Sorry I'm a bit late to the party (especially since I'm the guy that turned the lights on.. 😁), but I do have some thoughts, and I'm sure more will present themselves as the day goes on..

I honestly think one of the biggest things that would help the galleries in a huge way is...

Set a DAILY limit to gallery posts. I strongly feel setting, say, 5 per day rather than 5 per hour would be a great help. Firstly, we'd quickly see higher overall quality work being posted. If there's a daily limit, people are going to choose their best work of the last few days rather than everything they've created in that period. Viewers wouldn't have to wade through 30 similar images of a waterfall, or cute Anime images. I don't think anyone is going to be very likely to comment on 15 - 30 similar images.

I know opening the gallery and immediately seeing a page full of very similar images is an instant turn-off. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If they want to post more than one at a time, they still have the multiple upload feature where they can place several images in one upload. It would increase visibility for those of us that upload 1 or 2 images a week, rather than burying them under a flood of similar images. I think that would definitely help increase engagement.

Also, you might want to consider a separate category for marketplace promotional images.

I really like the comment ideas presented above!

Another idea I had was for the "Trending Now" category. Maybe comments on a trending image should be a larger part of where an image stands? For instance, today's top image doesn't even have comments turned on. It looks like the number of views is the biggest factor in determining where it stands. Just a thought.

I'm sure I'll have more as the day progresses. Thanks to all of our admins and mods for letting us be part of the positive energy here!

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" - Adam Savage