Lo and behold, the almighty Karlos allowed my dream to come true, as long as it was done well enough. So I embarked on a quest to draw three more emotes for a strip to get uploaded. It was a fairly short quest. Only took like six hours. No dragon slaying. No musical montages. Voila!
Phase one was complete. It was time to enter the second, much more treacherous, stage. I think you all know what I'm talking about - getting it accepted and fixing mistakes. The lizard emote joke was well-known in the Alpha Legend Skype chat, so I privately approached two staff artists who were members of the pack to ask for critique on the other three emotes. I made a few changes, as per request, and thought I was good to go. But Karlos requested that I get votes from non-Alpha Legend members. I get that, wanna make sure there's no bias because of the joke emote. I'd like to imagine staff members wouldn't allow themselves to become biased anyhow, but better safe than sorry. ): Unfortunately, this meant posting the emote strip in the...
.......... the... A/R thread.
dun
dun
Okay, I might be over exaggerating the situation. But you can't tell me you don't dread posting there in at least some sense. This blog isn't going to be super original. The A/R thread has had problems since the beginning of its existence, however necessary it may be. It goes through ups and downs. Things were up for a while after A/R Helpers (aka "A/R Helpders" as deemed by Jek) were introduced to speed up the flow of the thread. Even though they didn't get an official vote, it still helped with the extreme wait members were facing for critique on their custom work. But now the speed of assistance has begun to decline once more, although we're nowhere near the rock bottom from before.duuunnnn
First of all, I'd like to give a huge thank you to Zettobi. You are working your butt off on that thread, and I for one, greatly appreciate it. Yes, there are other staff members posting here and there, but you are taking on a bulk of the work right now. Props to you. It would be really nice to see other staff artists have the same initiative as you. Encouraging staff members to post in that thread has always been a struggle, so I'm not meaning to call out any individuals negatively. But members really have to go out of their way to get staff to comment on their custom work. That's why I wanted to message people directly about my emote strip, rather than post in the A/R thread. Nowadays, I see members post the same custom multiple times to try to get that second yes vote. On June 8th, I posted a set of 13 emotes for critique. Zett got back to me in a timely manner, I fixed a few things, and posted again with the changes. I never got another staff response on that, despite having four staff members post in there since then. Finally, I just gave up and colored/shaded, hoping for the best, and posted the final version after over a month of waiting on the lines. Making changes is a bigger pain in the butt when you have more than lines, so I would rather have had a more definite answer before. Sure, I could have kept spamming it till I got a response, but I shouldn't have to. Whenever other staff members do pop in to help, they usually just comment on the ones since the last time a staff member posted. They don't go back and give a second vote on any of the ones that have one yes. :/ A lot of times, staff will post to have their own artwork critiqued, and yet they hardly take the time to comment for the sake of others. It's a little disheartening if you're like me. I like to finish projects quickly... not waiting weeks between each step.
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Edit: I'd like to amend this blog post to say that I am not trying to target individuals. I know that everyone has their own personal problems to deal with, and a website is not necessarily a priority. Any staff member that tries to help out is appreciated by me. I've been there, done that, and I understand the struggle, if even on a lesser level than faced by some staff members. In the effort of trying to describe a specific circumstance, it appears I have inadvertently upset people. I have removed the names of the four staff members, even though they can be seen by looking through the thread. I mentioned them to try to give a little credit to others that were posting besides Zett, but my connotation was taken negatively. I will always encourage readers to privately message me if I offend you, so I can make it right. I will also make an effort not to use customs/etc. as examples in a potentially controversial situation without asking the owner first for future blog postings.
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Customs are already tedious to make. They don't need to be any worse by this slowed down process, when having two yes votes is a necessity. But the lack of staff response isn't the only issue. When so few people are giving advice, inconsistencies slip through the system.
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Edit: Sorry guys, example removed. I had some specific stuff typed out and comparison images, but per request, I have taken it down. I don't like talking about things without giving specific examples so I do apologize for the lack of one this time around. I'm not really in the mood to go find another at this time.
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Instead of rambling on anymore about the downsides of the A/R thread, I'll end on a positive note. Perhaps when staff come up with a better way to encourage their own participation, these issues will be mitigated. Until then, we can all appreciate the benefits of having a mostly functional approval system for customs. No more shall poor wolves suffer the effects of being reanimated roadkill.
