COW - Discussion/Complaining/TrashTalk/"Where the f*** is the Poll?" Questions-Thread

[FrostBlue]

Hi
I just wanted to know when is the next one is coming up.Missed out on the last one,great idea to have more work than just one pic.IMO.

[EdenGotterrCyan]

Cooooooollll i'llll wait and see :D

[Vatsel]

so umm how about a new COW topic?

[Mr.Wittmann]

yeah, where is Fozzybar?

[Lanista]

is this part of the forum dead?

[Azathoth]

H-E-L-L-O !!!
Anyone here ............Come on guys this is scary"""""
THE COW LOOKS DEAD!!!!!
Breathe Cow DAM You breathe""" Don't Die on me now not now.

[riotorange]

*gets the defibrillator*

CLEAR!!!!

live...come on liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

[MarkDN]

Couldn't we do an interim splinter cow?

Hrm. I wonder what one of those looks like.
559264

Hopefully not like that.

[yoitisi]

Just a little heads-up before this gets out of hand :P: Fozzybar is still alive and well. As some might have noticed, he decided to take a short break over Christmas and New Years (he mentioned this somewhere in the last round).

Since he's rather busy now and again with work, a while ago I offered to help out in case he is not be able to take care of COW for a bit. This means I'm the back-up moderator for emergencies for this activity, so if you need to ask something or need a moderator for anything in particular, first try Fozzybar. I was going to put up a new round this morning, but had to attend to other business first so it'll have to wait until tonight. Just a little more patience.

Fozzybar will be around though, so if for some reason I happen to mess it up royally he'll be there to save your favourite weekly activity ;)

[LoydID]

Sounds good!
That round coming?

Best wishes, and a happy new one.

[Tesla]

Is the "C.O.W. - Gallery of all activity winners!" theard death?? :( It was a really cool idea, I'd like it would stay going on.

[Tyrus]

I agree with Tesla, and why is there a tutorial in the challenge section?

[meganite]

I have noticed that the latest COW isn't posted on the website homepage. You might want to look into that.

[JaimyvS]

Why is the homepage of concept art still showing the #133 Giant Canopy Grazer COW and not the most recent one?

(edit)

Oh sorry meganite didn't see your post

[NickTrip]

In the ChOW forum, there is a thread for late works, redos and missed weeklies. Is there a change we could get something like that in COW?

[Mordus]

How long till the Fozz ressurects?
(Although I love the Jaecks)

[meganite]

Complaint... man I wish I could make this anonymous. But the deal is that I have a feeling in many ways the competition is almost a popularity contest - people will vote for people's work simply because they like that person or that the person has done great work in the past, not necessarily that they have great work this week's competition. I wish it was such that there were no names displayed to vote for, just artworks. That's how a real juried art show does it anyhow.

[meganite]

Also, we totally need to have a prompt on the finals/voting page so we know what the heck we're evaluating these designs based on. Or maybe just because I'm lazy and don't want to go to the WIP page.

[♦♦Jackdaw♦♦]

I'll echo the previous posts that adress the 'Giant canopy grazer' issue. It'd be awesome if COW could update on the homepage. Cheers.

[Pixelestial]

JakkaS: If I had the power to give you a hundred more stars for this entry alone, you know I would do it.

I'm really hesitant to even bug you about this, Jaecks, but I've gotta say that this "joke" kind of stings. JakkaS hasn't even won the vote yet. Meanwhile, I have yet to get the *one* star I earned for the "Hangs Upside-Down" topic. It's been two months.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in this for some silly COW stars, not even a little. But dammit, it's the principle of the thing! :dur:

Is anyone else missing their stars?

[Jaunay]

I have a question, the answer is most likely to be given to me here.

I entered COW for the first time last week and when the voting came up I wasn't in the finals. I just wanted to know why so I can improve.

I believe my quality is up to standard. My piece was "The Oxalian" for the Satyr Slayer contest. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=172973

Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.

