Eh.. I haven't been on 2draw for a while now, but I've been browsing through all of the boards, and.. It seems that the intermediate board is turning into a beginners board. Not only that, but the Advanced is moving on towards Intermediate. O_o We have seperate categories for a reason.

I'm sure the mods (or some of them at least) know what I'm talking about. It doesn't hurt to move a few drawings around and tell people that they need more practice. Maybe we should make a test-drawing board? For people who want to see what they're rated so that they can move on towards bigger, better things and have a general idea of where their skills lie?

method3 posted about this ..in a way.. take a look in the forums

Oh yes, Porcelain. We know what you mean. .__.

That's why method3 is starting the all-encompassing review of the advanced board, and it's been suggested that the same is done for intermediate.

A while ago, though, I was moving pictures back to intermediate boards, and found myself being mocked for being younger than the normal users on this site. I had to defend myself, and resultedly I am wary of simply moving pictures, because users prefer to have a long critique as to how they can improve their drawing.

Only a few pictures are so horrible that they can be deleted or moved without a critique.

i dont get why people make a big deal if their pic is moved..specially "older" users...i dont think a long critique is needed..and i think in particular the "older" users should realize their limitations, or levels of improvement and post accordingly. its pretty clear cut and simple if you ask me. not to be a snot about the whole thing, but i dont think ive ever had a picture moved, because i actuallyTHINK about where one should go beforehand..i see it as a privilege to draw here, not a right, and all the mods seem to be fair and considerate. (ok so i was a snot)

Also not to be a snot, but why is everyone so concerned with protecting the "sanctity" of the board? I can see why you would want to keep total crap (spam) because those are things you might not want to look at, but otherwise, I bet most people on here look at pretty much every drawing anyways. For instance, looking at the latest board.

To me, this is just another example of elite bastards, which you've already got.

One thing about 2draw that is better than other drawing sites is that it has artists of all kinds and skill levels, and maybe you should move pictures around some, but making standards more rigid and tougher doesn't really serve any purpose in my opinion except make people feel bad about their abilities and make the select few feel like they are above someone else. Juried artwork? Please. I think the mods are fair, and fairly considerate, and probably even cool people, but that doesn't make anyone an art expert. All I'm saying is be careful. Having a high quality board isn't worth crushing a 14 year olds artistic aptitude when you publicly demote their art. My girlfreinds stuff got deleted from beginner. ~~Puffer~~. you can check it. It's cute stuff, not going to be in a museum but she's no artist and she enjoyed it. HEr stuff got deleted and now she doesnt draw anymore. Not that she's bitter, but I honestly think it hurt her feelings.

While that might happen to adults, as a thirteen year old, I can tell you that most of us are very resiliant. Two of my drawings have been demoted, and even though I felt a little hurt and worthless for a few days, I bounce back.

I think it's because we have short attention spans.

Actually, I sort of think I have benifited from having my drawings demoted, I have learned better what qualifies as advanced, so hopefully I wont make that mistake again, meaning I wont get my feelings hurt, meaning I will be a happier person in general.

Some people are a lot more sensitive though, or clinicaly depressed, and they could take things like that pretty seriously. I'm probably just pointing out the obvious here, so now I am going to shut up.

I know I'm not exactly the person you'd think might say this because of the way I acted when my sister's pic got deleted but here goes.
We live in a society now that breeds mediocrity. We have people raising children to believe that in sports, points don't matter. My brother in law came home the other day after taking his kid to a soccer game, he was a little depressed because they have a new rule now, no points. Because they don't want to make anyone "feel bad" for losing. This makes me sick. How are these kids supposed to learn to cope? The fact is that some people are better at some things than other people, you can't always be a winner, losing isn't supposed to be a crushing blow that does permanent damage. Losing sometimes is just part of life, you win some, you lose some. Learn from it, experience it, it wont kill you. But people now days are trying to raise children so insulated from even the slightest feeling of "gee, guess I didn't do as good this time" that they have no idea how to cope with the world. Anyway, telling people that their stuff isn't up to standards is a good thing, get some thicker skin and learn how to deal with life ok?

