AuthorTopic: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint  (Read 41129 times)

Offline Feron

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #40 on: February 26, 2009, 12:16:36 am
Out of curiosity, pixelblink, would my current avatar be allowed into the gallery??
I'd assume you'd say yes, by looking at it. but if posted a little description about how i created it then by your rules it wouldn't be allowed in.


You need to ask yourself the question what is more important:
A - a gallery filled with brilliant pieces, each accepted for what they are, regardless of creation.
B - a gallery with less pieces, but you can sleep well at night because you know nobody 'cheated'.


Offline Cure

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #41 on: February 26, 2009, 03:14:51 am
I wouldn’t say that we’re saying “lying by omission is good”, but rather “you should tell the truth rather than deceive.”

I’ve done the billion color thing when younger too.  While PB mentions high color counts being something that immediately disqualifies, I would disagree.  We don’t look at just the color count (perhaps I can only speak for myself here), but we pay attention to how they’re used and if they look as if they’re manually placed, regardless of how many colors are used.  Dubious arrangement of tons of colors draws immediate suspicion, and rightly so.

No one here is advocating literal single pixel placement.  The quote was a misrepresentation of our actual stance, nobody in there right mind would take it literally, though we have already discussed rewording confusing statements like these, and they will be amended in the future.

And I’ve downloaded and plan to check out grafx2, and PB has expressed interest in finding a copy of promotion for a long time.  We’re not as closed-minded as we’re made out to be.

I can’t really jump into much of the argument here, as it seems to be “tools are irrelevant, final product is what matters”, which I personally agree with.  It seems to me that arguments are being given that push our views to one extreme of the spectrum, when in fact one can look through the thread and see a deal of agreement and differing opinions.

I can only speak for myself, of course, and any views expressed that might come as unorthodox to the PJ Mod squad's stance should not be mistaken as the beliefs of the site, which are what I typically make judgments by, regardless of personal opinion.

Offline pixelblink

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #42 on: February 26, 2009, 04:11:05 am
it is difficult being bombarded with such animosity towards myself after trying to keep the site going for so many years, I must say. I don't claim to know everything and sure, I can be misguided at some times, but I feel I do good most of the time on PJ. It's discouraging to see so many people offer up their rants and not be able to provide any solutions.

That said, all I can say is I, personally, am on a continual journey to improve my knowledge and skills and that sometimes puts me in the wrong. I have no problem saying that I was/am wrong in some of my beliefs.

Ai=Neota ... thank you for letting me know sooner, btw. I am sorry that it went down as it did.

It's been a battle, trying to get all the pj mods on board when some of them leave and then return and then leave again. New mods join and stir the pot some more, giving doubt to the methods and thought processes we previously had. Things weren't always this chaotic or muddled, I'm sure you'll agree. Mostly, I try to jump in and resolve issues and back up what my peers have already said... which can also be wrong sometimes.

There is no instant simple solution to the problems we might face at PixelJoint but we try to solve them together. At least I am attempting to be a part of the solution rather than find ways to be part of the problem... though you might think differently. I wish there WAS more of you guys there helping to build the community and solution process.

Offline Jad

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #43 on: February 26, 2009, 04:22:35 am
Quote

That said, all I can say is I, personally, am on a continual journey to improve my knowledge and skills and that sometimes puts me in the wrong. I have no problem saying that I was/am wrong in some of my beliefs.

(...)

There is no instant simple solution to the problems we might face at PixelJoint but we try to solve them together. At least I am attempting to be a part of the solution rather than find ways to be part of the problem... though you might think differently. I wish there WAS more of you guys there helping to build the community and solution process.

Hey, dude, keep making these kinds of statements and the animosity will definately fade away soon enough!

Keep in mind that the ONLY thing we're discussing in this thread is the mod's general opinion towards certain techniques, something that a lot of us have pretty severe opinions about!

What we're NOT discussing is the GENERAL moderation of pixeljoint, nor are we discussing the quality of the site, the challenges, the benefit of a place to show off your art dedicated to pixels!

