FAC Criticism Week

[luckylace222]

As you guys might know, I set up a FAC Criticism Week from July 31 - August 5 to find out normal FAC user's opinions on the site and what to improve it/keep.

Here is everything categorized for all FAC users and administrators to see. Please feel free to add more, refute my own opinion/words on them, and even reject some suggestions directly.

Usernames will not be assigned to these quotes; I want to concentrate on unbias suggestions/advice.
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[b]Age Limit:[/b]
[quote]We should probably have an age limit because most of the people I've seen on here, don't act their age.[/quote]
[quote]i think there should be an age limit on this sight. like any annoying little kids under the age of 16 shouldn't be allowed on here like da has an age limit.[/quote]
-ISH: [quote]how about...the people that likes to complain about everything and want people to feel bad for them?[/quote]
AGAINST: [quote]...Shouldn't it be 13 (not 16)? That's what the minimum age is to join deviantArt...Yet again, a LOT of sites do that... Don't follow the age limit idea! (I'm 15 and I got rather pissed when that user that posted that idea said the age you can join should be 16... THAT PISSES ME OFF!) But if you have to, make the age limit 13 (not including the users that joined previously!) >.< Just don't do an age limit. It will make ALOT of people mad.[/quote]
Although it is nice to have FAC users that can be mature and not act like brats, there is the problem that 1. There are older FACers that act like children anyways and 2. FAC mainly starts with children that grow and develop on this website. I do not know if FAC has a strict age limit already (if so, I have not heard of it at all), but I like to think we are different than DA and those other websites because we are a tolerant website that will accept kids at lower maturity and drawing levels. Afterall, there are many artist noobs that started at FAC and moved onto DA to get Daily Deviations. I like to think growing artistically would have been harder if they could not find a website willing to accept their mistakes when they were little. Thus, my NO to an age limit.

[b]Blog Popularity & Comments:[/b]
[quote]I think Fanart users should be able to post comments on blogs. Seriously, what is the purpose of having a blog if you don't know if people read/ like it.[/quote]
[quote]Have an option of commenting on blogs. I thought that was a good idea. [/quote]
[quote]is to maybe let people comment on blogs. [/quote]
[quote]I kind of want maybe a more prevalent blog system where people can see my most recent blog on the right? It is an art site, but I want my rants about my stupid grandma and parents being mean to me to be seen once in a while.[/quote]
[quote]I sort of want the blog to get a bit more attention too, I mean, really. It's all the way on the side that I forget it even exists sometimes. It'd be nice to see what's up with people's life sometimes instead of just looking at their art all the time[/quote]
OK: [quote]The blogs are top notch, nothing needing improving there.[/quote]
I know Denis said that blog comments were on his to-do list, but I was not sure if that was going to immediately happen for the next update. Having comments on blogs would definitely increase their popularity. Giving them a picture system where you can "vote good/bad" for a blog (do not add favorites to it, that is a little too much, they are just blogs). Also, I personally do not like making a new blog for a semi-small thought every time, so I like to make a unanimous blog post called "Rants" where I update every time I have a new idea. Thus, under blogs on the right, instead of putting down the date for when the post was first made, hows about we make it the date the post was last updated (so people will know something might change when they click it). Also, having Blog Comment or Reply/ New Blog by _____/"Insert title of blog here" Blog Updated by _____ email notifications would not be so bad. Can we also make it so that we can "feature" a certain blog on our profile so users do not have to click on it to know what we are up to? It does not have to big, just noticeable on the profile. ;__;

[b]Username Change:[/b]
[quote]The edit profile should have a "change username" option. So that if we want a new username, we don't have to delete profiles to just make a new username.[/quote]
[quote] it would be nice if there was a way to change usernames instead of making another account.[/quote]
[quote]In order to stop multible accounts and such, we should have a change username option. That would be awesome for fickle people such as myself xD[/quote]
[quote]and i'd love to change my username, but i won't hold my breath on that one LOL.[/quote]
SUGGESTION: [quote]If we do ever get an option of an " Username Change" button, maybe only allow 2 free ones and if you want to make a new account, but you've already told your friends about it, that should be a permanent ban or comment suspension.
Well, for the 2 default usernames, we've had problems in the past with people not being able to keep a username and them changing it repeatedly or just making 10 + backup accounts and taking up tons of space.[/quote]
I did not think this idea would be so popular. Usually, I would say, "If you make a username, make sure it is something you can tolerate for years to come. It will be your identity from now on." However, I guess I will definitively discuss it since many people think it will help the multiple accounts problem. Setting up a "Changing Username" system could be complicated and really confusing for people who have known someone by a specific username for years, or you are trying to pinpoint a troll. I have not joined many websites with a "Change Username" system, and I would think they would have the same fears. I think someone has presented this suggestion in the forums before, and the administrators basically said "Your username is permanent, sorry. Choose one carefully." I would rather have multiple accounts (which they can delete at their own will) then have someone changing their username multiple times and having to tell people "OH HEY. It's me!" It could also be a good way to fake yourself as someone else who is known to change usernames a lot. I like to think that forcing yourself to think of a good permanent username will force down fickleness and push you to be more loyal to one account, which you may end up loving in the end.
However, IF SOMEHOW THE ADMINISTRATORS DO WANT TO ADD IT IN, yes, lets make a Change Username [i]limit[/i]. I say 2.

[b]Gallery Folders:[/b]
[quote]Even though it may not be possible (and it's probably due to the fact that I'm a bit of an organization freak when it comes to art work lol), I wouldn't mind having different 'gallery folders' like on DeviantArt to put different types of artwork in.[/quote]
[quote]I also agree with the gallery folder idea. I know personally I am revamping my gallery. Reworking some my old work and adding colored versions. Would be nice to organize my old art and new art separately. Especially the remakes and colors. I know you have the scraps section, but tbh that isn't really where I want to put my old art. It may be old, but I still love it and so do some the ppl. I have pieces over 5yrs old that occasionally still get comments.[/quote]
[quote]hi I wish there were folders for my art[/quote]
[quote] an updated and reorganized folder system when submitting art might be nice[/quote]
[quote]I would really love to have gallery folders, like the ones on DeviantArt. It would make people's galleries a lot more organized and it would be easier to find something in them.[/quote]
[quote]Folders would be nice >.>[/quote]
ABSOLUTELY. I would love to have some form of organization in my gallery. it does not have to be aesthetically fancy like on DA on the left. Maybe just have a scroll down menu with the name of the categories the user created so the viewer can look for something special. Also, [i]unlike[/i] DA, I want the first view of someone's gallery to be ALL of their art (maybe call this default folder "All"). When DA artists put their "Featured Art" as the first things to see, I notice that some things they consider "scraps" are sometimes better than their "featured," so I like seeing all of their talents on the first view. Also, having defaults gallery filters for "Most Popular" and "Newest Submissions to Oldest" for the whole gallery instead of just the profile would be super fantastic too.

