Boycott the "Roses" Challenge

beautiful

I don't do half the challenges anyway. they're designed to get people to burn credits more than to showcase the best "art". it's unfair to people who can't afford to spend 30 credits on some random challenge just to lose out to people who ape other people's ideas, if not prompts. every time one of them wins, the gap widens. I only made some rose-themed pieces just now because Strawberry Switchblade came on my Spotify on my way home from work, and who doesn't love Rose McDowall?

There has been something strange about the Daily Challenge for some time now. I have seen these things happen (and they have happened to me at least three or four times) whenever I was close to occupying the podium with votes. It didn't happen to me when I was "hush and quiet" around the 20th position...

Something stinks here. The Daily Challenge has become more and more important, so much so that it is now The Most Important Thing at NightCafé (go to Explore and look at the top-rated images of the last month) -- and the staff is incentivizing this behavior by various "groups" instead of putting an end to it?

You guys think what you want. I will never participate again in a challenge from now on. I will post my would-be challenge pictures in the gallery, but I will not submit them, because it no longer makes sense to do so. Not after the staff email.

Once is a coincidence, twice is suspect, thrice is annoying, four times is on purpose.

Then, just the same day, something happens that makes me think a lot. Support, what? I felt so stupid... I receive an email -- as I think many of you have received -- from the higher ups on the NightCafe staff where the wonderful news of chatrooms is advertised and, one of the reasons chatrooms should be encouraged. is (and I quote):

"DOMINATE THE DAILY CHALLENGES" "First you get the votes, then you get the credits, then you get the glory."

And again, right underneath: "Gather the crew. Critique, cajole [...] until you've claimed the daily challenge and conquered all the credits as your own."

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Here is the explanation of my boycott. The 9th of February, two hours before closing, my image (linked above) was at 4.12 -- that is, in one of the top 3/5 positions. Then, as magically happens always (which is why so many times we contacted support) -- in the last two hours it was donwvoted fiercely. It ended up at 3.69 -- since I know about numbers, that means at least 100 or 200 people systematically voted it 1 or 2. This is what I and others have been saying for a long time: there are "groups" that support each other.

Come on, hasn't this ever happened to you? That suddenly and in the last 120 minutes or so, your entry would inexplicably lose ground? And what about the frankly unwatchable images we often find in the very first positions (not on the podium, but immediately below)?

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