Well..I still don't think it matters alot which board a picture appears upon, as if it is good, it is still good, so people should'nt feel it's a put down if they are moved from advanced to intermediate. Many are quite good, but could be better with more time and effort,and that is the purpose of having time limit parameters in the first place, as well as having people offer criticisms and advice. It's all about having fun, and developing skills, both with the applets and with artistic abilities. If you post a picture for public consumption, you need to be able to deal with comments , both favorable, and unfavorable, as well as overall assessments of whether the picture merits being on the board on which it has been posted. If it gets moved to another, ask for more space if you need it, and spend some more time to see if you can make it as good as you possibly can. It is fairly obvious to see which pictures have more technical expertise and/or artistic talent just by looking at them. I don't think it is intended as any kind of put-down for the work to be judged by the criteria set forth by the webmaster. In the end, this IS Marcello's creation, and he set it up this way for a reason, and entrusted the administration of the rules to several people he trusts to uphold the standards he envisioned. I have no problem with any of this, and if you do, you should read the rules and then do your best to try to develop your work so the work you do obviously belongs where you have posted it.

Amen and hallelujah, Axil. I remember when I was about 13 and made a really crappy computer game (using a special program; I didn't do the coding) and I posted it to an amateur game-design website. My friends of course said it was a pretty cool game, but this one guy told me it was horrible. And it was. I responded to his critique immaturely at the time, but the fact that someone disliked my game stuck in my mind. Did I quit making games? Absolutely not. I actually went on to make a game that was good enough to spawn a number of clones (there's actually one you can still find on Download.com called "Leap Frog;" the original game I made was called Eggit).

By all means, check the boards, move or delete pictures. But try to be diplomatic about it. At the very least, memo each author with a generic copy-and-paste message; something to the effect of: "Sorry, your picture has been moved/deleted. Please do not take offense, as we are merely trying to uphold the integrity of that board. Do not let this discourage you from continuing to draw pictures on this site. On the contrary, we encourage you to continue practicing on one of the lower boards. If you are unsure of how you may improve your skills, you may want to memo some of the artists on this site that you respect and politely request their advice," et cetera.

As for aspiring artists, if you don't want your feelings hurt, post on the lowest board possible. Posting your work on the advanced board doesn't impress anyone anyway; most of the people who use it only do so for the space. Besides, this site shouldn't be about impressing anyone but yourself. No one likes it when people fish for compliments, and it's generally pretty obvious when people are doing so.

That said, take a deep breath, calm down, smoke if you got 'em, and go have fun drawing.

I agree with Axil. When I felt insulted about drawings that I didn't necessarily try on, I bounced back. Not only bounced back, but attempted to "improve" myself in such a way that I might've recieved recognition for it. I'm glad that I did it -- And I'm glad that there ARE hard critics out there who help people with their work. Thank you.

And my point is, we 'should' be a bit more strict with the boards. There is SHIT in the intermediate board (I was looking through it and "PFFT"ing in disgust.) There's so much trash there AND in the advanced boards. Please. PLEASE. PLEASE!!!!! Do something. -_-

It's kinda like wrestling. When I was in High School, I wrestled 155. During practice I always wrestled the heavyweights, and usually got my ass kicked, which is what I wanted. Trying to wrestle in a higher weight class was tough.... but in the end, when I wrestled in my own weight class, I tore up!!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that having a drawing moved down a level by a mod, doesnt mean you suck..... it just means with more and more practice, before long, your drawings might just get bumped UP a level!

Intermediate may be considered for review depending on how quickly the Advanced board review goes. Because the Intermediate boards are so much larger, is is quite difficult to do a large part of the boards, most likely only 1-2 month old pieces will be reviewed. Anyhow, another news post will be put up if this happens.

The main problem with being strict on all the boards is the fact that the moderation system has in fact lagged behind the number of entries submitted. It is actually fairly difficult to review a large number of pieces and moderate them in a timely manner. Therefore, alot more pieces have slipped through the cracks lately. This will be worked on asap.

I would also like to say, the moderators have no qualms about kicking someone's ass down a level, so please don't think that we're being easy on people for some reason or other. The rules are there for us to enforce, and there's no rule about not beating someone over the head until they get the rules.

I agree with Icats in that when you reach a certain age, you should by then be aware of what you do and do not have an aptitude for. Some people have artistic talent... you cannot teach someone without any aptitude for art to be a good artist. You can awaken an artist, and then instruct them on how to improve their skills and tap into their talent. I think this site is a wonderful place to do just that.

I also agree with Axil... If things are done in a tactful manner it shouldn't hurt even the younger artists' feelings. My daughter took gymnastics at a young age, and frankly... well, she was terrible at it. She asked me what I thought, so I told her. "Honey, you stink at that." I was honest with her. She then found lots of things she was good at like softball, power lifting, etc... and didn't waste her time on something she was awful at. Kids really need to be told the truth, the adults should already know, and if they don't... oh well. (This doesn't mean that I don't believe that just anyone can enjoy art, I think everyone should spend some time doing it.. but yes, they should do it on the right boards)

I also think that we should trust the moderators' judgment... I did have a picture moved once - I had posted it finished in advanced only because I thought I might need to make a revision, and I knew it really wasn't quite suitable for that board. I was actually impressed that someone noticed it needed moving, and it didn't hurt my feelings. I think for the most part they pretty much have it together. I also believe that it really is a great privilege to be allowed to practice our art here, to share with each other, and we should do whatever we can to make it easier for the ppl that are taking the time to keep it running.

