The BL Banner Poll

[I3uster]

Mellon, it's not a banner.

It's people not understanding that everyone's opinion cannot be represented, no matter how hard you try. Especially in a community like this. Best solution is go fuck it, no banner change, and everyone just lurk back to their business in their respective niches... I mean, subforums. It's either that or suddenly becoming nicer, more understanding and tolerant people, and I've never ever seen that happen.

I will eat your liver.

[Mike1984]

It's people not understanding that everyone's opinion cannot be represented, no matter how hard you try. Especially in a community like this.

No, but you can at least try, and DP doesn't really even bother.

Best solution is go fuck it, no banner change, and everyone just go back to their business. It's either that or suddenly becoming nicer, more understanding and tolerant people, and I've never ever seen that happen.

Judging by I3uster's opinion, that isn't likely to work either....

[Erlkonig]

Mellon, it's not a banner.

It's people not understanding that everyone's opinion cannot be represented, no matter how hard you try. Especially in a community like this. Best solution is go fuck it, no banner change, and everyone just lurk back to their business in their respective niches... I mean, subforums. It's either that or suddenly becoming nicer, more understanding and tolerant people, and I've never ever seen that happen.

Problem is you can't go back on no banner change, because only a very small minority wants to keep it after the issue is addressed. People just won't back away from something that's sparked their curiosity until it is changed in some way.

[Mellon]

Mellon, it's not a banner.

It's people not understanding that everyone's opinion cannot be represented, no matter how hard you try. Especially in a community like this. Best solution is go fuck it, no banner change, and everyone just go back to their business. It's either that or suddenly becoming nicer, more understanding and tolerant people, and I've never ever seen that happen.

I would prefer "no banner change" to massive assholishness from all parties involved. Calling it "just Mike's fault" and "lets just ban him" is easy and all, but when it comes down to it, there is a lot more rage flying around BL in general these days and a lot less tolerance.

In the end, it always takes two to tango.

[RacingeR]

I would prefer "no banner change" to massive assholishness from all parties involved. Calling it "just Mike's fault" and "lets just ban him" is easy and all, but when it comes down to it, there is a lot more rage flying around BL in general these days and a lot less tolerance.

In the end, it always takes two to tango.

Well, a solution would be a collective ignore towards Mike, but we all know that is not happening.

[Mellon]

Well, a solution would be a collective ignore towards Mike, but we all know that is not happening.

For some reason, I suspect people will just find another outlet, rather then just "calm down".

[Optimus]

Well, in sociopolitical terms we've reached a no-turnback point. Almost nobody wants the old BL-tan, yet that's the only thing you fuckers have agreed on. Nice. That's like saying, sure, let's overthrow the evil dictator, but later can't freaking get the health system back into work.

Buster, I'm not saying that we should go back. I am just saying that before changing it, we are going to need more discussion than just a mere poll. We need to do this in a more organized, more civilized manner, after everyone has calmed the fuck down and stops bullshitting everyone who does not agree with their own personal opinion, and with more than just a moderator present.

[Altima of the Gates]

Alright, that is enough.

As I have not had too much time to look over the actual discussion, given that I am preparing for a new assignment as well as reviewing job offers, and am only glancing periodically at the forum, i don't know the whole kit and kaboodle. Now, can we please cut this argument out, Mike, I'm especially talking to you, as this really looks like you're arguing for the principle of the matter, rather than it actually be a point of contention.

By the weekend, once I'm caught up, say Saturday, I'll give my opinion on this and talk more with DP. But I honestly do not see how a banner can really foster this much debate. Sure it'd be nice for a change, but it's not really something to get all fussy about, but we will make a decision. Now since I'd rather not lock this thread, chill on this for now.

[Erlkonig]

Well, a solution would be a collective ignore towards Mike, but we all know that is not happening.

It's not just with mike, there's an overall decrease in tolerance in BL right now. Whether it's justified or not is a whole can of worms that I don't think should be opened here, it'll just further derail the thread.