[b]Changing Pheral Logo:[/b]
[quote]About a year or two ago there was some thing about the site mascot but it only changed on the forum, a new mascot or mascot image for the main site would be nice (could be a contest maybe?). Or maybe monthly images/banners like on FA?[/quote]
[quote]I suppose a new banner for the site would be lovely, too. Maybe it could change every month or seasonally, similar to what they do on Furaffinity. Or maybe we could have contests for the mascot! [/quote]
[quote]><...and the Logo is okay looking..but maybe much more Detailed or something that gets your attention..xD.. like the Cat logo that you had made that's in the PM Chats..or maybe im the only one that has the older Logo at the left side corner of the main page xD ....the one with Inuyasha sailor moon and other Anime Charas[/quote]
[quote]The logo being changed, its been a few years, time for a new one[/quote]
[quote]The main site logo. :3.[/quote]
OK: [quote]As for the mascot, I've been hearing a lot of complaints for it, but I seriously have nothing against the cat being there. But if a lot of people want to change it, why not hold another contest for it?[/quote]
[quote]The forum logo is excellent, dont change it.[/quote]
I personally want to revamp that pheral logo as well. I am honestly thinking near New Years, instead of doing an Independence Day/New Years, I will host another FAC Pheral Logo Contest (since FAC officially started around January 18), but this time, it will actually be finished, and you will get suggestions/opinions back (because [b]I[/b] host this contest, lol). Having Gety's site logo as an alternative under "Edit Profile" would be cool as well (I would not mind his logo for both the main site and forums). It is true that we have had that pheral (I say KEEP IT A CAT, I like dark blue cats) for many years, so why not? REVAMP IT. We hardly have anything to lose (if we get all bad entries, which I doubt, we can try another time)! Also, we tried to do seasonally changing pheral designs with Halloween (we did implement the Halloween one) and Christmas, but I became to busy to draw anymore and needed some god dang free time for myself. ;__; Thus, the seasonal banners have not worked because of lack of time. Right now, I cannot seem to pinpoint a good enough artist to work with Denis to make seasonal pheral logo themes either.
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[luckylace222]

[b]Changing FAC Layout:[/b]
[quote]different skins would be nice[/quote]
[quote]different skins would definitely be nice. Or we should be able to grab a code from a site, and put themes on our profile. [/quote]
[quote]As to the sites persona...well...I love that it hasn't changed much since i first started, but a few more choices in layouts would be interesting, but not a necessity. [/quote]
[quote]COLOR!!! The same old blue background is just sad lol I wish that there was more color on the homepage at least[/quote]
[quote]Different skins/themes would be nice, or being able to make a custom color scheme.[/quote]
[quote]Personalizable profiles, like skins and colors, more like Yahoo![/quote]
Hehe, I actually use the old site Silver 2.0 layout. ;__; - Not that the new layout version was terrible, but I felt it was a little kiddy for me, and the Silver layout was more mature and easier on the eyes anyways. You guys have not seen some previews of the new site version, but there WILL be a new darker/gray layout version (based off Silver 2.0 layout) that brings the artwork out (light blue kind of just brings the picture's mood up, which is an illusion to me). There will also be more Layout options under "Edit Profile," including the current light blue version. I am not sure about custom layouts (probably not). ;__; I will need more update on that.

[b]Music Player:[/b]
[quote]Maybe have like a music player for profiles or have an option of either having music play or no of said users taste. [/quote]
[quote]I always thought we should be able to add music to our pages so when someone visits it plays.[/quote]
[quote]I was just looking through most of the comments here and I just wanted to say I always thought we should be able to add music to our pages so when someone visits it plays. [/quote]
THAT...will be complicated. I personally think that we do not need to boast music on an art/story site. If you want to listen to music, just turn on your Windows Media Player with your playlist while browsing FAC. -Or put your favorite music links on your profile. I personally do not like going onto someone's profile and hearing their their taste in music, especially if it is screamo or just plain terrible.

[b]FAC Contests:[/b]
[quote]What about better prizes like 1st fac t shirt stuff like that I did with my art students lol shipping is costly but it's fun[/quote]
[quote]maybe have more contests that don't involve holidays[/quote]
OK: [quote]The contests here are a nice touch that dA can't compete with, so don't ever change those. xD[/quote]
I am planning on spreading the contest themes to more random holidays that are not popular. For example, the next contest will actually be celebrating the Autumn Equinox (September 22, 2012), something more broad than Christmas and Halloween. Later, I might spread it to fun stuff like National Watermelon Day, Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day, and Tell a Fairy Tale Day, and see what type of creative things people make! *ideas* Also, I sure wish I had the money to pay for custom FAC t-shirts. I am poor college student. ;___; *beggar* I have designed professional t-shirts before, but after winning the competitions, I would get them for free. If FAC gets popular enough so that the webmaster/other administrators are inspired enough to spread to a t-shirt, the new prize may include a cool t-shirt!

[b]Internal-Site Mailbox:[/b]
[quote]I have another idea instead of getting activy from our emails we should have a inbox for right here to let us know when somebody commented on something. cause somepeople don't go to their emails and never find comments that people said[/quote]
It would be cool to have your own mailbox system within FAC, but that is super de duper complicated as well. I am okay with just checking my email to get FAC notifications. You have to validate your email anyways, so why not just keep using email for FAC (I check my email a lot)? I forgot Denis's opinion on this, so do not officially quote me on anything!

[b]Mobile Compatibility:[/b]
[quote] The staff have accommodated some suggestions of mine in the past especially on the topic of mobile device access. They fixed it when I was unable to access from my phone due to the phones mandatory popup blocker...I would love to see the site even more mobile friendly. We can view the site and galleries and even if you have the right phone submit stories, but submitting art from files on my phone would be awesome. I do a lot of my art while I'm on the run and to be able to submit it from my phone would be epic.[/quote]
[quote]...I usually go on this site with an iPod (some people probably use iPads too), and we should be able to submit art from iPods and iPads (we CAN submit stories and blogs via iPods though)! My iPod has a camera so I take pics of my fanart![/quote]
I am not familiar on mobile phones (have never had to use one), but if we truly cannot submit art, but we can submit stories (strange?), then sure! DENIS YOU GO DO IT, lol

[b]Picture Submitting Limit:[/b]
[quote]able to post 6 pictures? cos 5 is an odd number. i hate odd numbers. uhhhhhhh-[/quote]
[quote]maybe let every user send in as many pictures as they want a day. [/quote]
[quote] maybe waving the 3 pic a day limit for members of good standing would be a good idea. That is the single biggest complaint I hear when chatting with other members. I would suggest, for determining 'good standing' criteria:
-Duration of membership. Six month minimum membership
-0-2 warnings from the staff for behavior/inappropriate content; no suspensions from the site
-Quality of art should not be a consideration without consider age/skill of member in question. Some people simply do not possess a lot of artistic skill, yet their contributions should be just as valid[/quote]
Now that the picture limit has increased to 5 (instead of 6, sorry lack of even number, lol), I think there will be less complaints about the picture limits as time goes by. With shadowfalcon and my approval rate, we have been able to approve pictures in less than 24 hours (shadow = day/random times, luckylace = night), so getting pictures into the database and waiting for comments replaces the need to submit 10+ pictures a little. Also, I have noticed not many users can hit the 5+ benchmark. Only when new users, who have galleries in other websites, want to transfer their art quickly do they hit the 5+ maximum, but you can only submit so much until you have submitted all the specific pictures you want on FAC. The usual average for each member for the approval panel is 1-2 pictures. There is also already the Auto-Approve System for those who have submitted a certain number of following-AC-guidelines pictures. This means that instead of submitting a picture and it going into the approval panel, it gets instantly "approved" and goes right into your gallery. That is basically out "Senior Honor System." If, however, the artist has gotten Auto-Approve, but they display troll-like and reckless behavior in their art afterwards, we are allowed to strip them of their Auto-Approve and monitor their submitting henceforth. If you guys feel you guys want another/stricter form of Submitting Waver, please elaborate.

