How to Improve the Art Section

because lame thread title is lame

Okay, so basically, art is contests 2.0, but with less silly rules and the like. Not really, but you get my point.

What I want to accomplish here is this: how to improve the art section and how to get people participating in it and curating things. There's a fair backlog in art based on the lack of curators, who may be too busy or too short on time to curate pieces, and it seems like deterrent to those that may want to submit art, but don't because of a lack of curators. Obviously curating is a voluntary job, like the other URPG jobs we have here, but it seems like no one's really stepping up to curate things or to submit things. See the below bullets for some numbers.

• The last submitted piece to URPG art was on August 22nd by Feather on BMGf, exactly one month ago today.
• The last curator wages were given in July, and they all went to Winter. As far as I'm aware, nothing has been curated since then, thus demonstrating no need for wages.
• The piece that has been waiting the longest for a curation is something I submitted on PWN back in June. Admittedly, it's in a thread with my other URPG art pieces, but I feel like this shouldn't be the reason why it was never noticed; I feel like the reason would be because it's on PWN, and the biased part of me says that shouldn't be a reason either, but that's a whole separate issue. The issue here is the activity of the art section, not which forum is most active and all of that nonsense.
• There are 10 uncurated pieces of art: 7 on BMGf, 2 on PWN, and 1 on PXR. One on BMGf by Syn has been claimed by Smores, but the curation has yet to be posted - I'm not calling Smores out, just making a mention of the fact that one has been claimed and not yet curated.

Some of these pieces are by newer members, and by not curating them or not doing a thing about it, they can't gain Pokemon through the art they submitted, therefore forcing them to use other methods they may not be interested in. It ties in with new member progression, another topic discussed here; no curations means new members can't get Pokemon, which means they can't progress unless they participate in another section they're not interested in.

We obviously can't force people to curate, and I understand that, but 10 uncurated art pieces, dating as far back as June is just silly. Art is a section that certainly has potential, it just needs to be tapped into. With all of that said, I'll pose a few questions to you all.

• How can we improve the art section?
• How can we encourage people to become curators?
• How can we encourage people to actually curate?
• How can we encourage people to participate in the art section?

You're welcome to go above and beyond and answer more than this or suggest even more than this, that's perfectly fine. The kinds of answers we don't want to hear are "we need more curators lol" or nonsense like that because while they do answer the questions, they're not helping. Answers are great, but when they're not helpful answers, they're meaningless.

Thanks for your support, guys~

 

Well the problem is either we don't have enough Curators (which means the profession is stretched thin and can't handle the load), or that our current Curators are too busy with other professions and life (which also means they can't handle the load). Perhaps it's a bit of Category A and Category B.


New Curators

What's stopping people from becoming Curators? Is the test too hard, the pay too low, or the section not visible enough? Do we need more persistent leadership?

If the difficulty is the problem, we should consider lowering it. This may lead to a lower quality of grades, but better than the pieces never being graded. Alternatively, we may just not have a good training system in place. We might have people who'd be interested, but have no idea where to begin to mark art. Unlike writing, which we study in school, art is a bit more of a optional curriculum.

If it's incentive, we can increase pay or do a drive for a period of time with a little extra incentive.


Current Curators

This again relates to incentives. If necessary, we can increase pay. The section is still relatively new and we need to find where it balances in among the other professions. If we don't want to increase pay, we can give incentives in terms of points earned towards a Pokemon. That's kind of a vague idea, but one we can work on if it helps the situation.



I do think leadership is key and, as Monbrey has said, he isn't the best person to lead art. Add in his current duties as Second and I think we need to seriously consider a new Head of Art. Finding an interested candidate, of course, is the challenge.

 

Monbrey already increased pay. It didn't work.

 

actually iirc it did work. I think smores and Winter both did a few curations while the extra pay was in place. That being said, I think incentives would be better if there were more curators to take advantage of them. I really should get on finishing that quiz...there are quite a lot of practice curations to do before you pass the quiz though. Maybe shave 1 off? idk, I dont wanna come off as whiney. I'm also pretty lazy so maybe not the best example The irony is that I see myself doing plenty of actual curations if I could just get the durn test finished.

 

I do remember the extra pay incentive working some, but probably not nearly as well as it could have, unfortunately. Nothing we couldn't try again though.

Another idea I wanted to propose is maybe the idea of temporary curators? I don't think it's a permanent, long term solution, but I know more active sections such as battles and grading (and I think park may do it too, but I honestly have no idea, so don't take my word for it) give out temporary ref and grading licenses for a week or so. Might help get some curators out there even if they don't do as well as they could have on the test, they can still be a curator at least temporarily, or even permanently if they do well when they actually have the opportunity to curate outside of the test. At the very least, it could possibly help out and create some sort of solution and get some things curated.

