Why the VHLGFX deserves TPE.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

I started the VHLGFX in early May to try and give the graphics section a jump start. Although people seemed excited, and things started strong with over 20 entries, things have now tumbled to an abrupt ghost of a fart. I am here to make the case of why the VHLGFX deserves TPE as a bi-weekly or monthly reward to give to the community members that are into graphics. In the following sections I will outline a different factor that comes into play for our very dead graphics section. I will also use other areas of TPE rewards to highlight my case. 

 

Motivation

It’s not secret TPE is the main motivating factor when it comes to anything on this site. Without our TPE rewards for our weekly tasks, we would be nowhere. TPE is gold here. Many new members that joined since May have asked me about the VHLGFX and why they don’t get a reward. They asked, “what’s the point then?” As a returning member I know it is difficult to keep the troops motivated. It’s vital we keep varying sections of our site active to keep the interests of the people happy. Yes, many people don’t make graphics, but a lot actually DO make graphics. Do you want to seem the same mediocre crap in the weekly graphics TPE claims? NO! It’s bullshit. It’s so easy to get 6 TPE by slapping some text and throwing a filter on a picture and calling it done. That’s ridiculous. Put some effort in. If you’re not trying to improve, you shouldn’t get the TPE. As for the VHLGFX, it’s the same. Why would anyone want to compete when they don’t get TPE? Why would you want to get better when the reward is null? What’s the point? I ask myself the same thing. If we don’t have some type of TPE as a reward for graphics competitions, we might as well shut down the graphics section and I’ll peace out and join a sim league that wants to involve graphics. It’s disgusting how dead and utterly poor our graphics are overall on this site. There’s few who are good and there’s no help from them to push the others to get better. Why get better when my pile of graphics garbage already gets me 6 TPE? There’s a reason TPE is rewarded. It’s rewarded for doing something. People should be actively trying hard to make their graphics better and putting the time in. With a small TPE reward for the top graphics folks each month, we can start off on a new path and start to put some effort in, have some fun, learn, and watch the graphics section be great again.

 

VHL Trivia

We give away 2 TPE to people for getting the answers from someone else. Enough said. This happens each week. 2 TPE! That’s 8-10 TPE a month from clicking a few buttons after you are told the answers by someone. Let’s get real. 

 

New affiliation TPE

When I started the VHLGFX I was told that there will be no TPE reward because “not everyone does graphics and that’s not fair.” HEY! Well guess what!? Not everyone has time for other sim leagues and THAT’S NOT FAIR. So, I’m calling this new affiliation system out. Yes, it’s small and personally I’m not bothered by it. It’s not that much TPE over the course of a season or a real year. TPE from a graphics coemption wouldn’t be much either and at least it would get people active in house instead of promoting off-site activity. 

 

Graphics Reviewing Logs

Yes, more hands-on deck to review, easier it is to review. Makes someone’s job less hard (which they earn TPE and since it’s a job they should have to work for it). Anyways, I can get TPE each week to do 8 graphics reviews. I do my job. I tell people what is not working. Most of all, I give suggestions on how to improve and offer a helping hand. When I go do the reviews, I read the other reviews. Frankly, most of them are shit. Two sentences about “good job” or “looks great” or “nothing’s wrong, it’s flawless.” Not a chance. There is always something wrong and always a way to improve. We’re giving out TPE to do nothing. We’re not promoting improvement. We’re not saying, “hey do better next time, there is barely any effort here.” And this brings me to the aforementioned point above where our graphics for weekly TPE are not improving and it is wayyyyy to easy to get your 6 TPE. Just like it is way to easy to do, literally meaningless reviews for 2 TPE each week. 

 

The Lottery

Refer to Gustav for this one I’m sure he’ll let you know why the lottery is quite silly and unfair. 

 

Welfare/Pension/Practice Facility

I think this one speaks for itself. No activity required. TPE granted. 

 

VHL Fantasy

TPE granted just for picking players in a fantasy pool. Such small groups that almost everyone wins a bunch of uncapped TPE for doing nothing. Promotes no activity other than picking which doesn’t actually count as activity.

