At 12/29/10 06:56 PM, Fro wrote: My opinion is there's a difference between youtube crap and live action videos. You may disagree, but I'll stand strong to defend my view.

I'm not opposed to some well mannered debate. So why do you; Fro, believe that Newgrounds is the right place to submit these videos as submissions?

The portal may not be strict and meant only for creations made in Flash, but venues such as Youtube do usually offer more options for the video submitter. I could understand submitting here on Newgrounds based on a social aspect in relations to who sees it, but does calling it live-action really distinguish it that much from an ordinary video normally found on Youtube?

Newgrounds, and I as part of its community, encourage and respect all creative outlets, but the comfort in dividing different places and websites for different means of media is usually comfortable for both creator and viewer, is it not?

I believe that video submissions are good, as long as they are few and far between. I don't mind seeing a few. Isn't Numa Numa a video submission?

A few others come to mind. As long as a video submission is Newgrounds-related, I'm fine with it. I just don't want to see people videotaping themselves talking about pop culture to post here.

As long as video submissions aren't common, I'm fine with them.

Portal Report:
Plenty of garbage, some stolen stuff, but overall quality. Keep your eyes open.
Reviews consistently disappoint me. I was watching a Cyanide and Happiness flash, and every recent review was the same god damn thing.... A quote from the flash, a ten, and long laugh lines. We need to do something about the review quality on NG, it's trash these days.

At 12/30/10 04:29 AM, Phantom wrote:

At 12/29/10 06:56 PM, Fro wrote: My opinion is there's a difference between youtube crap and live action videos. You may disagree, but I'll stand strong to defend my view.

I'm not opposed to some well mannered debate. So why do you; Fro, believe that Newgrounds is the right place to submit these videos as submissions?

Sure, I said I would stand next to my view and I'll back it up with plenty of facts.

It's an obvious fact (maybe not to everyone) that submitting video is allowed on newgrounds. I would suggest watching some of the following submissions for those who didn't really know this, but I'm assuming you and many others already know that.

• 

  Its a Tank!

  by MindChamber

  It Takes a lot out of P-Bot to bring you those yearly Tank Trophies.

  Movie

  248,318 Views

  (Ages 17+)

• 

  2nd Annual Tank Awards

  by MindChamber

  Find out who won what for the 2nd Annual Tank awards!

  Movie

  254,744 Views

  (Everyone)

And of course the most famous one:

• Unpublished Submission

Now that being said, just because something is allowed doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. It's just not the wrong thing to do. All three of those submissions have high scores, but are also made by popular people so you can see where they might be the exception.

I on the other hand am not a popular flash artist, but the following submissions of mine were made of video and ended up winning awards and being well received.

• 

  Snow Wars

  by Fro

  The highly anticipated sequel to Hay Wars.

  Movie

  21,530 Views

  (Ages 13+)

• 

  Pyroscape

  by Fro

  A terrible tragedy has hit and our hero Nick is in trouble. Will he survive?

  Game

  59,683 Views

  (Ages 13+)

• 

  Pyroscape 2

  by Fro

  Nick drags Fro into a fire world of hell!

  Game

  46,373 Views

  (Ages 17+)

Not only have those three submissions made of videos received high scores, but they've also earned four trophies for me on newgrounds. This shows that the general population actually does enjoy it when video is used the right way.

So obviously I feel that there is a difference between youtube crap and video that should be allowed on newgrounds. The difference being that youtube crap is videos of girls talking about Justin Beiber, highlights from concerts and sporting events, a video of someone's kitten, etc... A video that should be allowed to be submitted on newgrounds involves plot, humor, a story of some sort, quality, etc...

Some other facts:

There is a part for people to choose "actor" when coauthoring somebody on a flash submission. This is not to be confused with the voice actor selection that can be used. It actually means there was video shot and somebody was acting.

There are entire pages on newgrounds dedicated to series that are just videos such as this page:

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/awe somevideogames

(This one is getting technical, but it's still a very small reason) You can only submit flash files to newgrounds. This means that the videos were put into flash, edited in flash, and exported as a flash file. They are now technically flash.

Here are just some random things of why I submit the videos I make to newgrounds. Youtube and other websites really suck. If you aren't some well known internet nerd or celebrity then you won't get more than a few 100 views if that many at all. On newgrounds I automatically get more with the 200 views from the submitting along with at least another 1,000 if I win an award. The two submissions of mine that have achievements in them get views every day.

