Question for the Community

[Princess Minako]

It seems that we have a great community going on in here, and that makes me happy. I'm seeing a lot of fantastic walls and work about, my question is: Why not submit your work to the sites?

A lot of people seem to come here for critiquing and to help others, but I'm not seeing a lot of the same people submit to AnimeWallpapers? I was curious as to why you don't currently submit, and what would encourage you to submit?

Thanks for the input!

~Princess Minako
Webmistress/Co-Owner of AnimeGlobe Productions

[MaruDashi]

Personally, I think it was just easier to post the wallpapers we wanted to submit in the now-closed submission thread.

I submitted a wallpaper not too long ago, but it was rejected for quality purposes, and it had no problem being accepted on other sites.

Thats where I think submissions kinda stopped, when the submsiion thread was closed off

[Princess Minako]

Do people feel that the submission thread was easier?

Send me the wall Maru, I'll take care of that.

[clowangel]

Actually, I don't submit to AnimeWallpapers for a few reasons, and not because I'm too lazy to submit.

My main reason - The bar is too low. In other words, the quality overall is too low. There are a few good submissions but I can't see many. As I browse through the site at this very moment, I've only seen 3 'good' wallpapers; not excellent or fantastic but just 'good'. I don't even know how the rest got accepted. -_-;

Other reasons

- Inflexible system. If I wanted to make changes later, I can't upload revised versions.
- Not fond of the layout of AW.com either.
- No 'Comments' box. Just because a wallpaper was accepted, it does not mean it's even close to perfect. Having the option to comment and critique on the page would be nice.
- Size/Dimensions. I know it's encouraged to submit minimum 1024 width, but the thing is, that's too low. No one uses such tiny monitors anymore. At least, not many people.

Overall, it just kind of discourages me from submitting when I see such small and low quality walls. I mean, if I'm unwilling to download any wallpapers from it, why would I submit to it?

[Princess Minako]

most of the walls there are left over from the "previous" site, presently we are trying to raise the quality of the ones that are there. But we can't do that if no one submits quality walls, it becomes a catch 22.

There should be a comments box, if you're not seeing it I'll talk to Kaitou, as he codes it.

We have to have a minimum,
As such, wallpaper at AP can only be accepted in the following resolutions:

- 1024x768
- 1152x864
- 1280x960
- 1280x1024
- 1600x1200

even AnimePaper has it as their "minimum" what is submitted is up to the submiter.

what about the layout don't you like, fill us in. Kaitou I know has posted threads such as "what do you want' and little to no one has replied. Here's your chance to make a change!

[clowangel]

Er, well, I joined rather recently (Actual join date doesn't count since I wasn't actually here until a month ago) so there's no way I'd have known what threads have been made prior to my time here. Anyway, the layout in general just seems...'all over the place' and disorganized. I think it needs a better layout anyway. Or at least better looking buttons and banner. Or better yet, find a better place to put all the ads. >>; Which is another turn off; the ads. They're too distracting. Way too in your face.

Yes, I realize AP has it as their minimum. After all, SOME people still use small monitors, but the majority of wallpapers at AP aren't that tiny. In fact, AP is the only place (as well as MiniTokyo) that I'll submit wallpapers to (not that I made many).

Edit: Never mind about the Comment Box. I see it now. It's that teeny tiny speech bubble thing right?

[Animousflavista]

I agree with MaruDashi - the submission thread is easier.
also agree with clowangel - the quality overall is too low.

This forum is good but there should be a person that keep track all wallpaper that is posted to get critics, so that way after the wall fix has been finalized, the person can tell the wall creator that the wall can now be posted on the website. These IMO will increase the quality of the wallpaper submitted.

[UrusaiSevera]

I came across this place via AW.com in the first place, back then the wallpapers up there were attractive because they were straight forward and cleancut.
But when I browse around this area, AW.com forum, it's just such a turn off. Hardly any of the wallpapers that are posted here for critique are worth a second glance. This sounds crude, but they are just not up to par. The quality of the extractions are low, the skills with which one was made ...well.. is absent, all around it deters me from posting my own work.

