When are the founders going to wake up to come to understand that 1% or 2% percentages are not doing anything for morale in selection. I've just had that experience like many times before and I hate it - Just like many other photographers on this site no matter who or how experienced they are. This is no good in any way HOW BLOODY LOUD DO I NEED TO SAY IT - there has to be a better way PLEASE PLEASE I beg you. Just take a young who gets who gets that dreaded 1% or 2% better than the rest Wow that's fantastic NO IT IS NOT ITS BAD - His or her next image same 1% or 2% All I can say is you must have to many members and are try hard to get a few to leave the site. Can't you see how wrong this is.

I feel your frustration Daniel Springgay 

I have liked this site very much since I joined in 2022, barely over one year ago. Yet, there is something I wish I could understand and that is the curation process, the votes, the feedback with the numbers. I value the forum of critics, it is wonderful, I like the atmosphere among the photographers, but I just do not get how the vote happens. Sometimes a photo is voted with a 1 or 2 %, but at the end a publication is given or an award. So, there is an override system. Is it just luck that one gets this person who overrides the other votes?, what if the other photos do not get to be seen (or do they get seen always) by whoever overrides the votes?. Sometimes I just would like to understand the process. 

I am happy with looking into improving skills as many times as needed, but at times I feel lost as to what the difference was between rejected (badly rejected) photos and previous more succeful (lucky?) posts. Our taste may be different but there should be some homogeneity in the way the publications/awards are decided. At times I see awards given repeatedly to the same subject, the same theme, the same picture pretty much. I respect that there must be something I do not see, but it is hard to keep justifying a blind process. I wish things were different because I would love to keep participating with joy and trust. 

Thanks for the chance to post our thoughts!

Marie

1x seems to have better quality images than Flikr and 500px. I started looking at these collections about 5yrs ago after retiring as an ICU doctor and taking up photography. Hobby Photography was to replace the stress and tension but begged the question to my OCD, what is a "good" photo and what should I shoot and how would I know? After 5 years of visualizing thousands of photos at these sites I can say that there are many different kinds of images and mostly "I don't like them", just kidding. But I find only but a few really unique images; most are wonderfully crafted but not really that interesting or unique, "been there done that".

Moving from a set of gadget and digital complexities intended to produce images, I graduated to attempting "the sublime" aka producing artistic images. I have only submitted for about a year. I would like to remind people about humility, most images are junk and you don't deserve to be "published" or "awarded" and your life doesn't change if you do or don't. And anyway it is all subjective (tough to swallow as a physician trying to be objective).

I would like to think that this site rewards for artistic or uniquely conceived images or techniques and sometimes it does but not always; Ansel Adams would get all his images published and awarded I suppose?! There are an awful lot of images that are good and published/awarded but the author gets 5 or more awarded subsequently that are virtually the same image often seems from the same shoot, suggesting the Ansel Adams effect or sloppy curating.  None of that changes the fact that the images selected are usually pretty well made but as a "consumer" of images well before being a "submitter" of images it bothers me that repetition is so blatant in many (not all) cases. And that should not be the perception of the review process.

I really don't want to care but if you want your image appreciated you can come here to be disappointed or elated. Generally the curation is OK but don't let it become an addiction of sorts which is not healthy. Just remember, you are not entitled to a good review; trust yourself and if the overlords don't like your work you can find other overlords. "Do I contradict myself? very well then I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes".  

Daniel, 

i feel your pain, litterally! Thank you for writing this post. I was about to write one too because with the latest  "curations" (if we can call them that), I feel like leaving 1X. I have had 7 images rejected in a row. I don't expect every single image to be published but this feel like a slap in the face. I liked the fact that 1X challenged me to post better pictures and to pay attention to little details, but to reject so many pictures with such low scores, even if some curators compliment me for the quality of the pictures, it makes no sense and it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. If my style and picture quality haven't changed, why do so many pictures get rejected now?  Have I suddenly become bad? And I am not the only one it is now happening to, hence this post from Daniel and all the people telling us the same thing is happening to them.  The curation process is very flawed and I don't know how much more of it I can take.  I hope someone is listening, because I feel sometimes that these posts are just read by other members and no one who is at the helm. 

Well Said Lucie all this system of selection is doing to pulling the morale down to the gutter level for many photographers and leaving them feeling dejected and sick to the stomach - Is that what they want I think not. Thank you for your response...

Adding my voice to those of Daniel, Marie and Lucie, agreeing with all three and knowing from personal experience and from some posts in the Critique forum that something is very wrong with the curation system. Will anyone listen and act?

William also makes a fair point about "blatant" repetition.

I think we should all start a 1 - 4% Club! I also have several images, including my latest one last night that attained this glorious entry requirment lol.  As Marcellus says: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark". But seriously, I can only suspect the reason for this strangeness is that the number of members actually curating is very low. If hardly anyone sees your image or votes, then your chances will naturally be low. I suspect too, that if your image does not attain a decent enough vote, the official curators will never see it as a consequence.

I'm guessing, but I'm pretty sure this is a 'built-in' way of reducing the amount of images the real curators have to see and curate because they must get burnt out real fast. The only way to get more votes on an image is to keep it in curation for longer, but I remember members hating that delay, too. Personally, I have never liked this current two tier system. The old one was much better. You knew nothing, an image was published or it was not. End of story. But that's life. 

Thank you for your input Peter put my name down for that 1 - 4% Club I'm in.

Hi, 

Me too, in recent posts, almost of all my posts start with less than 5%.

I thought it is because my photos are not good at all extremely; now I am a little surprised that it seems happening to others, even to senior critics.

I stopped being nervous about my score, at least in the first 2 phases - just after uploaded and member curators phases.

I believe now the score in Expert Curators phase.

If something is going wrong, I hope it will be fixed soon.

I am confused (as a 1 year member, among very accomplished photographers and senior critics). I imagined that the scores were at least partially curated by dopes like me. I curate and don't know much. I assume that my 4% score is based on collective curation so I can't argue with the result except that the curators are too polite photographers that seem to be unable to say "that is another banal shot Bill, try something newish!" but hide behind techinique or annonymous curation. I sold a few  images in a couple of local galleries. So, I don't worry so much about this site and even feel a little bad about submitting and checking on images. My final judge is local, admiring, selling.

If y'all are professionals then publishing here might add to your resume. I am not. I am trying to establish some reason to generate images with some impact and explore "artistic" intent.

I look at photos here to learn. I am not as bothered by low scores as I am with finding "published" or "awarded" images that are from the same roll. if you look every day and you see what looks like the same photo and go the author's portfolio and find the very same image several times with minimal changes it seems that there is a selection bias or cronyism and that makes me angry and want to abandon this site. But since it is only a small slice I have not given up.  My images may not get publshed much here but I still enjoy the honor and there are really good ones. "the good guy wins every once in a while". Billie Preston

Hi,My feeling is that these percentages are calculated on a small number of curators who can see the photographs and judge them.Then one would have to go and analyze more in depth ,how and why that decision was arrived at and more time would be needed,to explain the key points,positive or negative,that contribute to making a judgment.We then read that beyond the percentages and numbers that summarize the votes of the curators(and sometimes it is not clear how much they affect) there are other degrees of evaluation.

When I registered, I remember that the number of views appeared during curation and afterwards the percentage rating  .

