Life isn\'t fair

[Anaughtybear]

I realize that nobody will ever be happy with the ranking system, but what is it with coddling the worst miniature painters? The truly shitty miniatures get a \"good effort, here\'s a 5-6 score\", while the fair to good miniatures get nitpicked down to the same level. That\'s why I gave up being nice for being impartial.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Your right its not fair.

I think the deal with the \"truly shitty\" mini\'s being coddled is that the comments are a bit sarcastic. The fair to good mini\'s are nitpicked because the painter has some semblance of talent and the people nitpicking realize this and are trying to help.

I hope that makes any sense.

 

[No Such Agency]

I never give a good mark to a truly shitty miniature. Except \"Left Talon of Roc\" of course, that one is just plain misunderstood. But you are right, there is compression between the genuine 6\'s and some well-meant 4\'s. I hated it when 6\'s were the best I could get.

Besides, isn\'t \"good effort\" usually code for \"... but the results are pretty bad\"?

 

[Equus]

Too some extent, I agree, and I\'m all for being impartial, but I doubt most votes are anyway. I mean, the entire rating system is pretty subjective.

That being said, in my experience in other areas as an instructor, sometimes you end up having to \"coddle\" or not throw too much criticism, constructive or otherwise, at people that are not as \"advanced\". Many times, they may not be able to process this information, so it wouldn\'t be to anyone\'s benefit. With some understanding and experience, they can usually gain much more from specific comments and criticism.

Granted, this is all pretty much a rephrasing of what Drake just said. But that has been my experience.

Cheers!

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Anaughtybear
I realize that nobody will ever be happy with the ranking system, but what is it with coddling the worst miniature painters? The truly shitty miniatures get a \"good effort, here\'s a 5-6 score\"...

Not by me!

Even before I became active I gave everything a fair appraisal, and I\'m a tough judge it would appear, I\'m pretty consistently 1 to 1.5 below the average score (which makes the dropping scores on one or two of my figures rather interesting but that\'s another day\'s discussion!) 5 should be reserved for dead-average work - bog-standard paintwork but it still has to have neat edges and so forth. If it\'s a bit untidy it\'ll get a 4, if it\'s beginning to show promise (i.e. there\'s something about it that\'s a little classier) it\'ll get a 6.

Einion

 

[Sturmhalo]

Yes, life is not fair!

 

[Corvus]

Yesterday I had a similar discussion with my local miniature storekeeper. He suggested that at the annual painting competition here in Antwerp there should be a category for the people who have already won a prize in the past, let\'s say the \"veterans\".

A small mistake on a model should not be taken into account for a beginner, but could be considered a huge error on a veteran\'s model, he said.

I don\'t really agree with him, but I think he has some kind of point there

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Originally posted by Equus
Granted, this is all pretty much a rephrasing of what Drake just said. But that has been my experience.

Yes but you said it better than I did.

 

[Klute]

The bit at the top of the main page says 5 is table top.

In my eyes.......a badly painted figure is still tabletop.

 

[frenchkid]

Life is not fair ...

the sooner you get used to it the better you\'ll survive.

Well that\'s what my old english teacher use to tell us

 

[ansquer]

intersting discuss... I want understand english language!!!!!
FK : voilà tes paroles traduites par Babelfish : \"plus vous obtenez utilisé tôt à lui que plus vous survivrez mieux. Jaillissez qui est ce qui ma vieille utilisation de professeur anglais de nous dire\"

 

[Naukhel]

I have to disagree. Life is perfectly fair. We all get out of it the same way.
With death.

The rating system, however, sometimes seems a popularity contest.
\"This person\'s been great consistantly, so deserves high marks, because he/she also helped me with .... etc.\"
I\'m actually harder on the people that have given me good advice (or any advice), simply because they need to know what little things they could do to be >< THAT much better.
What we really need is to see more comments. Not just votes, because votes alone don\'t help. We newer painters need to know how to improve.
I comment as much as possible. Sometimes, I hope, my comments actually help someone to figure something out about their mini.
But, I have a lot of time on my hands, sometimes.

NSA is actually my favourite commenter on my own pieces. He\'s blunt, he\'s honest, and while I haven\'t posted my fixes, yet, I believe his comments have been the most helpful toward my work, to date.

I\'d rather have my work ripped apart than praised as \'a good effort for a new guy\'.
:bouncy:

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Anaughtybear
I realize that nobody will ever be happy with the ranking system, but what is it with coddling the worst miniature painters? The truly shitty miniatures get a \"good effort, here\'s a 5-6 score\", while the fair to good miniatures get nitpicked down to the same level. That\'s why I gave up being nice for being impartial.