[b]More Privatized Profiles:[/b]
[quote]Be able to have profiles private for certain users not to get into everyone elses business since that's a big thing with site. I've tried the restricted [watch-list option].[/quote]
I wonder how more private we can get out profiles. There is the option for restricting the profile only to those we "fav," and there is the option to completely disable comments. I suppose this user means to extend the Block system to keep the blocked person from even being able to read your profile comments? I suppose that could work (at least that could keep them from stalking the other a little), but what happens if what you say on your profile hints to the blocked person that there was a misunderstanding, and they send you a PM to correct it? They would not be able to figure that out if they were not able to see anything after you blocked them. It would be an almost complete alienation without any second chance. ;-; I do not know if I interpreted this suggestion correctly. Someone please correct me if I did not.

[b]Text Box/Tools:[/b]
[quote]I think having more text tools might be cool. [/quote]
The new site preview does have a much more user-friendly text-box from what I remember. It certainly does not have "WordArt" or "Make it Glitter" options, but the image, quoting, bolding, etc. tools are much easier to use. I like it a bunch.

[b]Interest/Notifications: [/b]
[quote] The site seems to be losing attention a bit, I know it is payed for by ads and donations, but it might be good to get the name out there again or send some the old members reminders of the site. I don't mean spam them, but tbh I got busy and forgot about the site for a year or so. I was brought back by a glitch in my email that had an old submission notice pop up. All it took for me to come back was a simple reminder of the site. [/quote]
[quote]maybe with the Site News send people notifications in mail; like submissions/etc, on contests or any news added to it? just for those that would want to know about them from here but probably dont sign in as often as others do[/quote]
We could set up a small email notification system for Site News, since they sort of represent just how active we are. If possible, instead of just having the email subjected as "FAC Site News Update," we could have a copy of the new site news in the email description so the user does not just put it in spam (I would be too lazy to go on the art website to see the site news, ha).
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[luckylace222]

[size=15]*drinks some water*[/size]
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[luckylace222]

[b]Groups/Chatting:[/b]
[quote]Paintchat seems to be popular and would maybe bring some life back to the site?[/quote]
[quote]Chat Rooms, or private chats rather than PMs, and stuff. deviantART seems to be doing well on that, and it makes more sence to comment on an artists profile about their general art, rather than "Hi how are you?"[/quote]
[quote]i think a shoutbox/chatbox like you would see on elitelinerider.com would be cool.[/quote]
[quote]Private chats, instead of PMs[/quote]
[quote]My only suggestions would be private chatrooms because PMs are kind of..well, they aren't functional chatrooms where multiple can join in a conversation, you know? And perhaps to get more unknown artists here NOTICED we could try creating "groups" with specific themes that people can submit their art to, something like what they have on DeviantART. I've heard that that's become a huge success.[/quote]
[quote]I have another idea have groups like DA does[/quote]
I WILL MOST DEFINITIVELY VOUCH FOR THE GROUP IDEA. I know this could be a complicated idea as well, but I have been wanting to set up a Comic-Makers Club (instead of calling them "groups," call them "clubs") for the longest time. However, spamming most if not all of FAC to join my unofficial club which would consist of maybe only a blog post (which are unpopular anyways), was not going to cut it. Denis, maybe we could make a separate "Club" page on FAC where, to register as an official club, you would have to 1. Design your own Club Name and Logo (avatar) 2. Have at least 5 members (that number could increase as this idea gets popular) ready to sign up [those members avatars could be featured on the Club page]. Nothing more complicated has to happen with these clubs; it is just a place for people, who are apart of the club, to share their interests and share their new club-related pictures/interests. You could even have in-club contests. The person who starts the club would be the "President," and users would have to ask on the president's main site profile to join the club (so they can comment on the club's page's comment section). YEAH. SOMETHING LIKE THAT [img]http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll226/crimson_sphere/_Emoticons_/th_rlyplz.png[/img] I KNOW IT IS A LOT TO ASK FOR, BUT I STILL WANT TO BELIEVE. You know, there used to be a chat system on FAC, but it kept getting dominated by trolls, so they dissolved the system. Now that our troll population is much lower, we could try it again if the administrators want. I am kind of okay with "chatting" on the profiles since I cannot ALWAYS just talk about art on those profiles, but I guess setting up a Paint Chat or Chatting FAC system would not hurt.

[b]Story Popularity:[/b]
[quote]I wish the Stories system could be brought to more attention. It may sound like a case of, "Oh, if people wanna read, they'll read it." But I feel a part of it is also on the admins of the site, because the main focus is usually pictures. I mean the main reason I hardly ever even come on here is because I only post stories and no one reads. I understand that this is an art site and when most people think of art, they think of pictures, drawings, and things like that. But writing is a form of art. It's just as hard to paint a picture with words, as it is to come up with a good drawing. I have a suggestion as to what could be done to help more attention be brought to stories. Maybe make a "Featured Stories" tab on the Main site? Something that could draw attention from the pictures for a bit? [/quote]
[quote]As a member who will write more than draw, a 'featured author' section would be nice, with separate sections for fan fiction and original creations.[/quote]
[quote]There should be a "Featured Stories/Poems" list on the title page alongside the "Featured Art." It only seems fair.[/quote]
ISH: [quote]it would be nice to be notified for story comments they no longer get in my yahoo emails for me in or being notified if you have been faved i get faved sometimes and not notified anymore either[/quote]
On the new site preview, there is a "tab" system where you can navigate and see the Story section easier then before. I think Denis is looking into having a Featured Stories (if we can get the right site helpers to study stories enough) and even put a "Favorite Stories" feature in our profiles like we have with "Favorite Pictures." Thus, stories will be given more attention for the next update! No worries! We might be able to set up a Featured Author system too...but I cannot volunteer myself for finding a featured Author. ;__; I am already preoccupied with Featured pictures. Perhaps in a later time- LATTERR time, we can find a site helper that is more geared towards writing that could help us there.

[b]Recent Pictures:[/b]
[quote]i think that the Recent Pictures could be a little Bigger.. Instead of having 4 pictures Up you could make it to like 6 or 12 ~...cause the main Page just Looks to Small ><[/quote]
The new site version has 12 recent pictures, 12 popular works, and 6 featured pictures on the front page, much more than the original!

[b]Photography:[/b]
[quote]approvl of pet piks we post or try to post[/quote]
Meh. I think this website will stay just-art and not photography for a long time. Sorry! Plus, photography is so easy to steal.

