Question on the voting for gallery pix

[ChiChi]

Hi, I am fairly new here and I was just wondering.....

Are there any set rules or guidelines about the voting for the pictures in the gallery? I always kind of thought of, if I see something I really like, I would vote it high so the person who posted it could see that we appreciated her artwork. But I started wondering if there was some kind of contest or if it was supposed to be a real "vote" type of thing because I saw some relatively low points on some cards I thought were gorgeous.

I thought it was kind of heartbreaking. After all everyone has different taste, but is there a point in being proactive about giving a low score? I understand it will be different if there is a contest of some sort, so I was just wondering what the regs were.

Thank you for listening.

[splitcoaststampers]

the only case where the votes really "count" for something is for the contest categories, and then only for the one month that a particular contest is current. otherwise people typically just use the ratings to express their appreciation, as you mentioned. the rating system certainly *could* be used to denigrate someone, but I'm surprised you mention that as I believe it's been exceedingly rare.