Suggest a banner idea

[Quilava 1,290]

   If there is something that tends to bother me amongst this forum (or even the fandom in general), it's the issue that some people wish to contribute or give back to it. They wish they were able to draw, write out elaborate stories, or be a handyman with crafts. 

   

   The banner that stands atop this forum is, to some, a sort of advertisement or form of publicity, while others use it to make an epic symbol for a group that shares the same interest...or they were just bored and decided to create something unique. There are some people that would love to create a banner as a way of giving back/contributing to the community, but either lack the resources or the creative intuition.

 

   So I thought of making a thread dedicated to those who have ideas for possible future banners and would, hopefully, like to see their ideas come to life. The thread could be hosted here in the F&S section, or, if more appropriate, elsewhere in the forum.

 

   How this would (possibly) work:

*spoilers to keep post short :3*

 

  Once the thread is created, any user with an idea for a possible future banner would post their idea in that thread. This post, however, must have more than just; pinkie pie banner, make it!. There must be some construct/theme associated with their idea; Maybe pinkie pie with a swirly dark pink theme?. This is where a part of this falls out (more on moderation/spam later).

 

   An artist could then go through the thread (by their own choice) and pick an idea/suggestion that they would like to do/or would like to see, possibly, be the banner for an upcoming week. They could pick a random one, or one that the community has a high favour for.

 

  (Optional, though recommended) Once the artist has created the banner and feels they are done, they could run it by original poster of the idea and see what they think. If all checks out, then the artist could set up the usual banner submittion message to the admins. However, in this message, the artist must include the original poster of the idea.

 

   IF, chosen by the admins, instead of just having the artist's username or the submitter of the idea, the tag on the bottom left of the banner would be "Community Chosen". This is an account (that is already created) that, when clicked, would have the "About Me" part of their profile have links to the Artist's Profile AND to the user that had submitted the idea, giving credit to both sides.

 

 

 

   Now, if this were to happen, and were hosted here in the feedback and suggestions forum, moderation would probably need to be upkept well since the minimum character limit is ten and spam could easily accumulate with dry suggestions.

   

   Something that would be highly recommended to the community, would be that, if you see that someone has a similar or close idea to yours; ie, you both were going for a bright blue rainbow dash banner, but you thought of it being kind of cloudy or misty textured, while the previous poster thought of swirls. Instead of making a similiar post, simply brohoof their post. This would also apply if you like the idea that the user had suggested. Doing this would make it so if an artist stumbles across that post and sees that a good amount of people have either, had a similar suggestion, or liked the idea, they may be more inclined to create it as more people would enjoy it.

 

  The main, and possibly major, downfall of this idea is the concept of trust. It would be up to the artist sending in the banner to include the name of the user that had suggested the idea first so they would get appropriate credit. Another thing is, since the thread (obviously) would be completely open, people could come into the thread, look for ideas, take them, and call them theirs.

 

Thanks for your time.

[Shiki 5,856]

As an artist, someone telling me to make a "dark themed, swirly pinkie pie" banner means absolutely nothing to me. Since language cannot express exactly what our brains are saying, such a thread would probably only be filled with descriptions that only use generic terminology that don't really mean much of anything. Unless the person making a suggestion knows a good bit about art (which, most people don't, apparently), they aren't going to offer much that helps out an artist other than "use penker pei, make it sguiggly." And to consider this a "suggestion" worth "credit" does not make logical sense to me, really. Perhaps I'm wrong on this one, I'm not sure. I just think any one who could give a decent description of art would be an artist, themselves, thus making the premise rather illogical.

 

Another problem would be people getting upset over their "suggestions" not getting picked. We already have people that cry for hours if, every deity forbid, the banner doesn't change on time (they had to make an FAQ entry for it; it's that ridiculous), imagine if it were about something they actually something to do with. People expect their thoughts and ideas to be incredibly important, so they'd get upset if their suggestion wasn't acknowledged immediately. Further more, we only change the banner once a week. Considering the amount of activity this site gets, there would be such a large amount of suggestions that it'd be more of a pain in the butt for artists to filter through, just for a simple idea. That sounds like something they could just post a status update about: "guise, bannur ideas pls." They'd probably get a good bit of responses.

 

Also, I believe many users (and possibly staff) like the idea of it being a surprise every week (if it changes on time). Making something like this would take a bit of that factor away, unless the artist keeps absolutely quiet about using someone's suggestion until their banner is already being used.

 

One more thing; as already mentioned, this site has a lot of activity on it. There's going to be a fair amount of "suggestions" by the users. There can only be so many ideas out there, given the limitations of ponies and whatnot. Eventually, most ideas are going to be taken, and we're going to have dupes. Not just dupes amongst members, but dupes amongst artists and members. If someone were to say, "Make a Spike banner with scales as the background," that means no artist can really use that idea unless they give credit, even if they never read the post. This will lead to that particular member getting butthurt, if they're the type to get butthurt (a great majority is the type).

 

Not to be a Negative Nelly, but those are the issues that instantly came to mind.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,784]

I probably will not use this, mainly because it doesn't really seem necessary. Though I actually do agree with your first part, surprise. The thing is, quite a few people in this fandom already think they are some expert at....insert profession here. The sad truth is, most of us are not.

 

The other thing I do not see the point of in this thread is that it kinda over complicates the banner submitting process, just because of lack of inspiration. I would probably come up with my own idea long before bothering with this.

 

More power to you though, I guess. I just do not see the point.

[Zygen 6,066]

I think I understand what your saying partly but I have a few issues with this.

 

First of all, it's hard to understand what one person suggests by explaining. Like conveying your picture of an idea you have via words never truly works.

 

Another thing is it would become a race for who can use this idea before someone else, and it would take away the idea coming up with portion for the banner creation, but still only giving the banner creator who posts it the credit.

 

I can understand what your saying, but I think that if someone wants to suggest something then the most I'd do is get a friend who does banners and suggest they try and interpret there idea.

 

But i don't totally agree with the idea, sorry .

[Quilava 1,290]

Thanks guys.~

 

Had a good bit of doubt when I started typing out the post, but had just had to see what others would think of it.

 

@

 

No worries. I'd rather have a post like yours breaking everything down than having someone who would just put it down without another word.