[b]Miscellaneous:[/b]
[quote]I WOULD like it if the spoiler/ideological sensitive filters where separate. Having spoiler marked as "I" is a bit...misleading[/quote]
I guess we could mark it as "S" from now on...or maybe "I" counted as "Information?" I never really thought about it until now.
[quote]a purpose for the "Full/Alternate Name" Box. Prehaps the ability to display it on your profile or to replace your user name? Kinda like how Steam and a few other sites do~.[/quote]
I am also confused as to what that "Alternative Name" box was for. It did nto really showcase publicly.
[quote]The category system could be a little more neat and organized, and more aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes you have to click next to the folder to open it[/quote]
In the new site preview, the category system will be easier to navigate (it is a list system). I am not sure if that is a aesthetically pleasing, but it is indeed more neat and organized.
[quote]Also backing the browse categories button more obvious, sometimes I forget where it is and I've been here since 2004![/quote]
;-; Unfortunately, it is in the same position it has always been on the new site version. I personally have not had trouble finding it. However, for the forums section, it took me 2 years of FAC to find the forums. Maybe because it was not publicized much. I usually just used the search bar tool to find anything I wanted (the search bar needs to get better though).
[quote]. Oh and they need to crack down on the voting and blocking system. As in keeping ppls you blocked from voting on pics. And as I said before with someone linking your picture without your permission. Snuff that out. As in example: A troll links your picture to a blog or something to laugh at it. After seeing this, you can simply kill off the link without the hassle of reuploading the pic. =P[/quote]
I use the old Silver Layout 2.0, so I never cared about the voting good/bad system. The Favorite system was all I needed. That could be an extension to the Block option, yes. I am not sure how deep you can make that blocking power. I also wonder if "killing off a link" completely is that easy. Surely, they can find some way of posting your artwork if they wanted to. That "___ links to this picture" is only so accurate. Some of my pictures linked to pages that already got pulled off the Internet or random porn sites. I once got a Badminton site. Thus, I do not worry about those.
[quote]Things I want off: -Meaningless forums from years ago[/quote]
I do know that the administrators have "cleaned up" many forum posts from before.
[quote] I would personally like it if you could add in a "disturbing/horror content" warning. I mean, you can have a violence warning, a language warning, a nudity warning... and many submissions don't posess any of those, and yet they're still very disturbing. I suppose I'm thinking mainly about the horror genre here. [/quote]
I usually do not think horror needs to be censored. If it is just creepy, then that is okay. However, REALLY REALLY disturbing horror usually has blood or some form of eerie death to it. that is when the Violence rating can be "squeezed" in there. A Drug Abuse rating would not be so bad, but not many pictures have that theme here anyways.
[quote][Emotioncons]: yes dont add them please i get annoyed seeing them alot of times from other sites and they...dont always look so cute...
their more like creepy[/quote]
I thought the forum emotions were cute. ;__; I would not mind them on the main page, but if some people do not like them, and we implement them, there could always be a "Deactivate Emotioncons" button under "Edit Profile."
[quote]I have something against the search engine too. I typed in Captain America, and my DMG picture showed up in it...Maybe it's because I was talking about Cap in the description, but it looks so out of place there. xD That's just a personal OCD sort of issue though, so IDK. [/quote]
Yes, I have noticed that the Search Engine is extremely fickle with that keyword system. Instead of finding a picture only if it had that keyword in the title and description, we could also have it linked to the comments section too? Also, there could be a Spellcheck system on the search engine so if we get a username wrong, it could say "No Username found. Did you mean this?" I honestly had to use Google Search to find specific FAc users because it was quicker.
[quote]a few people come on this amazing site and are very rude and just well....RUDE. I wish that there was an easier way to get them off of here so others could enjoy FAC without someone commenting on their profile and being jerks. It's happened to me about 3 times and I just ignore them[/quote]
Unfortunately, that cannot be helped. Block the idiots, and if they really get on your nerves/do something extremely prohibited, report them.

[b]Satisfaction:[/b]
[quote]I don't have many ideas,really,I am quite happy with how things.||D[/quote]
[quote]Oh, about the staff! They're full of epicness that's over 9000, which means REALLY good [/quote]
[quote]This site is pretty good. I don't really have much to complain about.[/quote]
[quote]I have to say the site is epic and i have enjoyed it for years, Anyway, thanks for the place to pass out a few ideas. Love ya guys as always for being here. [/quote]
[quote]I'm actually quite comfortable with the site as it is. Other than the bugs, they usually get fixed in due time[/quote]
[quote]bwhahah i couldnt help it i Liked this Site a Whole lot and its friendlier .3.[/quote]
[quote]personally i think fac is good as it is, since it has its own thing going on[/quote]
[quote]The FAC staff has always been punctual about replying to my posts or emails, and addressing any problems I have had.[/quote]
[quote]As for the site... I've always liked how it hasn't changed much since I first found it in 2005. [/quote]
[quote]I don't really know what to say. This site is just lovely.[/quote]
[quote]I love the sight as it is. Though I don't mind changes as well as long as it isn't to the point where I don't know how to navigate the site anymore.[/quote]
[quote]I'm pretty darn okay with the site as it is. ^-^[/quote]
It is nice to know we are doing something right!
ISH: [quote]Hmmm, well let's see. Everyone is doing a good job, but a few mods need to be on more than every other month. Not fair that they leave poor lil lucky with all the work ya know? xP[/quote]
[img]http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs4/1940520_o.gif[/img] [b]I KNOW RIGHT?![/b] Lol, just kidding. Battou, Stratadrake, and Denis honestly never boast about their accomplishments for this site like they should.[/quote]
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[luckylace222]

[size=15]I just created this in half a day. Someone pat me on the back. [/size]
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[VictorAndLizzy]

[color=darkblue]Ok, first of all, I'd really like to thank lukylace for going out of her way and actually reaching out to the community the way she did. Whether or not is was asked from her by one of the higher ups, it is a really kind hearted thing to do for the site. Thanks Lucky! It's kind gestures like these that makes a community strong, no matter the number of people in it!

Ok, so I just wanted to mention that it would be GREAT to have contest pages? Like, my idea of a contest page would be y'know, a page, that looks an awful lot like a regular submition piece. with the "description" being used as a "rules and regulations" section, and right under that, instead of the comments, we could have clickable thumbnails of all the entries that have been submitted?

I can imagine the "Building Page" for it like this:

I am on my profile and I fo to the right side of the screen (where it says "edit profile" etc) and I click on "Create A Contest"! It'll ask me for a picture created by me (To give an example of what I want the contestants to draw) and ask for "Rules and Regulations"! Now, as for the entries, maybe we could have boxes where we can copy and paste the links to so when we "update" the contest, they'll start appearing on the page?

As for the "Winners" There can be options for that too, same thing with the thumbnails, obviously with 1st being the biggest thumbnail, 2nd being medium and 3rd being small, again with a "description" for all three, to let people know the judges oppinions on them! Remember, the thumbnails will replace the original main picture the artist used to set an example with!

OK! I hope I was able to get the image in for you guys! Think about it though! This could go for writing as well! Poetry contests, short story variables, this could work either way!

This is all I can really think of right now, contests have been a lil something that happens (or atleast used to happen) a lot here in the FAC, so lets make it more comfortable to work with, using building tools, and other sstuff I'm sure you guys can come up with!