Apart from the regular (and talented) wallpapermakers that post their work here (MaruMaru <3). Just a few other wallpapers are interesting, but they are lacking in the size department. The standard minimum resolution for a wallpaper is 1024*768, then you should also post it in this size on HERE.

I was looking at AW.com and the layout on itself isn't all that bad. The only thing that doesn't look like it fits with the rest of the layout is the banner, it looks outdated and too simplistic, thus doesn't fit the rest of the site. And "Top Rated", "Just Viewed" and "Newest" make the site so much more attractive, but what I miss from the old site is an index. If you could place one to the left (where the ad is), this would greatly improve browsing through AW.com

If I have any further comments... they will be posted.

Ciao,
Uru

[Princess Ai]

I personally never submit anything I make because I either 1. Don't think it's good enough for the site. 2. Don't think many people would like it, and 3. Didn't get good enough critique on it, so it needs more work.

[LadyPSerenity]

Just an absent comment from the things I've read here.

I have two wallpapers up on that site. Never been much of a wallpaper"er" because I don't do well with such a large canvas. I'm not even that good at it.

However, the issue that I'm seeing here is this "WE don't submit because the quality is to low" but how is it we're going to raise the bar if people don't submit their "better" works.

Not saying that your works aren't better or that they aren't "bad" or "good", just saying you are asking us to raise the bar when the submissions are low. Every artist starts somewhere, and while I agree with the critiquing and raising that area of expertise through comments and suggestuons I don't agree with the idea of not posting your better works because they're better.

We welcome people here to submit and raise the bar. What makes me want to learn more and do more wallpapers is SEEING good qaulity walls on my favorite sites.

If you want to raise the bar on the site, or suggest WE raise the bar, why don't you help us out with that, make your submissions. Raise the bar with your work?

[clowangel]

Well, I know what you're saying, ladypserenity. ^^; But it doesn't change the fact that it bugs me anyway. ~~; And I'm not asking anyone to agree with me. I'm just stating why I've not submitted like this thread asked.

Maybe if the site had a 'revamping' (or maybe I should call it weeding?) of all the wallpapers, I'd be willing to submit what little I've made.

Edit: Of course every artist starts somewhere. That's why this forum exists, right? Start here, learn from critiques, comments, suggestions, get better, learn some more, and then get even better. But..er.. not that many people c&c anyway.

[UrusaiSevera]

I make very few wallpapers, I just don't have the time to do so.. and most of them aren't animewallpapers anyways.
Also I think bringing back the submission thread is a good idea, because then at least some form of selection will take place (just like the signature submission works for AG.net). That alone will up the standard of AW.com. Also routine check ups on added wallpapers to AW.com and disposing of the ... rubbish, will help.

One thing I can tell you, when I do make an animewallpaper in the future I will contribute. I can't expect the bar to be raised just because I would like to see that.

Also I really don't find AW.com needs a "revamping" it just needs some dusting off and tweaking. There is nothing wrong with the current layout. It's ergonomic, easy to oversee and browse through. My only suggestions to up the site have already been stated.

To be continued... probably.

[MistressPookyChan]

i don't know if any of my stuff is up there anymore. If you need some stuff, let me know.

Also, I'm not a fan of the top banner. looks a little like it was done in paint IMO.

[LadyPSerenity]

Not that I want to start an arguement about this thread thing, but just a quick stating of a fact. The wallpapers DO go through a selection process. The new ones at least.

And there are people that are looking through the older ones to see what's there. Things that don't meet the quality standards do get reported to be removed. Anyone I believe can report wallpapers.

Just keep in mind you can't take everything off ^_^;;

And so, we want to raise the bar? Start submitting better quality stuff. I agree we need to raise it, but to do that, we need to submit.

^_^;

[MistressPookyChan]

As someone that has helped with adding wallpapers and weeding out bad ones, I can assure you that we are pretty harsh. ;) Of course only good quality walls get through.

[MuZ0NaZ]

Also I think bringing back the submission thread is a good idea, because then at least some form of selection will take place (just like the signature submission works for AG.net).

