Art Restructuring Proposal

Summary:

Reworking how artwork is currently posted to the wiki, making it individual pages rather than one page for all of an artist's works.

Art Restructuring Proposal

OptimisticLucio 03 Aug 2021 07:27

Original thread here: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14152698/discussion-art-restructuring-proposal

Ported from 05.

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Heya everyone. UncertaintyCrossing and I are coming at you with a fairly big proposal, so I broke it all into collapsibles for the sake of mobile users and backreaders.

+ The Problem

While talking to artists on the wiki about one topic or another, I noticed a very common sentiment being expressed by the majority of them - That SCP artists are being heavily mistreated by the active community. This mistreatment doesn't seem to be malicious in nature, (far from it, most users seem to very much appreciate the work of artists when the topic is brought up,) but rather just a disregard towards the existence of art on the wiki and the effort artists put into it; it's closer to neglect.

This mistreatment presents itself in multiple forms, whether it be artwork getting a fraction of the attention that the writing does, art being specifically made for an article and frequently ending up unused, and as a whole having artists being treated as "second-class citizens" as compared to the writers.

In my opinion, this seems to stem from art being seen as "not on the same level" as the writing. This makes sense on some level, this is a writing site so writing would be expected to be the focus, but the wiki has grown a fair bit from the creepypasta site it used to be, and it'd be a disservice to not acknowledge the dozens of other creative avenues people have taken the wiki's content in. As such, I think it's high time we started giving them equal footing on the wiki's spotlight.

+ A Solution

This proposal, in essence, seeks to make each piece posted by an artist its own unique page, similar to the articles, rather than having all of an artist's art cobbled up in one giant art page.

Instead of giving each artist one singular page where they just unceremoniously dump new art into, artists would now post their new pieces individually to the wiki (or in small galleries of assorted, similarly themed pieces), as a new category of pages. These pages will be subject to the same quality control measures as articles, (the rating module, deletion thresholds, criticism, plagarism deletions,) and would also enjoy all the benefits that having individual pages could provide (tags, newest posted articles modules, visibility on the Top Rated Pages lists).

Since now artwork is treated similarly to articles, artist pages will also have to be changed to an author page equivalent, requiring a certain amount of successful art posted to the wiki before being able to create such a page. Art posted to the wiki would not count for the author page requirements, and vice-versa for the art pages and articles.

(Also, for readability's sake - from hereon out the individual pages will be referred to as 'art pages', and the author page equivalents as 'artist galleries'.)

However, due to many artists with artist galleries not being active on the wiki anymore, artist galleries that existed prior to this proposal's passing will be Grandfather Clause'd (meaning they do not have to change how they work and could remain the same). Artists that are still active in the community will be encouraged to move their existing artwork to new pages, and if the amount of artists who plan to do so turns out to be quite substantial, a week of grace-posting will be given for old artists to move their artwork to new pages. The grace-posting week's goal is to avoid having said avalanche of old-new pieces drown out any new artist who may be stepping their first foot into the wiki. Similarly, outside of the aforementioned week of grace-posting there will be a posting limit of three art pages a day, as a preemptive counter measure in the case any new artists start pumping out art at record speed and drown out the rest of the posting artists.

Doodles, WIPs, and other such art could be directly posted to the artist's gallery rather than as an individual page.

+ Additional Changes

Such a major change to how the site functions will require a few changes and additions to other aspects of the site.

Firstly, a lot of art-related policy (such as what counts as tracing, the repercussions thereof, to which sites to post art and in what format) will have to be created, both technical and not. This is policy that will likely need to be made regardless of the existence of this proposal, as up until now we've been mostly using precedents rather than anything written in stone, but said policies will be essential once the change is made.

Secondly, additional guides and essays for creating, critiquing, and voting on art will need to be made. To avoid the problem of people voting blindly on pieces, some guidelines will need to be set as to what should and should not influence a user's vote. Said guidelines will need to be very vague and subjective, since art is very subjective in itself, but it will need to outline some things that probably shouldn't affect a vote on art, such as "if I downvote it might be rude." Essays for creating art, although not essential, will probably be appreciated by new artists and would help make them feel on equal footing.

+ Issues to Note

These are a few issues that might not be exclusive to this proposal, but that this proposal will likely exacerbate, so I'm mentioning them here.

This proposal will likely add more strain to MAST, and more specifically the tagging team, due to the creation of new tags and more pages that will require said tags to be applied to.

