How to Improve the Art Section

My vote is still on Axion personally, if we can get him to stick around. Winter is also welcome, but it is a lot of additional work as she already runs the Park.

 

I'm planning to become a curator (to get some extra cash), however I'm waiting to get my reffing quiz back, so I can take the curator test (I don't want to be overworked with tests and quizzes). But truly, I think a referee is a more suitable job for a math wizard like me, but I'll try to become a curator.

I'll before I make a final decision, what you mean HKim, when you say "1. We find Art leadership within our own ranks."?

 

Either find someone who's knowledgeable with art stuff but isn't a curator for whatever reason, or a curator who's active - and "good enough" for the lack of a better term - who's already a URPG member to become head of art section. The bigger problem with this is that either most curators aren't active enough for this or they're already in other positions of importance within (or outside) the URPG and could be overworked by becoming a section head.

 

So, why not advertise the URPG in other thread of the forums and bring in more new players to take on the roles of referee, grader, curator, etc.. We could advertise the URPG in our signatures so that way other thread moderators can't bug us for advertising another section, on another section. Howver we will have to directly advertising the URPG (not showing the link on your stats), it has to be big and colorful to get people's attention and convince them to look at this section, and hopefully they'll want to join.

 

Then go do just that. Talk to people, make a banner, post on welcome threads, etc.
Nothing or no one is stopping you.

 

Thing is people already do advertise URPG in their signatures, though the amount of attention it actually garners is unknown, or if they even post outside of the URPG section as a whole.

While Axion is a suitable candidate, yes, and I'd certainly like to see the position go to him if he sticks around, having a more active head curator isn't going to solve the problem of a lack of curators. While EmpireCrusher has shown initiative in saying he'll take the curator test, assuming he passes, that would still give us two active curators.

It was suggested that we reach out to other parts of the forums for curators, specifically in the art sections. I know recently we've done things like PXR's WAR where if you participated, you could get a URPG prize that was claimable once you joined the URPG. We could do something on a smaller scale in the art sections of the boards, perhaps catering to whatever board we're hosting the contest on? I'm not sure how the art section on BMGf is as I haven't really gone into it in years, but on PWN, a lot of the users that post there do drawn art, whether it be traditional or digital, so we could have an art contest where members draw their favorite Pokemon in a not so traditional scene. (Example being a Caterpie in a lake or something like that.) Not sure how it is on PXR either, but they do comic stuff and have comic features regularly, so that could be a possible theme for there. Basically something that draws the attention of the users of that art board while also saying "hey, you can submit art for Pokemon in URPG!" and also shows that we cater to their style of art. Prizes are something that would have to be discussed, of course, but that's an issue we can come to later (and is more than likely a staff issue anyways). We could also do one big contest across the three forums, though I'm not 100% sure how BMGf staff would feel about having links to two other forums in a non-URPG section for the same contest; it would be something we'd need to look into, but a contest that gets the word out there would probably be helpful.

I know we've had URPG based events on PWN and PXR, but I've never seen one done on BMGf. It's getting close to the holidays too, and I know BMGf usually does some big holiday thing in December that gives out prizes and loads of people participated in it. I think they've been doing them for as long as URPG's been on BMGf, if not longer too, and it might help URPG out a lot as a whole if we could get in on that too since it could introduce people to a new section of the forums they haven't heard of before. There's art and writing events too, if I remember correctly, so that hits two of our sections as it is. Make two contests catered to the URPG with URPG prizes when those members join (and also for our current members who participate) and wham, we might have people joining. (I know for a fact art is included, but I can't speak for writing.)

Axion's been doing a great job cleaning up the curator back log, and it'll be great if he does stick around and become Head of Art, but he can't do all of the work by himself, so I think we definitely need to get more people involved in art and considering taking the curator test to help out. A big way to get money in the URPG is by having some sort of URPG job, so it would be a good incentive for newer artsy members too. A contest of some sort may be a step in the right direction.

EDIT: Also, another thought I just had in regards to advertising the URPG in signatures, would it give anyone here more incentive to advertise the URPG in their signatures if we had a variety of signature images for use? Basically a pretty picture like what some of us have for showing off what gyms we have, but catered to the URPG instead of one specific person. It wouldn't be a contest or anything, but basically a way for people to help out, submit banners, and also use them to get the word out about URPG. People might be more drawn to pretty pictures than just text (unless it's gigantic text, and I feel like there are rules against that).

 

We could maybe even have an extension of the banner contest for signature thingies. It'd be less contesty but it'd in theory give a lot of pretty banners for peopel to use.

 

If we wanted to do a contest for it, it'd probably be better if we did it as a separate thing from the current banner contest that we're waiting for prizes for. Alternatively, if we did want to give some sort of reward for submitting banners, we could give some sort of small monetary value, say $2000, for each banner submitted. If there's a lot of banners being submitted, we could put some sort of cap on the money, say you can only get money for the first 5 banners you submit, therefore being capped off at $10000 a month, regardless of whether you submit just 5 banners or 20 banners.

 

I think we're getting a little off topic though lol like Banners and advertising URPG is cool and all but it doesn't help the Art Section directly. Sure, more members means the possibility for more curators and more art submissions, but it doesn't guarantee them and a new section leader will most likely not be born from a rookie curator unless they're amazing.

I do like the idea of contests within the Art Section, and I've brought them up before. The issue is that even if there were an abundance of participation, there aren't enough [active] curators to handle the load it would create.

We need more people to become curators; and active ones at that. I don't think there is really any other solution. Curating incentives would be a good way to do it such as double-pay, x amount of EMs per curation depending on length, make 2 quality curations for 2 mons of the same difficulty to obtain a mon of the same difficulty etc. (Of course we only want to encourage quality curations). Maybe even something like you get a Simple/Easiest Pokemon for successfully becoming a curator. Just spitballin here! =]

 

I added curator pay incentives previously, extra 25% for any curations which were of good quality. It got a couple of existing curators to get back to work but didnt really give the section much growth overall.

 

Ill be honest, a free simple/easiest mon wouldn't overly attract me, and it seems quite unbalanced as the other positions don't get freebies. its almost a cry of desperation at that point, like free months of something as a signup bonus. it also doesn't do anything to encourage participation after you signup, its just a way to get you on the team.

ive been trying to come up with some art contest ideas, but the one problem is that art is unfortunately almost more subjective than stories. If I can draw an awesome pokemon but a crappy background, should it get a better score than a more simple pokemon but a great environment with character & storytelling? Welcome to curating and such. Ill try to figure out something though to perhaps liven up the arena a bit.