Ah yes pointnshoot, congrats on your feature.

I dont understand how/why this featured. But, the weeklyshot moves in mysterious ways.. Congratulations

beyond it's bright colours and relevance, this shot doesn't hold a lot of interest for me.
yes, it's featured, but seemingly this received a rush of ratings...while most other shots around it have 9 or 10.
*shrug*

its all a mystery. i have to agree with Ana/Stolen/flat.... its very bright, and the sensor dust is annoying. if you found the time to do the saturation and sharpening, surely a little cloning as in order!!

This is the only shot this week that I haven't commented on. Shame the comment has to be joining the chorus of wondering why/how this was featured so fast.

no mystery. know people who rate. They rate fairly.

oops I was logged in with my roomate's username.

your roommate who hasnt commented in 315 days?

or Bogart... who has only posted 1 image in a year, and has only ever commented on this one photo of yours?

dude... grow up. why are you 'cheating' on a friendly photo site. what on earth are you trying to gain from this? your fame and fortune?

LOL!

Shipmate? Dude...c'mon. If you're going to cheat (and you shouldn't), at least come up with a better name. And if it really is your roommate, tell him that captains rank higher than shipmates.

In all seriousness though, your stuff is good. You have plenty of features. Why cheat?

So looks like we may now know some of the source of the many who speed rate and never comment. Must be a bitch to have to wade thru 13x4=52 ratings just so you can rate your own pic 4 times, huh "shipmate". Big OOPS!!

Let's see how this works, you are a member and you can invite 3 others. So you end up with 4 accounts. 4 ratings of 25 points will sway a lot your way I would guess...?? But hey, innocent till...

Sad and very unfortunate for this venue.

Very true Mark, very bad timing...

Hey pointnshoot, are you going to come clean? I think we'd all respect you more if you did

His other photo he posted on this topic has a star as well. It's an interesting shot I'll agree, but it's not remarkable, it's just a snap. There are several remarkable shots in this subject and they don't have stars yet. Makes you wonder.

THIS is exactly why I no longer waste my time on WeeklyShot anymore. It is really unfortunate that what was once one of the best concepts in photo memes has slowly sunk down to this level.

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone ;)

Well, my apologies if I am wrong but this looks like pointnshoot has been cheating.

How very pathetic and to make matters worse you where stupid enough to get caught using your "flatmates" login.

This is a snapshot, nothing more, and a pretty poor one at that. You have dust on the sensor, the composition is poor and the over saturated colours do nothing to make it a quality image.

Brings in to question all his/ her other featured images. If cheating is the only way you can get featured perhaps it's time you took up another hobby.

@gorin-images. I understand where you are coming from, and I agree with you,
but another reason it has sunk down, is because some really great photographers have given up on it.

This shot suxs ass.. Ooh wait - Am I another one his personalities? I haven't posted in a long time either.. haha

Yeah, I remember it well. I posted one image for the 'Texture' shot and half the dopes said my image did not meet the topic.. I say dopes because they clearly don't understand what the word texture means.. As if, people think it only means coarse and not smooth.. fools..

FYI - I came to find out the guy who invited me here was doing the same thing this guy is. I only found out when I saw one his images posted by another user then the username who invited me posted to the image voting it up and praising it.. another loser.

This shot suxs ass.. Ooh wait - Am I another one his personalities? I haven't posted in a long time either.. haha

Yeah, I remember it well. I posted one image for the 'Texture' shot and half the dopes said my image did not meet the topic.. I say dopes because they clearly don't understand what the word texture means.. As if, people think it only means coarse and not smooth.. fools..

FYI - I came to find out the guy who invited me here was doing the same thing this guy is. I only found out when I saw one his images posted by another user then the username who invited me posted to the image voting it up and praising it.. another loser.

while im not exactly sure what all of your post was about, it is a shame this has happened.

and while i wasnt around for the texture theme, the problem with photography is that appreciation and understanding is the job of the viewer, and if they dont understand what you are trying to show, well, then, you didnt show is clearly enough.

Honesty. I'm sorry you all think this way. This is my favortie site on the internet and I would not jeopordize my membership. What you r accusing me of is not true. I am sorry I made a mistake by writng my comment under my roomates log in. I just did not look, as I am mostly the person logged in However, the comments collectively looks like I am guilty. Too bad.
I have one log-in. Other members have given me positive results and I thank you for you comments. I write the above with sincere honesty.

while i hate for this to appear like a witch hunt. some of the facts just dont add up.

