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Post by charley1968 on Aug 25, 2006 22:21:22 GMT
Geee, i'm pissed off...Every day i see minis i'd be proud of having in my collection, and they rate 5,8 or something but are really well done but photographed badly..Is Cmon some kind of pissing-contest or a place where you can get some genuine criticism?
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Post by Tim C on Aug 26, 2006 3:58:38 GMT
Cmon is a place where you can quickly be turned off the hobby you love because of some of the idiotic voting that goes on there. I have seen minis that deserve to be high eights and nines only manage low sevens and the reverse of that absolute crap that scores high. Don't even mention Lotr it is quite rare for Lotr minis to do well on Cmon. I am rarely there these days and to be honest I don't miss it.
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Post by menace on Aug 26, 2006 6:48:37 GMT
Don't let the scoring get to you Charley, there's no accounting for taste! Subjectivity is the individuals right even though it may seem harsh and it has always been that way in Art and Craft. Use CMON for what it is, an extensive library of inspiration and information, and i'm sure it is probably one of the reasons mini painting perpetuates. (although i know quite a few who never go there). It's difficult for members to give good criticism as there is just so much passing through the galleries every day, for that you need to be right here ;D At the end of the day we paint minis because we love to and the most important person to please is ourselves, keep the chin up mate
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Post by drevilmonki on Aug 26, 2006 11:55:38 GMT
I have to say I love CMON. It was the site that got me interested in painting after a 10 year hiatus. The reality is that it is an open site visited by thousands of people, sometimes what is to your taste will not score well. As to complaining about a figure getting low scores because of poor photography, sorry but what else do you expect. People can only vote on what they can see. I wont vote a high score on an out of focus dark model that I can't tell its face from it's arse just because the poster assures me it is the bees knees. I also think that as with anything when standards improve peoples expectations get raised. What used to score 9 now scores 8.5 or lower simply because the number of figures being painted to that level is so much higher. You need to do something extra to raise your head above the crowd.
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Post by charley1968 on Aug 26, 2006 19:41:30 GMT
I like CMON as well, no mistake about that. What get's to me is the fact that there seems to be a tendency to set an impossible high standard(or rather to give minimal points). When i ask an professional painter to paint to tabletop standard, i can expect basecolour/wash. On CMON i've seen fully blended figures rating 5.something. @ drevilmonki: i don't mean those black-figureagainst black background pics, i mean the ones where you can tell arse from face but where foreground/background are out of focus etc. Why is there a bias against LotR minis? Of course, this isn't gonna make me throw away my brushes(as i'm quite happy with my ratings) but i've gone over to rate minis i like ,but which are not perfect , higher than they normally deserve.
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Post by drevilmonki on Aug 26, 2006 22:55:46 GMT
I spend 90% of my time at CMON and 10% here. These are the only two forums I participate in. I visit other sites but not as a member. I actually find Tims view a bit on the nose considering the high regard he is held by the active members of the CMON community (just look at the comments he gets when he submits minis). Voting will ALWAYS be a subjective thing and what you call table top quality might simply not cut it for other people. I actually find it very rare to come across a mini that isn't within + or - 1 of where I would rate it and considering you can only vote whole numbers that would be pretty much what I would expect.
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Post by ralfmetal on Aug 27, 2006 9:39:31 GMT
ah Cmon a funny ol place its the old saying if your names not "down" your not coming in. i have not submitted any thing on there for a good few months nearing 12!! and if you try to enter a GW model .........theres a few points off for sure ...they have a real hump on with GW over there...and i have to say i still prefer GW to any other company ...sorry. i`m sure somebody should mention the word drink any time now.....like me murphys i`m not bitter. ;D
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Post by charley1968 on Aug 27, 2006 19:39:48 GMT
Let me set one thing straight: i like CMON for the advice it offers and the amount of minis one can see. The 'regulars' there are a helpful bunch and very friendly. What i'm not happy with is the amount of 'sniping'.I looked into some threads were members with a much higher level of ability complained about the same thing as i do. I dunno if the votes are chronological, but i assume they are: One way to cut sniping would be to count votes once a week instead of straight away(because: the first/second vote given will affect the actual rating much more than the 60th or 1000th. If you pool them, you get an average, that cancels out the extremes) Another way would be to delete the extremes( 'snipers' or 'boosters'). As to 'voting will always be a subjective thing': sure, but if you don't consider craftmanship, what's the point of voting?
