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Gerkinman
Driven, if nothing else.

Age 37, Male

Motion Artist and In

Northern Rivers NSW

Joined on 1/11/04

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The Newgrounds Portal is completely broken

Posted by Gerkinman - May 20th, 2013


Ill just get this out of the way, this is in no way a "i hate newgrounds" post or a complaint on the direction the site has been heading, but lately I have started to notice some really negative trends taking place on the site.

There are a lot of these issues, but this blog is mainly to do with how the portal currently works. As many as you have most likely noticed the portal is constantly under judgement which is leading to some huge issues. I have had some animations of mine take up to 48 hours to get out of judgement, which means that I am ineligible for a daily place. While getting a daily place used to be quite exciting and meant a bit of exposure, it is now the only means of getting people to even see your work. It used to be once your animation got out of judgement that people could see wether your work was in the blue or in the green in the portal and regardless of score you would get at least a couple of thousand hits. NOW with it taking so long to get through judgement, by the time its cleared most people tend to be lucky to have broken 500 hits and then the viewing stops as the work just disappears into the portal never to be seen again. I understand that this was what the latest and greatest pages were designed for but it doesn't seem like anybody is willing to venture further then the front page. I've been observing this trend not only on my own submissions but the submissions of others and the average number of views something tends to get once it gets out of judgement IF it doesn't get a daily place is lucky to break the 50 - 100 view mark. Of course those who already have an established fan base get their work through judgement in a matter of hours (an example would be Harry Patridge's latest cartoon which was submitted hours after my own and came through judgement almost a day before mine) but for those who dont have a large established fan base, or those who are trying to build a fan base it creates a handy cap that is almost impossible to be broken. And honestly, its frustrating and disheartening enough for me to stop recommending animators who are just starting out to post their content here.

At first I thought the issue stemmed from a lack of people visiting the site, but then I saw the numbers people like Spazkids animations brought in while on the front page and realised the REAL problem is the lack of incentive for people to go through to the portal and vote on new submissions.

I dont have any solutions for this problem, although I wish I did, and I know you people on the staff at Newgrounds are more aware of these issues then anyone. BUT by that same token, the fact this has gone on so long without being corrected makes me wonder what the point of this site is and who they want submitting things, because at the moment, its clear that the site isn't interested in catering to upcoming and new talent to the levels it needs to in order to keep new blood joining into the future.

Thoughts anyone?

Also I released a new cartoon last week, here it is if you didn't see it when it was released.


Comments

The new split between "My facebook friends" and "a bunch of users" is actually a huge point that I didn't think about.
Deviantart basically doesn't have voting or ratings or anything, even though they do sort by popularity and let users write comments. The scary lack of discoverability might totally be negated by everyone already being a part of a dozen social circles anyway... So switching to the "submit and done" style might end up working out.

Obviously there's a million more things to think about before actually deciding on that, or making a move on it, so fuck.

There are so many ways things could go, and I think that if the redesign proves anything its that while you might intent for something to happen it could also go the complete opposite direction.

@I-smel - The fear of switching to a "submit and done" model is that it would majorly alienate the remaining people in the community who keep the judgment system working. And a lot of those guys also give submissions initial feedback that they may not have gotten. It's a shrinking population of people but they are awesome people who love the site and have kept it moving for the 13 years since the automated Portal launched. There could be plenty more roles to fill, though - we could still have a discovery engine that rewards early voting and reviews, it just can do it without being part of an official "live or die while waiting in the shadows" process.

Of course part of the intent of making under judgment content wait in the shadows is that too many peoples' opinions of NG have been shaped by viewing the "Latest Submissions" in previous layouts... They click on a bunch of shitty movies, and walk away with the opinion that NG is a site full of shitty movies. In an attempt to put a bigger spotlight on the better content, the potentially shitty new content has gotten further out of reach.

Watching shitty content can be fun though. There's stuff we talk about to make it a more social experience, although a lot of that comes in the form of streaming video feeds in chat situations, so you need to get those people to be able to watch a streaming feed but also vote and comment on the submissions indirectly because they are just hanging out in a chat room watching one long stream. All stuff we can potentially tackle with some of the social stuff we're building, but maybe it's all completely wrong.

The problem with the utterly excessive amount of submissions in the Flash Portal can easily be attributed to one thing and one thing only; the video player. Fuck that piece of garbage, it allows for the absolute minimum amount of effort on the authors part which leads to idiots uploading SONGS to the Flash Portal instead of the Audio Portal. Even Let's Plays are starting to get submitted.

Not only that but there's also the issue of HTML5 games being submitted, in an attempt to make the site more relevant all the staff ended up doing was creating a massive excess of different file formats. However, the HTML5 games aren't nearly as much of a problem as all the MP4 files people prefer over Flash because the mere act of copying and pasting the Newgrounds preloader is "too hard".