Additionally, the site will also be taking a stress from having more pages be created and deleted, which may be a problem on a site that's already as volatile as Wikidot currently is.

+ Final Notes

This proposal will not fix the entire issue of artist mistreatment on its own, and there are still many other avenues where I believe we should be giving artists so much more than they currently are getting (such as frontpage spotlights and contests). The issue of a pervasive mindset is much more difficult to solve than just changing a few rules and hoping for the best.

Hopefully, though, this proposal will help kickstart an unconscious change in how we view artists in the community, and help push for more non-writing-related policy to spring forward.

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Dr Whitney 04 Aug 2021 02:09

Issues
I know a lot of artists and community members including myself have been frustrated in the past with the lack of place in this community for the artists to call there home. While there definitely are places they can go there is is certain treatment that comes with being an author that artists are unable to experience without posting there own writing.

We are allowed an art page and can contribute essentially free fan art for an article thats are interactions with the community and the extension of are ability to post when it comes to art alone. It’s pretty hard to make money off the art we make to so often times artists are approached to make free images for articles and then these images are not used which becomes very frustrating for artists. My comparison for this would be an author being approached by artists to write for them without pay it takes hours and exposure is no reward.

There are also artists that feel that they are not able to participate in articles because there work isn’t strictly realistic. The overall consensus being artists are currently frustrated by there treatment by community members and there place on site.

I don’t think its realistic to hold people at gun point/risk of a ban to use art I get it shit happens and for whatever reason the image is not used.

What I Hope to change
What I hope to accomplish is a level of respect granted to artists and the work they do for this community. I hope by granting a space and holding art to a standard not previously seen before we are able to as a community grow are respect for one another as artists and authors.

I hope also in tern this encourages more artists and perhaps through art and this community bring attention to smaller artists and authors alike.

I understand it would take a lot of work but I truly think this could improve the site and community as a whole.

Last edited on 04 Aug 2021 02:10 by Dr Whitney Show more

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Seyph 04 Aug 2021 07:41

I agree with the premises, but I think the solution proposed is not appropriated at all.

Let me explain myself.
You can see the votes as a form of selection of the better. This elitism is beneficial for texts (the main criteria being if the story is interesting), because it leads writers to create something with a minimum of interest and quality.
But for art, it's not sane at all. Why ? Because a quality check on art will exclude a lot of interesting parts. If it's on a separated page, you won't want to show that joke drawing of 173 with the photo of 096 on his head, or that draft you will never finish.

It's also the risk of judging a piece on criteria that are completely irrelevant : is it pretty, is it clean, do I recognise the subject ? Unusual styles like the one of Whitney or Pastarasta can be disregarded because of that. And for people who mainly draw about not very known and foreign SCPs, it doesn't resolve the problem of the disregard of their art. I think it's a problem for diversity.

But people won't downvote for criteria like this. And it's also a matter of concern. Why ? Because if you have the possibility to downvote using a guide and doing it, it will be seen very badly. Artists are loved, their art is seen as a gift and if you refuse this gift it's rude. Motivated downvote, malicious downvote, it's difficult to tell one from the other in a context where the majority of the voting ones are writers.
I have concerns that those new art articles can really quickly become a popularity contest.

As a conclusion, I will say that an art piece can't be treated like a text.
Promoting the art of the wiki is something important but that way seems counterproductive and not adaptated.

(Sorry if it's difficult to understand, english is not my native language and I'm still sleepy)

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

OptimisticLucio 04 Aug 2021 16:32

Oh no, you wrote it really well, no worries.

I don't really have much to say about this because - those are valid concerns to have, and I don't really have a response to them. I hope that if this passes it does end up helping artists in the long run, but if it doesn't pass I'll still be working hard to promote artists on the wiki wherever possible.

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Scorpion451 04 Aug 2021 15:37

The intention here is noble, but the current proposal is fundamentally counterproductive.

As noted by Seyph, trying to apply the system used for literary works to visual art just… doesn't work. I cringe at the thought of comparing some of my own pieces that way, let alone other people's, and that's even before you get into things like comparing pieces with different intentions and styles, and the massive subjectivity of quality. (I've seen brilliant concept sketches that look like half-finished scrawls to the inexperienced eye, and technically polished photorealist pieces that died on the vine.)

I do, however, like the idea of having artwork set up in a modular way (maybe with a "recently posted" feed of some sort?), so that collections and spotlights are easier to assemble, and art works are more visible and findable.

