Competition Voting

I am going to split your post into sections and then respond to each.

I didn't lose yet I'm here so obviously I'm not whining and something indeed is wrong otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time posting here. A good tag should convince you to like it, whether or not you want it to stroke your "epeen" is the creator's choice and his alone. Making a good tag is primary in voting for it and judging whether the creator made it to stroke his or her epeen is not for you to decide.

Like I've said, I do not agree with public voting. BUT a group of individuals would work (You cover that later, as will I)

Hypocrite. You are generalizing the skill level of the community which is not very staff-like. Don't be a dick. You know, as well as I do, that there are indeed some extremely good artists in this community who do enter SOTW and deserve to win. Do you even understand what art as a whole is? When we spend hours making tags you generalize it into "a couple of layers on a white canvas with random stocks erased and then some coloring layers and a couple of sharpening layers" which really just shows your ignorance in graphics. What you just posted has nothing to do with the matter at hand.

We've all heard the "trendwhore" argument but open your ------ing eyes and see really how valid that argument is. wTF are you talking about? The ones who are trendwhores aren't the ones complaining.

Like Kennedy said, there are so many people whom are unbiased, trustworthy people who don't care about credits and could do this. You don't even need to keep them a secret.

Stop trendwhoring that argument and come up with something unique. Like I've said, no trendwhores are complaining about this ----ty voting system.

 

@Broken
It's so ------ing annoying to see someone generalizing that everyone is biased, it's not true and you know it, pointless pointless argument is pointless.

 

Haven't read all the reply's but I can say this:

their is always a tention / excitement about what the current top 3 is.
when You can see it you get bored.
cuz you might see that nbody votes for you.. even if you have an awesome signature..
at this way it keep very interesting and it keeps the excitement for wondering if you will make the top 3

for some people it's alomst a fact that they will get in the top 3 by their skills.
but for some they just need to hope.
when members vote they choose at 2 things. best signature and best designer.
if somebody is a great designer but has kinda less good loking sig. he might still get some votes when public votes are on.

 

yeh you'll pay for that later m8

i did vote against you too in the previous round though lol, its like the battle section people dont vote for their friends but what the end product looks like from either entrant.

 

Since cheap indian is the onyl one who bothered to respond intelligently, I will respond back to him.

Good art, as you call it, can be summarized as 'beauty is within the eye of the beholder'. Whehter you like a piece of art or not has absolutely no influence on whether I like a piece of art or not. Yes, there are a lot of talented artists here, and yes msot of the time, they do win, primarily because the staff tends to be in tune with whats going on on GR (thats why they are staff), examples would be UV Slayer_prk, JL Beowolf, Tub a Wub, etc. The fact remains, what you may think is good work, we may think is crap.

I am generalizing the skill of the community, because I am blunt, and I know that the average person here on GR has under 6 months worth of work with photoshop, doesn't likely know how to accurately use brushes, create brushes, use textures, use filters, use gradiest, or even how to create a general asthetic flow of a work piece. I personally put in multiple DAYS worth of work into my large art (which, no, I do not release) and I feel very accomplished afterwards, and I have been using photoshop since I had moved to Colorado, around 9 years ago. I personally understand the concept of flow, the concept of light vs dark, the ability to blur in background images to give the object a feeling of 3D, etc. things an advanced photoshop user could and should know to progress in the realm of art.

However, being good, by your standards, again, has absolutely no influence on our ratings, and what staff decides should win. We prefer different methods of art (not as a whole, each indidivual likes different forms of art). I have seen old school grunge sigs that are monotoned come in higher rated with some staff than some of the custom made sigs with everything made by you which could have easily taken hours to make, and those latter people *generally* do win. If they don't, its because another sig appealed to the staff more than that one. We base our judging off of aesthetics, not based off of skill level, or work involved, or else the same person would pretty much win every month if they entered.

My comment with trendwhores stand true. You guys take hold of what the COMMUNITY finds attractive, and enter it, along side 15 other people who entered the same thing, and you all expect to win. Again, what the community finds attractive is NOT what the s taff find attractive, or what the staff believes should win. Your best bet, if you really want to win all the flipping time because you care that much about credits, is to figure out what staff members like and create sigs based on that, which you likely won't find out, and even if you did you wouldn't likely win as there is quite a large difference between staff opinions on art.

