I dunno, I don't trust people here enough to provide decent critiques. In another six months you'll have this stupid culture pop up on who is or isn't allowed to critique based solely on page hits. Then these asshat criti-cliques will tromp around saying whatever the fuck they want in -any- context and they'll have some admin police willing to back up whatever they want to say because they're 'artistic heroes willing to make true sacrifices to act like an asshole.' It's the same thing as comments have always been only now they've systemized the most pompous aspects of comments. Hell, the critiques you leave show up for your watchers. Pompous.

--
m(9_9)m

Yeah, considering the amount of asshattery that I've seen (and experienced) on dA, you do have a point and unfortunately, I didn't consider that angle although I really should have. It was kind of my hope that the critique function would allow those who actually want critiques to get them and basically leave alone those of us who are just here for fun. Seriously, that is why you probably won't see me with the feature enabled on my deviations. And, if it comes down to it, I'll just disable comments on my deviations. It's not like I get that many comments on my stuff beyond those of you on my watch-list and most of the time, all of us are conversing via the journal or forum anyway. Aaaannnnndddd lately, when I do get a comment beyond the people on my friend's list; it's usually some idiot who thinks he's giving an intelligent critique but is essentially talking out of his ass xD

I guess I'd actually have to take a wait and see approach to the critiques. After thinking about it a bit and pondering answering a couple critique requests myself, I've realized it takes a little more commitment than flippantly phoning in some digs in a comment box. What you were saying about the rating thing or whichever weights the poignancy of critiques too.

Like I was saying though, I'm just worried about people thinking they have carte blanche to be douchebags just because they have a billion page views. There are definitely a lot of artists I respect and can handle an accurate critique, but if some con circuit fan artist thinks they can tear my characters to shit, they'd better have something tangible to back up their knowledge beyond a number. Style comments are something that really bug me too; yeah, you can't see every strand of hair on my characters, but that's the way I like it.

--
m(9_9)m

_{Sorry about the lateness of this reply. Got home from class last night and had to collapse; too many fucking soused-up Twins fans on the bus—blubbering because their team lost...}

...they have carte blanche to be douchebags just because they have a billion page views...
Hate to contradict you but most people who have page-views 100k and over usually start ignoring everyone else on dA—at least that's what I've observed. The danger-zone, imho, is in the 0-10k range; and usually it's someone who is in their mid-late teens to early-mid twenties and—no offense—generally male; and is usually done because they don't know any better and/or it's a way for them to get more page-views—in their mind, increasing their popularity. That's just from my experience based on the last three times I had to deal with idiots who thought their opinion was somehow valuable.

...if some con circuit fan artist thinks they can tear my characters to shit, they'd better have something tangible to back up their knowledge beyond a number...
I hate to say it but with a community like dA, there is always gonna be that problem—some idiot who thinks he knows more than everyone else; or worse yet, some very insecure idiot who probably feels intimidated by certain people and so feels the need to attack what they do—remember the last idiot who accused me of thinking that I "know everything there is to know about web design?" I believe he was a very good example of what I've been talking about. You'll notice if you've dug through my gallery, that I've decided to remove all of my deviations that had to do with web design. I realized that as far as a showcase goes, I really don't need dA to show off my web design skills and for that last few years, I've been using dA for my 3D/Vector/Photography work and my Photoshop resources. And since you mentioned style comments, that was apart of that little fight a few months ago. I think the fact that I was willing to step beyond the normal, cookie-cutter Web 2.0-style bullshit that's here on dA is probably what prompted that fight in the first place. I had a really cool design instructor back during my first year at Ai who basically said "Do what you like; if it works for you, go with it." I think a lot of people tend to get caught up in thinking that their opinion should somehow matter to everyone else and they lose sight of the fact that everyone else is going to do what they like, despite what others may say or think about it and imho that is how it should be. Imagine how boring the world be—how sterile our lives would be—if we did something because everyone else told us to do it? Not to go on a tangent but in a way, the world is almost at that point—if you don't conform, you're ostracized for it. If you're not one of the sheeple; then oh gasp! you must be one of the wolves and you must be avoided like you're a leper. Hence why I tend to rebel against any form or hint of conformity

I guess the whole point is that no matter what new features come about, there are always going to be douche-bags and idiots on any community web site *shrugs* I just don't let them bother me or distract me from what I like to do

'Hate to contradict you but most people who have page-views 100k and over usually start ignoring everyone else on dA—at least that's what I've observed. The danger-zone, imho, is in the 0-10k range...' - Good point. The same thing kinda goes with the fan artist comment. Yeah, I exaggerate the page hit thing, but you're right, my comments mainly apply to those people coming into the range where their page hits are starting to matter to them a lot more and they're thinking they're on their way to that 100k ignore everybody side of things. It's easy for me to paint even the good ones with the same brush as the few real dingbats when I get riled up. All in all, I don't think the critique function is a bad idea, I just don't think it will be used well. It's kinda like comments sections on news sites.

What you said about style got me thinking about a Cracked article I read recently on messed up fetishes like balloon popping and stuff. They even admitted in the article, hell, the people making these weird ass videos are doing what they want and they don't give a shit, heehee.

--
m(9_9)m

balloon popping fetish? *looks suspicious* that isn't like 2 Girls—One Cup or Tub Girl *shudders* is it?

In the last six years of browsing around dA—and from running online communities in general—that's what I've noticed. In fact, have you ever checked out Flame Warriors? That describes the characters of most online communities perfectly.

I learned early on not to care about popularity contests here on dA— perhaps that's just a holdover from my teen years when I absolutely hated and despised cliques—I'm really here for fun xD

Yeah, the popularity thing really doesn't interest me here. I see what a pain in the ass it gets to be for those people that do end up getting DDs and stuff and I really don't want to deal with that. On the other hand, if I want to do a successful comic, I'll need a certain level of visibility, so it's kind of a frustrating conflict of interests.

The balloon popping thing...it's odd. I couldn't really believe it and there's nothing overtly sexual, it's just people getting -really- into videos and pictures of people blowing up really big balloons. I'm sorry..I really couldn't even begin to explain. Lemme try to dig up a link to the article, it's pretty funny... [link]

--
m(9_9)m

I think I had one piece that was suggested as a DD a while back but I can't remember which one it was. It was back in June '06 because my page-views skyrocketed for that month but I can't for the life of me remember which deviation it was. I do know it wasn't any of my Silent Shadow stuff.

Oh, that's all it is. Thank god I thought it was something along the lines of smelling rotting sewage and fecal matter to get high. Yes, people do that *shudders*

Pssh, Jenkem is a myth. It was a joke started with some dude making a video post and some cops saw it and started sending out alerts to schools about the threat of kids huffing fecal gas. They even used pictures from the guy's original post in their alert. It just snowballed from there once other police precincts and school groups got involved all over the country. And no, they don't do that in Africa either, haha. There's areas where people get drunk off rocket fuel, but they don't huff shit, heehee.

--
m(9_9)m