mac8, you said, "Your statement of "It happens. Get over it" does nothing to help honest people that try to make the hot20 work." Good point. I'll stop mouthing off. You remind me of me a couple of years ago :) If there is a way to make this whole system work with objective fairness, I would love to see it.

Keith - Yeah, the viewing glitch happened as they switched to new server code to handle the increased volume here. Before that there was only one image that had somehow glitched "1500" in that fashion in the view counts. I'm not sure how they would go about fixing it, though - how do you determine how many "real" hits a pic had on those images in a way that's transparent and fair-seeming and won't upset someone? Unless they know the algorithm - ie: each view counted exactly 75 views or something. I reckon it's like lazydog said, above - easier to add new options than hacking back into the code? Sounds like he probably knows something about software. The only software I know about is the "software" that's accumulated around my waistline since I parked myself in front of this monitor a couple years ago and started pushing a mouse instead of a hefty set of metal plates on a stout steel barbell every night - LOL! I reckon maybe the best gage of an image might be the number of viewings it got rather than the number of comments? Probably means more interest in the All/All page and even if they don't comment, they were at least INTERESTED and it caught their eye. When it all boils down to it, I reckon the way things are with the H20 is just natural human animal nature. Though I do try to use my votes scrupulously, I won't say that I've NEVER voted for something that was out of my field of expertise and I even did the "V" thing once, maybe twice, way back when for an artist who seemed really sad and bummed about a low amount of votes and rankings and I just wanted him to cheer up. He made really cool XD shapes. He doesn't post here anymore but mostly just because he just moved on to something else other than XD and fractals. This type of thing is rarely a life-long pursuit, I'm sure. Though I've done them and then quit fractal art numerous times since the 90's and always return. This is, by far, my longest continuous stretch of fractalling and I reckon it's largely due to the amazing - not sure how deserved it is - amount of encouragement I've received here. Nothing kicks up creativity better than a positive attitude as you are making a fractal because you know/think/believe someone actually liked the last one. I think the "back slapping" stuff has some real effect and helps to keep folks keepin' on. Though I completely understand the frustration that that causes to some artists who know/believe their work is technically superior. Moreso than fractals, I reckon a large part of T-gen work does involve technical aspects and photo-realism on top of creative scene building and maybe a schlep like me has no business going there and voting for things like colors or light because they are what a person with an abstract fractal mindset keys on. But there are quite a few fractallists here that have really progressed simply because they wer encouraged to keep at it and have made progressively more complex and skilled images over time. Like William(paragon5), Classylady, Marit and that new guy, Smitty (smitts - lol) is growing by leaps and bounds. There are MANY more, these just came off the top of my head. For all the attention my stuff gets, I've never fooled myself and thought I was any "better" than anyone else. I do fractal art in a certain very work intensive, technical style but that doesn't stop me from admiring images made in a different style or just because there's not a jillion layers to it. Some of the very best fractal ART here is simpler and uncomplicated, very pleasingly composed or harks back to the types that originally attracted me to this obsession and I flip over them because, for all the layers I use - I can't do that! I get lots of (much appreciated) comments - but I know in my heart that I'm still lightyears away from the sheer artistry of someone like Janet Parke or the amazing colorings that Keith or Toby come up with or Linda A, Jackie, Kim and Joey's spirals or the utter coolness of a Simon Kane or Bruno Contant abstract or the texture work of Kuzy and Paul D., the geometries of Klaus-Peter, the amazing scope and layers of Maria Kinsey's "Relativity' and "Still-life", Daneile's "Archimboldo" but I'll keep striving and feel hopeful in part due to the encouragement I receive here. It really DOES help. Other than a few structural changes, I don't see what really can be done to make EVERYONE happy with the system here without cutting off most all discourse between artists here. The rest is just typical human behavior and is how humans are and have been acting in large groups since forever. You're always going to have a mix - Straight shooters, cheaters, brilliant folks who sit aloof, others that try to game the system, nice people, bad people, average people....."fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks - tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox"! lol The thing is that we ALL care and like this "hotdog" we're eating and to try to grin and bear it when it comes without "ketchup" now and then or too much "mustard" for some, try to improve it and also to just learn to shut it off when the pc is shut down. Rick

Rick, nice entry. I'm with you. As far as those three days go, I think reseting the counter down to 100 or so on any image loaded during that time would be the fairest thing to do. I was hoping the everyone would take it upon themselves to delete and reload their images, but that's not going to happen.