Thank you guys so much for giving us your time![/color]

[tofuproductionz]

Big thank you to Luckylace222 for all her hard work and accomplishing it in such a short time! What I really like about this site is that people actually CARE about our little community that we have here.

And another shoutout to Victor because I agree we should have a contest page. That was the main thing that I noticed about his submission. It looked too much like a regular one, and if no one bothered to scroll down, they probably wouldn't have realized it was a contest. So definitely, a contest page with all the ongoing contests.

I'm going to bring up the notification system thing I had qualms about a few months back when I commented. But it would be reeeeealllly nice if we had a notification system similar to the PM notification system. I'd like to be able to just click and get to see what messages I get instead of having my e-mail open in another tab because I'm waiting for an urgent reply. I know there's a lot of complicated programming involved, but it would be nice and convenient.

Again, thank you Sugarco-...er...I mean Lucky for giving us your time and effort!

[Stratadrake]

On the subject of changing usernames:

We've seen at least one user changing their username almost [i]daily[/i]. I personally only received one or two complaints about it, but I did talk about it over PM with the user in question, who soon told me they had chosen a long-term/permanent username . . . only to abandon it within 48 hours and go back to picking more names daily. WTF?

I am not unblocking their IP address again [i]ever[/i]. If you violate the trust of a site admin, break that olive branch, you [i]will[/i] see consequences of it.

I feel it was a mistake to even mention the subject of "changing usernames" on the official TOS page, because while this person wasn't specifically trolling or harassing, their constant username changes definitely smack of bending rules, creates a lot of trouble for [i]anyone[/i] who wants to keep track of her, and is just annoying in general / wasting available username space.

For a comparison, one of deviantART's new features is the ability to change usernames. It has a number of restrictions though, for good reason:
[list][*]You must be a paid subscriber in order to use the feature. (This alone eliminates 99% of expected abuse, because only people who care enough about having a permanent account to [i]pay[/i] for it even have access to the feature.)
[*]Limit one username change per six months.
[*]Your old username becomes permanently unusable, no one else can register that name ever again.[/list:u]
That being said, their feature includes:
[list][*]All your personal content (gallery, faves, watchlist) is retained and transferred over. Watchers are also explicitly notified.
[*]Your userpage gets a note added next to the username saying (formerly [i][old username][/i])
[*]All links using your old name (since deviantart builds its URLs this way) will redirect to the same link under your new name.[/list:u]

I think we could possibly implement some kind of "name change" type system on FAC that is similar to theirs, but it would also have to have some restrictions:
[list][*][color=red]"Just because you CAN change your username doesn't mean you SHOULD."[/color] (Yes, this is not an actual restriction, it just needs to be said anyway.)
[*]Username changes are filed as requests to be processed (approved or denied) by an admin-level staff member. If the user has a current request on the books, they can check up on its status at any time.
[*]There is a mandatory wait period (six months, year, etc.) between filing a new username request. The initial registration is also considered a "new username". The system will simply not allow you to file a new request if the wait period hasn't expired, and [b]this wait period is not shown to the user[/b].
[*]The system also tracks how many change-name requests a user has filed [i]total[/i], regardless of whether those requests were approved or not. This information is shown for administrative reference when reviewing a given request.
[*]This will [b]not[/b] change the numeric ID internally assigned to your account, only the screen name that is stored alongside it. This means that all comments, gallery content, faves, watchlist/blocklist are "carried over" to the new name, because they are not actually changing at all (all that data is stored using your user ID, not name).
[*]Just like with registering a new account, the old screen name is still "taken" and can no longer be registered. Admin-level staff members [i]can[/i] possibly have the ability to override this, but (in practice) generally won't.[/list:u]
_________________
Strata here: [url=http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/242293]Nanowrimo[/url] - [url=www.fanart-central.net/user-Stratadrake.php]FAC[/url] - [url=http://stratadrake.deviantart.com]dA[/url] - [url=www.furaffinity.net/user/Stratadrake/]FA[/url]
[size=9]Disclaimer: Posts may contain URLs. Click [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]at your own risk.[/url][/size]

[Stratadrake]

And for some miscellaneous comments:

[b]Blog/journal comments[/b] - Indeed, this is a must. It might be possible in a patch, but I'd need to go get my Apache and PHP running again and start actively testing again, haven't done that in a while.

[b]Gallery folders[/b] - Partially implemented, possibly patchable, but requires further testing and refinements.

[b]Music on profiles:[/b] No, no, Midi Hell no. This is just one of those ideas that sounds a loot cooler than it actually is in practice. If you've never gone to a Geocities/Angelfire/Myspace site and had to turn off your volume because you couldn't stand whatever trash the website decided to shovel through your speakers, count yourself lucky. Most webpages are made to be seen, not heard, so unless there's pretty strong fundamental reason the site needs a multimedia presentation to begin with, it's best to just not go there at all.

[b]On-site notifications instead of email:[/b] Every other site has it, and for good reason: It encourages users to check in regularly. And when users check in regularly, they post/participate regularly. Traffic goes up and that is good.

What does having email notifications do? It encourages you to check your EMAIL regularly, which while not bad by itself, means you don't check in to the SITE as much, and traffic goes down.

[quote]I WOULD like it if the spoiler/ideological sensitive filters where separate. Having spoiler marked as "I" is a bit...misleading[/quote]
Spoiler icon is indeed an "i" for "information", partly because "S" was already in use for the Sexual advisory. If anyone can think up a good spoiler symbol that you can actually see at icon resolution, go ahead and post ideas. I agree that spoilers are not the same thing thematically as other forms of mature content, but they are currently managed by the same system internally and that nonetheless does make the code easier.

[quote]Oh and they need to crack down on the voting and blocking system. As in keeping ppls you blocked from voting on pics. And as I said before with someone linking your picture without your permission. Snuff that out. As in example: A troll links your picture to a blog or something to laugh at it. After seeing this, you can simply kill off the link without the hassle of reuploading the pic. =P[/quote]

As noted, blocking only affects comments, it does not affect faves or voting. Keep in mind that only registered users can cast votes; you will NEVER get random downvotes out of the blue from drive-by unregistered trolls ... however, one thing the current system sorely does lack is administrative oversight: There is no way, even for site admins, to reveal the exact spread of votes for/against a given piece or a user's voting habits overall. I agree there is no need to [i]necessarily[/i] reveal individual votes to anyone (admins included), but it would certainly be nice to see the overall voting pattern (up/down/friends/etc.) cast by a user or on a given piece.

[quote]I have something against the search engine too. I typed in Captain America, and my DMG picture showed up in it...Maybe it's because I was talking about Cap in the description, but it looks so out of place there. xD That's just a personal OCD sort of issue though, so IDK.[/quote]
If you mention the [i]words[/i] "Captain America" somewhere in your submission then it must appear [i]somewhere[/i] in the results when you search for those words. That is the whole point of having a search engine in the first place! So the real matter is search relevancy: The search engine SHOULD give greater weight to picture keywords over random words in rambling descriptions, but in practice the existing "Relevancy" option never seemed to work right in the first place.

