I have read through this important issue, thank you @horseygirl24 for starting it. I was hoping to see some helpful explanation by one of the gurus or someone truly in "the know" about the methods to the madness of the gallery changes. Personally I will try to name the problems again and attempt to offer solutions and positivity. Having the popular now page set as default creates two major problems:
1. As the majority here states this change is a complete disservice to all creators both new and old. The gallery had many problems before this and my hope with these updates was for the changes to actually help the creative majority. Instead, this one change is ruining the creative majority. Maybe this is temporary since clearly the popular now section isn't even functioning correctly but I really don't see how any good can come from this change. Solution: seriously, please change it back to newest sort asap!
2. Unfortunately there is a hidden problem in the gallery that gives us all the ability to repeatedly add to our own creation download total or add to the download total of anyone in the gallery. Some simmers already use this trick to boost their creations up into the popular now section. EA is aware of this fact yet these new gallery changes have so far not corrected this serious problem. Now I fear this new set up with popular now as default will only encourage more of this self downloading action to become popular. Before this change we all had a reasonable chance to get seen on that page. We really aren't visible at all now. :s The popular now gallery system can't function fairly, responsibly or honestly if there are a minority of simmers willing to manipulate the download number for their own popularity gain. Solution: I think (I hope!) this issue is already on the table for a fix in the upcoming gallery changes but I would appreciate more simmers speaking up for this change especially now that EA is actively making a mess of the gallery with the hope of making it ultimately much better. Please contact anyone you know who can finally help right this wrong.
All that being said I also want to encourage everyone right now, new creator to high follower established creator, please, don't give up! Especially not right now in such turmoil and frustration. I have been for days now advocating for patience .. stay connected to why you all are truly here in the first place .. it is to create something beautiful that you love first and foremost .. then it is to share with all of your friends, followers & fans. We all need to stick together and support each other more in the days and weeks to come. The gallery is in a major transition right now and typically with all change things tend to get worse before they get better. I still have hope that eventually in the next couple of months EA will get it right and we will have a gallery we all can appreciate and respect alot more than we do now. :)
Please stay, create and play in spite of all the mess .. I'm staying .. I'm sharing .. because I do believe it will get better <3
