Policy Review Policy Review: Art Submissions

(approved by darkie)

If you are not an experienced member of the CAP community, it is strongly recommended that you do not post in this thread.

This thread is intended to contain intelligent discussion and commentary by experienced members of the CAP project regarding CAP policy, process, and rules. As such, the content of this thread will be moderated more strictly than other threads on the forum. The posting rules for Policy Review threads are contained here.

Click to expand...

Ok, I'd like to begin by saying that the way art is being showcased in the polls is all wrong. All renditions by an artist of the SAME CONCEPT should be shown in the final art poll.

Limiting the poll to just images or final submitted artworks encourages ignorant voting. Those who did not keep up with the development o the respective artworks are essentially voting for fanart, and not an art concept and if the argument to that point is that, "Well, any supplemental art or information should be in the old Art Submissions thread for anyone to see," then that only further encourages ignorant voting. Because, if they are able to view it anyway, why make it arbitrarily difficult to view? It only gives those too lazy to make an informed decision a reason to remain ignorant about the context of each concept art. If you're going to not show the full range of concepts in the art poll, then you might as well delete the art submissions thread in order to make it fully "fair and balanced." Otherwise you're just being illogical.

Which brings me to my next point.

They might say, "Well those who have more artworks would have an unfair advantage over those who don't. It would be fair to show only one." Well that's a bit stupid if you'll excuse me saying. When I'm trying to apply for a job, do I cut my resume down because someone else doesn't have as many accomplishements? If we're talking about "fairness," then why allow Photoshop images if not everyone has access to Photoshop? (And we can not legally advocate the illegal downloading of Photoshop just so that people can have equal footing in a CAP project) Why is it a bad thing that those who spend more time and effort developing their concepts should potentially have an advantage? They are the same argument "Don't have time to learn photoshop? Tough luck" "Don't have time to make multiple renditions of your art? Tough luck" And why should it be an advantage at all? If the concept is fundamentally disliked by a person, no number of renditions and examples of that concept are going to change that person's mind.

Unless you consider that similar to campaigning or swaying the voters, in which case, those like Caladbolg have already FAR stepped over that line. And the truth of the matter is, the second it was decided we can submit our own artworks, discuss them, and vote on them, the whole process became a campaign whether or not you're willing to accept it. Those who know how to play the game will benefit and those that don't will suffer. And again, since this is a concept poll and not a fanart poll, its very nature should allow for multiple pieces of the same concept to be presented.

All the current rules do now is encourage shallow designs and gives them a chance to succeed.

All renditions of a single concept should be shown in the art poll, or atleast linked to. If not, we can't consider it a legal poll.

I strongly support this idea. We should simply ask the artists to put all their art into one picture and like what tennisace has set up now, link to that. That way if we were thinking this idea wouldn't be good because of *such and such* than there might be a piece of art that would show how the idea might present *such and such*. It would be much better and nobodies internet will be murdered if we put it in links.

Since the art polls are currently happening -- this is really not a good time to discuss policy regarding the art selection process. I, for one, am a participant in the current art competition -- and I don't feel like I should be commenting on the process, since my comments will inherently be construed as for or against one or more current art submissions.

As a matter of procedure, we should let the art polls conclude, rather than attempt to change the rules midstream.

DougJustDoug said:

Since the art polls are currently happening -- this is really not a good time to discuss policy regarding the art selection process. I, for one, am a participant in the current art competition -- and I don't feel like I should be commenting on the process, since my comments will inherently be construed as for or against one or more current art submissions.

As a matter of procedure, we should let the art polls conclude, rather than attempt to change the rules midstream.

Click to expand...

As it is, I don't think there's anything that's going to change things at this moment. We're what over halfway done with the first art poll? It's too late to go back now; when I read the OP, I read it as a future change for CAP 6 and going onwards.

