Answer the question.

I'll answer the question... even though its a stupid one... because "such a scenario" will never happen... and you know damn well it wont...

but I'll humor you.

IF we got the exact same image every day. Eventually no one would chop it.

YAY! you win!

In your post before this you called Cringer an idiot for disagreeing with you and providing a reason without insulting you. You're just an asshole, and people's responses have nothing to do with it. You've been proven very wrong by Badcop and your only offering of a solution was shown to actually make the image selection process worse by TheShaman, so I'll use your words from earlier in this thread and suggest that you just run along now.

Sorry, you don't get to point to a post you made in response to someone else 15 pages into a thread and pretend like that means I've been getting valid responses the whole time and have just been "glossing over" them. I haven't failed to realize any of that. I asked and was not told because people were too busy giving me bullshit responses.

If some pictures are not making it into the "queue" because they haven't received enough votes, then that makes my freaking point. Just because you put "(say a car)" doesn't mean that cars are likely not to get into the queue.

That voted-on images appear in the queue randomly does not mean that the content of the queue is not decided by the voting system.

How much work does it take to download 365 random stock images once a year and have them appear automatically?

Here's a question that no one has answered yet:
When did PSC begin allowing Advantage members to vote on images?

I quit pot back in 2004, by the way.

So it is possible for the source images to affect participation? Great. Then tap a little message to your boyfriend and tell him that calling it "impossible" was ridiculous.

Telling me that it is "impossible" for the source images to affect participation is insulting.

I'd like to respond to badcop, but no one seems to know when PSC began allowing members to vote on images.
I did, however acknowledge his response as valid to the extent that he actually took the time to address my argument. It would make sense that from the start of voting, there would be some period of time that participation would still be high while the image selection became repetitive. It would take a little while for people to get bored and stop coming. If he took his selection from a period shortly after implementing this system, then I can address his criticism. If he chose from a selection of images which appeared prior to voting, then yes he would have indeed proven me wrong. But since I don't know that yet, I'll happily stick around until more people like him are willing to take part in a productive conversation.

TheShaman is still saying ridiculous things that make no case against what I said. Just because the images show up in random order does not mean the queue isn't tainted with the same kinds of images. He's making points that are wholly irrelevant and masquerading them as valid responses. They aren't.

I don't care if I'm wrong. I like finding out when I'm wrong. It means I'll be right next time. What I don't like is when people give me bullshit responses, don't answer questions, tell me I'm just "bitching," tell me my theory is "impossible" when it clearly isn't, and try to hijack my thread just to put forward their own ideas before addressing the topic at hand. THAT, I don't like.

Most people came into this thread looking to discuss. They acknowledged that, yes, the repetitive sources might be an issue, but they offered up other possibilities (which are more likely, in my opinion), with the intent of having a discussion. You seem to be dead set on only talking about the source images, using some ridiculous hypothetical scenarios for arguments against the other explanations. TheShaman is saying that people voting on images can prevent repetitive sources. You saw five old cars, maybe thirty old cars had been submitted. There's no way to know. Eliminating the voting just won't improve anything. You have some extremely thin skin if you find the suggestion that something is impossible insulting. It is quite impossible for the current source selections to be the sole cause for a lack of participation, not even a major factor. It's easy to chop anything from any source. There were significant differences in all of the images you posted. Speaking from my personal experience, the source is the last factor in whether or not I chop something, and even then, it's usually a matter of if I think my idea is worth doing, and if I think I can come close to executing it. I just glanced at Worth1000 now, as it's the only other Photoshop site I know about, and the current contests have about the same participation as PSC, and one of them only has six entries. I don't think it's unique to this site, and I don't think the sources are to blame.

Their ideas, not mine. As I said, I'd be happy to discuss their ideas but I don't want the thread to turn into "What do YOU want to see on PSC?" As has been mentioned, those threads are numerous and unproductive. I was trying to identify the problem that took PSC participation down about 50%. In order to do that, one has to ask, 'what has changed between then and now?', not suggest adding new things that never existed to begin with.


Some did. I didn't snap at those people. I snapped at the people who made no indication that they even read my post beyond saying "I disagree." They didn't tell me why even when I asked. It took 15 pages to get a decent response from someone who disagreed.


I used real examples of voting being detrimental to participation.



Your last statement does not follow from the rest of what you said. It's simply an assertion. If we eliminated voting, and went to a *primarily* non-user-submitted image system, it would improve the variety of source images.

And again, I'm not saying that user-submitted images can't make it into the mix, but it should be limited substantially. It should be rare. It should be a treat, not the norm.


Calling something impossible when it clearly is possible is insulting. It's not meant to give an accurate critique of my argument, it's meant to insult me.


Not impossible. See how easy that was?


Doesn't mean it's fun. It's easy to chop a sign, but its boring. In the end, this site is about entertainment. If people aren't entertained, they will leave.


Well, great. That's you. Now tell me what would cause the trend of participation drop-off. "Maybe people just had other shit to do" doesn't explain a trend. "Maybe we need more H2H contests" doesn't explain why participation was so high even before PSC had H2H contests at all.

