Welcome to The Fridge, post your photos on me!!

Hello Steemians, this is the introductory post for a new Steemit community project created by @dexter-k called The Fridge! This page is going to be used to reward new and experienced photographers alike, stimulate growth in the photography community on Steemit and pay photographers for work that they feel has value! If that sounds interesting to you then read on and I'll explain how this is going to work :)

History: An old idea on a new platform

Do you remember Flickr? I sure do, when I first started my journey into the world of digital photography Flickr was an incredible tool, and an amazing resource to help me learn and grow. One of the groups that I joined early on in my Flickr experience was called "The Icebox", and the idea behind the icebox is what I am modelling @thefridge after. Let me tell you a little bit about the icebox and how the group worked:

The Icebox

The icebox had a simple question: Is a photo cool, or is it uncool? Easy right? You see a photo, and in most cases you can decide quite quickly whether you think the photo is cool or not. If the photo was cool, you made a comment saying "Cool" and sometimes you would explain why, sometimes not. Conversely if you felt the photo was uncool, your comment would be "Uncool" and often be accompanied by some constructive criticism.

The point of the group was not to say this is cool and that isn't, often times "cool" photos would have at least a few uncools, and uncool photos would have at least a few cools. The point of the group was to get people involved, and to help them grow by letting them see, sometimes quite bluntly, what the community thought of their photo. You see, it's easy for someone to love the work that they have done, but sometimes it's hard to see the flaws. By being shown the flaws, you are able to grow, or at least that is the concept anyhow.

Bringing the icebox concept to Steemit

I have thought for a very long time that a group like the icebox would be brilliant on Steemit, but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work, since Steemit doesn't have groups! Finally though after some long hard thought about how this could work, I have come up with a way that might (work that is).

Not only that, but I think that my way will actually end up being beneficial for everyone who chooses to participate.

One of the main benefits of the old Flickr icebox was that it gave you some viewership outside of your own profile page, which in turn would give you some traction with your photo. Maybe people would see it and comment, maybe you would make it onto the trending page. Also, if your photo got "cooled" it gave you even more traction, because then it got sent to the exclusive "Deep freeze" group. Something that you couldn't just post into, it had to be sent there by a mod, which gave you even more traction and cred. Well, I thought to myself that maybe I can do something a little bit similar with Steemit. Let me explain how I plan to go about this.

How @thefridge will work

Currently Steemit doesn't have groups, but for the concept to work, you need people to be able to post in one place. I thought of the idea of making a community account and giving the posting key to everyone, but you can only post once every five minutes, and I know that eventually this would just not work, so here is my new idea:

People who want to participate in @thefridge will post their image in the comments section. The community will decide whether the photo is cool or uncool by either upvoting, or deciding not to upvote the photo, accompanied by a comment.

If you decide that the photo is cool, give it an upvote and comment "cool" along with a reason if you like, or with just the comment cool.

So what to do if you think the photo is uncool? Well first of all: DO NOT FLAG. Flags are for abuse only, and I do not want people getting tons of flags because someone think their photo is not cool.

If you want to uncool a photo, simply do not upvote it, but in this case you need to make a comment stating simply "uncool". You don't need to make any other comment, but if you have some constructive (read CONSTRUCTIVE) criticism, it is understood that this will be welcome. We all want to grow here :)

At what point is a photo cool or uncool?

That is the question isn't it? The old system worked on a time scale: If you received a certain number of cools before the same number of uncools the photo would be deemed cool, and vice versa. The reasoning is that you need to have a bit of a timeline because photos can't just sit there forever waiting, and I think we can do something similar here.

It will work like this: Cool vs Uncool will be a race, first to five. Let me give an example

John's photo receive's 2 cools, then 3 uncools, then 1 more cool, but then 2 more uncools. Sorry John, the community has deemed your photo uncool.

Jenny's photo receives 1 uncool, then 3 cools, then 2 more uncools, then 2 more cools. Congrats Jenny, the community thinks your photo is cool!

The race number may be increased or decreased in the future depending on how many people get on board with this, but I am gonna try to start it at five.

Hope you are following me here Steemians, but you may be asking yourself: Sounds all well and good, but what's in it for me?

The rewards

First and foremost, everyone who chooses to participate in this group by submitting a photo in the comments will receive a 4% upvote from @dexter-k, which is currently valued at about .$14, so that's a guaranteed $.14 payout just for participating!!

PLUS you will also get the reward of all others who choose to upvote your photo, PLUS since those votes are going to your comment they go entirely to you! There are no curation rewards for upvoting comments so you keep all the profits :)

But wait! There's more!

@thefridge will be making one post per day, so that you have something to comment on, and you will only be allowed to make one comment post on each of @thefridge's posts, so what will those posts be? Well this is @thefridge right? What do you put on the fridge?

Your favorite photos of course!

Each day @thefridge will make a new post consisting of the top "cooled" photos from the previous day, along with links to the contributors Steemit pages. So you will be getting not only the monetary rewards, but also some more exposure.

So what else do we have to talk about folks? Well, one more thing:

The rules

Here's a basic breakdown to keep it simple:

1. Vote on at least five photos before you post your own, we want community involvement and engagement here, please don't post and run!

2. Please look through more than the top comments before you decide to upvote. Because the Steemit system pushes upvoted comments to the top, it will be necessary to take a bit of a deeper look. Dig in a bit, there may be some amazing gems buried down there!

3. Post your photo in the comments section, BUT you are not allowed to upvote your own photo, we know you think your photos are cool, but we want to hear what the community thinks ;) Also for now please only post one photo per day.

4. You don't need to be a poster to be a voter! So you're not into photography but you still have an opinion? That's fine, everyone is allowed to have one, and in this place you have to be ok with hearing what others think of your work, so you can vote and comment even if you don't want to post.

5. If everything is cool, nothing is cool. It's ok to be nice, but we also want honesty, everything can't be cool people, and that's ok.

6. Upvote the daily post. The more traction these posts get, the more people will see them, the more votes on your photos and the more rewards for everyone! Also, again, we don't want post and runs, we want people who are interested in growing this community, so drop an upvote on the post and help everyone grow!
   Alright Steemit, I think that about does it! What do you think? Will you post your photos on the fridge??

I'll start by posting one of my own, let me have it community, tell me what you think, I can take it!!

Also be sure to upvote and resteem this post if you like the concept and would like to see this grow!