Sorry, we have done group ratings in the passed, and people have gone as far as actually paying (via paypal) for their vote, and nearly every time they are biased in the process. Sure, there are a *few* members of the site which are not bias, but generally those individuals also have no concept of art. Again, were being blunt here. Everytime we have done it in the passed, biased people vote (which is extremely common, even amongst people one would believe to be unbiased), people get credits for votes, people get real USD to vote, etc. and it just does not work.

 

since you all decided to take this too far, this discussion is over. if an admin feels necessary, then can reopen this.

 

Re opened, just keep the responses logical.

 

Basically, I think it comes down to who could vote more fairly, and in order to figure that out, I would value the general opinion of the community that takes part in sotw.

Im curious as to if all the staff vote, as well as I'd like to see some of your art

 

When the majority thinks something is good (including those who do not whore trends, skilled and experienced designers) and the voting staff doesn't, obviously there is something wrong with the voting staff's decisions and not us. Wrong, the talented artists are more then not the winners, especially in the recent sotw which shows the staff, or atleast not all of them, are not in tune with what is going on in GR.

Again, when the voting staff's idea of aesthetics conflicts with the community's, something is still wrong. It generally points to inexperience. A person who did digital gfx 3 years ago and favors grunge style because of it has no moral authority to vote in a contemporary graphics world. That is completely unfair and illogical.

If the SOTW takes place within the community its logical that we make tags the community finds attractive because that is where our process of progression takes place. That is completely normal. When someone NOT part of community votes on tags in a contest within a community... that's just not fair to us. Once again, I stress that the ones that are not the trendwhores are the ones complaining about the voting system and we don't give a ---- about credits, especially when we would get more from selling the tag we entered then winning first.

Seriously, how big of a voting crew do you want? It takes a few people and being blunt generalizes things yes, but you don't need a very big voting group and I am sure that you know atleast 5 people whom are unbiased, trustworthy, and are up to speed on graphics to form a voting crew.

What I'm basically trying to say is that people who do not partake actively in tag making within our community should not have the authority to vote in a community tag contest. That does not make it fair to the community, especially when their choices vividly shows their inexperience in graphics. Why should we work hard to make tags for a contest run by "noobs"? 'beauty is within the eye of the beholder" may be true but having an eye that is on-par with the majority will only make the SOTW contest fair.

EDIT:

Lol, Buc thinks like me

 

@ Buccaneer

1 - I have reviewed last weeks signature of the week, and while I don't think the best, imo, won, I do believe the top 3 winners are fair picks. As I said, the staff doens't have to follow what the site follows. We can like Picasso, you can like Van Gogh, two extremely brilliant artists, very different work. The reason a poll won't be made, is because of the facts mentioned above. The community is of course going to want community peopel to vote. You all know what eachother like, you all know the styles, you can all have friends vote for you, and a multitude of failures can come from it, that do not exist with staff vote. With the select group, as said, tried this before, with quite a few people actually (and we'd need more than 5 to even keep it remotely reasonable) and between being bias, being bought, etc. it just isn't worth the effort to try it again when a system we've had for multiple years has worked just fine.

2 - Doesn't really need or warrant a response.

3 - I know plenty of individuals whom have been doing art for multiple years and can't do it as well as someone whom just picked it up. The mind works in different ways with each person, not everyone is as creative as the rest. As said, we don't care about who can whore which style the most as staff, and if community was able to vote, that is all it would come down to, whom could replicate w/e the top style is atm, and quite often, imo, that piece of 'art' is not what should have won (and I know most staff feel the same way). Simply because we do not post on graphics related portions of the site does not mean that we are not actively engaged in art. As said, I spend multiple hours, generally days worth of time in my LPs, broken doens't post there, and he is quite easily one of the most gifted designers here on the site, Gurly didn't post there and she is one of the top fractal artists on DA at the moment, Kirbir, while she may not be the best artist, is actively engaged in running a crew here, and of course posts all over and sees all the work, styles, etc. I could go on, but I think my point has been made. Those who don't do art still have a right to vote, by what they deem to be visually asthetic. There have been multiple weeks where I didn't vote, because personally I felt the signatures were shit and unworthy of really having a vote period.