[Vaghauk]

jaunay - hope somebody answered you before !!!!! :(
i liked your oxilian - don´t know why it was not included in the finals....)
speaking of : where is the voting poll for holiday dinner with the harkonnens ????
hope everything is okay ! hope its no flu..... :(

[WingsOfInk]

I have looked up and down the forums, but there is no idication at all about when the newest C.O.W. is. The same goes for the other "of the week" projects. How is this supposed to work, exactly?

[ninety9]

hey, as far as i experienced it the last years it mostly starts sunday/monday and lasts 1 week. normally the finals/poll went online on sundays. anyways for the last months there were quite a few delays. ppl got a lot to do besides managing the weekly activities i guess.

[Tyrus]

I agree on the delays, I assumed they would stop with a new moderator, but I think it is more the time of year I guess. I'm actually somewhat swamped with finals myself.

[Fiddzy]

I was wondering about the possibly of re-opening or re-starting a "C.O.W. - Gallery of all activity winners!" thread?
I was recently browsing the old one and it makes for an amazing view, showcasing some fabulous work and talent, a real C.O.W Hall of Fame, however sadly that thread seems to have been dead for some time.

Of course the gaps from between now and the last entry from 2008 don't have to be filled, instead maybe starting from the start of this year?
It just seems a shame that once a poll is locked the winning work disappears into no-mans land.

[Aldebaran]

Is it alowed to start a new COW round if the Mod is still nowhere to find?

And I also agree a completition of the winners list would be great.

[scorge]

Is it alowed to start a new COW round if the Mod is still nowhere to find?

And I also agree a completition of the winners list would be great.

Alderbaran, it's been done in the past. It wouldn't necessarily be official, but it does give the restless something to do. (Been there plenty of times myself)
As for the winners list, the thread for winners has been neglected for a long time and I'm sure nobody regrets that more than myself and the few others who have won a few since it stopped. I'm in the process of figuring out how to make it shine again but there's a lot of backlog to catch up with and of course the daily struggle of being a moderator with a job and child and other unforeseen daily occurrences that unfortunately put that priority on the back burner for a minute. It'll happen eventually, probably sooner than you think. In the meantime, keep on submitting your awesome entries like you did on this one (got my vote) and have faith in us puny humans.

[Aldebaran]

If possible I would gladly Help, for example putting the winners in the >Showcase frame like the old Winner collection etc. if there is something to help give me a note (I also dont have much freetime but would gladly help this running smoothly ^^)

[Ludic]

So..Where the fuck is the poll :I?

[APW]

Hey I was curious to see what the levels mean and how to level up?
Example: Level 12 Gladiator: Laqueatores; Level 3 Gladiator: Catervarii; Level 5 Gladiator: Myrmillo

[scorge]

Hi APW,
I felt the same way when I first got started in CA. The "level" merely refers to the number of posts you've contributed to the site. The more you post, the higher your level will go.

[skullbeast]

I'm going with Machu Picchu.

sorry wrong thread

[NickTrip]

Goo I was gonna WIN!

[(lark]

What was that weird thgread all about? I saw it for a second, clicked on it and I got a message saying it was a bad link. Then it was gone. It was called seo something or other.

[NickTrip]

It looked like a spammer. Threads like that have been popping up all over the site.

[arri-att]

Alderbaran, it's been done in the past. It wouldn't necessarily be official, but it does give the restless something to do. (Been there plenty of times myself)


I just want to clerify this - One can start a C.O.W. round byhimself if it is late? Since the last round is way beoynd deadline, can i start a new one? If yes, by which criteria do i choose theme and can I push something from my ideas?

[Si_Swe]

I don't see why there's such an impatience involved with creature of the week. I love COW, and I'll wait as long as it takes. I've never had a problem with scorge taking a few days or even an extra week to set up a poll. I mean, for god's sake he just spent what must have equated to days redoing the winners thread. There's a lot of work going on beneath the surface. We're all just participants in this, so I think we can chill out a bit about the "where's the poll"... maybe that's just me.

