No one has asked me, but you might be wondering what it takes to earn a "Highly Recommended" designations for the reviews of sites, tools, tutorials, or videos.

It's a judgment call. Mine, when I do the rating. When other contributors submit a review, it's their judgment to make.

One way of assigning designations is to assume evey resource reviewed started with "Highly Recommended" and then loses "points" for different issues. Another way is to assume they start at "Not Recommeneded" and need to work their way up. I've been adopting a third way. They start with "Recommended" and can then work their way up or down.

I'm trying to apply standards, but they're not standards so strict and severe that only a few resources will merit "Highly Recommended." On the other hand, my standards are not so loose that "Highly Recommended" becomes the modal category.

Excellence, broadly defined, is my standard. For a video, for example, that includes excellence in technical content, excellence in presentation, excellence in audio and video quality, and excellence in streaming/serving the video. Technical content matters most, but even excellent technical content can be blemished with poor video production or a stream that stops midway.

"Not Recommended" is a designation I try to avoid. When I apply it, I will openly tell the readers why. So far, that has been applied to a couple of sites and that for issues like censorship, false labeling, and the like. Readers can feel free to disagree with my judgment about when moderation crosses into censorship, etc. There is a comment system on this site for exactly the purpose. It's a disappointment that so little use it made of it. I'd like to see lots of comments for all of the articles, blog entries, reviews, etc.

No one should interpret "Recommended" as a judgment that a site or Photoshop resource is deficient. That is not my intended use of "Recommended." All that it means, from my point of view and all I'm gesturing at, is that it does not have the extraordinary excellence that "Highly Recommended" resources display.

A designation is not permanent. Sites change, tools are updated and upgraded, etc. I am willing to revisit my reviews and reconsider my judgments. Again, the comments are helpful for not only speaking with the larger Photoshop community but also for giving me reason to pause and reconsider.

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