Yeah, a panel of people picking just their friends and favourite artists was in the back of my mind when I suggested the use of independant judges to pick images, it seems whichever way we want to go someone will find a way to abuse the system. As far as scrapping the art charts I suppose that it may upset the people who are legitimately already on there so I could be on a hiding to nothing.
Of all the ideas put forward so far I think photostars is the best suggestion of only allowing entry to the charts once a month as that would give the none cut and paste commenters their rightful chance of getting in the charts, for 3 weeks anyway. I suppose the downside to this would be that the offenders would only post once a month.
I just really want something fair for the true artists on here that should be recognised instead of the comment and favourite chasers on here who have nothing better to do than try to shower themselves in glory.
Any suggestions for a fairer way of running the charts would be welcome.
I still think some sort of calculation using the number of  comments and favourites people receive against the number they give out might do the trick. I just don't know what the formula is at the moment. I'll have a think, maybe some sort of percentage ratio between the 2.

Example:
A comment chaser would give out 500 comments and receive a high number back, say 200 which is a 40% ratio. (200 comments would get them into the charts)
A true artist would not go comment chasing, they would comment on ones they like, say 20 and if there work is really good they will receive 40 back, this is 200%.
200% is higher than 40% so the true artist wins.
The same could be applied to favourites and ratings.
But there again, this may have the effect of stopping people from giving too many comments ... who knows.

Any thoughts from any of the moderators on here.

Tony.