep's class because that makes more sense than anything I just read. Yeah, I deleted the first one and reposted. Spell check, this place needs spell check.

And since none of that happened... ;]

Why would anyone, knowing how little it takes for people to pull their flame throwers out, do something like this on purpose just to keep you from getting AOY? Am I the only one that sees something ludricrous about this picture. It makes no sense. I know your universe revolves around Legume, but not all universes revolve around you. It just plain doesn't make any sense. But I guess logic has no place on Renderosity.

And a bunch of posts from peole saying that the people demanding plausible explanations are conspiracy theorists. "I've looked at life from both sides now....."

Well, we agree on something. I'm outta this thread. The conspiracy theorists can have the floor with my blessings. This is theater of the absurd but I have to feed my dogs. So much for 2003 being a better year. SOS...Same Ole' S....oh, you know.

Look, I'm basing my thinking on what management does, not what it says. What they say is: they changed AOY voting last year but forgot to tell anyone. In fact, even THEY forgot they changed it, so they put the poll up again this year (just like last year), and told us all to go vote. Then, three days later they remembered they'd changed the rules a year ago and took the poll down, oops, our bad, sorry--we'll pick the AOY for you because of past voting problems, but of course it's still ok for you to vote for AOM, that's different. What management did, out where everyone could see it, was put the poll up, leave it up for three days, encourage us to vote, then take the poll down just as Scary Freak Legume was making a run at the lead. What's been done in this case is weirdly disconnected, for me, from what's been said--and this certainly isn't the first time I've had that feeling around here. Management has a long history of shooting from the hip (directly at its feet) when issues of control arise, so it doesn't seem like a big stretch to me that they might be doing something similar here. Think what you want, dialyn, of course (you're welcome), but R'osity's track record around contests and control issues hasn't exactly been flawless. All I'm really saying in all of these threads is hey, this looks bad, please give us an explanation that's forthright and makes sense. So far, I haven't heard one. Apparently oops/sorry is their story, and they're sticking with it.

You left out x2000 getting a weeks banning during this for pointing out a previous case of an Admin fixing a contest. And mentioning the discussion of it in admins forum that was posted elsewhere, Mosca. Pretty wierd goings on, ne?

Yep. Even for here. Maybe dialyn's onto something with her lobotomy theory.

snicker "Hey! Let's play Keep away from Frosty!"

dialyn, I hope you got permission from the copyright holder(s) to post that image! ;0) j/k

Well, the copyright holder sent it to me and a few thousand other people and did not indicate a restriction on its use. I did not scan it, alter it, or claim it as my own. So there you go.

Tammymc has asked me to make a comment to this thread in regard to the issues surrounding contest voting. This thread is entirely too long for me to acknowledge comments and suggestions made by everyone here - so I'll just state the issues that we face in regard to programming as well as being fair to all members of the community. 1.) We do record IP Addresses of each member. However, we cannot exclude multiple votes from one IP Address given that so many members of the community have dynamic IP Addresses assigned by their ISP. 2.) We do have programming constraints in place that will only allow each member/username to vote one time. 3.) We are discussing the pros and cons of putting restrictions on how quickly a newly registered member will be allowed to vote to minimize clone voting. However, this is far from fool proof as well since the clone may not be able to vote for a limited time - but once the probationary period has ended the clone will be able to vote on everything. We are also undecided on whether or not it is fair and welcoming to new members to be placed on "probation" because they are new to the community. 4.) We have limited time and/or personnel available to allocate to babysiting the contests and investigating each and every "suspected" clone. 5.) In addition, we have constraints in place that make it difficult for members to register excessive amounts of clone accounts. With that said - we are still discussing ideas on making the voting processes as fair and clone free as possible and are willing to consider any viable options suggested by the community. Thanks. Tommy

"So a "chunk of the membership" is against Legume...hmmm...if that's the case then maybe the PTB's are responding to the wishes of the membership! EGADS say it ain't so!" Well, if they're responding to the wishes of a portion of the membership by discriminating against a particular member, even though that member hasn't violated the TOS, they're discriminating. When contest prizes are involved, businesses, charities, etc. have to abide by their own rules. "Actually they did tell everyone, some people just don't want to remember that fact." Some people seem to want to remember it SO MUCH that they're willing to say they saw the post, though they can't remember exactly when or where and can't track it down so the rest of us can see it, too. "Actually, Tammymc explained the poll was posted accidentally, it was her fault, she mis-communicated! OH MY GOD TAMMYMC IS HUMAN AND MAD A MISTAKE...GET THE TAR AND FEATHERS!" That's management's official explanation all right. It doesn't really explain HOW it supposedly happened, though--what does "mis-communicated" mean? I mean, did she say "anybody want a bagel?", and the programmers thought she said "put the AOY poll on the front page with the little blue logo and tell everyone to vote and leave it there for three days?" It honestly doesn't make sense to me, illusions. And I certainly don't advocate tar and feathers, or any other unpleasantness--all I'm asking is for management to fix the problem in a way that's fair to all the contestants.

tutone1234: Thanks for the post. It's good to know what you can do, clone-wise, and what you can't. What still hasn't been explained, though, is why clone voting is such a big concern for AOY, but apparently not a problem for AOM (unless the newly posted AOM poll on the front page is also a "mistake"). Could somebody please address that?

The way the AOM/AOY works is.. 1. Mods and admins nominate artists from specific galleries during specific months for the AOM. 2. Members vote for the monthly AOM 3. Mods/Admins vote for the AOY. We want members to be able to vote. This has been the best system that lets members vote and decreases the amount of AOM/AOY fraud. tammy

"We want members to be able to vote."

