Beyond the Front Page: Giving Everyone a Shot
I've noticed lately that it's getting increasingly difficult to get images seen on Civitai unless they appear in a few specific places.
Featured Images often seem to showcase the same familiar names again, while Featured Collections can naturally reflect the tastes and social circles of whoever curates them. Then there's the Most Reactions feed, which unfortunately has its share of reaction boosting and manipulation.
If you don't make it into one of those places, your work can easily disappear into the void.
I know Civitai has made efforts to improve discoverability, including the New & Upcoming feed, but I think there's room for something different.
The idea: A quality-over-quantity discovery feed
Basically, a separate feed where anyone can submit one image per day that they're particularly proud of.
Not 20 tiny variations of the same generation or 10 recycled landscapes boosted to the top with all 4 reactions. Just pick something you think is worth showing off.
Here's how I imagine it working:
One image per creator per day. Maybe three, see how it goes.
Open to everyone, regardless of followers, account age or popularity.
Randomised or rotating feed, so images don't immediately get buried by newer submissions. Ideally, images that haven't had much exposure would get a better chance to appear.
Images stay in the feed for 24 to 72 hours. After that, they automatically drop out to make room for new submissions. Civitai could experiment with different durations to see what works best.
No sorting by Most Reactions. People can still react to images, but reactions shouldn't influence their placement. This would make coordinated boosting a lot less useful.
Creator names visible on thumbnails, with a clickable link directly to their profiles. After all, the point is to discover creators as well as their images.
Normal content filters, so people can still browse whatever they're interested in.
Give Blue Buzz another use
Maybe submitting an image could cost a small amount of Blue Buzz, with Yellow or Green Buzz as alternatives.
It would give people something else to spend their Buzz on and might discourage low-effort submissions. The price should be cheap enough that everyone can participate, and paying more shouldn't buy extra visibility.
Ideally, you'd just select an image you've already uploaded rather than having to post it again.
Why I think it could work
An image with five reactions isn't necessarily worse than one with 500. Sometimes it just hasn't been seen by enough people.
Obviously, limiting submissions won't magically guarantee quality. Everyone has different tastes, and that's fine. The idea is simply to encourage people to pick their best work rather than compete through volume or popularity.
I'd also like to see Civitai experiment with the randomisation. Perhaps images with fewer impressions could be shown more often until they've had a reasonable opportunity to be seen. That might work better than a completely random feed.
This wouldn't replace Featured Images, Collections or any of the existing feeds. It would just be another way to discover artwork and creators you might otherwise never come across.
I'm not suggesting everyone deserves hundreds of reactions. Just that everyone deserves a reasonable chance to have their work seen.
Anyway, just an idea. Curious what other people think, especially whether a feed like this would actually help smaller creators get noticed.
(text was cleaned up with ChatGPT)