Please rest assured that most of our posts do not express animosity towards pixeljoint as much as a very deep concern for the future well-being of the site! We want it to stay, which is why we want more reasonable grounds for moderation!

I think most people here appreciate pixeljoint a great deal! (: Don't doubt that! If you'd want pixelation's help to more create a more nuanced definition of 'pure pixel art', then I am completely sure that a lot of us would want to help without a second thought, I mean, a lot of that has already been done in this thread!
' _ '

Offline Cure

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #44 on: February 26, 2009, 04:43:24 am
I think I speak for all of the PJ mods when I say that we really do appreciate everyone voicing their concerns, and we are taking them all very seriously.  We will be taking the community's ideas into account as we refine our rules and definitions to something we hope everyone can agree on.

Offline Dusty

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #45 on: February 26, 2009, 05:02:57 am
I think I speak for all of the PJ mods when I say that we really do appreciate everyone voicing their concerns, and we are taking them all very seriously.  We will be taking the community's ideas into account as we refine our rules and definitions to something we hope everyone can agree on.
Is your "bucket fill= NPA" title a joke, by chance?

Offline Cure

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #46 on: February 26, 2009, 05:24:46 am
Of course.  Thanks for addressing it before any inevitable attack.

I've heard a lot about what we've done wrong, I'm eager to hear what everyone thinks about what we should be doing.  Where the line is, what's unnaceptable, how much cleaning up is enough, etc.

Offline Ai

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #47 on: February 26, 2009, 06:04:14 am
I wouldn’t say that we’re saying “lying by omission is good”, but rather “you should tell the truth rather than deceive.”
I'm not talking about what you (or any mod) write, how you comment, or even your privately held opinions. I'm saying that the kind of actions that we are concerned about, which are taken by mods as a whole, testify to the idea that lying by omission is good, and against the idea that you should tell the truth rather than deceive (which is of course opposite), as seen in miascugh's and my case, versus eg. Slay. Comments such as "To be fair to others because you freely admit to some index painting this will be sent back" also imply the idea that lying by omission is better than telling the truth, especially since indexpainting does not effect the pixel-accuracy of something  at all
(ironically, its cleanness is comparable to floodfill, which can also be easily abused.)

Quote
I’ve done the billion color thing when younger too.  While PB mentions high color counts being something that immediately disqualifies, I would disagree.  We don’t look at just the color count (perhaps I can only speak for myself here), but we pay attention to how they’re used and if they look as if they’re manually placed, regardless of how many colors are used.  Dubious arrangement of tons of colors draws immediate suspicion, and rightly so.
Yes. Has that come up? I mean, it did with my 'flowers' pic, but I hope we can agree that, in view of the evidence, there is not dubious arrangement, nor tons of colors, nor was there previously, so that particular criticism had no basis.

Quote
No one here is advocating literal single pixel placement.  The quote was a misrepresentation of our actual stance, nobody in there right mind would take it literally, though we have already discussed rewording confusing statements like these, and they will be amended in the future.


And I’ve downloaded and plan to check out grafx2, and PB has expressed interest in finding a copy of promotion for a long time.  We’re not as closed-minded as we’re made out to be.

I can’t really jump into much of the argument here, as it seems to be “tools are irrelevant, final product is what matters”, which I personally agree with.  It seems to me that arguments are being given that push our views to one extreme of the spectrum, when in fact one can look through the thread and see a deal of agreement and differing opinions.

I like and agree with your opinions as expressed here, but again (I believe I can speak for Helm and Ptoing also in this matter) this is about the actions that actually take place, which is led by the culture of PJ mods and PJ in general, rather than anybody's views; and the ideas communicated through those actions. Clarifying the definitions provided, as a first step, would reassure me that these actions would change in the future. I believe that more is required to achieve consistently reasonable treatment of submitted pieces, such as objective measures of things like: Amount of banding, Total Number of colors, Average colors per 16x16 tile, Random noise, overall contrast ratio, contrast ratio per tile (these are all metrics which are relatively simple to take). I am not privy to the exact approval process, I wonder also whether it could benefit from more formalizing (standard set of questions to answer, to inform the decision process and provide a framework for handling disputes? Someone brought up the idea of having such a list of criteria visible when browsing the Public Queue, which is a great idea too!)