 

My Proposal for TPE in VHLGFX

Every two weeks, TPE is given out to members who compete. No member can twice in a month (to keep the better graphics makers from cleaning up). 

 

Every two weeks:

The top graphic earns 2 uncapped TPE.

2^ndto 5^thplace earns 1 uncapped TPE – promotes the participation. 

 

Rules stay the same for the ranking system. A player will still need to try and get points for the end of the season to lead in the rankings. If a player won TPE the first competition of the month, they can still enter the second competition that month. If they win, they will not get TPE the second time and can win TPE the next month. This will provide less talented graphics makers to win TPE and will make it more fair for all levels of designers. 

 

Next, at the end of each season, the top 15 graphics earners will be rewarded uncapped TPE as follows. 

 

1^stplace 6 uncapped TPE

2^ndplace 5 uncapped TPE

3^rdplace 4 uncapped TPE

4^th-15^thplace 2 uncapped TPE – rewards those for placing in top 15 of the community and rewards them for the time and effort each week across the season. 

 

I feel this will help re-vamp the graphics section. I believe there is no perfect system for granting TPE but I do believe it is unruly and unfair to not give TPE to graphics folks. I probably won't continue with a graphics competition if we don't have a reward as it is a lot of effort and time for people to just complain over and over. 

 

I’m sure I am missing more here. And I’m sure there can be a case made against me. But I do believe in reviving graphics in this site and I do think it is important for us to see the value in having an active, fun, and effortful graphics section. Now to you big wigs. 

 

Hopefully this post doesn't make me the new banned Boubabi. Also I didn't re-read this and emotions took over for some of it I'm sure. No offence to anyone and I apologize for anything that sounds like a direct attack I am just frustrated with this site atm. And all the community members good ideas seem to be pushed to the way side. 

Spoiler

@Will @Beketov @Quik

 

[Matt_O 897]

5 minutes ago, Motzaburger said:

Welfare/Pension/Practice Facility

I think this one speaks for itself. No activity required. TPE granted. 

I agree with everything except for this part. I don't know what you were getting at when you wrote this part, but having these is necessary, and we would lose many more members without these. I may write a debate article about this. I'll message you if I decide to

[Motzaburger 1,590]

4 minutes ago, Matt_O said:

I agree with everything except for this part. I don't know what you were getting at when you wrote this part, but having these is necessary, and we would lose many more members without these. I may write a debate article about this. I'll message you if I decide to

I'm not disagreeing with you on that one! I do think it's required but it require no effort so why not reward the people who want to put effort into things, who want to stay active, who want to make this community grow and improve? Seems like a no brainer to me to give more chance for the active ones to earn TPE

[Beaviss 4,957]

We don't need more ways to earn TPE. There actually to much of it being handed out that it's causing inflation. 

[Motzaburger 1,590]

13 minutes ago, Beaviss said:

We don't need more ways to earn TPE. There actually to much of it being handed out that it's causing inflation. 

Maybe we need to remove some of the old ways then. Change isn't a bad thing. Graphics deserves it. 

[Beaviss 4,957]

5 minutes ago, Motzaburger said:

Maybe we need to remove some of the old ways then. Change isn't a bad thing. Graphics deserves it. 

 

This will do nothing but reward the same people every time. Some people are just better at graphics and no offence but it doesn't add anything to the league.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

Just now, Beaviss said:

 

This will do nothing but reward the same people every time. Some people are just better at graphics and no offence but it doesn't add anything to the league.

Lol. Name me a page where you don't see graphics that were created by someone on this site. Can't. 

[Beaviss 4,957]

12 minutes ago, Motzaburger said:

Lol. Name me a page where you don't see graphics that were created by someone on this site. Can't. 

 

I was more so speaking to the VHLGFX and not graphics as a whole.

[Beaviss 4,957]

1 hour ago, Motzaburger said:

The Lottery

Refer to Gustav for this one I’m sure he’ll let you know why the lottery is quite silly and unfair. 