[arri-att]

I don't complain on anything. It is just that i missed the previous one and don't want to join in the last moments, and eager to start a new one. And I have seen above that it is a'o'kay. But the final reason to do it was exactly because for god's sake he just spent what must have equated to days redoing the winners thread. There's a lot of work going on beneath the surface.
So he doesn't have to do usual work right after a tremendous achievement of winner thread. But if it bothers you that much (and as i see you are not alone in your opinion) i can delete the threads for god's sake and end it in instant. I just thought it would be appropriate, ok perhaps not as official round, but practice in between, while scorge can take some rest.

Geez i get so much of opposition. If the last topic was not dead for two or three days(being the last post of the 1st september) may be perhaps i wouldn't be so initiative.

[Arbinn]

I understand arri-att's point of view. As a punctual person myself I get often frustrated if the due dates won't hold. I have asked for an extra day or two to work on a COW myself multiple times, but if the due date is being stretched for no particular reason I get pissed. Not to anyone in particular though since I understand that scorge has some health issues and a life.

I think that the best option would be to get some kind of assistant for scorge. A lesser moderator if you want to call it that, who can set up polls and new threads after due date. Scorge would decide the subject ofc. The assistant would just do the dirty work if scorge isn't available.

EDIT. The "assistant" sounds somewhat funny arrangement though. A second moderator would do as well.

[Si_Swe]

Just throwing another idea out there. I know that doing the Winner's thread must have been a lot of work, but I also think it would be awesome if we could get some of the tutorials from winners going on again. When I first started doing COW I found those tutorials immensely useful, so if we could get a few more in there. Even if you use a different method it's always interesting to see how other people work.

[(lark]

si swe: that's a good idea. Not to put him on the spot but I would personally love to see how emerging works. Always love his stuff. Also it would be cool to see how scorge works as well.

[shockowaffel]

I'd love to see the links on the CA Starting page beeing actualised.
cow is still linking to 2010 the year we made contact.

[(lark]

hey guys! si swe and I are going to be taking over mod duties next week, and I thought this would be a good time to see what people would like to see different in COW.

First I'm wondering how people feel about a specific time deadline. For example... instead of it just being a due date, would you prefer it include an actual time like 9:00 pm pst.

Let us know if you would like that change, or if you would prefer it stays a bit more loose. Also anything else you would like changed we'll try and take a look at.

Thanks guys!

[Devilfruit]

Well im from NZ, so I have to work out deadlines being that they are next day for me and could be in the Night so I have added too early and could have used the extra hours to clean up the work, so yeah time zone PST or GMT, would be great.

[Si_Swe]

I'm EST and, I think, (lark is PST. We'll try and figure something out to get the timing down.

If possible we'll try and implement the same kind of warning posts that they issue with ChOW (1 hour 'till deadline etc).

One thing I'd like to enforce a little more closely from here on out is the act of voting for oneself. I've noticed it happening quite a lot in the recent past, it's something I'd like to discourage as much as possible.

Let us know how ya' feel.

[Devilfruit]

Deadlines are something im used to, and Industry would sure use em lol :-), Industry give extensions too lol?

[lkjhgfdsa]

One thing I'd like to enforce a little more closely from here on out is the act of voting for oneself. I've noticed it happening quite a lot in the recent past, it's something I'd like to discourage as much as possible.

Werd, In the other weekly activities it has been banned with a 1vote penlty. It isn't usually acted on unless someone mentions it in the c.o.w.
It's a dodgy thing and poor sportsmanship to do anyways, voting for ones self...

[porcupine]

Perhaps you could use any of those online clocks, if there is any good it would be nice and useful. I'm from Sweden so I too has to sit and calculate deadline and it havent been that much trouble before since deadline is almost always delayed but if you are to make tight deadlines I would really appreciate going by some clock that everyone can use so one doesnt miss deadline because of timezones.

