"A piece of toast with butter always lands butter side down, and a cat always lands on its feet. What happens if a piece of toast is tied butter side down to the back of falling cat? Does it hover above the ground in perpetual indecision?"
Why not have a Superior Image Gallery? It would contain repeats of the very best images on the site, but have an extremely limited number. You could go there to pick out the best 24 images of the site or so. The selection could be half based on C-index and half on the mdoerators' wisdom. Let them choose the cream of the crop if it isn't too much work.
There is already enough dispute over why peoples image's are not in the upper image ranking . What do you think would happen when there not in a top images display section.
Sadly, he's right. Talk about conflict? There'd be name-calling and finger-pulling. Who knows how crazy people here can get? From the looks of it, pretty darned crazy. You know, I find the view to download ration to be a better indicator of popularity than c-index. Everyione gets one vote, and each is weighed equally. It's a switch - either on or off - no quality judgement involved.
There are somewhere between 15,350 and 15,400 images on this site, and that may or may not include the New Images gallery. I have a hard time realisticly picturing someone being angry because one or all of his images weren't in the top .1%, but human nature is awfully difficult to predict. You guys have been around here longer than I, the decision is up to you.
I think we accomplish this as is. Besides if you look at an image, all you need do is right click it to save it...same as now. BUT now, a special gallery where we can upload Portrait aspect images would be good. Had to toss that in.