And, BTW, trying to search-index user posted comments is simply not worth the trouble, since comments are even less likely to be relevant to the search than a random description.
_________________
Strata here: [url=http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/242293]Nanowrimo[/url] - [url=www.fanart-central.net/user-Stratadrake.php]FAC[/url] - [url=http://stratadrake.deviantart.com]dA[/url] - [url=www.furaffinity.net/user/Stratadrake/]FA[/url]
[size=9]Disclaimer: Posts may contain URLs. Click [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]at your own risk.[/url][/size]

[SweetxinsanityxSarah]

Haha I spotted a few of my comments in there. And dang much kudos Lucky. -patpatpatz- This much posting would have killed me. xD
And where did the other green colored mods run off to? We only have Shadow and Lucky nowadays. Did they hang up their uniforms or..? oo

And YES TO THE CHAT! I'm addicted to the dragon ball wikia chat room thanks to that feature. xD (I'm the one annoying everyone about 17 over there lmao.)
_________________
Our life is made by the death of others...
~Leonardo Da Vinci

[VictorAndLizzy]

[quote]We've seen at least one user changing their username almost daily. I personally only received one or two complaints about it, but I did talk about it over PM with the user in question, who soon told me they had chosen a long-term/permanent username . . . only to abandon it within 48 hours and go back to picking more names daily. WHAT YOU SAY? [/quote]



[quote]For a comparison, one of deviantART's new features is the ability to change usernames. It has a number of restrictions though, for good reason:
You must be a paid subscriber in order to use the feature. (This alone eliminates 99% of expected abuse, because only people who care enough about having a permanent account to pay for it even have access to the feature.)
Limit one username change per six months.
Your old username becomes permanently unusable, no one else can register that name ever again.

That being said, their feature includes:
All your personal content (gallery, faves, watchlist) is retained and transferred over. Watchers are also explicitly notified.
Your userpage gets a note added next to the username saying (formerly [old username])
All links using your old name (since deviantart builds its URLs this way) will redirect to the same link under your new name.[/quote]

[color=darkblue]Ok, while I about agree 70% with Strata on this, another big chunk of me says that paying for this site is a little over the top, unless it is of course reasonable. I wouldnt mind paying about 5 bucks for this site monthly, infact, if the features are grand (Like having slide shows, letting us have two featured artworks, lettung us do commisions, lettingour journal be visible on our profile instead of having to click on it to view, and letting us re-arrange our profile [comments being ontop, profile in the middle, and featured art on the left, stuff like that] ) Then that would be a marvelous idea! Though I believe that changing your username is something that can be dealt with by charging every time a user changes their username.

Charge around 10 bucks to transfer everything to their new username, from pictures to contest entries, and if possible, their favourite pictures/artists. The only reason I do believe this will rid of users doing so is because, think about it guys. The users that change, are usualy kids, or pre-teens that have little to no access to a credit card. They CAN ask their parents, but what would their parents say if they suddenly changed their username daily? They won't pay 10 bucks a day just so their child can be messin' around and do next to nothing with a profile. Even if their parents DID do so, would'nt that mean a lil more revenue? The money made from monhly subscriptions and username charges can be used for so many things, I'm sure!

We can finally get merchandise, maybe we can have stuffed FAC kitties, or shirts, n' hats, that can be used as prizes for contests made by administrators! Or the revenue brought from us can help the site expand, maybe advertise, or just make the website bigger and better with maybe a new server, or engine, it can help out in so many ways.

This I'm sure of though, charging for every time you change a username will rid of the ones who do it for fun. 50 bucks a week? I don't think so, I'd rather pay my 5/10 bucks a month for my amazing features, keep my username and have a grand time on this website.

PLEASE don't make paying a must though. We like it free, just, you know, here's what I think.


FREE users: Get to have all the features we've got, get to have the same system, but get charged every time they want to change their username.

SUBSCRIBED users: Get to re-arrange their profile, if possible, they can personalize it as well (colors etc), and can change their username once every six months if necessary. Also, they could be able to submit art work more often, instead of just 5 bucks daily. Our journals made visible, and have maybe that in-website notification for about 10 bucks, maybe even then I'd pay 15 bucks a month for it! (The price can fluctuate, I'm just saying how much I would be willing to pay).

I don't know if you guys would take that into consideration?[/color]

[Falconlobo]

did you read my comments on your pro Lucky about not being notified anymore for Story comments replies and not being notified if faved as an artist by email anymore at least on Yahoo
_________________
The Eclectic Collector
random note to anyone i saw a Ups truck being towed by a tow truck lol
if a computer and keyboard had a punctuation semi-colon cleaning would it be a semi-colonoscopy

[img]http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/esmtie14/2hpoaao.gif[/img]
LOL dancing TMNT's

[cstdenis]

[b]Age Limit:[/b] People lie, no reasonable way to verrify. Pointless.

[b]Blog Popularity & Comments: [/b] Blog comments were always planned, but were delayed because an overhaul of the comment system was needed first. Not sure about the vote/popularity iem.

[b]Username Change:[/b] This comes with technicial problems -- problems that will become worse in the new URL system. It is also a potential serious abuse issue. And just generally confusing to people. In order to do it, those items all need to be addressed somehow.

[b]Gallery Folders: [/b] This was in the works in the old next version (before the current rewrite), but was scapped for now due to complexity. The new tabs system may make it more feisable to impliment in the not too distant future.

[b]Logo:[/b] The problem with the last logo contest is there were too few submissions of good enough quality to use.

[b]Changing FAC Layout:[/b] New site version uses an updated version of Silver.

[b]Music Player:[/b] No...just no...

[b]FAC Contests: [/b] The t-shirts and stuff just never really worked very well.

[b]Internal-Site Mailbox: [/b] The forums PM system was supposed to do this, but the mainsite integration was buggy and had to be removed. Maybe someday.

[b]Mobile Compatibility: [/b] Better support for iPhone, etc is included in the new version. Submitting art from iPhone is impossible due to iPhone limitations. I think it works from the less restrictive android tho.

[b]Picture Submitting Limit:[/b] I can set this at whatever the AP staff think they can handel.

[b]More Privatized Profiles:[/b] If there is data you dont want public, dont put it in your profile 0.o

[b]Text Box/Tools: [/b] Coming in new version. Don't expect super fancy stuff like WordArt ever, people would abuse it making everything look like crap (see MySpace).

[b]Interest/Notifications: [/b] Site news notifications isn't a bad idea.

[b]*drinks some water*[/b] Gotta keep hydrated

[b]Groups/Chatting: [/b] Private chatrooms would just be a source of trouble I think, but groups/clubs/clans/etc is something I would like to add at some point.

[b]Story Popularity: [/b] luckylace222 more or less covered it.

[b]Recent Pictures: [/b] New front page is still being tweeked a bit, number of columns may go down by one, but will probably keep 2 rows.

[b]Photography: [/b] FAC isn't photobucket/imgur. If it's artistic photography try our sister site [url=http://www.photo-lucidity.com/]Photo Lucidity[/url]

[b]Miscellaneous: [/b]

* I'm not sure what "ideological sensitive" is supposed to mean...

* Full/Alternate Name - that was kind of the original purpose. This may be usable in some form for the username change thing.

