### february 2016 challenge voting ###

[fabio p]

I believe that even if the criteria of voting are established and analyzed and listed as in a code of law, the choice on how to apply them would always largely be a subjective task, left to the sensibility, culture and personal tastes. We should relinquish the idea of objectivity when voting, because even the strongest effort to be fair in this kind of matters is always influenced by personal views of things.

Surely, it can help to publicly write the reasons for the vote (which I try to do when I have a bit more time, even if the linguistic barrier is a heavy burden to me) but it can take a long time so it’s not always possible.

The best thing is to live everything with a light heart. It’s fun to compete, it’s fun to win, it’s even fun to lose if you can enjoy the spirit of joining a challenge meant to give you a pleasant time spent to create something, to talk to other people and to improve oneself.

[waldronate]

get better at mapping.

push ourselves to improve.

it will help you all improve.

to improve oneself.

Now I think I see what I've been doing wrong...

[- Max -]

The best thing is to live everything with a light heart. It’s fun to compete, it’s fun to win, it’s even fun to lose if you can enjoy the spirit of joining a challenge meant to give you a pleasant time spent to create something, to talk to other people and to improve oneself.

My thoughts exactly

Now I think I see what I've been doing wrong...

Lol Waldronate

[Deadshade]

[U]
Azanulbizar by Deadshade - This is trippy. It goes from kind of realistic to the opposite. Nice job on the mountains. I'm not sure what to think about this one. It's like a child's dream or something. Was there more you were planning to do with this? It's cool though even if not.

Interesting and totally unexpected point of view.
Trippy ? Like on drugs ? Do you mean that you didn't understand what I did or that relief maps are so rare here that people don't know what to think about it ?
Well to answer your question - no I didn't mean to do more. Sure there'd be a few (very) minor details that I'd still improve given the time.

What I wanted to do was described in the first post and I posted the handdrawn sketch of the concept right there. Priority was in that order :

1) Do an original work around the Durin's story (Durin is the first Dwarf king as described by Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings). Fundamental was that no similar map could be find by Google, I wanted it to be a first and it is.
2) Choose Azanulbizar which is the most mythic and legendary place for Dwarves. The map had to tell the story - so not just geography.
3) Best way to tell the story is to use the 3D relief style. Everything has to be consistent - I explain for instance why Barazinbar HAD to look like "stained with blood". So there is not a single place on the map which would NOT be realistic - the mountains, the waterfall, the fog at the watrefall's basis, the stones, the sky - everything is handdrawn in a completely realistic style.
4) The disposition of the elements, spatial orientation, the stars in the lake etc must be totally realistic too (e.g like Tolkien described it). The atmosphere must be dominated by the 3 giants (the 3 mountains above the Moria).


I agree with one thing that has been mentionned above - it is interesting to understand WHY people vote for a map and more importantly why they don't vote for a map. After all if you participate in a contest, you want to transmit something - a story, an emotion, an information. And the votes for a map are a measure of how well this has been transmitted.
Saying "vote for what you like" simply doesn't cut it. There is always a reason why people like or dislike something and in art no less than in other domains of activity.

It is the first time that somebody gives the real reasons so thanks Jaxilon for that.
Basically you tell me that I totally failed to transmit you any of the fundamental points 1) through 4) - you apparently didn't understand that what I did was a realistic, original, 3D relief map telling the story of Durin and the 3 mountains. Perhaps it was too ambitious and I should have thought that there may be people who don't know Tolkien or will not recognize a realistic relief map.
I wonder if that was the case with most of the other voters too.

Btw it is very important to me to precise that I never used any drugs and never will. Not even a joint. Nothing is farther from my art than being "trippy" .

[Azélor]

Since I have been voting on almost every contests for 2 years and a half, I’m going to give my 2 cents on this recurring issue.

My voting reasons

Most Important:

• Complete or not: if it’s incomplete, I will rarely vote for it even if it looks really good. Sometime, I might have the impression that one map is incomplete while it’s not (SEE THE RANT BELOW).
• Aesthetics: whether it looks good or not. That is actually a really important criteria and a very subjective one that differs from one person to the other. Let’s be honest, we all have some favorite styles of maps and others we don’t really like. It is completely subjective but I try really hard to see the merit in a style that I dislike.
• Effort and originality: I tend to compare it to the general talent of the artist and not to the other artists of the contest. Some artists always present maps that are almost identical to others they already made, except that the details are different (names, coastlines). I do not deny that they are good maps but I judge them more severely because of the lack of originality.

