I apologise in advance because this is kind of a semi-rant, feel free to skip it since it doesn't adress any of the posted suggestions, though I like the mentioned features that Tom talked about.

When I think more about it, then I feel like we are missing the core problem of this whole thing. We must ask ourselves: Why are users even posting speedpaintings in the flash portal? To me, the answer is very simple. Out of all the main portals, it is the one that offers the most exposure for new artists. Let's be honest: when you are a new flash artist, then in the most ideal outcome your stuff gets frontpaged quickly and you will probably win a Daily award, which gives you the ability to post on the frontpage, so that from now on you can promote your art pieces and audio on your frontpaged newsposts.

As for other artists? Post the best painting in the world and it doesn't even appear in the art portal. You have to make 3 more art pieces and even then you probably have to wait for a long time to get scouted. When I look at the frontpaged art, then almost all are from already established artist that have been making art for years.

Same goes for the audio portal. The lack of both views and reviews there is a known issue when you read feedback from audio artists and the low amount of votes in combination with 0-bombers scares people away to other sites as Soundcloud.

And that's why we see speedpaintings and "music videos" with the song and a fancy image in the background in the flash portals, because all other parts simply leave new users completely in the dust and don't offer enough feedback. Same goes probably for users who are either exlusively users who produce drawings or audio and notice that their stuff gets less views than stuff in the flash (or movie) portal.

The problem with this though (and I don't claim to be right) though is that there isn't a simple solution for it. You can't force more views for the audio and art portal. And there is also the problem the stuff even in the flash portals takes days to pass. To be honest, I dislike to leave this negative post because the site is so great but that's how I feel about this whole thing. The core issue is a lack of views, which is more apparent in the less visited art and audio portal.

Yes, if people want to see them it's better that there's a place for them here than outside the site. Also, is it possible to add some kind of note that using your frontpage posts to advertise your YouTube is being a dick (and I will take several puppies hostage for every time it happens)?

At 8/16/13 12:28 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 8/16/13 12:04 PM, TomFulp wrote: Another note - we intend to allow people to append blog posts for projects

Yay! Hopefully people wrote more post mortems and not just "check out this game" posts. Though you'd have to be able to attach the post after publishing the game if you wanna talk about the project's reception.

Post-mortems are one of the big reasons why I want this feature, so people can follow-up their release with retrospective insights on the development. We will also be revisiting the Alphas concept from years ago, where unpublished projects have a public face where news can be posted. For example imagine if Road of the Dead 2 had a hub this entire time that it's been in development.

At 8/16/13 12:38 PM, SourJovis wrote: Except when they're made by someone who's already well established on NG. Like Oney with his movie Super Slumber Party. Some people mention in the reviews they think life action isn't allowed on Newgrounds, even though it clearly is. Perhaps a category life action as well, or at least a bit more clarity that it's not against the rules.

Live action actually is, in general, frowned upon. It's a tricky area because live action can very easily flood out animation and although it might be good for traffic, it would likely change the whole vibe of the site. NG already suffers a lot from trying to do too many things but we have a certain harmony going on. Super Slumber Party was an exception because it was just SO newgrounds, with Oney and Stamper. And I'm open to live action with post-production elements, like if MindChamber makes a movie that mixes a bunch of robots in with real people. I'm just nervous about how far we dip our toes into live action. I'm also just afraid at the sheer number of BAD live action movies there are on the web and how quickly people can produce gigabytes worth of them.

At 8/16/13 12:13 PM, BenjaminTibbetts wrote: Newgrounds could go down that route. It's conceivable that, underneath each menu item for "Games", "Movies", "Audio" and "Art" there could be an option like "Video Tutorials" or "Learn How!". Speed-painting would find a place as an educational tool.

thisthisthisthisthisthisthis

It would be awesome to have a section where users could upload video tutorials or speed-whatevers for educational value

Under the Art Portal, yes. Under the Flash Portal, no.

At 8/16/13 12:50 PM, AndyOfTheArcticDucks wrote: Yes, if people want to see them it's better that there's a place for them here than outside the site. Also, is it possible to add some kind of note that using your frontpage posts to advertise your YouTube is being a dick (and I will take several puppies hostage for every time it happens)?

