Hold on, I thought this was an argument, in which you made a point, and I made counter points. Even if I am a troll (which I am not), my points still exist, and they must be challenged. I've pressed you for responses multiple times. You have none. I think I'll declare myself the victor. Does anyone want to hoist me on their shoulders?

only if you buy the pizza

I commend you for that. I worked at McDonalds when I was younger. (my first real job) Can't say I loved it either, but I busted my ass every day. Did the same when I was a stock boy at Kmart putting myself through college. I earned my current supervisor position by out working every employee in my department, including my former supervisor. My dad taught me the value of working hard and earning your way up the ladder. He also taught me the importance of being to work on time. So I can understand.

For me, as much as I bust my ass at work... Its just work. sure... I could get paid more, working in the city at some ad place... but I do this job so I can get home at the exact same time my kids do. I know one day they're not gonna want to hang out with their dad... So I take every opportunity I can now to be with them.

I got off at noon today, (My normal Friday time) and we spend the day at Six Flags Great America. My 10 yr old daughter rode the Eagle for the first time. Its one of the largest/fastest wooden roller coasters. She was apprehensive, but she conquered her fear with her old man, and it made me proud.

Cheers buddy. I'm done arguing with you.
I'll agree to mostly disagree and leave it at that :beer:

It's supposed to be a discussion on "How to increase participation" but you keep fucking it up because you just want to argue. If you aren't going to at least try to help then fuck off!

He argued with everyone that offered different views. Then he proceeded to insult everyone. I merely responded to his garbage.

You haven't brought anything positive to this discussion though. You just want to disagree with everything Pothead says. That's not helping.

It's not so much that I want to, it's that I do. Once he started insulting my intelligence and the intelligence of others and dismissing arguments arbitrarily, I felt compelled to defend what I had said. I'm not going to roll over to his flawed arguments. Trust me, I hated the experience more than any witness, but once I have been attacked like that, and I have seen others attacked, I'm going to defend myself, often by tearing apart the other person's argument. Seriously, the guy threw out actual responses from people who aren't participating because they are incapable of explaining themselves. Blame PotHed for saying insane things.

A lot of what Pothead said was about trying to find the problems with the site at this time. You where just disagreeing with everything he said.

He was entirely focused on his theory and solution. When people discussed other things, he accused them of hijacking his thread. He was not looking for a discussion.

Edit: I apologize for getting wrapped up in that ugly argument. Here are the constructive things I neglected to say as I was focused on that nonsense. I agree with the idea to have a running thread for source image requests. It wouldn't be difficult for us to keep it alive. It might just need a bump to the top once in awhile. I feel like that would be one of the most easily implemented solutions. (I have to reiterate that I didn't find the examples in this thread to be a significant issue, but others do, and this solution would help. I needed to prevent PotHed from jumping down my throat, accusing me if flip flopping.)

note: there are more problems here than the ones pothead said and if anyone try to bring that up their 'hijacking' the tread he started (stated by pothead)...if people try to point out the voting/source pic isn't the only problem...and looking for solutions... isn't that trying to help?

Yeah, my dad was kind of a deadbeat when it came to earning a paycheck. lol. He worked hard, harder than anyone I've ever known, but he worked for the love of what he was doing, often getting himself (and his family) into financial trouble because of it. He built the Vietnam War Museum by himself, several times over as he was unable to pay the bills and had to relocate. He built 2 2-story playhouses for us in our modest back yard and a large deck with a large koi pond. Today, he's travelling the country on foot to promote "The Walk," an outdoor museum of American History. I haven't seen him in 16 years, but we've gotten back in touch thanks to Facebook.

What I learned about working hard for a paycheck, I learned from my sergeants in the Army. I was a bit of a trouble maker, but because I worked hard, I avoided getting kicked out on two occasions. One of those times, they let me stay in because 2 weeks prior to getting in trouble some buddies and I pulled a pilot out of an Apache helicopter that crashed into a hill. Never earned a medal for it. Never got my name in the paper. But I learned that if you go above and beyond, you'll get rewarded in one way or another. As for why I got in trouble, well... As my section chief used to say, "6th Section works hard and we play hard. Go big or go home."




As cool as it was to work in the film industry, it was tough and the pay wasn't that great. On set, I was working MINIMUM 12 hour days for $125/day. A normal day was 15 hours because I worked in the Locations department and was responsible for setting up before and tearing down after. In the studio, life was easier in some ways, but if you think Photoshop is a challenge, try Eyeon Fusion.

On that note, PSC helped me get that job because it was easier to send the studio (Worldwide FX) a link to this portfolio than to upload a pdf file through the wireless internet we had in Kuwait. That's one of the reasons I want this site to succeed even though I don't personally find it enjoyable anymore. I know what it can do for artists.


It's 6:00 AM. I got home 30 minutes ago. Saw the newspaper in the gas station this morning. Six Flags Fiesta Texas is tearing down The Rattler. Thanks goodness. That thing is a death trap.

Cheers

I acknowledged that there are other problems, but some of the problems aren't as important, such as the blindingly white background of the site. One of the other problems is not the cause of low participation, but rather is caused by it (25 votes per contest). I was trying to identify the problem that is causing low participation to begin with and thereby finding a solution to that specific problem. I wanted to address my arguments first prior to going off on other subjects, and I tried to make this clear politely at first, but when people continued to simply disagree without giving a cogent explanation for the disagreement, I got hostile. In turn, they got defensive and disagreed for the sake of disagreeing as happens often on teh interwebz. At least, that is my take on it. And I think if you take a good look at their arguments, you'll see the same thing... such as arguing that my video game analogy was fallacious because repeated maps are exactly identical, not just similar when I was just trying to show that voting can cause repetition. It doesn't really matter that in one case the repetition is identical and in the other case it is just similar. It only matters that voting causes repetition and inhibits variety. But once someone gets it in their head that they must prove me wrong in order to defend themselves, logic goes out the window.

Wow you know I have acualy read all this...(Sorry Splodge I know your shakin ya head at me)...If you want the truth from a long long time member and a person who has had over 100 images used in contests...If you cant use the source dont blame the source, a good chopper worth his salt should be able to produce something amazing from any source supplies. (Check some portfolio's of the top people here at PSC)

To answer the question about why people dont compete in contests in the huge numbers as before, its easy...they have other things to do. You younger members just need to chill out and enjoy whats here FOR FREE and dont get so hung up on this stuff.

Pot-person if you spent as much time on your PS skills than answering and discussing with people in this thread, your chopping skills would be freakin awwwwwwsoooooome mate.

Dont answer this comment because Im not comming back to read any more lost to much of my time here already. But you all just go on and have some fun K

I'll have to file this one under "Things we've already talked about."