Here's another suggestion I thought of: Maybe have separate galleries for artists who are "professionals" in that they do digital art either as a vocation or hope to - or have posted to a particular genre for a relatively long time and wish to join the "pro" gallery. And only allow rankings/votes by their "peers" registered as "pro's" in general and maybe people who have posted to the regular gallery for that genre for quite a while. But let anyone who wanted to comment do so. This might help artists who might have a monetary stake in their work, are very experienced but maybe aren't so active socially or think that that has an effect on H20 votes. Sort of like gaining "experience points" in a MMORPG like "Everquest" or something? Art brokers or agents would be apt to go look there and if they had opportunities, the "pro's" might be more able to quickly zip off print quality/size files because they have already done that type of thing? At least then they wouldn't have their stuff rated against the more social ones or hobbyists (not that being sociable neccessarily means they aren't a good artist, too) which sounds like part of the "problem" some people perceived and they wouldn't have to worry about the "crossover" thing either? Just another idea, or maybe a hare-brained scheme - lol. Just trying to help and maybe if we toss out LOTS of ideas, some might actually be good ones that could be implemented. Rick

yep Vivian, i know about it but guess it was like, a wont-happen-to-me-kinda-thing LOL same with the wintel users have to endure every time they have to connect to the internet, wont happen to me... anyhow i forgot all about it, what i was thinking at the time i was writing that kind of a thing which gives some thoughts, so it wasn't that important anyways well we keep on suggesting, but are there concrete plans, changes, improvements, is there anyone around who just enjoys pushing the button without looking at the quality or the meaning of what the artists intention was to make such an incredible design, which ya made hit that button to give him/her some recognition everyone has its own view on some piece of work the other has accomplished to splatter his creative brains in, so everyone must have another reason to view/watch/comment/ look/stare/vote i catch myself staring at the piece of work someone has created, and speak my admiration not in commenting but in pushing buttons, cause i am often speachless, and let my fingers play the buttons of my mouse i often get that to see from others too, that my piece of work end up in someones favourites, often those pieces of work which didn't take me much of an effort, rarely the most work-intensive artworks doesn't give the viewer as much satisfaction as the days i did i am sorry, i wander around having an open mind and let the fingers do the talking while i should think of something which would help to guide itself a way to a solution to prevent this frustration/anger/confusion/jealousy others seem to find when watching the face of the community, which they call a hot-20, i reckon so everyone who wants to have a disable/enable voting button say "aye" have a nice weekend Harmen

Oh, well, Harmen, I was just trying to be helpful, lol.

Rykk, we already have a 'Beginners' gallery, and very few ever use it. Good thoughts tho. Oh yes, and I didn't even realize about the 'Most Viewed' glitch...I just went and deleted mine! Thanks for the nudge. :)

Message edited on: 03/05/2005 22:29

This place still has a Hot 20? Am I ever in it? :-) Seriously though, I stopped taking any notice of the Hot 20 a long time ago when I realised that it didn't reflect my tastes. Couldn't care less whether my images get in there, it would only be useful to me if I could go there and quickly find the 'best' images from the last couple of weeks that I'd missed, and since it isn't useful for that... Perhaps the problem is that it's The Hot 20, rather than A Hot 20. What about having some way of seeing an individual artist's choice of their favourite recent images? So if I happen to like Dobby's taste in art, I could click a link to see his personal Hot 20 (which wouldn't include his own stuff of course). If I think Dobby's taste sucks, or that he just chooses his friends' images, I don't bother to look at his choices, I look at someone else's. Not having a single, unique Hot 20 list would reduce the incentive for people to vote-swap. Another similar idea would be to be able to filter images based upon who has commented on them. So again, if I happen to like Dobby's taste, then I can just select to view only those Most Recent images which he happened to comment on. Anyway, just a bit of lateral thinking. :-)