"I used real examples of voting being detrimental to participation."

I was referring to you suggesting that people who would say they aren't participating for different reasons would actually not be participating due to the sources, they're just unaware of the true reason. It's quite ridiculous to jump into the heads of people that didn't even provide those answers, to say they can't have other reasons, that it's the sources driving everything and they lack the ability to figure that out. Here's what you said...

"Is it possible for people to lose interest in something without understanding exactly why? Is it possible for them to, if pressed for an answer, give a response that doesn't describe the actual reason why they left. For example, they might say "Well, I had a lot of stuff going on in my life" when in reality they've always has a lot of stuff going on in their life, but now that this site is less interesting, they now view their lives as more important and interesting than before by comparison? "

You quoted my last statement, but didn't respond. Did you miss it or something?

Edit: On a side note, TheShaman made that argument directly to you much earlier in this thread, he just quoted a later version of it.

I have to say, I'm a fan of PotHed

I'm convinced that around the 20th page of replies, he'll post something to this effect:

"Hey everyone. As you all know, I titled this thread, 'How to increase participation'.
With 300 replies in a matter of days, I'd say mission accomplished!
Thanks for participating in my experiment. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to chop a statue. Seriously…I friggin love statues!"

I was explaining why asking people wouldn't necessarily be helpful. People are terrible at self-reflection, defining the reasons why they do or don't do something. I don't recall getting an actual response to that question either.


We'd have to know how many members there are, et al. Simply pointing to their raw participation numbers doesn't tell us anything useful. We would need more data from that site. If they had 24 members, and 24 participants, then their participation would be 100%. If they had 1,000,000 members and 24 participants, then that would paint a different picture. Without that sort of context, it's impossible to equate their raw participation numbers with that of PSC's. I didn't respond because I didn't care to. It was such a poor analogy that I would rather ignore it than call you an idiot since we're trying to move past that.


I don't even consider his comment to be valid since it didn't really address my argument. Again, just because the images show up randomly does not mean the images themselves are random. It's completely irrelevant. Since he happened to be responding to badcop's valid critique, I cut him a little slack. So far, badcop has presented the only critique I consider valid.

You tried on page 7, but it came off as reaching. I didn't have enough examples for you. Whoopty-doo. It really seemed like you had already decided to disagree, and you used that as a lame reason when I pressed you to respond to my actual argument. But I did respond to you anyway. I was a little snide, but not insulting. I responded with more examples of choice being detrimental to participation, to which you did not respond which led me to further conclude that you had not considered my argument seriously. You have simply positioned yourself as being my opposition, logic be damned. And I'm not just saying that. I acknowledge badcop's point, but in order to address it properly I need more information on when voting began, and for all I know I will simply have to admit I am wrong. So please don't respond with "You just don't find positions that disagree with you to be valid." No, I don't find invalid critiques to be valid. Naturally the person making the critique would believe their critique to be valid, but it doesn't make it so.

I guess when it comes down to it, unless I can figure out when voting began so I can discuss this in a more productive manner with someone like badcop, I'll just consider leaving this site altogether. Clearly, nothing will ever change. Like the employees who would decry losing retirement options (from 10 to 3) in spite of the practical benefit of doing so, the members here at PSC seem determined to hold on tightly to their ability to vote on source images. If it is indeed the problem, they are sinking the ship and holding on tightly. I don't want to be a part of that.

How ridiculous. Okay, so it is possible for source images to affect participation, if you repeat the exact same image every day. Glad you cleared that up

Since no one is talking about that scenario, it doesn't matter.

You are suggesting an idea to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Your thread suggests that repetitive source images slows down particupation. It has already been shown that participation was doing just fine even with repetitive images in the past. So it cannot be the cause. It was a nice theory, but it has been shot down.

Unless the participation cited was during the period after voting began, but before the repetitiveness began to take its toll. If the repetitiveness cited occurred prior to the voting system, I'll reject my entire argument. No one has yet been able to tell me when the voting system began.

Wow I dont beleive Im doing this....
Pothead, this conversation has been had over the years and every one has an opinion and every one gets to have a say...and thats why I love PSC.

What you fail to understand is this...not every one will agree with your opinion, but thats good, you just need to chill and take advantage of a good free site that has been around a good long time and just enjoy what it is we have here...make it better dont make it better its all realative to tell the truth... good source bad source who cares a good solided chopper should be able to create some thing from any source given. Is it the greatest image in the world...who freakin cares...did you enjoy the journey thats what is importeant.

Have a good hard look at some of the portfollio's of the p[eople that you are arguing with, (ON that note it would be nice not to go down the name calling path, that goes for all of you K) and just see how many great images they have and just as many crap images they had. My guess is they learned something from the journey.

My skills increased here at PSC because of crap source images, I learnt from the imagination of those that found something great in the source...

So chill my PSC brothers and lets just get back to what PSC is all about...learning, looking and Midget Llamas.

Been awhile since I have stood apon the old soapbox