You do ?
"3. Mods/Admins vote for the AOY."

This is wrong wrong wrong ! The most important vote
is taken away from us. You tell us that we can vote
monthly but cannot vote for the big one ? Well thats
the way it is it seems but I don't have to like it !!
This AOY voting method is totally devoid of logic !

The 12 AOY artists have been chosen, just like the
nominee's for AOM. We should be able to vote for the AOY
just like we get to vote for the AOM. Anything else is
ludicrous !

No biggie, just call it what it is- an elitist title given to a chosen few selected for a limited vote, and then honored by selection of the few moderators and administrators. I know, call it "Miss/Mister Rendersoity", and have a swimsuit contest. ;)

"I know, call it "Miss/Mister Rendersoity", and have a swimsuit contest. ;) " DOH! now that was a visual i could have lived without ;P

LOL! Seriously- if you are going to really pick artist of the minute, month, year, whatever... it has to be voted for openly by all members. But it isn't going to happen because the admins won't let us vote untin the come up with the 'absolute perfect cheatproof cloneproof goofproof or your money back guaranteed' system. Well, it ain't gonna happen. So we have the 'Rosity Academy Awards- merit awards given to carefully selected entrats based on (supposedly impartial) judges' high standards. That'll work. Just quit calling it a community thing.

"...the admins won't let us vote untin the come up with the 'absolute perfect cheatproof cloneproof goofproof or your money back guaranteed' system. Well, it ain't gonna happen"

Sadly, that doesn't say much for the membership...does it.

In fact, even THEY forgot they changed it, so they put the poll up again this year (just like last year), and told us all to go vote. Then, three days later they remembered they'd changed the rules a year ago and took the poll down... Well, if that's really the case then I could see what the problem is. I agree with all Mosca essentially said about Legume being something of a threat to R'osity's credibility were he to have to be promoted as AOY. Thing is, I can actually side with that idea. While his work certainly is artsy, to an extent, and some of the best social commentary I've seen around here, it's a far cry from that trendy, "safe" fantasy art that I know the PTB would prefer to present as their choice of the best of the best. Yeah, there's something stinking here, and it's not just Legume's art. ;)

Do you guys all think you know what the admins are really thinking in all this? Are you 100% positive that it's all about Legume to them? And where's the proof?

Mistakes happen and they've proven that professionalism isn't their strong point. At least Tim has. Why is it so hard to believe that they simply made a mistake. Again.
I do agree they sometimes appear to be making this all up as they go and now we have past mods making the same type of comments that they used to lock threads for but eventually they'll get it right. Till then, find proof that it is all about Legume before you continue this into the next AOY.

I never said it's all about Legume. I said it's not a community participation event, as is, other than in a very controlled manner. I prefer open nominations, and open voting, but that's me.

Kendra--all I know is how it looks, which is bad. The poll goes up and they tell us to vote. The poll comes down when Legume gets close. Management apologizes again and again but they don't explain how such a "miscommunication" could've happened--instead they send shills to attack the people who are asking questions. A presentable and aesthetically correct and MP friendly finalist (the anti-Legume) is appointed AOY. Take all that in context with management's past behavior Legume/contest-wise, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say, hey--what the fuck is going on?

All I'm saying is that it's possible. I'm definitely not a shill for them (anyone who knows me knows that) I'm all for giving them what-for when they deserve it but they've said the decision was made long ago and it was a screw up.
Whether they've made clones to discuss this, I don't know but they've been pretty silent about the whole thing. We've been much more vocal about it than they have and there are definitely people here who are using it to further their grudge against the admins.

I just see it as a very one sided discussion, not as an advocate for anyone, artist or admin. ~ Carry on. ;)

"The poll goes up in error, it comes down when the error is noticed!" I really admire your capacity for unquestioning belief. Good for you. I hope it won't threaten your world view too much if I remain skeptical, though. I'm off to recalibrate my secret-agenda decoder ring. Ciao.

Wait a second.. Legume makes pictures of talking turds?? ROTFLMAO!! wanders off in search of Legumes poo pics....

They're gone--only the Pink Pony remains. It's a big loss for this place, if you ask me. Legume provided an important balance; kind of a NVIAT antidote.

"I really admire your ability to spin, denigrate, and rabble rouse." Hey, kettle! You're black!!!

It's telling, by the way, that you use the word "rabble." That's kind of what this whole debate has been about--the notion that management appears to be playing favorites; that customer-members who don't conform aesthetically and politically are a threat, somehow.

Illusions, there has been a lot of shadow chasing around here, I don't blame the administrators for not wanting to break up their holidays by responding to these threads. They are in a no win, no win situation. If they don't say exactly what some people want them to say, they will just end up with additional nastygrams, and they have enough of those to paper the White House by now. The truth is often more boring than the glamour of a conspiracy. I'm not sure what's being accomplished at this point. We can hurl accusations at each other all day long, but I don't see it fixing anything.

Mission accomplished, then. That's the entire method, in a nutshell- when a problem happens, give a superficial, blowoff explanation, or an apology which costs nothing since no rectification will be done. Then sit back in silence, let the more vocal members voice their dissatisfactions. Then, after about a week, more mebers get tired of it and ask them to stop already. Next, let the whole thing wind to a halt. Everythign is peaceful and quiet again, and nothing has changed. Helluva way to run a business.