18 replies to this topic

[Faken]

From time to time, it seems necessary to address all the kind folks that take the time to submit tutorials to the index, and unfortunately it's not for a very good reason. How do you honestly expect me to accept tutorials into the database that use half-naked women in the examples, swearing, piracy links, broken images, ZERO explanations, or just a complete disregard for the guidelines that are posted on the submission page and in the FAQ area that relates to submissions. That would be located here btw:

http://www.pixel2lif...?showtopic=1092

I am getting kind of cranky about going through HUNDREDS of tutorials for 6 hours straight on a Sunday night, only to accept a couple dozen tutorials at best. Then people have the guts to PM me angrily, demanding an explanation as to why their "abstract sig" or "how to use includes" tutorial wasn't accepted. Come on gang! I'm not an idiot. If you create a half ass tutorial in 10 minutes for easy traffic to your new forum or website, it's EXTREMELY obvious! I literally delete about 20 sig tutorials and about 50 to 100 other kinds of tutorials that are clearly marked on the NON ACCEPTANCE list nightly!

There's more to Photoshop than making Sigs and shine/reflection effects my friends! You can do more in PHP than display a user's IP and you can do more in CSS than create a rollover effect on text.

So please consider this a reminder that we do have guidelines to the quality of tutorials, and I suggest you read them if you want to have a serious chance of being accepted to P2L's index, and in other directory sites that review the submissions. This isn't about being pompous or being full of ourselves... this is about maintaining standards that our guests and members can count on whenever they visit P2L.

Again, the guidelines can be found at http://www.pixel2lif...?showtopic=1092

MOVING URLs? If you are moving your tutorials to a new domain or URL and can't be bothered to let us know, then we recommend you add a redirect so that users that click your old listing here on P2L are automatically redirected to the new location. Remember, if your link dies and we can't easily locate the new location when we review your site, your site is deleted from the listing. That makes people sad, so don't be a victim!

Now for Topsites.

Contrary to wishful thinking, we do watch the topsites, and we do so more than ever. STOP CHEATING. Don't be a goof and learn the lesson quite a few others have had the pleasure of experiencing already. When you are caught cheating (it's VERY easy), there are ZERO warnings. Your site is permanently banned... end of story. To those of you running a legitimite topsites campaign, which thankfully is most of you, we will always do our best to make sure your scoring and rank are fair, and that cheaters don't reign on the topsites. Always feel free to PM me or email me if you think someone is cheating... it'll get you much better results than spamming their comment area.

Thanks for listening gang!

/rant off

Faken

Edited by Faken, 28 November 2005 - 12:15 AM.

[Donna]

Tut quality is atrocious, to me it looks as if one person creates a new effect and 100 others follow with exactly the same thing but give it a different name.

stretched pixel probably unknown to a lot but it was created over 4yrs ago now all of a sudden at least 100 of the same get submitted weekly? One or two ok but wow whats the deal in everyone copying everyone else.

Still seeing lots of sites with forced logins to view tuts on Forums, open your site up peoples or at least the tutorials so guests can have access to viewing them, and please report by using dead link report and we'll remove them.

We are coming upto christmas, be unique do something for christmas (not animated snow) something thats not on the web.

USE YOUR IMAGINATION You all sit with a golden tool. Go look outside around you, the shops even I'm sure inspiration will hit you.

[Bryn]

There is a huge lack of originality.
Like you see 100s of tuts for soft grunge which was created by alias but has been taken and tweeked a lil.

[c-c-C-C-UNIT]

A little off topic (feel free to delete). I think that sigs should have their own catogory, it makes it really frusturating to look for web banner tuts when their outnumbed by so much.

[bobbobicus]

Bryn, on Nov 28 2005, 11:04 AM, said:

There is a huge lack of originality.
Like you see 100s of tuts for soft grunge which was created by alias but has been taken and tweeked a lil.

Totally aggree with that... There needs to be something done about people that think they can make a tutorial thats been made a million times...

Kick them!

[Faken]

c-c-C-C-UNIT, on Nov 28 2005, 07:51 AM, said:

A little off topic (feel free to delete). I think that sigs should have their own catogory, it makes it really frusturating to look for web banner tuts when their outnumbed by so much.

That's something I've been seriously considering for awhile.