I, for one, give my full support to this idea. I see a trend occuring here, that the more CAPS are created, the more people come to try and participate, most noticeably in the concept art. I'd just like to add an addendum to keep in mind about the all versions of a concept part: all renditions of a concept art should be included, but which renditions should be left up to the artist's discretion. There are those of us who do multiple renditions to show how the pokemon would pose and attack in order to help get our concept across without having to rely heavily on visual aid (such as myself and Lofty and his comet). But then there could be simple edits which don't require each rendition to be posted, such as Doug's planet and its minor eye-tweaks.


Also, on the subject of illegally obtaining Photoshop: I want to put it out there the alternatives of GIMP, and Paint.Net. The former is of Photoshop-quality controls, but has a steeper learning curve than shop, and the latter is best put as Photoshop Lite; vs GIMP it has photoshop-like interface and several similar controls, it's what I've used so far for any editing (including a brief time making signatures in Giveaways before banner contests as a part of giveaways was banned). Both are freeware.

My only concern is the clutter and inefficiency that would ensue if the art poll is suddenly inundated with multiple images or links of the same concept. It would unfairly place a huge responsibility on the Topic Leader.

I suggest, instead, that the artists take the time to fit all their relevant art pieces onto one .jpg for easy viewing, which they can then submit to the TL. This would keep the art poll relatively uncluttered and easy to browse, and the TL wouldn't have to go fishing through the submission thread for every drawing submitted. Also, it never hurts to selectively 'trim the fat'.

This is something I did with Fidgit, and I noticed Lofty had several perfectly fine examples of his comet from multiple angles in a single image. Of course, artists could always choose to submit just one piece of concept art anyway...which means, all I'm sayin', I guess, is keep it the way it is, one submission per artist, but remind artists that they're not limited just one drawing?

I must ask why this has to wait until the next CAP to be implimented. Why not impliment it into the next poll? I have a PM already open and waiting to go to Tennis of links to each person's multiple renditions in the top 12 (as far as the voting stands now). No person on that list has less than two renditions of their art, so it's not as though someone has absolutely nothing to gain from this. Everyone in that list has more art that I'm sure they'd like to showcase. The only argument against it is "well if he gets to show all of his art then he'll be at an advantage." Well I'd say if he doesn't get to show his art, he'll be at a disadvantage.

Why should we keep the status quo when we know the status quo is wrong? That doesn't make sense.

LonelyNess said:

I must ask why this has to wait until the next CAP to be implimented. Why not impliment it into the next poll? I have a PM already open and waiting to go to Tennis of links to each person's multiple renditions in the top 12 (as far as the voting stands now). No person on that list has less than two renditions of their art, so it's not as though someone has absolutely nothing to gain from this. Everyone in that list has more art that I'm sure they'd like to showcase. The only argument against it is "well if he gets to show all of his art then he'll be at an advantage." Well I'd say if he doesn't get to show his art, he'll be at a disadvantage.

Why should we keep the status quo when we know the status quo is wrong? That doesn't make sense.

Click to expand...

All of us artists knew that we were to submit one picture for this step in the process, so we did. This skews the process. If we left this whole idea until next poll everyone could benefit by knowing the rule beforehand instead of having some kind of mid-art Bolshevik Revolution.

It's a good idea, just hold your horses. We will have many more CAPs.

Actually, I was waiting for someone to say something like that. Thank you Hazmat.

I'd like to point out that Cartoons! / Retro Ninja / Absolutions from CAP 4 had multiple renditions of their art showcased in the very first art poll. If anything, precedant told the submitters that you were ALLOWED multiple renditions of your art. This is a relatively new policy that Tennis implimented IN THE MIDDLE of his art submission thread.

And I'd like if you didn't say "well Smogimp's is all one picture." I'm sure if given the chance, all of the contestants would gladly consolodate their renditions onto one JPG in order to get through this loophole.

LonelyNess said:

Actually, I was waiting for someone to say something like that. Thank you Hazmat.