4 - Again, we don't really want people whom sway votes, etc. like crazy, and it happens on every single site where the 'community' is a voter. In a selective group, its easy to target and sway their particular weighted votes as well, won't be happening.

5 - Name off 20 honest, non-biased, great artists whom are both active and in tune with our community.

6 - Too bad. I don't post it publically and only 3-4 people in my life have ever seen a single peice of true large art I have done besides my web designs. Why? Because I do art from what I am feeling, regarding trying to get on canvas what I am feeling at the time, also based on my past, my hopes, my dreams, etc. Frankly, I find it much more satisfying to keep them to myself than to bother showing them to some people. A good example of the art I generally do is an image I can't link here, but I will describe it. It has a female leg with hand made cuts into it, showing either a scalpel or razor somewhere around the leg, or in the persons hand variant on the depiction of the art, and it states, 'my daddy fucked me and I loved it' (carved into her leg). Things like that are the type of art I do, and thus I enjoy keeping them coveted, and not viewable by public eye.

@ Cheap Indian

1 - Picasso is a great example of this. Picasso was very misunderstood as an artist, and many people shunned him, didn't buy his paintings, etc. but a few people found a lot of beauty within his paintings, and of course bought them. He is now considered one of the best artists in all time. Beauty is within the eye of the beholder, I see alot of signatures from 'pro' signature designers (lol) here on GR that I think are absolute shit. They won't get my vote, not because I am bias against the artist, just their sig entered was not my style. This is why sub cultures such as goths, preps, emos, etc. all exist in modern society. Sorry, but the chances of a goth seeing what a prep sees in a piece of art is likely going to be extremely different.

2 - See above. Having a personal opinion does not lower our ability to judge based on aesthetics, nor does having any graphical talent negate our opinion of what looks good.

3 - That's fine, you can enter what the community likes, or where your progression leads you, that doesn't mean we as human beings are going to find them to be aesthetically pleasing.

4 - 20 people. Undoubtably there will be people whom don't vote, are biased, have been won over, etc.

Again, artistic ability has no grounds in being able to tell if something is pleasing to yourself or not. Knowing how to do graphics does not give you anymore of an opinion over attractive art.

 

5 - Name off 20 honest, non-biased, great artists whom are both active and in tune with our community.
me.

 

We aren't changing the way we vote when it comes to the SoTW.

Reason being? Its been mentioned before. It doesn't require skill to decide what you think looks good. Art isn't about skill, its about whats pleasing for a person to look at. Thats all im going to say.

 

^ truth 75%

it also requires some skill to make your imagination..

why would have staff have more right to vote than the members, as the staff can be easily bribed too

 

You missed my whole point dementia...

I'll finish my argument here. You have a one-track mind whereas I am open-minded. So what if it hasn't worked before? Empirically, a lot of things haven't happened before but if we all thought like you and because of it we didn't want to ever try it again, no one would ever progress.

'beauty is within the eye of the beholder" may be true but having an eye that is on-par with the majority will only make the SOTW contest fair.

Anyways, you've already stated it won't change and I doubt me further arguing will change that, though I could do so for days. There is no point in arguing for the sake of arguing.

Maybe in a year or decade this will change. I look forward to that day.

 

For the love of god, calm down.

Everyone IS biased whether you would care to admit it or not, whether it is subconcious or not.
I'm not saying your going to completely change your vote in favour of your friend, but heck, a lot of people damn well would.

Yes, some people will out and out vote for the "Best" piece in their eyes, but you can't honestly say there's absouletely no preference towards their friends.



Ya'all can just, be quiet now, really.
The whole 5-man-team thing might actually work, and yes, unbiased + skilled members could be found. Yet at this moment in time, the staff are going to retain rights over the voting and we have no plans to do otherwise. General Public Voting has never worked in the past, and never will, and is definetely not an option we're even going to consider.