I post this here after a former post in the Poser forum, because I think this is the right place: I would have two suggestions for improvement of the galleries manageability for the viewers: 1. Put a rule that thumbnail must represent the picture in full and not only in part. I know, it is fun and creative to cut thumbnails, I do that too. But a whole picture thumbnail is much more useful to users that browse a big gallery, it lets you understand immediately if you may be interested in a picture or not. It would speed up browsing and make the flood of images posted much more manageable 2. Create a "Premium" art gallery where members are allowed to post not more than 1 or 2 images per week. Preferably 1, I would say. This Premium gallery will act as a "showcase" where the best of each artist is represented. This way, it'll be much easier to know new artists and their work, and then maybe be able to add them to favorites and track them. Finally I would suggest to power up the favorite artist function, by making it private, so one does not have to clutter his own Rosity homepage with a long list.

I just wanted to add, that my suggestion goes in the direction of adding options, instead of the direction of subtracting or limiting. It is never good to put limits on art, even if it's not-so-good art. My suggestions would (I think) enhance significantly the galleries use, without subtracting any of the present possibility of expression for everyone.

1. The regulation of "cut thumbnails" would be overwhelming, to say the least. We gets hundreds of new uploads daily, it just isn't possible to make sure each thumb represents the full pic. 2. You would be creating a way for some members to only look at "the best", and to avoid everything else. 2. Who is going to be the judge of the members uploading to Premium" art gallery? Who is to say "that's not good enough for this gallery"? One can always add their favorite artists gallery as a "favorite" in their web browser. You don't get an e-mail notification when they upload a new pic, but most members don't seem to like that anyway, which is strange, imo. But, that way, your favorites would be private.

Maybe "premium" was not the right word, and leads to a big misunderstanding. I only meant a place where upload is limited, so that there won't be the huge deluge that makes good pictures difficult to spot. There would be no selection for that premium gallery, ecveryone would be able to post, only, with a limit of 1 or 2 max. pictures per week. About the thumbnails, I think that the way the thumbnails are now, is probably the main problem of the galleries. Cryptic thumbnails that show only a naked tit or a gun, do not help at all in understanding what the picture is about, which is THE function of the thumbnails. Considering the way thumbnails are currently used (i.e. almost useless if not plainly deceiving), it would be much better not to have thumbnails at all. At least, the speed would increase and server load decrease.

I hate to say it, but I sometimes like the cryptic thumbnail better than the complete graphic. :( But please don't get rid of the thumbnails. As soon as I see a plastic breast filling a thumbnail, I know to skip right past that graphic. Makes it so much easier to browse the gallery.

I like using cryptic thumbnails for my artwork. And I will continue to do so. I am thrilled that other members discover my work despite the cropped thumbnail images which only show a bit of what I would like them to see. I don't mind if this "style" doesn't allow me sufficient exposure and that other members won't be interested to have a look. I apologize that this is "inconvenient" to some viewers, but if your suggestion is adopted... and since thumbnails are optional anyway... I would probably opt to drop using thumbnails entirely than to yield to this imposition on my personal style as an artist. Hiding your "favorite artists" list on your own home page sounds like a good option. Regarding your second suggestion of an exclusive "premium" limited posting allowed gallery... I'm not sure I follow the line of reasoning here. It's just one more thing to monitor from the site management side, and one more thing to abuse from the other side. I like it that you are adding to the features of the site, but I would skip this function entirely since it sometimes takes me several weeks before I get an image uploaded. Despite the time it takes to get my images out the door, I would hardly classify my output as "premium". :o) Cheers! - M

I usually bypass images without a thumbnail or cropped thumbs. Too many times I waisted my time and bandwidth only to find it's nothing like the thumb suggested. As for another gallery...I have a hard time checking all the galleries rosity has now.

You know what's pretty funny?...Orio has some partial thumbnails. I don't mind someone setting up an artbitrary rule but it would be nice if the person was consistent about its usage. One rule doesn't fit all so why not leave things as they are ... which is letting the posters make the decision. If they lose you as an audience, oh well....maybe you weren't their target audience to begin with. And no one has to "clutter up" the artist's page with a list of favorites....just bookmark them in your browser instead of making an online list if you only want your own stuff on your artist's page.

Dialyn's right. This has been an argument since I've been on here and probably before. People prefer different methods and different viewing habits. I am the exact opposite than Lon Chaney. Full image thumbnails often don't appeal to me, but for a different reason. I often find them hard to figure out what the scene is about. Some images just don't shrink down well to properly show the intent of the picture. Also, if it's not something that totally catches my eye, I don't look. The same could be said for partial thumbnails, so why legislate which one is right? I do think that one should use a thumbnail that is some part of the picture, unless there is a reason not to. Like my christmas pic (2001) had an elf as the thumb, because I wanted to showcase the elf for christmas, but the picture itself wouldn't allow the elf to be more than a few pixels. So it was a natural progression. But other than that, I always choose a portion of the actual picture (or even the whole one sometimes if it shrinks properly).

To Moebius, I think you are too modest...(not premium? Yeah, I should be so not premium...)

As for a showcase gallery, how about a sidebar thumb that rotates with every page that could show a random artist from a "showcase" list where each artist could enter a single picture that that artist think represents his/her gallery. This would give exposure to single artists. It seems to work rather well in other systems.

I don't mind the favorite artists being public, ahd it is optional. I still wish there was an image thing where one could flag certain images and then get those images later. Sometimes I'm browsing the gallery and the server is either real slow, or time is real short, but I see some great image or even one that I may be able to help with, but I don't have time to comment on it. By the time, I am looking again, I can't remember which ones they were and so miss commenting on many I normally would. The Favorite Image is a good thing as a public thing, but I think there should also be such an image flag feature (a private one). If I made a favorite image of every one I commented on, I'd have a really long list...

PS: I did have my doubts about the favorite artists list, but it can be very helpful. I've discovered many new artists and images I never would have seen...

Cryptic thumbnails are great. They entice and this is what art is about- enticing the viewer. You don't cut the blurb out of a book or cd cover, which doesn't always depict what the book or cd is about. As for the image galleries maybe they should be limited to only one image per day. Lets face it art doesn't grow on trees it is a time stealing activity. Look at traditional art mediums most of the masterpieces were done over years and not 3 a day. The one other thing I would like to mention here is the Free Stuff Gallery. I have noticed that people are now unable to upload to the free stuff gallery because of the immense amount of stuff in it. Just a suggestion and not meant to upset anyone but what about putting an automatic delete in after a certain amount of time like every 6 months or so. This would free up some room for new stuff that people are wanting to upload. This is not saying that people cannot repost after automatic deletion but it keeps people on their toes and probably most stuff from 12 months ago probably is too buried for most to find anyway.

Let the artist decide what they do with their thumbnails. The thumbnail is concerned with how your image is presented: you as an artist should have control. Cropped thumbs often intrigue me, full thumbs often put me off. And I never bother looking at pictures that don't have them.

I agree with charley_mojo, cropped thumbnails entice the viewer, but relate them to the image posted, i have seen a fair few that do not resemble the actual image posted!!!