Sono del parere che il sistema di selezione non funziona. Prima di pubblicare una foto su 1x faccio il test su altre piattaforme e se ha successo la pubblico su 1x. Ma qui, come capita a molti altri, la selezione è davvero poco comprensibile. Attualmente sono nel mese di prova, ma se è così che funziona, come altri hanno segnalato, credo che cancellerò le foto già pubblicate e abbandono 1x.

Hi Flavio,´

What Daniel, myself and others are discussing here is not the curation process as a whole but how it has changed drastically recently to the point where many of us are seeing picture after picture rejected, despite the fact that the quality of our images is the same as it was 2 months ago. The curation process has changed in a way that some of us are considering leaving 1 X.   We want an explanation. We want some change. 

Hi Lucie,I can speak as one who often curates photos and lately I 've also been getting tired.Even if in a small way,it seems that the percentages are influenced by the people who vote.There are downsides to photography or forum participation.it is instructive to know that a good photo can be completely underestimated,(but a few votes come)while others get a lot of likes.It might be more desirable to receive a more objective opinion in percentages(but maybe that is not what is being asked).Since there are so many photos there is also objective difficulty in viewing all the images.

Hypothetically one could read under the photograph 5 views and two votes,still hypothetically a landscape photo can receive likes from a street photographer or someone who only does reportage and very sector -specific.In two months there may be different curators than before.Always hypothetically perhaps one should follow (and know) that photographer directly to refine the image selection process.

The direct email to send suggestions or opinions on the new look of the website ,was removed,I suppose someone was writing more than once.Unfortunately some users when they start to discuss (with some reason) then take a direction that leads them to leave and I saw it happen several times.

Best regards

I have my own frustrations in the way the curation process happens on this site. Some of my images didn't get selected, and whilst I could get them critiqued, I would struggle to accept the negative feedback, as I know some of the images have done well in various national and international competitions. I know this isn't a competion site, but the consistency in the curation process is more miss than hit. I primarily am using 1x as an outlet to sell my work for some financial gain, but feel that some of my work is hard to get onto this site. I don't mind being on a site with high standards, but am confused.

I won't compare my images to other photographers on here, as that would be unfair to other photographers who have images on here on their own merits.

Today I had two epiphanies. (I had articulated that the photos on this site were superior to Flickr in general.):

First, I had looked at many photos there for inspiration but felt that 1x had more refined photos. I did, however, find some wonderful artists and "followed" them. Today Flickr sent some recent images by those that I had "Followed". I was impressed by a much Better they were than the ones that 1x had on its "Selected" list. So superficially, I was impressed at 1x by quality vs quantity. Except that  quality is indexed by number of submissions does not ensure quality if it is constrained, that is it is regression to the mean and the mean here may be less quality than the mean at Flickr, or at least the subselection that I chose. OK maybe I am over reacting. Except:

Second I reviewed the new "Popular Selected" entries, today May 11,2023. The first two and a few later were exactly the same image cropped differntly. This is the nonsense that should be stopped. I am not at all upset that my photos are not published or selected or they get a low score (currenly 2% in my last submission).  I am upset, and really upset that there is no discernment about the artistic value of an image unless it stays within the "bubble" of the rigid sameness of the images. How in the world can three almost exact images be Popular Selected? One way is the author is nephew of the "Selector", if not then what? No much is out of the box and a lot of chosen images seem over colorized and over vignetted over contrasted. But I am sure that they all follow "The Rule of Thirds". I am not speaking as a master photographer but as a consumer of artistic expression. I come to this site to find some of that and to me I am being let down. Repeated photos of the same sitting is an insult to my intelligence and it occurs over and over. The question is: How does one become the Good Nephew?

William Trainor I'm not sure what angle you are coming from the more I read your words the more I'm confused - lets go back to my first post, It's all about morale     There must be a high bar and a low bar I accept that. Great images will be published with high percentages and many will not - It's the " Will Nots " I'm concerned about. We all get this message from time to time " Your images was not selected " followed by 1% or 2% or if your lucky maybe 4% - This is bad new followed by more bad news - Your image did not make the grade by the way the percentage score is Rock Bottom. That to my thinking is kicking the photographer when he or she in down and it's bloody Nonsense.....

I am sorry to be cynical but without knowing how this place works it seems a waste of time to get all involved. Every Club, every gang, every syndicate has a code of some sort, that is there for the group's survival, I suppose. I have no problem with that but I feel that this is not the syndicate I was hoping for. I came to this site to find "good" photographs and then tried a payed subscription for the privilege of critique and thought I could get good feedback. I find that the Club has made "publshed' and "selected" the coin of the relm. OK, no problem; mostly good photos and If I get some published I am happy. But then through observation I began to find that the Club code is not as fair as all that. Those who get published are the ones that have many published, OK maybe they might be the best photogs, although that is a big leap. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The thing that just got me over the edge is the number of photos from the same photographer about the same subject with almost no differences and all published or selected. And, And they are not that good to my eye. So who gets the special treatment? That makes me angry and I would leave now if I got my money back but paid for the year.

So, first I don't trust the quality of curation of images here.

And second I don't get much help with mine. ( I asked why composition was criticized in my image and got:

"Thanks for sharing the image and description. It appears that the bees are attracted to the drawing of a beehive but the image has some distractions for the viewers. You need to improve composition and mood as the photo is a snap shot. I am not discouraging you but sharing my frank opinion")  Maybe fair comment but did not address the question, just side stepped it by saying it was a "snapshot".

My issue is that I would like transparency in how the process works. So, the way I understand it is the following. 

Let us say one gets 1%...what does this mean?. It means, I think,  that 1 out of 100 people thought it was worth publishing. Not necessarily a bad picture, correct?. Only that for whatever reason, even a good quality picture, only one person thought it should be published this time. If this is correct, then we should not necessarily take it as a bad thing in regards to the value of our craft. There are variables influencing the way member curators think (not in high demand now, too much of the same subject, or simply you submitted a very bad picture, who knows. That is when the morale starts to go down, you just do not know). 

After that, sometimes  a person overrides that 1% score. Now here I am not sure how it works. Do all the pictures pass through a handful of people than can override the score?, or just some pictures?

In my view,  the 1% score should come with more information (the pies are contradictory, so they do not help in general). For example, how many people curated the picture?. That would tell me if the rejection is a strong one vs probably bad luck. How does the picture move along, does it have to be curated by a minimum of people?. May be a vote will help, how many voted yes, to publish, out of how many total, in both the members and expert categories. I may be just not understanding something obvious :). My last one was 4% on the expert side. May be, when the picture is in the final ? few people that look at it a comment or a summary of the rejection could help. If it is something relatively easy to fix, then a comment will help us move forward with a resubmission. 

If the experts put their minds to it I am sure there is a better way. 

In regards to the repetition, the ones that keep being published or awarded that appear to be the same, I think it must be that in general the curators do not get tired of them and they still think they are worth being published. I am OK with that. There may be trends that will change overtime. 

Other platforms are not very good. Flickr is not a curated site and the popular vote for Explorer is not based always on quality. ASA100 is a nice place, at least one understands better how it works. The strong value of 1x for me is the forum of critics to help one grow. That is so valuable. 

Hi, 

My last photo is published with following scores:

Members 15%

Expert 2%

I am glad to be published, however, I am getting confused about scores of pie chart.

What do the scores mean/represent exactly?

What? Really? 15% and 2% AND published! Now I have never seen that with my pictures. With a score like that, they would definitely not be published. In fact I hardly never get a photo published if the score is below 50%. I agree with you that this leaves one wondering what the scores means. Grrrrrr !!! 

