You bring up some very important points. LIMS is only as good as its voters and the time they take to analyze the technical aspects of the submissions. I got feedback at times that I didn't agree with (heh - on one icon, one comment said the image was oversharpened while another said it was fuzzy) but the beauty of having to give a reason was that it helped me see where someone was coming from in evaluating a comment. If I got 5 comments all saying the same thing, I felt I had to pay attention even if I didn't agree. In the end, I might still disagree but I was aware that other viewers saw things differently.

I've never understood why positive comments aren't required but I have noticed that's a tendency in LIMS comms. I'm guessing that some group of voters is willing to leave two reasons but four is considered too much work and so they fail to vote? I think it's a good suggestion to require positive comments, too, because it's important to know what people like about an icon. What worked.

Style is always going to play into the voting, I fear. I see no way around it. No matter how much one focuses on technical aspects, it eventually comes down to "I prefer this icon style so I'm willing to overlook this particular lack but I can't overlook it in this other icon because it doesn't otherwise appeal to me."

As someone who doesn't normally icon in the more popular icon styles, I feel your pain. I'm willing to bend some because it stretches my abilities and makes me develop my eye but I'll never be the person who makes the icons that I tend to nominate in the Artistic and Dramatic categories over at sg_awards and I do think that those tend to be the styles rewarded in LIMS. You have to know that going in, I think, to enjoy LIMS.

But you know what? If you have a bunch of friends who *don't* like the prevailing style and you convince them to vote, it's possible to redefine what the popular style is. One of the (many) reasons I had when I participated was I wanted to encourage people towards pretty coloring, imaginative cropping, and nice text work. Often, my opinion coincided with others' but it wasn't always the case.

shadowserenity had posted something in lantis_lims that I thought was insightful: the point to participating was not to win because everyone but one person was going to be eliminated. I looked at the list of participants, the voting in the first round, and *knew* that I would never make it to the final rounds. Once I wrapped my brain around entering a contest I didn't set out to "win," I was okay with knowing I would be eliminated and would receive some feedback that I wouldn't necessarily like because I'm not the elite sort of icon maker. But I did really have to think about it before I agreed. I was fortunate that the voters in that community almost always give their positive reasons, too, and so I got a balanced mix.

All of that said, I'd love to have you take another chance with us (assuming that we do this) if you're willing to give us a try. I'd also love to have you continue to offer your candid opinions because there's no way to improve (either in icon-making or in running a comm) without feedback.