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12:34, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Portrait Submissions Suspended Indefinitely.

Posted by Shannara
Shannara
moderator, 3692 posts
Whatever you do,
DON'T PANIC!
Sat 24 Dec 2016
at 18:59

Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

And portrait submissions are now closed indefinitely.

However, there is a large selection of portraits in the gallery -- 13,727 to be exact, broken down as follows:

.
GalleryFemale     Male       Neutral     
Creatures Air Animal--67
Creatures Land Animal112282
Creatures Monster164346578
Creatures Pokemon/Digimon      3845125
Creatures Water Animal--30
Fantasy Demihuman55859291
Fantasy Rogue24547316
Fantasy Spellcaster53232722
Fantasy Warrior19054016
Historical 17th Century5814647
Historical 19th Century772801
Historical 20th Century78188-
Modern Business75954156
Modern Casual105286652
Modern Gangster3143402
Modern Rugged3257839
Modern Soldier4825824
Sci-Fi Alien140252210
Sci-Fi Cyborg235810
Sci-Fi Human44373125
Sci-Fi Robot1246148
Sci-Fi Spaceship--35
  505768241846
Gallery Total13727

SunRuanEr
member, 39 posts
Sat 24 Dec 2016
at 22:28
  • msg #9

Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I expect the answer to this to be a 'no', but I have to ask it anyway, because I'm feeling a little blindsided right now - Is there any chance of getting one last run of portrait additions done in January?

If you're like me (and I certainly can't be the only person like this) you don't check the General forum each and every day - and likely don't have time to check RPoL at all every day when it's a holiday week like this week - and completely missed the announcement that went up Wednesday stating that we could suddenly submit portraits until Friday. This is especially problematic because the previous announcement from months ago in this very thread said that portrait submissions were suspended through the end of the year, so we had little reason to even think about portraits/checking for portraits until after December 31st. Now there's been a sudden surprise addition that came earlier than that, and is supposedly the last for potentially ever, with a mere 48 hours or so of warning... in the middle of a holiday week.

I'm one of those people that always checks each and every portrait in existence before submitting one, but sometimes there just isn't an acceptable one already in the gallery - especially when dealing with characters of certain ethnicities. Given that there's a request that we only submit portraits for characters we're going to use, that means that I (since I can only speak for my own experience here, but I imagine I'm not the only one) have a handful of portraits sitting aside for characters that exist in their games, but aren't actively being played yet. (One of my games is time-skip heavy, with NPC children that will be PC adults, in time, and no - none of the existing portraits are sufficient representations of the way they have already been described.)

If we could get one more - just one more - run of portrait submissions that came after the December 31 "restart" date that was announced for submissions two months ago, that would be the absolute best Christmas gift I can think of.

Even if we can't, thanks Shannara for giving us all that we've got. I really appreciate it.
The Stray
member, 95 posts
When the Cat's a Stray
the Mice will Pray
Sun 25 Dec 2016
at 17:14
  • msg #10

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

SunRuanEr:
If you're like me (and I certainly can't be the only person like this) you don't check the General forum each and every day - and likely don't have time to check RPoL at all every day when it's a holiday week like this week - and completely missed the announcement that went up Wednesday stating that we could suddenly submit portraits until Friday. This is especially problematic because the previous announcement from months ago in this very thread said that portrait submissions were suspended through the end of the year, so we had little reason to even think about portraits/checking for portraits until after December 31st. Now there's been a sudden surprise addition that came earlier than that, and is supposedly the last for potentially ever, with a mere 48 hours or so of warning... in the middle of a holiday week.

I'm one of those people that always checks each and every portrait in existence before submitting one, but sometimes there just isn't an acceptable one already in the gallery - especially when dealing with characters of certain ethnicities. Given that there's a request that we only submit portraits for characters we're going to use, that means that I (since I can only speak for my own experience here, but I imagine I'm not the only one) have a handful of portraits sitting aside for characters that exist in their games, but aren't actively being played yet. (One of my games is time-skip heavy, with NPC children that will be PC adults, in time, and no - none of the existing portraits are sufficient representations of the way they have already been described.)


You aren't alone, SunRaunEr. This above perfectly sums up my feelings on this, as well. This announcement came out of nowhere as the break, which had already been extended once, was drawing to a close, right in the middle of the holidays. That is extremely poor timing.