Marie, 

I agree with your comment about how the curation should work i.e. telling us how many people curate an image, etc. And of course the pie charts are nonsense. How can two pie charts be equal among all pictures and among a certain category? That is mathematically impossible. So why show us these stupid charts? Do they think we are entertained by them? It is a gimmick! And the worst part is that they advertise them as a plus value to join 1X i.e. you get statistics !!! and pie charts !!!  Come on! Give me a break! (not you Marie, but them!!! )

But to address the issue of photos looking similar and still being published, let's not forget that 1X is there to make money by selling pictures and if they feel that those kind of pictures can sell, then why not offer them ad nauseum on the sites where they are offered for sale?  That must be the reason why they are published almost without a thought. Otherwise, they would fail on the originality spectrum, for sure.

So the bottom line is money.  Pure and simple. 

And on the subject of originality and subject matter, shouldn't we give more weight to what the general public thinks of our pictures since they are potentially the buyers and not the "expert curators"? That seems logical to me. but who am I ?

They flat stopped awarding my photos some 3 months ago. I haven't changed :-) My photos haven't gotten any worse :-)

Some photos get rejected 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times then get published and awarded! It's all so subjective...

New rating system is crap. Published photos barely help you climb the ratings. With my old account I had fewer published and awarded photos than I have with this one (about half). Yet I was in the top 300 members. Now I'm in the top 1000..

But this person stays in #1 position, no matter what:

link disabled by moderator - it is not allowed to refer to individual members

This is the best photographer on 1x? Seriously?

As if she'd have any of her photos awared had she not been the chief editor and dear friend of the owners. Same goes for both owners, photographic geniuses, according to the number of their awarded photos.

Disgusting.

Thanks for writing this post, Daniel. I think the definition of popularity should be clearer, and hopefully reasonable and meaningful for members - as Lucie said it was a value that I expected when I joined 1x, or not, the site should stop just giving terrible percentages that only affect the morale of photographers.

I have had the experience of having a photo published with a popularity of only 2% among the experts. I remember it was rejected at first and then published a few days later or so. So I suppose there was someone who could override the curation result.

As I am relatively new to the site, I felt that such an experience and rejection at 1-4% popularity were nothing special - that's 1x. So I have tried not to worry too much about the percentages, which have no meaning to me except to affect my morale, but of course that is not what I want.

Hope that someone from the management will see your posts here and give some response.

The ratings you mention reflect total contributions to the site, including curation and commenting. There are separate charts for photos published and the number awarded which purely reflect photographic achievements. 

As far as I know there's no separate chart for published photos. Only awarded.

I'd rather there was a separate rating for commentators and curators. This has nothing to do with photographic achievements. These things should not be lumped together. I'm sure that's exactly what dear Yvette was counting on when she created this rating system for herself and her dear friends. People who come here don't know it "reflects overall contribution tothe site" or any such muckery. All the see is #1. There is the best photographer on 1x! Damn shame.

There are separate charts for each and every one of the contributions, including the number of photos published. Yvette puts an enormous amount of time and effort into the site, and many members see the magazine as one of its most valuable features. 

Show me the public link to the chart with the number of photos published. It does not exist.

Once again, publishing a newsletter has zero to do with photographic achievements and should not count toward ANY overall ranking that has to do with photographic achievement. Neither should commenting and curation.

Apples to apples.

I personally do not give two shits about semi-literate presentations published on the front page here. They give 1x a bad name.

But I do take issue when "enormous work, time and effort" spent on the site is valued higher and/or lumped together with photographic work.

Either this site is about photography as claimed, or it's a circle jerk for the select few. It looks like the second to me, so at least be honest about it. 

William Trainor PRO

I am sorry to be cynical but without knowing how this place works it seems a waste of time to get all involved. Every Club, every gang, every syndicate has a code of some sort, that is there for the group's survival, I suppose. I have no problem with that but I feel that this is not the syndicate I was hoping for. I came to this site to find "good" photographs and then tried a payed subscription for the privilege of critique and thought I could get good feedback. I find that the Club has made "publshed' and "selected" the coin of the relm. OK, no problem; mostly good photos and If I get some published I am happy. But then through observation I began to find that the Club code is not as fair as all that. Those who get published are the ones that have many published, OK maybe they might be the best photogs, although that is a big leap. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The thing that just got me over the edge is the number of photos from the same photographer about the same subject with almost no differences and all published or selected. And, And they are not that good to my eye. So who gets the special treatment? That makes me angry and I would leave now if I got my money back but paid for the year.

So, first I don't trust the quality of curation of images here.

And second I don't get much help with mine. ( I asked why composition was criticized in my image and got:

"Thanks for sharing the image and description. It appears that the bees are attracted to the drawing of a beehive but the image has some distractions for the viewers. You need to improve composition and mood as the photo is a snap shot. I am not discouraging you but sharing my frank opinion")  Maybe fair comment but did not address the question, just side stepped it by saying it was a "snapshot".

If you weren't happy with the critique you received, click the blue button and request a critique in the forum where one or more of the senior critics will offer help.

If you click on the number of points you have, it takes you to a page that shows the breakdown and then a link to the chart for each separate category.

William Trainor PRO

I am sorry to be cynical but without knowing how this place works it seems a waste of time to get all involved. Every Club, every gang, every syndicate has a code of some sort, that is there for the group's survival, I suppose. I have no problem with that but I feel that this is not the syndicate I was hoping for. I came to this site to find "good" photographs and then tried a payed subscription for the privilege of critique and thought I could get good feedback. I find that the Club has made "publshed' and "selected" the coin of the relm. OK, no problem; mostly good photos and If I get some published I am happy. But then through observation I began to find that the Club code is not as fair as all that. Those who get published are the ones that have many published, OK maybe they might be the best photogs, although that is a big leap. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The thing that just got me over the edge is the number of photos from the same photographer about the same subject with almost no differences and all published or selected. And, And they are not that good to my eye. So who gets the special treatment? That makes me angry and I would leave now if I got my money back but paid for the year.

So, first I don't trust the quality of curation of images here.

And second I don't get much help with mine. ( I asked why composition was criticized in my image and got:

"Thanks for sharing the image and description. It appears that the bees are attracted to the drawing of a beehive but the image has some distractions for the viewers. You need to improve composition and mood as the photo is a snap shot. I am not discouraging you but sharing my frank opinion")  Maybe fair comment but did not address the question, just side stepped it by saying it was a "snapshot".

You called it!

This is private. Only for my information. I asked for a public link to ranking of all members by published photos. Where is it?

It's not private. Scroll down that page and you will find it.

What page, Elizabeth? Members page doesn't have it. I can find that list through my stats, but guess what? It says there that I'm in 200th place. But once I go in the list - I'm actually #573. Not only is this site made with two left feet, it's inaccurate too.

.

It sounds as though you found the page. I can't help with inaccuracies.

Very funny. Top members and top awarded are visible to anyone without having to look for those in your profile.

Victoria Glinka (nee Ivanova) used to occupy the #1 spot.  I'm not the fan of her art, but she deserved the rank far more than the current "Politburo" of this site.

If someone can be called the heart of 1x, than it's Yvette. She is the creator of the magazine and deserves to be the number one.

By no means the "Top members" listing says it's a rating for photography.

Why do you care about a rating anyhow? If you had 100.000 points more and were 1000 positions higher ranked, what would it give you personally or photographically? There are dozens, if not hundreds of websites were you can compete and will be rated by (only) your work, 35awards, Gurushots, Photocrowd, to name a few popular ones. 1x is an online gallery.

