Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 2/2/13 02:52 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: Contest thread

Discuss and stuff!

Wow...this actually piques my interest. After all, nothing in this says this has to be good writing.

Happy New Year. Right now I'm flat broke so I can't support anything in the near future, but I might, just might think about becoming a supporter. I have to focus on actually getting my feet back into being at Newgrounds first, though.

At midnight, I thought about dusting off all those projects I told myself I was going to complete. Now, I've already given up on those goals.

What a day did I pick to check out Newgrounds again...

While I understand the legal necessity for this announcement, I do admit I am saddened by it. It's not just parodies, but good, transformative fan works that are thrown under the bus and will have no large scale venues for viewers. I definitely am of the belief that original work, no matter how terrible it is, is of more societal value than even the best fanart, but unsolicited and an unauthorized fan works have their place as well, and it need not necessarily be under a rock.

This, I suppose is the double-edged sword of Newgrounds' growth. With great audience comes great responsibility. It's just sad because unlike some other popular sites, there is a relatively higher bar for submitting a material. It's a lot harder to make even a short sprite Flash movie to a music video than it is to set up, record, and trim a clip of oneself unpacking a box, but according to the eyes of the law, the former is copyright infringement and lawsuit-bait, and the latter is okay,

Besides, if I didn't know better, I'd suspect the original post was reverse psychology at work.

This is really cheesy, but my New Year's resolution is to actually visit Newgrounds and vote more often. Since the spring of last year, I abandoned this place not because of any decline in quality but simply because I was tired of it. I had gotten out of the habit of voting every day, because it was similar to a chore rather than a recreational activity. Now with 2009 here, I can begin to catch up on some of the Flash movies I missed.

On one hand, I can understand the frustration of some posters. I think there may be a need to separate entries from unknowns and less-experienced Flash artists from those with more established names/series. While some works like Waterlollies are unquestionably deserving and self-contained, there are a lot of entries that month after month are runners up or win outright based in part because they are sequels. I am guilty of overlooking gems in favor of the latest episodes of my favorite Flash series, and I suspect I'm not alone.

Still, even though the people in charge can urge people to vote a certain way, they can't prevent the people from voting on movies they (or we) don't like without destroying the Newgrounds spirit. It's "everything by everyone," and certain movies do have a mass appeal beyond the scope of individual voters. The opinions of the largest pluralities determines who wins. The system works. It may be flawed and it may not be to our liking, but it works. So congratulations to the winners. You earned the wins, even if I didn't vote for you.

While I know that the decision has already been made, I have to disagree with this one. Limiting access to the Front Page for news posts is punishing nearly all Newgrounds users for the actions of a small percentage spammers and fools. After all, there's a Featured Movies and Featured Games section for those who have brought quality work, so there's no need for further limiting of Newgronds users based on quality.

Wouldn't it be better for there to be a voting process with regard to a front page new post? Even the best and worst flash artists have to go through the Portal and be judged. If a great Flash artists submitted a completely horrendous Flash movie or game, ideally it would be blammed. Likewise, if a actually makes a decent Flash movie or game, it has at least the potential to pass. A voting process would still favor established people, of course, but at least it would reflect the site standards rather than a pre-determined hierarchy.

Alternatively, one could simply make the front-page news post a feature solely based on experience, rather than based on flash content. That would discriminate against Flash artists who don't vote, but it may also give them incentive to vote. It would also let long-time users have a say and emphasize that Newgrounds is "Everything, by Everyone" and not "Everything by Talented Flash Artists/Programmers."

I belatedly congratulate all the winners and I feel the judges made great choices in their selections.

I noticed some of the entries by the winners (which may or), though, go beyond the whole "minor liberties" as shown in the examples given in the original thread. I'm not complaining, but I am curious. Although ideally, a piece should be both well-made and match the sprite exactly, was it better to have a well-made piece that deviated from the original sprite somewhat, or a lower-quality piece that matched the proportions and color of the original sprite more faithfully?

I wanted to make sure that Ogre Battle was represented in this contest. This is an action frame of the Princess's attack sprite in the aforementined game.

I love the feel and look of the site a lot, how there are more gradients, delightfully contrasting borders, and rounded edges framing the various elements.

