Hi all... Post here any suggestions you might have for the Hot 20. we all know it needs to be changed, so let's try to come up with some good ideas as to how it could be improved, or if you feel it should be taken down completely. Please keep it clean...Let's work together, and not against each other :D Thanks, Nick

Nick C. Sorbin
Staff Writer
Renderosity Magazine
......................................................................................................
"For every breath, for every day of living, this is my Thanksgiving."
-Don Henley

Well, about six months ago, when I took up about a quarter to a third of hot 20 positions, I got fed-up with the whole thing. That's when I asked (privately) to restrict the number of hot 20 entry's in one week to 1 work (the best one at that time) for one artist. That way we would see at least 20 different artists and (hopefuly) styles in the hot 20. That would give us a more representative view of what the fractal community has to offer. But as you stated many times before, for the whole thing to work, people have to vote. No matter what system.

I think that the moderators or a selected "board" should evaluate images and select a "showcase" artist from each gallery once a week. No matter how you format it, if members of the communities have a "vote" they will be accused of voting for their "friends", and that same old Hot 20 mess will come up.

Dirk has some good ideas there, IMO. It would help open things up to more folks. I've found positive reinforcement to be a MUCH better motivational and creativity enhancing tool than a "big stick" many times when I've had people working for me at my job and it's always such a thrill for someone to have their work make the list. That stuff said, as I read all the stuff written in both forums, there were a couple crackpot notions. Like someone thought that someone a had pulled a "Matt" and voted for themselves a bunch of times in the T-gen gallery. We all learned when Matt "gamed the system" here last year just to show it could be done that the Mods can keep a pretty sharp eye out for "clone votes" when things seem out of whack. One idea I read in the T-gen forum maybe had some merit? The person suggested that votes only be allowed by the artists in the particular gallery where the image is posted. That's maybe something that might help alleviate what set them all off anyhow? I'm probably one of the offending "invaders" and I've occasionally - not always -voted over there. I certainly don't know T-gen from shine-ola and usually got off on the colors or creative arrangement of the mountains/water/clouds without noticing technical stuff that experienced users might. Maybe voting should be only allowed by folks who have posted to a gallery a certain number of times. Not too high a number - maybe 5-10? If I remember right, somewhere there is a page that I think is accessable from one's homepage(?) where you can - or not - select a "genre". As long as it's possible for an artist to select more than one genre - say maybe they do fractals and Bryce, for instance. Those would be things the software could look at to decide if a vote was "allowed". The compaining folks arguments weren't totally without merit - mostly their tone and the effect on the person they were mad at. We've seen here, as well, when sometimes an image gets to the top of the H20 and 90% or more of the commentors are people you've never heard of and the posting person's fave's lists contain zero fractal artists or fractal images. It's something that's caught my eye b4 but certainly wasn't worth losing sleep over but it does sound like one of the things the T-gen folks were upset over. Another thing that might make folks feel better might be to discourage/disallow the "V" thing in comments? I'm sure many folks just say it to convey their pleasure in viewing the image but there are also those who say it under almost EVERY image. Even if it isn't their intent, to someone hypersensitive to this stuff maybe it can smack of "vote swapping" or "trolling"? And then you have the ones that say "V" but didn't really vote - lol! I'm sure this stuff is a source of grief to those who were upset, too. Voting is supposed to be private and uncoerced and is the reason why there are curtains and/or barriers on the voting machines when citizens vote in democratic countries. I don't know. As I read back over what I've written I reckon I can see cons to my ideas, too. The "belonging" to a gallery thing, especially, might feel like disenfranchisement to newbies I suppose. Or just scrap the H20? Of course then they'd probably start to complain about the ranking system - lol. Just trying to offer help/suggestions/ideas - Hopefully SOME good will come of this mess but it all boils down to basic civility and professionalism and following Keith's advice not to take this place so seriously that you can't shut it off when you power down your pc. Hopefully we can keep the friendly, supportive vibe around here and move past this stuff and maybe even be better for it. Damien Jones recently set me straight on how much more helpful a personal website actually is than these large sites where artists can't easily be spotted amid the thousands of other talented artists. Though, a presence here certainly doesn't hurt by any means and has helped me a LOT and I'm thankful that I discovered this site. c-ya! Rick

