Problem
The current Image Showcase is poorly named. The word showcase suggests a place the very best images should be, not what is currently happening there. What is happening there is a situation where people are encouraged to write about a posting in a very limited way. Not popular, most people break the rules in that section or don’t participate.
Action
Change the name of the Editors Picks section to Image Showcase. It is a superior word for what happens there.
Have one gallery for all images. Provide a choice (check box) in the posting process to request / allow a critique for the image posted.
Result
Puts all images in the same place, simplifying access.
Promotes better word usage.
Improves the posting process (encouraging people to stay)
Streamlines the home page by eliminating a large amount of type.
Although there has been A LOT of hard work put into the new NPN site and I’m not one for adding to that workload at all. However, I think Steve has some good input here with some simplicity at least with the galleries. Maybe each category being all inclusive with a simple box to check for “Yes” I want critiques, or “No” I do not want them.
My thoughts are always thinking for the positive, so, it’s just my 2 cents on Steve’s ideas here.
Thanks for the suggestions, these ideas have been kicked around many times before and the main problem is the image critiques section is private to paying members whereas the image showcase is open to anyone. If the image showcase section continues to have little activity it may be eliminated or merged in the future, it’s still a bit in it’s infancy and we want to give it time to see if it even adds any value to the site. If we merged them the idea for a checkbox for critique/not critique is a good one and what I was thinking as well, but it would require some custom programming to achieve this.
The whole concept of the image showcase category weighs on my mind constantly, I want it to be something bigger, but it may prove to be something that does not fit with NPN, time will tell and I do intend to take action on it at some point in the future.
The naming of the category was discussed with a select group of members when we changed it from image galleries and they all agreed that this was the best name for the category. It is a place to share images for those who don’t want critique and most of the time this will be the users best images, but you are correct that most users are not using this category, another thing to consider on the future of the category.