Another point I want to bring up, and I apologize for bringing up so many points, is the current list of curators. Like we know Monbrey doesn't want to be head of art, Harry said that here and Monbrey's probably said it numerous times. We do need a replacement for him, we just don't have anyone who's interested. Finding someone who's interested is easier said than done, of course. The list of Ninja Turtles has three inactive URPG members: Axion hasn't been seen in months, and Emma & Proto are occasionally active in URPG, but not really in art. (Admittedly, Proto posted something in August to be curated, but she hasn't curated anything in months.) Of the actual list of curators that aren't Ninja Turtles or Monbrey, not many of them actually actively URPG anymore. Other sections have an inactive or past refs/graders/rangers list so that it can be seen that these people once held the position, but for whatever reason (typically inactivity) no longer hold it. However, people on that list can also get their licenses back, so as bad as that sounds, perhaps making that distinction may be a step in the right direction.

I'm not sure how well this would work out or if it's even ever been done before (but I feel like I've seen these before), but perhaps a roll call of sorts but with a twist? Pretty much similar to other roll calls in that everyone is mentioned in it, so these people would get a notification for it, but also strongly recommend that they curate something as well. Could also offer some sort of pay incentive for those that curate and participate in the roll call. I want to say that they have to curate something, at least those that aren't Monbrey or a Ninja Turtle since it seems to be URPG culture that once you're Head or Senior Ref (and similar for other sections), you don't really have to do your job as often as the lower ranked members in that profession; that's not true for all sections, but to me, it seems like it's a part of the URPG culture, which I can fully understand since these regular ol' curators and whatnot should be the ones doing the majority of the curating, and once you become a Ninja Turtle or head, you focus more on more of the staff side of things, for lack of a better word. Also, I feel like forcing people to do something may not be in our best interest, although I had the idea in mind that it would be left open for about a month to give people time to do at least one curation. .-. Also the issue of if someone decides to curate a lot of things and not everyone has a chance to curate something because no new pieces are posted during the roll call. Nevertheless, a roll call might be beneficial to see just how many curators we have and who's active and inactive.

 

I'm new to this so I don't know but the art sub-forum is the only sub-forum I'm not working in to get a pokemon atm. It's inactive. Like you said, a normal bonus didn't really work and I think somebody mentioned a points system to get mons. Maybe every quality curation you did you got some points and you could spend those on mons. Another thing is it seems WAY too hard to curate. I don't know if this exists already but I'm guessing there is simply a test to become one. Most people wouldn't really know how to curate. Maybe instead there could be a class that'd teach you what to do?

 

I'm obviously no expert on this topic, but for the most part I agree with Felly. One other suggestion I have, if it's not already in place: Allow people to do the curator test in a way that focuses on only a certain type of art and only lets them curate that type of art. Some people are good at judging Photoshop-made art but not a sculpture, or a sculpture but not a drawing, or a drawing but not a comic (if that's even allowed? I know I saw one once, but that was a new person so I can't say for sure it was allowed), etc.

 

There has been talk of a StArt mart (name tentative) that allows you to use art and stories to get EMs as well, I believe. There's a thread somewhere regarding it, and Swifty (swiftgallade46) probably knows more about it than I do, so I'd talk to him if you wanted to know more about that/help. There is a test for becoming a curator, yes, and that's the only thing one needs to do to become a curator.

I actually like the idea of classes. It sounds a lot like the mentorship program we've just kicked off, but that sounds more like help for improving in specific areas, not necessarily help towards getting a job. That's an entirely separate idea though, and while I'd love to kick that off, I'd also like to clear out one issue before another. Curating is a lot like grading though, but I guess art can be kind of hard in the sense that you have to be more subjective, if that's even the right word. I dunno.

A question I want to pose to everyone with that said: if you were interested in becoming a curator, what's kept you from doing so? If you tried to become a curator but failed, why did you fail?

Perhaps answering those may also give us an idea as to where to go on this issue as well.

I don't see why comics wouldn't be allowed. They're a form of art, tbh. .-. I'm not super involved with art though, so there might be some sort of ruling towards that that I'm unaware of. I actually like the idea of curators curating specific types of art, but not necessarily in the way that you'd said. Perhaps tailoring the test towards specific things would be beneficial. Also maybe listing the strengths of each curator in the list of curators might be beneficial, but at the same time, it may turn people away from submitting certain styles of art if they see people wouldn't really be able to curate it.

A question to everyone: would tailoring the test towards specific styles of art encourage you to take the test? Like if your test specifically focused on sculptures or drawn art or digital art, etc.?