Last edited on 04 Aug 2021 15:54 by Scorpion451 Show more

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Dr Whitney 04 Aug 2021 20:52

I totally understand that and its a valid concern. I know along with this ideas on how critique art and other guides would probably be posted but if done wrong these could be detrimental. While I totally advocate for more art being shown on places like the front page and maybe a recently posted section I do worry these wouldn’t fix the over all issues.

But for art, it's not sane at all. Why ? Because a quality check on art will exclude a lot of interesting parts. If it's on a separated page, you won't want to show that joke drawing of 173 with the photo of 096 on his head, or that draft you will never finish.

From my understanding art pages would still be a thing which could be a place for more humor based stuff or unpolished work.

But these are valid concerns I guess my question is how do we create a place where artists and authors might not be seen as the same ( in terms of what they do ) however are treated as equal by the community.

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

SketchyTh0ughts 05 Aug 2021 04:27

We pay more respect to poetry and video media but there's less admiration and attention for art. That said, the above proposal from UncertaintyCrossing and OptimisticLucio seems counterproductive.

Having so many art pages flowing in will probably cause a lot of strain for MAST. As a few members above have mentioned, a lot of the problem is site mentality and also the fact that the criteria for voting will be messy.

Definitely agree with the Front Page features and contests though!

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Anyways, I don't know if this thread is open to discussion and suggestions but I'll offer one anyways:

Open Proposal

Have a forum where artists and writers can meet and collaborate.

On this proposed forum, artists can post new works, to which writers can approach and ask to use the piece as inspiration. The resulting page would then be a collaboration article. These art pieces serve as inspiration, sort of like digging through a Creative Commons site, and could be posted on the creator's Art Page too.

I make this proposal because, in these situations, the artist heavily impacts the work. Without the posted image, the writer wouldn't have gotten the idea to write. Even if the author had an idea already, the art piece strongly supports the writing and possibly shapes it and thus the artist has contributed greatly.

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This proposal is a little off tangent, but I feel like it could help. As for the original post, I feel that it's got the right intentions but not quite the right methods of going about this issue.

Last edited on 05 Aug 2021 04:35 by SketchyTh0ughts Show more

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Petrograd 17 Aug 2021 08:33

I like your open proposal a lot better than the visual records wiki or the various posts about "inspiring images" or whatever, and maybe it would result in more respect than threads getting moved to Fan Works.

I know the forum isn't as active, but a dedicated art area with this and other info (threads for promotion, discussion, off-site links) might help if artists are interested.

I'm barely an artist (photoshopper) and I focus on works posted as articles, so I don't have much to say about the OP proposal. Edit: I AM skeptical about how much of an impact more guides would have and knowing of they would be appropriately written.

Last edited on 17 Aug 2021 08:39 by Petrograd Show more

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

barredowl 05 Aug 2021 06:01

Two concerns, from an artist's perspective:

• Putting the pressure of the site's voting patterns on singular art pieces rather than the sum of an artist's work feels like it will restrain what kind of art people are willing to post to the site. Standing by themselves, works with more unconventional, sketch-y or abstract styles and subject matters will have less of a chance to succeed or survive than realistic, conventional pieces. Newcomers with the former styles, then, will feel obligated to shelve their work onto their art gallery instead or not post at all. (To a lesser degree, this applies to sketches and WIPs.) This doesn't bode well for artistic variety, I think.
  • This is partially addressed "Doodles, WIPs, and other such art could be directly posted to the artist's gallery rather than as an individual page" part of the proposal, of course. However, doesn't this concede that works that don't fit into conventional standards of art (which makes up a good portion of the pieces posted here) aren't really helped at all by this proposal?
• The proposed guides for creating art (as well as the insinuation that it will put artists on "equal footing") seem like a strange overstep to make the art and writing creation process more similar. I can only speculate as to what would be in those guides but due to how subjective art is I don't really foresee it being useful at all.

To summarize, this isn't as pointed a solution to the decreased attention artists on the site get, and I disagree with how much it standardizes how art is posted to how writing is posted. Art pages work because it can accommodate pieces of art that wouldn't stand on their own, such as sketches, WIPs, unconventional art styles, and non-SCP art. Implementing this proposal, I feel, would only limit the types of art pieces that get posted and highly voted to a standard that doesn't need to be there.