[Optimus]

Altima and DP, in all honesty I don't believe it's the banner, it's a great deal of the community. Something has to be done ASAP.

[Mike1984]

Now, can we please cut this argument out, Mike, I'm especially talking to you, as this really looks like you're arguing for the principle of the matter, rather than it actually be a point of contention.

Really?

Because I sure as hell don't think I am. I'm arguing because I don't think it's fair that that option should win even though it didn't obtain a majority, and it is most definitely a "point of contention". Just because you don't actually have the foggiest clue what you're talking about, that doesn't mean you should just accuse me of things based on your opinion of my thoughts even when it happens to be completely and utterly wrong.

[Erlkonig]

Really?

Because I sure as hell don't think I am. I'm arguing because I don't think it's fair that that option should win even though it didn't obtain a majority, and it is most definitely a "point of contention". Just because you don't actually have the foggiest clue what you're talking about, that doesn't mean you should just accuse me of things based on your opinion of my thoughts even when it happens to be completely and utterly wrong.

But opinions can't be wrong.

[Malgos]

I know you read this DP, and by the number of reports this thread has Altima too. Please, please, please don't do that.

Agreed, please don't do that.

Regarding the topic, personally I don't want rotating banners either. I still voted for the option that I want, which is a banner with an image and text. I'd prefer if it was just one banner, but unless there's going to be another vote on that it's up to the admins.

[RacingeR]

Guys, lets just stop answering this thread until the mods can have a look at shit then take their decisions, okay?

[Erlkonig]

Guys, lets just stop answering this thread until the mods can have a look at shit then take their decisions, okay?

Okay

[I3uster]

They can lock it anyway, it's finished.

[Altima of the Gates]

Alright then, I will lock it and we'll get back to you guys sometime this weekend. Next week at the latest in case something comes up.

[Dark Pulse]

I think that a new banner is indeed welcomed, but I don't think you can really make much of a judgement on the content of such.

Total votes: 84.

Votes for a new, not necessarily BL-tan based image-and-text banner: 32.
Votes for a new banner but with the current BL-tan: 23.
Votes for a new BL-tan entirely: 15.

Any two of these together trumps all the other choices combined. Therefore, it's pretty clear the community, in general, wants a new banner in some way, shape, or form. Just because one choice did not get an absolute majority does not mean community sentiment cannot be gained from that poll. Very few wanted just text, and even fewer want to keep the current one. Therefore, the community wants change.

If you really want "absolute majority" all it would mean would be that I would take the top three options and have people vote on those. If there's still no clear consensus, I'd do a third round where it's just the top two. That means two more topics full of posts like this one, where I try to explain how I'm getting this information, and you complaining it's not overwhelming, immediate community support or something.

For claiming the forum is run by the forumites, you sure seem to think that their choice matters less than yours because they didn't pick one single choice overwhelmingly. The three choices above got 84.53% of the vote. I would say that's definitely "absolute majority," Mike. If we want to go by absolute majorities for a single choice, a purely new image-and-text banner beat out Old BL-tan, new picture by almost 12%. So either way, no matter how you slice it, the community wants something new.

But you are completely ignoring me, and everyone else who has complaints. Don't try to pretend otherwise. You act to serve the majority (by your own admission) whilst trampling over the minority, and you seemingly don't give a flying fuck.

Absolutely not, but at the same time, the overwhelming majority of the community's opinion differs. Since this is a forum "run" by the forumites, the voice of the majority should dictate forum direction in most senses. Therefore, if the majority wants a new image up there, that means more of the community is for that than against that. Ergo, we will change it.

For what it's worth, you're really the only person of the minority making this into such a big deal. I could see if many other people who voted for the losing option was complaining, but really, it's just you. As I've said before, one person complaining they don't like an action is hardly enough to rethink a course, especially when the vast majority is saying they want something else.

