New guys (and some old guys) READ THIS THREAD

[Helm]

It seems a lot of new people sign up and completely skip the reading of the rules and regulations, and just go right ahead merilly posting one-liners. Some (I'd like to say most but there's so many posts, I'm sure for every one that we catch, three give us the miss) of these get deleted and then we have the good-old PM dance between new user being all HEY WHY DID YOU DELETE MY GLORIOUS COMMENT and some moderator pointing the user to the clear word of the faq where it says 'do not post one-liners' and then the user goes 'oh... sorry  '.

I know this will have to be reality for such a huge board where there's new users all the time and they think they're too good to read the rules of the forum and for the most part that's understandable because most people don't need to read rules to behave sensibly on the internet. But the one-liner thing many people do not understand right off the bat because they've been conditioned in DeviantArt type boards for a long time and they thing whatever comment comes out of their keyboard is gold that enriches the forum and the thread they're posting on. It's not. 'I like this' and 'omg good colors' are not useful to anyone. So, I make this thread and will keep it afloat for a while to let new - and some old - people know: If you absolutely have to let somebody else know of pleasantries that are not critique like 'you're my favourite pixel artist' or 'dang that's awesome!' do it in a private message.

The reason we're agressively moderating one-liners is twofold: first of all if the forum is clean from them then new users will think 'wait, this doesn't seem to happen here, so I guess I shouldn't be the one to start doing it'. It just breeds good habits. The second reason is that the point of the critique board is to be educational, not just for the people who are posting on the threads right now, but for whomever decides to read the backlogs 2 years from now. Have you ever been in this situation where you know someone has posted something useful in a deviant art comment, and you return to it 2 years from now and have to go through MILLIONS OF ONE-LINERS before you can dig up that comment again? This is what we're trying to avoid. Ideally, every post in a thread should have to do directly with bettering the art in question. Some deviation is welcomed and aknowledged, we are not robots (*hhrrk* SAD-LY! *bzzt*), but no one-liners.

Discussion on the no one liner policy is welcome in this thread as well as ideas or directions on how we could streamline the process or whatnot. If you think one-liners should be allowed, this is your time to speak out too.

[ndchristie]

I do think that there are times when a single, brief statement says as much as a short essay, provided it is to the point.  One of the most useful critiques I have recieved recently, "Adarias: more nosetril studies," does not quite qualify as a sentence, being that it lacks a verb, but at the same time specific in it's critisism, direct in it's suggestion, and highly motivational.
I am for the most part assuming though that you specifically mean posts devoid of both body and merit, in which case i wholeheartedly endorse this rule.
I also think that sometimes a post which essentially says "you have achieved what you set out to do within the context of this piece." is not altogether without value, although if those should be discouraged too, I do understand the reasoning.

OT posted here based on the fact that it is directed at the same user groups:

There have been a startling number of posts recently with titles including such phrases as "rate me" and "comment this."  I am not a mod, but I do feel that this is hardly the place for that.  We do not rate, and asking for comments is the fastest way to not get any.  In addition, a number of posts come with titles such as "my crap."  While humility is admirable, this is rather annoying.  Why should someone offer advice on your junk?  We want to offer advice for something you're going to work on.  "my shit" implies that you really did not care about it and really do not anticipate improving it.  Even if you are not happy with a piece, at least make it clear that you intend to make it as good as you can within whatever boundries you or god has set for it.  This isn't supposed to be a second-rate gallery space, it's supposed to be a place of constructive criticism or at least working feedback. [/rant]

[ptoing]

I could not agree more with you guys. (I am aware of the irony of this post)

[am_pm]

I agree with a lot has what been said here. The one thing that really needs to be stopped are the comments that are not only useless to the artist, but also bring the artist in the wrong direction he or she might be taking. Comments that tell the artist to do a complete overhaul without any teaching or points on what was wrong, and bring the art to a standpoint that the "critique-er" would want to see, rather than what the artist would like to achieve. Also, comments that are just composed of "Wow that really sucks, do better" are something that nobody wants to see.


edit

[LoTekK]

Truth!


...Oh, right, no one-liners. ^_^
Adarias, you brought up a pet peeve of mine, that of people posting art and screaming "ZOMG THIS SUCKS!" If you as the artist insist it's so awful, why should anyone else think differently? More to the point, why should anyone else put their time and effort into giving any critique, if you yourself can't even take any sort of pride in your work? As you've said, humility is one thing, and self-deprecation can be charming, but don't push it too far.