I'm not that old but I know where my pictures belong, I reckon. I've had a few pictures moved to beginner, but i didn't give a screw. If that's what the mods thought, then that was ok. Most of the reason I use intermediate boards anyway is cause of the larger canvases, but it seems most of my pictures are worthy, and that makes me happy :)

My suggestion: Turn the advanced board into an invite-only board. Only users who have proven themselves "whorthy" may post in it. Of course, this could mean turning 2draw into an attention whorehouse, full of whining, begging, elitism, and other unpleasant things. Ah, such is the price of quality!

Isnt that what the Elite Bastards board is for DireOnion?

True. But, for some reason, the "elite" drawings aren't being posted there. That's what I think, anyway.

I don't think locking down the Advanced boards will solve the problems.

Me neither...

Me threether ;p I dont know what the solution for this is, if there is any-->however, it seems that the more advanced people are (generalization here to be sure) the less space they take up. Maybe that's because they know what they are doing, and, just...do it. So what's happening there is people who would like the space, but aren't yet at that skill level are hopping up to advanced.

Perhaps the people who aren't advanced enough to draw on the advanced board but would still benefit from the space offered there could somehow get a different limit? Rather than bothering a moderator every single time they need more space (cause let's face it, moderators have lives too), is there a way people could apply for a different space/canvas maximum? I have no idea if that is possible, because I don't know much about websites. But perhaps there could be a setting for Intervanced, lol. Am I making any sense?

Like I said, that may be stupid, I don't know. But...just my two cents.

Setting space privelege levels for artists is a good idea, but it would mean more programming work for Marcello, who's on vacation right now. The only viable solution I can think of for the site in its current state is to "hire" more moderators. As the town expands, so must the police force.

Lol, yea programming...that's the part I have no idea about. And yea, I think you're right about more moderators. But I imagine it must be hard to find people who are knowledgable, reasonable, and reliable. ANd the more moderators he 'hires' the more difficult it may be for him to keep track of their actions. I don't know. But I agree :)

One thing you can do if you are willing to leave your drawing hidden until it is completely finished, is to start the drawing submission in advanced, and as long as you leave it hidden you will have the 1mb of space allowed for advanced. Before you submit it finished, edit the board to intermediate level and hit finished. Then you have the extra space without bothering anyone, and you are on the correct board.

That's a good thing, dba, but I tried that once and it wouldn't let me go to intermediate. I used up kb's close to the advanced level? I don't know, but it wouldn't let me...
It DID let me do that a couple of times, but I was closer to the intermediate kb's...go figure...

There is a built in feature to limit the specific sizes allowed per entry for each user, per board. But this is not a viable solution, as this has to be set by hand for every user on the board. I also do not think that this will prevent crap from getting on the board in any way. Some size limitations may be modified, but this is unrelated to the actual issue at hand.

As for not being able to move entries to other boards, there are 2 limitations for images. One is the total space (kb) taken up for the entry which may include the animation or lsd file, the thumbnails and the images for each edit. The second is the actual dimensions of the image, ie the width and height. I recommend that you have in mind how much time you want to spend on a particular piece, and to anticipate what level you want to start at so that you can move it to a higher board when you actually submit it, rather than not being able to move it to a lower board.

Hmm….I don’t know how much trouble the advanced board review was but I think you did a nice job. A periodic review of all boards would be useful. We could all use an occasional reality check on our skills.

I think what tends to happen is users see an ‘advanced’ or ‘intermediate’ work posted and think they can do a work of that quality. And, they can….almost. And, slowly the standards for the boards slide down. Every once in awhile the slack needs to be picked up. That’s just the nature of it.

On the practical side, having two or three moderators review thousands of entries (over 17,000 beginner and intermediate draws) by hand weekly, monthly, or quarterly doesn’t sound feasible. I don’t know how much programming it would take, but is there a way to set up an auto-delete feature? After a month (or three) pictures would be auto-deleted unless selected by a moderator/editor (or a new category of ‘board monitor’ or something) for preservation?