I'd like to point out that Fidget / Pyroak / Smogimp and other notables have had multiple renditions of their art showcased in the art polls. If anything, precedant told the submitters that you were ALLOWED multiple renditions of your art. This is a relatively new policy that Tennis implimented IN THE MIDDLE of his art submission thread.

And I'd like if you didn't say "well Smogimp's is all one picture." I'm sure if given the chance, all of the contestants would gladly consolodate their renditions onto one JPG in order to get through this loophole.

Click to expand...

I don't care when it was implemented. He told us ahead of time we needed to donotate our final piece and we did. That's how it's going at the minute. Bringing something up that happened in past polls does nothing except complicate a straightforward CAP.

Final pieces got shown, others didn't. We all knew it and prepared thusly.

This is the first CAP where links were provided at all. In every past CAP project, a single image was embedded in the OP of the voting thread. After this first art poll, we will resume posting a single image in the art poll. That single image is constrained by the following rule in the OP:

Compressed images of reasonable dimensions should be posted. Oversized submissions (file size or image size) will be deleted.

Click to expand...

So, if someone posts a huge JPG with multiple images, it would be disallowed. However, if someone wants to post a JPG of reasonable size that contains multiple poses (a la Smog imp or Cartoon's Fidgit submission) then that is perfectly fine. I consider 800x600 as the general maximum size on images, although I have not enforced this specifically. Perhaps this size limitation should be explicitly stated in the rules.

The art competition rules -- explicit or implicit -- are not going to be changed right now in the middle of an ongoing art competition. I don't think we should even be discussing it right now. It detracts from the current poll, it creates an air of controversy and "dispute" to an ongoing poll. This whole thread is creating a community perception that someone is being treated unfairly, or something improper is happening.

In fact, I would like to ask all the forum moderators to stop approving PR threads in the middle of ongoing CAP projects. We should review our processes in between CAP projects, when we have time to reflect on the overall effectiveness of the process as a whole. X-Act's recent PR thread was construed by some as an immediate reaction to losing the stat spread poll. This poll appears to be a reactionary gripe about the current art poll. I am fine with discussing both of these issues, but I would prefer to do it in between CAP projects, when the issue does not carry the taint of a "knee jerk" reaction to something happening in a current CAP project. Policy Review should be conducted in a more reflective atmosphere, hence the word "Review" -- not "Preview".

I very much like this idea, but we should wait untill the next CaP before implementing it. We are a part way through the art voting, its a bit late to change things for this time.

Edit:
To Doug's suggestion of only having PR threads between Projects:
While I agree that "knee jerk" PR threads can have a negative affect, limiting all discussion of changes to policy to the relatively short period while TLs are elected... It seems unnecessary and restrictive.

What could reduce the problems of "knee jerk" threads, but still let us discuss issues at a time when they are fresh in our minds, would be to have a "Buffer Zone". So someone wanting to post a PR thread that is directed at the name poll (just an example, the same would apply for any other) would have to wait until a week (or some other period that will be decided on.) after the name poll had finished before asking a forum Mod to post it. Also PR threads that would affect any CaP Project that had already started (Like posting something about Ability while Type was up) should be strongly discouraged, unless there is a specific and good reason for it.

This vastly increases the time available to Review out policy when compared to Doug's idea, while stopping people from reacting directly to something that has just happened (or is still ongoing).

Alright, I'm bumping this so we can come to some concensus before the art poll / submission thread on the EVO project starts.

It seemed like my proposal was accepted basically unanimously (as long as it started at the next project). Can we get some kind of confirmation of this?

It's cool with me.

I have a series of specific proposed revisions to the Art Submission process. I was going to post them in a separate PR thread, but I forgot that LonelyNess had already started a PR thread on the Art process. I'll post my proposed changes here for comment. I can't do it today, but I'll try to get it together this weekend. Until I get them all typed up and proposed, people may want to refrain from commenting on this PR.