Less important:

• Complexity and technical details: It is a contest after all and some level of complexity is expected. Just having a good idea is not always enough.
• Maps vs illustrations: Like someone here already said, I tend to favor maps over more illustrative works, because it’s a challenge about cartography. We could say that purely illustrative works are not on-topic, at least not for the challenges. Except it there is a specific theme for illustration maybe.
• On topic or not: It is not usually a relevant criteria for me since most of the entries are fitting the theme proposed in the challenges. Also, we tend to have a pretty open interpretation of the chosen themes but it did happened a few times that it was completely off.

Others:

• Time, available : Making a good decision might take time especially if there are many contestants. I admit that I don’t always take the time to dig into every project to take all the details in consideration. Some people put a lot of effort in the little details and not everyone will notice them yet I don’t think we should blame the voters for this.

• Taking the contest seriously: I don’t take as much time as I would if it was a contest with a real prize (physical trophy or money for example). That’s because the prize is just a virtual trophy, it’s not even edible! It is good for a new member who want to gain reputation, getting others to know him and things like that but other than that, there is no point in these contests except the other reason everyone already mentioned: getting better at making maps.

If people want a professional contest then they should only allow professionals and talented artists to vote. All the members of the Guild can vote and most are only amateur artists at best. Most people like me do only cartography as a hobby and participate to the Guild as a hobby and vote as part of this hobby.

• My mood of the day might influence my judging. If I’m happier I might votes more and give more rep.

Lite vs Normal challenge:

• In a light challenge I tend to vote for everyone that I feel deserved it. This challenge is made for everyone with the specific goal to improve. It is less competitive that the other one IMHO.
  
• The normal challenge is for those that are more experienced/have won 3 times the lite challenge. Here, I tend to pick only those that I think are the best entries, ideally no more than 3.
  
• In any challenge, I try to rep any maps that I think might deserve it. But,I admit that I don’t rep in a very consistent way.

RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT

• Most people probably have absolutely no way to know if a map is a copy or not. In last month challenge: I did not know, and I’m sure many people did not know either, that the Artist-we-cannot-say-the-name’s map was presumably a copy. It also depends on the definition of a copy in this specific case. Taking inspiration from a real world place is by no way enough to qualify the map as a copy.

After all, if the definition of copying was so broad, I would be a plagiarist and this would negatively affect my chances of getting elected as President in the future.

• Some people do not necessarily follow the threads. They judge on what they see in the thumbnail. These people (me included), might skip the fact that a map they taught unfinished was actually finished or vice-versa. There are no bad intentions here; they just based their evaluation on the finished product. You see folks; people don’t care if you put 20 hours on research for historic accuracy: If it looks awful, people will not vote for it.

LASTLY: It would be great if the people complaining about the lack of voting criteria could tell the community what their own criteria are.

[Chick]

....

• Most people probably have absolutely no way to know if a map is a copy or not. In last month challenge: I did not know, and I’m sure many people did not know either, that the Artist-we-cannot-say-the-name’s map was presumably a copy. It also depends on the definition of a copy in this specific case. Taking inspiration from a real world place is by no way enough to qualify the map as a copy. After all, if the definition of copying was so broad, I would be a plagiarist and this would negatively affect my chances of getting elected as President in the future....

I don't think anyone has used the p-word or even suggested it. I'm sure many people have used ideas from the net to develop their own variation or version of a map and I don't see any problem with that at all. I think the original question was about why so many people voted for it instead of other attractive maps which also showed originality and creativity.

[Jaxilon]

@Deadshade - Like you, I have never used any drugs either. I can tell you take exception to the word "trippy" which I used not really even thinking about the definition although, now that I look it up: "adjectiveinformal
resembling or inducing the hallucinatory effect produced by taking a psychedelic drug. "trippy house music""" It us kind of what I meant so let me see if I can explain.

