Just to say....

Phill

AMEN!

100% with you!

Unfortunitely nobody had a chance to read this before starting the "big changes"...

I agree almost 100% about everything you wrote. But. For me Elites are the ones that also help alot to others. With constructive critism, making effort for others to improve their artworks, showing them guidelines and examples. There should be some factor of "being good person" implemented to this Elite nominations.

Robert

Best thing Ive seen on this site. !!!!
As I said before ... Convert the elite to mentors to tell others how they can improve. Or add mentors ...
Very well spoken sdavis75 !!!!

Very well said

Nice.

One point: the recent changes have no direct relation to the opinion stated in this post, and sdavis even said he agrees with the change, inferring that it has no direct relation to this opinion.

Another: I only partly agree with the section on comments and critique. When I come here, I expect to interact with other artists. I expect that they have knowledge of color, composition, line, proportion, or other principles that are all a part of what makes good art. I don't come here expecting to interact with lay-people with only a casual interest in art that are impressed by anything created with even a minimal level of skill (but to their credit, I think while they would leave a nice comment on it, they would likely not pay money for it unless it was a quality work).

While a "nice work" is validating to the artist... sometimes it seems like a constant droning that makes my eyes roll into the back of my head. You see the same person (or people) on other artworks... "nice work" over and over and over again on a variety of work that ranges in quality from truly stunning to truly awful... suddenly the credibility of the person saying "nice work" all of the time is suspect and their "nice work" comment could have been from some net-bot that doesn't even look at the work they comment on.

However, there are people on this site that do know the principles that good art is based on, and if I recieved a "good work" comment from them, I would truly be flattered.

The argument against the value of the "good work" comments is more about whether or not the individual actually looked at the work, or if they are just a "good work" typing robot that thinks somehow it will result in them recieving more points.

Short comments or "good work" comments are fine, but some need to use more discretion.

"Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water"....That is exactly right!
100% with you!......
I don't know how an artist can be evaluated just by 6 works!!
Carlos

Perfectly stated Steven. My opinion exactly!!! I have also supported the new limit on artworks.

Wow, what a long entry.

I have to say that I don't agree with the popularity factor, since I have seen many excellent artists who recently joined the site and got an amazing high amount of votes and comments.

On a website like that I'd also say that it's more important how you create your thumbnails, since the thumbnails should make the people klick on your work to take a look at it.

If you create a thumbnail showing nothing for instance it doesn't matter how good you are, people will not klick on it since it doesn't tease them enough.

Also your theory would mean that my for instance high amount of friends around here is resulted by me being very active on the site which is absolutely not the case since I simply don't have time to go around and comment much.

Well said Steven. You have written a very well thought out commentary on the system we have here at GFX. .

I'm glad you republished this...

I really like Foot's response...

..well said sd75, only 2 things.

Your paragraph about what a 5 or 10 means to some and not others...remember, new members can't vote as high as 10. So if they give a 4, that's pretty high in comparison.

The 10 to 1, 1 to 10 over time argument that I bring up sometimes...
Yes the majority of the time the good work will prevail, but it's a system that can (and has) been exploited. Which sort of points the blame at people, not the system..but alas, this isn't a perfect world

I totally agree with you on the fact that the system should stay as it is right now. Anyone who claims that the votes are worthless or who thinks that they lack objectivity should look at the artworks of the current elite members and see for themselves the superior quality that carries the elite members to the top.

Yet, I regret to say that there is a fair number of ordinary members who I think deserve elite status right away, but are somehow overlooked. Again, this must be the growing amount of site users parallel to that of the work submitted. Just the second line of member artwork on the main page shows that the amount of submitted art has grown and leads to less traceability.

There's another factor, I for one think that everyone should have the capability to vote 10 as their max. The max vote I could give was +7 until just a few months back! Now, I can (finally) vote a +8 but still not enough for me to reward the art and artist sufficiently. If this is a measure against misuse of the votes, for god's sake, I am a member since 2003 and a senior member in dA, not even one of the last folks to misuse a feature this way.

These should be heaviliy considered imo.

my 0,02 US$ =)))

one of the best statements to this point. great work and i`m 100% with you!

this site blackeyedpeas.com

'1.Votes have more to do with the popularity of the member than with the quality of his or her work.

2.Votes are based on totally subject evaluations and are therefore without value.

3.Because of (1) and (2) above, the Top 10 and Elite features are without value.

4.The current system promotes brief, worthless comments (“Great,” “Love it,” “Oooh Ahhh.”).'

me agree's. also... at least this is the only community i receive helpful critiques

@acida: hmmm...did you actually read the blog? The whole point of this piece was to demonstrate that the 4 points you referenced were invalid.

you did pretty well sumarizing the opinion of a lot of people here in my opinion
its easy to blame the system, but every system got flaws and none can be perfect.