I think the proposal needs to limit its scope a little before I could get with it. Like others here have said, it's on the right path and could be a great change! I just don't think that this is the best way to go about it.

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svaria

Last edited on 05 Aug 2021 06:04 by barredowl Show more

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Tropinano 05 Aug 2021 13:33

I'm iffy about this. The sentiment is appreciated, but…

here u go

I think the concept and point this proposal is trying to get at is interesting and is definitely something that long needed to be addressed. But in all honesty I'm teeter-tottering on the fence about it, and leaning towards general dislike.

I want to like the proposal, but I just don't know. It has the undertones of catering to certain types of artists, big artists, who also seem to have inferiority issues to be deeming themselves as 'second-class'.

The problem with this is that art can't be put on the same level as writing, and trying to do so by putting on the same procedures and standards we already have for writing is puzzling and frightening for younger, hobbyist or beginner artists.

It gives me the same feeling as posting an individual piece on social media: Posting to gain criticism, appreciation and traction instead of for fun. Do you really expect a young artist to pin their first few artworks in the National Art Gallery?

Giving artwork its individual page is good for certain types of art, and good if an artist wants comments and opinions on an individual piece- but that's just Instagram or something.
Not to mention this proposal subconciously is setting up a certain standard for art on the wiki- 'This isn't going to do well unless it's big, capturing and rendered.' Might just be my inexperience talking, but not every artist's strong suit is large, jam-packed posters or graphic novels.

I know it said works like these can be just posted on the artist's gallery, but now the problem is these are now being pushed under not only writing, but art pages aswell. It's just another level added to the pyramid, directly in the middle.

It contradicts itself by saying art is subjective- but then putting a subject onto it, or a standard, like 'We're also going to be creating guides for creating and critiquing art.' Should these singular guides really be the 'seal of approval'? Probably, it might set up a point saying 'simple sketches may not have their individual art page' but will the simple sketch of an experienced artist, adorned with details brushed off as muscle memory rule the same as the shaky, simple sketch of a beginner artist, or will you continue to argue the quality may be a factor, and well, art is subjective, so you can't really say this sketch is 'simple'…

The bit on essays for creating art is also optimistic aswell. New artists won't whole-heartedly appreciate them, it'll show them 'this is the standard. This is what we think is good, so make sure to follow this process for good validation.' It doesn't put new artists on equal footing, it shows them a box they can either put themself into for upvotes, or the neglect you speak of if it doesn't fit, or deemed 'experimental'.

I agree with the mistreatment of artists, but encouraging artists to comb out their best work to put onto singular pages is mirroring the essence of for example Instagram. I've posted on IG for years and this proposal is dangerously close to the message of "big cool iconic fanart = likes, and good luck with anything else!" The proposal of art galleries just turning into a WIP doodle dump is a little dookie.

It is true artists are generally neglected, but is this a problem in the wiki itself, or in the SCP community as a whole? You even say many users appreciate the work that artists do here, so why do they feel neglected at the same time? I really like the idea of a front page spotlight for art pages, and contests are good too!!! Just the idea of creating singular pages I think caters to people who like to put the big stuff out there, and doesn't really take the opinion of smaller artists into account.

I think people who want to create individual pages could if they wish, but I just wanted to stir the pot a little in the overwhelming acceptance to this proposal that this is good for SOME artists, and perhaps even adds an extra shadow above art 'galleries' in general.

This is coming from the viewpoint of a young artist who gets burnt out attempting large rendered pieces, and is much more comfortable doing sketches. I did want to put my two cents into this, but I was nervous that if I didn't understand the proposal completely my entire arguement could be shot down in one or two sentences like 'oh it's a kid, did they even read it?' But I really did try to put how I feel about this into words, as an artist and as an active member of the community. I hope this makes sense.

this piece was something i wrote up and sent to DrFullham upon first reading the proposal. I'm glad this was brought to the mainsite, because it brings new perspectives into light. I'm sorry if this is a little rash or doesnt make sense but i hope it came across okay.

Re: Art Restructuring Proposal

Boogey_Man23 05 Aug 2021 15:36

I suppose I have a thing or two to say about this, for whatever it's worth..

Thoughts

The Proposition

• Artwork receiving the least exposure.