Seriously, count the number of movie submissions that don't use that video player as opposed to the one's that are SWF files. The problem isn't that this place isn't popular enough, it's that it's trying to copy Youtube and the people of that ilk are migrating over with the same expectations. It's being saturated by morons because it's catering to morons.

Even if killing the video player with a rusty knife wasn't enough to fully fix the issue, I'm willing to bet it would get rid of a large chunk of the problem as people would be forced to going back to learning how to use Flash and formatting FLV files before they uploaded their shit, something of which almost none of them will do.

I have to disagree with you, the video player is the one thing I love most about this site now. I no longer use flash exclusively, nor do a lot of other animators. Video allows us to create anything we want without having to worry about the limitations, and I cant see any reason why without a little moderation that could be anything but a good. I dont pay much attention to the games side so I have nothing to add on that front.

@Psychopath - less and less people have finished cartoons in SWF format nowadays and no one will ever be able to convince me that it's a mistake to allow animations to be submitted in video format. Too many great animators have requested it over the years and submissions such as Lucky Day Forever, Starbarians and The Reward wouldn't exist on NG without it.

Also I will counter-argue that the SWF format hurt NG over the past few years more than the video format. Have you ever noticed how big the "Watch it on YouTube!" button is on most SWF submissions nowadays? It's waaaay bigger than the PLAY button and usually bigger than any NG logos people include. When a casual visitor opens an SWF movie on NG, they are more likely to click the big YouTube button than the PLAY button because YouTube is what they know, it's obvious that is what you click to watch a movie on the web.

Thats a really interesting point about the watch it on youtube buttons found on the .swf submissions and something I really hadn't thought about.

Regardless of if the content on the front page submissions feed which is now the Classic Portal was shitty, it did really give everyone a lot more exposure, and I think it helped a lot of not so recognized artists become fairly big. The thing is more about having it at your fingertips and it being the first thing to greet you instantly like it was before. The redesign isn't shit, it's great but that one little thing I think should have stayed, the new users will become too casual otherwise and only check the frontpage and not look beyond that. "Classic Portal" is like saying "Old Portal", nobody will venture there. Also, maybe it's just me but "Social Experience" has become an absolutely horrifying buzzword to me equal to getting a lot of irrelevant noise about everyone you don't even like and also that everyone can see everything you do. I don't think that's what you mean, but when sites aim to implement "social experiences", it usually ends up in a troublesome direction. You're so naked on the internet nowadays and I'd prefer if NG would be a haven from all that.

A large majority of my fanbase back in the day came exclusively from my time sitting in the classic portal after passing judgement I think. That lack of long term exposure I believe is really hurting people.

Having all the new stuff rotate into a constantly live channel is probably what would most get me to watch it. Especially if there were a mute thumbnail on the front that was always on, like a live stream of "NOW PLAYING"- cos I totally did watch everything on NG Bytesize.
That could be a really interesting new concept.

The part I'm not totally excited about is where it's a chat room- cos I've used the existing chatroom and it's usually the same xXsmokedogg420Xx talkin about garbage with some anime guy for 2 hours. You'd have to think about other ways you could help make it a more social experience, like having everyone's votes be visible, and surfacing what's trending in the chat and highlighting when the author's in the room etc. You'd have to design a bunch of small ideas that'll whip up activity and conversation out of people.

One thing that might help is if it wasn't constantly on. I get that that's the whole idea- but you might get a more concentrated, active crowd if it was presented as a live show on weekends, and the rest of the week was a countdown. Cos then instead of having a bunch of sparse "Is anyone here" messages every day, you'd definately know when people are on. And having it be the same URL as the existing chat would mean there'd always be at least a dozen people there.
Having a limited time-slot is a better way to get everyone to meet in one place at once.

Anyway this idea COULD all be completely wrong, but I think doing it right could feel like something brand new. Then again I thought the giant slideshow-box up top was gonna be a hot new banger, so I might just be a giant idiot.

@Gerkinman - I was asking for it when I mentioned the YouTube videos in the blog post, it even crossed my mind as I was saying it. And we have been planning embeds for ages now and it's kinda crazy that we still haven't gotten them going. And that sucks about the professional liabilities associated with NG, I always have to wonder how much we've been stunted because of certain types of content that have been popular on the site over the years.

Artist news should probably show up in the Follow Feed on the front page. The reason it doesn't right now is a matter of prioritizing that space with content vs news - if someone clicks the full feed it includes news, but that is a smaller number than people who view the latest on the front page.