I thought my last message was directly to Daniel in answer to his. Others seem to read it so it was public and I feel like I Pooped in the living room. I am not into sewing discord but the way to express disappointment and unhappiness is in a forum. This string seems to have exposed an unhappiness in the curation process. Daniel brought up a "mystery" about the Curation process and I thought I might bring up another. What I noticed about publishing and then selecting the same image and the mystery surrounding that observation and the publishing and selecting images from those who have already published many unfortunately suggests a significant bias. I did several surveys over several days, looking at every published and selected image over several days to come up with my conclusion, so I had  a bit of data to back me up. Daniel was pointing out that artists don't like to have puny numbers associated with their image as insulting. Similarly, I wanted to point out that artists don't want their images overlooked because of some bias toward a preset vision or of individual "selecters". I don't know how the selection (as opposed to the curation) process works so all I can say is that I believe defiinitivly that there is Bias. I do not know if it is intentional or unintentional (two different selectors just select the same image simultaneously). But the biggest sin a site like this can have is Bias.

Crtique: I recently commented in the Critique section, not sure I should have, but I kind of understood the desire of the artist to have feedback, the images were interesting and I thought I got what they were looking for. I went to the artists' portfolio to see their motivation; I thought about the image and what the artist intended and carefully added comments only after the senior critics had commented. I have no idea if my comments were helpful or wanted but I took some time with those comments and I hope I was honest and sympathetic. I would ask for the same for my images.

Dear Strelok,

I deleted your last comments because they are insulting.

Please consider this as an official warning.

Luc Vangindertael

Moderator

I think Mike is correct that this is basically a Gallery. You don't have to pay to look but if you join you become part of a Club or Gang or a Community. If you and the others like and trust each other, all is well but if there are factions and cliques it becomes less healthy. (There must be a commercial element in this discussion. The site, as Gallery,  sells images and do "better images" sell better? ).

I have no doubt that Daniel, Lucie, Elizabeth and Mike and all senior critics are sincere and are looking out for the "community" of artitsts here. But I sense that there is another level that is more obscure, certainly to me (an "algorithm" or a commercial bias or some other "selector" that make ultimate decisions? Don't know). It is is hard to get photographs in this gallery and well it should be but there should be no shortcuts if the "community" is to trust the process; there should be no entitilement.

The Publish process seems to have some general community vote but the "Selection" process needs a careful look. That is my take on it. Perhaps calmer voices, mine included.

Who is Luc Vangindertael

Moderator?

Hi William,

Moderators ensure that we have a friendly atmosphere and that the discussions are on topic.

Most of the time we are invisible, but when comments and observations are offending or written in anger we intervene.

Remember, when becoming member of this community we signed a membership agreement.

Article 10 is about the rules of communication, please have a look.

Kind regards,

Luc Vangindertael

Moderator

William,

I just want to make one thing clear in case you have misunderstood the role of Senior Critics.  They have nothing to do with Curation.  The decisions to Publish or Award are done by the Head Curators.  There are currently 14 of them, and their names, pictures, and biographies are listed in the 'About' section. 

Steven T.

Ha ha! here comes the police with repressions 🤣

Your bias is already visible to the outside world.

Everyone will know.

I started this Topic it was about one topic Morale - looking at what the thread has become hurts in some way with some people making it up as they go along. It's time to draw this thread to a close. Finished no more hate no more anger - On this site there are many people in the background doing wonderful things with no pay with no pat on the back. They do it because they care and want to promote good photography.

" THE END "

There is a lot of hate in the world right now. At least we photographers stick together and don't fight 🙏 Or let's transfer this anger to photography, maybe it will move us further in our work 🤷

Good day to all! I will only express my subjective opinion about the imperfection of the system - some of my images have been published and awarded. However, some were awarded after the re-release. That is, the first publication identified the photo as garbage, and the second the same picture without editing into a masterpiece. Strange, right?

I stopped taking it seriously a long time ago. I love taking pictures and that's enough for me. Good luck to all!

You keep telling yourself thet, Daniel, somebody has to.

The only thing these people you mention care about is themselves and what they believe to be their good photography.

Outsiders are not allowed into this circle jerk.

This is nothing new. Since ancient times mediocrity gratified itself in such ways. There were book burnings too.

And when YOU are upset about something and state that YOU hate it, well, other people are upset about other things and they hate those as well.

Please have a little consideration for someone other than yourself and your dear friends. I know it's hard.

hi all, yesterday I wrote an e-mail to the support:

Dear 1x.com team

Until a few weeks ago I had the feeling that everything was fair and right on your site. The rated photos, which were published, had technical quality, a great image statement, great light guides in the studio or were really artistic of high quality. However, now I have to ask if you have technical problems, since the curation is off by 1 - 2%, photos are published that are far from technical knowhow or even have a logo? Is there no final control? Are the head curators on vacation or now only the number of clicks of amateurs counts? I like to pay for a site, in which it was like a few months ago, still neat and fair, a few outliers - yes you can turn a blind eye, but as it runs for a few weeks, your site loses respect and seriousness.

Too bad that this is developing so!

which annoys me very much:
no final inspection before publishing the photos, because again and again pictures are published with logo, as well as with sensor stains and technically very poor quality like today

link deleted. It is not allowed to quote other members work in the forum

So apparently it's OK to post links and refer to individual members and even critique curators' decisions...

OK for some, but strictly forbidden for others.. hmmm

Bias everywhere, even in this.

So often people write on this site, even in this thread: "so many people are doing so many wonderful things FOR FREE to promote good photography.." "Curators are working FOR FREE and can't be made to explain to each member why each photo was rejected".

These statements would have weight if this site was free. But it's NOT FREE! We are being charged hefty membership fees. So anybody who's being FORCED to work for free can quit right now. Owners should PAY the curators to do a decent job. And give a reason for rejection to each declined photo, as a matter of courtesy from the horse's mouth. So the poor rejects don't have to go ask clueless critics, why photo was rejected.

Dear Ruth

I understand your concerns, justified or not, about the quality of the curation process. It is good that you let management know. I can understand less that you ventilate this in the public forum with reference to the work of one of the members. This is not allowed. Therefore, I have removed the link.

Luc Vangindertael

Moderator

I write critiques because I like to do this. Nobody needs to pay me, it was my choice and pleasure to take that role.

If you would receive a notification why your work was rejected, would you start a discussion or accept it in any case?
I think you discuss everything, don't you? Imagine 1x curators would have to discuss a few hundred decisions - per day! 

Show me a site where exactly that is part of the process, please.

I doubt you can point me to one.

Mike, you know nothing about me, so please refrain from hasty assumptions. Normally I do not engage in any discussions. All too often however I encounter sour messages in curation as to why a photo was rejected. There are never any answers. People get offended, they don't want to be insulted, they don't want to pay for rejection and they leave the platform.  When people are treated unfairly, I usually intervene. You may have noticed that it was not me, who started this thread. As far as 1x.com goes, you are quite right - there isn't another platform where these things come to pass.

You insulted people multiple times here and assumed a lot.

But this is not what the thread is about. It's about 1-4% scores that made multiple(!) people assume something is wrong with curation scoring. Not even necessarily with the curation process and its outcome. 

So you keep saying, however only one of my comments was deleted and it contained zero insults. There were stingy comments, true, but sometimes truth hurts.  Have you heard of freedom of speach? (Rethorical question). Who are you to decide who can write in this thread and what. Have a nice life, Mike Kreiten.

