It might be interesting, for a change ,to have the actual named judges of new contests choose their top 10 first and THEN have public members choose the winners from the judges 10 choices instead of always the other way around.......... just a thought.

The way it is set up stops the possibility of cheating in voting. AgentSmith

Oh. OK.

The heck it does!!!Trolling for votes is a fact here that has countless members on rosity fed up and many refuse to even participate in the contests because they get ripped off.So what's trolling?Trolling is when people IM or meet people in chat and specifically ask people to go in and vote for their image.In some cases,the absolute worst images win and even many contest sponsors are sickened by the results...some even try to bypass the community vote altogether for this reason. I myself have been approached by people I don't even know who send me the links to their images and ask me to vote for them just because they found my name on a comment and had no concern that I would turn the IM over to rosity admin...because rosity admin won't do anything about it.This is a "HUGE" problem and everyone says there's no need to approach rosity admin about it because their complaints already fell on deaf ears. The only way a community vote even has a chance to succeed is if you require voters to vote rank at least ten images...if one person approaches them to go vote-they then have nine more they have to rank.Even if their friend reaches two dozen people to vote for them,it only takes a few that don't to turn the odds against them if they don't vote for the trollers image at all. Sorry I seem so angry,but a friend reminded me of the Halloween contest on here and I made the mistake of trying to tell her to rest assured I wouldn't vote for her just because she asked...she never intended me too-but,I've had a few people who thought I had voted for them just because I knew them and am now on the defensive as real friends get angry if they think you assume they were trolling. But the rosity community vote is a farce...I think many people here would agree!!!!

I dont enter contests, nor vote for images...things are a little too 'unfair' around here for my tastes.. its been a major complaint from members for as long as I have been here.... Just my 2 c's

Of course, the thing is , the way it is currently organised stops cheating, don't cha know !

Is there a mod opinion on how IMs and chatroom 'vote for me' requests are not cheating ?
What if.........
for example ,no names or numbers on images- just click on button to vote ? Rotate the images around on the pages daily ? Perhaps all those are unworkable suggestions, obviously I don't know a lot about web technology but there must be SOME way around this problem.
It would be nice if admin and members could have an open reasonable discussion about it instead of ignoring it. A bunch of people screamed about nudity and something was done about it.There must be a solution to this . A growing number of members are not happy about it. Heck, I'd even do images with-out (!!!! ) nudity if entering challenges seemed fairer. Honesty is more of an issue than nudity in my book.

PS-What follows is a little rant thats been building for a while just cuz I'm here:
if one more person cites surfing at work as a reason the nudity off default is good- well I'll just burst !!! Why aren't they WORKING and NOT MESSING ABOUT HERE ? There's other reasons the nudity off default is perhaps a good thing but I don't allow my staff to surf at work. I don't do it there either. They do it on their own time, and if during lunch ,at the internet cafe down the road. Yeah, I'm real MEAN like that.

I still believe the easiest answer is ranking the vote...choose ten images and rank them 1 to 10 so that if you are asked to vote for a friend,you can do so and the other people in the contest still have a fair chance of winning.If the ranking is somehow secret,your friend would know you voted for them but not what position lol.Trolls would find a way around any rotation system by just showing their friends the image they made...send it by email to them.
The same rings equally true of the top 100 images,some images have many viewings either because people troll for comments or simply make comments on a lot of images with the result being that these people return the favor (the latter not being intentional and thus,not trolling).Once you've established a fan base and are on a large number of favorites lists,then you can guarantee a certain number of comments given to you as people who don't even visit rosity still get alerts to your new images and will visit to see what you've done and comment.So even those deserving to be in the top 100 are stained by those who are there because of the system...anyone who judges their talent or ability by it are thusly getting screwed rofl.Now that there's a limit of one image uploaded a day,we'll see if more people can break into the top 100 as it does make it easier to view more artists and comment when you surf the gallerys;)

As for nudity,just hit the nudity box in your profile and those will be screened out right?The only suggestion I would make is that in the case with minors,this option be automatic...if they lie and say they're adults,then its a matter for their guardians to handle and not rositys fault if they take every measure to prevent young people or individuals morally opposed to nudity from viewing it.

Creating the fool-proof "plan" is a difficult one. I like your idea of each member ranking 10 images though, gives more of a variable for the "creative voters" to have to try and circumvent. I don't think the Renderosity Community vote is a farce, but by nature that kind of voting has obvious flaws, not really by Renderosity's fault but by the fact that having a community vote at any stage in a contest relies on some trust, and there is sometimes those that will ignore that trust...But the idea IS to have community participation, so...it's difficult. Great suggestion, though. I'm planning a contest myself, and might just use your idea... AgentSmith

Thanks Agent Smith...have seen a few recent contests where members were forced to rank three images.If you wish to experiment with the idea,start by ranking six as anything less still favors the trolling system and gives a clear indication when someone just copys another members vote after casting theirs for their friend. I do feel most people are honest in these contests,but have seen people who played by the rules and entered beautiful renders lose to terrible images because of trolling.Even those who sponsor the contests are frustrated by this as the point is to reward someone whose talent wins the contest. So,try the ranking system...if you still feel there could be some cheating lol,Spike handled the matter by letting members choose the top ten and he chose the top three himself from the ten chosen by members;)

Yeah, I would like to even try and bypass the chance of members thinking they were adversely judged by the staff. "Staff doesn't like me, so of course I didn't get chosen" kind of thing. Not that I think that's a problem(?), but just trying to conceive the perfect mousetrap. *Bypass it by having outside industry pros or well-known artsts judge the final top pics, etc. Something like that. Even in the Bryce forum challenges we the 3-2-1 voting system that throws a little more "chance" into the voting mix. Although cheating isn't really a concern in the challenges, this provides more of a variable to the possible 3 top winners, makes the outcome a little more unpredictable, little more fun. AS