One longterm question will be whether the Artist News box should even exist on the front page if we extend the feed box and include news from artists you follow. Maybe the remaining space would be better served by exposing people to more content, if that leads to people discovering new artists and following them, vs seeing news headlines from people they might not care about. Or maybe some artists are actually being discovered by their news posts vs their content, hard to say on that one, now I feel like I'm rambling... But one thing that has come up is that the Incoming list could go higher up, which would push the Artist News further down, so it brings up the question of the priority of the Artist News space.

We could also have better publicized FOLLOW buttons on people. The multi-author system has always made that a big more tricky; on YouTube it's easy to attribute a submission to a single person and push all the follow promotion to them, but on NG we have a lot of stuff with a list of people you might want to follow and it becomes less focused as a result. We could still put a laser on the primary owner of the project, though.

Ha ha, oh Tom. Its something I think that needed to be addressed, and I had the feeling it was something that was in the works. I honestly thought it would be part of the launch of the player on the site, if not on external sites then at least some way of embedding them into front page posts. Obviously the main benefit is the fact this site will host content that other sites wont (which is also an issue as well as you mentioned). I think the site has done a great job of nurturing its own breed of animators with its openness with adult content, but I too often wonder how many shorts like The Reward have bypassed the site for the same reason.

I think, as far as the issue goes with content populating updates, I know I have heard complaints from other artists, especially ones that follow a lot of illustrators is that the feed can update too fast and its easy to miss things. This is of course just my opinion, but I think DeviantArts way of managing updates, that being a small counter when you log into the site that takes you to said updates on there own page (similar to Youtube subscriptions as well in a lot of ways) is the best solution, as far as uncluttering the front page goes at least. Visiting Newgrounds after a couple of days and seeing a little icon that tells you how many things you have missed from artists you follow isn't a bad idea, as is the idea of them not disappearing until you have either checked the content out or closed it manually.

I have got the feeling that a lot of the elements of the update of the site have been rather trial and error. Its not hard to see why because I cant think of any other site that trues to cater to the vast number of different interests that this site does so its hard to really reference anything existing. Its very much a try it and see how it goes approach, and in the end theres always a chance that some of these issues will have no solution.

I think your right about the follow button, multi authoring could make that harder with the current design of the pages when dealing with that content in a lot of ways, I think that particular element is something that will have to take some real thought.

Focus I think is Newgrounds biggest issue right now, its jack of all trades and the master of none, it leads to a splintered audience and makes it impossible to make everyone happy. Make the animation guys happy and the game creators will complain, make the games work and artists will complain. I really wish I had some decent solutions, but I dont. Its just a shame that the sheer variety of content on the site is both its greatest attribute AND its greatest weakness.

While I don't like how this site has been going in the past few years, I see where Tom is coming from. On the other hand, I'm not convinced of Mpeg's superiority and think that when artists become more free of restraints; they become hobbled rather than liberated.

I dont think the video is liberating in a negative sense, I think it opens the site to animations of any style or genre. I think the idea of a "flash movie" is long dead, its just one animation tool out of countless and to try to rely on it exclusively is never going to allow people to really create what they want.

If stuff that was shit and usually went in blammed or barely in orange, but was seen anyway, had a negative impact being on the front page, but the stuff that went in or just under blue or green had a good impact on the site, why not just draw a line somewhere at strong orange score and have a feed with everything above that in a visible spot on the front page?

I think there is something for that content sort of on the front page at the moment down the bottom.

Doom Project part 2 would solve all newgrounds problemoz ;D :D :O

Oh man, wouldn't that be something ha ha.

yes---v

@ Tom Fulp

Those submissions could have existed if the file size for SWF files were bigger or if the authors knew how to use parent filing.

Also, several of those people who feature the Youtube buttons also tend to link to their Newgrounds accounts; example: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/PsychopathUltimate">http://www.youtube.com/user/PsychopathUltimate </a>

I hate it when anyone tries to justify the player by cherry picking; only a handful of decent authors have used the video player so far, everyone else mostly abuses it by misplacing a song, uploading let's plays and hilariously enough, still photos of artwork without any musical accompaniment.

@ gerkinman

Tell me, what possible kind of restraints could an MP4 file possibly free you from as opposed to a SWF file? Can you program your own video player in an MP4 file? No. Can you add subtitles into an MP4 file? None that anyone else can see. Newgrounds has a bigger file size available for that file format than a SWF file? Well that's a fault of the website and not the format, also, parent filing.

Don't tell me you think there's no other way to submit live action videos to Newgrounds, Numa Numa, AlmightyHans and myself could readily prove you wrong.

Why would anyone who has spent months working on a short film want to spend more time programming their own video player? If people want to add subtitles they can do it easily during the creation process or in post through either after effects or premier, in fact those two programs have tools built into them specifically for making subtitles... As for what people are using it for, how is that any different to people embedding songs into a swf or making a slide show in a swf?