I die a little inside every time someone uses our front page to blatantly redirect traffic to their YouTube. I don't think it reflects well on the people who do it and I know a lot of NG regulars agree. I know we need to have better paying ads but a majority of these guys never make any money on YouTube anyway, YouTube just dangles a big carrot in front of them and they think they need to redirect all their internet fans there. Just make your damn Pokemon movie and soak up the search traffic like everyone else who wants to go big on YouTube.

Maybe add a section to the Art portal as Speedpaint or whatever lolz. It would be nice, I sometimes like to see it on what type of thechniques they are using to create their art.

I'd love to see that sort of stuff in the art portal.

To be honest, I don't think it should start with speedpainting as a new format to be added to the portal,
I think it should be art related tutorials with actual narration instead of a sped up video of someone drawing with some music on top.

I think Jazza's tutorials should be uploaded at least, to test the waters since they're of such high quality and people would really learn to improve from them!

I definitely like the idea of adding speed painting videos to the site, but I also see how it could add quite a bit to the already crowded UJ page. I mean, would most speed paintings even need to go through judgement? Seems a bit much. If they were filed under the art portal, it could simply be that only scouted people would be able to upload. Might keep poorly done/spam videos out of the way.

This could also be great for more audio portal integration, cause I know people generally like some audio while watching these things.

Overall, if it's done right, this could be an entirely positive aspect for the NG community.

also, this

It would be awesome to have a section where users could upload video tutorials or speed-whatevers for educational value

That would be such an amazing addition to the site.

Why not just support "Drawing Grounds"?
Or make a little app, sort of like chat. It would probably be neat, but aside from artists just wanting to see how others do their work, there's not much point in it.
And it's nice to leave the secrets to the magicians, all that matters is the end result trick.

That's a nifty idea, "tutorial portal" I've also thought about doing tutorials for simple things to do in digital artwork, like how to make decent looking bubbles, sky-lines, backgrounds, foregrounds and just all the little things that add that extra touch to an art-work

Add it to the Art submission form, under "This is not a sketch" and Creative Commons.

It can go into the Movies database, as a genre behind the scenes, but definitely surface it to users in the Art submission page.
Also you'd need to link to which art piece it was for, so you should do that in the same space that Movie pages have Soundtracks right now.
And obviously only for scouted artists so you don't get mega-spammed, but you already knew that.

Also PLEASE put an exclamation point or something on it so people notice there's new features.

all of my yes

At 8/16/13 01:31 PM, TomFulp wrote: YouTube just dangles a big carrot in front of them and they think they need to redirect all their internet fans there. Just make your damn Pokemon movie and soak up the search traffic like everyone else who wants to go big on YouTube.

This made me laugh so hard for some reason, holy shit.
I think it's funny because it's oh so true.

Don't bother tieing it into the portal or voting system. Just have them be accessible, in order of Newest or Most Popular, from the left-hand side of the Art Portal where the genres are.
Maybe put a tiny white video-camera icon onto the thumbnails of art that has a video attached to it.

This is the most intuitive way to show this stuff to the people who're looking for it, or are most likely to be interested in it.

I think the best solution would be put them in the Art Portal, but require them to be linked to an Art submission, so things stay organized and people don't just start uploading random stuff. Although I could understand people wanting to make speed paint videos for stuff they don't actually submit to the Art Portal, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.

Another thing that could help the video problem overall would be allowing users to upload videos of any kind to their account, like in the dump or something, and these videos could be embedded across the site. So if you wanted to post some wacky live-action thing you made, you could do it, it just wouldn't be in the movie portal.

As much as I love a good speed paint video, I don't believe they belong in the Flash portal. Considering the portal contains flash animations and things that people have worked hard on (story, character development or a good joke or two, etc), speed painting flash videos would be out of place on this site.

Why not take the best of both worlds? Take the resulting piece from a speed-painting video, submit it to the art portal, and then provide the link in the description to the actual video on YouTube or some other video site. Just my thoughts on it.

