I think the tables these days are exactly the opposite and while Pixelation has embraced the newer technology knocking on the door, the purism on PJ is really really hurting the site.
Pixelation now has the Low Spec forum and a higher toleration for pieces (especially mockups) containing less pixel perfect elements. In fact, the last major purist debate probably dates back to the DayDream incident a few years back.
PixelJoint on the other hand is really hurting itself lately with rampant deleting of pieces that contain the slightest hint of anything other than a paint bucket or pencil tool. They alienated an important group of demoscene artists as a result, even inventing their own little accronym (NPA) that they now even use on other sites (I've seen it here and on DeviantArt and before that gmpixel), which is actually a meaningless concept not existing anywhere else in the same form. On the other hand I notice a lot of inconsistency as some cearly "NPA" pieces are allowed, strangely even making the weekly showcase and winning contests.
Take for example this piece from DayDream (actually a friend or colleague of mine at one point in the past):
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/31751.htm
Take a further look in his gallery and note a lot more even dubious (to PJ standards) pieces, even the piece that started the huge purist debate years back, which are happily accepted and even praised.
Yes; I think some of my works would be in the same position, if I didn't insist so much on stating exactly what was involved in making a picture*. I don't use tools that will give me a less accurate result than I can pixel manually (which is to say, I use all tools except ones that are subtly random), so IMO there is not really any grounds for saying such works are unacceptable; the only difference is the amount of time required to get the result which i already see exactly in my mind, in other words PJ requires any reasonably ambitious works to be done in a masochistic luddite sort of way
* eg iLKke certainly indexpainted here:
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/39713.htm# , but he didn't say so, and his piece was accepted.
whereas here
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/35261.htm# I made it clear that 2 of the 24 original parts were indexpainted, and was required to remove them before my piece was approved.
Similarly, I might never submit this to PJ, since some of the antialiasing was done with the assistance of hard-edged Smudge; but it is clearly pixel-perfect, to a high level.
I personally embrace the future, as most here on Pixelation have, but I have a feeling that PixelJoint is going to crumble under the weight of its own agenda, which is a shame, since I do want it to be the premiere pixel art gallery site on the web.
THIS.
Of course standards must be maintained, but current standards are kind of like, "a pencil sketch is not a pencil sketch unless nothing but pencils were used -- no erasers, no smoothing/smudging tools", or "sex is not sex except in the missionary position" -- ie. there
definitely is a real religious element to it (as Helm suggests in the message you later quote part of).
What we probably both agree on is that pixel art is a medium, not exactly a method (otherwise, tools like bucketfill would be prohibited too), and judgement of the actual pixel accuracy of a piece is really a better way to go. And there really are objective measures, even ones simple enough to implement in Java software (eg. the amount of banding is easily measured, and should typically be quite low in a high quality piece. With FFT, amounts of different types of noise (eg typical dithering vs random) are easily measured)
EDIT2: quoting always bites me!