Faken

[syphon]

Just aquick question, I was not aware that webmasters could ask questions regaurding the declination of their tutorials. Could you please clarify that?

I hate to be a "bad tutorial writer" or a "quick way to get hits" looking person, but I thought one of the tutorials I had submitted in the past was pretty good. And, thats an opinion! Yes, it very well may have the worst one you have ever seen, but there is no way tutorial acception and those who kindly take hours to do it will have time for feedback.

Sometimes what I see is the staff working too hard, and yet still there are so many things that the system needs to run smoothly. I hope you take this as construuctively as possible! And no! I don't think I could even come close to doing a job of this scale or quality as the system you have here. Sometimes you want to know whats wrong with your tutorial, not how to fix it, which google can tell you within a query execute in .000009 seconds

I am aware there is a submission form for new ideas/suggestions, but I thought I would throw this out there. Oh, and hold pff on the tomatoe throwing!

du

Edited by syphon, 28 November 2005 - 03:35 PM.

[Faken]

syphon, on Nov 28 2005, 03:33 PM, said:

Just aquick question, I was not aware that webmasters could ask questions regaurding the declination of their tutorials. Could you please clarify that?

I hate to be a "bad tutorial writer" or a "quick way to get hits" looking person, but I thought one of the tutorials I had submitted in the past was pretty good. And, thats an opinion! Yes, it very well may have the worst one you have ever seen, but there is no way tutorial acception and those who kindly take hours to do it will have time for feedback.

Sometimes what I see is the staff working too hard, and yet still there are so many things that the system needs to run smoothly. I hope you take this as construuctively as possible! And no! I don't think I could even come close to doing a job of this scale or quality as the system you have here. Sometimes you want to know whats wrong with your tutorial, not how to fix it, which google can tell you within a query execute in .000009 seconds

I am aware there is a submission form for new ideas/suggestions, but I thought I would throw this out there. Oh, and hold pff on the tomatoe throwing!

du

You'll be pleased to know that in the next release of P2L, the ppl that approve tutorials (me usually) will have the ability to enter comments on tutorials we accept or decline. If you've entered an email when you submitted, you'll get the comments sent to you automatically

Faken

[Vouksh]

You get advice BEFORE you submit the tutorial.
I have over 50 people on my buddy list. When I write a tutorial I usually show it to a few of my friends to see what they think before I even post it anywhere.
EDIT: I very much like that idea Faken. That would also (in the end) (hopefully) lessen the load on you and donna.

Edited by Vouksh, 28 November 2005 - 07:17 PM.

[Jamie Huskisson]

Vouksh, on Nov 28 2005, 11:47 PM, said:

You get advice BEFORE you submit the tutorial.
I have over 50 people on my buddy list. When I write a tutorial I usually show it to a few of my friends to see what they think before I even post it anywhere.

precisely....

[syphon]

Jay, on Nov 29 2005, 12:15 AM, said:

Vouksh, on Nov 28 2005, 11:47 PM, said:

You get advice BEFORE you submit the tutorial.
I have over 50 people on my buddy list. When I write a tutorial I usually show it to a few of my friends to see what they think before I even post it anywhere.

precisely....

I would do that, but my tutorials are far too long to paste into a message box most of the time. Though, that might be now a days because I have to in the waiting for approval que, that I feel are quality and have not seen elsewhere! Atleast, I hope so

Anyways, I hope you took no offense at all from my first post, I was merely expressing what I and, some others were discussing. P2L seems to be going for the gold in this next version

du

Edited by syphon, 28 November 2005 - 07:57 PM.

[Faken]

Hey C-Unit, check out the latest news

Faken

[Atomica]

Very nice rant. Sometimes they need to happen.
There are way to many sig tutorials, im pretty sure if someone could become a professional sig maker if they tried to do even 1/4 of the sig tuts on here.

[olliehay37]

As someone who found this site through tutorial searches (and found this thread looking for Christmas tutorials), I'd like to thank you for this rant. Honestly, it is driving me crazy these days trying to wade through tutorials looking for something brilliant, inspiring or even different.

I'm teaching my 10-year-old daughter to use Photoshop. As you can imagine a lot of things like colour cast correction don't interest her. A lot of the "gold" of the program is lost on her and to be frank (with tongue in cheek) she might as well be a PSP user for now.