 

@Felly;

Interesting. Well, I've considered it but haven't even tried because I'm not that good at art and it seems WAY too hard and I'd have absolutely no idea how to. Plus it's not really very advertised.

 

Just wondering, but is there any consideration for just straight up discontinuing the art section? Of course there are some gritty things that would need to be worked out like what happens to the pieces that are pending a grade and all that. Just a thought.

 

If we're going to be perfectly honest, most sections are completely in a slump right now. Stories hasn't had a new thing up for quite a while, and we have three/four-ish story backlog, if I recall correctly seriously I'm not pointing fingers 'cause about half of that is my fault, but just recognizing some facts. Pretty sure that contests hasn't had activity in ever, so I'd really be against terminating a section based on a slump in activity alone. This is mostly addressed to CommBA but can't quote while mobile.

The fact that art missed out on the summer activity boom that battle/stories experienced, however, is a little disheartening but so did contests okay done with the train now. I think a lot of the problem lies in the lack of steady curators and the wait that it takes for a piece to get curated--personally, I know I can typically write/get a story graded in a fraction of a time that it takes to make/get a piece curated. Especially with some of the regular curators, such as Axion, missing.

And I think a lot of this is more of a personal issue, too. Writing is my preferred medium of creative expression, and art is just kind of... not so much, I guess? There are a couple of really, really phenomenal artists in our community, but art simply isn't as appealing to a lot of people. Perhaps this is just me shooting around in the dark, but I feel like a medium-ranked story is a lot less intimidating of a task than a medium-ranked art piece. Nublets can sit down and write for a magikarp in an hour or two if they'd like, but with art it's like okay lemme pull out my pencils and think of a nice pose and then do shading and coloring and oh this anatomy is a bit janky and ehhhhhh I'm going to go play on my DS now.

Like. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's kind of a difficulty gap between art and the other methods of Pokemon capture here, but I don't think it's impossible. Good art is hard. Good writing is hard. Good role-playing is hard. Basically, good anything is hard, but the other sections are well-established enough at this point that there's a pretty solid ladder of mentorship/leadership going on, so new people don't feel quite as in the dark about everything. Last anecdotal evidence, but when I first started writing, I knew basically jackshit and it was like AGH GOD EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE AAANGST AAAAAAAANGST. But there were graders and writers and a strong community of people there to give me advice and improve, and I felt like people were genuinely trying to help my skills get better. When I tried drawing, I also knew basically jackshit and everything was still on fire, but there were a lot fewer resources to turn to. Personally, I thought about taking the curator test and didn't think I was able to, seeing as I couldn't even pass a medium-ranked piece after like three hours of effort, and I didn't think there was any way to improve.

I sound really hypocritical right now and Monbrey is going to hate me and basically I'm sorry, also haha jokes and stuff, but art just needs a stronger leadership platform. It needs a Scourge/Emma/Hannah/Smiles or a Winter/Bee/Jess/Chainy idk names of rangers sorry ;-; to keep it afloat, and I think that's absolutely vital to the success of any section. I'm seriously not pointing fingers right now, and I don't even know who would be a valid person to take control, but I'd really, really hate for this section to go down.

Yeah so this is basically a big paragraph of things saying that we just need more activity, and everyone knows that song and dance already.

Also, random semantics that I think we should consider:
=ART CONTESTS <3
=the number system seems hilariously redundant haha

 

I actually totally agree with this. I took over to get the section running, but my art knowledge and general interest in the section just isn't there. Would much rather someone with a passion for art took over.

 

The computer scientist and the mechanical engineer could never manage anyhow, lol.

I'm just curious, since you've brought it up: are there currently any viable candidates?

 

Nope.

We're hoping we can find someone who might be interested.

 

@Nitro; @Elamite; @just_kidding;

 

what about winter?

smo curate my baby scolipede

 

I'm in no official position to talk about this, but considering Winter is already a Senior Ref and Head Ranger (or whatever they call'em), having her also be Art Head might not be a good idea and kinda overwork her?

This is only my opinion though.

 

Winter is just gonna control all of URPG. #Winter4HeadURPG

But, yeah, Winter was honestly who came first to mind for me, but I didn't know if that would be overworking her with all these positions. Though, like, she could always just say no if she feels like she'll be overworked too.

 

Exactly my thoughts tbh. Especially the "too overworked" between other URPG things and whatever irl things may exist. Axion also has returned, but we have no idea how long he'll stay or if he wants it.

 

I guess it simply comes down to three options.

1. We find Art leadership within our own ranks.

2. We find Art leadership outside of the URPG and bring them in.

3. We close the URPG Art Section.