 

Also this has been debunked and it's widely known actual real comments and not copy pasting or spam count for the loto. The only people winning the loto are people actually leaving real comments.

[Gustav 6,407]

1 minute ago, Beaviss said:

 

Also this has been debunked and it's widely known actual real comments and not copy pasting or spam count for the loto. The only people winning the loto are people actually leaving real comments.

 

I respectfully disagree, and here's exactly why. I think I've made my stance perfectly clear in this thread and elsewhere. You're still allowed to disagree with me, for sure, but I wouldn't call anything "debunked" at the moment.

 

[Beaviss 4,957]

4 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

 

I respectfully disagree, and here's exactly why. I think I've made my stance perfectly clear in this thread and elsewhere. You're still allowed to disagree with me, for sure, but I wouldn't call anything "debunked" at the moment.

 

 

I will agree to disagree. You can't force people to care but you can promote discussion and that's exactly what it's done. Is it perfect? No but does it do what it's set out to do? Yes.

[gorlab 4,321]

1 hour ago, Beaviss said:

We don't need more ways to earn TPE. There actually to much of it being handed out that it's causing inflation. 

 

Says the guy who is somehow 100+ tpe ahead of everyone else in his draft class...

 

 

 

I support you @Motzaburger. VHLGX should be a tpe reward. Maybe not weekly tpe, but definitely seasonal tpe rewards. 

[Beketov 9,025]

I’m not completely opposed to discussing the idea, it’s been rewarded in the past, however I don’t care for the way you present your argument. Pointing out every other way to earn TPE and saying “we’ll what about that” doesn’t really make your suggestion any better, it just makes it seem like you hate everything else. At the end of the day all the things you mentioned are fair and even methods that can benefit anyone in the community. Affiliate one is a bit of a stretch since you’d need active affiliate players but you’re taking about 2 TPE per month (roughly 36 TPE over a full career) maximum which is very little. Something like this incentivized only graphics makers. Anyone with no GFX talent can’t compete and anyone with a job that pays enough to not need a PT isn’t incentivized enough.

 

I do agree that our GFX talent has gone downhill, mainly since auto-6 was introduced. There’s no real denying that fact, people put in less effort because they need less effort. I will say though that GFX competitions I don’t think are necessarily a way to improve that quality. More likely you just end up with people being disappointed that they are losing to the same decent members every time. So how do we get our graphics back up to snuff? First I would say we need our  @Updaters to have more free reign to mark PT’s as needing review from @DollarAndADream which we have been doing. Get people putting the effort in again otherwise they won’t be getting their PT; this goes for MS’ as well but we aren’t talking about that. Second I think would be sharing help and resources and comments. This section used to be filled with new digs that people would post for CnC before they posted it as a PT because they wanted max points, there’s no reason that can’t happen now. If people want to improve they can ask for help. Resource sharing in here also used to be a huge thing. People sharing tutorials or PSD’s to help others learn, guiding them with different techniques. This is all still possible, I’ll gladly donate some of my own stockpile.

 

At the end of the day I think GFX will only improve if people want to improve. I don’t think throwing more TPE at a problem is the answer for everything, it just furthers the climate we have of people only doing things if they’ll be rewarded for it. Back in the day we did improve because we’d get better grades and more TPE for it but it was always a minimal difference. Things rarely got graded under 5/6 so that 1 TPE didn’t make people improve: people wanting to improve did. I would love to see the VHL be the leading sim league for graphics that it once was but I’m not sure throwing TPE at the problem is the way to do it.

 

 

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

I’m not completely opposed to discussing the idea, it’s been rewarded in the past, however I don’t care for the way you present your argument. Pointing out every other way to earn TPE and saying “we’ll what about that” doesn’t really make your suggestion any better, it just makes it seem like you hate everything else. At the end of the day all the things you mentioned are fair and even methods that can benefit anyone in the community. Affiliate one is a bit of a stretch since you’d need active affiliate players but you’re taking about 2 TPE per month (roughly 36 TPE over a full career) maximum which is very little. Something like this incentivized only graphics makers. Anyone with no GFX talent can’t compete and anyone with a job that pays enough to not need a PT isn’t incentivized enough.