There's lots of stuff that everybody wishes would get more exposure. Artists are actually step ahead of more obscured writers by virtue of the way that visual art is consumed by the community. Plugging a written article = "Will I invest 10-20 minutes of my time to attentively read a few thousand words of content?". Plugging an art page (even with a gallery of pictures) = "Will I invest 10-20 seconds of my time per piece to glance at a handful of images?" The latter is bound to attract more of an audience, because there is less investment to 'just check it out' and make a quick judgment/vote.

The Proposal

• Individual Pages Per Picture

Visual art doesn't seem comparable to written material articles. The criteria that any user might apply to art is vastly different from how one can assess a written piece.

Originality. How many individual pages featuring a singular portrait of.. say, SCP-049 - how many will fill up the wiki at first? How many will pour in afterward? How long will it be before the userbase instinctively downvotes any new art (regardless of whether it's "better" or "worse" than every other page of the same thing) just because they are sick of seeing the same overdone subject matter?

On one hand, maybe this would "force" artists to create work not based on just the same, tired, decade-old content that I've seen over and over already? Probably not though.

Written articles can be riddled with SPaG errors, lacking in any coherent plot, just plain boring to read through all the words of, or many other things that makes them objectively identifiable as "poor quality writing". Is there any comparably objective way for a user to assess a singular piece of visual art? "Is this poor rendering of dimensions, or a unique visual style of perspective? Is this poor rendering of human anatomy, or stylistically accentuated for effect? Is this a deliberately simplistic style of drawing, or is someone blasting out doodles in a minute and racking up votes for the equivalent effort of farting in their sleep?"

Will this lead to only the most hyper-realistic of styles being valued, and anything that's abstract or cartoonish or minimal by design being dismissed as weaker? Is creating a dynamic like that for artwork posted to the site something that anyone really wants?

How good will art need to be, in order to stick on site; how bad does an art need to be that it will hit deletion? Like, I don't even consider myself an artist in any meaningful way - yet at the same time I still feel like I could manage to draw something decent enough that it wouldn't get downvoted into deletion by the site. And it only comes down to how many people can (and will by force of vote) differentiate an "artistic style" from a "lack of talent/ability"?

x

Alt Solutions

• Multiple Different Art Pages

So far as I'm aware, there is no rule that limits any user to only one single artpage. Users are already free to have multiple artpages, if they want to (and each one can be assessed and voted on based on its merits in the eyes of the community).

So there is not actually anything which "forces artists to put all their work on a single page. I'm pretty sure that artists are already free to create "galleries" of their work which are defined by subject, or date, or any other criteria they wish. The only relevant factor (as with every other page created) is the community's assessment and votes.

• Promotion

Artists can take steps to promote themselves, the same way that any author of written content is expected to: post in announcement threads (there's already an "Updates" thread for when authors revise their articles, maybe artists can use it when they add pieces to their artpages; maybe there could be another thread specifically for artpage updates?), bop into chat and plug stuff you want people to look at (as mentioned above, art pages is already more attractive to digest than anything written).

Maybe I'm not too familiar with off-site fan communities, but are those not already dominated more by visual art content than anything else?

• Innovation

Artists can implement visual elements into written content. There are already a number of pages on the wiki that combine written content with visual artforms to create something unique, and the audience reception is almost always positive (even if it's just based on the extra effort involved, or the originality factor).

For example: Time and again, I've wished to team up with an artist and create maybe a visual novel-style article or something unique and original. But the counterpoint to that is that visual art is not viewed on the same level as written content - in the opposite direction than you seem to think. I recognize that drawing out a comic panel is far more labor-intensive than filling out that panel's speech bubble, so offering to do the "writing half" of such a collaboration is inherently weak and unappealing to anyone who would draw the rest. Or so I imagine - but it's not like artists are queuing up to offer that kinda collaboration anywhere I've ever seen.

Bottom Line

I don't mean to disparage the artists of the SCP Community or belittle their work, but do feel that I must disagree with this proposal. Of course it would be nice if everybody gave a care for the less-appreciated aspects of the SCP Universe - but I don't see this policy proposal helping do that.

(I might need to come back and edit some of this, or maybe others in the thread by now have expressed similar concerns in a better way - but I want to put these opinions in the picture while the discussion is fresh, and before I have to type it all on my phone)

(E: I apologize. I've removed part of this, as I realised with further thought that it was uninformed of me and/or not relevant to the proposal at hand. Sorry for that. With more reflection on the matter, my opinion has changed.)

Last edited on 06 Aug 2021 09:51 by Boogey_Man23 Show more