Shannara, I understand that, from what you've described, updating the portrait gallery is a lot of work. But it is important work to the community. It's especially important to parts of the community that get relatively few chances for representation -- I don't know if you've noticed, but the gallery is overwhelmingly skewed towards white men and women. "(W)ith over 10,000 pics in the gallery, I think most needs are covered" is an insultingly dismissive statement to make to those members of the community who really aren't covered well. I, personally, have done my best to add to the diversity of the galleries I've submitted to, but I'm only one guy, and only have the ability to run one game at a time.
StarMaster
member, 241 posts
Sun 25 Dec 2016
at 18:13
  • msg #11

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

As Shannara pointed out, the portraits submitted are supposed to be for characters that you plan on playing (or are playing). What that seems to indicate is that most players so inclined to submit a portrait aren't particularly interested in playing an ethnically diverse character.

In my own case, I've yet to submit a portrait. I think there are too many as is! Even when I am playing a different ethnic character, I find it hard to find a portrait that I feel conveys the character, but that also applies to any of the portraits for any ethnicity.

Not unreasonably, you could have 1,000 separate portraits for an Elven Rogue. But, do you really need that many?

I've seen a lot of players use the Character Description box to put up a picture of their character... regardless of what the portrait is.

The real issue, for me, is getting rid of portraits that aren't being used. However, there's probably no way to determine which ones are being used... or have been used.


I'm probably in the minority, but I generally check the General Forum (and the rest) every day... particularly when a red flag goes up. I look to see if there's a topic of interest to me, I'll open it to see what's being said. But I certainly don't open all of the threads and read them. It only takes a few seconds to see if something has been posted; that's not much at all.


But, yeah, thanks to Shannara for all the hard work she's done on the portraits. I'm amazed that there even is a Portrait Gallery!

And Merry Christmas to everyone!
bigbadron
moderator, 15239 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Sun 25 Dec 2016
at 18:36

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

SunRuanEr:
If we could get one more - just one more - run of portrait submissions that came after the December 31 "restart" date that was announced for submissions two months ago, that would be the absolute best Christmas gift I can think of.

If you have a number of portraits waiting to be submitted, then one more run would only allow you to submit one of those portraits anyway, leaving you in almost exactly the same situation.
The Stray
member, 96 posts
When the Cat's a Stray
the Mice will Pray
Sun 25 Dec 2016
at 23:22
  • msg #13

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

StarMaster:
As Shannara pointed out, the portraits submitted are supposed to be for characters that you plan on playing (or are playing). What that seems to indicate is that most players so inclined to submit a portrait aren't particularly interested in playing an ethnically diverse character.


Yes, but I'm a GM. So I play a lot more characters than a typical person, and thus tend to run into this issue with more frequency. This decision impacts me a bit more.

bigbadron:
If you have a number of portraits waiting to be submitted, then one more run would only allow you to submit one of those portraits anyway, leaving you in almost exactly the same situation.


Sure, but it would also give people more than 48 hours notice and be done during a time when more people are around to actually see and respond to a "Last Call" portrait submission. Which is one of the major complaints here...the abruptness of the Last Call during the holiday season when folks had no reason to suspect anything more than a delay before normalcy resumed.
Piestar
member, 743 posts
once upon a time...
...there was a little pie
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 02:23
  • msg #14

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I'd be willing to take over the task...
jase
admin, 3510 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 03:22

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I'm going to say it, because you sure don't have issues throwing around aspersions, some of you sound really ungrateful.  Shannara's being handling portrait submissions for about eleven years now, purely on a volunteer basis for the good of you all, and if she's burnt out after handling around 60 portrait submissions every month for around 132 months then we should be thanking her for her hard and diligent work, not trying to make her feel guilty.  Personally I'm amazed she lasted this long and I'm grateful to her and every past portrait editor.

To somehow lay blame at her feet for whatever skew the gallery has is absolutely ridiculous.  Portraits are made up of submissions from the users, not Shan, if the gallery was full of pokemon images then it's nothing to do with her (besides making sure they fit the submission criteria).  If you feel that a minority isn't represented then look to the people you play with, don't blame the current or past portrait editors.  Astounding.

If it's such important work then how about instead of berating the current portrait editor you offer to be the next?  Yeah, thought so.

