Animation Source Forums

Okays... my first rant. I don't think there's a topic like this... if there is, mods feel free to lock. I apologise in advance for the tone of this rant. Here I go...




This rant is regarding several things about "Contests". The first...

Contests VS Requests

Let me define CONTEST:
A contest is where members submit their entries in hopes of winning said prize.
The two most common kinds of prizes are;
A) A drawing/rendering/signature/background/avatar/whatever request,
or B) Entered character(s) being featured in fan works (fan arts, fan fictions, fan images etc.)
There are other types of prizes, but these are definitely the most common.
Contests have set rules that entrants must follow.

Let me define REQUEST:
There are two types of requests.
Type A) Is where a member accepts other members' request for a certain type of fan work, free of charge of any kind. These usually have rules that members must follow.
Type B) Is where a member asks for a specific type of image or art usually of one of their characters. These usually have guidelines that members should follow.

An easy way to tell the difference: if it's got a prize/prizes, it's a contest. PLEASE put them in the right section! And, if you're requesting a character to be designed or something of the like, saying
Okay, now, on to the next part!

"Mate" Contests

Now, these aren't that bad, they're valid contest and all. But what annoys me is how many there are! And most of them, if they're not just posting for the sake of posting, they've completely disregarded all other mate contests and just made their own without a second thought. And what's wrong with having your own character as your other character's mate, anyway? And not every character has to be paired off on the moment of creation. Just give it time, write a non-love fic for once.

Also, for "Design What's-Her-Face's Second Litter!" These are okay if you do it ONCE. After that, it's plain annoying! Seriously, what ever happened to the fun of designing your own characters?

And "Design So-and-So's Pack!" If you actually knew your character's history, you'd know who their pack were. Very few of these are actually drawn. How hard is it to make up a couple of names and a general appearance to throw into your fanfic? It's not like you're going to say

Scout number two was mostly black and had icy blue eyes that were based in yellow. He had white markings on his feet, his tail tip, an un-even patch over his eye, golden tiger-stripe patterns on his back and one half floppy ear but the other one was straight. He said "They're coming this way," and then he was never used again in this fanfic.

So, all in all, what ever happened to creativity? I can understand in some cases, but who wants to live their life tagging every single character they use as not belonging to them?




I think there were some other things that I wanted to rant about here, but it's gone now. If I think of any more, I'll post it normally.

Totally agreed. And based off this rant, I started a contest that doesn't fit any of those. Enjoy!

Awesome >=) Nice idea. I assume this is a contest that will run for a while?

Wonderful rant. But, just one question. Were you mostly just thinking about the contests on the forums (which are pimarily art-related) or were you including the contests on the main site as well?

As I recall, I won that contest And yeah, putting all your mate requests in one topic is a lot smarter and simpler.



I as thinking on the contests on the forums. I don't visit the contests section on the main site much, but indeed, I think that was something I forgot to add. But that definitely needs ranting about as well, although I get more irritated at the projects.

That was a fun contest.

I think that people do confuse contests with requests but I haven't seen too much of that(probably 'cause I've only done two contests so far). If the person makes that mistake and it's their first time then I think they should be taught how it should be done but they don't need to be punished much. It's only the people who keep on mistaking contests as requests that should have action taken against them.

Yes, and half the purpose of this topic is to teach members the difference. I don't think that they should be punished for it, but it's very irritating when you're looking for a good contest to enter and you have to look trhough 20 billion mate and pack contests and 10 billion contests that are really requests.