Gallery being sorted by "Popular Now" by default is a problem

"GLovely1;c-16657242" wrote:
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

I'm sure they didn't see the result of setting the popular now tab by default. EA wants to see more fresh and different contents but creators who create contents receive less admiration? Even worse, people always want their creations to be in the spotlight, so this update encourages them to be more dishonest by using the 'self-download' method. Should those people who use the unfair trick be on the top and deserve more compliments than those ones who don't use? Seriously, this is wrong. Hopefully, they will come up with the properly, reasonably, and accurately better solution for the next update. Please EA, no more stupid and careless idea that destroys the game you made.

@Plantyl Exactly. Only the Maxis fav, the big followers number members, and…. the cheaters, will be to the top. So, it will encourage the cheaters to cheat more, and will encourage some other to do so. I am very glad about carrying change about the gallery. However, the point to put the most popular tab to be seen first is a very bad idea, and mostly about the newbies, that want to search for creations to download. Also, the most popular tab is big mess actually. They see only the most pop tab first, so all the others, the newbies themselves, and low followers number members, can't be known. Since the newbies don't really understand first how the gallery works.
I just hope that this point will be fix soon.

> @simmerLella said:
> TwoHorses wrote: »
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> I don't know if it's really a problem. For a while now, I had one sim in my gallery, with zero download. Since the update, I got 16 downloads in 1 day. I think it's because of the "random from the gallery" that people can now use in CAS. It probably got my sim more exposure.
>
>
>
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> That's been a feature for as long as I can remember.

I'm sorry, I didn't know it was there before. I'm new to creating stuff, I've only uploaded 2 creations.
And anyway, this "random from the gallery" feature isn't working right. It's not a real random, they always show up the same stuff.

Since the update, the Gallery had major issues for days, and I think the team was pretty busy working on those bugs. I was surprised the SimGurus didn't react much to the problem of the Popular Now by default, since SimGuruGrant recently tweeted about supporting creators and builders, and SimGuruKate talked about showcasing creators. But maybe it's because they had so much to do with the other issues.
Let's hope they will take care of it now. (and take care of the "not-so-random" random sim from gallery!)

@TwoHorses They're avoiding talking this problem since they know they made a mistake.

So true @kass17! It's such a bad idea. I uploaded the house, just to see if it really is as bad as I think and the difference is huge. I agree that only popular players will always be on the top and cheaters of course. Gallery is such a mess right now. It's such a disappointment. We all worked so hard and now we are invisible.

So, I've been reading a lot on this particular issue. Following this thread and a couple others. But I went into the game and noticed something. In the "Lessons" tab, where it gives you tutorial tips on just about everything in the game, there is no section in there for the gallery. I think this would solve at least some of the issues stated here. New players or those unfamiliar with the Gallery could learn how to navigate the different tabs, favorites, etc. Maybe like the forums there are some stated do's and don'ts. Those of us more adept at the game and gallery could easily turn it off, but it would be there for those who need it. Just a thought!

"horseygirl24;c-16657100" wrote:
And, another issue is that the things in Popular Now aren't changing very frequently since the update, because they just stay popular due to people continuing to download them since it's the first thing they see. I checked it twice a day apart, and I would say it stayed about 60-75% the same stuff.

I've noticed this as well. And another problem - that McDonald's near the top of 'Popular Now' lots is one of many, many copies of that same build (originally by a creator named devu84). There are three of that specific build in 'Popular Now' alone, all with different user ids as the uploader. If the 'Popular Now' tag was supposed to be for highlighting new, fresh, quality builds, unfortunately, it's not working out that way at the moment. I have no idea what could be done about all the duplicates on the gallery, though. :/

I did a little 'test' - I built something that would normally get at least a few downloads: a starter home with no cc that only uses the base game and two of the more popular expansions, Cats & Dogs and Seasons. Not one single download. It's not a bad looking little house, so I think (I hope, anyway, lol) it's just not being seen.

ETA: While I was typing this, one of the three McDonald's disappeared (the one with the most downloads), but there are still two of them in 'Popular Now.' I suspect that isn't the only cloned build in there.

https://i.imgur.com/zSdeyVW.pngNo, it isn't. They didn't fix the actual problem.

My sister and I share an account and we both post really hot sims and I post really good lots but since the new update, we never get any downloads. Our gallery account is GNinja1270

"Plantyl;c-16658141" wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/zSdeyVW.pngNo, it isn't. They didn't fix the actual problem.

At the moment, unless I missed something due to not being on Twitter, we have no indication that any of the SimGurus are aware of the problem this thread is about. :/ It would be nice to even just have a small confirmation that they've heard us and are looking into it.