AuthorTopic: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!  (Read 26392 times)

Offline Zizka

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #10 on: January 29, 2014, 02:28:59 pm
I'm under the impression you're being a bit hard on yourself but you know yourself better than I do.  :)

It's great to read you'll still be around though.

Quote
2. Thank you notes for useful posts, as in 'x,y and z user found this post useful' to promote helpful critique

I'm always hesitant to post these as they don't provide criticism per see. I usually just PM people when they help me out. I was under the impression that posts like: ''Thanks for your criticism'' were sort of frowned upon as it doesn't really provide more insight. If I'm told this is encouraged, I'll certainly be posting more of those.  :y:

Offline Crow

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #11 on: January 29, 2014, 04:31:50 pm
I'm always hesitant to post these as they don't provide criticism per see. I usually just PM people when they help me out. I was under the impression that posts like: ''Thanks for your criticism'' were sort of frowned upon as it doesn't really provide more insight. If I'm told this is encouraged, I'll certainly be posting more of those.  :y:

Well, I guess they could be considered as sort of one-lines. If your post does not only include your thanks, I suppose it's perfectly fine. For other occasions, a "thank you" button would be helpful, and I have talked with.. I can't remember who I talked with about that idea, but it's still sitting in the back of my head, so you'll get it eventually.
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Offline Ellian

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #12 on: January 29, 2014, 04:36:48 pm
Thanks for your hard work here, Helm.

Despite being more of a lurker than anything, I guess I can throw my two cents here, regarding ideas of things to change:
- Skin (as if it wasn't obvious enough... ahah); I've seen people talking about this for year with tons of big ideas and everything... but even if it's just a placeholder logo and some more... "personnal" color scheme.
It'd give the forums a bit of life, if you know what I mean.

- Along with Mathias' idea of reviewing artists: interviews. It's not much, but rather than just analazing one's work, wouldn't it be nice to actually ask the artist about what/why/how he works?
I have no idea if people would actually answer, and I know it'd be a lot of preparation work for the questions to be relevant to the artist, but still... I always found it interesting. Just saying!

- The Challenge & Activity section is clearly lacking, in my opinion. The cluster study thread, the Commercial critiques and the annual Secret Santa were wonderful additions to keep the forums lively, lately. It would be nice to see more of these kind of idea.


*creeps back in the lurking depths*

Offline breakfast

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #13 on: January 29, 2014, 04:50:49 pm
I'm still pretty new-ish to these forums and pixel art forums in general, but I want to say thanks for everything Helm!

Also, I really like Mathias' idea to have a large artist thread where we get in-depth about what we like about certain artists. and I think Ellian's idea to have interviews with some better known artists to see how they work could be really beneficial to everyone.

I'm also part of TIGSource's forums, and on the Creative forum there they have a thread titled "Show us some of your pixel work!" which gets posted in every day. I know personally this is the thread I check out first when I visit those forums, as it is a great way for everyone to pop in and show what they're up to and have a place for quick critiques and comments without having to devote an entire thread just to their one current pixel piece they're working on. Something like this could benefit Pixelation I think, because as it is if someone wants to show what they're working on they have to make a whole new thread and it seems like this could be better contained within one thread that everyone is more likely to check out regularly.

Offline Cure

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #14 on: January 29, 2014, 05:08:11 pm
I think it's good to make room for new blood, mods need term limits to keep them circulating. If you keep the throne for too long you can be deified and vilified.
Enjoy your newfound freedom.


What I'd like to see:
Mathias's idea seems pretty cool. I assume it's open to all media.
New skin, obviously.
More activities would be nice, but is the userbase large enough to support more? Seems we just adequately cover the current activities. "If you build it, they will come", I suppose.

re:breakfast's TIGSource-y idea: "The Colored Line Art Thread" serves that purpose iirc. A better-named and more visible thread would be nice though.

Offline Charlieton

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #15 on: January 29, 2014, 05:22:12 pm
re:breakfast's TIGSource-y idea: "The Colored Line Art Thread" serves that purpose iirc. A better-named and more visible thread would be nice though.
See also the "casual pixel art encounters" thread. It didn't really take-off, though. Attempts to better facilitate this concept could probably be made.
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Offline astraldata

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #16 on: January 29, 2014, 05:23:06 pm
As a longtime member of the old forums, one of the only things I find sad about Pixelation is the fact that amazing critique is lost over time as posts fall away. We need a way to submit particularly helpful critique/posts allowing them to get posted in and/or linked-to from a single thread when they offer excellent insight on certain topics (such as animation or color). Even if we had to send them to a moderator, if the critique is general enough to help someone struggling with a concept like color or animation gain a new perspective or way of looking at it, the moderator could post it (or a link to it) in a larger centralized thread and sticky it for people looking up information on that subject of pixelart.

