In the year that I have been posting on this forum, I have noticed that a lot of the regulars that once posted here no longer care to do so, and if they do, it is very rare indeed. In chatting with some of them, as to the reason, 95 % say that they are frustrated with the voting which appears to be flawed, and biased towards certain artists. The other 5 % claim a variety of reasons, mainly lack of time.
If this is the case, and these folks genuinely think it is, what can be, or is being done, to keep this place the way it once was.
Just asking, no flames:-)) please!.

I have been visiting online forums / communities ever since I first started with the net. What you are observing is just part of the normal cycle of an online community. People get together around a particular subject, spend a lot of time on it for a while.... then their priorities change, real life steps in, they relocate / find a job / get married / graduate / whatever else. After a while, it seems like the 'old timers' are not as involved as they used to, while another set of people take over with a different way of doing things. I would really be surprised if the voting system was the real reason why so many people are not coming back. Once you understand that there is no way around it being used as a popularity contest, it is easier to care less about making it in the top 20. It is nice to be in there, but there are more important things than that :) Like the satisfaction of creating something personal that didn't exist before... for example...

Oh I am not interested in ratings or the top 20. I just thought that as a member who enjoys this forum and using Vue, I should mention what I was told. I stopped checking the rateing box a long time ago , and sometimes I even forget to check the comments box, so please do not think that I am speaking about me. When I stop enjoying the company here it is time to move on, and I will, because I wish to, not because I have to.

No problem... I understand that you were just relaying comments from others. I was just trying to answer your question about 'what can be done to keep this place like it once was'. In short, the only way to make it like it was before is to find the same mix of people and involvement. There is nothing we can really do - that kind of thing just happens by itself.

i think that in our community exists veteran in a position to making to meet vote and comments, is a normal thing... exists artists who, independently from the quality of the image, can move however many comments and vote... this is a fondamental part of the game.... :)

Online communities evolve and change, Joe, just like communities in the real world. (I am thinking you mean the gallery voting, rather than the forum voting?) I don't think voting is skewed towards anyone in particular, at least usually. On any given day, if I look at the Vue gallery Hot 20, the quality of images there is really outstanding. And I think there are still a core of "old" regulars that visit the gallery frequently, to comment and encourage folks there. Not sure what you mean by "to keep this place the way it once was", when I started looking through the gallery a few years back (way before I started posting or commenting), there was a different crew of artists posting there than there has been in the last year or 2. People just drift in and out of online communities, that's a fact of life! As for Davy and I, he is working away most of the time without online access, so isn't able to get to the gallery to comment very often, and I've started a new job that is really eating into my spare time, so I won't be able to comment in the gallery often during the week. I know a few others who have similar situations at the moment. But I think as long as people are posting in the gallery, commenting on images, voting as their heart or spirit moves them, then the gallery is healthy. If folks don't agree with voting/rating/comments, then there is no obligation to do any of that! And they can also disable all of those things when they post their own images. If someone has a problem with votes for images, they don't have to look at the Hot 20 page; if they let something like that ruin their enjoyment of their art or other people's art, I think that's a shame.

As someone who used to participate here a lot and now rarely does, the reason is, other things in my life are happening.... In real life, I'm a musician, composer, and arranger, and I've just been doing more musical gigs, and having less time to do graphics arts, which is something I love, but doesn't bring in any money for me... I think that the voting system is fairer now, since we don't know who's posting until the end... anyway, just posting this to show that yes people do other things in life and participating in forums becomes harder and harder from a time point of view.. :)

I agree with what appears to be the general tenor of the replies. For my own part, entomology has always hitherto been my main hobby interest, and takes up a considerable amount of my time leaving less than I would like for the graphics side... but there are only 24 hours in the day, however I might wish more. This is aggravated at the moment as I have just bought a whole swathe of new and demanding software, but also now find myself in an upsurge of entomological activity rather crowding out the long learning curves. It comes and goes in waves. Still around, but not commenting as much and posting still less.