Hey all! So glad to see this thread continue this long :D I've already referenced this thread earlier to Admin. It's been discussed extensively with the Mods for some time, but I am assured by Admin that the Hot 20 will be worked on :D Thanks so much to everyone for all the great ideas so far! And to Rykk: As Clint Eastwood said in 'Dirty Harry': "No one, I mean NO one, puts ketchup on a hot dog." :D Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Keep the ideas comin'. It is everyone here that makes this site what it is, and what it could be. Nick

My first reaction to Rykk's suggestion of separate galleries for more experienced artists and beginners was that I'd be really unhappy to see such a split. Few people would look at chains of beginner's pictures (I fear) and so the little snippets of encouragement would be lost compared to being checked out alongside the experts. However, I did get an offshoot idea. Many forums/bulletin boards have a star system for number of posts. If you have made say... ten posts, one star, fifty posts two stars, etc etc (just suggested numbers). The trouble with that, as I can see straight away, is that number of posts is far from indicative of how pleasing to the eye an image is! But it's a starter idea that might trigger someone to come up with something better :) ... that way there would be like age groupings in child art competitions... people who are one to three stars in a different category to the real high flyers and maybe just have a hot five of each or something. Sorry, just thinking out loud and probably writing all over the place. Kathy

Simon, many people choose images to put in their 'Favorite Images' list. You can find them on the Artist's page. Not everyone keeps them up to date, but usually you can just go to the bottom of the list to see the most recently chosen ones. Sadly, I am one who doesn't keep up, lol.

Hi Viv. Yes I know. I'd thought about using the favourite images for that purpose myself, but it's not easy enough. Firstly, you don't get thumbnails, so if you want to put them in you have to hard-code the HTML manually with links to the not-at-all-obviously-named thumbs. Secondly, an e-mail gets sent off to the artist. Thirdly, you have to start doing it (so old images you've seen don't get added automatically) and you have to keep it up. Fourthly, unless you don't mind the list becoming very long (which is especially a problem without thumbs, and when all images get listed on one page) there's a disincentive to add lots of images. From the users' point of view, it's not trivial to find the lists either - you have to navigate to the artist's page, which isn't as easy as it could be. What I'd like is for the process to be a lot simpler. My second suggestion is probably the easiest to implement, you just select an artist and click a link that builds a gallery of images they commented on - it would be in date order and have thumbs, what could be easier? R'osity could also add a link to the list that appears under a viewed image: "By Simon Kane || Gallery | Contact | Images I Like". Having 'People whose taste I like' links on our own pages might also make it easier to keep track of whose lists we find useful (especially if it's a private list). I guess I just think that if the My Favourite Images list was well-designed enough for what I'd like to see, we'd be using it for that already; and since we're not...

A few comments on Kathye's and Rick's ideas: Separate galleries for beginners and experts. I think this is a bad idea, or at least unworkable. Look at all the hoo-ha a while back about what constitutes a fractal image. I can just see all sorts of feelings getting hurt when someone decides to post their stuff in the Experts gallery and others disagree about their assessment of their abilities and decides to say so. I think any system based on the number of posts a person makes is a bad idea, especially if it rewards making more posts. People would post any old rubbish just to keep their star rating up. And in my opinion the relationship between quality and frequency of posting is an inverse one, i.e. on the whole (and there are of course exceptions!) those people that post less often tend to post the best stuff, so if anything, any star system should give higher rankings to the infrequent posters. I think any system that relies upon us to collectively decide what's good is doomed, for all the reasons that the Hot 20 is doomed. That's what I like about my previous suggestion: we get to choose whose opinions we respect, and what's more, we do so privately. If I look at the images Keith thought worthy of comment, I can do so without anyone else knowing I'm doing so, especially Keith. No egos get involved. Anyway, enough for now.

