Is the information about how the Art Council works stored in one place on this site? (Question 1)

I have some questions that may be addressed there, but I am not sure, so I will ask here.
First let me state what my understanding is of how it works.

AC members may nominate 2 images for consideration every 7 days.
If a percentage of those nominated images never make it to the main galleries, you can be removed as an AC member. You are not obligated to nominate any images.

Question 2:
Therefore, if you wish to remain an AC member, is it to your advantage to NOT nominate anything? (Yes, I take a risk and nominate what I believe to be the best images).

Question 3:
The voting on images nominated for Main gallery admission is rotated through the 135 AC members*. I have not had the ability to vote on any nominated images in months.
How many AC members at a time are allowed to vote and when does their voting privilege expire so that other members may then be given an opportunity to vote?

Thank you.

*caedes

Can only AC members nominate? I have not been asked to vote for months either and assumed that I had been removed from the AC. However, I can still nominate. Not that many of my nominations get onto the main gallery that seems to be increasingly bland and dominated by a few photographers.

Chris, we must be the ones out of rotation who can only nominate, but not vote. I'd like to know the number of people who can vote. Apparently mods are voters all the time in addition to the AC members.

I thought any member can nominate an image not just the AC

Well, it would be good if someone would clarify what Jackie just said too.

Cindy, have you read HERE?

Hope this helps :)

Thanks, mimi. I didn't know where to look for that. It does answer most of the questions I posed. So, my understanding is that you don't get to vote if your correlation coefficient with other voting members has not been met. But how is it determined which 16 members get to vote? Can you have voting status, but still not be one of the 16 members that votes and when do the 16 members get replaced by 16 other members? Also, how does one get to vote again if they have not met one of the three criteria mentioned?

I guess there are still some gaps in my mind (and other's minds) on the details of how one can nominate, but not vote on nominations.

Cindy, you could try using the "Search" function found at the top of the discussion forums.

For example, entering the terms 'Art Council' (without the single quotation marks) comes back with these hits/results:

Art Council


Additionally, I do believe there is more to the quote that you quoted from *caedes:

"The voting on images nominated for Main gallery admission is rotated through the 135 AC members."

Might be useful/helpful if you could link to that discussion?


Additionally found these words from *caedes;

"The Art Council voting is only sent to people who have been on the site in the last 24 hours, so if you are away for a while no voting requests will go to you."

... on the discussion thread, titled; "New Art Council".


Insofar as the specifics of your question(s) are concerned?

Have to be patient, and wait for *caedes to reply.

Thanks for the suggestions, Les. I know the voting is rotated through the members, just wondered how often it comes to you (me, anyone) specifically. I'll check out the thread you mentioned above.

::cynlee (20/12/10 11:33)

"Why have I not been given any images to vote on for promotion to Main gallery in weeks?"

*caedes (6/01/11 21:41)

"The voting members of the art council are picked weekly from the pool of members who have been nominating images or voting on the images (art council voting). If you haven't received any images to vote on, that just means that you weren't picked the last time the members changed. You can improve the chances of being picked again by carefully nominating only images that you are pretty sure will be approved by the art council."

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::cynlee (23/01/11 13:17)

"How about a 'search engine' so we can find the threads that address our questions before we decide we need to start a new thread??"

Done, in place. Has been for some time, guess you were just unaware.

Mentioned in an above post, as well. And now duly noted, methinks.

Duly noted. Most of the images I nominate get voted into the galleries, so it must just be luck of the draw for me.

So on this basis I should nominate pictures of sunsets, birds and mountain scenes that are assured to be nominated so that I can get by voting rights back, rather than spend time looking through the new images gallery and selecting some good overlooked image to add to variety into the main gallery that do not stand a chance of being nominated because the people who are voting cannot take chances on off beat images because if they do they will loose their vote.

Is this what caedes has become, a self selecting pool of mediocrity with no chance for innovation? Quite a change from its early days.

That stuff has been brought forth/subject broached ... on another discussion thread, Chris.

Found here ... "Notification sent when image removed.." (Last few posts, as of this writing here.)


Looks like this is going to be the 'new black' in discussion threads.

Which, I think underscores the adage, that a lil' knowledge is a dangerous thing. ('Can't exploit what you don't know', in this instance.)

Or..

As mentioned some time back and more likely/probable, the Art Council process/system will have to make further adjustments.

Do you really suppose that anyone is trying to 'exploit' anything here, Les. Just wondering what you had in mind.