I'm struggling with this entire thread.  I've curated about 35K photos on this site, & it's for my benefit as much as the photographers. I agree with Mike K (above) about writing critiques. I enjoy doing it since it helps me by making me look more carefully at a photo than I might have otherwise passed quickly on.  I've found that looking at photos helps me better understand what I'm doing with my own photography than any other process, such as books & articles.  As I've been a photographer for more than 20 years & since I regularly curate here (although I have no input into who is published/awarded/rejected), I feel as though I can quickly differentiate between a good photo & a bad photo, about 95% of the time.  And no, I'm not going to argue if it's 95% or 90%.

I don't have an issue with the curation process or the deep meaning of pie charts.  I'm here to learn, possibly help others to learn,  & enjoy.  I don't believe the fact that the curation process is opaque is a real problem. How else would anyone here change the process so that everyone is happy with it? Do you implement an algorithm that awards percentages for composition, lighting, subject matter, focus, etc? That doesn't make any sense to me. There are some beautiful photos here that follow all of the common rules for these elements, & there are some beautiful photos here that break all of those rules. The inverse is also true.  

Art is art.  It's subjective. The bottom line is that, thankfully, there is no algorithm that distinguishes good art from bad art. Like many here, I love my photos & don't ever submit unless I feel that the photo is perfect. I would guess that all of us feel this way. We all are biased.  Yet, I just took a look at my numbers here on 1x, & I find that approximately only 1/3 (24/70) of my submitted photos are selected.  Some of my personal favorites gained only a 1%-4% popularity rank. Does this mean that the curation process is flawed?  Of course not.  It means that others - including some of you here - don't like my photo as much as I do.  I accept this as just another opinion & move on.

I would like to weigh in on the subject of artists that successfully publish photos that are almost identical.  I believe that most of you would agree that as we grow as photographers, we develop our own unique style.  It's not clear to me why someone should be punished for this (BTW, I am not one of those people. I shoot in almost all genres). If one's style is popular, then so be it. I don't believe that there are publish/award quotas on 1x, so if someone can manage to publish a series of similar photos that get published, it doesn't affect your status. IMHO, it's a loss for those photographers because they stagnate in that one style. 

Last, to end this ramble, I simply don't believe that there is a secret cabal of deep state critics & photographers.  I don't have any evidence for or against this, but the sheer number of different photographers that get published suggests that this is not the case.  Thanks for reading this ramble.  Cheers!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, thomas n porter, sounds all very reasonable to me. 

I'm with 1x for almost a decade now, roughly 80% of my posted photos are published, half of them awarded. I guess I have a sense of what photo has a chance here, no matter if architectural abstract, portrait, macro, landscape. 

The concern here is mainly that 1% score. If it was true, it means it's the least popular photo of all, can't go worse since there is no 0% score. You're tempted to have a look what was  selected, published at least and it makes you think "What's wrong with mine, it better than a, b and c, d.... Or is the scoring corrupted."

I'd take it form the mathematical point. If one person rejects, it's likely 1%. If a second, a third and a forth choose "publish", it's 75%. This is a common scenario in curation. How many votes do you think bring it down to 1% again? Right, 400. If it went up in between, so 1% and back to 15, it needs thousands. How likely is it that 4 people like a photo and 401 up to thousands don't? I don't think that's very often, and my work has been rated 1% 6-7 times. That's new to me and others, and it's only going on since a few months. I had 5 awarded photographs in a row lately, has my work lost that much quality all of the sudden and I did not notice? ;-)

That's what this thread is about, changes to the rating system which appear a bit bizarre.

I mostly with the following sentiments.

"I've found that looking at photos helps me better understand what I'm doing with my own photography than any other process, such as books & articles."

"I would like to weigh in on the subject of artists that successfully publish photos that are almost identical.  I believe that most of you would agree that as we grow as photographers, we develop our own unique style.  It's not clear to me why someone should be punished for this" Thomas Porter

"I'm with 1x for almost a decade now, roughly 80% of my posted photos are published, half of them awarded. I guess I have a sense of what photo has a chance here" Mike Kreiten

I apologize in advance for pressing the issue of duplicate images.

I am not a "photographer" in the sense of a person who has mastered that discipline and could be hired to do a wedding or a product or architecture shot. I take pictures. I, like Thomas, think that  looking at images helps to make mine better. I had gravitated to 1x because the average quality is better than other places, thank you very much. 

But I am a consumer of images and I look at many here for the reason above. I am not criticizing style, I am criticizing duplication. If I keep saying "I've seen that before" I mean the same image or the next in the roll by the same artist and I check the images.  Maybe you haven't noticed it. For example if you curated an image of a circular stairwell (not what I have noticed but I don't want to criticize a specific artist) with an artistic angle and it is published, the image rotated or even taken at a slight angle difference is the same image and the best of the two should be chosen not both and certainly not a third or a fourth.

Mike has suggested that he has high success rate and that is fine. It does suggest that there is a kind of benchmark that is successful but it does not mean that there is not appreciation of innovative or experimental images; they are here as well. That doesn't bother me at all as long as quality is maintained.

This phenomenon might be innocent seperate curators but the practice that similar photos and similar styles prevail seems counterproductive regression to the mean. If you get 100% of photos published because you figured out the benchmark, how do you grow? If you get the most points then what?

Good morning, William (Bill?)  I understand your frustration with nearly identical images being posted & published. In fact, without pointing to any single photographer, there are several flower, still life, & abstract building photographers who post nearly identical images. The question is: What makes a photo unique? For example, we have a 200 acre farm, & I spend a great deal of time photographing things on the farm. We have an old cattle chute that I find photogenic.  I've probably taken a hundred photos of it.  While shooting the chute (pardon the pun),  I move in & out, left to right, up & down, & shoot at different times of the day.  I have several examples of photos that are different or unique, but they are very similar to one another.  What are the criteria for deciding when two or more photos are so similar that only one should be posted to 1x?  I truly don't know the answer.

I completely agree with your comment: "If you get 100% of photos published because you figured out the benchmark, how do you grow? If you get the most points, then what?"  This comment is spot on. At the end of the day, you'll get your photo published, or it will be rejected.  Because the curation process is opaque & possibly somewhat arbitrary, why lose any sleep when a photo fails here?  Cheers!

Hello Thomas,

You asked: “Why lose some sleep when an image in rejected?” For me it is because I (re)joined 1X because I could see that the quality of the pictures were better than on other sites and I thought I could get a sense of the quality of my work and become a better photographer by looking at the works published and awarded here and learn from my rejected images. I also believed at the time that the curation process was fair and thorough. And for a while, all was relatively fine. I got pictures selected and others weren’t, and I rolled with the punches as they say. But recently I have had rejection after rejection with very low scores (9 pictures out of 10 rejected) and yet, my style hasn’t changed. So that bothers me and makes me lose some sleep because I was seeing 1X as a measure of the quality of my images. But now I don’t trust 1X to fairly judge our photos and it depresses me because I feel like a fraud, like a mediocre photographer and it affects my self-worth.