I learned pixel art from here many years ago, and I remember the old skin and the old members, such as you Helm. (My username used to be "Ace", but I can't seem to get it on this new board since I lost my old email password). I lurked a lot back then, because reading critique provided to others' work was sufficient and is what really helped me learn pixel art from the ground up. It let me see real-world examples of others' techniques without being decent enough to even know how to start with my own.

As much as I hate to see you step down, Helm, I'm certain that you've got your reasons, and I'm not going to question them. You've been an inspiration for a lot of us lurkers over the years, despite most of us never commenting about it. I've gained so much from Pixelation over the years, and I felt it's finally time for me to give something back to the community (which is why I've not been doing so much lurking as of late).

One thing I've always wished is that users could post challenges themselves, instead of having to go through moderators to do it. I personally have thought of a million challenges that would have helped me and many others, but always thought that there might be a reason moderators don't post weekly challenges like they used to (be it time, motivation, or whatever), so I never thought it was a good idea to attempt to bloat their inbox with another PM due to the rising number of "u do cool art! will u ma3k my game 4 me???" kinds of private messages. So I just sat on them.

I would think it'd be better to just let moderators delete stupid/pointless challenges that aren't helpful instead of requiring them to approve them first. I think this would really revive Pixelation because pixel-art is indeed a challenge in itself -- and that would help those seeking to learn it contain their art/examples in a single thread, and possibly even have the OP (and others) offer general critique during and after the challenge.

(That's just my two cents.)

As for a new direction for Pixelation, I'm in no position to suggest this, but I really do think some sort of an encyclopedia-style approach could be very helpful to the spirit of Pixelation (at least as far as useful critique threads on various subjects of pixel art and animation). I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time back then to catch the posts I needed to learn pixel-art, but it does seem like that sense of community has faded around here (minus a small group of awesome pixel artists), and due to that, some knowledge seems to be a lot harder to come by these days due to the most-knowledgeable people less-actively contributing to critique requests these days. Maybe that was because the old board died and many members never came back. Who knows. I just had a strong enough passion, respect, and appreciation for what you guys are doing here that I did. I'm doing my best to take up the slack because I appreciate what Pixelation did for me.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2014, 05:28:02 pm by astraldata »
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Offline Zizka

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #17 on: January 29, 2014, 05:30:15 pm
I've done an interview with Pixel Pile Driver but he has yet to answer the questions  :D He's a great guy, hope to share the results shortly!

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #18 on: January 29, 2014, 05:31:09 pm
As a longtime member of the old forums, one of the only things I find sad about Pixelation is the fact that amazing critique is lost over time as posts fall away. We need a way to submit particularly helpful critique/posts allowing them to get posted in and/or linked-to from a single thread when they offer excellent insight on certain topics (such as animation or color). Even if we had to send them to a moderator, if the critique is general enough to help someone struggling with a concept like color or animation gain a new perspective or way of looking at it, the moderator could post it (or a link to it) in a larger centralized thread and sticky it for people looking up information on that subject of pixelart.

http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?board=11.0

last feature from 2009 - how can that be? It'd basically just be good to move finished threads into there which contain great sources of information.
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Offline Dex

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Re: I am retiring as a moderator of Pixelation - Also, Changes!

Reply #19 on: January 29, 2014, 10:26:39 pm
Helm, you'll always be one of the most iconic people in the world of pixel art, you've done so much to push it ahead throughout the years and you've inspired all of us in a ton of ways with your deeper levels of thinking when it comes to how we design pixels and the in-depth examination of various techniques that can be employed. Thanks for making Pixelation what it is and I hope you'll continue to design various analysis-based pixel art threads in the future-- they're very informative, helpful, and usually very fun!

As for the state of the forum-- I remember back when I joined I would peruse the old challenge threads and other various activities to see some of the fantastic ideas that came out of small challenges with restricted palettes or dimensions, etc, etc. It was fascinating as a young artist to see those things, and they certainly inspired me and pushed me towards where I am today, and I thank Pixelation for a lot of that. So, more of those kinds of community activities where we can actively discuss, create, and participate could probably help to draw activity.

We certainly all should start posting more and providing more in-depth critiques for the userbase here. I myself haven't posted a proper thread here in a long time, and that's a shame, too, because the insights from this forum have helped me tons in the past. For some reason I find that pixel artists like myself who have been pixeling for a good while now and that tend to work on a larger scale aren't as likely to post WIP threads, and as such I'm going to try and involve myself a bit more with the community here in the coming future. Though I cite college art classes (along with all of the other classes involving mass amounts of work) as one of the factors contributing to my forum complacency, I still find that I have the time to browse every few days, so why not post critiques and discuss things more often? This is something I need to do.

I am excited to see a new skin-- it was a staple of the old forums, and it definitely made the place feel a bit more home-y and less drab. I definitely think we can work as a community to pick up the pace that Pixelation had in the old days-- the talent is here, the userbase is here, and the knowledge is here as well-- hopefully we can make things better for the future. :y: