SunRuanEr:
If you're like me (and I certainly can't be the only person like this) you don't check the General forum each and every day - and likely don't have time to check RPoL at all every day when it's a holiday week like this week - and completely missed the announcement that went up Wednesday stating that we could suddenly submit portraits until Friday. This is especially problematic because the previous announcement from months ago in this very thread said that portrait submissions were suspended through the end of the year, so we had little reason to even think about portraits/checking for portraits until after December 31st. Now there's been a sudden surprise addition that came earlier than that, and is supposedly the last for potentially ever, with a mere 48 hours or so of warning... in the middle of a holiday week.
I'm one of those people that always checks each and every portrait in existence before submitting one, but sometimes there just isn't an acceptable one already in the gallery - especially when dealing with characters of certain ethnicities. Given that there's a request that we only submit portraits for characters we're going to use, that means that I (since I can only speak for my own experience here, but I imagine I'm not the only one) have a handful of portraits sitting aside for characters that exist in their games, but aren't actively being played yet. (One of my games is time-skip heavy, with NPC children that will be PC adults, in time, and no - none of the existing portraits are sufficient representations of the way they have already been described.)
You aren't alone, SunRaunEr. This above perfectly sums up my feelings on this, as well. This announcement came out of nowhere as the break, which had already been extended once, was drawing to a close, right in the middle of the holidays. That is extremely poor timing.
Shannara, I understand that, from what you've described, updating the portrait gallery is a lot of work. But it is important work to the community. It's especially important to parts of the community that get relatively few chances for representation -- I don't know if you've noticed, but the gallery is overwhelmingly skewed towards white men and women. "(W)ith over 10,000 pics in the gallery, I think most needs are covered" is an insultingly dismissive statement to make to those members of the community who really
aren't covered well. I, personally, have done my best to add to the diversity of the galleries I've submitted to, but I'm only one guy, and only have the ability to run one game at a time.