Oh,so when You brush You are better?No,its just technique gives You level up.

Realism,overall atmosphere and quallity makes You elite.

yes, brushing isn't everything - but it makes it your own work.. and truely art. If you just copy and paste a whole image... what's the point - you may as well post the c+p image as the base. C+P often means people rate the quality of someone else's work as a photographer, and not yours as an artist. In the days before photoshop, the better artist would be the painter - not the photographer... and to some extend should be true about photoshopping

Once again, the level of the artist is very much subjective and is based on so many things such as number of works, frequency of new works, amount of effort in each work, how are they made (not only how well) and from that it goes to as far as who is looking at it when it's finished.

That said, I don't envy your job Joseph.

Best posts in this thread:
Although ATC kinda disregards his strong point with the long instructions about showroom structure.

Maybe like that DevilsTower impostor said, making the "promotion" automatic and only base it on a single chop at a time would be the easiest for admins and also quite fair for artists. The average score would then place the work in the appropriate showroom. But then again, the fact that giving out the scores is very subjective. I'd imagine there wouldn't be much works to fit into the low or even mid-vote vote categories so there would only be 2 really active showrooms (you can read that as a hint).

Or keep the badges system in the chops as the deciding factor. Maybe add some more different badges to spice it up a bit. And then have them badges counted in the profile or something and maybe arrange the artist's list based on those.

...Just an excerpt from my flow of thought.

This has been an interesting read so far. I was me that introduced "Pro Tuners & Elite" a year or so or longer ago because it was a big jump from Intermediate to Advanced. Although some Advanced were blowing other Advanced members sidewards with their creations. It also spread out the chops and having an extra two sections made newbies try harder. Many of members I could announce that have pushed themselves from the start to Pro has been sucessful. It even made members in Advanced focus more on their work and be more creative to get themselves into Elite. Up until now I think the System has work, but because Autemo is growing in size rapidly something BRAND NEW might need to come in place. Like Ollie has mentioned regarding the two sections and points related system could be beneficial.

Usually these days the Staff here at Autemo used to promote members on a staff view of their chop. Only for you'se being members and not Staff therefore not knowing what runs through our heads. These days we promote based on the members replies to the topic, and the ratings rewarded. Good choice of chops in the Portfolio is a big benefit too.

I'm sure their are plenty more ideas, whether Mark and Bjorn would want to go ahead with the big changes now to the Forum Sections (I'd imagine alot of cleaning and moving threads about) it might be something to keep in mind for the future. As we all know Autemo will never not stop changing. I.E. Something new will come to Autemo every three months I'd say.

I think that brushing skills should decide about promotions. The overall look of the chop isn't everything... The background could be boring but for me the brushing skills are the most important. I don't understant why so many people don't take a look at the technical aspects of the chop. Perfect chop should be technically perfect...realistic brush, realistic reflections(not the chaotic ones...) it should be well thought out. The atmosphere isn't the most important thing...OK i mean its important but If you take a closer look it would have turned out to piece of crap.

I think that if you can't brush properly u can't be advanced or elite.

I partially agree, I disagree about the brushing over c/p part. For me it doesn't matter how you came to a result, just the result.

But for me the realism aspect in a chop is also more important than atmosphere. Combining both is obviously ideal. But too many times I see a -I must admit- very nice looking chops with awesome atmosphere, but when you really look at them, nothing in that picture makes any sense...

Why is the artistic look wrong? Why should the artist be punished for his style by denying possible promotions?

But it's just my personal opinion. I prefer photorealistic look :p U don't have to agree with me

Same here, I posted how it should be done according to me in my previous post.
This was just a more personal opinion

It HAS been an interesting read.

For me, i'll mention the showrooms and the reasons behind them first. They're not there to deter people from chopping or to make you feel bad, but to push you to improve. You're always going to try that bit harder on your next chop with the promise of a promotion. I do partially agree with the negative points being mentioned about them, which brings me to my next suggestion. How about we keep the showrooms as they are, but then above all of them we just have a "General Showroom" where any artist can post. You then have the choice to post there, or post in the showroom relevant to your chopper level

The whole discussion about promotions I believe Ollie has damn near hit perfectly upon. It's completely subjective, no two people will think the same way about a chop. One may feel that the atmosphere is more important whilst the other believes the quality of the brushing is important. Automatic promotions based on chop ratings won't work either due to people "rallying for votes" It happens. *Shrug*

The way we overcome this has been solved naturally, and fallen into place nicely. All of us admins have different views on what makes a chop as good as it can be. That's why with promotions at the higher levels, we'll discuss the promotions first to gain the diverse opinions and we'll vote on it. It's not a flawless system, but it is a personal one where you can be sure attention has been paid to your work.

Lower level promotions ie: NCA, Inter/pro are done without any conference between admins as they tend to be more obvious. If we see a new chopper who has added a nice set of wheels to a car, subtle pasted bodykit and lowered it, and it all blends together nicely then we'll promote them. The lower level promotions are based more on skill/execution whereas when you begin to climb up the promotion ladder, it's based on a combination of everything mentioned in this thread and that's where us admins come in.