Wouldn't surprise me. People have certainly tried to exploit the voting system on the c-index in the past and I'm sure those types of people view getting into the perms as an even greater prize than getting a high score, so of course they would try to exploit anything they might perceive as a weakness in the art council system. Rather pathetic, but it's an established pattern.

I can't remember the last time I was asked to judge as a part of the Art Council. I was wondering why?

Me neither. I guess we were culled as part of those 'that were not taking the system seriously'

Here is a link to the page concerning the Art Council.

On the above page 'you' will find a short description of the Council itself.

As well as, the 'how's ... referencing the selection and retention processes involved.
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@Jen: If you read through this discussion, you will find references/postings fleshing out the scenario that I believe applies in your case.

That of and simply put, your travel takes you away from the site quite frequently. So, you are not as active ... in the eyes of the system.

And most likely were not included in the potential pool of voters. (See the posts above at: 23/01/11 21:41 and 23/01/11 20:29.)

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@Chris: Thinking here, that these sections apply to your situation;

"Voting Art Council members are selected based on the following criteria:

* Must have previously served as an associate Art Council member
* Must have nominated one or more works to the Art Council
* Must have had at least 30% of the nominated works accepted by the Art Council

Once promoted to voting status, the Art Council member will retain the position as long as the following is true:

* Greater than 30% of their nominations are passed by the Art Council (though nominating works is not required)
* In voting, their frequency of "yes" votes is between 5% and 80%.
* Their voting is consistent with those of their fellow Art Council members (a correlation coefficient >=0.1)."


You've not followed the voting patterns/results of the greater majority of the other Art Council members, in short.

(That could be a good good thing?)

I soppose that, as someone who went out of their way to both nominate and promote the out of the ordinary images, I was bound to fail membership of the AC. the results of AC policy speak for themselves in the recent pages of the main gallery. Enough said. The fact that I have many images in two genres (photography and CGI) in the main galleries is obviously insufficient. I do know, however, that not every image I proposed should have got to the main gallery, and some I proposed were on second thought, not very good, but did show flair and originality. Many of the older images here are not perfect but were promoted for other reasons, and we do seem to have lost that flair for daring to be different. Now no-one can dare to be different. 1984?

*Sixteen Art Council members decide whether to include the nominated image in the permanent collection.

*If a majority of voters approve of the image, it is included in the permanent collection, and a congratulatory message is sent to the artist.
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Wondering if the above was changed on the note of simply increasing the number of members involved in rendering a final decision, would be an improvement?


I.e. More than sixteen (16). And the majority required of this number that is currently in place.


As it stands now ... images put into the Voting Booth garner between fifteen (15) - twenty (20) votes, on average.

Why not mirror this facet in the Art Council process?

It always struck me that a simple majority should be insufficient to get an image into the main gallery. These images should be of sufficient quality to garner a high level of support, say 14 yes votes before being moved. If only 9 out of 16 people think an image is good enough, then doesn't that say something about the quality of the image where 7 people think otherwise?

I agree, Chris.

As I don't think that this should be an expedited process.

If it takes longer, so be it. We all benefit in the end, methinks. Members and visitors alike.


An aside:

I am curious if the novelty is wearing or has worn off for some?

If 'one' takes to heart the process, in my mind that means that they are visiting the relevant sections of the Main Galleries and comparing what is on the table to what already exists.

If 'one' takes to heart the process, in my mind that means they are visiting the galleries of the member, who's image is on the table. To ensure that duplications are not being introduced to the Main Galleries.

If 'one'..

And so forth.

I am here every day and most of my nominations for AC get promoted, but I have not had voting privilege in over three months so I presume that I must just be out of rotation. Has anyone here been voting on the AC since its inception?

I don't think rotation has anything to do with it. But could be wrong.

I have had two periods of voting separated by a long time of no voting. I currently am not getting any to vote on. I "think" this is normal. When I voted, It was mostly no due to lack of quality. I think my standard may be more restrictive than most.

"No one is really removed from the Art Council. it is just a periodic process where a group of people are selected for the Art Council Voting".....
That is Caedes explanation.
If there are 135 AC members and only 16 vote, then I expect that it takes some time to come around to your turn at voting again. I think I read somewhere in a thread that the privilege is rotated through the membership. I just wonder how long it takes to come back to a member who is not currently voting.

I'm curious about a couple of things.................Are mods also members of the Art Council. Does the Art Council vote and then the Mods make the final vote. For how long does an Art Council member serve before he or she rotates out so others have a chance. A suggestion would be to rotate members in an out so you constantly have a bit of varying opinion.

