Re: Comment on comments (or lack of)

Posted by chillyplasma on 2008/8/28 18:34:25
As one of the assholes I think I sould give a different opinion.
I think Winterhawk's points are totally valid, but I don't think it's the way to go.


BHM, wanting to comment is good, but don't comment for the sake of commenting. Dragondack is someone who comments on everything, and as a result a comment from DD is not special, you know he is just chasing a high post count. You could post a piece of garbage and sooner or later a comment will appear from DD, with a graphic and emoticon.
The ironic thing is that every so often, maybe once every couple of hundred messages, DD will post something insightful on an image. But because all his other posts are throwaway comments his decent comment will probably be overlooked.
The thing that gives me a buzz is the comment from someone that rarely posts. To me it's worth a bit more.

As for the 'not my thing' it seems a bit weird. It's like going into a chick-flick movie then standing up and announcing to the whole audience 'I really like the cinematography, but chick-flicks aren't my thing!' You just wouldn't do it.
So yeah, don't beat yourself up over commenting or not commenting... a lot of my pics haven't been getting many comments lately, but the hit counts are good so I know people are enjoying them (maybe not, but they're looking).

As for WH's comment about giving a critique I still disagree. I once got a comment that the skirt I painted looked wrong. This really got me pissed because 1) I had spent almost an hour on that skirt, 2) the skirt was based on a real skirt so I knew it looked right and 3) this person has never made their own images so they don't understand the effort put into it. This person didn't spend the hours learning the skills, they just take seconds to criticise. And without the skills their criticism means nothing, they can't tell me how to make it look better. And I do this for fun, if there is lots of criticism it won't be fun anymore.

By the same token I stopped myself making a comment the other day. This artist does something to their pics that (IMO) make them look terrible. I was going to point this out and ways to improve when I stopped myself... this person knows where the tutorials are or who to ask for help. They are just having fun and who am I to shit on that?

I also need to say that comments like 'Wow' or 'cool' or 'great job' are good comments. Often when a picture astounds me that's all I can think of to write.

The other thing WH brought up is the recent lack of participation at Heromorph. I think it was bound to happen as the site has been around a long time (in Internet years). Mainstays who were here when it started have left. Some beginners have been here, started to learn and also left. It's not that they don't like it here, just that they started doing other things.
When the site was younger the galleries were much smaller. A new image was a Big Deal. You would log on at the weekend to see what everyone had worked on this week. Now each gallery has thousands of images, a new member would take days to go through the back catalogue. And everything gets rated a 10! (or not at all).

Maybe there's not as much interaction because this stuff isn't scarce anymore, there's a lot of it here (and out there).
As for helping HM, I try to do my bit. There are some people who say they like my stuff (crazy, I don't get it either) so I put some of it in the Gold area and encourage people to get Gold. Not just for my stuff, but all the other cool things in the gold areas.

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