I'm just going to reiterate what LPS said, all the new submissions are going through approval process and the ratio of denied/accepted walls is 5 to 1. It doesn't help that 'excellent' wallpapers are even less frequent. I understand no one wants to wade through loads of crappy wallpapers but the quality is entirely dependent on the submitters. I'm not pointing fingers at the few forum residents not posting to the main site, really <_<

[UrusaiSevera]

I'm just going to reiterate what LPS said, all the new submissions are going through approval process and the ratio of denied/accepted walls is 5 to 1. It doesn't help that 'excellent' wallpapers are even less frequent. I understand no one wants to wade through loads of crappy wallpapers but the quality is entirely dependent on the submitters. I'm not pointing fingers at the few forum residents not posting to the main site, really <_<


Ok then I have a question for you all.
When someone submits a wallpaper directly and the wallpaper gets denied, do you give comments on the wallpapers itself? Do you point out what needs to be improved in the wallpaper (if there is any hope left for it)? Cause this means a whole heck of a lot more work.

And I'm saying this because, in this forum most of the comments I see are alongst the lines "It's great" or "It's missing something". But nobody really critiques or gives good advice on how to improve a wallpaper. In my eyes this would be the biggest advantage of the submission thread. Not alone will someone get normal comments, but then we also get an idea of what AF (or AW) staff really wants, or finds acceptable.

But I don't know how it goes now, seeing as I've not submitted any wallpapers myself.

[MuZ0NaZ]

No, it's usually a generic message listing several aspects that are lacking - otherwise it would be complete hell, writing a decent critique isn't something you can do in bulk. That's why it also directs the submitter to this forum. I hand out tips or critiques myself, but usually only when someone asks me to, I don't really have much free time (and plenty of distractions) anymore.

[Kaitou Ace]

And to jump in on one more thing regarding mixed quality of walls on the site, well a lot of it has to do with what happened over the course of the year.

Pmak and the people he had approving wallpapers, while he was alive, were very strict on what got in, and what didn't. After he passed away and Hongli took over, he took pretty much anything. Now we are trying to be quite strict again. However we don't have a way of sorting the walls that were approved by pmak from the ones that were approved by hongli, and thats how a lot of the lower quality walls got in. We're weeding out the obvious ones as we go through the site.

I have to say that the walls that we've been approving are very well made images, and are certainly ones that will raise the average quality of graphics on the site.

The index that used to be on the site, is under the Anime tab (or any of the letters under it). Having it on every page more than doubles the size of all the pages, and makes the site very unwieldy. I know its how the site used to do it, but I can't think of any user/navigation-friendly way of having a list of hundreds of shows located on every page of the site.

It is interesting to hear about the submission thread, but the numbers don't seem to add up. Going over the thread still in the forum here, it looks like we averaged about a submission a week, with sometimes over a month passing between new submissions. Whereas using the submission form on the site right now we average 8 (7.67777) submissions per day. 80% of them get rejected of course, but thats still a sizable amount being added. Part of that is, I think that there are two different demographics here, people who use the forum, and people who use the site. Most of the people submitting on the site are not posting in the forums here, and vice versa, most of the people on the forums here, aren't submitting to the site.

Feature-wise, the site is a work in progress. Things like comments, tags, a revision system, and so on, are being finalized, and I'd like to get most of them up soon. Comments are just about there actually, I have some final testing to do before I turn them on. I'm always interested in feature suggestions, as its much harder to come up with what to add, than it is to code it. The layout can be changed, and part of the plan was a changing header image, similar to the forum here.

[GangstaSnail]

Pretty much what I've mentioned in the past ...
- featuring
- multiple resolution support (yes, and not the crap resizing system, different aspect ratio of the same wallpaper, not multiple uploads of the same wallpaper in different ratios)
- different type of search (like user search, maybe a feature next wall: "more wallpapers from this user")
- aliases (and decide which naming should have the priority, English or Japanese)

About quality ... well, with such walls
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/claymore/full_1.php
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/hellsing/full_39.php?meta=newest
it's still far from gaining average quality >___>;

btw ... this one is just a scan rip with extra text
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/saintseiya/full_1.php?meta=newest

[FlashD]

Pretty much what I've mentioned in the past ...
- featuring
- multiple resolution support (yes, and not the crap resizing system, different aspect ratio of the same wallpaper, not multiple uploads of the same wallpaper in different ratios)
- different type of search (like user search, maybe a feature next wall: "more wallpapers from this user")
- aliases (and decide which naming should have the priority, English or Japanese)