I get notifications to vote but certainly not on every image. My guess is that we are automatically "normal" members of the council. As far as I can tell my votes have the same weight as anyone else (I have seen images that I have voted no on be promoted, so obviously there is no "final say")

Does that mean that you're one of the 16 voters or is it 16 AC voters plus ???? mods.

*shrugs* Dunno!

I don't think that it is ONLY 16 out of the 135 members (and even on the note of this number, things may or may have not changed) comprising the Art Council that vote on ALL nominated images in a given period of time.

It would make much more sense to me, that out of the 135, for any given nominated image ... that it is assigned to 16 Art Council members, who then decide on whether or not an image is promoted.

So..


Another nominated image, another group of 16 members assigned to vote on it's promotion.

Another nominated image, another group of 16 members assigned to vote on it's promotion.

And so on.


Which.. would explain why 'we' don't see all nominated images, yet, are still having some referred to us in our Jobs to vote on their suitability for promotion within a stated time frame or period of time.



And no, I don't know for sure.

And no, I can't answer any other questions that have been posed with surety. This stuff just makes sense to me.

Well, those 16 have to have met the requirements too as stated above, so some must fall off the voting part of the AC for a time because they don't meet them. For example, you have to be here every day. That makes sense because it is helpful to get the image voted on in a timely fashion and reliable attendance insures that. But, I just wonder why it takes so long to come around to the same person again. I know the answer only resides with Caedes, but I put it out there anyway.

I'll just be curious to see how long it is until I have something to vote on. Should be interesting. The same people should not be around for very long. A fresh perspective is so important.

A good example of why I personally think the mods need to be able to "interfere" in the AC process.

I got this image in the AC voting booth this morning.

A nice sunset, would be very surprised if it isn't quickly promoted by the AC to the perms.

But I also remember this image from a little while ago that was also promoted to the perms.

The question I am asking here is do we need both of these sunset images, taken at the same place and only a few minutes apart, the only other difference being the crop, in the perms? (actually let's make that three, there's also this one in the perms as well). If I was to remove the two and leave the one I considered to be the best, is that overstepping the mark? Or is it better just to let the council have the final stay and let the perms become cluttered with almost identical, multiple shots of the same scene/animal/fractal etc?

I totally agree with you Sam.

I agree with final interference (although I would not use that word, perhaps 'selection') by Image mods.
The AC should be seen (imo) as an advisory body. I would also hope that the Image Mods are still making their own selections without them having to go through th AC procedure. There are still many suitable images slipping through the net.
I would like to use my allocation of 2 nominations a week (provided I see two I think worthy) but have cut it down to one because I do not like to not be able to see whether an image has been nominated or not after the nominate button disappears.
Also I get over-excited (not good at my age) when I forget that and I think all my images have been nominated LOL (I joke of course)

I think all three images you linked to are worthy of selection but the first two are very similar. I would not like to have to make the decision but I dont mind someone else doing it! I do not think members should be discouraged from posting similar ones - often it is interesting to see the slight variations due to different lighting or camera control.
I do not think you would be overstepping the mark at all - I think you would be ensuring the Main galleries are vibrant and interesting and the one (or two) images chosen are doors opening to the rest of the gallery by that artist. That is how I would feel if they were mine anyway.

Just another thought. Sometimes an image is promoted and later a similar image is posted which in the opinion of the VB (and presumably the artist, as they posted it, and often the AC)is of higher standard.
Would it be objectionable for the artist to approach an Image Mod and request that their original promotion be replaced with their 'better' one? Provided they in their judgement agreed, of course.

"Just another thought. Sometimes an image is promoted and later a similar image is posted which in the opinion of the VB (and presumably the artist, as they posted it, and often the AC)is of higher standard."

This would (in my opinion) be a good example and reason for promoted images to stay in the New Images gallery for a set period of time (30 days?) Then the moderators would/could and should take the opportunity to do any necessary pruning before any notifications were sent out.

Personally I would hesitate to make any recommendation on my own images simply because my personal bias may cloud my judgment. My first upload was chosen by a friend. I did not like the photo. It was permed and has been downloaded over one thousand times now. I haven't trusted my own judgment ever since.

I agree Sam.. too many of the same image, I think the Mods should step in especially if it's always the same artist or basically the same image as your example.. I wouldn't have a problem with you getting rid of 2 of the images and keeping the best one..

I just posted an update to the Art Council on the front page.

I like the changes. Wish I'd known I could nominate my own images before. lol

That explains why some of the images that have been nominated shouldn't have been ;)