You may have noticed that the "Art Council" button is back on some images. We are continuing the testing of the art council nomination process for images to be included in the Main Galleries (on the left-hand column). The main change from the previous test is that we are now recording nominations and art council votes. We will use this information for two purposes:

1. By default, you will only be able to nominate two images per week. If one or both of those images is confirmed by the Art Council (8 people have to vote "yes"), then you will be able to nominate another image. Otherwise, you will need to wait 1 week before you can nominate again. This should add an incentive to only nominate images that you really think should be confirmed by the Art Council.

2. We will be looking at the voting history in order to identify users who are fair and have a good track record of voting 'yes' on quality images and 'no' on sub-standard ones. Over time, Art Council members who vote unfairly or inconsistently will be replaced by new members.

We will continue to refine this process as we get more feedback.

We made a few changes with the galleries today. The "Permanent" galleries and "New Images" galleries are now more separated in the left-hand navigation column. You can now view the "root" of the galleries (click on "Main Galleries" to see every image in every gallery all at once. When navigating around to different images, the gallery list stays expanded to the gallery that you last viewed.

The "New Images" gallery now displays all images that have been uploaded in the past 30 days. If an image is promoted to the permanent galleries before it is older than 30 days, it will appear in both galleries for a while.

Let me know if you find any problems with the new organization of the galleries.

Our next artist to be nominated and spotlighted hails from the middle of the USA! She has a unique username as well as a unique gallery. Let's meet and greet Joanie!

Leave your warm words and read her bio below!

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It is with great sadness that I reflect on the passing of a long-time caedes.net member and friend to many of us, Verena. It was just a few days ago that she had sent me a kind message offering her support and encouragement for the new Artist Council; of which she was a member. I think that the outpouring of heartfelt reflection being offered to her and her family in this discussion is a testament to the impact that she has had on this community. I propose that any new artworks being created in her memory be submitted to the Your Community->Verenabloo gallery as a community memorial to her.

As summer is in full swing in our northern hemisphere, I present to you our next artist to be spotlighted. His love of the animal kingdom is evident not only by his biography but by his images. Here is garrettparkinson uniquely known as Garrett! Please view his gallery and sprinkle it with comments!
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