3dcheapskate posted at 10:35 PM Tue, 7 January 2025 - #4492671

Another couple of  suggestion, this time regarding voting.

I've always found the voting period to be dead space - it's easy to lose interest and forget about the contest. 

With community voting the number of votes each entry has received is never given (insert your favourite conspiracy theory here as to why, if you're of that ilk). It can be disheartening if you've put a lot of effort into an entry but have no idea whether you just missed winning or whether you got zero votes. I think you need to show the results.

But why stop there. Maybe during voting you could have the number of votes each image had received so far displayed ?  I wonder how that would affect engagement ? 

Seldom do I ever comment in forums, however in this case I will make an exception.

The suggestion to display if a user received zero votes is the single most idiotic thing that I have ever seen in any forum anywhere, because not only would you create an unimaginably degrading and disheartening situation for any such user but by displaying the number of votes received also directly allows other users to see who received zero votes. In a community anywhere and especially a gradually diminishing one that is largely comprised of willing hobbyists and amateurs, to actively display for all to see "who got the least" is a certain way to kill of any future participation and instead directly encourages elitism and "gatekeeping" mentality.

Deliberately cutting the time allowed for people to actively enter and vote would serve the same purpose of discouraging those with limited time from entering such events, for the most part I would imagine, or possibly just like to imagine, that the only people who would not vote are those not actively involved in the contest, though I imagine this could be incorrect.

Gradually this would cut away many of the artists who have limited time and/or resources, and artists who potentially already realise they are "behind the curve" but no community should ever and I mean Ever! encourage such a moronically selfish notion that a hard truth won't do any harm because I forewarn you that it would kill off anything far before anything else, including AI, ever would.

In a world where software and hardware is moving faster than the budgets that many have for what is a hobby, to encourage an environment that actively targets the meek under the guise of being a form of "encouragement" is an utterly disgraceful suggestion.

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