It's sad but inevitable that Shannara would eventually have enough.  Sure, more notice would have been nice, but considering you're limited to 1 submission a month how much time would really have been enough if you're trying to add 10 portraits to the gallery?  Math says 10 months obviously, and that's not realistic.  We've already got one volunteer to take over the mantle (thanks Pie*) so the sky isn't falling quite yet.
Evil Empryss
member, 1513 posts
Try tasting your words
before spitting them out
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 03:32
  • msg #16

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I volunteered to help be a Portrait Gallery Editor!  Sent in an rMail and everything.  (just in case you guys are busy with holiday stuff and haven't seen your rMails yet)  ^_^

Shannara has done an awesome job over the years, and I've taken advantage of the opportunity to have personalized portraits for many of my characters.
RosstoFalstaff
member, 99 posts
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 03:34
  • msg #17

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

Well what's involved in being a portrait editor then? Few are going to volunteer for a job which isn't defined.

I'd also be willing to help, assuming the work was something I could do . . . but short of a vague "60 portraits a month" and combing pictures for suitability, I'm unclear what it is Shannara did.

I have the utmost respect for what she did, portraits I submitted were added quickly and without fuss, and I've no doubt it was a large undertaking.

But it's myopic to assume a group of people are going to be anything but ungrateful, ever. You could be showering them in money and they'd find a reason to question it.

The concerns above I'd say are fair, those of us following the rules didn't submit anything at all, we waited and accepted that portrait submissions were suspended, and then the thing we waited on was gone. Like a game that failed

And like a game that failed it's unfortunate but frankly not the end of the world.

So what can the community do, jase?
StarMaster
member, 242 posts
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 03:42
  • msg #18

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

Ha-ha-ha! It looks like it'll take at least 3 people to do what Shannara did!

Perhaps if each takes just one or two categories, the 'burden' won't be so much.

Another possibility might be to just take a month off, such as 'no submissions in February'.

Just spitballing some ideas here to help make the job easier for the new Lords and Masters....
Morgan Coldsoul
member, 225 posts
25+ years experience
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 03:43
  • msg #19

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I'd be interested in knowing more about the job. If the process involved in handling submissions is something I can handle, I'd love to give something useful back to RPoL by volunteering. I'm not surprised Shannara needs a break, and helping to fill the gap would definitely be more concrete than written gratitude.
Piestar
member, 745 posts
once upon a time...
...there was a little pie
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 09:46
  • msg #20

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

For what's it worth, I always thought she did a great job, no aspersions from me.
Skald
moderator, 745 posts
Whatever it is,
I'm against it
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 11:25
  • msg #21

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

For those who've been asking, jase has provided a brief rundown on what's involved with managing portrait submissions here - link to a message in this forum

Edit: And Shannara has provided further detail in the same thread here - link to a message in this forum
This message was last edited by the user at 13:37, Mon 26 Dec 2016.
Shannara
moderator, 3695 posts
Whatever you do,
DON'T PANIC!
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 14:56

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

I am aware that I did not give a lot of notice.  For that, I am sorry ...

What few of you probably know is that I'm anal retentive (almost) to the max, and something of a control freak.  Fast and decisively is the only way I know how to divest myself of a responsibility, which I hate doing.  Otherwise, I'd just be putting off the decision and hoping that something changed.  I had hoped that the break would reignite the enjoyment -- but as it was nearing its extended end, I was faced with the certainty that I did not want to take up the task again.

Not now, anyway, and I don't know when I might want to.

For those of you who sat on submissions rather than sending them in anyway, thank you for that.  I'm sure your submissions will get uploaded by whoever jase chooses, and that 'indefinitely' won't really be all that long.

Happy holidays and happy new year to you all, and above all, happy gaming.

And a special 'thank you' to all those who did say thanks over the 11 years.  I didn't do it for thanks, but because I enjoyed it -- but I appreciate all the kind words regardless.
This message was last edited by the user at 15:01, Mon 26 Dec 2016.
Gaffer
member, 1419 posts
Ocoee FL
40 yrs of RPGs
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 20:12
  • msg #23

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

In reply to Shannara (msg # 22):
The portraits have done a lot for my games over the years.

