Opinion from a newbie.

I'm new to Renderosity's fractal community though I've been posting Bryce images to 3Dcommune for around eighteen months now so I'm not totally new to art communities.

I really do like the hot20 as a way to spot some superb images that I might have missed in the main gallery. It's good that you can't vote for an image by going from the hot 20 page. That makes a lot of sense.

Yes, even as a newcomer I felt that I could sense some people might have got in through buddy voting but it doesn't ruffle my feathers terribly. I'm familiar now with how comments or votes very much depend upon so many various factors... personally, I'm glad I'm not a moderator as sometimes the fawnings over moderators can make me cringe. I'd rather know that if someone likes my images it's because of the image and not because of some perceived community status.

I wouldn't deny that it would make my day to ever reach the Hot 20 but it's not my defining goal. I just love playing and creating and that is the drive. If other people like what I make it's the icing on the cake but not the cake itself.

I like constructive feedback. Sometimes it's the only way to learn how to do things better, though I do need a thick skin to deal with the difference between someone who tells me technical information (very useful) and someone who interferes by telling me how I should have made the image when they may have not got the gist of what I was trying to portray (more relevant to my Bryce images than my fractals). Sorry, I know that's not a hot20 thing but the commenting and ratings always seem to go hand in hand in any discussion I see on this kind of thing.

Most of all it seems to come down to individual artists being able to see that communities like this one ARE communities. Even though I try to remain fair and look at as many images and comment without favouritism it's inevitable that my eye may be caught by a name who has left me a nice comment and open an image I might not have chosen from the thumbnail alone. And if I don't comment it's often that I am just right out of words that day!

I wasn't sure when I first started about voting because my eye for fractal art is very untrained. Someone could churn out a UF image that was a stock forumla and I wouldn't know because I have no understanding of that program. So making the voting go hand in hand with experience does make a lot of sense. It will exclude people like me voting in the Bryce gallery here because all my images are at the 'other place' ;) but what the heck, nothing can answer every situation.

Good luck with finding a peaceable solution and thanks for caring enough to try and find out what people want and need :)

Kathy

Message edited on: 03/02/2005 07:42