I think this would be especially useful on the beginner board where many of the pictures are cute messages to friends…no need for a birthday greeting drawn in 3 minutes to stay up. It’s cute and fun and adds to the camaraderie of the site. But, it’s time sensitive or just plain poorly done and most don’t remember or can’t be bothered deleting these types of messages.

A time limit of three months or so would be long enough for artists to get feedback, have their friends take a look, save the file on personal hard drives, and for most of the ‘kids’ who are just playing around to forget about the draw (reducing the backlash about deleted draws). And, deleting the ‘junk’ would free up precious space as well as maintaining the quality of the site.

The ‘auto-delete’ feature could be set up just for the beginner and intermediate boards so the advanced and elite board users don’t have to panic about the masterpieces they’ve created being wiped out.

The nice part for the reviewers (who are on the lenient side in my opinion) no explanation for the delete required. After the first three months, the number of files would be reduced (fairly significantly in the beginner section from what I can see). Additionally, a ‘reviewed’ check box or something could be applied to draws so that they could be sorted into reviewed and not reviewed reducing greatly reducing the number of files that undergo review at each pass and eliminating repeated reviews of the same work.

I think, in the long run, setting up an efficient review system would be worth the effort.

Well, deleting old images wouldn't really help much. I think it's nice to see how much depth of work this site has. Try to imagine how many hours total have been spent drawing on this site -- that would be an amazing number. It's also nice to be able to look into a member's gallery and see how much they've progressed over the months.

The moderators aren't having too much difficulty keeping up with the submissions at this point; it's not like the 17,000 draws you mentioned are being submitted weekly. Once something has passed review, there's not much point in going back and reviewing it again. Thus, every time the moderators have a comprehensive review like this (should they become monthly or such), they only have to go back to where the last review left off.

I know you didn't claim deleting pictures would help bandwidth, but most people aren't aware of how bandwidth works, so it bears mentioning. Deleting old pictures wouldn't make the site any cheaper to run, since pictures that aren't being viewed (as is generally the case with the thousands of older pictures) wouldn't take up any bandwidth, only hard drive space, which Marcello seems to have plenty of.

i think if a drawing is deleted or demoted, there should be a good reason given to the unfortunate artist. i've had some stuff messed with, and i've wanted to know why. i think if the mods gave an explination for their actions people would be happier and less pissed off.
if we don't know what to improve then how can we improve? that's what bugs me.
yeah.

First off, this has been stated over and over in other threads, there is no way at all for the moderators to comment on exactly why every entry is set hidden, moved or deleted. We simply do not have the time, manpower, patience, or pay to do this. This is why the community (you people) exist, to give helpful criticism on pieces you believe need constructive criticism. The moderators cannot do everything on this site, it's needs major input from the people who use it. Because of this we stress the rules as much as possible and encourage our members to help newcomers.

Secondly, if the intermediate boards are reviewed, only the most recent pieces submitted in the last month or two months would be reviewed. The rest would simply be left as is since it would be a waste of time to go through them. A review system is a great idea... once we get around to that.

PS. The total space 2draw currently takes up is approximately 3gb out of 20gb of available disk space. No, we are not hurting for more disk space.

You know I think I'm pretty fine with the rules around here but I think the idea of test-drawing or having a section in this site where we could actually rate drawings is pretty cool too,(in a scale of 1 to 10, simple as that. 1 for needs real improvement and 10 for excellence) that way the mods won't have to do all the work all the time (well, maybe just get the average score of the rating of that piece and then place it on a category) and that involves other users ^_^ Sounds fair? And yes, a review system is a great idea. There's that kind of system in gaiaonline.com in an art museum they have.

I've been to a place that lets you draw and rate drawings, and I've always been the jackass who would rate a literally blank canvas a perfect 10. There were also pictures that went unrated because they would have gotten a 1.... and so I gave those a perfect 10 too. So no, I don't think ratings would be a good idea.

I think the boards should be renamed from "Begginer", "Intermediate", "Advanced" to "Advanced", "More Advanced", "Guess what, even more advanced". That way, even begginers will be happy. So, when someone gets his drawing demoted, she/he will say: "Hey, my drawing got moved to the Advanced board. I am not offended!"
|XOD|

rofl........

nice one xod.... btw... someone said that there is a shortage of mods... how does one become a mod? does a super secret oath have to be taken? I dunno..... I want to help out, if help is needed....

You need to balence up side down for two hours. Then pick your nose till it bleeds, and then poke your eyes out.! :) Thats how. I think the boards should be called. I think The Begginer should be called Trash bin or junk drawer. :)

hehehe.... I already do one of those two things XD hhehe... nice idea for the beginners board... XD