Randee's idea isn't so bad either, IMO. Except that sometimes a Mod is also a poster to the gallery they oversee and they could be accused of favoritism. The T-gen mod was actually one of those that left an "ugly" comment under the image that everyone was upset over. Maybe just have a lottery like thing where the "showcase artist" is randomly picked and a particular artist could only be selected once in a certain amount of time? You're handling this well btw, Nick - a real pro. Rick

I'm not so keen on a panel picking the images, anyway that happens already once a week with the showcase image. Maybe we also could (with 20 artists for 20 images) do away with the ranking in the hot 20, no Top 20 anymore, just show the 20 images without numbers and randomly. That should get another part of the "HOT" competition away, and lead us to a representative showcase of 20 good and-or popular images each week. Think Rick's idea of voting when posting in a certain gallery is also a good way to settle fragile nerves. And I see his point around that whole 'V' thing. I always used it for exactly the reason he stated, nl, to encourage people who make progress in their work. To show that I found an image special. But I'll stop doing that from today, cause I see that it can hurt as much as help.

good luck no matter what you decide someone is NOT going to be happy with it still say do away with it altogether. Course I don't exactly post here any longer got to tired of being harrassed by IM messages...yep always the same one..:) Good Luck guys :)

get an optional button to enable/disable the voting button, i should say ... so ppl get to choose themselves whether their pieces of work has to be in a ranking or not me, i am way passed all that, i have other recognitions for my works of art, which quite a few admire on their walls, and that has a higher value than a temporary ranking hope you have luck with it smile Harmen

I suggested something along the lines of Rykk's post above in the community forum some time ago when this subject last blew up. The response was, quite rightly, that it doesn't take an expert in a given software program to spot good lighting or compostion or any other aesthetic (sp?) aspect of an image and want to vote. Taking the idea a bit further though, I'd like to suggest this solution instead. If a member - a: is posting regularly in a gallery b: is active in that gallery's respective forum - this surely points to someone active in that community. How hard would it be, to weight someones vote depending on how active they are in the relevant community? To give an example of how this might work: I know nothing about Bryce so lets say I see a thumbnail in 'All-All' that catches my attention. I click the link, I like the picture, I look at this Bryce artist's gallery and I add him to my favourites list. Next time he posts an image I get an email informing me and I vote for this image. Now: -1 point because the artist is in my favourites list. -1 point because I haven't visited the Bryce gallery recently -1 point each because I don't contribute to gallery or forum. Now suppose a Bryce regular has the same artist in his favourites list: -1 point because the artist is in his favourites list. and that's it; his vote is worth 3 times more than mine because he is a contributing member of the Bryce community. If a regular in a given community feels that an image needs work on certain areas they are unlikely to vote for it; the above method should ensure that it would then have to be an outstanding image in other more abstract/aesthetic areas to reach the Hot20. These stats must already be available to the admin here and I doubt this would take that much scripting. What do you think? Mike

This is great guys! Keep the ideas comin' :D I know it's been re-hashed many times, but a little more wouldn't hurt :D I am ever hopeful for a good solution. Nick

Nick C. Sorbin
Staff Writer
Renderosity Magazine
......................................................................................................
"For every breath, for every day of living, this is my Thanksgiving."
-Don Henley

Hi Nick,

The hot 20 is a great idea. It could be the perfect motivation for me to really give my best.
The hot 20 should be imo a list that shows the newest popular trends of the fractal art. Right now you only can see who has the most friends in RR.

Here some suggestions to improve that:

I also find it a good idea to ONLY let the people vote who scroll through the fractal gallery: it cannot be that someone decides who makes the best picture if he just sees the stuff of his favourite artist!

It should be possible to have 2 or 3 pictures of one artist in the hot 20, because people want stars. But not more then 3 pictures.

Right now it's a bit too complicate to vote. You need two extra clicks to do it. There could be another point in the ranking scroll list above excellent: excellent+vote.
So artists who don't wonna be ranked can't be voted too.

Take care
ulli

Message edited on: 03/02/2005 02:57

Voting should stay different from ranking.

