At 9/1/07 03:19 AM, HeavenDuff wrote:
That's sad... but I believe anyway... that real flash artists don't need the help of flash crews to get protected... cause if they are good... thatn NG users will protect them.
You'd be surprised. There are countless promising artists who get brushed to the side and ignored once/if they pass judgement. By being featured by the Stars, they get significantly more exposure than their first flash would have ever gotten on their own.
As I said, real artists doesn't need the help of crews to make their flashs pass judgement.
Well, they just put it up for the viewers to see, and a group submission is much more likely to be noticed than a first work by a no-name artist.
Anyway, sorry for bothering the EGB, I just wanted to know if there was a way to stop the spam... cause this is a Flash site basicaly... and if people come on newgrounds to finaly end up watching some random crappy animated cats dancing... then we fucking failed a being a Flash Portal... this is not a garbage can.
The Newgrounds public really IS that stupid; they're the ones mass-voting spam through the Portal, not the groups themselves.
Here's an example.
I can submit a Secret Episode to the Portal, a three meg blob of Speakonia and tweens, and I can go get something to eat, confident that my flash is going to pass. And indeed, it does; none of my flashes have been blammed in ages.
A year or so ago, this was not the case. Back when I was some no-flash, no-name submitter, my stuff got blammed all the time. Not to say I don't put effort in my flashes, but because most of the Portal users only get hard-ons for overrated things with shiny graphics and stuff, no one cares about something that lacks them.
Now, after a while, something changed.
One of my flash passed.
Slash Returns was my first entirely self-made flash to have passed judgement...why, I'm not sure, it's not that much better than my blam-era work.
As I continued to submit, I noticed my work having a higher chance of passing with every work that got through; people see someone with a lot of flash and they're more likely to just insta-five it.
Nowadays, I can submit something I make in about five minutes, and it'll almost certainly pass. Not because I'm mass voting, but because someone will notice I have over fifty flashes to my name.
Now, I don't abuse this power...regardless of what some abusive reviewers may think...but many do. They submit utter shit to the Portal, knowing that an idiot public will give them a high score when they see a lot of alts and a lot of previous flash, because they crave points.
Are the submitters in the wrong? They're certainly to blame, but the fact is that they're breaking no rules...they're not the ones voting their stuff through (none of the 'spam' groups have enough power to do that), they're just submitting it. It's a point-whore public that commits the crime.
So, what can we do to stop this?
1) Vote fairly on every flash we see. I don't care if it's got ten authors who each got a hundred flash to their name, vote fairly. And try to get others to do the same. Yeah, you'll miss some points...lots of them...but (and this may sound funny coming from an EGSC) points really aren't that important.
2) Remember that not every flash group member is a shit. Just as you shouldn't mass-protect their stuff, don't mass-blam it, either. When I first started B/P'ing, I saw Zekey submit with the Star Syndicate (which I hated back then, as I was a little nooblet), and assumed his stuff was shit. Then I saw some of his other work and was utterly blown away. If I'd been an idiot and mass-zero'ed everything he made without watching it, I'd have missed out on an amazing artist.
3) Don't stoop to the level of the idiots. A lot of mass-voters say that they're voting five on shit because then they'll get a higher B/P rank, and be better able to influence spam, that the ends justify the means. This is akin to stealing from a bank so you can afford to build a security fence around it: just outright retarded. Especially retarded in that you're helping the 'spammer' in question build up their flash archive and thus be voted high on by other idiots.
That's about it. We have to spread a message of objectivity...that one should vote on individual flash quality, not the submitter or group behind it...not for points or power. Until then, shit will continue to happen, and the people of Newgrounds will have no one to blame but themselves.