* Category system - Strata manages the category hirarchy mostly, talk to him if you think it needs better orginized. As for the folder clicking, it's been removed in the next version.

* I can't do anything about people being blind to basic site navigation links

* "As in keeping ppls you blocked from voting on pics." I'll look into this for next version. "killing off a link" isn't feisable. Trolls are gonna troll. The "sites linking to this picture" is being removed tho.

* More ratings will be added eventually, but not next version

* Mainsite emoticons may or may not come along with the new text editor.

* Search engine only looks at stuff in title, description, and keywords. Username search got somewhat crippled at some point for privacy reasons.



* pats luckylace222 on the back* Great job collecting feedback.


[quote]I am on my profile and I fo to the right side of the screen (where it says "edit profile" etc) and I click on "Create A Contest"! [/quote]
Another thing I would like to add, but just haven't gotten around to yet.
_________________
You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[luckylace222]

[quote]did you read my comments on your pro Lucky about not being notified anymore for Story comments replies and not being notified if faved as an artist by email anymore at least on Yahoo[/quote]
I did include that question in my above posts, but I am starting to think that may be a problem on your side individually. I do not write stories, so I am not familiar with getting comment notifications for stories. Go ahead and ask some other story writing FAC users if they have been receiving notifications.

The Fav Artist notification should be working...maybe you could re-validate it?
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[Falconlobo]

i always updated and checked those things and it never updates
_________________
The Eclectic Collector
random note to anyone i saw a Ups truck being towed by a tow truck lol
if a computer and keyboard had a punctuation semi-colon cleaning would it be a semi-colonoscopy

[img]http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/esmtie14/2hpoaao.gif[/img]
LOL dancing TMNT's

[Stratadrake]

[quote="VictorAndLizzy"]Ok, while I about agree 70% with Strata on this, another big chunk of me says that paying for this site is a little over the top, unless it is of course reasonable. I wouldnt mind paying about 5 bucks for this site monthly, infact, if the features are grand (Like having slide shows, letting us have two featured artworks, lettung us do commisions, lettingour journal be visible on our profile instead of having to click on it to view, and letting us re-arrange our profile [comments being ontop, profile in the middle, and featured art on the left, stuff like that] ) Then that would be a marvelous idea! Though I believe that changing your username is something that can be dealt with by charging every time a user changes their username.[/quote]
The subject of paid accounts has been tossed around in the staff forum but nothing pertinent has come of it yet, since two things that need to be decided is (1) what is a reasonable rate to charge users, and (2) what kind of special features (beyond "no ads") are useful enough to be worth the price established by #1. #1 requires more thinking, but #2 requires more actual work.

[quote]...PLEASE don't make paying a must though.[/quote]
Yes, that is the basic idea.

[quote]Strata manages the category hirarchy mostly, talk to him if you think it needs better orginized. As for the folder clicking, it's been removed in the next version.[/quote]
Yes, yes it does totally need better overall organization. A major architectural limitation is how pictures can only belong to [i]one[/i] category, but a given picture depicting multiple things may be related to several categories. An ability to create "virtual" categories (e.g. combining a given category with a keyword search) could address that: Pictures still belong to only one category, but each category has its own keywords that you can make preset searches for.
_________________
Strata here: [url=http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/242293]Nanowrimo[/url] - [url=www.fanart-central.net/user-Stratadrake.php]FAC[/url] - [url=http://stratadrake.deviantart.com]dA[/url] - [url=www.furaffinity.net/user/Stratadrake/]FA[/url]
[size=9]Disclaimer: Posts may contain URLs. Click [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]at your own risk.[/url][/size]

[Battou]

[b]Age Limit:[/b]
I do not feel this is really necessary. I know how kids can be at times but Everyone starts somewhere.

[b]Username Change:[/b]
No, I do not feel this is really appropriate. Both Strata and Denis covered this pretty well, but as the third admin I do have to contribute to this. I personally feel the implementation of a DA style name change option is going to prove more trouble than it's worth. In the beginning I would imagine an onslaught of requests with a percentage in the high nineties rejected for insufficient reason then it falling off to little if any more than we all ready get. Yes, we do get some name change requests, and most of them are rejected for that very reason. Nine times out of ten it's simply because they don't want to go through the hassle of uploading all their pics again.

As it stands right now one needs one of two things to get a name change, A damn good reason, or an acceptable reason for a change that is so insignificant no one is even going to notice. Several years ago I had my name changed. My reason was I had just recently been added to the administrative staff and the change I wanted had a more professional look that no one would have noticed (and never did BTW, even the admin who processed it does not remember what the change was).

What are good reasons, well, it varies. Personally my self as an admin, I would consider a "good reason" situations like if a user decides to shed the whole anonymity element of a "User Name" and wants to convert their gallery into their real name, or a user has various accounts across FAC, DA, FA, EW and what not and wants to to synchronize their usernames across all sites, or maybe a user all ready using their real name got married and took their spouses name and wants their username to be updated, These are a couple of reason I would consider granting a name change for, but I would not guarantee it, I would want some proof to be honest.

Long and short of it, too easy to abuse, implementation efforts would require regular valid use to warrant that is not expected and the system we all ready have in place is more efficient and practical.

[b]Gallery Folders:[/b]
Love it, can't wait to see it in action.

[b]Changing Pheral Logo:[/b]
Denis covered this really well. There was simply insufficient material to work with, we got lucky with the Getty image. I really hoped we would have attracted more of the artists in the ball park of his caliber and beyond but we just didn't get it.

Some new contests may be in order, but those will need some administrative drafting and refining before they make it to the public. I honestly think I rushed the process of the last one and that is why we are seeing this request popping up so frequently. Next one needs to be more refined and hopefully generate better results.

[b]*passes out from dehydration*[/b]
_________________
[b]RPG[/b]-[i]n[/i]. A computer programing language designed for business reporting that generates specific programs from the users specifications.([b]R[/b]eport [b]P[/b]rogram [b]G[/b]enerator)[i]The American Heritage Dictionary[/i]

[u][url=http://www.photo-lucidity.com/user-Battou.php]Photo-Lucidity[/url][/u] - [u][url=http://www.fanart-central.net/user-battou.php]FaAC[/url][/u] - [u][url=http://www.funart-central.net/user-Battou.php]FuAC[/url][/u] - [u][url=http://forums.fanart-central.net/index.php]Joke of the day[/url][/u]

[cstdenis]

[quote]A major architectural limitation is how pictures can only belong to one category, but a given picture depicting multiple things may be related to several categories. [/quote]
Database design lets pictures be in multiple categories, but it was never used to to performance issues. Once the caching I have planned is implimented this may be able to start happening.
_________________
You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[luckylace222]

[quote]If anyone can think up a good spoiler symbol that you can actually see at icon resolution, go ahead and post ideas. I agree that spoilers are not the same thing thematically as other forms of mature content, but they are currently managed by the same system internally and that nonetheless does make the code easier. [/quote]
I looked up synonyms for words close to "spoiler," and I could not find anything relevant enough. I guess we will stay with "I" for spoiler, although I never found a need for them since not many people draw really really intense spoilers.