You are, and always have been, an RPOL Treasure, Shannara. Thanks for all you did over the years to give us what is already a marvelous collection of portraits that will enhance our gaming enjoyment for years to come.

Brava.
Nintaku
member, 491 posts
Mon 26 Dec 2016
at 21:57
  • msg #24

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

My sentiments are pretty similar to Gaffer's, plus a little extra: I've been on RPoL for over ten years now, and have not often gotten involved in the community threads. Often felt kinda like looking in from the outside. Whenever I'm going through portraits and I see the ones I've submitted, though, it strikes me that just anyone can use those. I offered something for everybody, and everybody's offered something for me, and Shannara's facilitated that with nothing but her time. It really helps me feel like part of the community, even though I get nervous about that kind of stuff. So to Shannara and anyone who takes up the job after her, that's one of the things you're giving to people. Making the gaming world a little smaller and a little closer.

Thank you, Shannara, and thank you, future portrait people. It's a really important job to those of us with certain perspectives on these things.
The Stray
member, 97 posts
When the Cat's a Stray
the Mice will Pray
Fri 30 Dec 2016
at 18:09
  • msg #25

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

jase:
To somehow lay blame at her feet for whatever skew the gallery has is absolutely ridiculous.  Portraits are made up of submissions from the users, not Shan, if the gallery was full of pokemon images then it's nothing to do with her (besides making sure they fit the submission criteria).  If you feel that a minority isn't represented then look to the people you play with, don't blame the current or past portrait editors.  Astounding.


Not my point at all, and I'm sorry if that's what it appeared as to you. I'm aware that portrait submission are self-selecting and our hobby tends to lean toward 20-30 year old white middle class people. I'm aware there is a large amount of work that goes into making portraits.

My point was that having the ability to add new portraits to the gallery is fairly important for folks who don't fit that demographic. It is an important tool for the community, and my issue was with the abruptness of the severance of that.

Shannara, I apologize if my post came off as blaming or ungrateful. You aren't to blame for taking what's given to you, and I certainly know how burnout feels. I just wish there had been more of a warning, and that this conversation about what to do with the gallery had happened during that break.
bigbadron
moderator, 15241 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Fri 30 Dec 2016
at 19:28

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

The conversation could not have happened during the break, nor could a warning have been given earlier.  The decision to suspend the submissions indefinitely (rather than temporarily) was taken shortly before an announcement to that effect was posted.  Basically, as soon as the announcement could have been made, it was.

It's also worth noting that the process of transferring control of the portraits has been under way for a number of days.  Currently the group who will be taking over are discussing the best way to proceed.
Mahatatain
member, 184 posts
Sun 12 Feb 2017
at 14:38
  • msg #27

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

Ron, Jase or another mod,

If possible please can you give us an update regarding portraits and whether it will be possible to submit new ones in the near future?

Thanks,

Mahatatain.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:42, Sun 12 Feb 2017.
Locksley
member, 1 post
Artist. Writer.
Graphic Novelist.
Wed 22 Mar 2017
at 16:08
  • msg #28

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

In reply to Mahatatain (msg # 27):

Seconded. I would like to submit a portrait.
bigbadron
moderator, 15309 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Wed 22 Mar 2017
at 16:12

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

quote:
If possible please can you give us an update regarding portraits and whether it will be possible to submit new ones in the near future?

Not at present, no.  Please exercise some patience while the new portrait editors get to grips with the procedures for adding images to the galleries.
Mahatatain
member, 186 posts
Wed 22 Mar 2017
at 16:45
  • msg #30

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 29):

Thanks and understood.
Telsij
member, 1 post
Sun 7 May 2017
at 22:23
  • msg #31

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 26):

Ahoy, all! New here and had submitted a portrait before finding more of the informational/FAQ threads.
EDIT: Removed a sentence about thinking portrait submission had been reopened. My mistake!

Many thanks!
This message was last edited by the user at 18:32, Tue 16 May 2017.
swordchucks
member, 1431 posts
Thu 24 Aug 2017
at 14:47
  • msg #32

Re: Portrait Submissions Suspended thru December 31, 2016

Can we, the unwashed masses, get an update on the status of portrait submissions?

Also, if there's any effort looking for volunteers, how would one go about doing so?  I'd be willing to lend a little time to the effort if it would help.

Thanks!
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