:rolleyes::sad:
Joy of Frax

Hi all My English is not good so I will keep it short;) As Harmen already mentioned"get an optional button to enable/disable the voting button". So people can diside for their own while uploading their image:) Take care and Hugs *Yvonne*

Hi all, I don't really have any ideas how to solve this. But I would like to see the Hot20 stay. Of course there are several images that get there by friends' votes, but the truly remarkable images can be seen there as well. And that's the reason I always look at what's in it so I haven't missed anything exceptional. And by the way: for a "young" (not in years but in how long you're active) artist it's a thrill to see your image in the list. It really boosts the spirits. The suggestion of Harmen and Yvonne to add another button won't do the trick. People get disappointed if they never get the chance to enter the list (because of so much friends' votes) and don't allow to vote to prevent disappointment. A limit to how many images of one artist are in the list at the same time would improve matters. Still, I'm glad I don't have to solve this. Good luck! Yvonne

Hi everybody! :) What I think is that no matter what, what leads to an image to hit the Hot 20 should be a combination of factors and not there mere clicking of a button. What are the best factors to consider/ mix/ weight is the question. I've had some ideas about this in the past, although I'm not sure they are the best and didn't analyze them thoroughly enough to say "this is it". For example, a combination of most viewed and most commented, with extra points if it's added to someone's favourites images. I like the idea of ulli of the votes being allowed only if they come from people actually browing the gallery. Cheers! Barbara

My crafts - My Freebies - My Store - Delightful Arts

I think we should do away with it instantaneously... Eveline

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

My note left in the Terragen Forum: Well I'm back and see that things have simmered down. Check out (how does the Hot20 work) at the beginning of the H20 list. It states: The "Hot 20" is for entertainment purposes only. It is not a competition, a challenge or a contest. Maybe another line should be added regarding the "tone" of the comments. Then nothing has to be changed, just added. And lets get rid of the ~V~ which I used but no more ~ simple solution. They are making progress in the Fractal Forum. Maybe you should check out "the suggestions." One last note: I think MJK'S photo should make the H20!! Kidding just kidding!! Have a fabulous day! Diane

I have read each comment here. Here are just a few thoughts.

1.I have often thought that the title "Hot20" needs to be changed to something else. The title is highly charged. But I can't think of a good title.

2. Get rid of the "Hot20" completely. (I personally favor this option strongly).
3. Give us the option to refuse votes if the "Hot20" remains.
4. I have no fractal artists in 'my favorite artists' list. I come to the fractal gallery each day and view ALL the new posts. That way I can never be accused of viewing and or voting for just my favorite artists.
5. There are so many fractal generators available and it might be nice to see on a monthly basis some representative images made in the different software programs. Such as Apo, FE, UF, TZ, XD, etc.
6. Do away with 'Most Viewed', 'Most Commented', and 'Best Rankings'. (I also favor this strongly).
7. Have our own 'Fractal Artist of the Month' where we can all vote. But no single artist can be picked for several months in succession.
8. If the fractal "Hot20" is retained, only people who post to the fractal gallery are allowed to vote regardless of how often or infrequently they post here.
   Marion

Message edited on: 03/02/2005 11:47

Sounds good to me Marion!! Regards Diane

I don't have to be a painter to appreciate and love sculpture...I don't have to be a builder to appreciate beautiful architecture, and I don't have to be a jewelry designer to appreciate the piece. As long as the voting procedure is in the hands of the "masses" there will always be unjust accusations.

Some random thoughts... I don't want the Hot20 to simply go away because I like the idea of having a gallery showcase (after all the site isn't just about the artists, it's about viewers too). It's a good way to explore a gallery one doesn't visit often, provided it isn't the same people being all over it all the time. That's why I'm in favor of having at most 2 images from an artist at any given time. I also liked the idea of the images appearing in random order without the number of votes. That makes it less of a contest. I'm not sure about restricting the people who can vote in a gallery, because I don't know how much of a problem votes from non-posters cause and it doesn't address people voting for their friends because their friends voted for them. I'd guess the latter happens more often than the former.

As a user of terragen I see some good suggestions here. The biggest problem we have in the hot 20 in the terragen community is, it is being abused by the fractal community.

There is 1 or 2 fractal artist that dabble in terragen (nothing wrong with that) however the problem is as soon as they post a terragen image no matter how bad that image is, the comments are always much the same. Hugs & Kisses VOTE Soon that person is number 1 or 2 in the hot 20.

This only diminishes the purpose of the hot 20. The hot 20 is there to reward an artist for exceeding the boundries of any particular program, not how many friends they have.

