ANSWERED:Give Concept Creators Credit In-Site

[olympe]

Because too much is too much? Next thing we know, we'll be hearing about breed description credits or egg description edits...

[Obscure_Trash]

Just some questions for thought -

 

Common concept: yin/yang dragon. Lesse we have five suggestions for yin/yang dragons active in DR. TJ picks the one he likes best and it gets added to the cave. Do the other conceptors get any credit? What about conceptors who came up with that idea 'first' but their topics are now inactive? Or say someone hands over their thread to you or you are inspired to do a slightly different version. Does the person who inspired you also get credit?

 

EDIT: Just wanted to clarify these were just questions to consider if you were going to have some kind of standard for credit. At the moment, I'm neither against nor for the suggestion.

Edited November 4, 2011 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Dolphinsong]

The only things I can see non artists being credited for is through information about the dragon they are wishing to have created. This means information on how they live, how they interaction, basically as much knowledge about the breed to the point of Lyth's knowledge about her vine dragons. Then and only then would I think they are worth getting credited. If its just something like 'they have flat teeth to eat rock' doesn't count.

[stogucheme]

Because too much is too much? Next thing we know, we'll be hearing about breed description credits or egg description edits...

Why is everyone so willing to believe that a lot of work isn't put into breed descriptions? Why are you all so convinced that art is so much harder than writing?

 

Honestly, I dare you to try writing some time. Tell me how easy it is.

[Dolphinsong]

Often times the ones working on the art actually puts more into the breed information/concept than the orginal topic starter. That is where the trouble lies.

[stogucheme]

Often times the ones working on the art actually puts more into the breed information/concept than the orginal topic starter. That is where the trouble lies.

Well, then they should get credit. But if I'm not going to get any credit for the two pages I wrote when I first posted my concept? I'm not sure I want to continue.

[Dolphinsong]

If you put in that much detail about the breed then yes you should be credited. But if your one of those people that only wrote down very little about the breed and only some of the description, then you shouldn't be credited for the tiny bit of work.

[Painter]

Do the sketchers get credit? I've heard they do but in a few threads I thought I've seen just the spriters getting credit.

 

Not sure about this idea, though I personally wouldn't mind.

[hazeh]

Honestly, if someone starts a dragon design but doesn't finish it, then I still do believe they get credit.

Why? Because they STARTED it. If they hadn't started it, that particular dragon wouldn't have gotten worked on. Sure, maybe they didn't contribute that much to it afterwards. But they are the basis, the foundation, of that very dragon breed, and should be given proper credit. What's so difficult about listing out someone's name at the bottom of a breed page that pretty much just says, "Without this person's help/idea, this dragon wouldn't be here." That's all I'm asking for. No special rights, no special access, nada. Just some recognition for the people who actually helped create one of DragCave's species.

 

 

Now, when it comes to smaller things, like color schemes or tweaks to a minor behavior point, I don't think that's worth crediting. Why? Because it doesn't chage the dragon in definition, it's just fine tuning. Many spriters here don't get or don't want credit for tiny little adjustments made to a dragon. But if someone made the basis of a dragon, and then someone else flew off with those guidelines, no matter how vague, they BOTH get credit. It's not an issue of only one person getting credit.

 

 

Egg descriptions I don't think get credit. This thread is about the conceptors, the people who have the information and the polishing on the dragon breed. People who rewrite information to sound better for an in-cave description don't really do a whole lot to contribute to that dragon breed, like suggesting color schemes, or suggesting position changes, or whatnot. Like eggs; there's not a whole lot going on there that constitutes a major role in what the dragon is. A conceptor, no matter how much they contributed, is still the original idea of that very dragon.

Now, if a dragon gets changed completely from the original idea, obviously it's no longer that original dragon, thus they didn't really have much to do with it. The breed then belongs to the person or people who refined it into something else.

 

For the different breeds? Come on. They're different dragons. They each had a different person come up with different information. If one breed gets chosen over the other, of course the other conceptors won't get credit. That's not their dragon, they didn't work on it, they didn't put in the effort to make that dragon a dragon breed. They worked on their own, and it's too bad that theirs didn't get chosen. They don't get credit for someone else's work.

[Akrona]

I think it's a nice gesture, if not an entirely necessary one. Even if the concept is vague, someone liked it enough to make a sprite out of it, and as someone else mentioned crediting is free and it's better to give too much credit than not enough

[Dolphinsong]

The owner of the sketch of the finished sprite does get credit. Owners of the sketches that were not used do not.

[skinst]

Why is everyone so willing to believe that a lot of work isn't put into breed descriptions? Why are you all so convinced that art is so much harder than writing?