At 8/16/13 12:41 PM, Asandir wrote: As for other artists? Post the best painting in the world and it doesn't even appear in the art portal. You have to make 3 more art pieces

If you're a decent artist it's highly likely you have 3 other decent art pieces to submit.
If you're an art thief it's likely the other 3 pieces will be from different people.

and even then you probably have to wait for a long time to get scouted.

There's a fair few users who farm the unscouted section for potential artists.
I have no idea where you came to the conclusion that it takes a long while for eligible people to be scouted?

When I look at the frontpaged art, then almost all are from already established artist that have been making art for years.

I'm struggling to put an answer to this, but here goes: I hope amateurs make pics that stand out and show that they are unique. They need the limelight too, yes, but I hope that the variety of artists, their skill levels and the variety of content comes across in MeowlaSS' front page archive.

No.

Art, yes. Videos, no.

Speedpaints can be cool when done right, but they're not always done right. About 6 months ago, a guy submitted a "speedpaint" that was 28 minutes long. It was removed or I'd link it. But still, speedpaints, as cool as some are, they're not animation.

Newgrounds started as a site that hosted animations and games done in Flash. While the available software has expanded beyond Flash, the fact that this site caters exclusively to animation sets it apart from others.

Allowing more speedpaints by creating a place for them encourages more of them to come in. Separating the animation from the 'movies' is an option, but it opens the floodgates for massive abuse.

I fear that the animations that people worked hard on, and were the core and heart of Newgrounds, would be eclipsed by the sheer volume of the videos that people didn't. Examples?

A child with a video camera can be a dangerous thing. When one sees this, someday, another will want to "do that too." With the automated system here on newgrounds, the constraints can easily be missed, and then abuse happens. (Yes, the file size and run-time you saw are correct.)

For every video submitted, there's that danger that someone will decide to copy them. That's great with flash. Yes, PLEASE come join us in making GOOD animations. They don't have to be perfect, but we can tell if you tried and if you didn't. I'd MUCH rather see a submission that's still not perfect, but he keeps improving and trying, than to see anything from a bored kid with a camera. (BTW, that's a 'speedpaint' ...er, speed-draw..?)

Youtube accepts everything, and that's why we avoid it and spend so much of our lives here on Newgrounds. Opening the door to more videos opens the door to "Newgrounds" becoming "Newtube," and hard working animators' works being mixed in with those who didn't, those who don't, and those who can't.

At 8/16/13 01:10 PM, TomFulp wrote: We will also be revisiting the Alphas concept from years ago, where unpublished projects have a public face where news can be posted. For example imagine if Road of the Dead 2 had a hub this entire time that it's been in development.

Is that like a dedicated "test" section? I'd like to see a 'test' section that isn't right in there with the Portals, but isn't something that has to be searched out thru a maze of pages.

There are many "tests" that come thru the Portal because people are new and don't know about Dumping Grounds, or they don't care and want the views that the Portal provides. Having a Test Portal would allow tests to come thru and get views and critiques without having to post a link in the forums. The Test Portal could be an extension of the forums, tho. Submissions to the Test Portal could/should be auto-deleted after a period of time (a month?), so that unfinished works don't sit in the database for decades (like the 3300 pages of unscouted art that'll never go anywhere).

This would allow us a place to send people when they submit tests to the Portal, rather than having a low scoring, incomplete submission pass judgement. It just seems wrong to allow unfinished, pointless tests to sit right next to something that someone actually spent time and effort on, y'know?

At 8/16/13 03:14 PM, Exedor wrote:

At 8/16/13 01:10 PM, TomFulp wrote: We will also be revisiting the Alphas concept from years ago, where unpublished projects have a public face where news can be posted. For example imagine if Road of the Dead 2 had a hub this entire time that it's been in development.

We'll have a listing section for "Previews" where people can browse unpublished projects, if the creators choose to list them. The preview page could be as simple as some commentary on what the project is, but it could also include ongoing news updates and access to the preview file. This could definitely help to discourage people from publishing something that isn't finished, since they can list it in the previews section and keep working on it while getting feedback.

I think having a way to just search for speed paintings and similar videos would be fantastic! But I don't want cartoons to have to compete with them. I think Cartoons and Games are most important. Some speedpaints could even be called tutorials, I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of tutorial section, perhaps they could go there too? There are a lot of cool tutorials here on NG if you dig for them.