1. why was your flatmate logged in at all, he hasnt used the site for 316 days (and was invited by you)
2. why did Bogart, who has only ever commented on 1 photo since he joined the site, a year ago, only comment on your photo (someone who was also invited by you)

I may be the only one who wants to give you the benefit of the doubt, firstly because you have had better images that haven't featured and secondly because it is possible that you just recruited your roommates to comment every once in a while. And quite frankly I don't think that anyone who has additional accounts just to boost their ratings is dumb enough to comment - most of those people are deceiving individuals that are too smart to make such a blatant error.

So while Pete is being all self righteous and loud I am wondering how many people here have never "cheated" in one way or another on this site. I am sure that none has ever speed rated, or intentionally scored someone really low because for whatever reason, asked a fellow WS to check out an image, hoping that they score it to your liking... the list goes on.

It is unfortunate that this happened, truly unfortunate. But this really is not the biggest problem that WS has, what once was an inspirational place to learn more about photography has become, well, I won't go there because I have nothing nice to say.

thanks for spotting my self righteousness Mtmartini :) i can truely say i am.

i also miss the amazingly helpful comments i have received from this site (heck, i had only used disposable cameras a year and half a go).

but it just seems far too suspicious in this instance.

anyway, shall we let this rest? if it was all innocent, it can die it peace, if not, well, then i hope it stops

If we all keep talking about it and using this image to state our opinion, maybe it'll eventually get more comments than the woman with big boobs.

In all seriousness, I haven't been around that long and I've had fun and learned a lot. So if WS has reached an all time low, I wonder what it was like long before I joined? And can it get back there?

Pointnshoot, I don't care if you cheated or not. But if you did, I forgive you with no hard feelings. All I ask is that you get more involved and learn the right way.

Without commenting on the photo presented, I do want to follow up on the subject of cheating on WS. For the life of me, I can't see the point of going to the trouble of having multiple accounts (or even coordinated voting amoung friends) in a site where you are the only person to see your score, there is no "hall of fame" page on the site, nor is there a competitive ranking of any kind. No one gets paid for photos here, it is unlikely that you will be "discovered" on this site, and the people are more or less anonymous. Doesn't everyone have something better to do with their time than try to rig WS? Maybe. Maybe not. Go figure.

I like WS because I respect the opinions of a handful of photographers who post here. I won't name names for fear of leaving a couple out by mistake. I just noticed, though, that it has been 80+ days since I last posted - although I have made comments several times more recently. Don't know what that means except that I've been pretty busy with RL. In any case, I still come back to look from time to time, and still comment a little less frequently (sorry it is not more often). And I still think WS has some value notwithstanding the issue raised with this photo (again, I'm not commenting on the individual photo or the alleged multiple accounts).

Sorry if this is a bit lengthy.

How ironic that this discussion is going on in the comments section of this particular photograph. Stop indeed.

Full disclosure - I'm married to another WS person, hummingbird. She often knows my images when I post them. I assume she rates them highly, but frankly I have no idea, because I don't look over her shoulder. I'm sure I may have benefited from her help in the past. On the other hand, sometimes she doesn't know an image is mine and she can be a very harsh rater. On a few occasions she apologized to me for rating me low after she found out something was mine.

Does this make me a cheater? I did invite her to the group. Overall I bet my scores have been raised somewhat by her ratings.

There are other personal, real life relationships at play here as well. We have a few siblings, significant others, and other offline friends who participate on Weekly Shot. I'm sure those other folks not only are aware of each other's images, but are inclined to rate them more favorably. Such is the nature of the beast.

Creating multiple accounts for the purposes of speed rating yourself is a whole other matter. If you need the ego stroke that the little yellow star here gives you enough to cheat, I say go for it. Clearly you're not getting much love in the real world. I hope a feature here helps with your emotional angst.

I don't know if pointinshoot cheated or not. I don't really care.

I do want to learn and I'll continue to participate as much as I can in order to do that. Admittedly that hasn't been as much as in the past, but that's just because life sometimes gets in the way.

As I said on the image of the four boys in ties in this theme, I really value a well thought out comment like some of the ones pursang has been making lately. I can only hope to attract his eye to one of my images in order to get one.

Now I've just got to find me a good high contrast image somewhere.

This is hilarious..

If the OP worked so hard just to get it featured then so be it. More power to him/her but I'm giving him/her the benefit of the doubt until evidence is given.

I've seen some photos that I didn't think should be featured in WS but they were so it's all relative and that's just my opinion. One reason why I don't visit WS as much is that it has a tendency to be overly critical and technical about every photograph and the meaning of the photograph is completely lost. Raters just don't look and are easily swayed by "oh man there's dust there" or "ohh it's out of focus" mentality. Anyway I'm just rambling.

This seems to be the place a lot of people read things..... but you should check out the google group to read Brandon's announcement, if you haven't.
He's closing WS.