Not finished with cal. art but still posting this.
(Though I finished some major steps in my art stuff and thus I think it's okay.
)
Besides, I want this out of my mind.
site itself & fan-art calendarYes, please! Keep it.
Even though it is maybe not the most frequented place it still is a place to host EQ related artwork. And yes: The calendar is one of the big things.
The calendar has quite some tradition and I think it is a fun opportunity for people around the world to be creative.
No matter what happens with the official EQ. Yes, the closing of the scroll was bad. (And the multiple restructures in-between also.) And maybe FQ is the last EQ (though it was written in the FAQ that Wendy might still do something, just without the pressure of deadlines that comes when you publish comics on a regular base).
But still - all that should "not touch us" - on a level that interferes with our own fan-art. E.g. J.R.R. Tolkien is even dead, but still people draw and write (even without relation to the newer movies). Regardless what becomes of ElfQuest official, we can still do our own thing.
calendar voting* people must be aware that a voting is going to happen (and thus a new calendar will soon be open for participation)
* possible choices should be suggested and discussed
(topics should leave a certain degree of artistic freedom)
* voting must be announced prior to opening the vote act
* voting should be open for a reasonable time
* the question is: Should non-artists be allowed to vote? And can voting (in this conjunction) still be kept anonymous?
This year was especially bad because of the missing e-mail notifications and the specific topic. Even(!) if it had been "Rayek only" I would have objected.
And iirc. we had more votes for the topic this year "entirely one character" than submissions... (as I said, I hope the people who were voting for the very topic "entirely one character" will also deliver)
As far as I recall we also had some very good runs, e.g. the weekly planner was 2012-2014 and we had a lot of entries. So it should be possible to generate interest and response.
And keep in mind:
* Not everyone is totally fine with each topic (e.g. I didn't participate in emotive portraits or something, cause I felt totally unready for such a complicated topic (faces are
complicated but very important).
I know that this year not everybody agreed on the topic. AND people missed the voting.
* People will drop out. For whatever reasons (iirc. I named some possible reasons elsewhere). But in any project around the world from 100 people maybe 20% will drop out. It
just happens. So we might want to be careful with "close calls" and
in time try to motivate other artists to possibly contribute.
site overhaulThe question is: do we need "new software" and the likes?
To put it simple terms: Imagine there is a mill. Driven by water from a little creek. It runs and all is fine.
But occasionally a piece of wood comes down the river and clogs the big wheel.
What people do then is to burn down the mill and erect a new one instead of removing the piece of wood.
The site was running fairly fine in the past. Unless it is ridden with security holes and / or bugs (that "attract" these pieces of wood) it could be running the same way as in the past. Of course, if the software chokes upon the sheer number of member or entries and doesn't scale up well it should be updated or changed. The risk is, that during these transitions, there will be a lot of "collateral damage" and fallout of all sorts.
But maybe there are just a few flipped bits that need to be flipped back.
Besides the missing e-mail notifications I am quite fine the the functionality of the site. Searchable gallery, "new" posts, forum, ... and it doesn't need many multiple clicks and stuff to go where you want. I have seen forum overhauls that suddenly needed many more clicks for everything and that is aggravating me. Some sites were virtually destroyed by updates that rendered content invalid, messed up a database of users and the likes, or was just unefficient to handle (lots of slow JavaScript, lots more clicks needed to achieve your goal, ...).
non-techy stuff* Is there a cost report? Does it need some kind of donations?
* How can we establish contact to new or former artists? How can we motivate people? How can we advertise the existence of EQFA?
* Where are people? A good bunch is on DA, I know, but some might even have migrated elsewhere, various holts, private websites, tumblr (not really an artist's platform, I know),
FB (...). Some probably live secluded from the loud and short-lived internet life.
Any ideas?
more techy stuff* How exactly is the site running? Is is a bare metal server? Managed hosting? Virtual server? Do we have physical access to the server?
(As far as I remember Obi Rak Kaeliri was /root on the old board and to me it seemed like bare metal.)
* Make a backup of the site. Just in case.
* most important:
Fix e-mail notifications. Without a base of communication every project is bound to fail.
People do not automagically come back. They post, but when they don't seem to get a response it "slips down into darkness" on their mind, and memory gets eaten / covered
by daily "distractions" of life. Maybe, after a long time they remember and wonder, and maybe check back, just to find there have been responses. And so it would be for every
participant in a discussion. Moreover any important announcements (regarding e.g. the calendar) will not fall on deaf ears, the announcement is quasi never even voiced.
* maybe - of course, that is time-consuming work - check for "Karteileichen" (members that only exist on paper, people with invalid addresses, e-mail bounces back with "not existing")
* ask ourselves: Still permit login for those (in case they come back)? Or e.g. make a little banner that notes that people should keep their addy up to date and that they need
to contact some administrative person if they would like to re-establish their account?
* check for orphaned stuff on the site (are all pictures "linked" (tagged, meta-info,...) with the correct copyright / copyleft?
* What about site security? Do we have hardware redundance or something? Regular backup? Site hardening against possible attacks? How is data stored? Do we have encryption?
Salted modern hashes of passwords and the likes?
EQFA may not seem to be a real target for crackers at first glance, but I think it is a possible prey. I can reason that if you want.
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Topic: The Future of EQFA (Read 9897 times)