 

I do agree that our GFX talent has gone downhill, mainly since auto-6 was introduced. There’s no real denying that fact, people put in less effort because they need less effort. I will say though that GFX competitions I don’t think are necessarily a way to improve that quality. More likely you just end up with people being disappointed that they are losing to the same decent members every time. So how do we get our graphics back up to snuff? First I would say we need our  @Updaters to have more free reign to mark PT’s as needing review from @DollarAndADream which we have been doing. Get people putting the effort in again otherwise they won’t be getting their PT; this goes for MS’ as well but we aren’t talking about that. Second I think would be sharing help and resources and comments. This section used to be filled with new digs that people would post for CnC before they posted it as a PT because they wanted max points, there’s no reason that can’t happen now. If people want to improve they can ask for help. Resource sharing in here also used to be a huge thing. People sharing tutorials or PSD’s to help others learn, guiding them with different techniques. This is all still possible, I’ll gladly donate some of my own stockpile.

 

At the end of the day I think GFX will only improve if people want to improve. I don’t think throwing more TPE at a problem is the answer for everything, it just furthers the climate we have of people only doing things if they’ll be rewarded for it. Back in the day we did improve because we’d get better grades and more TPE for it but it was always a minimal difference. Things rarely got graded under 5/6 so that 1 TPE didn’t make people improve: people wanting to improve did. I would love to see the VHL be the leading sim league for graphics that it once was but I’m not sure throwing TPE at the problem is the way to do it.

 

 

I'm definitely not opposed to rejecting more things for TPE that lack effort. Obviously, as I've done a lot, I'll let the first couple go if you're new to it but after that I need improvement.

 

There's also the Graphics section here like you've stated, that has a lot of helpful tools if people need them. I know some people never even knew this area of the board existed until I mentioned it, and even brought up a few of my old threads from years ago where guys like @gorlab commented and criticized my work. Guys like him and others are a major reason why I got any better than I was.

 

Of course, yeah, the auto-6 will deter a lot of people from trying as much as they could. In the past, you basically needed to be one of the great ones to get 6 TPE. Most people wouldn't even bother posting Graphics PTs until they knew they had a product that would get graded as 6. The majority of graphics posted these days wouldn't ever get a 6. They might not even get a 4. But the thing about now is, Welfare is 4 TPE, so I never give anybody less than that, considering they could have done nothing and gotten 4.

 

Even writing required more effort as you say. 6+ grammar mistakes or a few run-on sentences would knock you down 1 TPE. You actually had to run your work through spell check etc and proof read.

 

I'm not opposed to having the tourney reward a little TPE, but it would have to be something small, unless we had a writing competition as well. I don't see a lot of interest in a writing competition, however. With graphics, you just look at them and rank them.....writing obviously would need you to read them all. But maybe we could have something monthly, or bi-weekly, where winner gets 4 TPE, 2nd gets 3 TPE, 3rd gets 2 TPE, and all the rest get 1 TPE. That way even lesser skilled guys would get some TPE for trying? But there'd need to be some kind of effort shown, obviously.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

10 hours ago, Motzaburger said:

 

Graphics Reviewing Logs

Yes, more hands-on deck to review, easier it is to review. Makes someone’s job less hard (which they earn TPE and since it’s a job they should have to work for it). Anyways, I can get TPE each week to do 8 graphics reviews. I do my job. I tell people what is not working. Most of all, I give suggestions on how to improve and offer a helping hand. When I go do the reviews, I read the other reviews. Frankly, most of them are shit. Two sentences about “good job” or “looks great” or “nothing’s wrong, it’s flawless.” Not a chance. There is always something wrong and always a way to improve. We’re giving out TPE to do nothing. We’re not promoting improvement. We’re not saying, “hey do better next time, there is barely any effort here.” And this brings me to the aforementioned point above where our graphics for weekly TPE are not improving and it is wayyyyy to easy to get your 6 TPE. Just like it is way to easy to do, literally meaningless reviews for 2 TPE each week. 

