Fan Art

[Ashley 2,427]

The Fan Art boards are great place...
but its current set up doesn't work out too well for most artists.
Although the Fan Art boards are supposed to be for sharing art and getting critique, a decent amount of users don't.
New Artists
Often, an artist's first work isn't very good. Some people don't want to be "mean" and say that the art is bad, so they say it looks good and then leave. Sometimes they just ignore the thread, leaving a brohoof. This doesn't help the artist at all, it only slows their progress as they believe they don't need to get better.
Intermediate Artists
Once an artist's work is somewhat good, people just flat out ditch the thread because their isn't much to say (and you have to nitpick for the flaws, something which only a few users do.) Usually an "intermediate" artwork will get a whole bunch of brohooves but no replies. This doesn't help the artist, as they want to know the flaws but nobody is telling them.
Master Artists
After an artist reaches the top of the ladder, it would seem that their isn't much to critique. This is far from true, becase there is. These artists want to know what emotion their art is portraying, if the colors they chose go well with the theme, and all that other jibber jabber. However, users usually just leave brohooves or posts saying "It's good" and then leave, which causes many of these artists to stop posting.
Now that you know who it affects, let me tell you how we can fix it.
An additional tag could be added, called "Requesting Critique." This would alert people that the artists are looking for critique and not just "It's good" posts. Heck, "It's good" posts could even be banned on such artwork to make sure that a topic doesn't get them.
There would also be a team of art critics to critique art with these tags, in order to assure that the artists do, in fact get critique. These art critics would be chosen the same way staff are chosen, by displaying qualities and abilities that would be needed for the job and then getting chosen.

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Feel free to shoot down add to my idea, or point out any flaws. I tried to make this as easy to implent as possible, hopefully it gets put in! Edited August 26, 2013 by Togetic

[Shiki 5,854]

The main problem is the fact that it kind of puts those that are labeled "critics" by staff members on a pedestal, making their opinion more valid than others'.

 

I know that's not the point, and people shouldn't view it this way, but many are just going to think in this manner.

[Ashley 2,427]

The main problem is the fact that it kind of puts those that are labeled "critics" by staff members on a pedestal, making their opinion more valid than others'.

 

I know that's not the point, and people shouldn't view it this way, but many are just going to think in this manner.

The critics was just an idea to ensure that art actually gets critique. If there isn't anyone dedicated to critiquing, the threads will be ignored (similar to now.)

Thanks for pointing that out, though. I'm pretty bad at finding flaws in my work.

 

Edited August 26, 2013 by Togetic

[NavelColt 22,877]

The idea for a group of forum art critics who specialize in giving professional feedback to threads that either request it or don't have it, is an absolutely ancient concept. It got dropped months ago among the staff's To-Do List because of it's over-complication and the fact that no one had the tools to finish off what was needed for such technical changes to be made. Whether it'll ever come back or not isn't something I can comment on, but the same complaints of people not getting feedback or helpful feedback is an obviously true enough issue. Something to help with that should be made, but I'm still unsure of what the system would look like.

[Ashley 2,427]

@@~Chaotic Discord~,
Thank you so much! I hate it when I post art and nobody responds, yet another topic has 5-10 replies.

I might be able to work something else out. Perhaps you could give me a few no-no's and Ill get to work?

[NavelColt 22,877]

@@~Chaotic Discord~,

Thank you so much! I hate it when I post art and nobody responds, yet another topic has 5-10 replies.

I might be able to work something else out. Perhaps you could give me a few no-no's and Ill get to work?

 

I dunno why you're thanking me xD; I more or less said we're unable to support the creation of a critics system at this time for technical and general reasons. Like I said, it got marked as an abandoned project; I'll have to see if Feld0 thinks it's worth bringing up again under new management, seeing as he was the one who said it was time to let it go after 9 months of not getting it finished.

[Ashley 2,427]

 

 

I dunno why you're thanking me xD; I more or less said we're unable to support the creation of a critics system at this time for technical and general reasons. Like I said, it got marked as an abandoned project; I'll have to see if Feld0 thinks it's worth bringing up again under new management, seeing as he was the one who said it was time to let it go after 9 months of not getting it finished.

Well, I hope he says yes. There's a few critics I can think of right now, and hopefully now that the forums have developed a bit more it might be easier to add.

[Princess Periwinkle 3,774]

Random idea incoming.

 

There could be a "requesting critique" option that can be turned on for topics in the fan art section. Users can add their critique (and possibly a star rating?), and the main difference between that and a normal post is that there is no character minimum and it does not count towards the member's post count.

 

I feel like some people post because they don't have enough to say to bother making a 100 character post, and this could potentially fix that.

