Turkey Day Q&A

Questionable Indigestion

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to a very special Thanksgiving Q&A. I wanted to start by wishing a happy Thanksgiving to all the children of the world. Then I remembered that only America actually celebrates this holiday. Also I don't like children very much. Regardless, I'm probably glad you're here.

Q: What are you thankful for?

A: Besides my unquestioned moral authority? My witless enemies? Free day-old crullers in the dumpster behind every Dunkin Donuts? There's plenty of reasons for everyone at Fark to give thanks. Recent revelations have suggested that site founder Drew Curtis may have finally awakened to the collective grousing of the PSAEF. A permanent, integrated Scrutinizer replacement is apparently in the works. Thanks to everyone who is helping to bring this exciting new feature to our community.

Q: What was the first Thanksgiving like?

A: My memories from grade school are spotty at best, but I recall that America was founded in 1942 by Columbo. Later on, some pilgrims showed up and built a giant rock shaped like a Plymouth. This pleased the local Indians, who decided to peacefully give up all their land in exchange for $13.67, which was a lot of money back then. To commemorate the occasion, a huge feast was held. Then the Indians got on their motorcycles and headed out west to found some casinos. Also, a lot of them died from cholera.

Q: Why doesn't every country celebrate Thanksgiving?

A: From what I gather, the non-American parts of the world are mostly filled with ramshackle huts and very little indoor plumbing. A holiday based around overeating would be disastrous in such places, as afterward the entire population would proceed to squat in the streets, creating a tidal wave of chunky diarrhea.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I'd like to close my Thanksgiving post by once again giving thanks to everyone working on our new contest monitor. I'll be glad when the Dark Age of Photshop finally comes to a close, and I sincerely doubt anyone will ever become nostalgic for it.

Stay tuned for more guarded optimism from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Purification

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A. In this regular feature, I take a look at issues facing Fark's Photoshop community. It's nice of me to join you again. Hopefully you had a great week, unless you disagree with me, in which case I sincerely hope you died. Today's post is all about self-improvement, how futile it is, and why no one should ever try it.

Q: What if every Photoshopper doubled their skills?

A: Many do, but such advancements don't often happen over night. Most of us have to work pretty hard at it. Any change in skill level is incremental, spread over the weeks and months. Except in certain cases, wherein simply learning how to turn the computer on is a monumental first step for the artist.

Q: Why don't we reach a point where everyone is good?

A: I've come to think of Fark as a revolving door. Just as one user learns everything there is to know (and subsequently becomes embittered), there always seems to be a fresh crop of idealistic newcomers just getting started. Our community thrives on this new blood, and part of Fark's appeal is that anyone can compete.

Q: Why do so many veteran PSers become embittered?

A: There are a lot of theories as to what makes a seemingly well-adjusted Farker start complaining about how much better everyone in the community used to be. Maybe they reach a plateau in terms of artistic growth, and the only thing left to do is tear down the work of others. Maybe they feel their awesome skills aren't being properly rewarded. Maybe they're like TheSniperZERO, who never had skills or a decent personality to begin with. Anyone who bitches and moans about the state of our community needs to take a good long look in the mirror. Insults and fake nostalgia only serve to further alienate the current generation of Photoshoppers.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Improving Fark is a noble idea, but any such effort would no doubt be counter-productive. Forcing a division between veterans and newcomers prevents both sides from learning from one another. I'm glad that our community welcomes everyone, regardless of skill. If you want to live in the past and be an embittered dick, please keep it to yourself. The rest of us are trying to have fun.

Stay tuned for more repressed animosity from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Insinuation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. Each week, I take a look at issues relating to the Photoshop community at Fark. You may recall that last week's post dealt with some proposed changes to the voting system. Users may soon be able to vote for an entry as either best, funniest, or crap. This brave new idea has been very popular with TheSniperZERO, but not so much with everyone else. Wow, the former proprietor of TFPTC supports an option to vote for someone else's work as crap. What a shocking revelation! Someone please alert the media whilst I continue with this week's questions.

Q: Why is TheSniperZERO wrong?

A: We don't have nearly enough time here to go into all the various nuances of why TSZ is a hopeless dickhole. Look for my upcoming book on the subject, available in the non-fiction section of your local book store. For the meantime, let's just focus on the issue at hand. Good old TSZ is unfortunately misguided in his support of the pending changes (also known as Proposition BOOOOOO). He thinks the possibility of ending up on the crap list will deter people from posting what he considers to be substandard entries. After all, he tried doing basically the same thing at his blog and look how well that turned out.

Q: Does negativity have a place in Fark contests?

A: Certainly, provided you can channel your negativity into the form of a Photoshop. Fark's moderators have thankfully deleted text-only trolling for as long as I can remember, presumably to keep the contest threads from derailing into flame wars. But soon we may have a new option to let the trolling be done anonymously. You won't know who hates your work, or even specifically why. It's really no surprise to me that TSZ supports this idea. Let's hope its success is equal to that of his thread critiques.

Q: Is there any word on a replacement for the Scrutinizer?

A: There were some recent PSAEF rumblings about a new contest archive site to replace the ailing Scrutinizer. We've been promised such things in the past, so I'm trying desperately not to get my hopes up. Estimated time of completion for the project is towards the end of the year, which means we have a bit of waiting to do yet. Still, news that the Dark Age of Photoshop may soon be coming to a close sounds good to me.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Given that TheSniperZERO has come out in support of multi-option voting, I think we safely flush the idea. Besides, the lack of an official response to one of the biggest forum uproars in recent memory indicates that the whole thing may just have been Drew's way of trolling a drunken PSAEFer. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Stay tuned for more wishful thinking from the Doctor!

Friday Q&A

Questionable Derision

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A. This regular feature takes a look at issues facing Fark's Photoshop community. I'm glad you're here, assuming you aren't some asshole with the audacity to disagree with me. If so, my only request is that you kill yourself in the most painful way possible. Get back to me on that later, but for now let's continue with this week's questions.

Q: Has any more been said about the proposed changes to voting?

A: Last week's post detailed rumors of some brewing changes to the way we Farkers cast our votes. Fark contests, long the bastion of single option voting, may soon see the addition of multiple choices. I featured this rumor in a Q&A from last year, but the addition of an option allowing users to vote for entries as "crap" brings it to the forefront of discussion. No official word has yet been issued to address this wildly unpopular rumor, which drew the ire of pretty much everyone in the PSAEF.

Q: Why is multiple option voting worse than Hitler?

A: Let me just start by saying that a comparison to the Nazis is really unfair. I'd say this is more like a mix of Nazism and New Coke in its ill-conceived awfulness. I sincerely hope such a terrible idea never sees the light of day, because our contests have always been a haven from the trolls that infest Fark.

Q: What if they removed the "crap" option?

A: It's still the worst idea I've heard this year. Voting at Fark is something that doesn't need fixing, despite shrill complaints from some of us when we score poorly. I'll admit that I wasn't completely against the idea at first, but "best" and "funniest" are too vague. Even the addition of scaled (1-5 or 1-10 option) voting would be most unwelcome. There's always some asshole (with sand in his vagina) that will lowvote everything he sees, just to be a dick.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. Whilst I try not to put too much faith into half-remembered rumors from hungover forum-goers, these proposed changes could potentially be disastrous to our community. Let's hope it's just something Drew tells Photoshoppers to troll them. Though the lack of an official response could mean we're all about to have a "you'll get over it" moment.

Stay tuned for more irrational panic from the Doctor!