I agree on the voting on yourself part. It's silly and should be discouraged. Another thing I often thought is that ChoW poll is nicer in that sense that you can vote on multiple, many times it seems that good entries got almost no votes only because it was a great entry in there aswell, perhaps it wont work with a smaller activity like CoW but its nice to see in ChoW, sure a great image wins, but the good ones atleast get a bunch of votes showing artist he or she is on the right track.

My final thoughts is for topics; its fun when everyone can play the game! Its nice with topics that are kinda open for interpretation and possible for the weak ones to join, there will be more variety in the images and the best artists will still of course shine but I think it makes for interesting rounds with many entries. "It has the traits of a flower" was something like that, and it was really fun to see those finals!

Enough from me, good luck guys and hope you have a great time leading this in the future! :D

[lancer_idenoure]

i would deeeefinitely like to see that front page link updated. and about the time zone thing, id say make it 11:59 of the latest time zone and then list that time in all the other time zones.

[Si_Swe]

This voting round (192) is really speaking of something to me with regards to voting in Creature of the Week. Farquad’s entry has received the most votes thus far and (while I wish no disrespect to Farquad and, in fact, think he’s created quite a beautiful piece) I do wish to question the voters. Farquad’s entry is a perfect example of an entry which is gorgeously rendered and incredibly well put-together, but is far enough from the brief that it should have been excluded. This really shows me that people voting in Creature of the WAeek are not paying attention to the concepts that we mods come up with, but rather to who has the best rendered design. Voters are as responsible as entrants to make a choice a based on who best and most creatively portrayed their interpretation of the brief, expanding on, while sticking to, the guidelines presented in the brief. Let me make this clear, if it is outlined in the brief that something should be present in one’s design, that element must indeed be present for that creature to be included into the finals poll. This round will continue as is, and if it is, indeed, the case that Farquad wins, I will gladly award him his star and place his entry into the winners thread. On the other hand, in future Creature of the Week rounds, you should expect (lark and I to be a lot more strict with what we will and won’t allow into the poll, no matter how amazingly rendered it is.

I would also like to make it clear that I have not put this together because I wish I had received more votes. Receiving even one vote has always been flattering to me. I would simply like to get things back on track in terms of voting and finals inclusions.

[(lark]

Just like to say I'm in total agreement with si swe on the subject above. From here on out the finals will be more strict on who gets in the finals. I hate to exclude anyone, but I feel the briefs should be followed a bit closer. Otherwise it might as well be some creature you spent a month on last year that you felt like entering in the finals, I'm not accusing anyone of that, and don't feel that has happened but I'm just stateing that it is a possibility, and something we need to consider.

Hope we don't offend anyone in the future, when something like this happens. It is just a fun game, but it is a competition as well which I think makes it more interesting and I feel the rules need to be adhered to so the competitiveness can be on an even playing field.

Hope this isn't coming off like a rant, just a freindly reminder to look out for this in the future.

[Arbinn]

I totally agree with you Swe & lark! Not following the actual brief or interpreting it too freely has annoyed me a few times and some friends of mine, who have seen me browsing COW at school have been wondering the same thing. I for one would like to see the rules enforced. :)

So far I've been really liking where you two are taking COW. Keep it up!

[Vulgar`]

New EOW - Coven of the Dark Oracles

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2911827#post2911827

[Loathsome]

I hate everyone and everything.

That's my input to this thread.

[Si_Swe]

I would like to remind everyone that self-votes in the poll will be deleted if I see them.

[Buchmaler]

Hmmm,
i tried to attach my pic in the finals thread like the others do (with this paper-clip thing) but my picture does not get this "attached picture frame". Can someone teach me to do it the right way?

[Si_Swe]

Buchmaler - The attachment frame only occurs if your attached image is not inserted somewhere into the post. You have placed the image above your text, so the image attachment frame does not appear. I'm not exactly sure why it is, but it isn't necessary in any way.