Your piece is super cool and the sky is totally photo-realistic looking. The back mountains likewise hold to that although perhaps a bit less. As the image approaches the foreground it becomes less photo-realistic. In places, I would even say impressionistic. The hazy area in the middle for instance. The ridges of your mountains are realistic but the area between lack in textures that would be there in a photo or satellite image, such as rock slides, gravel and so on. That's not a knock it's a choice and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Overall this looks like something I would dream because some places are very specifically detailed and other areas are less so. You have produced a dreamlike quality and I like it. If I was going to point out something I think might help it pop a bit more I would point out the waterfall could have more depth by using additional shading. I can tell there is a pond like area or something half way down because the water changes direction. When I say it's trippy it is due to this "flexing" of my eyes as I look at these various aspects and that causes a feeling which is what we want our art to do so I wasn't saying you were on drugs but that your entry produced a surreal sort of feeling in me.

As far as the points you were going for I wasn't even really addressing them.

I hope that helps a bit.


Something everyone needs to understand is that any feedback is a gift. Good, bad, frustrating or aggravating it can be a learning experience if we let it. I'm like everyone else and sometimes it's tough to hear something you worked hours on didn't click with your viewer. My wife kills me on this all the time. I usually have to take a little break, think about what the issue really is and when I come back to it, make some modifications and my stuff is always better for it.

I've got a PM about another entry that I'll address tomorrow since I'm working from home then and have more time, right now I'm running late for another appointment and need to scramble.

[lostatsea]

I like apple pie and pumpkin and a really good lemon meringue! MMM ! Of course my definition of a GOOD lemon meringue is different than most people. I was a professional baker for a number of years many moons ago. I don't like peach or cherry pie. I like fresh cherries and peaches but not in pie form. If there is a choice between a piece of dutch apple and cherry well I'll always go for the apple all things being equal. Whether or not people want to admit it their preferences do dictate at least to some extent how they choose.
Very few "MAPS" here can be considered technical drawings as there are no real world data to compare them too. Ex Bossolonia doesn't exist so who can say if its capitol city has been misrepresented " Yes the mountains may appear out of scale or the rivers out of place but the appeal is strictly Subjective ! These are art forms in the strictest sense and art is PURELY Subjective. I will almost always vote for the apple pie unless there is a GOOD lemon meringue. Some contest require certain elements be used , otherwise the criteria is simple ; on time (finished); true to the theme of the month (usually very general) ;your own work (use of premade "elements" usually allowed ). What possible "non subjective" criteria could we use ? Limited color pallet ; specific elements (been done) Specific size. All seems pretty restrictive ! In the end if you enter the challenge or contest whatever. Expecting an analytical voting result someone had better prefect a good algorithm and take the human out of the equation. Any one who has seen my own "Entries " Will know I love different it however isn't always better unless well executed . I enter not to win but so I can get feedback good or bad. And to see if I can pull something decent using my limited talent. Sure i like votes , don't really care about rep ; really like the advice. As stated by others it shouldn't be about conforming to the masses to get approval but rather to enjoy challenging yourself and learning.

[Gudern]

. Expecting an analytical voting result someone had better prefect a good algorithm and take the human out of the equation. As stated by others it shouldn't be about conforming to the masses to get approval but rather to enjoy challenging yourself and learning.

Interesting that you would say that.
As you rightly wrote, people vote according to their preferences.
So wouldn't you agree that by observing the voters' preferences there would be no human "to take out of the equation" to predict how the votes will run in a contest where there are no rules and no criteria*?
And that the same predictable vote results would be reproduced from those same preferences ?

A comment like Jaxilon's should be a must because it is like that that those who want to participate can adapt. I don't say "improve" because getting closer to someone's expectations is called "adapting" not "improving".
Because it is indeed about adaptation to the masses - well here the «*masses*» are some 20 voters or so
Only a small minority of artists would enjoy it if their work was perpetually ignored by the public.
The normal reaction is then either to adapt even if it is felt like a regression or stop participating in such contests and travel to new horizons where the preferences might be different.

Now to be consistent my comments, I will do a Jaxilon's format of how I voted. Besides the major originality criteria I am also quite influenced by the WIP threads .
A thread where the author explains what his concept is, how and why he does this or that has a much greater value than a thread where the author puts his more or less finished map, explains nothing and waits for the votes.