Actually, yes, I did object, because I don't see any reason to have a limit at all, barring technical limitations. However, I didn't really have a problem with the final result (because I honestly couldn't imagine any scenario where it will get hit, although, amusingly, your poll for banners could end up violating it...), so I didn't see any point in pressing my complaints further.

I'm pretty sure I'm immune from those sorts of limits. If not, I can always raise them for the poll and then re-lower them once it's posted at any rate.

How the bloody hell are you being remotely "fair"? Your entire system is set up to be biased towards the majority with no regard whatsoever for the minority, even down to the way you're determining how many banners each character is allowed and the voting system itself.

You've set it up to basically guarentee that Rin, Saber etc. will get as many banners as they're allowed (which will probably be quite a lot) and that less popular characters (which may or may not include Sakura) will get none. Further, the way you're counting banners with multiple characters (particularly when coupled with the 25% restriction) is also biased against minor characters, because images of them with a more major character are likely to be more popular and, thus, images of them alone will likely get washed out (whereas the same will not happen to the major characters because they will be allowed more banners in total). Additionally, your rules for producing images makes it very hard for those of us who can't draw, because we're extremely limited in our choice in pictures to use. Finally, your voting system is designed in such a way that people really can't pick only the banners they like for a particular character (especially if there are a lot of them), because the vote for that character might get split and they'll end up with nothing.

You're also assuming extreme scenarios. While I do expect more of the popular characters in general, I also seriously doubt there will be 25 Saber banners and 60 entries. Furthermore, you also assume that every Saber fan is going to automatically vote for every Saber banner, no matter how shitty or crappy it is - in other words, your numbers assumed every Saber banner would be a stunning, perfect work of art that would be a must-have.

I may like Rin, for example, but if there's, say, 7 Rin banners entered but four of them are pretty shit, I'm not going to vote for all seven - I'm going to vote for those three that I like, and furthermore, maybe I'll find a really awesome Hassan banner I like that will also get my votes, or this really kickass pose of Alphard that I feel is worthy enough for me to put my praise toward.

You're forgetting this entirely: People are not just going to automatically vote for characters they like (I don't think even Koto would vote for a stick figure that has "My name is Matou Shinji" written next to it), but they're also going to vote for really kickass, awesome pieces of art even if they're mixed on the character, and they're also not going to automatically fanboy/fangirl up just because they like a character and will blindly vote for them. When you think about what your "numbers" show in a logical way, your argument just crumples into dust, because it presents results that, while theoretically possible, have a lesser chance of happening than you personally witnessing Elvis crash a UFO into the Loch Ness Monster, seeing Bigfoot crawl out of the smoking wreckage, and hitchiking home after calling E.T.

I'm pretty sure the results will be more like some awesome banners of indvidual characters, and a handful of awesome banners that have multiple characters. Admittedly, the biggest problem with my system may be group shots that have multiple characters that have hit character limits for certain characters, because normally I'd have to DQ the whole banner. I guess I'd put those up to public votes or something.

DP has explicitly excluded anything other than official art and self-produced (or commissioned) art (although I'm not entirely sure why that is somehow considered less prone to complaints than random art from Pixiv...). That is a huge limitation on what we can use, and makes producing a decent picture very difficult, especially with multiple characters.

I'll make this clear (as several people did): Official art includes anything from Type-Moon. That means game sprites, books, anything they publish. Commissioned art (or self-done art) needs no permission since you've either entered a private contract with the commissioned artist (and in doing so, assumption that you have credit to reuse the image is assumed since that's the whole point of a commission), and self-done art obviously needs no crediting since you own the drawing. Using public resources (Deviantart/Pixiv) is allowed, but only if you obtain permission from the artist to use their artwork. Otherwise, it is not allowed.

If that isn't clear enough, then ask something more specific. I think those rules make pretty good and clear sense. The fact you don't know what art is "official" should hopefully be cleared up by the above (i.e; if Type-Moon released it themselves, it's official art; if it's in the games, it's official art).

