New oekaki rules

[Argy]

The rules in the Bulbagarden Oekaki have recently changed. In the past, we have allowed any type of art, whether Pokémon-related or not. Due to complaints about the lack of Pokémon art on the board, and due to this being a Pokémon website, the oekaki is now Pokémon-only.

Many members of the oekaki have subsequently complained about the new rule, with quite a few people posting "goodbye" pictures along with angry rants. These posts seem to be aimed at making the Bulbagarden administration feel guilty for the change, as many disgruntled members are making claims that they feel forced from the board.

The bottom line is, Bulbagarden is a Pokémon fansite. Would it make sense for Bulbapedia to be a general encylopedia? No, Wikipedia handles that. Would it make sense for Bulbanews to post non-Pokémon news? Of course not. Just as Bulbapedia and Bulbanews have generalized equivalents on other sites, so does the Bulbagarden Oekaki. When people want to draw non-Pokémon art, they can go to a general board, and when they want to draw Pokémon, they are encouraged to come to Bulbagarden. It's that simple. It's not like people are restricted to only posting one one oekaki.

While we recognize that many members of the oekaki have become close over the years, it does not mean the purpose of the board should change along with their interests. Many of the members are very talented, and we certainly don't want to see them go. We encourage Pokémon fans to visit the oekaki board and the forums. Immature sarcasm and insults toward the Bulbagarden staff will not change the rules.

Comments and questions are welcome in this thread.

Thank you,
The Bulbagarden administration

 

[Phishy chan]

Forced? Hardly. I think most of the artists are leaving by choice. I don't know about the others, but I was more irritated at the execution of the new board rule.

Was Bulbagarden Oekaki a Pokemon-only oekaki board to begin with? If it wasn't, why not? By following your pattern, all the websites under the "bulba-something" are strictly Pokemon-related. If you wanted the board to be Pokemon-only, then why didn't you make it a pokemon-only board when it started?

I didn't like how sudden the change was. There was absolutely no warning to it, and, like I wrote in my own "rant," a small notice or something on the boards would probably have sufficed if you wanted more Pokemon art. To suddenly change the rules without referring to any of the board members ahead of time caused a lot of shock, confusion, and anger amongst the members. Sure, none of the artists paid for the board, but they were still a part of it. Suddenly changing the rules like that makes us feel left out of a community that we all very much care about.

The purpose of the board has changed. The way I saw it, Bulbagarden Oekaki was simplay a laid-back and supportive little community where you could draw anything you wanted within the lenient rules. Now it's a board with a very narrowed-down subject matter. That doesn't mean it's gotten worse, but it certainly does leave out people who can't draw Pokemon.

My two cents. There's probably more, but then this post would just turn into another large rant or something, which I'd like to avoid.

 

[AshsBabyLapras]

I think my feelings on the subject are pretty clear. Sure, I like to see and create some non-Pokémon stuff, but why am I a member of this board? Because I'm a Pokémon fan. This site was brought back to life by a Pokémon fan, because he's a Pokémon fan. I know how much he cares about community spirit, so it saddens me when people complain that the decision is destroying the "oekaki community". That goes for Alex too, who keeps an eye on the oekaki and works away tirelessly for us, whether it be in the form of helpful comments or cleaning up mess. Never in her life has she been rude or disrespectful to me, nor have I ever known her to attack anyone out of the blue. And she is hardly one to try to prevent people from having fun. I'm so sorry to see the treatment she's been getting for simply doing her job.

I'm not the most active person on the oekaki, I know. This has been especially true as of late, with more and more pictures that I simply... didn't care much about. I was incredibly relieved to see the new rule, because I thought the place would be interesting to me once again. It's a shame that more people didn't see it that way.

If people happen to make friends through the oekaki, then that's great. But an oekaki is not a message board, let alone a chat site. All too often in recent weeks, people have treated it as such.

This is not about people who "can't" draw Pokémon. It's about people who won't draw Pokémon, which is not the fault of the admins. The oekaki is still there and there will still be feedback. If people want to practise drawing Pokémon and ask for tips on how to improve, I'm sure they will receive help. That hasn't changed from day one.

 

[Kauri]

Was Bulbagarden Oekaki a Pokemon-only oekaki board to begin with? If it wasn't, why not? [...] If you wanted the board to be Pokemon-only, then why didn't you make it a pokemon-only board when it started?

When the board was started, there was much more of a balance between the Pokemon-related works and the non-Pokemon kind. There was likely no need to have a rule like that, because it was somewhat understood by the members that "hey, this is a Pokemon site, I should draw Pokemon stuff here".

It's only been within the past few... months, I think, that there's been a severe lack of actual Pokemon works on the board. Which is probably why they felt the need to shift the topic back to what it originally was meant to be.

Personally, I'm glad to see the Pokemon-only rule, as well. I have other places I can visit if I want to draw other subjects, so I'm not going to whine about my creativity being ZOMGOPRESSED by BMGo going single-subject. ... frankly, much like ABL, I'll likely start being more active there again, thanks to the change.