 

 

This one is a little harder to gauge. Reviewing is a VHL-wide thing. Anybody can do it, so if people review graphics, you're not always going to get guys that even know all the ways somebody can improve while giving detailed information.

 

For a long time, reviewing was pretty dead. I didn't have many guys reviewing weekly, if even at all. It would just be me doing my regular 8. So, I began to value even the reviewers that only put in the minimum amount of work. People used to even argue a lot that reviewing was too much work for too little TPE. So, if I got a guy who was just going in and saying something was worth the 6 TPE that was being claimed, that's good enough for me. Would I like people to give detail every single time and provide ways somebody can improve? Of course. But, that being said, I wasn't going to tell people they couldn't review when I had....zero people reviewing.

 

Obviously, I look over everyone's reviews myself, and sometimes I go in and provide helpful info as well.

[Beaviss 4,957]

TBH welfare should be lowered by 1 TPE affiliate welfare stays the same. Only earning 1 more TPE from doing a media or graphics is killing the amount of content on the site IMO.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

2 hours ago, DollarAndADream said:

This one is a little harder to gauge. Reviewing is a VHL-wide thing. Anybody can do it, so if people review graphics, you're not always going to get guys that even know all the ways somebody can improve while giving detailed information.

 

For a long time, reviewing was pretty dead. I didn't have many guys reviewing weekly, if even at all. It would just be me doing my regular 8. So, I began to value even the reviewers that only put in the minimum amount of work. People used to even argue a lot that reviewing was too much work for too little TPE. So, if I got a guy who was just going in and saying something was worth the 6 TPE that was being claimed, that's good enough for me. Would I like people to give detail every single time and provide ways somebody can improve? Of course. But, that being said, I wasn't going to tell people they couldn't review when I had....zero people reviewing.

 

Obviously, I look over everyone's reviews myself, and sometimes I go in and provide helpful info as well.

 

I get it, I totally do. It helps lessen the load and promotes activity for all. But when reviews shouldn't be allowed to be general comments like "you did great" or "good job." Those should be regular posts with no TPE value. Reviewing should be made to get people to work on their graphics and push themselves to improve. 

 

And to your first line, what's the point of having people review then? if you can't get valuable feedback on how your work needs improvement or new suggestive tips and tricks, then why even get a review? If you get appraisal for doing something mediocre then the mediocre thing seems like the new standard. That new standard is projected into the weekly TPE claims, projected to other reviewers with no knowledge, and projected to new members. We have the bar set low and we're acting like it's ok. 

 

I'm not saying the work you do is bad Dollar, I'm just challenging many faucets of our flawed systems. 

[jack 498]

I think @Beketov is bang on here. I'd like to add a few more things. I started out making forum sigs when I was in grade 5, after Noah showed me Photoshop. It probably took me a month to figure out how to even pirate Photoshop for the first time. It took em a long time to make anything close to good. Since then, I've turned into one of the top gfx guys on the site, even though my presence has been in and out over time. I will say that having guys like koradek, beketov, boubabi et al making amazing sigs really drove me to improve, and having a concrete reason (moving from 4s, to 5s to 6s) really gave me that extra push to improve.

 

Here is what I would suggest for both GFX Ranks:

• Submitting to GFX Ranks should be able to replace a VHL.com player card/graphic whatever, even if it's the same piece that you used for a point task
• Anyone who fully participates in a season should win a free week or something along those lines. Less free TPE, but makes the effort worth it
• Have extra free weeks for top 3 or so, maybe some bonus TPE

Graphics PTs in general:

• Bring back grading. Even if we only require 1 grade. Use the old rubric (Effort /2, Look /3, Creativity /1) Maybe swap Look and Effort
• New members get a grace period for auto 6s. Not sure how long it would be (until their first draft? six months?). Sigs can still be graded so they know how they can improve
• Offering feedback in the PT section or Graphics section should also be able to replace Player Cards. Two or three solid pieces of feedback are way better for community and engagement than someone making the 60th shitty player card with 5% effort

It definitely seems like it's easier these days to earn TPE, which isn't necessarily bad, but I think the above changes could promote activity and create a resurgence in people wanting to make sick gfx. 

