Who are the people at the top ?

That is interesting, Harry.

Wonder if the reason those images appear at the top of the PN Gallery page is solely a result of high ratings as a way of "stuffing the ballots".

I'm surprised there are people who only rate photos as their only PN site participation. Sounds like a boring way to have fun on PN especially just to offer such thin and meaningless critiques. I'ld rather go through root canal than do that.

>>> If you read the critiques on these photos, they all sound the same "great job", "fantastic", "fabulous", "Incredible", "stupendous", "Great Job boo-boo", the same "pat-on-the-back" critiques get repeated over and over.

I think that's because it's much easier to simply praise than analyze and critique. Also, I suspect that's what many photographers are really seeking when posting a photo. You see the same thing on flickr and instagram.

I'll be honest, I've basically stayed in the forums so I havent really checked out the photos unless I see a particularly nice one on the bottom of the thread.

I guess I've missed half of what the site has to offer. To be fair, I havent exactly posted much of anything for crits either.

We had the same problem with another site I used to go to, a lot of 'nice pic' or 'nice pic please see mine'. It got to the point where they started a minumum of X amount of words to have your comment/crit count in their point system - but lets not go there!

It's always been that way as far as I can remember.

If one looked in the Philo of Photography forum, it would be easy to say "It's the same people posting all the time on every thread".

Some people like one part of the site and are active in it, some people like other parts of the site are are active there.

Since Josh is in on this thread, I've often wondered if any of my photos have ended up on the "Daily Photo Sampling From Our Members' Work" banner. Would a member ever know (outside of seeing the photo.net home page all the time) if his/her photo appeared there and racked up hundreds of views?

Eric,

Short answer: No. They just appear.

Longer answer:

I'm looking to totally redo how those photos are selected. My goal is to have a set schedule (day by day probably) with a different criteria for every day. That way people would know exactly how the images appeared there and what would cause one of their images to appear. In addition, I hope to be able to give people more accurate information about when their images appear in a specific place. In this example it would be for that daily sampling. But in another instance it might be "top 10" for a ratings sorting or inclusion in an "editors picks" or something.

Harry,

I would like to know why your same portrait with the black background always appears at the bottom of threads you post in.

Not why the photo appears, I get that. But why it's always the same one, that androgenous person with grey hair.

"I would like to know why your same portrait with the black background always appears..."

Just chance I would guess. Specifically a 1 in 3 chance. :)

Only photos that have been submitted for ratings are selected from a poster's portfolio for random display at the bottom of discussion threads. Although Harry currently has 155 photos uploaded in his portfolio, only 3 have ever been submitted for ratings. So, 1 in 3 chance you will see "that androgenous person". :)