This has been swimming in my dome for a couple weeks now and I've got to get it out.

When the admins first started making changes to the featuring system, I suspect most of us were at least somewhat encouraged that they seemed to have finally noticed the community and its request for changes/updates.

However....I don't think we're any better off now than we were before the featuring changes took place. Yes there were certainly a handful of photos that were on the featured page that simply weren't that good, but there were also a lot of pictures that went unnoticed, partly because it was so difficult to get anything featured that didn't start out that way, but also because most of us were hesitant to post something that no one would see.

Now it seems that the pendulum has swung to the extreme opposite direction, wherein only very, very, VERY good shots make it to the featured page, and cars that used to be featured automatically are removed from the featured page, usually without any real reason other than "the background wasn't good enough" (even if it was a really good background). There's really no rhyme or reason as to what is feature-worthy material and what isn't.

For example....if backgrounds are now so crucially important, can you explain why this GT3 was removed from the featured page....


yet this R8, which apparently has a "better" background, was added to the featured page?


Continued in the next post.....

Another case; why was this R8 added to the featured page....


yet this 16M Scuderia removed?


I know for a fact that one of the highest-ranking users on this site has left because he quickly grew unhappy with trying to figure out what was acceptable and what wasn't. Furthermore, I am sure that many of us who are in the upper echelon in terms of ranking are particular about what we post, because we want it to meet the quality guidelines that the admins/mods look for. However, literally no one EXCEPT the admins seems to know what is feature-worthy and what isn't, and we are beginning to grow frustrated.

At the very least, I'd like some sort of list detailing what the admins look for when determining what to add and remove from the featured page, if only to know why the pictures were added/removed from the featured page.

But the fact is that right now, we don't know why some of our pictures are being removed and some added to the featured page, and confusion and anger is NOT what you want your community to be infiltrated with.

Who are you talking about having left? Ian?

No not Ian. I'm not sure if I should say who it is or not, but he didn't delete his account.

I don't think he's referring to Ian

I know who Nick is referring to. He now posts daily on AG.

Is he talking about West? aka Horse-Power

While I can't speak for why some of the shots were removed versus why others were featured, I can say that the desired goal is and has been to improve the quality of shots on the featured page. I would assume that means that shots with "boring" backgrounds or shots where cars are too far away are removed (I will sometimes unfeature blurry shot). I could assume it's possible your GT3 shot was removed because the car was far away.

I cannot control the fact that he left. However, I also cannot understand why he'd leave over the fact that a few of his shots were being unfeatured. The shots still get posted and so far as I know none were deleted, so to me that doesn't seem like much of a reason to leave if I'm to be honest. I can't speak for why his shots were unfreatured in the first place, since usually they are good shots.

one reason I have been given for the new feature "lottery" is because there wasn't enough people on, but I have found that the number of viewers hasn't seem to have changed to drastically, but the number of members on has really taken a hit because of this

Another big swing-and-a-miss on the Admins part. The fact that this topic keeps popping up reaffirms how this whole featured/unfeatured mess is flawed. If users are going to bother posting/visiting to a site, you have to cater to their requests for improvement. Hence, why the site's traffic has taken a nose-dive. Yeah, just do away with featured/unfeatured already.

I do agree, it is quite annoying. Since the death of chasingexotics.com, this has been the only other decent car spotting website, but it has been a let down to see some of my high quality photos be unfeatured. Oh well, hopefully this will be fixed.

If shots are getting taken down from the featured page because of a "boring background" some people have an unfair advantage just because of where they see the cars such as in California on the PCH

Does anyone know if Autogespot is worth joining? I think I may give it a try.

I know lots of people love it but I am just not a huge fan, but it is probably worth a try.

You can screw up a shot there. You can make a shot interesting no matter where you are.