I encourage people to comment on as many images in as many communities as they see fit. But because they are friends shouldn't mean it's an automatic vote and this is what angers the terragen community, many outstanding works in the terragen gallery never get votes from the fractual crowd.

I often see comments that art is subjective, this is true, however one has to know these programs inside out to truly appreciate what an artist has accomplished.

My aim here is not to try and stir the pot, but to try and save the hot 20.

Message edited on: 03/02/2005 18:14

Now hold on a minute, mac8, that happens everywhere, not just the terragen gallery. Wait until a popular Poser artist shows up there. Go look at the most commented fractal gallery. For a while there was a "my first fractal image" right at the top with over 100 comments, but that has been deleted. There's still another one there. It happens when popular people cross over. Deal with it. I think that the hot 20 is fine as is. Plain and simple, it's a popularity vote. Most of the time people are popular for good reasons. Those reasons usually include that they make good art, but people are also popular because they are good people. What's wrong with that? The problem with the hot 20 isn't the system, it's with the human traits of pride, jealousy and envy. I admit, I have those traits. Not a single image from my recent "It" series made it into the hot 20. It's either because they're not that good, I'm not that popular or most people understand that I don't care if I make it there - well, I sort of don't care, maybe, in a way, well, maybe I care just a little... I'll say it again: Lighten up. This place is more about community, friends and fun than it is about art. Serious artists do not need or use this place. They have their own sites, doing their own thing in their own way. Believe me, I know that if you take this place too seriously you will just get frustrated. Take it for what it is: it's a party. Honest, why would a serious artist want to participate here with all of the competition and distraction? Have you ever noticed that the big guns provide very few links to other people's galleries from their sites. Why provide a link to a competitor? Anyway, that was a tanget, sorry. My first option is to leave it as it. Second would be to limit the number of images that any person can have in the hot 20 at the same time, maybe to 2 (what if my whole "It" series made it in there? I would want at least 2 to make it). But my most prefered option is to lighten up, relax and take this place for what it is. Keith

according to you the hot 20 is a popularity vote .. that in it self is where the problem lays. Can you imagine a Terragen artist (popular of course) posting substandard fractals and topping the hot 20 ... give me a BREAK

THANK YOU, Keith. You are absolutely right. If there happened to be a monetary reward, or someone was actually benefitting from the Hot 20 by getting commissions, it would be different. I think we all need to lighten up. I know I was hot in the last thread, and I had to go and apologize for being what I accused everyone else of...rude and mean. It just ain't worth it. It's a game, for cryin' out loud! This is supposed to be fun! Maybe we just need to redefine the Hot 20. We could call it the Most Popular 20 and go by viewings alone.

hmm... i don't really care about the hot-20, i never get in it anyways, i don't have time to comment as much as the ones who do just 1 piece of artwork every day, so i ain't gonna be that kind of a popular commenter ergo not a popular artist, cause thats what's this is all about, really... i am sorry, i dont have time for that, i am a fulltime artist _ what ya can do is change the concept of that hotlist lets just say we make a nomination list each month of artist who showed their awesome masterworks, and a panel of judges get to chose who is gonna have the artwork of the month title, the first price is a golden certification, then who gets 2nd and 3rd, another color and can have that displayed on their personal homepage at this gallery. cause these galleries isn't about the person who makes it, its about their extra-ordinary skills to have their creative mind expressed in their piece of artwork. well gotta get to work, i am a taxi-driver today for we had so much snow the last few days, gotta get them kids to school somehow LOL good day Harmen

This thread is for suggestions to improve the Hot 20, and so far there have been some great suggestions. As I stated before..."Please keep it clean" I think it is very obvious lately that the Hot 20 does need to be improved if it is to remain. If you think it's fine the way it is, that's okay, say it here, but let's not start pointing fingers please. Let's work together. Thanks, Nick

Nick C. Sorbin
Staff Writer
Renderosity Magazine
......................................................................................................
"For every breath, for every day of living, this is my Thanksgiving."
-Don Henley

Why can't we vote on each image and give them points for say "form", "Colour", "artistry" etc., similar to the way they do with sports. For example with the Olympics, they rate them according to a certain criteria and the one that garners the most points after tallying each category, is the one that wins. Maybe we can rate an image by "Clarity" "Colour" "Imagination" etc and have a scaled voting or say vote for an image out of a sliding scale from 1-10 "Clarity points" or 1-5 "Use of Colour" points or somesuch. Does anyone think this type of thing would work?.. Or do I get 10 "Insanity points" for this suggestion? lol. :o)

Why not just limit the votes people can make to 1 per day per gallery... Then they would actually have to choose their favourite 'Hot' image instead of carpet bombing the gallery with votes... Matt.