And I think that the Wildlife and Animal categories are even worst. When I look at the profiles of the 14 or so “Expert Curators” I see that most of them are specializing in categories like Architecture, Creative Edits, Portrait, etc. i.e. the more “artsy” style of photography. When it comes to Wildlife and Animal photography and perhaps Macro too, I only see two “expert curators” that specialize in those styles of photography. And it shows in the curation process. Too many mediocre, noisy, fuzzy, blurry pictures with busy background are being published while others are not selected. So yes I do lose sleep over it because I thought that this site that brags on its curation process is telling me indirectly (or maybe directly) that my work is no good, that most of my pictures are not worth being published. So why should I continue to post here? That is a question I have been asking for the last 3 weeks or so. And I have a feeling I am not the only one. 

Thank you for expressing your frustration so clearly, Lucie. I stopped posting a while ago, too. You and me have a common passion that binds us to 1x, writing critiques. If it was only about getting photos published - which now became quite tough all of the sudden - , I would probably decide to keep the profile alive and earn the royalties, full stop. 

• When I joined 1x, one could add any photo to the portfolio, the quality of it was my own responsibility. If members were interested in what else I created apart from the awarded photos, they could go there and see my selection. 
• Then 1x changed the principle. For me it did not make much difference, most of the work I put up was at least selected. So apart from a few photos where I really wondered why they weren't published, not much changed. I could extend my portfolio.
• Now, like for you, me and many others, almost nothing gets published. Photographers naturally want to show their work, potentially also sell it, the reason we join sites like 1x, Art Limited, 500px, One Eyeland, 100ASA. We want to expose our work amongst other high quality photography, excel in an already high level collection. That's the reason we joined 1x. 

The current curation process makes me (and obviously others) question whether it's worth the frustration, efforts and money. The 1% scores contribute to the frustrating experience. A solution could be to go back to the principle of selecting awarded, while members can add work to their portfolio simply like before. Then we could at least show what we chose and admire.

I really don't mind if my work is not awarded, but I do mind if I spent a lot of efforts in photographs that simply get rejected, not becoming visible at all on a site I used to admire a lot. Used to.

I didn't want to post a comment on this picture and be seen to criticise it because in general I love it. But on my PC screen I see significant banding in the black areas:

link deleted

I cannot be the only person seeing this as I suspect its due to the bit depth of the average monitor, phone screen on my pixel is fine so I can only assume curators are on their phones or tablets and dont see this?

https://www.willgibbons.com/color-banding/

Dear Gareth,

I deleted the link because it is not authorized to quote other members work in forum posts.

Kind regards,

Luc Vangindertael

Moderator

Good morning Lucie.  I get it. Part of my ignorance is that I don't have a long history here, unlike many in this thread. I've only been a member for a bit more than a year.  Also, your statement," So that bothers me and makes me lose some sleep because I was seeing 1X as a measure of the quality of my images.", probably expresses a difference between us.  I love this site, but, for me,  it's just one measure of my image quality. It's one opinion - valued, but still just one opinion. Cheers!

Fair enough, still puzzled as to why it was published. I know I've spent a lot of time with a couple of my pictures ensuring there was no banding. 

Thomas Porter and Lucie Gagnon, I feel that you are in the same position that I am. I have learned a few things from this thread that I had not realized before. First that this is a Gallery site and sells the stuff that we put up, if you want. I guess I knew that but it didn't sink in. So complaining about who gets published and who doesn't could be influenced, or not, and that is fair; if A sells and B doesn't, hey publish A.

The other thing is that there are points that can accumulate and raise you in status and it seems to matter to some. Neither affect me much.

Like you I also look at photos to gain insight and I feel that 1x has appealing images. But wait, is that all there is? isn't there more? What is the next step? and what motivates your (I mean my) photography? I found curricula from a few colleges for Photo majors and it was interesting. There is a lot of Art background as you might expect and lot of optics and color theory and practicals etc.etc. I will admit that I am a dilattante photographer so I don't have the same onus that a real photographer in business might have to have multiple skills. There are not very many images that I like (well...other than my own) and the more I see the more the same they look. Hey! Photography, what?

But this gets into some fairly deep ideas of what and why, which obviously is very individual and personal and beyond the scope of this conversation. I am sorry that for some it even affects self esteem. Mike may feel very confident in what and why for him and I probably don't but it can be a motivator for improvement. I suppose that complaining that the system is not perfect is not helpful. Like the old saying that Perfect is the enemy of Good. I can live with the current system. And I am not frustrated, more disappointed that I have suspicions about the system.  

My photo currently in curation was rated 72% when 9% of the way through the process. A few minutes later, at 12% of the way through, it had plummeted to 14%. Really?

some very dubious mathematics, a few days ago I had a picture with 77%  score with 75% percent of the expert votes and it droped to 11% - how many rejects would it take after so many of the experts already expressed their votes?

on another note the curation exigence relaxed with the change of the site defining published and awarded photos; some members complained that the quality of 1x dropped with that change, and now the curation returned to the style of the old site.

Since many of my pictures are already killed by the member voting and therefore most likely won't make it to the official curators, I had the fun of running a picture through the process a second time - the results are (as you can see) absolutely not reproducible. So you have to be lucky which users participate in the voting - from my point of view this is unacceptable!

Regards

Udo

Yes, it happens. I feel your pain/frustration. I do better recently without looking at the progress at all. I just look when I am notified that it is over. At that time I look at the results but mostly to see if there are comments from the curation. Those I feel they are many times useful. 

This way I "suffer" less and go on to the next submission. One day the curation process will change for the better, I am sure. 

I like that pictures get selected for publication or awards. That is a distinguishing feature from other platforms. The curation process is what I find confusing based on the discrepancies that so many have observed. I like in general the selections/awards, there are so many wonderful photographers in this site, one of them is you for sure. Good luck to all of us !

Thank you so much for your kind words, dear Marie. Until recently I didn't look at the curation progress and I should probably stop because it's causing me more stress. As you say, good luck to us all!

Udo,  does it still use the same photo? or is there already a revision to the next upload photo?

The same photo without changes

It's time to get back to the originating post:

We probably all have the problem that some (or many) of our works are already killed in Member Voting, so it is only in exceptional cases that it is seen by an official curator. As I have already tested out, it is pure luck how many and which members participate in the voting after posting a new image. Also, the expertises about detected defects and mentioned feeling are mostly just for laughing ( if it wouldn't be so sad). For the completion of own exhibitions as well as for the sale of pictures this hurdle is frustrating at best.

Greetings

Udo

I signed up for this site to get feedback, build a portfolio, and be continuously looking at great work. I assume that the images that make it through to be published would be portfolio worthy. I used to get frustrated and feel rejected if one didn't make it through. Looking back some of the images that didn't make it weren't that good in comparison to other peoples works.  Someone had mention not to pay attention while in curation. This is good advise if you are allowing the process to affect you. 

Not too long ago I got frustrated since one of my avian images didn't get selected. A critic said because people prefer documentary style avian photos over artistic. This seems true when looking at this images.  This person told me they liked my image and didn't understand why it wasn't published.  

We all want to be fairly curated but maybe it's just who is on at any given time, all people have different opinions. I think the most important thing to ask yourself, do you like your image? Or why are you taking pictures? In the case of the avian image I really liked it  so thats all that matters. 

 I would agree there is room for improvement with the curation process. Me personally I would like to know how many people voted. If 10 people voted or 500 that would make I major difference to help me understand. It's all in the numbers. 

The issue here is GROSS INCOSISTANCY of selection.

For example : I post a magnificent image of say a Store keeper in Kerela  , another photographer , posts an identical image of the same Store keepr .......Im rejected, and he is not only published, but also awarded (??) . How is this possible? Different Head Curators? Then Udo might ne right ! 