I've only had a few reviews saying they didn't like videos on newgrounds. I don't think I have any videos with the review rating under 8.8 and I've received positive feedback in almost all of the reviews I get. A lot of reviews even mention that they don't mind video if it's well done.

All of this really tells me that if you do videos the "right" way then you'll be well received. Perhaps not as well received if you do flash the right way, but oh well. It really does seem that if you dislike video in games or flashes then you're with a minority. Opinions are opinions though. If you don't like videos in flash movies or games then you get your chance to blam them when their submitted. It's fair game just like any other submission.

At 12/30/10 08:01 PM, Fro wrote: Sure, I said I would stand next to my view and I'll back it up with plenty of facts.

Fair enough, but I will point out that while you make a good point, the most specific reason you gave was actually the amount of viewers, which is legitimate. And like you said, when done right, everything creative is well accepted on Newgrounds.

Good day gentlemen. I hope you've all been well?

I'll be doing another one of my reports, with a mini-rant included free of charge!

I couldn't let this drift past the second page.

So lets see here.

BBS:
The BBS has been rather interesting lately. I think General is the same as usual. The BBS awards are finally wrapped up, as you can see here:

• 

  BBS Awards 2010

  by <deleted>

  See who the most noticeable members of the general forum are!

  Game

  39,715 Views

  (Ages 13+)

A few of the awards weren't very interesting, but I think a few were well deserved, such as Bahamut's awards and Ptero for most improved.

Portal:
Oh boy, this was a fun week.
A lot of quality, and the crap is getting blammed, which is good to see. However, it alarms me how many people are submitting "tests" these days. I think we've mentioned it in the EGB, but we can certainly go into detail here.

Now who wants a flash portal filled with 50kb shorts? I sure don't. Every time I see "test" in the title of a flash, my cursor hovers over the 0 button. Some users seem to think the portal is a dump for their assorted, unfinished Flash pieces.

This is not a problem, but when they start passing in large number, then we have a problem. You could even consider it spam.

Personally, this is my last week before school starts again, so I'm slacking. Not just normal slacking. I mean, like eating pizza, drinking milkshakes while watching hockey and playing Descent. Maximum Slacking.

At 1/4/11 01:18 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: Personally, this is my last week before school starts again, so I'm slacking. Not just normal slacking. I mean, like eating pizza, drinking milkshakes while watching hockey and playing Descent. Maximum Slacking.

I start school on Thursday and then I begin exams right as of next week. I've been doing some exam preparation the past week. What you do describe as "maximum slacking" might be what my classmates describe as "daily activities" for them, lol.

At 12/29/10 06:56 PM, Fro wrote:

At 12/28/10 05:03 PM, 34Deadman wrote:

Yep the portal has become a somewhat similair version to YT. I cringe when I think of it but it's true. You find some videos of people NOT animations of some sort. There is a reason why it's called FLASH portal.

What are your opinions on these? Be honest. None of them have flash and very few of them have any sort of animation at all.

My opinion is there's a difference between youtube crap and live action videos. You may disagree, but I'll stand strong to defend my view.

YT crap is what a speak of. like guys just freaking making dumb sounds while the video plays. Live action videos I dont mind at all if there good of course.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/53 7369
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/52 7820
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/49 9294
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/49 5866
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/44 9113
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/50 5697
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/45 1966
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/50 5884

You have good taste Fro.

That was a fun week. Business as usual for the BBS. Hoever, have I had some fun in the Portal.

I don't really understand the voting trends right now. This morning, a flash reached a score of 3.99. You can read its obituary here, since the author removed it.

The flash was a rotating picture of a gas station pump. After one half of a rotation, it went back to the preloader. After it passed judgement, it was fileswapped for a porn video, then after about twenty minutes it was removed, presumably by the author.

You can tell it was fileswapped by the difference in reviews. The first two were talking about the gas pump, but the rest were complaining.

Now tell me, how would a spinning gas pump picture reach a score of 3.99 in the first place?

Another point I'd like to mention is a certain flash:

• 

  Dot Dot Dot - Animated

  by RicePirate

  An animation of a voice track of a review of a game.

  Movie

  2,033,260 Views

  (Everyone)

This has achieved a score of 4.69. I have no idea how. What bugs me is people thing it's the author talking, while in fact it's from an audio portal sumbission. This is not a complaint about the flash, but instead, I'd like to complain about how darned STUPID people here are getting.