Why does this discussion mades me so very sad?Bye to all of you,wish you all good luck and a lot of wisdom.Hugs Yvonne

Don't be sad! It's just normal human behaviour... I am here for more than one year and Hot20 has lost all its meaning to me...

:rolleyes::sad:
Joy of Frax

I never really paid much attention to the Hot20 after the first couple of weeks posting here. I would have, and still would like an image of mine to make it there by it's merits alone, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. I do this form of art because "I" like it, and I liked it so much I just wanted to share it with others. If anybody else likes it too, well that's cool, and hopefully they will tell my why..or why they don't like it. I don't have the whole day, or night for that matter to spend on this site wondering if an image of mine will make the Hot20. It would be a nice feature for this community, but it definately needs to be tweaked. The biggest thing I think that would help is to limit "1" image for a particular artist into it at one time, and to limit how long they are in there by 5 days. I would hope that that would be enough to rotate ALL artists who post here into it at sometime or another. In my opinion, everyone has done a good enough work of art to go into the Hot20, but not every image they've ever done. Even Van Gough had a bad day..LOL I've enjoyed posting to, and veiwing in this gallery. I will continue to do so with or without a Hot20. I'll leave the politics to someone else. Hope it gets worked out and this will become a non subject in the future. Doug

After reading all these usefull suggestions, I still think that the main thing is getting rid of the competitive element, with limiting 1 image per day in the Showcase20. That way we could, like Rick once said, get into competition with our only worthy competetor, ... our software. For those of us who are a lot in the hot20, you can try to achieve 7 different images a week. That's going into competition with yourself. That's healthy, and that's how you make progress in your work. But it will leave at least 10 places open for other worthy artists here. Let's not be selfish, let's share. And if you want competition, enter the monthly theme challenge. And yes, it IS anonymus there.

The Hot 20 doesn't really mean all that much to me. I rarely visit there so, it wouldn't really bother me if we did away with it all together. I also think that limiting people to 1 - 5 votes a day might not be a bad idea. With only a few votes to work with, people might be a little more selective in what they vote for. To be honest, this whole topic is getting redundant. I do have to say that I admire Nick's patience though. He's a good and fair moderator. Just my 2 cents.

If we want a showcase of some kind, maybe the programmers can write a program that will just pick 20 random images each time someone clicks on the 'Showcase' heading and show them in no particular order, sort of the way our individual gallery front page can pick 3 random images. This would give a taste of the gallery to anyone who doesn't have much time, or is a newcomer. Each time they click, they will get another set of random images (from that day? week? details would have to be worked out, lol).

Message edited on: 03/03/2005 22:10

Fractals will always amaze me!

Now that idea I like tresamie! I think that would be a useful addition regardless of what happens with the Hot20.

That is not such a bad idea, but it already exists. If I go to the gallery, I get the latest images, if I click on next page, I get 18 others... But there is something in your way of thinking, maybe we could use this for the images who have been voted on ?

tsk tsk tsk ... it saddens me that ppl cant get along like grownups, and see in every suggestion another way to let ppl know how important they are for this gallery ... guess who makes this gallery? not you, nor you, and neither you but ... US, and no one is here much more important than the other, we all are people who has some kind of ability to present our work of art, no one is better than the other, we all are equal human beings, whether race, language or the amount of piercings ya wear, religion, age or sex and it seems to me that some think they can boss around cause they feel more important than anyone else, and that he/she is the one who makes this gallery your absolutely wrong in this we all have a different approach to our works, use different programs, computers, and when ya want to share everything with each other, and have a friendly environment which is very attractive to the newcomers, ya have to cooperate and get along, learn from each others mistakes, and have fun with it, accept the handicaps of others, for some don't speak the language or are ununderstandable in their actions and intentions... so... we need to make us a showcase where everyones best shot is presented in, each month a different one, which we need to nominate ourselves, and a panel of judges will take a look which one of the pieces of artwork of each artist will become in the showcase of the fractal community just a combination of suggestions that will end the hot-20 and its discussion, cause it's a farce that whole voting system!!! have a nice day Harmen

YES!