[quote]Picture Submitting Limit: I can set this at whatever the AP staff think they can handel. [/quote]
I bet I could handle more. Maybe we could have a high enough limit that it almost feels like there are no limit in the first place. I do not think it is going to triple my approving time because hardly anybody can hit the 5+ mark right now. We could set it to 8.

[quote]Photography: FAC isn't photobucket/imgur. If it's artistic photography try our sister site Photo Lucidity [/quote]
So...how IS Photo Lucidity going? I have not heard much about it. I noticed the same featured photos were up since 2011.

[quote]I'm not sure what "ideological sensitive" is supposed to mean... [/quote]
I think the person mean "ideological sensitive filters" as all the other ratings/warnings other than the spoiler rating. She/he may have thought spoiler should not be considered a "rating" with the other ones like "Violence" and "Sexuality?" I THINK that is what he/she meant. U;

[quote]More ratings will be added eventually, but not next version [/quote]
What ratings are you thinking of? Someone suggested making the homosexual ratings less anime-ish (ex: yaoi, yuri) and calling it LGBT, but I do not know how we could split it up into malexmale and femalexfemale. I always thought "gay" was not truly a correct political term....but so is yaoi/yuri. Haha.

Is it too late to ever think of a profile views system? Or maybe a "boasting" status like "Number of Users who have Faved this Artist" statistic on someone's profile?

Someone also said they wanted "Picture of the Hour" back. What is that? Was it the best rated recent picture featured on the front page? I do not remember it when I joined.
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[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[Battou]

[b]Music Player:[/b]
Although this has been covered, I'll say it again....No. I do not want to be blasted with random music at randumb times. If you really want to listen to music wile you browse the site put a CD into your sound system and listen to it in the privacy of your home. If that just not enough, there are hundreds of online radio stations you can tap into wile online.

[b]FAC Contests:[/b]
I too have been rolling some ideas around for contests, As I mentioned in my last post there may be some new Pheral Logo contests in the future. I am also waiting to see how the Firefox personas work out. I am considering offering featuring a contest winners art work in an official FAC personas if they are acceptably received.

[b]Picture Submitting Limit:[/b]

[quote][color=red]-Quality of art should not be a consideration without consider age/skill of member in question. Some people simply do not possess a lot of artistic skill, yet their contributions should be just as valid[/color][/quote]

I'm sorry but yes it should. No I am not saying we are rejecting works because they don't live up to our standards like FAC's redheaded bastard kid has been doing. What I am saying though is the picture limit that we have is a multi pronged element think of it like a fork.

I have all ways been a major advocate for maintaining the three pictures a day. It is designed to keep APQ requests at a manageable level on the staff end. Back when I first started here I was working the approval panel with a full team of users including one known to process two to three hundred pictures a day not to mention my self processing just short of a thousand pics in my first two weeks, over two thousand in the following month, this all with the original system in place. Back then it was three pics a day and users really had to work to get auto approval status. We used to get so backed up despite a team of thirteen members processing images in the APQ it wasn't funny. It was for that reason we decided to reduce the qualifications for auto approval, A decision I still disagree with but it did make the APQ manageable again.

It is also there to promote growth of our users. This touches on our not setting an age limit on the site. Everybody starts somewhere, but at the same time we are NOT Deviant art's kiddy pool. Sorry, but Mommy and Daddy are bias, we can not be. Seriously, if you are pushing out five, ten or even fifteen pictures a day, you are not even looking at your pictures any more and if you are not looking at it you are not getting any better. I work with children for a living so I can safely say that in order to promote growth you have to make them think for them selves. Ultimately the restricted pictures a day limit is supposed to make users stop and think, "Well, I can only submit three pictures a day....What is the point in cranking out five pictures today. Why not spend all day on one or two and make it really nice and extra special" If we don't make them stop and think they are more likely to become complacent. There are some users who suffer from the complacency I refer to on the site, one suffering so badly staff have had to step in on multiple occasions to deal with the ridicule the user gets for her pattern of submitting the maximum number of the same type of works every day for the last ten years like clock work. When her three pics would come up in the recent pics box I knew the day marker had flipped over type of clock work. With out fail, the first three submissions a day were hers. These are habits that should be broken somewhere along the lines, this limit is the best way for us to do that without invalidating their work and effort.

It also is one of the first lines of defense agents art theft uploads. When people are serious about stealing art and calling it their own, they will steal entire galleries, years of a persons work. Only being able to submit three images a day slows them down just enough for the site staff to spot the possibility of it and begin investigating the authenticity of the account. A lot of people on the site do not know this but there is a thread in the staff forum that documents instances of users submitting three very high quality images a day, the kind of quality that takes a week to achieve. Ninety percent of the names in that thread are banned for confirmed art theft. Wile yes, we would spot them just as quickly if they uploaded fifteen or twenty works but, when fifteen or twenty works gets hung up in the approval system for days or even weeks wile we try to confirm or deny authenticity we risk loosing the user, A problem if the user turns out to be authentic. On the other side of the coin, we approve fifteen to twenty or more stolen works, that is fifteen to twenty stolen images we now have to remove, sometimes even with a written apology to the rightful owner.

There are other more trivial elements to the three a day cap but these are the heavy hitters that users need to know and understand when looking at the images per day cap. Subsequently these three keys need to be considered and addressed when discussing altering the cap.


[b]More Privatized Profiles:[/b]
This is a feature created for the end user, not administrative users. From what I have read so far we have a system in place, being an admin I don't use it and admins can see through it, that said I don't understand how it works so I have no insight on how to improve it.

[b]Interest/Notifications: [/b]
We did just this some time ago with a news letter. Problem is, I am not a very good writer and I wrote it. luckylace if you want to try your hand at writing a new news letter, draft it and post it up in the staff section and we'll see if we can't get it in the mail.

[b]Groups/Chatting:[/b]
Some time ago I brought an idea to Denis and Strata about incorporating a friends system similar to that found on Facebook with the intent to enable utilizing the same chat system used on Facebook. The chat system on Facebook is something they outsourced, meaning it was not developed by Facebook staff and is not exclusive to Facebook so we can get out hands on it and use it too. This system is really the best way to prevent chat trolling. Unfortunately our initial efforts did not work, there were serious integration problems. I do not know if the research continued beyond the failures we had during those sessions of recon.

[quote="luckylace222"][quote]Photography: FAC isn't photobucket/imgur. If it's artistic photography try our sister site Photo Lucidity [/quote]
So...how IS Photo Lucidity going? I have not heard much about it. I noticed the same featured photos were up since 2011.[/quote]

It's struggling. When the website went up the initial userbase was generated from here. These initial users are illustrators before photographers. After the initial surge of activity these people went back to what they do, illustrations. This left PL with little activity making it difficult to get and keep new active users. I can only bring in people one or two at a time and they inevitably leave because they are not getting the input they need and/or want. We need a new surge of active users just to get a variety of comments both on the forum and in the galleries. Fifteen or twenty people waddling around and faving truckloads of pictures would even be helpful in possibly getting feature worthy photographers back.
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[b]RPG[/b]-[i]n[/i]. A computer programing language designed for business reporting that generates specific programs from the users specifications.([b]R[/b]eport [b]P[/b]rogram [b]G[/b]enerator)[i]The American Heritage Dictionary[/i]

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