 

Honestly, I dare you to try writing some time. Tell me how easy it is.

Because most of us who are in this thread who have said it isn't much work HAVE written descriptions (me included).

 

Compared to the art, which can take months, descriptions and whatnot (for me at least) take the better part of half an hour (basic desc. plus edits).

[Fiona]

Do the sketchers get credit? I've heard they do but in a few threads I thought I've seen just the spriters getting credit.

 

Not sure about this idea, though I personally wouldn't mind.

Sketchers get credit, yes. I have seen at least one topic where the person who did one of the sketches did not get art credits. That isn't the norm though. Legally, said sketch artist could withdraw permission to use the sketch, and the sprite would have to be scrapped.

 

However, if the spriter didn't remember to credit the person who sketched (or didn't know they were supposed to) the sketch artist has to request credit. No one's going to go through the thread to check that everyone involved gets their "proper" credit.

 

Dunno if I'm for this idea or not. It could get terribly complicated if it were tried, with hurt feelings because someone didn't get credit that thought they should. It's just so hard to find clear cut guidelines to keep it in the realm of doable. Crediting a dozen people or more for concept work is just a little too much, but that's what you'd end up with if this isn't thought through very carefully.

[tjekan]

Because most of us who are in this thread who have said it isn't much work HAVE written descriptions (me included).

 

Compared to the art, which can take months, descriptions and whatnot (for me at least) take the better part of half an hour (basic desc. plus edits).

I think the amount of time people spend on something is a very poor gauge of either its quality or its importance, and should not be used to determine whether the people are worthy of appreciation or not. I have seen people create amazing works of art over the course of only a few hours, and I have seen people labor for months over things that ended up being mediocre and have no impact whatsoever.

 

A better question would be not "How long did this person spend on the project?" but "How important was the person's contribution the project?" If somebody spent 15 minutes coming up with an extremely original and cool concept that inspired the artists to do things they would never have thought of before, or if somebody's 10-minute sketch on the back of their math homework became the basis for an amazing sprite, then their work mattered, IMHO.

[Palior]

I am all for this idea! Might make the trouble of creating a dragon worth it!

[~!~]

Compared to the art, which can take months, descriptions and whatnot (for me at least) take the better part of half an hour (basic desc. plus edits).

This is because most breed descriptions are lousy.

 

The sprites on this site are, or at least strive to be, professional-quality work. They are the main focus of the site--the reason people play. People put a lot of work into sprites because they are held to very high standards. Descriptions, on the other hand, are not even really necessary. For most people, they are tl;dr, and often completely ignored .

 

Take Daydreams, for example. Three sentences of blurb to give people something of an idea of what the dragon is all about. I'm sure Lyth could write an essay about those things. Heck, she could probably write a detailed encounter scene, something creative, that showed the reader what the dragon does, rather than what it looks like (which is what the sprite is for), instead of just stating some facts, like the description does. I'm sure if she did something like that, it would need to be edited. I'm sure it would take a long time to finish, and bring up to the quality that would be expected of it.

 

I imagine this trend comes from DC's history. In the beginning, afaik, TJ would just up and add a new dragon to the cave, the adult sprite pulled from a video game, the hatchling and egg template recolored to match the adult, and the description written hastily by him. Neither the art nor the description were of much importance--it was a site about collecting things, not artwork. Nowadays, there is a great focus on creating great pixel art for the site, but descriptions have never had that attention because they have never needed it.

 

I believe that some conceptors do put a lot of work into their dragons. I also believe that all conceptors should be held to the same standard as those ones. Sure, you can make a thread based off the idea of "let's make a dragon that looks like a cat," but somebody should have to come up with detailed, artfully composed breed information, and whoever that person is, they should be acknowledged for their contribution.

[Dolphinsong]

We try to keep descriptions short for the simple fact that its easier to have it that way instead of pages worth of information. We are actually still trying to get all the information out there, such as on the wiki site, but at times its hard to get it into understandable format from our brain.

[~!~]

We try to keep descriptions short for the simple fact that its easier to have it that way instead of pages worth of information. We are actually still trying to get all the information out there, such as on the wiki site, but at times its hard to get it into understandable format from our brain.

What do you mean, "we?"

 

Also, there is incredibly little information on the wiki. Plus, this isn't the wiki's S&R forum, and last time I checked the wiki wasn't officially recognized by the site... well, by TJ, anyway.

[Dolphinsong]

Do remember, these are mere notes on a scroll we are writing infomation down on. General information at that. In order to have more indepth information you'll need a journal to keep it all in, several journals actually. And I use the term 'we' loosly. Several of us like to keep things general, basic information instead of pages worth. And not all artists have been to the wiki to include additional information.

