site voting: they hated me

and, I apologize once more for the random and accidental bold type^^. sorry!

It's interesting to learn that other people have suffered this too, so thanks for adding your comments Luna, Poe and Ginga. This is coming from people who have amazing galleries of high-end art which is well displayed and cared for.

It does sadden me when people vote galleries low on purpose, I don't think that us Sluggers are dim enough to think that '1' means highest and '10' is a low score ;)

Still, I won't loose sleep over it and hope that others aren't too upset if it's happened to them. Let's concentrate on what we do best- focusing on the artwork we love and that artwork we love to share.

I think ultimately you need to decide what means more to you - Having honest people vote or having to deal with those that aren't and the stress that their bad ratings cause you.

Most of these 'lashings' are due to one of two things: 1) You said something a chat room that they didn't like or 2) You won a cel that someone else wanted.

The ones that will likely suffer the most from ratings are those that bid on higher priced cels and/or experience lots of bidwars on YJ. So, it makes sense that those people who have really nice galleries would, in turn, have really poor ratings.

All viable solutions have already been suggested, so I won't recap. But, if nothing is going to change due to indecisiveness, I think the best thing you can do is not participate in vengeful voting thing...and turn the voting in your gallery off.

I noticed several new votes for my site recently as well which lowered my overall numbers but it doesn't really bother me. If the person was honest and does not like my gallery display, then so be it. If it was done out of malice, I can't really do much to prevent that. The ratings are up in my gallery and that's the risk I accept. Some people just have different taste in series, I imagine.

The time I take in scanning and fixing my cels is purely for me. I don't change my gallery layout as often as some other people, so that might be a negative. Also, I don't provide episode information and sequence numbers. More reasons why someone might lower my rank. Heck, I recognize my gallery's shortcomings, so why shouldn't someone else?

I keep my ratings up for fun. I don't think it's something to be taken too seriously because it's unscientific. If you begin to harbor anger over the numbers, it might be time to take the ratings down from your gallery.

If you talk one-on-one with your peers, then you already know who honestly likes your gallery and what they think of your collection. That sort of mutual respect is far more important and valuable than what the ratings could ever provide.

Exactly WC! Odds are we know from communications and small comments we pick up in forums who likes our gallery and who -for a lack of a better word- has a beef with it.

Having the name of the rater IMO would keep people honest like Ms. Poe mentioned awhile back. Afterall, we do require people to sign in to leave comments in blogs why not keep people accountable for their "rating". *shrug* Since I do not use the rating feature I honestly am not bothered by it, I like to reduce the unnecessary drama and thrash in my life. As I mentioned many years ago, I collect for my pleasure first and foremost. If people enjoy the cels I share excellent, if not oh well, life goes on.

For everyone who does care about their gallery rating, I can empathize, but I offer this bit of advice ... take whatever people post or rate, with a heavy grain of salt.

Cheers!