It seems like this is happening, yes.

There were an even(ish) number of flags and sails in the system at the start, but there are now no flags and more than 300 sails in the system. I've just verified that the randomizer works fine (despite appearances to the contrary some people are reporting), so this means that either people are F5ing past sails much more often than flags, or sails are more often evenly matched.

I just checked the sails that are getting rejected compared to those that get in, and the latter doesn't seem likely, either, which tells me people are just F5ing past sails in order to vote on flags.

If you find that your items are constantly being rejected, you should consider uploading them into Reviewing rather than directly into Voting, and use this forum to post threads for commentary. (We even provide a handy bit of BBCode you can use in the forum post to display the content.)

There are a number of folks here who are very knowledgeable in what helps make a flag make it through the approval process, and would be happy to help guide you towards submitting content you will like and that will make it past the voting process and the staff reviewers.

A quick update: We have now fixed the [ u c ][ / u c ] tag! Put this tag around the image number of something you have submitted that you need feedback on, and it will show up in the body of your post itself. Like this:

This new forum tag is most powerful when used in conjunction with the "Review" option at submitting: you can start a thread here with your flag or sail showing up directly in your post, and revise and re-upload your work as you get feedback from the community.

Try it out!

As promised yesterday, here's a few straight-up numbers:

When we turned the system on, we had 704 items in the voting process (all the items from the old system that had not yet been approved). 135 items were posted into the system additionally, which is way lower (approximately a third) than a normal day. Unfortunately, this low input potentially skewed things slightly -- if you've got stuff to post, post it!

76,160 votes have been cast in the past 24(ish) hours, putting 571 items into the Pending Review queue. 72 items were either rejected for not meeting minimum standards or due to garnering enough "panic" votes (for copyright or offensiveness problems).

We're going to be tuning some numbers slightly, as we're not quite where we want to be -- we want the bottom third to fall out automatically, and we're seeing somewhat (though only slightly) less than that.

There are a few minor bugs to work out; in particular, there is a maximum number of posting credits you're allowed to bank up -- you can vote past that point, but you gain no new posting credits after that point. Expect that your posting credits will be updated accordingly on Monday.

One thing I would like to emphasize again: Please do not simply refresh, and do not rely on that ability to continue much longer. We know you mean well, but doing so hurts the ability of good designs to get risen to the top because it never pushes the bad designs out of the queue, and it means that some items that would have been pushed out of the queue (and therefore, we wouldn't have to spend time rejecting them -- and be sure, rejecting an item takes us much longer than approving, because we reply to each one with suggestions for improvement!) are instead just squeaking into it.

Again, thanks for everyone taking the time to look at this, and do continue! With it being Mother's Day weekend, I won't be around too much, but I'll continue monitoring the forum throughout the weekend and respond more fully with a report of how things went on Monday.

This is such a great resource, I've merged a few threads into one and stickied it! I'm also going to invite other flag and sail makers to contribute, provided you follow these ground rules:

* Post only submitted, approved flags and sails. (As Toshiro is a 2DSC member, he gets a free pass on this one )

* Post only designs you're willing to give out to players for free and for anyone to use. Flags and sails "for sale" belong elsewhere!

* Include in your posts what server(s) you can be found on and how/when you can usually be reached. Don't forget to mention what faction you play for!

Enjoy, and happy drawing!

Just a few responses to some of the comments posted so far, in no particular order:

* Feedback is really best provided in the forum, and the new UC system is designed to get people posting here. You can post something for "review" and keep working on it, and link to that submission using the [ u c ] item-number [/ u c ] tag. Strangely enough, this was working before we went to live testing -- but now it isn't. I'm going to go pester Kevin about that right now. Thank goodness for testing

* This of course means if you want to explain your designs or get feedback on them, you have an excellent opportunity to post a thread for them and explain to your heart's content. We're simply shifting that from the UC system into the forum, where it's easier to foster constructive dialogue.

* Approvals are still done by staff. There's no such thing as an "auto-approval."

* 2DSC members are supposed to be able to review and comment on flags and sails that don't get moved to "pending review." It sounds like they're not currently seeing that option, which is something we will address behind the scenes -- but you, dear flag and sailmakers, should know it's a planned feature.

* While I can't show you directly, I can tell you that the new system is doing a fantastically better job of bringing flags and sails that are ready for approval into a place where staff will be able to act on them. A lot of people should be getting congratulatory emails in short order.

Keep testing, and keep the feedback coming!

One of my two ideas is directed towards the newbie experience. i want to make them desired.

The problem with that is two fold: first, ships typically get really beaten up, so you'd very often get sunk after a battle even if you were playing reasonably. Second, players would simply wait in the zone and repair themselves before coming out, at which point I'm adding a time penalty onto their combat.

Whee! Check out the news thing I posted today for the start of it:
http://www.burningsea.com/page/home

Bah! I've just been told the missions won't be turned on until Monday. I hope you'll try them then!