Dirk has some good ideas there, IMO. It would help open things up to more folks. I've found positive reinforcement to be a MUCH better motivational and creativity enhancing tool than a "big stick" many times when I've had people working for me at my job and it's always such a thrill for someone to have their work make the list. That stuff said, as I read all the stuff written in both forums, there were a couple crackpot notions. Like someone thought that someone a had pulled a "Matt" and voted for themselves a bunch of times in the T-gen gallery. We all learned when Matt "gamed the system" here last year just to show it could be done that the Mods can keep a pretty sharp eye out for "clone votes" when things seem out of whack. One idea I read in the T-gen forum maybe had some merit? The person suggested that votes only be allowed by the artists in the particular gallery where the image is posted. That's maybe something that might help alleviate what set them all off anyhow? I'm probably one of the offending "invaders" and I've occasionally - not always -voted over there. I certainly don't know T-gen from shine-ola and usually got off on the colors or creative arrangement of the mountains/water/clouds without noticing technical stuff that experienced users might. Maybe voting should be only allowed by folks who have posted to a gallery a certain number of times. Not too high a number - maybe 5-10? If I remember right, somewhere there is a page that I think is accessable from one's homepage(?) where you can - or not - select a "genre". As long as it's possible for an artist to select more than one genre - say maybe they do fractals and Bryce, for instance. Those would be things the software could look at to decide if a vote was "allowed". The compaining folks arguments weren't totally without merit - mostly their tone and the effect on the person they were mad at. We've seen here, as well, when sometimes an image gets to the top of the H20 and 90% or more of the commentors are people you've never heard of and the posting person's fave's lists contain zero fractal artists or fractal images. It's something that's caught my eye b4 but certainly wasn't worth losing sleep over but it does sound like one of the things the T-gen folks were upset over. Another thing that might make folks feel better might be to discourage/disallow the "V" thing in comments? I'm sure many folks just say it to convey their pleasure in viewing the image but there are also those who say it under almost EVERY image. Even if it isn't their intent, to someone hypersensitive to this stuff maybe it can smack of "vote swapping" or "trolling"? And then you have the ones that say "V" but didn't really vote - lol! I'm sure this stuff is a source of grief to those who were upset, too. Voting is supposed to be private and uncoerced and is the reason why there are curtains and/or barriers on the voting machines when citizens vote in democratic countries. I don't know. As I read back over what I've written I reckon I can see cons to my ideas, too. The "belonging" to a gallery thing, especially, might feel like disenfranchisement to newbies I suppose. Or just scrap the H20? Of course then they'd probably start to complain about the ranking system - lol. Just trying to offer help/suggestions/ideas - Hopefully SOME good will come of this mess but it all boils down to basic civility and professionalism and following Keith's advice not to take this place so seriously that you can't shut it off when you power down your pc. Hopefully we can keep the friendly, supportive vibe around here and move past this stuff and maybe even be better for it. Damien Jones recently set me straight on how much more helpful a personal website actually is than these large sites where artists can't easily be spotted amid the thousands of other talented artists. Though, a presence here certainly doesn't hurt by any means and has helped me a LOT and I'm thankful that I discovered this site. c-ya! Rick