The Photoshoptor Doctor Picture Clinic

Questionable Augmentation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to a special edition of the Friday Q&A. This week, I'm going to be doing things a little differently, in that I plan to actually discuss Photoshop on my Photoshop blog. The whole concept is new to me.

Q: What prompted this adjustment?

A: There have been a couple of changes made to Fark in the past few days. The most notable is the widening of image size restrictions from 640 to 850. An exciting development, given the community has been requesting this since the disastrous Fark 2.0 rollout, when the size of posted images was decreased to make way for that horrible 2.0 page design. I guess it's been more than a few years since most people stopped caring about that, but better late than never.

Q: Should non-voting comments be hidden?

A: Another change put into effect this week is the automatic hiding, by default, of all non-vote enabled comments. There seems to be some controversy over this decision, but for now it looks like a good idea to me. I don't see it doing anything magical like eliminating cliche use, or even decreasing it. Really, it's just a way to make the threads look more professional without a jumble of stupid text only troll comments that constantly have to be pruned back by the mods. Now the trolls can comment all day long about how something sucks or is gay, and it won't cause a scene or disrupt the contest. That alone is worth some of the drawbacks this change presents.

Q: What kind of drawbacks?

A: Some have complained that it leads to duplicate entries. For example, if someone does a non-vote enabled Q&D in an effort to block others from using a particular cliche, there's a good chance no one will see it. Fine by me, as blocking is kind of a dick move in my opinion. It's gamesmanship to remove certain cliches from the playing field if you have a feeling they will outshine your own, more serious work. Instead, why not work on a concept that is more humorous than a shitty cliche 'shop? Fark isn't going to be made better by limiting others, especially the newer members who tend to work in cliche. I've had entries that crushed meme legends like the Beer Looter by a hundred or more points. That is way more rewarding than nullifying him before the contest even starts. Keep in mind, all these non-vote enabled comments are still viewable in the thread. You just have to do an extra click or change a profile preference to see them. So really, all it does is clean the page up. The "no shoppy no votey" GIS posting crowd will still do their thing, they just hopefully won't be able to derail a thread as easily now.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. I want to close this post by thanking Drew for all the great new Photoshop features. Never mind that they come about 4 years too late, and after maybe a third of the community has turned away in disgust from the previous design and policy boondoggles.

 Stay tuned for more sour grapes from the Doctor!