I think the publication process should be down to the individual and the awards should be down to a select panel of reviewers based on membership nomination threshold being reached. The only times an image should be taken out of publication is if the photographer takes it offline or if it breaks the rules of the site (or possibly via a number of complaints).

3 of my images that generated the most income were uploaded prior to the curation process was introduced. 1 image that was uploaded after the curation process was introduced that generated an income wasn't because of the curation, but due to someone I know wanting to buy the image. I refer to the comment from my first paragraph, unless the image violates the site rules or via a number of complaints, the photographers should decide what image(s) they publish.

Hello Daniel

At this point I understand your opinion,

After a few years of absence I came back here to 1X,

I thought: "I am more experienced, why not come back".

And that's what I did.

 the first three/four photos were approved in a row.

But as you say, getting 1/2% on photos is frustrating,

it's almost like saying, "that's no good".

I start to feel that something is not right here, something is strange.

And I'm starting to not look at the "LIVE process" of curation, and that's the best I do.

But, of the strange things I have experienced,

1º a photo of mine that was not approved and with a very low rating, I receive the email "not approved", then an email saying "approved" and then a last email saying that the photo had been Awarded.

I was extremely confused.

2º I submitted a photo for critique and was surprised by the excellent comments that were made, I was extremely grateful, and I did not expect such good comments, to be honest.

(some of the comments I got)

"but I would love to see it published."

"Claudio Hi it's one of those images that speaks to the viewers without words. I too would not change a thing - I think I'm looking at an awarded image..."

"Do you know how rare it is for 3 senior critics not to have suggestions?   I don't think it's ever happend in our section before!"

"It is a powerful documentation which evokes emotion at first sight. I share the view of my friends who felt that there they would keep it as it is."

"I see an awarded photo, too. Let's hope!"

I was very happy, and immediately uploaded it for curation.

But, in the end it was not approved, and even with some score that I thought was reasonable to be approved.

This is extremely confusing, and somewhat frustrating.

I honestly don't understand how curation works

Are %'s any good? Yes? No?

In the end does someone decide based on their personal taste?

I feel frustrated at the moment

It's a year later now. Did anything change?

Jolanda Pikkaart No all still the same old 1% this and 1% that - Moral  -100% Feel Good factor -100%

That's  a shame, because I like 1x. I also see the same animal from the same shoot or almost the same flower, macro from the same persons a lot. 

To understand the proces would be great. I got 4 awards and then 5 rejections. I wrote a (Dutch) blog about that. Because you can learn and grow from rejections and the feedback. But then you need to understand the proces.

Funny thing about percentage, I had loads of images scoring <10 with awards and loads of >90 without. It really doesn't matter.

Scoring and rejections migh be discouraging (some of my images has been rejected here and recieved inspiration stars and elite galleries on other platforms) 

I really wouldn't count on the scoring or awards process.

As long as you enjoy your photography, you're the winner

True Lukasz,

But if they really want feedback, there is always the critique forum.

This morning I failed spectacularly (there's a quote encouraging that) with 0% from the head curators. I don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

I would say laughing or crying depend on how much you love your photo. Though I've never managed a 0% the number of 1%s and 2% aren't much better. I'm saddened when the child (photo) I've tenderly nurtured fails as I loved it. But then I laugh at the folley of those who don't see its beauty or message.

I should have mentioned that someone thought my photo was excellent and someone felt inspired. I am very grateful to those two people.

I feel ypur pain Elizabeth. I know not all my images are gallery quality or to the taste of the majority of "curators" ( I use that term lightly). Much of it depends on from where on the planet you take your creativity. 

There are times I scratch my head at some of the images that published and worse awarded  and the repeative similar images that get published over and over. and over. 

The % scores do little to offer consrtuctive feedback and the odd comments that look copy and pasted by some working hard to boost their score is not what I think the majority of us here are looking for. This is a crowd sourcing business model and not a lot of thought goes into thumbs up or thumbs down. I can't see how any head curators can actually curate the volume of images that must get uploaded on any given day, it's got to be a full time job. I think the AI algorithms have to weed out a lot of images  that don't fit the business model.

If  I were to guess, there is about 2% of the images I see here that are truly stunning, gallery worthy images, 50% or more  are just pure dribble.

I come and go on this site, I get a run of images published/awardede ( about 2 or 3 in a row)  and then many rejected at single digit scores., which is when I take a break. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I prefer my sanity ;-)

Thanks, Kimberly. I wish more effort could be put into improving the curation system rather than developing the app. I don't have an iPhone but I can log in through a browser on my phone so the app seems superfluous. I love 1x but wish it worked properly!

Elizabeth, the same with me. Wait a year and upload your photo again. I'll do it, let's see the result!

I submitted a monochrome version which is now in the award queue. It makes no sense... Good wishes to you, and don't give up!

I have submitted 16 images to 1x since I joined 2-3 months ago. All but one has received an award. All have been published. I am surprised that my pictures are doing so well. I hope this is all real ! Thanks for the positive feed back from all. Mikethebike 

I am not surprised, your photos are good. Don't be disappointed when it goes wrong, that's part of the game :-)

I currently have a photo in curation for about 24 hrs with a rating of 1%. I'm aware that this photo may not be to everyone's liking. But I'm also aware that it's not that bad. And I even have likes on this picture. We'll see once it's in the hands of the expert curators. I don't expect it to be published, but I find it strange to have such a low rating for a period of more than a day...

Hello all,

I have experimented for a month and have decided that submitting images is pointless. In fact, I may not even take-out a paid membership now my month's free trial has ended (I had fully intended to). There is much to like about this site - many people, excellent critiques away from the main curation process, some superb photographs, etc etc. I shall, thus still try to take part in the critiques and viewing others' images. But the negatives are so strong that I feel I am wasting my time submitting images for curation (time I could be editing other images, etc). I do want to add this is not a moan about only having two images pass curation in the month, despite submitting eleven. I know two or three needed improvements and so on.

Here's some of my gripes about cutration. Firstly, One pays an annual / quarterly / monthly subscription. This is perfectly reasonable, not too onerous for most and enables the site to work without adverts, etc - all-in-all a positive. But, in exchange for the money, one expects a fair system; I do not think curation on 1x.Com is fair. Now, for clarity, I do not mean any member (me included) is discriminated against; I do not believe that to be the case at all. But I do think subject and style discrimination exists. For example, there is one series of images of a semi-naked female with red tape wrapped around. Fair enough for one, perhaps even two images but whenever a slight change in the tape structure is made, that photograph is published. Axiomatically, I cannot say they all have been because there is no transparency on here (pun intended) but many are. (By the way, if the photographer concerned is reading this, I am most certainly not chiding you; I would do similar. It is the system).

As well as many naked women and shiny modern buildings with long-exposure skies, cyber-punk figures and, now, jittery scenes all have very many examples published - often from the same togger, whilst some areas are not catered for. I was recently chided for putting one of my images in the wrong group - which was fair. But the problem is, no group existed to suit the image (Botanicals / non-animal nature (not landscapes, etc) - there appears to be no market for simple botanicals, as opposed to multi-overlaid ones. Thing is, if the site were free and the owners said overtly they were using it as fodder for print sales, that would be fair enough. But if we are to pay (and I think we should) then we must expect the curation be blind to submitters, subjects, generes, etc - i.e. hand it over to the membership but, perhaps with global rules (eg no human violence or whatever). Transparent, clear and pre-known rulles for everyone and every photo. Ditch the near-insane pseudo-stats which only serve to vex and confuse. If good, have a progress bar that just shows "passes" as it builds - these could still be weighted to more experienced curators but I do thaink, after a satisfactory probation, all curators should be equal. Perhaps each image should be subject to (say) 100 hurdles (publish / fail / intermediate - 2 points / 0 pointrs / 1 point) and, if an image reaches X points after a maximum of 100 hurdles (ie 100 reviews) it should be "published" and 95%+ (or whatever) should be commended. It would need thinking through but almost anything is better than the Goodness-knows-what system that seems to rule - unless you have yet another in an appreciated series, apparently.