Reviews are at the lowest quality I've seen since 2007, when the review mod system was down.
In my opinion, reviews should never be less than one line. A review that gives the flash a 10 score and is one line long is, in my eyes, almost as bad as a one-liner giving the flash a 1 in score.

Harumph, you might be saying now. However, it can only go downhill from here. We all know about the blatant stupidity of YouTube comments. Newgrounds has REVIEWS, yet some users tend to treat them like comments. I've seen one-liners where the reviewer left the title blank and simply asked what the song was in the flash.... even when it was listed in the credits.

What can we do to fix the review system?

I realize this is a bit of a TLDR, but I think my points are valid and this is justified.

It has been a long, long, long time..

At 3/10/11 06:54 PM, WastedWizard wrote: It has been a long, long, long time..

You posted this and I literally almost shat myself. How the hell are you WW?

At 3/10/11 07:13 PM, AnalPenguinFarming wrote:

At 3/10/11 06:54 PM, WastedWizard wrote: It has been a long, long, long time..

You posted this and I literally almost shat myself. How the hell are you WW?

I am pretty good thanks, I am glad to see some of the oldies are still around, how have you been? How is this place going?

At 3/23/11 04:09 PM, Andre wrote: Is this club dead?

The NGDD did have some recent activity (planned revive) but it looks like activity dropped off. It's best to avoid bumping it without good reason.

I'd like to see more activity here, but unfortunately, it really died off this year. I'm up for another try at getting the NGDD back up and running. Perhaps I can go about writing those "reports" every weekend.

At 3/23/11 05:05 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: I'd like to see more activity here, but unfortunately, it really died off this year. I'm up for another try at getting the NGDD back up and running.

Perhaps during the summer when people have plenty more free time the NGDD will see an increase in activity.

I seek permission to join

Im a Police lieutenant in the NGPD and I believe this club is still a worthwhile cause in protecting Newgrounds, and I would be more than happy to devote some of my time to pumping some blood back into this club.

I believe I would be suited to either the "Flash Department" (as I have a pretty good track record of flagging both abusive flash and reviews) or the "BBS Forum Department," but of course I don't mind you putting me where you need me (although I am quite unfamiliar with things audio related).

So if this Department still wants help in restoring it to it's former glory, count me in! As I read over the Guidelines to joining and such I thought the competitions/contests were a really cool idea and it'd be awesome to get those going again, as it would be a fun way to bring back some much needed interest in Protecting the Portal and such. Just let me know if I can help in anyway and I'll get to it.

BigMike out

At 3/27/11 05:28 AM, Andre wrote: So, what do you guys think? Restore the club? Let it die?

I would very much like to restore this rather than let it die.

@BigMike47
Although I have no say in the matter, you would be a great addition to the NGDD. Any member of the NGPD is a fine candidate to join.

@Andre
I apologize, I did not realize you too were also applying to join. I see that you as well are also a member of the NGPD, which is a plus. Again, not my decision though I do believe you meet the criteria.

BBS

Nothing unusual to report here, although users are now in anticipation of this year's April Fool's prank.
Itt: We Wait For April Fools Day.

PORTAL
Plenty going on... New game from matt-likes-swords, some new spam crew that has crawled out of the depths of hell that call themselves the Lucky Stars (They're better than Kitty Krew however...), and all sorts of other junk.

Well, the shit hit the fan over the inactivity period of the NGDD:
1. Bahamut stopped doing the B/P Ranks 51+ list on Wi/Ht?
2. Total crap is passing. Unless it screams out loud, "BLAM ME!" it still passes
3. Blind voting and dishonest statwhoring are rampant.

Basically, give it a generic name and a 5 MB filesize, and it's gonna pass. Some discussion on General has given me a pretty good idea of the general population's voting habits. Many will vote for the points (i.e., vote 2 on spam), some vote 5 on everything except surefire blams, and others have more unique voting habits.

Either way, the statwhores are winning. Those of you who vote dishonestly just for the points, shame on you. We need as many fair voters as we can manage.

Actually, Bahamut was pulling an April Fool's prank. Disregard that, I suck cocks.

I seek permission to join(:

LOL, not really, but I miss you guys<3

The way the forums are, it seems the BBS department needs to try harder.