[skullbeast]

We need some 3 word concept pitches "example two headed undead or blue wind surfer, red tree jumper" I'm no so sure about the "narrative" lengthy script. I feel like it's a bit limiting. Just my 2 cents

[Si_Swe]

I have noted this down, skullbeast. I will try and make my briefs more open in the future, I'm sorry if you have felt limited by my briefs.

[skullbeast]

Hey no offense implied. There is something very creative about repeating a few words over and over. For me, that frees up the mind so it may explore many avenues with the same origin. I'm just tring to open up the floodgates of my imagination. Thanks for all the killer concepts! Happy painting!!

[emerging]

This voting round (192) is really speaking of something to me with regards to voting in Creature of the Week. Farquad’s entry has received the most votes thus far and (while I wish no disrespect to Farquad and, in fact, think he’s created quite a beautiful piece) I do wish to question the voters. Farquad’s entry is a perfect example of an entry which is gorgeously rendered and incredibly well put-together, but is far enough from the brief that it should have been excluded. This really shows me that people voting in Creature of the WAeek are not paying attention to the concepts that we mods come up with, but rather to who has the best rendered design. Voters are as responsible as entrants to make a choice a based on who best and most creatively portrayed their interpretation of the brief, expanding on, while sticking to, the guidelines presented in the brief. Let me make this clear, if it is outlined in the brief that something should be present in one’s design, that element must indeed be present for that creature to be included into the finals poll. This round will continue as is, and if it is, indeed, the case that Farquad wins, I will gladly award him his star and place his entry into the winners thread. On the other hand, in future Creature of the Week rounds, you should expect (lark and I to be a lot more strict with what we will and won’t allow into the poll, no matter how amazingly rendered it is.

I would also like to make it clear that I have not put this together because I wish I had received more votes. Receiving even one vote has always been flattering to me. I would simply like to get things back on track in terms of voting and finals inclusions.

i agree with that.. its not just in COW, its like that in CHOW too. CHOW is actually even worse... i have spoken about this on many occasions and just felt the need to mention again that people who vote could careless about the topic. They open up the poll and just look for the prettiest most well rendered, most realistic or most appealing design/illustration and vote for it without careful consideration - does it actually portray what has been asked of the artist? And the fact is they DON'T and it pisses me off haha

[Ashwinder]

Hello everyone,
I just made an account but I have been watching the COW for a few weeks now. What I noticed is that the description of the assignment is only in the WIP-thread and not in the Final-thread. For example: "Sound round" doesn't tell you anything about what is expected from the artist. Maybe a link to the WIP-thread in the Final-thread or putting the description in the Final-thread altogether might help the problem.
I don't mean to be a know-it-all newbie though.

[Si_Swe]

Ashwinder, putting the description in the finals thread is an idea I've been toying with somewhat, but I fail to see how someone could be so lazy to not just go back to the subforum and click on the WIP thread. No one should actually be submitting directly to the finals, so I haven't really seen this as a problem.

[Ashwinder]

From what I've seen till now this forum has a lot of people who put in a lot of effort to make this place, a place where you are motivated to care, learn and be responsible. I hope to be one of those people too of course :}
I think with the attitude that rules the forum, maybe it is something that the voters want to be made aware of as well.
Then again upping the "security" allready solves the problem for the most part.

[Si_Swe]

I just updated the Winners' thread. I'd like to apologize for my tardiness updating the thread regularly, I'll try to be a little bit more on the ball with that, I've just been very busy with classes and work.

Also, I'm relatively sure that the stars are currently up to date, but if you feel that you're missing a star please let me know.

[GuesssWho]

You need to update the winners again.

[Si_Swe]

GuesssWho, yes I am aware. I've been very busy of late, so I haven't had a couple of hours to go through and update. It will be within the week. You do realize that it wasn't updated for like... a year or so before scorge finally updated it, right?