The problem is that, whilst the vote pretty clearly supports doing something, there's no clear consensus as to what that "something" should be....

Nearly 85% wants a new banner. Clear enough. They differ on what they want that new banner to be, but they definitely want something new.

I would support something like this, but DP seems to think that it's "unfair" because it won't include $generic_high_school_student_54 who appears for one second in the background of one scene and, thus, that the only way to be "fair" is to ignore the less popular characters entirely and have loads of Saber and Rin banners....

...Who the hell is going to draw a banner of Generic_High_School_Student_54? Nobody.

In my opinion, if they're not named, they don't count. They need to have name value, even if it's minor-character name value. Also, I love how you just constantly throw out Saber and Rin. You're forgetting that Arcueid and Ryougi Shiki are just as over, if not moreso. But see earlier in my post anyway, where I pretty much destroy your argument.

That's stupid, though, particularly since I3uster made the poll, and is biased towards one of the options. I could easily have made a poll with different options and obtained a different result as a consequence.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter who would've made the poll - community sentiment is community sentiment. They want something new. It's that simple.

Well, regardless, it's ludicrous to look at this poll and decide that the majority of people want a rotating banner with images. I would imagine that most of those who wanted a new BL-tan would prefer the old one with a different picture to rotating banners (and the converse is almost certainly true), and those who voted to keep the current banner would almost certainly prefer the old BL-tan with a new picture.

That much is correct - while they voted they want something new, they did not necessarily want a new banner.

Guess what the next poll is, coming up right after this post?

I didn't, though. There was no majority in favour of your option, and claiming victory just because the poll was biased towards you (by having 3 options that involve a new BL-tan and only one involving rotating images) is extremely unfair. Further, DP did not make this poll, so I see no reason whatsoever why he should be bound by it, given that it did not even reach a firm conclusion.

Again, it wouldn't have mattered who did it really since I probably would've made nearly-identical options. But now that I know, via this poll, that the community wants something new, the only question is if they want a new image of BL-tan, a single, new image (without preference to BL-tan or a different character), or if they want rotating banners. Based on the results of this poll, it's clear the community does not want to keep the years-old current banner, and plain text is also not going to cut it.

No, I did not "lose". You are just claiming victory because you consider your side to have won, despite there being no official definition of "victory" and the poll being biased towards your side.

To be fair, you wanted the old banner to stay, or be removed. Even if "No banner at all" was an option, I seriously, seriously doubt the community would've voted as overwhelmingly for that as they did for wanting something new.

So yes, Mike, your choice did indeed lose. The community was not one with you on this topic.

No, because I voted for the option I did precisely because I did not want rotating banners or canon characters. I don't particularly care about BL-tan per-se, I just think that it's better than DP's horribly biased and unfair canon character poll. Your assumption is entirely false.

Further, if that was the correct solution, then why wasn't that option in the poll alongside one with the characters? And why weren't the other possible permutations of "image and text banner" included, given that the BL-tan options are all just subsets of that anyway (the current banner certainly counts as an "image and text banner")?

The "image and text" option won because it was the broadest, not because it was necessarily the most popular. The poll should have included all the different permutations of that, such as one banner or rotating banners, and canon characters, none or a mixture. Hell, rotation was not even explicitly required in the choice.

The majority definitely wants something new - to what extent is now what I'm going to find out. That said, based on what I've read, I don't think Kratosirving is too far off the mark, either.

In any case, we have a result, and I expect DP to act on that, after all it can also include old BL-tan in a better-drawn form if she gets voted.
Not having an absolute majority for such a trivial issue is stupid. I just want it changed so that the site banner actually looks pretty for once, and I won't let you get in the way of that just because you like throwing a fit, Mike.

And I will be. As I said, now comes a new banner to see how "much" the community wants.