I hate the fact that actually voting on a Flash movies and the like takes nearly twice as long as it did before the redesign. It was maybe two or three seconds at most before the vote was tabulated, and I could move on. But now waiting for the Flash dropdown menu to record the vote, then to go to another Flash to watch and vote on it takes anywhere from five to fifteen seconds. That may not seem like a lot, but if for some unknown reason, I was unable to vote until 11:59 PM of a given day, I would miss that day by default, since I would need at least two minutes to actually vote on five Flash movies.

I have to agree that the site does seem a little slower, which can be worrisome when attempting to vote on Flash movies in a hurry. I still think the aesthetic quality is worth the slight hit in functionality.

In response to the post, there's a simple way to keep your disappointment in yourself in perspective.

Think of all the other people who have sites who would kill to have the daily visitors Newgrounds gets in an hour.

I know I'll never get an article in EDGE (Congratulations!), so here's one person you're better than. Heck, you can actually quit Newgrounds right this second and still be more influental than 99.9% of the people who visit this site. Think about what you've done and how you don't have to do anything else to make your mark on the Internet. I wish I had that, and I suspect a lot of other people do too.

At 10/30/06 12:18 PM, deckheadtottie wrote: Administrators decided it was time to clear up reviews; regardless if your review was abusive or not. Leaving one line reviews, or leaving a review with a low score and no constructive criticism, is now considered not worthy of being on this site.

What then defines a "low score?" Below is the text of my review for [url=http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view /340773]FREE HENTAI SEXY HOT TOM[/url], a relatively recent Turd of the Week,

"Normally when I see a TOTW with "Hentai" in its title, I like to see what comes up instead of hentai. The surprise is that is [sic] does contain sexual material, albeit not the silly stick figures or "extreme" porn. This makes it kind of tame and unmemorable, sadly.

But the fact that you used the theme song from Scooby Doo is a plus. I don't like Scooby Doo, so its place in this Flash as a loop is fitting."

In case you're wondering, I gave this Flash movie a six, far higher than the average score, and I can't remember what I gave the categories, but it certainly wasn't all tens, zeroes, etc. It wasn't the most in-depth or costructive review, but I don't think it fell under the category of something to be deleted, in my opinion.

So what is wrong with this review?

In the past few days, I have had a review that was deleted. One of these reviews was something that I could not see could be considered abusive in any shape or fashion. However, I am willing to amend my behavior if at least I know precisely why the review was construed as deleted? Is there any way to receive clarification or contest the deletion? If not, what is to stop people from reporting non-abusive reviews en masse?

Is there any way to appeal a review that has been banned? I have a review that was deleted that was certainly not abusive in any way, and I'd like to contest its removal and any negative consequences that arise from being flagged.

I can understand why one would want to simplify the review process, but I disagree with doing so. To begin with, only a fraction of the voters are going to bother to review a piece that they voted on. While making the reveiwes simpler might mave the lofty goal of getting more people to comment, the reality is it will only make the process quicker. The people who tend to review will still review, and the people who vote and move on will continue to vote and move on.

Moreover, as someone who judges a Flash by all categories when I review, I appreciate the different categories. At times, it can be difficult to write a throrough review to give an entry the attention it needs. Sometimes, I let the numbers do the talking. If there were to be a restiction of categories or worse yet just an overall score, then I would have to compensate by making reviews longer. Unfortunately, this will not deter those who write reviews that are essentially spam; instead this will encourage it, as people will have to fo less in order to make a comment. Instead, I and others who actually like to review will write even fewer reviews than if there had been a simplifcation.

I also think that the number of cateories is fine. Some pieces are great but not meant to be funny. Other pieces are composed of badly animated sick figurews, but are well paced, hilarious, and have an interactive menu. Also, there is a clear distinction between style and the quality of the components a Flash artist uses.

The bottom line is that the Newgrounds voting system is not broken. There's no need to fix it.

A couple of days ago I had a little trouble connecting to Newgrounds, but since then the Portal has worked fine.

The only error I'm getting now is that the current Underdog isn't showing on the Flash Portal main page, although by the time this message is read this problem will have cleared itself up.

I'm glad the site is back and operating normally. Unfortunately, I waited until late last night to accumulate experience points, and as a result, I missed out on the day entirely. The moral of the story: vote early and often!

I have to say I love the idea of the Grounds Gold Page being a full page instead of a pop-up window. That way people can have the option to open it up in a new window on their own if they want to, while others such as myself are no longer overwhelmed by the number of windows. I really like this feature. Thank you for implementing it.