Collabs are back at PixelJoint

[Hatch]

This is sort of old news at this point, but I realized that a lot of people here at pixelation probably visit PJ infrequently enough that they missed the post.

Collabs are back!
Don't go frantically grabbing for your calendar—it's not April 1st. Yes, after a long two-year wait, collabs will be allowed into the PixelJoint gallery again.

Why the sudden reversal after so long? Read on...

Collabs were originally disabled as a temporary solution while some changes were made to the site to properly accommodate them. Unfortunately, the changes haven't been able to be made as quickly as we'd have hoped. It now looks like they're still a long way off, and having reevaluated the situation, we've decided that a new solution is needed.

To minimize confusion and conflict, we've prepared a set of rules specifically for collab submissions. Please read over these points carefully:

• No collab accounts. We feel that these will ultimately create more problems than they solve. Existing collab accounts will be kept and their pieces re-enabled, but we ask that the artists who own them no longer use them.
• No multiple submissions. All artists involved must decide on a single one of them who will submit the piece. There must be unanimous agreement.
• All artists involved must give their consent and be properly attributed. This is supremely important. If even a single artist retracts his/her consent at any time, the piece will be immediately sent back for revision. If there's any doubt as to the consent of all parties when the piece is submitted, it will be sent back.
• Collaborators should be linked to. If they have a PixelJoint profile, link to it. If not, link to their profile on another site—wherever you think they're most active.
• No big community collabs with many participants. We're relying on squishy common sense for this rather than a firm number
• Who did what should be explained in the description as clearly as possible
• No collabs in weekly challenges!

We want to hear your feedback, particularly regarding the rules and potential problems they don't address. Please let us know what you think.

So feel free to submit if you have any you've been holding back. And please let us know how we can improve the system as we have it.

[Gil]

No collab accounts. We feel that these will ultimately create more problems than they solve.

I still don't get what the problems are and the current system looks insuficient to me. Collab accounts seem far more user-friendly.

In any case, I'm glad they're back.

[Hatch]

the current system looks insuficient to me

Yes, it is. That's the whole point of the post: the changes to the site are not forthcoming, so we had to develop these rules to work within our existing infrastructure.

No collab accounts. We feel that these will ultimately create more problems than they solve.

I still don't get what the problems are... Collab accounts seem far more user-friendly.

No solution is going to be perfect while we lack the proper infrastructure. Collab accounts were rejected primarily for the same fairly obvious reasons that multiple accounts are ubiquitously prohibited everywhere: sock puppets, ballot stuffing, spamming, etc. It also seems hackish and impractical for every combination of two or more pixel artists to create a new account when they want to submit something. It puts a large moderation burden on us and creates opportunities for exploitation.