About quality ... well, with such walls
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/claymore/full_1.php
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/hellsing/full_39.php?meta=newest
it's still far from gaining average quality >___>;

btw ... this one is just a scan rip with extra text
http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/saintseiya/full_1.php?meta=newest
I guess you scared all the posters in here :P

So to answer ...
- features are under development. We just put the site back online 4 months ago and currently we are working to make the site viewable. Things like fixing old wallpapers and make sure everything Ace added until now works properly. New features will follow for sure.
- multiple resolution support will be added. It was already put on the to-do list, but right now other things have the priority. And the resizing system is not really so bad ... Ace made it pretty good actually.
- searches will be added too. We already have different ideas of what we will be able to search for and how and searches by username and the "get more walls from the same user" have been included.
- as for aliases for now we decided to use the method "Names that are known better" which makes the whole "choose between Jap or Eng" a pain. This is not the decided way tho' ... I have an idea about this but I have to talk to Ace about it first (suggestions are welcome too). Aliases are already supported tho'. We are just not using them yet for easier administration (mine actually), but they will be included as soon as I will be done with what I have to do.

For the wall quality as Ace already stated we have a lot of walls from the old site ... around 98% actually. The new ones can be easily recognized since all of them have the credit linked to their profile on AF and those go through a strict process. While the old ones are as most of the people here defined them "crappy". O_o;
I'm not really sure of the word tho', since quite some walls on there are still great even tho' they are a bit pixelated and 1024x768. Most of the CRT screens wouldn't even see the difference and since only CRTs still use the 1024x768 res I guess they are still good.

Ok then I have a question for you all.
When someone submits a wallpaper directly and the wallpaper gets denied, do you give comments on the wallpapers itself? Do you point out what needs to be improved in the wallpaper (if there is any hope left for it)? Cause this means a whole heck of a lot more work.
Same as Muz said goes for me as well. Writing a decent critique takes a lot of time which we don't have, but we do point out what's wrong and give suggestions how to fix it.

[UrusaiSevera]

Seeing as I'm a lazy person, I was looking for an index on the home page. Furthermore, I never really liked the complete index on the old site. I always tended to scroll past just that anime I was looking for.
What I am talking about is just the simple A to Z index on the home page, like the one you can find once you click on the Anime, Games or any of the other tabs. But now I think of it.. that would be a pain, because then you'd have all the anime and game wallpapers together in one index.

At first I also totally oversighted the tabs "anime", "games" "lyrics" and soforth. But that's because the welcoming word and the three features underneath it are more noticeble than the few small tabs, to the upper right of the screen (or perhaps I'm just blind).

And I have to say, the new wallpapers are very well made, but those are certainly outweighted by the amount of old wallpapers that don't look good. Personally, all wallpapers that repeat the same image of a character twice or more in one wallpaper can be dumped in the good old trashcan.

[clowangel]

@Urusai: I know exactly what you mean about the tabs. ~~;

Not quite understanding the "...all wallpapers that repeat the same image of a character twice or more in one wallpaper can be dumped..." part though. You mean that faded-copy-of-character-in-background thing people used to do a lot? And apparently still do?

[UrusaiSevera]

Yeah, like this (http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/lain/full_5.php) or this (http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/naruto/naruto_91_1024.jpg) or õ-Ô (http://www.animewallpapers.com/wallpapers/lain/full_4.php)

And another the comment, the color palette is fun, but when will you really ever use it?

[LadyPSerenity]

I've actually used it twice I think.

I was using it to set the background of the icons, in a matching color. (Because at my work they don't support the transparency. thingie.)

The color palettes are more just a bonus thing, kinda useful if like me you find yourself needing matching colors and don't have a program to do it in on the computer you're on.

[clowangel]

I actually like the color palette thing. It's useful. Very useful for finding wallpapers that match my current desktop theme.

@UrusaiSevera: oooh..yeah.. Those wallpapers are automatic fails. ~~; At least, in my book.

[zompus]

Have any other features in the pipeline?

[LeTombassador]

Im currently serving in the army, so i dont got much time to scrabble with photoshop. when ill got some time ill be sure to make one or few ^^