I agree that ass-patting can be nice for the artist, but as Helm has pointed out, the more one-line ass-patting that goes down, the more difficult it is to sift through and find solid critique (I've seen this happen a lot on CGTalk, among other places).

Here's another pet peeve, while we're at it. "Check this out, I spent like 5 minutes on it!"
And I will spend exactly 0.5 seconds skipping that thread.

am_pm: Also good points. Complete overhauls sometimes have their place, but those comments should, nay, must, be backed up with some solid direction, whether an edit, good explanations and reasoning, etc. That way the OP can at least make relatively sound judgment.

[Helm]

I do think that there are times when a single, brief statement says as much as a short essay, provided it is to the point.  One of the most useful critiques I have recieved recently, "Adarias: more nosetril studies," does not quite qualify as a sentence, being that it lacks a verb, but at the same time specific in it's critisism, direct in it's suggestion, and highly motivational.
I am for the most part assuming though that you specifically mean posts devoid of both body and merit, in which case i wholeheartedly endorse this rule.

Actually I do not think 'more nosetril studies' is the sort of comment that should be actively encouraged for the main critique board, and it's only okay because it was in the OT-Creativty section, regardless of how you took it and what you did with it. Users should always be encouraged to expound on their suggestions and on what they've spotted. Better be safe than sorry. Surely a constructive one-liner stands a better chance to remain alive (for example souly going 'the eyes are too close' in ben2theEdges' thread where seemingly nobody else had noticed the issue) than a no-content one, but still, one-liners aren't the best of ideas most of the time. People need to understand why they might have an error in their art and what they can do about it, not just blindly go 'oh, I recieved a comment, I will now mindlessly change things until that user is happy'.

In fact my nosetrill comment lead you to a self-betterment thing through making new art. I wouldn't post that about a piece in question without saying more. If someone goes 'okay here are my drawings, give me general critique on what I could improve for future pieces' then okay, I can understand short and concise pointers. But not for wip art that needs to become better right now.

I also think that sometimes a post which essentially says "you have achieved what you set out to do within the context of this piece." is not altogether without value, although if those should be discouraged too, I do understand the reasoning.

Usually after a thread is 'done' we allow congratulations-posts and the like, that's fine.

There have been a startling number of posts recently with titles including such phrases as "rate me" and "comment this."

I support this as well. We don't rate here, and we don't just mindlessly comment either. If someone sees your thread and was something constructive to add, they will.

I agree with a lot has what been said here. The one thing that really needs to be stopped are the comments that are not only useless to the artist, but also bring the artist in the wrong direction he or she might be taking. Comments that tell the artist to do a "complete overhaul" and bring the art to a standpoint that the "critique-er" would want to see, rather than what the artist would like to achieve. Also, comments that are just composed of "Wow that really sucks, do better" are something that nobody wants to see.

I disagree with this really. Sometimes the art is made on such fundamentally broken assumptions (anatomy, spacing, construction, lighting) that nitpicking on aa and dithering won't cut it, and that's when you tell someone to start from the beggining while keeping in mind this, this and that pointer about the fundamentals. Best scenario, such a critique post also has drawings to go with it to further explain. Nobody wants to see a cold 'start over, lol' message about his art. We won't stand for that.

But we won't stand for 'oh, omg what did you do to my super custom personal style?!  either, so get used to it. Substance over style, style under will.

[LoTekK]

nosetril

[OT + english nazi]nostril[/OT + english nazi]
:p

[Helm]

I ban you

[AdamAtomic]

Hey if anyone is wondering where their one-liners went, I deleted them!  A clean forum is a happy forum.  My apologies if I went overboard, or conversely underboard.  Tried to put myself in the shoes of a visitor browsing threads for advice and progress, without stepping on too many toes.

[ndchristie]

How about making it such that posts with fewer than say 100 characters can’t be posted?  Like the regular character counts, just much higher?

If someone goes 'okay here are my drawings, give me general critique on what I could improve for future pieces' then okay, I can understand short and concise pointers. But not for wip art that needs to become better right now.

Ah, good point; I forgot about the context.  It would be rare to get a really good single-line suggestion for a working piece.