Maybe another idea might be: deserving your right to vote. Say we have a place where you can post 1 image each month, a bit like the Monthly Themed Challenge, and anyone could vote for it there. No names, like in the MTC, so the work would be anonymus. Say that if you make the top 3-5-7 or whatever 3 times, you get the right to vote on images in the main gallery. And you could just vote for fractal images, since you earned your rights in the fractal community. Want to vote for Terragen images, then try to get yourself voting rights in the Terragen community. And maybe when you get yourself voting rights, there could be an obligation on your part, to never let anyone know for which work you voted, so no more "V"s. Breaking that rule could lose your voting rights, and you would have to go through the same qualification process again. Just my thoughts for the day ;-)

There have been lots of creative ideas listed here. Ive not had a lot to say in the forum, and tried to avoid conflict whenever possible. But I can see that everyone here is really trying to be helpful in resolving the issue of the hot 20, which Im glad to see. Like Keith, I have to agree that this place is a community, and there will always be friendships and cross voting, its just human nature. But I also agree with him that this place is just a hobby. Its just for fun and not worth the time and effort if there is going to be constant strife. Those who are serious about their art have websites and those who are lucky enough to market their art in a way that creates some type of income probably dont have the time to flit from one website to another posting in places such as this. This place is just for fun. I think it a good idea to have some sort of showcase for what appears to be the best images of the week, even if these images are voted into that position. I often dont have time to peruse the entire gallery. I take spurts of commenting and voting, and then I take spurts where I dont comment or vote at all. When my time is limited, a quick glance at the h20 is sometimes all I have time for. A page of best images voted on by a panel will still cause, IMO, problems with some. Who is to be the judge and the very fact that a small panel of people would make these decisions might not be popular with some people. I have occasionally voted on some images in other galleries that have knocked my socks off and would be slightly disappointed not to be able to do that, though it wouldnt be the end of the world. I was glad to be able to vote on, say as an example, Rohis newest images, even though I dont post in that gallery and have no working knowledge of some of the programs he uses. I really liked the idea of only voting for a limited number of images per day. One vote only per day would seriously hamper ones ability to vote on images they thought were really outstanding, but perhaps just two or three per day, no matter how many galleries one visited. That would eliminate being able to vote on every other image that you viewed that day, and would make one have to really pause and think before hitting the vote button. Being able to disable votes from your images is a good idea as well. And by all means, disallow the v thing when commenting. I dont use it and think anonymity would be fairer and discourage cross voting. If the hot 20 is to be done away with, I agree that a page similar to the monthly challenges would be an excellent idea. I wouldnt mind at all seeing the artists name with each image, but a page of small thumbnails placed in random order, with no number 1 image, and if it were possible, the order of their random placement to be changed every time a new image was added to this page, would truly showcase these images, (even if they were still voted into this showcase page), and keep it truly random. I dont visit the most commented or most viewed pages of the different galleries, and it would not be any great loss to me if they were deleted. Ive seen and done so many things in the past year that make this all seem, in a way, so very trivial and just not that important. Those that know me, know what I mean. So I still have to smile at the suggestion to lighten up and enjoy Renderosity for what it is. :) Fractals are an important part of my life, or I wouldnt spend so much time trying to make them. They just arent the most important things in life. Its the things outside this computer monitor that are. :) For the most part, there is a wonderful sense of community here and we have all made a lot of friends here, and enjoy conversing back and forth with each other, and truly enjoy being able to view the diverse, unique and talented forms of art posted here. We try to be friendly, most of the time, and try to act like adults. Since this is my only presence on the internet, Ive truly enjoyed being able to be a part of this community, (without charge even!), as I have no web site, or other web presence, and truly hope that the moderators can come to a satisfying conclusion. Theyve got quite lot to chew on here and I applaud their efforts to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Maria

Few suggestions from my side 1.I am for only 1 image in the hot 20 for the same person only the image that has the most votes 2. Each image only one round (weeksession) and not again back in the next round so as I now see so many times 3. Limit votes to let we say 3 or 4 per day for anyone that is already a lot of real masterpieces :-) as you do it on this manner then you have 20 diffirent names and that ,s much more interresting then so as it now works I think nice words, friendship and praise there is the commentline for but are selective in giving a vote Best wishes Arend