There seems to be much goodwill to 1X.Com - hence the passionate posts on here (if we didn't care we would save our efforts). That needs harnessing properly, I would submit.

I'll shut-up now :) Cheerio.

If I'd had a 4%, 7%, 16%, 27% or 33% over a 24-hour period, I wouldn't even have written about my score on this forum. I've always believed that curation is done by a bot or bots to some extent but I have no proof if this is the case or not and nobody seems to be able to confirm or deny on this subject either. So I'm sticking with my hunch that it's an algorithm managed by bots that act as curators in a very large proportion of the voting system.

Can I put this in simple terms I think The majority around 90% of members would like to see the percentages in selection work like this. Start off at 1% then climb to 100%  or fall short if the photo is at up to scratch - So One might post an image starts off at 1% then climbs to say 57% the stops it may not make the grade. But if you have one that hits the high point of say from 1 % to 94 % a published image maybe.  Please none of this 1% then 23% then 1% then 94% then 2% This is not good no matter how much you try and spin it.

Why not just include the percentages one time, included the publish, award, or reject notification.  Seems simple enough to me, but maybe i'm to simple.

In addition to what's being discussed here, what I'm really missing in the curation system is constructive feedback on why a photograph is going to be rejected, and I expect this feedback from the head curators or whoever who makes the final decision. Unless I see this kind of feedback system, I won't be convinced to renew my membership at the end of the current period. I know one can request feedback in the forum, but that's different. I need it right from those who decide about the photo.

Another, more important, reason why I'm thinking to end my nearly one year journey with 1x is that to publish photos according to the taste of the system (a problem also mentioned above) will ruin my authetic voice, and I really don't want that happen. 

That said, what I'm going to miss the most is the community. That's the only reason why I may change my mind; everything else with this website isn't strong enough in my opinion.

Hello Soheil,

I don't know the number of uploads per day, but I think you agree it will be in the range of several hundreds, if not surpassing a thousand even. More than 90% will be rejected, and most for a good reason. Imagine the workload to comment every rejection, and potentially a signifcant percentage may even trigger discussions. That's simply not doable - and it was never promised.

Regards,

Mike

Hi Mike.

Sorry, I question you when you say "most for a good reason." - I think that is an unsupported suppoosition: where is your evidence, please? There is none available, precisely because of the uber-secretive nature of the 1X curation system. You are saying "Big Brother" knows what is good for us - their taste, etc must be the sole arbiter. Well, I do not think that at all acceptable on a paid site. You appear to think the faith which you evidently have is shared by everyone else; I doubt that. And "discussions" good grief! We are afraid of discussions? Is Donald Trump running 1X now? It would be so awful if the unqualified, ignorant membership were to discuss images amongst themselves, wouldn't it? No, you are right: we must have unquestioning faith in those at the top. How very silly of me to have my doubts. Trouble is, I have never accepted anything on belief alone. 

Apropos "never promised." Fair enough. Then make the site free and let the senior leadership have it as their play thing. Mind you, I could name some politicians who would use that excuse, too.

I know you work very hard on here and I thnak you for that and respect you for it. But, still with respect, I do not think it empowers you to plead for blind faith amonst us ordinary members.

Cheerio.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your response. That's for sure, but:

1- I don't demand full writen paragraphs or even sentences. With so much experience, you can surely put together a few check boxes with like bad composition, bad light, poor subject matter, etc. Then all that's needed is a few more clicks on the relevant boxes before clicking the reject button. The smallest possible feedback from a senior critic means a ton of information for someone like me. I really would love if that becomes possible on this platform.

2- With that load of imges, I assume each head curator can spend at best less than a minute on each photograph. If that is so, I believe that is not enough time to hear the voice behind a photograph.

1x decidedly keeps the details of the curation process undisclosed, which only leaves room for speculation. 

-Soheil

@ Woad Visage,

May I gently remind you that when signing up for this site you agreed not to discuss the outcome of curation. You are close to be in breach of contract. 

Just as an example "Is Donald Trump running 1X now?" is far away from the style of communication we try to maintain here.

Mike tried to explain at lenght how curation works and why it is simply impossible to give curation feedback on each of the 500 or more photos per day.  

Discussion on curation is as old as the site itself. Yes, it's not perfect here and not all aspects of curation are perfect. But till now 1X is able to maintain the highest standards. Feel free to suggest a better alternative, but write it in a polite, friendly and constructive way.

Kind regards,

Luc Vangindertael

Hello, Luc. Thank you for your comments. Those require a careful response and I have drafted one but it is unfairly long (quite a fault of mine) , so I am working on it and hope to have it posted in the next couple of days. For now, all the best. Cheerio.

Hello Woad,

This is a bit off-topic, but let me explain the part you quoted. When you curate, supposing you do sometimes, do you click "publish" in more than 50% of cases? If not, there's your evidence. I see a lot of contributions that are not even close to the quality and skill level required to receive an award, far more than I believe can make it. That's what I refer to with "most".

You participate in the "Critique" forum, which I really appreciate. There you see photographers don't have a neutral view on their own work, neither do I. So what ever reason a rejection has, this imbalance causes discusions, and there is no time to discuss each photo. 

Please remember what 1x is. Primarily, it's a gallery. Galleries choose what they show, because space is limited - as the front page of 1x has limitations. Thats the reason they curate, and it's not a hidden fact - and sport for us to  pass curation at the same time. Then 1x sells work if you want so, but only if it is at least published. And the third aspect is 1x is a photo community, the reason it has forums, works can be commented, etc. And there is the "Critique" forum, another reason people sign up. Because it's tough to get an educated and honest opinion on photographic work. So thank you for providing your time in that forum, I'm sure the appreciation of posting members drive you to spend your time there.

Regards,

Mike

Hi MIke, thank you also. I'll also consider this and, of course, reply to it too - please forgive the delay! All the best. Cheerio.

Ko van Leeuwen,

Click your name at the top right of the screen, then 'Settings', then scroll to the bottom to 'Membership Agreement'.

. . . . Steven T.

Thank you Steve. I never saw that it was clickable. It is just plane text, no bold/italic/color/underlined ;-)

I am kinda thinking the same. I fail to understand why on earth a perfectly good photo - in terms of composition, light, editing and what not - is voted at 1%. And not only one, many images in a row. I start thinking this whole thing is a scam. Because somehow when I was on my free trial month, I got most of my images published (even two awarded). Mind you, most of those images were taken and edited on a phone. Then, once the full payment month started, all of my images (literally ANYTHING I submitted) was turned down. Weird, isn't it? 

No, there hasn't been an instance when i have had a 1-2-3% rank of an image and to have it published afterwards. And while I understand what is sellable and that it might be a factor, you have zero idea what people would like to buy (it baffles me, most of the time, but that's another matter). Plus, the main idea should be about having good art curated. And no, art is NOT that subjective.