If you want to use badly compressed ugly low res videos embedded into flash files then thats your choice, but people like me who want to be able to see content in full HD on their ipad or on their television dont much care for the .swf. Hell adobe has stopped caring about the .swf format. Maybe its time you did as well.

who's uploading letsplays?

Alright guys look- having the video format is a none-conversation cos it plays on iPads and it's better at streaming content than a big fat loading bar. It doesn't give a shit about framerate, it doesn't crash everything over 4 minutes on export, you can submit something made in basically any software you like, it scales much better and plays much more easily at fullscreen on a high resolution, blah blah blah.

Although it's hilarious that people are just now uploading their Lets Plays and image slideshows.

People have been submitting hentai slideshows to this website since 1999, its nothing to do with the video player.

@Tom: I couldn't agree more, it the new site format has left the whole blam/save system pretty broken, in the sense that the list is perpetually grey in the 'classic portal'. And, what's worst, it makes it a lot harder for really good content creators to be highlighted and shine through, which has always been a part of the appeal of NG.

Essentially, apart from a very hardcore like myself, no one cares about voting power any more, so the incentive to save and blam (particularly when so few movies are blammed), has been reduced to close to zero, with a subsequent accumulation.

So, and I'm just throwing out ideas here, why not create new incentives to have people discover great movies/games? Why not make it so that every day, people can bet on what they'll think will be the top 5 movies/games for that day and whoever picks the most right ones gets front page exposure? Or perhaps make it so that they get access to some type of reward? Or that they get recognized somehow? Or why not create a new group of mods who are dedicated towards this single task, again with some sort of reward scheme? Such as having <this movie/game> made by <this creator> found by <this user> appear on the front page? Or even have some small, monetary reward in place?

Of course, <I> still care about the points system and I judiciously deposit (almost) every single day and too drastic a departure, without some sort of compensation (after so many movies and games, I think I developed at least a modicum of a critics skill), would upset quite a few people like me, who you allude to your post. But if it's for the good of the site, I'd understand and accept it, albeit, and I'm being completely honest here, it might make me stop coming as frequently.

You have some interesting and fresh ideas. I like the cut of your jib good sir.

@I-smel I'd to laugh too, can either one of you link me to one lets play on here?

When I started uploading games here back in mid-2011, the portal system still seemed to be working pretty well. Games would pass in maybe four or five hours, max. I remember a game i uploaded in early 2012, just after the redesign, taking like 9 hours to get through, which seemed really long at the time, and things have only gotten worse since then. I don't know how much of that is the redesign and how much is just changing trends in the Web, but it doesn't seem like the Web has changed that much in just 2 years.

That's about all I have to add. I really liked the green-blue system, because having a game turn green was always a thing to shoot for, but that might just not work anymore.

Green blue worked fantastically I found.

Since this is still on frontpage I may as well lump in my thought.

The community that view content are predictable.
Currently if you leave them on their own, the most popular stuff in the art portal is a) stuff on frontpage, b) stuff with a huge fanbase already, and c) shitty anime boobs. There is some other cracking stuff, but the vast majority of users aren't adventurous and won't explore the portals. That's a shame.

There needs to be more incentive for Mr/Miss Casual User to explore, and get them to notice the hidden gems. Such as an option to "Recommend for Frontpage" - people can still vote, but they can also vouch for whether a video or game should be showcased. If it gets picked for showcase, their opinion matters and they can level up something similar to a flagging whistle.

Thats the biggest problem now, not just here but on other sites. People want the content now and they dont want to have to look for it. The incentive is another issue. Aside from the handful of people who go through the portal voting on everything there is no real reason or benefit to the individuals doing thing voting anymore and thus little incentive.

read my comment to this on youtube by clicking here

On a SERIOUS note, the under judgement stuff is a weird BIG issue... its tough because internet mannerisms have changed over the years ( as they should, it is the internet after all) and the way people have come to interact with websites have changed. For the better or worse is up to interpretation of course, but they have.

Its a slippery slope though, cause part of the personality of NG is in the blam/save system, but maybe it needs tweaking, not a total overhaul, but a haul of some sort. That doesnt mean much for a guy who never got past the first tier of experience points leveling up i know but i cant be crazy in thinking that. What exactly should happen i dont know :(

The biggest issues with the blam and save system at the moment is that nothing seems to be getting blammed, I usually see maybe 1 project get blammed a day. I dont know if its because less content is being submitted or because quality is improving but either way it sort of renders that part of the websites functionality irrelevant.

Keeping Newgrounds personality is obviously an important thing to try to do, but I dont think it should take priority over keeping it functional not just for the people visiting the site but for the people submitting content to it.

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