It\'s down to encouragement for a new or beginning painter and I\'ll give you an example from real life:

Young \'Paul\' is roughly 13 and has been going into our local GW store for the last 12 months or so. He sees the work that CtanSupportGroup & I paint up and he wants to get up to our level.
Now to be honest he has a long way to go and improvements are not going to happen for him overnight.
So yes I do \"Coddle\" him in order to protect what is a relativley fragile ego, not yet developed enough to withstand harsh criticism.
Because I have taken the time to try to help him he has shown an improvement from his initial attempts. Ok he\'s not up to a Golden Deamon standards and he\'s still got a way to go to get even a 4 on here.
But the primary issue is that if I\'d turned around and said \"That\'s crap.\" he\'d have gone home crying, never attempted to paint again and given up on the hobby. And then who would have been the greater loser?

So my basic premise is to Treat everyone with a \"starting\" level as a kid needing some help and to tailor the comments and possibly the votes in order to assist and not to destroy their self esteem.

I took this principle forward at Conflict Manchester where I was among the painting competition judges. Obviously there was only one winner in each category and some of those who weren\'t fortunate enough to win asked why, and in some cases what they needed to improve. All the judges there were more than willing to spend a few minutes pointing out the things that we had seen which needed working on.
So people went home, not having won but with some useful information and assistance.

In the end this is really a hobby and we all try to get some enjoyment out of it. What gives me the right to destroy someones pleasure?


[size=-2]I realise that this all reads a bit hippy and \"Touchy, Feely, Group Hug\" but tough.[/size]

 

[cfwheeler58]

I think it\'s pretty simple...

This works just like the rest of life.....

If you act \"for others\" it works one way ( as others have eloquently described..)

I you act \"for yourself\" ( and we all know some examples of that in life and on this site ) it works a different way.

Having said that....

I think most of us react to the piece in question first and the painter second. Doing it the other way around isn\'t really that helpful or in the spirit of constructive criticism.

The only other thing I can think to add that\'s new information is that I frequently see evidence that the first few comments for a mini are verys soft and its almost as if somebody reads them...and decides the painter needs a reality check....

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by Naukhel
NSA is actually my favourite commenter on my own pieces. He\'s blunt, he\'s honest, and while I haven\'t posted my fixes, yet, I believe his comments have been the most helpful toward my work, to date.

Thanks, but... I\'ve apparently never left a comment on any of your pieces ?????? Or did you recently purge your gallery?

 

[Astorderire]

Message original : No Such Agency
Besides, isn\'t \"good effort\" usually code for \"... but the results are pretty bad\"?

\" the colors are interesting\" is my favorite
By the way, NSA\'s comments are also highly appreciated in downtown Provins... ( I translate some of your comments for Team Model )

 

[Rhode]

Its very frustrating when the so called \"joke painters\" dip the mini in a bucket of red and tadaa, they get over 9 score. In CMoN you have to be very talented (8,5 and up) or a joke to get attention. Lots of painters who will be something dont get noticed at all, while \"lIGhtKniGHT69696969\"\'s get much votes and comments. I try to comment some worse painters because the good guys always get attention.

My opinion.

 

[EricJ]

I agree life isn\'t fair, and cmon definately isn\'t, but what fun would it be if it were! The way I\'ve looked at voting on cmon, and has worked well for me, is that since it\'s not fair, if I want to improve my scores, I better work twice as hard to overshoot the score I hoped for because most likely thing not being fair and all, it\'ll settle back down to the original goal. The result was then of course a nice motivation for improving my painting

Rememeber scores don\'t make you a good painter, and being a good painter doesn\'t always get you good scores. However often pushing to increase your scores is a great motivation to push to increase your painting ability. I think that might make sense?

I also agree that joke posts do stand out probably more than they should, but it\'s mostly people having fun. I don\'t think a joke getting an 8 once in a while really hurts too much, although I understand the agrivation of seeing a joke getting more feedbacks than a serious mini from someone looking for feedback to improve. But if you look at most comments a VERY tiny percentage seem to be actually intended to help the artist improve. Come to the forums, here and the WIP thread and you\'ll likely get better imput.

-Eric

 

[ralfmetal]

i`ve been into the hobby for the last two years and have to say that if a fig has three or more colours on i would say its tabletop standard, my local gw store insists that fig only need to be undercoated to warrant tt standard and allowed to play. the stuff i submitt to cmon is my tabletop army and my scores reflect this ..top level painters will be the envy of mere mortals and the whole snipers ..thing rears its ugly head ..most of the mods on cmon would win deamons etc... who cares, i love looking at mods good and bad. cheez n beerz.

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by No Such Agency
I never give a good mark to a truly shitty miniature. Except \"Left Talon of Roc\" of course, that one is just plain misunderstood.

You prove your own point right there.

And LTR (here) was not a \"joke.\" None the less, it is probably the sort of thing Rhode is refering to, and it has gotten more attention than a lot of better minis. However, I will point out that it also is not in the top 10 (not even in the bottom 10 ) and not anywhere near interfering with anyone else\'s ranking or hurting any hard-working painter\'s feelings.
In short, the novelty pieces don\'t have that much effect and shouldn\'t get anyone\'s cockles up.