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Post by Tim C on Aug 27, 2006 20:26:22 GMT
I am sorry my comment caused upset but I say what I feel, I have no problem with the active members of Cmon and get along with them fine, I also appreciate every comment I recieve when I do submit things and do not get me wrong I do not pre-judge where I think my minis should fall, to be totally honest I don't give a flying f**k what they score as long as the end result pleases me. I do get pissed off though when people are quite obviously voted down for no better reason than that a person can do it with no accountability. If it was a case of having to be logged in as a member of the community there would be more traceability and I think that possibly would be a bit of a deterrent. Alot of threads have been started about this topic and there are always those that agree and those that don't, I think that if it was taken a stage further that when posting low scores that it had to be accompanied by a comment to say why a voter voted this way then that would have even more of an effect. I know several people who were affected by this negative voting attitude without any explanation that they almost gave up the hobby, now that may sound extreme but that is how it can affect some people. I know there is the subroutine that automatically discounts spurious voting after a mini has reached the 50 vote target but that to me is a nonsense as by the time a mini reaches that score then the damage may already have been done. I am not going to start bashing Cmon as I find it a great inspiration for mini painting and the members that post regularly are good people. But I stand my ground when I say that I now don't log in very often and post now even less and I don't miss it as much as I thought I might, I now have this site and also The One Ring which I find to be a very comfortable place to spend time.
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Post by charley1968 on Aug 27, 2006 20:48:32 GMT
Gee, i really have hit a sore spot, haven't i? I totally agree with you, Tim!
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Post by endrem on Aug 28, 2006 8:26:29 GMT
I think CMON is the site for inspiration, examples, and articles. That's what I'm using it for A friend of mine and me are running a site in Hungary, which is similar to CMON, just much smaller scale, as the community is smaller. There you can only vote once for a figure. We made this decision to avoid sniping and boosting, and that sort of things. It might sound quite strict, but we thought why should one vote several times? Does one's opinon change? Non-members can't vote at all. I'm not sure that's the best solution, but seems to work fine. The other thing is, seeing how people vote. I have of course access to all data and seeing the values people give for the minis mirrors subjectivity... but also painting experience. People with less painting skills tend to give more. Certainly you can see age categories too. Younger guys let more personal taste into play, not even trying to vote objectively. Like If the sculpt is bad, the painting is bad too. They tend to give more 10s and 1s than others. If this remains in a certain level, it's ok, it's their opinion, that's why we have the voting. Anonymous voting plays a role, too. We also organize competitions there from time to time. For these competitions we require that you submit a comment with your vote, without comment you can't vote. Much less people vote these times and they normally give more reasonable points as they think and watch longer before voting. I'm sure the current scoring has an affect too. If a mini is already scored high, people tend to give also higher points. We were thinking of hiding the score of a mini until the user voted on it, but finally we didn't do that, because then also unregistered users wouldn't see the scores. These are my experience on our voting system, I thought I add them to the topic. As someone said, voting will always be subjective. I can only add it is also quite a challenge to create a possibly sniper-safe and still user-friendly system for it.
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Post by GeneSteaIer on Aug 28, 2006 15:42:01 GMT
Personally, i hate CMON. its a good site for inspiration and reading articles, but many pictures (good pics and bad)get incredibly idiotic, underated votes. some good pics, but horrible minis (i saw a giant servo skull with 6 tentacle things supposed to represent a defielr) rate 9-10. many ratings can be fair, but most of the population gives ratings on minis that desrve much higher scores.
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Post by jimmygee on Aug 28, 2006 15:59:59 GMT
I suppose I spend a little of my spare time over there. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy spending time there, but I know exactly what you mean on some of the voting. It is hard to accept when you spend so much time on a mini, only to see it soundly trounced in the voting....while you see a mini with a naked boob get a better score... Anyhow, I enjoy the forums quite a bit there, but one of the reasons I have become a member on this site is for the smaller, more supportive community. It reminds me of a huge bar. Its fun to go hang out there, but after a while the noise drowns you out. So, you may start hanging at one that is a bit quieter.
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Post by charley1968 on Aug 28, 2006 19:06:39 GMT
Lol, see what ya mean, jimmy
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