 

I dunno. Might help? Feel free to point out the fatal flaw in this plan that I'm missing. xD

[Harmonic Revelations 8,834]

There's (In my opinion) huge problem with this idea, this would make the opinions of the staff-chosen critiques seem more important than those of other users, this might discourage regular members from making critiques out of suspicion that their critique will be ignored in favor of that of a staff-chosen "critique".

[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 777]

There could be a "requesting critique" option that can be turned on for topics in the fan art section. Users can add their critique (and possibly a star rating?), and the main difference between that and a normal post is that there is no character minimum and it does not count towards the member's post count.

 

          I like this idea, there have been many times I have wanted to throw a critique but I wouldn't because the artist simply didn't ask for one. There's no point in posting a thorough critique if all it will do is offend the user. The only part I don't like about this idea is that a critique won't count as a regular post. It's true that some users may only put out a few words of advice but what about those whom would post a thorough critique with advice to boot? 

 

          If it were possible I'd suggest making critique posts count towards a users counter only if they reached the minimum. I have a feeling though that to do such a thing would require tweaking to the IP.Board code. But heck, I'm getting too far ahead of myself again, lets first see about getting this option added first! 

[Ashley 2,427]

There's (In my opinion) huge problem with this idea, this would make the opinions of the staff-chosen critiques seem more important than those of other users, this might discourage regular members from making critiques out of suspicion that their critique will be ignored in favor of that of a staff-chosen "critique".

Yes, but there is next to none critiques from regular members (I've seen, maybe 2 other members continually give out critique). This means that critics will probably be the only ones who really do any critiquing, and the critique team doesn't necessarily have a member limit.

 

Random idea incoming.

 

There could be a "requesting critique" option that can be turned on for topics in the fan art section. Users can add their critique (and possibly a star rating?), and the main difference between that and a normal post is that there is no character minimum and it does not count towards the member's post count.

 

I feel like some people post because they don't have enough to say to bother making a 100 character post, and this could potentially fix that.

 

I dunno. Might help? Feel free to point out the fatal flaw in this plan that I'm missing. xDI

This might turn into DeviantArt's critique system, where there's three, four, or five critiques and one hundred times that amount in regular comments. Although this could work, it doesn't do too much to solve the problem.

I like the normal posts not counting towards your post count, however, as that encourages critique. The only problems are that the people who actually critique might be the only ones posting, which almost functions exactly the same as the critique team.

 

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To be honest, it might be a good idea to either discourage or even ban posts that don't provide any critique. While it would be harsh, artists would get critique this way without having to add a critique team or a tag (or even a critique option.) Even a post that says "you can improve" without describing how to improve is unhelpful.

Also, you can post a generic post like the ones described above on as many different artworks as you want and it'll still apply. For example:

Wow, this art is great! I like how you drew the character. I can't draw nearly as well as that. I hope to see more from you soon!

Edited August 28, 2013 by Togetic

[Remi 1,309]

I feel it would be best to make the critique system like deviantART's. The four categories and their ratings, x/5 stars, general opinion written down, etc.

Having specific critics would not go so well, seeing as how they would view their opinion to be more 'right' than others, such as Kurisu mentioned.
 

I feel it'd be best to just enable a 'Critique System', so we don't see 'good job' over and over again; the artists could actually receive feedback to see how the could improve or enhance their art, instead of only receiving 'that's nice' repeatedly.

[Zygen 6,065]

The one issue i have with this is that it wouldn't do much to the normal threads exactly as far as the tags, I mean almost all artist want critique, if you don't you won't be able to improve as much.

 

But it is a bit of an issue, it's a hard one to fix though, I mean a lot of users don't know much about art, or some are just so inferior feeling to other artists they feel as if what they say is invalid or is going to be shot down due to the fact they think the other artist knows better then them.

 

This is a justified feeling, of course It does create the issue where most of the master level artists get little to no comments, and even less offering any insight.

 

I try and offer what I can, but I still fall under the people who are novice artists and thus don't have a lot to say or know what to say in the master artists artworks.

 

I suppose a team of critiquers could help, but idk, it may just make their opinion seem more important then others and serve no real other purpose, especially since those appointed would most likely already be mostly regular in the fan art forum section.

 

But something should be done, whether it's this or an altered version, or an entirely new idea, I think I can agree that fan art has some issues.

 

A random idea that may partially solve the issue is to increase the charactor min, but I have a feeling that may hurt more then help.

[NavelColt 22,877]

 

I feel it would be best to make the critique system like deviantART's. The four categories and their ratings, x/5 stars, general opinion written down, etc.

 

Having specific critics would not go so well, seeing as how they would view their opinion to be more 'right' than others, such as Kurisu mentioned.

 

I feel it'd be best to just enable a 'Critique System', so we don't see 'good job' over and over again; the artists could actually receive feedback to see how the could improve or enhance their art, instead of only receiving 'that's nice' repeatedly.

 

 

I've brought it up to Feld0, and plan on doing so with everyone else :3