AUGUST ART COMP - DREDD'S DEAD, BABY, DREDD'S DEAD

[Colin YNWA]

Still not sold on this Pete....the guy was wound up and exercised (not purposefully); but I don't like people being singled out to be fucking thrown to the wolves and savaged. Z

What so if we don't agree with someone we're not allowed to express our opinion, or should I not say that?

Its all a total shame, but I think most of the commentry here has been pretty reasonable and some of the art commenting pretty good spirited mikey taking. There's a certain sadness that one thing we seem to pretty much agree on still courses a bit of a mini-ruck (which of course I'm not helping by sustaining!).

James Dilworth was out of order, nowt dramatic and I don't think the response has been overly dramatic either. Yes there is volume, and that will no doubt have made James feel a little put upon BUT lets not get silly and call it 'being fucking thrown to the wolves'

Go back read the thread I'm not sure we've been a baying mob and certainly Pete has tried to give an honest decent response.

[ZenArcade]

Maybe the phrases like 'elitist dick' serve only to exacerbate the situation Jim.  I'm a big supporter of this forum and am as averse as anyone else to the censoring of input. We need to consider what has happened and work towards comity.... I simply do not like the prejoratives, and less, the frankly negative direction this wonderful thread has taken over the past two months.  Z

[Jim_Campbell]

I'd rather be misguidedly even-handed than think that "act like a dick, get called out for acting like a dick. Throw your toys out of the pram. I hope he calms down and reconsiders," is a response, seen by James that would genuinely make him (or anyone really) think, "oh fair enough I'll give those guys another chance."

My last comment on this sorry mess: I think that's unfair. My "act like a dick" comment may have been overly harsh, but came off the back of James' massive overreaction of (apparently) unfriending everyone on FB associated with the forum and deleting all his artwork.

At that point, he had chosen to inflict collateral damage on a scale unprecedented in my recollection of previous forum strops and "dick" was a fairly mild expression of my opinion of his behaviour. I say this as someone who has been on the sharp end of some pretty strong disapproval from various quarters of this forum's membership.

With that, I'll shut up and hopefully we'll get back to seeing more entries. I'll abandon the one I was doing, which would have been mildly amusing about three pages ago, and see if I can come up something less facetious before the deadline.

Hopefully, the forum will judge it to be Dilworthy. *

*You see what I did there?

[Goaty]

My first entry in 2000AD Art comp ever...

I try.

[Andy Lambert]

Great first entry, Goaty! First of many I hope

[Theblazeuk]

Someone has been hiding their light under a bushel!

[Spaceghost]

I'd rather be misguidedly even-handed than think that "act like a dick, get called out for acting like a dick. Throw your toys out of the pram. I hope he calms down and reconsiders," is a response, seen by James that would genuinely make him (or anyone really) think, "oh fair enough I'll give those guys another chance."

Another chance to do what exactly? What he said was ridiculous and people, rightly, pointed that out in a generally even handed manner.

He probably should have done a lot of things, he definitely shouldn't have said what he did but the massive tidal wave of cumulative abuse aimed at him after the fact isn't going to change anything beyond making  other folk that aren't him really consider whether this is the nicest atmosphere in which to put their artwork. I think more so than if his original comment was left to die in embarrassing silence.

There was no abuse. Just utter disbelief and sarcasm. And the ONLY member of this forum to make disparaging comments about someone else's artwork is James himself.

Again - I can't change that. What I can do is take serious stock about the function of the competition and think about whether this echo chamber of in-jokes and bullish banter is genuinely the best place to center it. The really grim reality that old forumers have even rushed back in from the wilderness just to get some swift kicks in to an already one-sided fight because they read about it on Facebook is ... really not showing our best side. Certainly not as a loose social group but definitely not as a fandom.

I might not be very active on the forum these days, but I regularly stop by to read what's going on and I love the Art Comp and admire ANYONE who enters it. I didn't come by to get some swift kicks in, merely to humourously draw attention to the TOTAL ABSURDITY of the argument.