:rolleyes::sad:
Joy of Frax

I agree with Dirk about getting rid of the sense of competition but I think the "competition" is in our minds and hearts more than in the workings of the H20. The problem is just as Keith said - our baser human emotions. We need to all quit trying to out-do each other and REALLY be supportive and also VERY conscientious about things like voting. And, also - yes, Dirk, you are one of those who I know NEVER used the "V" thing for anything else but encouragement. I've known you online for a while and find you to be a remarkably fine and kind person and your integrity, as many here can attest to, is unmatched my friend. Anyhow - While scrapping the H20 or making it into something that EVERYONE gets into regardless of skill level sounds nice, warm and fuzzy - one major thing is forgotten....the purpose for Bondware starting Rendo in the first place: Some of the artists here are "serious" in that they'd like to pursue digital art as a vocation or side business. Maybe not so much us fractallists but I think many of the T-gen and Bryce and illustration folks are. Probably why they got so fired up? When art brokers and agents browse the myriad art sites in the world they don't have weeks to wend their way thru thousands, even millions, of images. I imagine that they like to go to more convenient pages like the H20's and the Best/Most type pages to look for talent. Hopefully, those pages will be a good representation of the best the site has to offer in each genre and some artists will be "discovered" and offered opportunities. And maybe these people will return again and again. If EVERYONE gets into those H20 type pages regardless of skill/experience, they will lose all meaning and relevence and Renderosity will never be a springboard for ANYONE's career and the help for aspiring artists that it is/was intended to be. To build on Harmen's point - Bondware is not Renderosity - WE are Renderosity and it is OUR collective reputation in the "art world" that is at stake, IMO. Too much bickering and lack of professionalism will give this whole place and ALL of the artists associated with it a bad name and anyone mentioning to a prospective buyer/agent that they display their work here will be met with the same scoffing rise of eyebrows that the mere mention of fractals causes in the "mainstream", "serious" art world. Trust me - happened to me just last week when, for the heck of it, I inquired about how to go about getting prints of my stuff included in the offerings at a large art print chain at the local mega-mall. I mentioned "fractal" and the guy perked up and looked at me funny and said "come back with a business card" - sheesh! So think hard and long about how we want this to be. - Who would strive to improve if anyone and everyone was in the H20? Or care? Why would anyone ever go to look at this type of "showcase"? What would be special at all about having your art in it? Better just to scrap it if we can't come up with a better system. One other thing. I don't know if anyone else has noticed but it seems to me that Renderosity as a business - and it IS a business - looks to be in deteriorating shape and getting worse. When I started here, Rendo was an actual printed magazine you could get at Barnes and Noble (I think) and subscribe to. Not enough of US subscribed (myself included), so they didn't have the $$ to continue paying for printing so they went to an "on-line only" format - the R.I.M. - that you subscribed to and could browse online or download and print out. Not enough of us subscribed to THAT so I hear that is also gonna stop, too. I pay the $5 per month / 3 per day thing just to help out. As everyone knows, until this month I only posted 3-4 per month, max, and the 6 I did last month were the most since my first days here. But I do have an extra gallery for Joie and my flames that occasionally gets a post and the DrahcirXips oldies gallery with 4 in it, so it seems fair that I pay for SOMETHING. Anyhow, I hope I'm all wrong because I'd really be bummed if this site went away and I lost contact with so many of the wonderful folks here. And no, I'm not connected with Bondware/Rendo in any way and fractals are only a hobby to me - though it would be neat if someone actually wanted a print of one of my pix! I did write a tutorial for them once is all - got 1 free download of the online issue for it and don't feel cheated at all. We all need to stick together as a team and help further this venture that has given so many of us such happiness, good friends....and maybe some grief, too. Rick

This is a wonderful idea in theory, but who will be the judges? This is always a big problem, no one can agree who will be fair and impartial. Sad to say, but that is how people are.

Fractals will always amaze me!

@Rykk .. I can't speak for the bryce folks, but as a Terragen user we only get fired up when a certain member here, posts her work in the terragen gallery and it is high on the hot 20. Her work is sub-standard at best. It is always the same people that votes her work to the top 20, and they are NOT from the terragen community. As I've said over & over, the hot 20 is not about how many friends one has at renderosity, but on the quality of their submission. The Terragen community is full of kind, helpful people, many give much of there time to help new users to the program. So when this person submitts a sub standard work, her friends automatically give it the big old V with TOTAL disregard for any other Terragen artist. To the terragen community this is the problem with the hot 20. Also this particular artist has been offered sound advice on improving her work from the terragen community, she publicly flat out said she wants no help from the terragen community.

