Reflections in each balloon = NICE obsession to details!

Aha, I was trying to figure out what that pink stuff was! I like Christine's contour lines to party streamers trick...

This turned out quite a bit different than I thought it would. Maybe something of a predator theme? Cool :-)

This site sure is slow lately... Where is everyone? Hello?

We're out recruiting...oh, wait, were there corpses to be done?

haha Yeah, something like that. There's one available for me to work on, but it would be the first slice of a new corpse. Since the other 2 corpses which are stagnating were both started by me, I won't jinx this one...

I don't think you're jinxing anything. I do think participation has slackened.

There are some fixes I think could help ecorpse produce better art on a more consistent basis, which seems to be the way to attract new people:

* A better ranking system, where pieces are scored individually, or at least users are ranked by average rather than total votes. Right now, the best piece in the worst corpse is worth more than the second-best piece in the best corpse. That's a problem, because the second-best piece in the best corpse was probably a better effort. If pieces are still scored by "best of corpse" only, then we should also give some built-in credit to the first panel in a corpse, because people usually give more credit to someone other than the starting person, who doesn't have to blend with anybody (obviously, though, good leads are vital to the overall corpse, and if the corpses themselves were ranked, some of that credit could be given to the lead person). It might be helpful to also build in a vote from each participant for their own piece, allowing them two votes, in essence, one of which is always for their own piece.

* Quality control. It sounds like T has made great strides in the administrative side of ecorpse, but he's not exercising the "Redo" option he's mentioned (so far as I can tell), and isn't handing out admin privileges so anyone else can act as an editor. It would be great to have themed corpses, and corpses with quality standards, either using editorial oversight or using a score-based restriction like tiles.ice.org has. As for editing, it could allow the person who starts a corpse to be its admin, or even allow each participant a day to review and possibly reject the piece following his or hers before it moves on to the next piece.

* "Club corpse" - corpsing by invitation. Allow the admin for a corpse to set up a "match" a la Andrew Huff's "Corpse Tennis," allowing the computer to do the donkey work. Ideally, admins could set up their own home pages listing the corpses they've operated, contact info for requesting an invite, etc.

* It might also help for the admin to use a consistent pseudonym, so people have a point of contact and an identifiable guide to how things ought to work. Just as a suggestion, "Phineas" seemed to work for another such site. *wink*

BTW, having followed on to one of your leads, I thought it was great, and I hope you like my panel when it (eventually) shows up.

The voting system is experimental, unfinished, not perfected. If the rules for voting are confusing to convey, then they are difficult to implement. Trying to weight votes based on how people think is doomed to failure. Everyone does not always think their slice is the best after seeing the others.

[Redo] is for mistakes or horrible problems or abuse, not to trash people's efforts based on someone else's quality standards. If you start booting people then even less corpses will get finished. An "invite mode" might be nice, but would we just end up with a larger number of corpses waiting for slices?

For a quickly thrown together site (at least that was my original impression from reading the post at exquisite corpse), it's not bad at all! I wanted to do something like this myself, but without much spare time these days -- rotten kids ;0) -- I didn't ever get around to it. Besides, I haven't bothered to do anything with PHP beyond setting up a photography bb (speaking of stagnant...)

I usually hate voting on thigs. I always do it totally wrong in the beginning; too high or too low or I will just vote for myself to see if it 1)works or 2) how it increments or 3) if it makes any difference at all. One of the best voting systems I've seen so far is over at worth1000.com It's got that Karma stuff which is tied directly to your voting habits. I have finally figured out how to vote fairly (after launching my Karma into the negative realm) it wasn't that hard, I'm just blonde...

Blah blah... Anyway, I did a Corpse Tennis panel with Andrew. My, that was ages ago it seems. That was one of my first attempts at this collaborative stuff.

Jacob, wait till you see that panel you continued from. Filter Fiesta... It's crap, I'm sorry to say. One thing I will admit to about this site is that I feel almost comfortable being lazy. Is that bad? I'm sure it is. But on tiles I seldom if ever use filters or image manips. Over here it isn't frowned on, and once I got beyond the initial shock of pasting in an image, I went nuts.
But I don't feel as scrutinized over here either. Not that that's either good or bad, it's just different, a nice break for a change!

I think an invite quilt would be a good idea, at least worth a try. Here's a thought: if someone is **Specially Selected** to work on a quilt, maybe they'll be more interested in working on it. And I would be careful with the "Redo Power" as well. Save that for the aforementioned reasons or for any off-themed panels (if there is ever a themed quilt) etc. No one would ever want to grant me any Admin Powers... I can go totally over the edge when it comes to stuff like that. Nit-picking every last little detail, making people cry & feel inferior. Yes, I know, it's loads of fun and it makes me feel better, but it isn't very nice! ;-)

Sorry about the rambling, but I'm super bored! If I had a tablet here, I'd do a panel :-/

Dear Mr. Admin,

Sorry for any hurt feelings, but you should know I love the site! And I know you don't have time to work on features right now. I'm just obsessive. I drive everyone crazy.

I've been trying to figure out how to promote better art here, since a few people from anexquisitecorpse.net I asked said that quality was the reason they weren't joining.

Jacob

PS. I certainly don't think my pieces are always the best, but I do think it would eliminate some bias to assume a vote for each participant and let them vote again on someone else's piece (and it would spread the votes around a little more).

Hi - I'm sorry this got attached to a corpse, but I wanted just to add a few cents.

I'm a wretched artist. I'm well aware of this. Corpses are forgiving, though. I've always felt that the most important part was being able to connect well - leave 15 nice pixels at the bottom and you've done the next guy a favor. Leaving 15 pixels that got a pointillize filter on them, for example, isn't so great and it takes a lot more effort to make the next slice good, because a lot of the quality, I think, is in seamlessness. A corpse should look complete and whole when it is done. The earliest ones done on paper weren't elaborate or even colored, but they flowed right. (Perhaps in 'Hints' or the FAQ there could be links to these old ones?)

Maybe I'm overemphasizing flow. I know if I were a better artist I'd be able to compensate, but I'm not, but I don't think I'm *terrible*. An entirely invitational system would cut down on participation, I think.

Anyhow, heck, I was just going to say I liked the topo maps in #3 (?)

Jen,

I totally agree with you.

I care intensely about the attempt by each person to follow up on the previous, because if that doesn't happen, the whole game is shot, and you have three or four (or nine!) unrelated works stapled together, and then why are we here?

On the other hand, the best corpses do both; they have continuity and good art. I do think it would be fun to have themed corpses, with some reserved for line art, for hand-drawn art, or for photomontage/electronica. Part of the skill of the game is guessing the arrangement of previous pieces to try to create balance in your new piece. This means that blank areas are important too, and people often forget that and try to compose their work as if it were standing on its own.

Anyway, that's what I'd use "Redo" for; I'd use it for every panel that didn't blend in with its neighbor. I wouldn't use it to judge art, in general, just to call people out for not playing the game.

"Anyway, that's what I'd use "Redo" for; I'd use it for every panel that didn't blend in with its neighbor. I wouldn't use it to judge art, in general, just to call people out for not playing the game."

Really? I would...

j/k ;-)