[GuesssWho]

I'm just trying to help:(

[Erzebeth]

Hi everyone i would like to know how long it takes to a mod for approving a post. I've post one hour ago a wip for the creature of the week and well i'm new but i'd like to participate to this contest (#243 ). Thanks for answering :)

[Si_Swe]

Erzebeth, when you're new to the forums, as a general prevention against spam, posting an image will often make it so that a mod must approve the post. I personally check the current creature of the week threads at least twice a day. I do get to all the unapproved posts. The best thing you can do if that happens is just to sit and wait. Please do not attempt to post the same thing 5 more times, it creates unnecessary work when I'm approving the post. Your post is approved, if you have problems posting in this COW in the future, rest assured that I am indeed around.

[Erzebeth]

Thank you Si_Swe for your answer :) and sorry to post it so many times :s I had connection problem either so i wasn't sure it was posted well. Thank you anywayy :)

[Erzebeth]

Hello guys :) I need a mod to approve my post on the final thread for the Eciological Staple :)

Can someone help?

Thanks a lot :)

[Erzebeth]

Still need someone to approve my post for the Great Armored Bird (Wip thread and Final)

[Bertling]

Still need someone to approve my post for the Great Armored Bird (Wip thread and Final)

Tip for you: post a short message, about 2 lines. This will bypass the approval filter. Next simply edit your post and include the images and tags.

[grenogs]

This voting round (192) is really speaking of something to me with regards to voting in Creature of the Week. Farquad’s entry has received the most votes thus far and (while I wish no disrespect to Farquad and, in fact, think he’s created quite a beautiful piece) I do wish to question the voters. Farquad’s entry is a perfect example of an entry which is gorgeously rendered and incredibly well put-together, but is far enough from the brief that it should have been excluded. This really shows me that people voting in Creature of the WAeek are not paying attention to the concepts that we mods come up with, but rather to who has the best rendered design. Voters are as responsible as entrants to make a choice a based on who best and most creatively portrayed their interpretation of the brief, expanding on, while sticking to, the guidelines presented in the brief. Let me make this clear, if it is outlined in the brief that something should be present in one’s design, that element must indeed be present for that creature to be included into the finals poll. This round will continue as is, and if it is, indeed, the case that Farquad wins, I will gladly award him his star and place his entry into the winners thread. On the other hand, in future Creature of the Week rounds, you should expect (lark and I to be a lot more strict with what we will and won’t allow into the poll, no matter how amazingly rendered it is.

I would also like to make it clear that I have not put this together because I wish I had received more votes. Receiving even one vote has always been flattering to me. I would simply like to get things back on track in terms of voting and finals inclusions.

Has anyone ever considered the whole voting system on all these threads as being pretty unfair. Not to say it has or hasn't already happened, but the voting system is open to everyone thats a member, so there's nothing stopping someone voting for an image just because their friends with the one who's created it. Maybe a much fairer system would be if voting only became a privilege for those who have actually entered a final image. A kind of earn your vote system. I know myself that if i've had to work quite hard to achieve something, i'm a lot less carefree with what i've gained, and i'm sure voting would be no different.

[Si_Swe]

grenogs - It's been a while since I posted that message. I like to think that things have changed for the better (at least a bit) around these parts since (lark and I's third round as mods. You'll notice that we include the requirements of the brief in the finals/voting thread now, which (I believe) has helped in to steer voting in the right direction. As for the friends voting for friends issue, I tend to find that it hasn't really been a problem. I'm really easily able to check on who's voting for who, and I find that most people in this community tend to honor the competition's spirit. There are certainly cases of rendering over all else informing people's votes, but that's not really an issue we can affect. And in the cases of friends from outside the community coming in and voting for their friends, I've only got one recorded instance of that, and the (awesome) person came forward and told me such so that the votes could be removed.

As for entrants only voting, that's something I refuse to do. These are community activities, all members of the community should be allowed to vote. I don't believe that having an "earn your vote" system is going to somehow improve our voting system. Weekly activities often have less than 10 entries and I don't believe that the poll should be decided on only 10 votes. Hope that helps.