 

I'm also open to creating some sort of committee or resource collective for people who can share their expertise.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

5 hours ago, Motzaburger said:

 

I get it, I totally do. It helps lessen the load and promotes activity for all. But when reviews shouldn't be allowed to be general comments like "you did great" or "good job." Those should be regular posts with no TPE value. Reviewing should be made to get people to work on their graphics and push themselves to improve. 

 

And to your first line, what's the point of having people review then? if you can't get valuable feedback on how your work needs improvement or new suggestive tips and tricks, then why even get a review? If you get appraisal for doing something mediocre then the mediocre thing seems like the new standard. That new standard is projected into the weekly TPE claims, projected to other reviewers with no knowledge, and projected to new members. We have the bar set low and we're acting like it's ok. 

 

I'm not saying the work you do is bad Dollar, I'm just challenging many faucets of our flawed systems. 

I do want people to expand on some of their reviewing, I definitely do. It's something I try to enforce, but that's not going to happen all the time. A lot of the guys who do leave those shorter responses are newer members, and newer to grading. I leave a little bit of slack in the beginning while they learn the ropes.

 

I think it's become pretty apparent over the last while that graphics is the main area where effort is there or not. There's always going to be complaints.

 

People complained all the time about the old grading system, how guys that can do graphics great will always get 6 TPE, and it's hard for newer guys to ever get there. Then they have the writing option, but some guys have difficulty doing that as well, or don't have English as a first language. That's just how the VHL is these days, is the more slack league compared to the SHL. Obviously, we don't want things to be super easy here, but also I've seen plenty of guys go inactive because they kept getting knocked down for their graphics/writing on a harsher system.

 

If you have ideas, keep posting them. I can take the criticism, and hell, at the same time....you can take my job if you have a proven track record. I've been doing this for literally years, and it's probably not surprising to many that my interest has dropped since I started. I obviously still do the job, but it's hard to find people active enough as reviewers, never mind take on full jobs. Never mind the fact that Head of PT Staff is 2 TPE per week. I'd be more on top of shit if I didn't have to make a PT every week on top of doing this.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

1 hour ago, DollarAndADream said:

I do want people to expand on some of their reviewing, I definitely do. It's something I try to enforce, but that's not going to happen all the time. A lot of the guys who do leave those shorter responses are newer members, and newer to grading. I leave a little bit of slack in the beginning while they learn the ropes.

 

I think it's become pretty apparent over the last while that graphics is the main area where effort is there or not. There's always going to be complaints.

 

People complained all the time about the old grading system, how guys that can do graphics great will always get 6 TPE, and it's hard for newer guys to ever get there. Then they have the writing option, but some guys have difficulty doing that as well, or don't have English as a first language. That's just how the VHL is these days, is the more slack league compared to the SHL. Obviously, we don't want things to be super easy here, but also I've seen plenty of guys go inactive because they kept getting knocked down for their graphics/writing on a harsher system.

 

If you have ideas, keep posting them. I can take the criticism, and hell, at the same time....you can take my job if you have a proven track record. I've been doing this for literally years, and it's probably not surprising to many that my interest has dropped since I started. I obviously still do the job, but it's hard to find people active enough as reviewers, never mind take on full jobs. Never mind the fact that Head of PT Staff is 2 TPE per week. I'd be more on top of shit if I didn't have to make a PT every week on top of doing this.

No no I dont want to take your job I just wanted to bring up flaws as support for my argument to give a graphics competition TPEs. I think you do the job great, the merit of the job itself isn't decided by you nor me. I think maybe there is a solution to all this but it must be though out more. My main thing here is to revive the graphics and get us all better and see more collaborative process rather than just a process in which anything gets TPE. I also think your pay should be higher  I will definitely share ideas and suggestions as I always want to see things change and grow for the better