Mac8, at the peril of getting another warning from Nick I am going to say again, crossover voting happens everywhere. You obviously didn't take my suggestion and look at the most commented fractal gallery. The proof is right there for you to see. There's a first fractal in there with almost 70 comments. It's a flame with a flood filter - the most clichfractal that can be created - with 70 comments. If you look at the artist's gallery you can see that he or she is a pretty good Poser artist. It's painfully obvious that that image is a popularity carry over. It happens. Get over it.

Deagol, I think it is agreed by all, this type of backslapping does happen in some communities. My comments were directed towards rykk who suggests Terragen users get "fired up" (perhaps a violation of TOS). Your statement of "It happens. Get over it" does nothing to help honest people that try to make the hot20 work. And you are correct, I did not look in the fractal hot 20, although I have friends that work with fractals, I know not the first thing about them and have never voted on any fractal. Various mods say they are working on a common solution towards this problem, my advice is to vote fair and honestly .. good day

Mac - ("8", not the Keith-type one, lol!). I wasn't trying to say anything one way or the other about or rehash the mess of earlier. Just actually agreeing with a lot said about the H20/crossover and suggesting honesty in voting. "Fired up" is a slang, Southern USA word that means "angry". I'm not gonna get involved on one side or the other of that mess, but it did look like people were angry about what they saw as a problem with the H20 from where I sat - which was WELL away from it! Chill - no offense was meant to ANYONE. Rick

Here's a suggestion for the Best/Most Rankings/Views/Comments pages: Why not redo them every year? Take all the Best/Most from the previous year and save them to archive pages for each year. Then on Jan 1 - or heck April 1 or whenever - start the counters all over again. Then more artists would be on those pages, too, and you could browse to previous years to see the best/most from those periods. I'm sure by now everyone is tired of seeing the same tired old Rykk stuff on those pages (even had my last one "downranked" by 2 folks - first time since early '03 - ouch :?( ) and there are definitely better works than those posted by artists weekly here. Or keep them and just add extra yearly ones if the software is hard to change but easier to add? Rick

hmmm i had a whole novel, flourished with jokes and sarcasm, , which i wrote in 42 mins, here when i hit the submit button, then nothing happened at all, the story and suggestions wasn't added here, then i hit the back button and everything was empty... cheers to the amateurism of rendero, cause it sucks to write the same story twice before it is submitted

anyways, it's too late to write it again

that's what it is here, not to be taken seriously, i reckon

goodnight :D

smile

Message edited on: 03/04/2005 20:29

Message edited on: 03/04/2005 20:32

Well said Rykk, 41 and 46; and it's probably easier to add new categories for best/most etc.

A suggestion for novelists: Write the novel in Notepad, copy/paste :)

Fractals will always amaze me!

Rick, that's a great idea. The best and most galleries feed on themselves. Clearing them out would solve that problem and make them much more interesting to view. The most popular artists would quickly float to the top with new their newer images but at least they would be newer images, and it would free up room for others. On a slightly different topic, we should at least reset the counters on any image posted on those 3 days in October, 2003 when the system was broken. What happened there is just plain not fair

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

Fractals will always amaze me!

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

Nick C. Sorbin
Staff Writer
Renderosity Magazine
......................................................................................................
"For every breath, for every day of living, this is my Thanksgiving."
-Don Henley

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.

Fractals will always amaze me!

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

Hi all Thanks for all the suggestions that went into this. Admin here is working it out, and hopefully there will be some good changes soon (they have this thread for reference :D). In any case, there will be a weekly showcase from the Fractal Gallery, that we are calling "The Fractal Window Weekly" (Link above, and in the forum header). Hope you like it :D Nick

Nick C. Sorbin
Staff Writer
Renderosity Magazine
......................................................................................................
"For every breath, for every day of living, this is my Thanksgiving."
-Don Henley

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

Fractals will always amaze me!

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

Please take a look... There are just some good thoughts... And jokes...

:rolleyes::sad:
Joy of Frax