1 vote a day keeps the doctor away. this is of course not very helpfull in this discussion. but to be honest, i only realised after 3 month that there was more than a entering list of the day.and i do not much care about hot20s, i hardly visit it. i do like comments on my work and to comment on others if i have time. i allready find it so difficult to comment in simple words instead of the use of superlatives that is common.nice would be sufficient and ranking i dont like at all. everybody just say excellent and that does degrade the system.so, if there must be a voting system for the hot20, then 1 vote a day should be more than enough. im glad its not in my hands to make a sensible decission so i wish rendo the good luck with whatever they decide. monica

Well, lots of suggestions, but it doesn't look like there is much of any way to resolve this issue. For me, I'll just ignore the Hot20 as I do most of the time anyway. The Hot 20 seems to just be a 'popularity thing' and is not definitive indicator of good fractals or good art. I do NOT favor separate galleries for beginners and experts! Some beginners make better fractals than some of the so called experts. Anyway, who/what is an expert anyway? Have fun making fractals that please yourself. Ignore the areas here at RR that you don't like. Ignore the fractals that you don't like. Don't try to win friends and influence others by commenting/ranking/voting on every image that comes down the pike. Marion

hear, hear, i agree with marion fullhearted. monica

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/%7Efractal/FractalWindowWeekly/FracWin.htm

I can see that this has generated a very lively and interesting discussion and brought forth many insights and several commendable ideas that might - if put into practice - relieve some of the stresses. With those who have commented that the Fractal Hot20 is significantly based on popularity, I must agree - though I must observe that this is not exclusively the case. There are many works on it everyday that IMHO are of high artistic merit and - as well - relative newcomers (myself included) who have not been here long enough to acquire a popular following do periodically make it to the list. You can not change human nature by fiat, nor can you by playing games with the mechanisms of the voting machine. People are competitive (whether they admit it or not) and popularity is a factor in any situation involving voting (whether we like it or not). That means to some degree there will always be winners and losers where voting and judgements are involved. That degree will be - for the individual - in proportion to the extent of his or her competitiveness in relation to the meaning and value the H20 has in his or her own mind, and - of course to his or her character. It follows that such a situation will always lead to some members being thrilled and others being disenchanted and/or upset. There is another factor which is vitally important to this discussion and which seems to have been overlooked: time vs. volume. Each of us must lead a real life apart from the time we spend making images and doing whatever we do while visiting Renderosity. Since for most of us the real life and image creation portions consume the larger proportion of our time, that leaves only a limited amount of time for posting, viewing, commenting, ranking, voting and otherwise participating in the community. I made a little measurement a short time ago to satisfy my own curiosity. Since Jan. 1, 2005 (to a couple of days ago) there have been over 5000 images posted to the Fractal Gallery! To me, that is a fantastic number of images in such a short span of time. If you post an image on page 1 in the morning, it is typically on page 3 or 4 (or sometimes even 5) by late evening. I think this is both germane and critical to any considerations for the following reasons: 1. given the volume of image creation and time available to participate, no one is likely to be capable of doing a completely fair and thorough appraisal comparing images to one another before casting a vote. 2. It seems likely that only a small proportion of viewers actually vote on images (very probably dont have or make the time) and, thus, that votes are less representational than we might like to think. 3. When you compare the average number of viewings to the average number of comments and the brevity and non-critical natures of most of those comments, it is clear that viewers are generally not responding for whatever reasons - to the postings robustly. I would conservatively venture that in all probability less than one third of the community comments (and less votes) for the postings made by less than one quarter of the community on any given day. It is not surprising then, that given the large volume and restrictions on personally available time, certain styles, color and shape combinations, software usage preferences, personalities of the posting artists and the like outcompete others for attention and votes and do so on a consistent basis. 4. If points 1 through 3 are valid, it seems to me to follow that circles of like-minded people will form in this virtual world (just as in the real world) and that this will lead to increased competition (often unhealthy), narrowing of focus and interests, exclusions, rivalry, bitterness and bickering - just as we see regularly in politics. Getting rid of the H20 wont change or resolve this. Adding additional Showcasing equivalents to the H20 wont change or resolve this. Relegating judgement to a panel of experts or placing requirements for qualification to vote in a gallery wont change or resolve this. Allowing disablement of the voting button at the artists choice and/or restricting the number of votes a viewer can make in a given time period will not change or resolve this. To my thinking, the only factors that will change and resolve these problems are: more robust participation by a greater proportion of the community and self-adherence by each voter-participant to a set of clearly understood and mutually agreed upon guidelines in concert with what appearance in something like the Fractal Hot 20 means. In my humble view, that last is where the moderators could plays their strongest role through education and advocacy a difficult but worthy task. While I personally feel ambivalent about the H20, post for the satisfaction of sharing with other artists and viewers and value constructive feedback that helps me grow as an artist far more than I value votes, there are a few things that could be done that I believe might improve the H20 (some of these have already been noted by others responding): 1. Limit the number of images any one artist can have in the H20 at any one time and/or increase the size of the H20 to H30 or H50.. 2. Limit the amount of time any image can appear on the H?? to somewhere between 3 to 5 days to increase the turnover and exposure. 3. Formally request (and repeat he request regularly) that voters refrain from signifying to artists when they have voted. While this has to be voluntary by the voters, it could be reinforced by the moderators by inspecting the comments on those images achieving H?? status and either removing those images with vote indications or requesting those whose comments signified their voting to cease the practice (perhaps even disqualifying the images after some significant number of violations). I realize there is considerable controversy over the issue of whether or not votes should be indicated to the artists, so this would really need agreement by a quorum of the gallery to be workable. 4. I would have suggested requiring all postings be anonymous (since Renderosity knows from whom each comes and has records), but I doubt this would help since most artists have fairly distinctive and easily recognized styles and there would rightly be concern about theft of intellectual property if it lacks ownership identification. Sorry for going on so long; it had not been my intent to do so. The issues at stake are thorny ones lacking easy solutions. I hope some of what Ive written proves to be of some help. Best regards, Rik