Chick* : I liked this map. The author explains in the thread what she is doing and also that the castle is coming from the Web. The disposition of the elements is great. If the castle had been drawn by her, I'd have voted for it.

Tonnichiwa*: A bold concept going for isometric . OK it is not handrawn but done with CC3 what accelerates significantly. The thread is not very informative but there is a story and the style is refreshing. I hesitated but as I fixed only 2 votes to cast, this one was third on the list.

Diamond*: A lukewarm map. I have not many negative impressions but not many positive either.
The author says that he is not motivated and it shows – the mountains are stamped as well as the cities what gives an impression of rushed out work.
The thread is neither good nor informative – first half was just people congratulating for the border (which comes probably from the net) while nothing else was done on the map .

Troedel*: Excellent thread. I can follow the author's concept from the very first sketch. The colors are well balanced too. I don't like the mountains which are unnaturally clustered and look like a zoom on a saw blade. There is no transition between mountains and plains. The forests' outlines are too regular – I would have preferred much more diverse and broken forest edges.

Carniflex*: A fast googling provides hundreds of Middle Earth maps. Some of them better than this one but all showing exactly the same features. Not surprising because Tolkien showed only these features. The author shows a great mastery of Photoshop and must have a large texture library.
From the purely technical point of view this map belongs to the best in this contest.
The thread is not informative because the almost finished map is shown already in the third post and everything else is either congratulations or small details (farmland in Shire, Yes, no*? Golden text. Yes, no*? Etc).

Deadshade*: Most original map in this contest. Good technique to show light, depth, proportions and volumes. I don't like much the sky because it doesn't fit with the rest of the map but this is relatively minor. Good and informative thread. Like Troedel the author starts with a sketch and explains the concept so that one can follow the consistence all along the work. It gets one of my 2 votes.

Waldronate*: There are not many Numenor maps. The best one can be seen here*: http://mapsof.net/numenor/numenor-map
and it is not much better than what the author did. More contrast and lighter colors would show the country better. Apparently the author didn't really want to spend time with it and he says so. That's why it has an unfinished look. The thread is too short – a pity. As the author says he spent only a couple of hours, if he spent a few more, I'd certainly vote for this map about on a par with Tonnichiwa's.

Ravells*: Original concept and lay out. Fitting colors. Excellent and informative thread.
Even if the corners whose size crushes a bit the whole map come from the net, it is minor because borders don't matter. A good art stays good art even without borders and similar details anyway.
The one thing I disliked was that everything is cluttered with labels and small circles (villages/towns) which make the whole look like a standard touristic map. However as the author explains that he was doing that to test some fonts, this map gets one of my 2 votes.

Max*: Like Carniflex the basically finished map is posted within 1 day so that the thread is neither interesting nor informative. Like for Diamond's map it creates neither positive nor negative emotions.
A kind of solid standard map that one can see in every other contest here but one can't expect anything special in a few hours' work.

[Carnifex]

Carniflex*: A fast googling provides hundreds of Middle Earth maps. Some of them better than this one but all showing exactly the same features. Not surprising because Tolkien showed only these features. The author shows a great mastery of Photoshop and must have a large texture library.
From the purely technical point of view this map belongs to the best in this contest.
The thread is not informative because the almost finished map is shown already in the third post and everything else is either congratulations or small details (farmland in Shire, Yes, no*? Golden text. Yes, no*? Etc).

I am grateful that you thought my map was one of the best from a technical point. And "great mastery in photoshop" are most kind words.

I choosed the map ONLY because it was so famous (and i love the books). I felt that it would be an even greater challange to make my version of the most famous fantasy map - fans can be very picky. I wanted to make my version. But i felt it was important to carefully research many maps in search for the professors vision. I regard the map as quite philosofical. I actually think my style differs from most lotr maps.

I only a handful of textures (which i have made myself of course). And i "paint" mountains using a special technique.

I try to post max one update per day. So third post will be about 20-30 hours of work. Later, the labeling was maybe 10 hours.
I think that if some had questions i would try to answer. My time is limited and i have great problems reading and writing.