Suggestion regarding this forum, read and tell your opinion.

[Esseb]

I suggest we leave the forum as it is with the current level of moderation, but, people who wish for serious critique for their artwork can title their threads like this:

"SERIOUS CRITIQUE: Noir background".

Those threads would be more heavily moderated to prevent "man that rules" posts. Hopefully after a while people will get used to them and not post in those threads if they have nothing to contribute.

[loominous]

Essebs suggestion does incorperate most of what I had in mind without the hazzle of founding a new lounge, so for what s it s worth, I m in favour of the approach.

Minor idea, perhaps impractical, would be to include some sort of disclaimer link or text in those posts, at least during the first period, so the moderators would have less work cleansing them.

Example:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: Serious critique only (<- link to a [sticky?] post explaining the 'serious critique only' concept)

[Rest of post]

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Would also be nice if people would include whether they will take offense to any editing of their work or not, since some consider this an intrusion while others thinks of it as a great help.

[Evil]

I dont see it as an issue anymore. I just think people need to be more detailed and that they need to keep similar art in the same thread. The amount of posts seems to be going down.

[Mr_Frisby]

I like the Critics Lounge as it is - I think it's a good idea to keep all the critics in one place. If you split them you will end up having a group of newbie critics and more experiences artist critics.
The regulars should probalby make thier own constant thread eg  . .Dr. Stupid BKG crit ect. And you can change the last word to make it aware that it's new stuff eg.     Dr. Stupid BKG - Warehouse 05/06
Or something.
You could also have a - First Time Background - thread ect. (if this hasn't already been suggested).
An if you are in need of expert advice and arn't a newbie - use a different Icon that would symbolize your non newbie status and maybe ad a something to signify that like - BKG for Crit - serious critique needed. Or something like that.

After that it dosent take long to figure out which are the inexperienced artists - just by the name on the post. If you don't know them - Odds are they are newbies.

If I have repeated anyone I'm sorry - I didn't fully read all the posts - I know I suck but will also understand when you don't fully read my post either. [oops I did - I totally ripped off Essebs Critique idea]

[InCreator]

But... but people are already adding "please be harsh" and things like that to the titles of threads. What does that say?

[Penguinx]

You are looking at prime suspect #1 when it comes to adding 'please be harsh' to my work. It helps me improve to have others rip me apart (stylistically or when it comes to concepts as simple as my proportions or anatomy).

It could be seen as my call, though. Having put that addendum onto my posts I am, in essence, asking for it.

Conversely, that may not be what everyone is looking for. Just trying to play devil's advocate.

[m0ds]

1 thread/artist idea would be tremendously baffling and dis-organised. Unfortunatley threads in forums don't act so well as folders in Windows - each thread would get clogged up, huge, images would disappear - there'd be lots of replies to things you can't even see anymore and then the artist would have "new" images dotted around a whole thread that would be hard to navigate if you just want to add critique.

People would also be tempted to start a new thread under their name. Also, Andail and myself would not wish to have to prune every single persons thread just so it stays up to date.

A character limit sounds quite good, though I'm not entirely sure what that means or entails.

[SSH]

Also, people say" let's not have two forums to avoid elitism", but if you then go and impose stricter rules on the forum then you have made it elitist AND there is no appropriate forum for people who have had a basic go at their art and would like some help.

And a character limit will just cause people to have gobbledegook at the end of their one-liner posts... human nature! I suppose it might cut down on the number of ":o replies" but I doubt it will make much difference to the number fo new  threads.