[~!~]

Do remember, these are mere notes on a scroll we are writing infomation down on. General information at that. In order to have more indepth information you'll need a journal to keep it all in, several journals actually.

Isn't the sprite also just a quick sketch we, the scroll owner, made?

[kittygrl]

i so support this. It can be hard work for us to explain out for the sketchers and spriters what the dragon looks like.

 

for both of my concepts i could probably write a novel and the people who originally thought of it barely get credit. i support 10x

 

its equal amount of talent used. concept makers weave words to give the dragon initial life and sketchers/spriters give it a body to live in (metaphorically speaking.)

 

EDIT:

oh and writing IS art. we also submit art so dont say we dont.

Edited November 5, 2011 by kittygrl

[Dolphinsong]

Explain how then, such concept credits will be dished out? Would it be EVERYONE that added to the dragon's description? "Lets have them live in groups' and it gets added to the description, does that little itty bitty suggestion entitle the person to being credited? Or what of those threads where 10+ people worked on the concept that didn't actually do any of the art? Do all ten of them get credited dispite how very minor it is? Does "The wing doesn't look right, try moving it left a few pixals" does that count as being credit worthy? Where do you draw the line?

[Sir_Read-a-Lot]

If I were to support this idea, I would seperate the credits into several categories:

 

Spriter

 

Sketcher

Author - the main contributor to the dragon description (not egg, or hatchie, just dragon). I define "main contributor" to be the last person to structurally rewrite the description. They may add others to this title at their own discretion.

Conceptor - anyone that the Spriter and/or Author feel have added significantly to the development of the dragon concept.

Initial Concept - Person who started the creation thread.

 

I have listed these in decreasing importance - Spriter being the most important, and Initial Concept being the least.

 

By instituting a clear description of what the credits are, and who determines who gets the credits in the case of ambiguity, I don't think there would be too many issues.

 

That being said, I do not support this idea, but only because it would require figuring out who gets the credits for already created dragons, and really, do you want to be the one who looks back through the dragon creation threads to determine who was the Author for the Gray Dragon? We have almost a hundred dragons now, and TJ has much better things to do than to track down credits.

 

That being said, if anyone can create a thorough list of the credits for all the dragons, be my guest. Once that list exists, using some well-defined criteria for determining credits, I will fully support this idea.

[hazeh]

Guys, can we worry about the authors/ ect a bit later? I'm really just trying to focus on one suggestion right now, and that's the conceptor of the dragon breed. If it was one person or three people, fine. It's whoever fleshed out the details of the dragon breed itself, such as its behavior, its unique attributes, etc. Not the "it should be pink" guy or the "The description should read THIS way" gal. Those are NOT breed defining traits. What I would REALLY like to focus on right is JUST the person or people who gave this dragon their breed. That's it. If you'd like to rehash the "where do we draw the line" argument about other contributions, please take it elsewhere.

[Ferus]

I guess I might as well put my two cents in here. I do best when trying to explain something with an example, so I'm going to use my Undine Dragon concept. This one works out because Haze is the one who did the sketches.

http://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showt...dpost&p=5540482

That's the concept, which was entirely written by me and took me about a week to get the details sorted out in my head for what I wanted this dragon to be. I rewrote the descriptions a few times and will probably do it a few more times before calling it complete.

 

In my opinion (correct me if I'm wrong Haze), I believe that I gave Haze a very well thought out physical description of what I wanted before the thread was ever posted.

 

It took me a week to mesh together a dragon and a spirit in a way that could be mildly believable. Since the topic has been posted I've been extremely active in it, telling Haze and Little Art Girl whether I thought things fit for how I imagine it, and giving them details of exactly what I wanted.

 

My suggestion?

Just implement a credit page or add the few words at the bottom of the dragon's page.

As for whether or not something deserves credit, at the rate that dragons actually get released, why couldn't TJ decide whether the concept writer put in enough work to deserve the recognition?

 

I could have attempted the art myself if I was credit-hungry, but the only thing that would have resulted in would be ugly sprites that I wouldn't be proud of. But instead I chose to let others illustrate my idea so that it actually stood a chance of making it somewhere, knowing that no one except the people I worked with would even know that I came up with the idea.

 

If you go through the threads it is fairly obvious if someone deserves credit for the concept idea. If they gave generic, three line descriptions and gave artists basically free-reign, I don't think they should get credit, but if they have obviously spent a lot of time on it and genuinely care how it turns out, I think a bit of recognition couldn't hurt. :/