Because honestly, the only thing you always did in the threads discussing the banners was BLOCKING and not doing shit, and that's why I created the poll, to show that people actually want a new banner and so that you can't just suffocate all discussion about it by screaming the loudest. Because it's better to have a tyranny of the majority than the tyranny of one person with a loud organ.

Fufufu... loud organs, you say?

Well, I'm sure there is somebody out there who appreciates his loud organ...♥

I've already pointed out the issue with the poll. And, the option I wanted did not "fail". It may not have got the most votes as a first-choice, but that does not necessarily make it less popular than the other options overall.

This much is correct. It is close enough that it warrants a run-off. That is what the next poll will be for, hopefully so that I can see if there is a good majority of the community on one option, and to resolve if they want one image or a set.

That said, it also wasn't the winner.

I don't see why they should have to care about this poll which came to no firm conclusions either, so....

About 85% want something new; firm enough for me.

Yes, but that does not mean that it has to be run by the First Past The Post system....

It sucks for electing governments and it sucks for choosing winners in a poll like this, because it is quite simply not fair, and the result depends entirely on what options are put up for vote.

Would you rather I dictate it? I think you'd prefer a poll in any way, shape, or form, versus me saying "This is how it will be done."

No it fucking well is not fucking "stupid". You are the one who is fucking stupid for pushing one side despite it not winning a clear majority, and for making a fucking biased poll in the first place.

Watch the flaming.

Exactly. Which is why I think that it's totally unreasonable to assume that a rotating banner is wanted, when only 40% of people actually voted for that (and the rest may well be stringently opposed to it).

For what it's worth, I think you're the only one assuming this means "rotating banners."

Yeah, me too. I don't want a rotating banner, I want a single banner which isn't involving any of the canon characters, or else a free choice of banner for the members rather than one single set of banners chosen by the majority and forced on the rest.

Free choice is unlikely to happen due to how the skin system works. I suppose I could make "sets" of rotating banners that may be devoted to certain characters (e.g; a PHP script which will only go through Fate characters, another for those who prefer Tsukihime, some for the BL-tan fans and one mega-script for those who just plain don't care) as that would drastically cut down on the actual work I would have to do (as opposed to making hundreds of skins...) but overall, free choice is impossible, because the forums aren't coded to let you set what banner you want. Here I am, trying to meet you 50/50 as best as I can. Sometimes I think you completely ignore that I do try to extend a hand.

The problem is that you're assuming that the people who voted for BL-tan did so because they wanted her included and not because they didn't want a rotating banner or canon characters, though. There is a clear majority against rotating banners, whereas there is not a majority against some kind of BL-tan (although it is actually exactly 50-50, so...).

This poll doesn't even discuss rotating banners, so I'd love to see where you're pulling this number from, Mr. Houdini.

Well, yes, something from the admins would be nice, although I hope DP doesn't take his usual approach of ignoring all complaints and just going for the option with most votes without considering the context or how the poll was run....

The fact that there's three decently close options is enough proof that it needs to be distilled further. If there was indeed overwhelming majority (50%+) I would indeed have just acted immediately, but there's not. It also still doesn't answer the revolving banners issue, so a second poll is needed - and warranted.

You really need to stop assuming you know how I run things. You're not me.

見ないで!

Have a nice day off.

Erl, you have to agree that the new rules is still too light, and the problem that existed beforehand where the admins were too light on handing out punishments still persists. I know that Altima is the only one who really handles issues around this time of the day, but he he himself disregards that he helped implement when he tries to defuse situations rather then handle them when they get out of control like an admin should. When those with authority set standards to respond to situations in the hopes to curb them, and the status of the board returns to that state in just 2 months, it's obvious that the problem isn't going away, and something else has to be done.

We've been discussing a means to fix this for the last few days, especially since our schedules of when we're here is a bit disparate. Stay tuned.

As for me, I will now go make a second poll, since it's clear the main argument from Mike is that "We haven't decided static or rotating banners." And he's right: We haven't. We just decided we wanted something new.

Time to fix that.