You know what could solve this kind of problem? An unrated portal that's sorted by popularity. You could choose which one you want it put into when you submit. Then you could use the tag system to browse for tutorials or whatever, and sort out the crap with the popularity rating.

Somewhat related, but I often wish I could leave a comment without a rating, too. It's kind of funny, Newgrounds and Deviantart seem to operate on two extremes, where NG only accepts critical commentary, and Deviantart users seem to reject it completely. There's gotta be a healthy middle in there somewhere.

At 8/16/13 04:29 PM, Kajenx wrote: Somewhat related, but I often wish I could leave a comment without a rating, too. It's kind of funny, Newgrounds and Deviantart seem to operate on two extremes, where NG only accepts critical commentary, and Deviantart users seem to reject it completely. There's gotta be a healthy middle in there somewhere.

This is an option I would like to try as well. We worry about reviews devolving into lots of one word garbage like "cool!" and "meh" but hopefully we can maintain some level of intelligence in the responses. The one downside is that if a lot of people stop including scores, we'll actually lose my preferred metric - I find the review scores to be much more accurate than the voting scores. For example most games nowadays average a three (which is a huge problem in itself) but of those games, review scores could either be all 0-2 stars or all 4-5 stars... And tend to give a much better impression of whether the game is cool.

At 8/16/13 04:32 PM, TomFulp wrote: This is an option I would like to try as well. We worry about reviews devolving into lots of one word garbage like "cool!" and "meh" but hopefully we can maintain some level of intelligence in the responses. The one downside is that if a lot of people stop including scores, we'll actually lose my preferred metric - I find the review scores to be much more accurate than the voting scores. For example most games nowadays average a three (which is a huge problem in itself) but of those games, review scores could either be all 0-2 stars or all 4-5 stars... And tend to give a much better impression of whether the game is cool.

That is interesting, because people are just high/low voting for the daily exp? While the people that bother to comment are actually expressing an opinion and can only vote once?

I'm against the idea. It would move a step away from animations, which is what I think most people here care about watching in the Movies portal. If it's somehow integrated into the Art Portal or somehow it doesn't interfere with the animations I'd be fine with it though.

At 8/16/13 04:32 PM, TomFulp wrote: This is an option I would like to try as well. We worry about reviews devolving into lots of one word garbage like "cool!" and "meh" but hopefully we can maintain some level of intelligence in the responses. The one downside is that if a lot of people stop including scores, we'll actually lose my preferred metric - I find the review scores to be much more accurate than the voting scores. For example most games nowadays average a three (which is a huge problem in itself) but of those games, review scores could either be all 0-2 stars or all 4-5 stars... And tend to give a much better impression of whether the game is cool.

To be honest I always thought it would be cool to have it split into two options - writing a comment and writing a review. Comments needn't be complemented by a score and you can post more than one comment on a submission with one account (like YouTube comments). They'd also have a no minimum character limit and a maximum character limit of something like 500 characters. Then reviews would be different; a review would have a minimum character limit (say, 500 or maybe less), would need to be complemented by a score, and you can only post one review per account on a submission.

However, that might overcomplicate things, so I don't know.

At 8/16/13 02:53 PM, Exedor wrote: Stuff

Could always just bring up the score requirements for blaming too. The scores on NG have gone up quite a bit over time, but I don't think the guides for blam/protect have, have they?

At 8/16/13 04:32 PM, TomFulp wrote: This is an option I would like to try as well. We worry about reviews devolving into lots of one word garbage like "cool!" and "meh" but hopefully we can maintain some level of intelligence in the responses. The one downside is that if a lot of people stop including scores, we'll actually lose my preferred metric - I find the review scores to be much more accurate than the voting scores. For example most games nowadays average a three (which is a huge problem in itself) but of those games, review scores could either be all 0-2 stars or all 4-5 stars... And tend to give a much better impression of whether the game is cool.

Actually, that's a pretty good point. Deviantart has those "critiques" now, but they don't seem to get used much. That could be because it's a paid feature though...