Simtropolis's gallery - is a bag for one author?

[Silur 3,304]

I see some strange things in the gallery drawings Simtropolis lately. Some authors places where a large number of drawings. I think - we need a limit of accommodation. I think that for a series of similar drawings, there city journals...

Hi, Simtropolians - What do You think about this?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

I just checked in the Guidelines and the Gallery is not specifically mentioned. I do see the 9 most recent images on that page are by one person. I presume that is what you are referring to. Selecting Member Albums from the Categories menu (with the default of sort by most recent) then brings up others you can view.

I don't have an opinion on this one way or the other, but I believe it is worthy of members and staff discussion.

 

[Silur 3,304]

I think that Member Albums is the right place for serials too. 

But very boring to see in "From the Gallery" section of the monotony but not a salad. 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

It looks to me like the pictures referred to are New Images that were posted in a SimCity 4 album.   When you add images to the front page of the Gallery you have to select a category.   These pictures are by one person who most recently created an album in SC4 category.    There does seem to be an overlapping purpose between the City Journals and Gallery albums.   A CJ can just as easily be used simply to display a series of pictures as like an album.   An Album could also be used similar to a CJ in adding text and descriptions or a storyline.   It seems like the two could be consolidated in some way to reduce clutter. 

Maybe the gallery should be managed by the mods somewhat similar to a feature area of selected CJ entries for their community value, and the CJ area for members to publish their presentations.  Otherwise the gallery seems to be being used as a storage space by members for their pictures.  ST is not exactly a free file storage site, its a file sharing site.  I think what we upload to ST is supposed to be for community purposes. 

The CJ section maybe should be organized like the Gallery with subcategories for the different city-builders featured on this site.

[Silur 3,304]

I'm talking about... I see on the HOME and ACTIVITY pages, only this...

And no more ...

Only one artist on the Home page with 10 similiar pictures ...

I think we need to think how to make it so that only one or two photos from the album were on these pages.

Thank You.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

So its the same issue as with multiple file uploads, multiple thread creations or multiple CJ entries by one person,  and I agree, there should be a limit to one person's ability to overwhelm the front pages. Its kind of the same as 'bumping' in a thread making it appear more as a personal blog than a community communication and sharing. It makes it look like the site is less active than it is with fewer contributors, and it reduces the enjoyment of the variety of persons and their works being shared.   I'd rather see a front page with 20 different members pictures, threads, CJ entries or files at any given time.

[Silur 3,304]

@RandyE: 100% I agree.

Lots of pictures on the main pages from one author on this website to promote more recognition and publicity. But this should not prevent to see the creations of other artists. For example: Korver can submit to the gallery each figure. But he doesn't it for some reasons. 

Please note that I'm not talking about any particular author. This is a common problem.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Thanks for the feedback. On the homepage, I've just changed the criteria to hopefully allow a wider range of authors to be listed. It was previously set to only show the most recently submitted images, which understandably favoured newer submissions. Now the listings should more represent the trends of activity over the past few weeks. It still depends on multiple authors uploading to generate variation, though isn't solely determined by time uploaded.

A few stats for those who like them...

Throughout the history of the Gallery there's been:

• 2,451 total images.
• 172 albums.
• 249 different authors.
• Average of 10 images per author.
• Average image size: 780 KB.
• Between these, 70% have uploaded more than 1 image.
• Only 12% have uploaded 20 or more.

 

With people who share images in batches, I wouldn't have thought this is intentional to occupy the feed. Instead, more a case of wanting to showcase progress of their cities from multiple perspectives. Much like the STEX, there is no quality control for the Gallery. Anyone is most welcome to upload as many images as they like, for any city-builder they choose, within the scope of the site. For this reason, I don't think at this stage there's a need to restrict this freedom.

The Gallery is a relatively new addition, and really the main use has been to host the ST Challenges. It seems most authors who create CJs prefer to keep their entries contained within the dedicated blogs section. That's understandable, since these allow text, images and other media to be combined for the desired effect. There are also more specific options for customising, which is also soon set to be expanded with a sidebar. That's not to say someone couldn't create a CJ in a Gallery album -- it could be interesting. Though so far it's not been the primary usage, most likely since this isn't the expected usage.

[Silur 3,304]

On 17.06.2017 at 2:54 AM, Cyclone Boom said:

Thanks for the feedback. On the homepage, I've just changed the criteria to hopefully allow a wider range of authors to be listed. It was previously set to only show the most recently submitted images, which understandably favoured newer submissions. Now the listings should more represent the trends of activity over the past few weeks. It still depends on multiple authors uploading to generate variation, though isn't solely determined by time uploaded.

Good and timely work! Thank you. Now Homepage looks much better and informative!!!