I have just a couple of thoughts on Rik's well-thought-out suggestions and other postings here:

I think that many of the images voted into the H20 are put there by people who are coming to the Gallery by way of the 'One of your favorite Artists has posted an image' email that they are receiving. This is particularly true when you see an unfamiliar name that normally posts in a very large Gallery (i.e., Poser, Bryce) who is trying their hand at Fractals. They will get hundreds of views and lots of comments and many votes...mostly from more unfamiliar names from the same Gallery. This is not a complaint, simply a fact. Perhaps this could be forestalled by not allowing voting when you click in from email, just like when you click in from the H20 page. Since not very many people really participate in the Fractal Forum, it would be difficult for the moderators to educate the general population, and most likely would be futile anyway.

The Fractal Window is very nicely set up. What mechanism is used to choose the images that will be there? How long will they stay up? Will they be like the Fractal image on the Community page, changed when someone complains at how long the previous one is there? (the image currently there is dated last November!)

I still tend to agree with Marion...forget about it! Just make images and enjoy!

Message edited on: 03/10/2005 16:28

Rik makes some good points. Maybe even a TOS for the "V" thing? Stopping that would eliminate a lot of the arguments against the H20. Though I sure many just do that for encouragement, it does cause some others a lot of grief. Another suggestion: Tally the votes only once per day. that way you couldn't "hawk" your posts and check the H20 after every comment to see if that person voted. I tend to vote for a lot of images some days - maybe limit to 3? Marion and some others have misunderstood my suggestions (the "hare brained scheme" lol) for separate, "professional" galleries to mean "beginner" and "expert". I was merely suggesting a separate gallery for those who did their art for money and trying to come up with some way the original complainers might segregate themselves from the woof and warp of the regular galleries so they wouldn't be "invaded" by, supposedly, "unqualified" voters or at least what they thought were unqualified. Probably not such a good suggestion - just trying to suggest some way for those folks to be satisfied. Rick

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=904834