If the spirit of the art comp is letting everyone of all abilities have a go which everyone has been so bold to defend then honestly we need to think about the POV of "everyone" not just people who know and are endeared to Pete and our 'way'.

Again - I'm not defending what was originally said, I'm just providing another perspective.

Here we go. Nobody say anything that isn't entirely vanilla in case someone is "triggered". Are you suggesting some sort of censorship? Where will that end? Nowhere good I predict.

The only abuse and bullying I saw came from James Dilworth and was directed at Pete Wells. His position is indefensible.

I sincerely hope the art comp continues as it has done and isn't thrown off the rails by the, frankly, incomprehensible opinions of one person, and I hope James calms down a bit, stops taking himself so seriously and decides to come back to the forum.

[Hawkmumbler]

PMSL at that, Goaty. After Judge Dead any namesakes must pale in comparison!

[I, Cosh]

He probably should have done a lot of things, he definitely shouldn't have said what he did but the massive tidal wave of cumulative abuse aimed at him after the fact isn't going to change anything beyond making  other folk that aren't him really consider whether this is the nicest atmosphere in which to put their artwork. I think more so than if his original comment was left to die in embarrassing silence.

Not really sure I can follow this logic. Man makes utterly awful statement about who should be allowed to post their art based on whether or not he thinks they've expended enough effort (and doubles down when given the opportunity to recant) but nobody should criticise him because doing so will make people feel uneasy about posting their art?

[TordelBack]

Please can we not throw our hands up about the spectre of censorship AGAIN. This is a private company's forum, free speech is not a right anyone enjoys here, and moderation is extraordinarily light and sensitive. Stuff that appears here has to adhere to basic and broad guidelines, and the guiding principle would be mutual respect. However, all that aside, bieng considerate of peoples' feelings is not censorship, it's decency.

James said something silly, as each and every one of us has at one or (many) more times, reactions snowballed in an initially very amusing but ultimately cumulatively unpleasant way, as so often happens online. No-one wanted him to leave, or to stop being the terrific contributor to this competition that he always is, any more than they wanted Pete to stop lowering the tone in his delightful way. Acknowledging that things went awry and looking to fix them is not censorship.

[ZenArcade]

 Acknowledging that things went awry and looking to fix them is not censorship.

This!  Z 

[Spaceghost]

Please can we not throw our hands up about the spectre of censorship AGAIN. This is a private company's forum, free speech is not a right anyone enjoys here, and moderation is extraordinarily light and sensitive. Stuff that appears here has to adhere to basic and broad guidelines, and the guiding principle would be mutual respect. However, all that aside, bieng considerate of peoples' feelings is not censorship, it's decency.

James said something silly, as each and every one of us has at one or (many) more times, reactions snowballed in an initially very amusing but ultimately cumulatively unpleasant way, as so often happens online. No-one wanted him to leave, or to stop being the terrific contributor to this competition that he always is, any more than they wanted Pete to stop lowering the tone in his delightful way. Acknowledging that things went awry and looking to fix them is not censorship.

Perhaps censorship was the wrong word to use, but I certainly don't think anyone can be accused of being inconsiderate of anyone's feelings in the entries they submit. Attempting to pre-empt any kind of offense is where dreadfulness will arise.

[Woolly]

I was initially a bit amused/bemused by all this, but sadly all amusement left the situation when James left the board.

For the record, no offence was meant by my entry (hope youre reading this James, it wasnt supposed to be a personal dig) and im more than happy for it to be discounted from the voting.

Maybe an idea to bring voting forward on this one, have a month off, and restart the art comp again in september?

[Theblazeuk]

I think everyone was pretty nice about their disapproval other than James. I think some of us are being far too nice about what was a pretty horrible series of things to say because, on this forum, those nasty things were only said by one person, and now those nice people feel bad for being part of the crowd. Sometimes it's the 'little guy' who needs to say sorry.

In an ideal world this would have been a moment for self-reflection and "Alreet ya got me ya bastiches, I take it back!"

[Goaty]

Forgot it everyone, and comments on artworks!