How I Choose Hidden Gems 💎️

This article is for transparency. I want to explain how I find Hidden Gems and why some accounts end up in different sections. I’m also open to discussing any gaps or flaws in my approach.

I usually don’t like writing long posts, but this time I felt I needed to explain everything clearly. If you’re only interested in the recommendation rules, you can jump straight to the first section.

Self-promotion and Recommendations from Other Users

These are the most straightforward sections.

You can simply comment that you want to be added, or recommend another account, and I’ll put them on the list.

The only hard requirements are:

• You’re not already on the list

• You have less than 1,000 followers

That’s it. Pretty simple.

However, accounts in the Self-promotion section:

• Are not added to the Hidden Gems collection

• Do not receive a share of the Buzz

I feel I should explain why I made this decision.

I know the Hidden Gems list can never be fully objective. Because of that, I don’t want to put heavy filters on community recommendations — even self-promotions.

On the other hand, if I started sharing Buzz with every recommendation, it would quickly turn into free Buzz farming. The same goes for the collection. If people knew they could get into a featured collection just by commenting, many would abuse it.

If you have a better idea on how to handle this, feel free to leave a comment. I’m open to suggestions.

How I Choose Accounts In The Main List

First of all, I want to apologize to everyone who didn’t make it into the list. Civitai is full of talented creators who deserve more attention, and it genuinely bothers me when:

• A creator sits in my review queue for a long time and then stops posting. I feel partly responsible for not featuring them sooner.

• Someone recommends an account I already follow, and I realize I should have recommended them myself earlier. On top of that, because of my own rules, that account doesn’t get Buzz.

Now, here are the hard rules I follow:

• You’re not already on the list

• You have less than 1,000 followers

Still simple, right?

The soft rules are more subjective, and I can change them or make exceptions at any time.

Before listing them, one more thing: every 3 weeks I review around 200–300 accounts. When I review someone, I follow them right away — it’s basically my way of marking that I’ve checked them. If I followed you, it means I already think your content is good. But only about 50 of those accounts make it into the final review queue. Many stay there for months while I give them a second (or tenth) chance.

Here are the soft rules I currently use:

• The account consistently posts high-quality content. I usually check at least the last 50–100 images or the last 30 days.

• I tend to avoid accounts that post a large number of images every day. If someone posts 50 images a day, I’d have to scroll through 1,500 images just to review them properly. The more you post, the lower the chance of being selected.

• I don’t recommend accounts that haven’t posted in the last 21 days. This is because the updates come out every three weeks, and the collection is sorted by publish date. Images need to fall between the previous update and the new one. I don’t delete these accounts — I just put them back into the review queue.

• Accounts that haven’t posted for 2 months get removed from the queue. I simply can’t keep the list infinitely long.

• I try not to feature accounts that are already performing very well in “Top New Master Generators” or similar rankings. If the community is already giving them a lot of attention, it’s harder to call them “hidden.” Again, I don’t delete them — I just move them back to the review list.

And finally, here’s what I personally value in images (this is the most subjective part):

• Ideas and creativity — something I haven’t seen before

• Composition and background — not only focusing on the main subject

• Characters — yes, I generally prefer images with characters

• Emotions — small details that make the image feel alive

• Style — a strong and consistent visual style

As you can see, it’s not as simple as it first appears.

I’m open to hearing your thoughts and suggestions.