Is quality a number? Is there a metric that can quantify it? Can it be measured? Is bigger better? Is less more?
Was there a vote here? Democracy in action? I think not. A few members voiced strong opinions. A few other members voiced less vehment views. But total up the number of participants in this thread and it doesn't add up to a democratic anything. Should this be a democracy? I can't answer that.
Well, a person, one person, owns this -- Stephen -- and I respect him for that. He pays the bills so he does rightfully get to be the final arbiter here. And, the rest of us are able to be here at all only because he does that. I can live with that fact. I can live five posting per day or one per day or 25 per hour.
Does a limit make the gallery better? Who can say? Any of us might come up with better selections when forced to choose. On the other hand, we might also come up with selections that are no better or even worse than before.
Did having a limit so high that, for all practical purposes, there was no limit ruin the quality in the gallery? I don't think so. Will having the limit we used to have ruin the gallery? Of course not. Might some people leave in protest? Sure. But haven't we also had refugees here who fled in fits of outrage? (No names, please.)
Keith, you certainly didn't step on my toes. If one of us is right, is the other wrong? I don't think so.
I mostly agree with Joe "Bag Alley" here.
Stephen runs a nice portal for us. I am glad he does so. If wants to run this as a democracy, he can post a thread with a poll and hope he gets more participants than this thread drew. If wants to make a decision as he has here, consulting a few of us who got a little "vocal" that's his right, too, given that the rest of are not paying the bills.
I think this site is probably many things to many different people -- probably many things at different times to any one of us. Is it a gear site? Sure. Is it an image site? Sure. Can it both? Isn't it already?
Did any of us like everything we saw in the gallery with old limit? No. Did the percentage of images you liked versus the ones you didn't like change when the limit went out the window? Should anyone's personal likes or dislikes influence how many images we ought to be able to post? Do we attract or scare off people by having limits or not having limits?
One question that never got asked here -- and it's kind of none of our business, but very much Stephen's business -- is: did the cost of storage for this data get better with the new implementation of the gallery? Is it right for us to expect unlimited storage for free from Stephen? Has new cheaper storage technology made this tenable for him? He is certainly very generous to us all. I assume that he does reap some business benefits from this largess but I can't imagine that this generosity could or should be a bottomless pit. (I have spent money with his other business, having purchased at least one lens that I remember, largely, because I read about it here on the site. I've done the same with several other sponsors. We all should patronize their businesses whenever we can because of their support for the site and also because they're all good guys.)
Could we prosper with an honor system in the gallery, self-limiting ourselves? Are we mature enough? How many people ever posted 25 images in a day? How many did that with regularity? Were the images bad? Did anyone ever bump into the 25 per hour limit?
Anyway, here's my hope: that everyone who has been posting images in the gallery continues to do so and that new people continue to join us. If this change encourages that, I'm all for it. If it doesn't, I hope see the difference and manage to persuade each other and Stephen to adapt if we got it wrong this time around. In the end, I have to say that I come to the gallery whenever time permits to be and feel surprised, inspired, moved, tickled, tormented, envious, generous, glad, thankful, etc, etc. There's an awful lot of great work in there. If some of is sometime trifling or even bad, that's only an opinion.
IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE GALLERY, TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO COMMENT ON THE WORK OF SOMEONE YOU'VE JUST DISCOVERED. It's really easy to fall into the trap of exchanging compliments with or focusing on our friends. The encouragement you give to someone you don't know might make a huge impact and make you a new friend.