About the only minor qualm I have is the reduction of the time limit. I mean, I know some folks can crank out a masterpiece in 15 minutes or less, but I think actually setting a limit at 20 does somewhat encourage people to spend time on their images, even if just a little. It's not a huge issue, though, so no big deal~

 

[Sadil-chan]

I think everything I could say has been said.. I agree with AshsBabyLapras. I'm a new member and I've only noticed this today, but I do think people overreact a bit and show a lot of immaturity in the way they express their feelings about it. :/

Perhaps the change should've been more gradual, perhaps not. But after 2 years of admining two very large oekaki communities I have noticed that 'warnings' or 'requests' will only be stuck to for a few weeks. After that members will just forget about it and slip back into the old habit. Enforcing it directly through a rule is a much more effective way to get the point across.

The members who left will come back if they really care about the community. ^^ I wouldn't worry too much there. Spontaneous leaves are often reversed because, as the term says, they were spontaneous and not well thought over before making the decission. I'm also confident once things settle down a bit and members accept the change, things will go back to normal. I've seen it happen more than once.

As far as the time limit goes, I'm not sure how to judge that... 10 minutes or 20 minutes... people who don't take a time limit in regard won't care either way, and people who like to draw will easily spend 20 minutes or more. A time limit itself isn't always an encouragement, but other good art on the board might be! So, if the more dedicated artists stay dedicated and produce good drawings, other members will feel inspired to try just as hard. ^^ It's what always drove me when I started out.

 

[1234567]

As far as warnings go, it still most likely would have been a much smoother and easier change if a prior warning of the change was given, maybe a week or two in advance.

 

[Sadil-chan]

As far as warnings go, it still most likely would have been a much smoother and easier change if a prior warning of the change was given, maybe a week or two in advance.

I wonder... would it *really* have mattered that much..? Wouldn't the effect be still the same? It'd still be "Please only draw Pokemon", and the opinions of the people would still be the same to that message. I personally see a warning and a change of rules as the same thing, so maybe that's why I'm a bit sceptical of it...

 

[Hyatt]

YEA!
Had to let that out
Seriously, I'm glad, even though I can no longer draw any Baby-sitters Club or Azumanga Daioh, Zelda or just regular oekakis. I can always do that at PC with their new shiPainter.
When I go to Pokesho's oekaki, I almost never see any art that's non Pokemon. I hope BMGf's oekaki will become more like Pokesho's oekaki.
Maybe that will stop all of the traffic... and I'll be able to actually come here again.

 

[Archaic]

Back when we originally setup the Bulbagarden Oekaki, it was intended to be primarily for Pokémon pictures. We are, afterall, a Pokémon fansite. While we've (up until now) been prepared for people to do other art on there, Pokémon and Pokémon related images were always intended to be the main focus.

What's happened in recent months is that Bulbagarden's Oekaki became a little too well known, outside of the Pokémon fandom, to the point where we became one of the higher ranked searches for "Oekaki" on Google. While we don't exactly dislike the popularity, the fact is...you're not really participating in the intended activities of the community if you're on there and unwilling to draw Pokémon art whatsoever.

Likely, we'll end up relaxing the current restrictions later in the year, in maybe 3-6 months time, to allow general anime and/or Nintendo themed drawings, but until then, to re-establish our identity as a Pokémon Oekaki, we're going to have to be fairly firm about these new rules changes.

Sorry everyone, but that's just how it is. Like Argy said, there's plenty of other Oekaki out there. There's no reason you can only post on one, and I'm sure there's plenty of others that would be more appropriate for the non-Pokémon art anyway.

I should mention though.....there is one other thing I'm considering doing, which might settle a lot of tempers. I've been looking into the possibility of setting up a seperate Oekaki, with joined member accounts to the Bulbagarden one (ie. No need to create a new login, just use your existing one), on a new domain, and having the Bulbagarden Oekaki link to it for non-Pokémon art. I'd of course have to put up some advertising, since I'm sure it could attract quite a bit of traffic, but it wouldn't be too much. Thoughts?

 

[Kasumi]

I recall mentioning you the idea of setting up two oekakis: one Pokemon themed and the other a general board. I'm okay with this idea and hopefully this will not decrease the activity on the Pokemon oekaki board.

 

[Archaic]

Wasn't it you who mentioned it in the first place? ^^;;

It would've been a painful chore to try and do it on the old version of the software, but with the new update we put in today, it's surprisingly easy. And Mozz sounds all for the idea as well, so there's not going to be any problems there.

 

[PDUTogepi]

I used to be a member on a Digimon oekaki that had a similar set up, one board was for Digimon art only and the other was an "Anything Goes" oekaki where people could draw non-Digimon stuff, it worked well there so I think that doing that is a great idea, but yeah, otherwise I agree about the current oekaki being changed to Pokémon only art, the last time I visited the oekaki I think there had been very little in the way of Pokémon art on the first page and for a Pokémon based oekaki that was kind of dissapointing to see.
I really should draw some stuff on there I think |D It's been ages since I last drew on there.

 

[Porygon]

While I don't use the Oekaki, I like Archaic's idea. The argument that Bulbagarden is strictly a Pokemon website kinda dosen't work when you have things like the General forums here, etc. And it's not like the chat room will have people talking about Pokemon ALL the time.
I could care less, really, but those are just my two cents.