Forum Rules

In addition to the General Rules and Guidelines, there are a few additional rules / guidelines specific to this forum since it is rather unique.



Elaboration:

There should be absolutely no insulting, as is the rule everywhere on this site. Since this is an art subforum, and people put work into their art, I would also suggest not critiquing it unless people ask for a critique, or you know they are open to critique. Some people are more touchy than others when it comes to critique. This is not a strict rule, but just common sense for art discussion. If an artist asks you not to critique their work, yet you continue to critique it, it will be considered harassment.

Keep these things in mind when you are posting on this subforum. If you want critiques on your work, make sure to put "I'm open to critiques" in your thread or something like that so people will know. Alternatively, if you're giving a critique make sure that your wording is respectful of the artist and is not insulting. If you see any insults please use the "report" button so that the mods can review it. Do NOT insult them back / start fights as that makes it so you are breaking the rule as well.

There's also a rule against trading services for rep, so please make sure not to REQUIRE a rep in return for making sigs / artstuffs. Also please do not beg for rep / be upset if people don't rep you. A friendly reminder of "If you're happy with it I would appreciate a +rep!" or something along those lines is fine.

"Do not critique someone else's work unless they requested a critique or you ask permission first"

I'm sorry, but that not how critique works. You don't get to chose who reviews your work and you can't decide which ones you like or don't like. How are people expected to improve if others are told not to critique without punishment. I've seen countless times people claiming they don't want others to critique their work and, with no surprise, the work that person will present is very below average and even terrible. It gets worst when someone will state their opinion to help the artist improve only to be shot down and harassed themselves by the artist or their white knight supporters.

You should know that when you put something out on the internet, you are giving it to the public and they could say or do whatever they want to it and you can't do a thing about it. Criticism is something that can't be avoided and it affects everyone. It's freedom of speech, regardless of how cruel it can be, just take the frustration of someone taking stabs at your work to improve your skills at it.

Sorry for that rant, I just hate when people aren't willing to listen to others because they think their "Magnum Opus" is the best they can do when there is so much potential that the person is too lazy to capitalize on.

Stuke I generally agree with most of what you said except



Just because you place something on the web doesn't mean anybody can do whatever with it. If you were to put a photo on the internet, because you, say, want to show this super-slick selfie you made while snowboarding off a mountain, doesn't mean some random person (with or without bad intentions) can just grab your photo and do whatever with it.

I do agree with the rest though. If you place a post on a forum you should know that people will read it and some will most likely comment/give feedback (aka "critique") it.


Perhaps implement a feature for people to "disable comments". They can have comments allowed for those who would like feedback, and those who don't can disable comments.

Freedom of speech &c. Criticizing someone should not be discouraged. If an artist isn't open to criticism on something, they should not post it. Sure, people can be unfairly harsh, but I don't see how anyone could improve without input. The only kind of criticism that should be discouraged is comments that don't offer anything, like "ur sig is **** kys" because that's harassment.

You guys are making an awful fuss about this considering no one's even posted in here in the past 7 months :P

You're assuming that everyone who posts their work is doing so because they want to improve at making signatures/banners/whatever. From personal experience I can tell you that is not the case. If someone wants to post something just because they're happy they made it (without wanting to hear about what's wrong with the border, font choice etc.), that should be fine.

Again this isn't a very strict rule though, more of a common sense thing. In the vast majority of cases people will be asking for / be open to feedback on what they've created, and obviously if someone opens a signature shop but then tells all his/her customers they can't critique what (s)he creates for them then that doesn't make any sense.

@Technotoad64 Ima just throw this out there, but freedom of speech does not exist in privately owned situations. SmiteFire is a privately owned entity hense why they get to make the rules. If they want the forum to be a safe space for artists then let it be so.

This is basically why you can get fired for saying things your boss doesn't like.

While I agree that you generally shouldn't post something to a public forum unless you're prepared for criticism, I think that this is a perfectly reasonable rule/request.

Im sorry, but rule 1 is the reason why this site isnt taken seriously on reddit in the first place. If somebody comes to this site, they want the best build they can use to do well with in a game. Sugarcoating and being politically correct but factually wrong is why other sites like smitejunkies, smite guru, etc will get more traffic.\

This site should embrace suggestions and critiques. I understand we want to welcome new people and not discourage them from writing guides, but these guides will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. That being said, they need to be correct.

I feel like this might be directed at me, since I do leave a lot of feedback on guides here. Understand thats my way of passing on knowledge, and letting that person potentially having Top Guide for that god, instead of just writing 81 guides myself. In my experience so far, everyone has appreciated my comments. Only exceptions were in my guides where I had to clarify myself.

tl;dr Logos>Pathos

Appealing to new guide submission's feelings, over context of the guide itself, is why this site isnt taken seriously in the first place. Lets not make that worse by a rule that restricts community imput.

Riccu I implore you to read the actual thread your posting in before you actually post. This rule only pertains to SIGNATURES AND ARTWORK. It has nothing to do with guides.

On the front page, Ill I saw was FORUM RULES, then I read Stukes comment. Didnt see the art and signature subforum at the top, and thought this was a site wide rule.

My bad LOL.

But if anybody gets any ideas in the future, I back my words. Restrictive input on guides would be a bad idea...