Original Art by ~lazyperson202 Ding-dong-merrily on high! Something-something-siiiinging! Ding-dong merrily on high! Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-daaaah-dah! Hello! I hope my little message meets you well! I think I've had a pretty good week and it's been looking pretty decent this holiday season. How about you lot? Been having fun? I've been watching the Weebl Advent Calendar for a surreal laugh everyday while I finally got a new pen for my tablet! Plus, something new for the site. Site News and Updates You might have seen a couple of peeps suddenly gain one of these: Look, it was the Scepter or Gak. These awards are given when you donate to the site. The first is for any amount under $10 we'll give you the one on the left. The one on the right is for those who give over $10. I'll even throw in a promise of a new avatar or signature. Afterall, I has new pen! EPRP This Week, the EPRP is entitled; "Tall Troubles in Tall Tale" Our adventurers receive a request for assistance from the very scientist who took in the monster known as Daisy Kay. Time to put an end to things once again. Recommended Reading Doom is a game that's still pretty entertaining even today. It's dependant on what version to end up playing but by now, even your left shoe could manage to play a version of Doom. And when you've got a game that turned 20 years old this Tuesday, I'm not all that surprised! So, maybe crank up one of the umpteen-million ports of this early shooter and see why it caught on so well. From what I know, avoid the versions that were on the home consoles at the time. Try and aim for a PC port. For those looking for something to do, how about catching a movie? Our friends at Bronystate are showing a couple episodes, Cast Away and the B-Movie War Games. Sounds like fun. Speaking of keeping yourself vaguely entertained: this and this. A couple of little things to keep you sorted. Now, I do like my games and I definitely enjoy chatting at length about the industry at large, so this threads right up my particular strasse. So, debate and enjoy who should be given a red card on the Gaming Industry. Still, makes me wish the Ouya was more of a hit. Or that the Steambox would hurry up. And lastly, here's a little Pony Art. UPDATE: Soul Ember, that rambunctious raggamuffin of a rhomboid levels of awesome got himself on the Voice of Equestria podcast! Hence forth and listen! So, that's it for this week, my lovelies! Now! I need to get back into the groove of writing and drawing for The Help Desk! I'm so excited to see that back!
And suddenly the site got rich because everyone wants the Twicepter. :Trollestia: I might actually donate just for that. Commit sepukku!
I feel that the donation award pictures could use some work. I think the text and lines could use some aliasing, and the pictures should be vectored to give an MLP canon look. It also appears that some of the lines are cut off, like on the bottom of the Twilicane one.
Better yet, there could be a contest to see which picture is the best. Or we can just draw them ourselves, suggest them, and have an admin just pick one. This would probably be simpler and faster.
Creating an entire contest or whatever would be the exact opposite of simpler and faster. :v I'm fine with them as they are, but since i've done artwork for the site before, i figured i might give it a shot.
Nothing for nothing, but there was a reason we decided not to have "donator emblems" and things of that nature on this site back when it was founded.
This site has always been cautious with implementing awards and stuff for members, because of one of the reasons this site was founded upon was nobody should feel like they're better or worse than anyone else, equality and all that. That idea for some people has since transformed and morphed into anything that speaks "reward" is blasphemy I guess. I think it's kinda silly, to even bring up that point. They're images under your name, signifying you did something for the site, you shouldn't really see them as anything more. But then you have those who love getting them and think they're the greatest (yay rep), so the awards thing has been scrapped a lot if times.
I raise my paws and admit a couple of bits were left out this week. So, I added them in. Go Check, we have EPRP and a little update from Soul Ember. Also, Saikyo did a thing.
Not that I'm vehemently against it or anything, but recently there have been a few changes that go against not only what this site is about but also what is written in the site's official rules. Someone has to play the devil's advocate to remind people that these decisions have been discussed and decided on before, and it would be ill-advised to change them so lightly. Not to mention without consulting, y'know.... anyone. Which, conversely... means that people who don't have them didn't do something for the site. See the above quote. Cause, meet effect. All I'm saying is that we've had this discussion. Many, many times. And we've unanimously voted no each and every time. Now we have it, and to my knowledge there was never a discussion. That strike you as odd? Does me. *On a side note (personal opinion) those images are pretty heinous. The first one is supposed to be gak but it looks more like an 8-bit bag of coins icon....or something.
I completely and wholeheartedly agree with Frost here. I understand the whole point of this stuff, but really, staff saying 'Deal with it' and 'It was discussed internally' go entirely against the very principles that the site was founded upon. The least we can all ask for is a little bit of transparency. It's not like we're asking for every staff secret under the sun. Is it really so wrong to ask that, before you roll out major changes/'improvements', you notify us first and/or give us room for discussion? That's just my two cents on the situation. But really the CP isn't the place for this kind of talk in the first place...
When you meet new management, certain things are no longer guaranteed, doesn't make it right necessarily, but yea. Some form of transparency is always welcome of course. I don't believe any official rules are being broken, if you are referring to that ad, Dragonbait already explained why exactly it requires 18+ registration. There are other issues with having that sort of ad, but not technically rule breaking. Wow, context. I didn't mean that as a literal, if NOT awarded you did nothing to help the site. I meant it as if you have one, you met some set criteria, that's it. And for the record, I don't like award systems either - that comment was not made to justify there should be awards. It was simply how I personally see them as. I'm not disagreeing with you. When I was admin, I didn't want to include awards at all when it was brought up in staff discussions (there are too many things to account for to make it fair), nor continue to host Pony of the year even. I think we need to stop making mountains out of molehills on certain things. The new admins are that, new. They've never ran a site before, and I was in their shoes not too long ago and know exactly the pressures they feel when users don't like or accept things as was hoped. They are experimenting, they will learn, and I applaud their efforts thus far. Mistakes will happen; some decisions are better than others, to which they can be fixed. But let's be honest, is there really much harm in showing who donated with a little graphic? I would say probably not. The staff wants to show their thanks, this is how they want to do it.
That's how nothing ever got done in the past. They're the staffocracy, they make the staffcisions, and they'll deal with the staffoncequences. It's not the most user-involved approach, but it's a way better approach than asking the community first, letting over a dozen people argue about it for about a week, and seeing all the mixed opinions, they'll try to please everyone which doesn't friggin work. Ever. Some people will like the staff's decisions, some won't. That's just how it is on every other site, and i think it's safe to say this site never gets things done because we do it differently. Maybe Everypony was founded on the idea of doing things differently, but considering how we do things differently, and how well that worked out for us in the past, that turns out to be a pretty dumb foundation. Things will get done faster if you leave the staff to make the decisions and deal with the concequences. Members don't sign up to run the site, they sign up to enjoy the site. Stop making such a fuss over things that don't directly harm the users of the site. If users of the site end up being harmed by the staff's actions, then by all means, jump in. Until then, keep calm and eat bacon. As for this whole donator reward stuff. Think about wether it's really such a big deal to argue about. Yeah they get a reward. Maybe some will brag about it unnecessarily. I say leave them be. How is it anyone else's problem if they decide to be douches about it? If they really do become a problem, again, just let the staff deal with it. File a complaint if you have to, but let them deal with it. Why punish everyone for the childish behaviour of just one person?
My biggest problem with the "Donator" badges is that they may lead to preferential treatment, or expectations of preferential treatment. For example, say Member_A and Member_B get into an argument that devolves into personal attacks. Both members are equally active, and both are equally at fault, but Member_A has given $50 to the site, while Member_B has not donated. It is very possible that a Mod may feel pressured to ban Member_B, and not Member_A, because Member_A has "done more" for the site.