Quote from: Pixelblink
:
Personally, I do appreciate that you work quite hard on PixelJoint (and I try to express animosity only towards ideas, not people). I think it might help if you keep in mind, we're discussing here a flaw in PJ rather than what we like (personally I like plenty about PJ, for instance the ability to see how I rate my own work, the continuous activity stimulated by the constant challenges...), and I'm aware that you were not solely responsible for my situation (just that I found you the most grating in your so-called antagonism); Also don't you think you're fairly vocal on, and about, PJ? Feeling responsible for this kind of thing (and being treated as if you were) is one of the downsides of being so vocal, honestly, and so is copping more animosity than may be warranted :(
Anyway, if it bothers you, I personally think that more transparency and a little more formality, like outlined above, are the way to go to improve PJ, since basically in this thread, people are saying "NO to mysterious and somewhat arbitrary decisions". We're saying, the current decision process is not known to the majority of submitting members and appears to both be inconsistent and reward dishonesty. It needs to be seen to make sense a majority of the time. Just a really clear and obviously available description of what currently happens (say, on the submission page or linked from it) would be a good start.

EDIT: Cure, I hope the above helps in regards to "what we should be doing". First the process that is used needs to be defined clearly and in detail for anyone to see (beyond a simple 'we use this single-sentence criterion', which, while more-or-less true, is very undescriptive), then IMO it will be appropriate to move on to how the process could be improved, since I'm sure the existing process will account for things that we haven't here, since we are largely uninvolved with PJ moderation process. Need to have everything in the open before changing it.

Also, now I'm mystified. "Bucket fill = NPA"? Was that the former title of one of your posts in this thread, or what?
I noticed that Gil said he brought this same subject (vague moderation on PJ) up on PJ, I couldn't find that, either.
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Offline Cure

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #48 on: February 26, 2009, 06:19:47 am
Yes, using tons of colors has come up, but it was not in reference to your flower pic.

Having a ton of criteria or giant checklist is cumbersome when you take into account just how much art we have to review and approve, it's much easier to "play it by ear".

I also agree that the criteria could use some work, but I'd also like to know what everyone's specific ideas are on what it should be changed to.  What to guard against, what's too far/too much, what you think would be an adequate set of guidelines that leaves no room for ambiguity.

Offline Ai

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Re: Pixel purism and the PixelJoint

Reply #49 on: February 26, 2009, 06:35:33 am
Yes, using tons of colors has come up, but it was not in reference to your flower pic.

Having a ton of criteria or giant checklist is cumbersome when you take into account just how much art we have to review and approve, it's much easier to "play it by ear".
Yes, I was thinking of this. I don't mean that all these criteria would need to be employed in every case, just when things become vague, and even then, only the criteria in the particular realm of contention (this also serves as a way of saying to the submitter -- THESE are valid grounds of contention, address any disputes in terms of these criteria). All the objective measurements (banding, avg colors per tile etc) I mentioned can be done by a computer so IMO are just another part of the picture to consider, not anything time consuming -- more to serve as a red flag.

Quote
I also agree that the criteria could use some work, but I'd also like to know what everyone's specific ideas are on what it should be changed to.  What to guard against, what's too far/too much, what you think would be an adequate set of guidelines that leaves no room for ambiguity.
EDIT:
* Avoid couching definition in tool-specific terms.
* Ask people themselves, to check some things when on the submission page (like -- random noise or stray white pixels? Pillow shading (with a link to an explanation)? Crisp lines (with examples). These could be auto-hidden after the user has a certain number of submissions approved..
* The upload system should be able to check image colorcount itself. Even if it's off by one (transparency complications), it should be accurate enough to provide a red flag when appropriate.
* (still working on definitions)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2009, 08:53:42 am by Ai »
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.