So we discovered sigs. We were interested in grunge sigs for about a week. We each made our own custom brushes (we use PS6 still, each on our own computers). We've considered composition, layers, opacity, impact with such a small canvas size... it has been great.

But this last while it has been boring as heck. I have traditionally used Photoshop to, well, work on photos or something that needed high-quality graphics (vs someone throwing something together in Paint or even worse, MS Word) but also have fun too. Lately I've had interest in animation, and it has been tremendous.

But lately there is just nothing to choose from, it seems. I've had animated snow/sand out the eyeballs. I know how to make lightning and man, I'm so fed to the teeth with grunge...

I enjoy working from tuts. I really do. I used to purchase those huge Photoshop books that showed how to make a car floating at a stop sign or how to repair an old photo, and now with the Internet it's just colossal, the amount of information and knowledge being shared.

Sadly it makes those half-hearted tuts even more dismal. Poor screenshots or none. Links elsewhere to see a finished work. It's kind of crap, you know? And it's unnecessary.

I think having a separate area for sigs would be a great idea. Perhaps it would inspire people to do non-sig tutorials more often.

Thanks again.

Hollie

[c-c-C-C-UNIT]

Faken, on Nov 29 2005, 02:56 AM, said:

Hey C-Unit, check out the latest news

Faken

A little late, but better late than never, or something silly like that. A+ job, makes looking for banners that much easier. Thanks again .

[Jamie Huskisson]

olliehay37, on Dec 4 2005, 10:35 PM, said:

As someone who found this site through tutorial searches (and found this thread looking for Christmas tutorials), I'd like to thank you for this rant. Honestly, it is driving me crazy these days trying to wade through tutorials looking for something brilliant, inspiring or even different.

I'm teaching my 10-year-old daughter to use Photoshop. As you can imagine a lot of things like colour cast correction don't interest her. A lot of the "gold" of the program is lost on her and to be frank (with tongue in cheek) she might as well be a PSP user for now.

So we discovered sigs. We were interested in grunge sigs for about a week. We each made our own custom brushes (we use PS6 still, each on our own computers). We've considered composition, layers, opacity, impact with such a small canvas size... it has been great.

But this last while it has been boring as heck. I have traditionally used Photoshop to, well, work on photos or something that needed high-quality graphics (vs someone throwing something together in Paint or even worse, MS Word) but also have fun too. Lately I've had interest in animation, and it has been tremendous.

But lately there is just nothing to choose from, it seems. I've had animated snow/sand out the eyeballs. I know how to make lightning and man, I'm so fed to the teeth with grunge...

I enjoy working from tuts. I really do. I used to purchase those huge Photoshop books that showed how to make a car floating at a stop sign or how to repair an old photo, and now with the Internet it's just colossal, the amount of information and knowledge being shared.

Sadly it makes those half-hearted tuts even more dismal. Poor screenshots or none. Links elsewhere to see a finished work. It's kind of crap, you know? And it's unnecessary.

I think having a separate area for sigs would be a great idea. Perhaps it would inspire people to do non-sig tutorials more often.

Thanks again.

Hollie

Its great to hear from a user such as yourself thats interested in learning the programs and how to use them as opposed to creating the latest trend accross forums

I'd love to hear your suggestions for the site to help you better with your experience on our site and feel free to use our contact form to send anything

Edited by Jay, 04 December 2005 - 07:21 PM.

[Faken]

olliehay37, on Dec 4 2005, 05:35 PM, said:

As someone who found this site through tutorial searches (and found this thread looking for Christmas tutorials), I'd like to thank you for this rant. Honestly, it is driving me crazy these days trying to wade through tutorials looking for something brilliant, inspiring or even different.

I'm teaching my 10-year-old daughter to use Photoshop. As you can imagine a lot of things like colour cast correction don't interest her. A lot of the "gold" of the program is lost on her and to be frank (with tongue in cheek) she might as well be a PSP user for now.

So we discovered sigs. We were interested in grunge sigs for about a week. We each made our own custom brushes (we use PS6 still, each on our own computers). We've considered composition, layers, opacity, impact with such a small canvas size... it has been great.

But this last while it has been boring as heck. I have traditionally used Photoshop to, well, work on photos or something that needed high-quality graphics (vs someone throwing something together in Paint or even worse, MS Word) but also have fun too. Lately I've had interest in animation, and it has been tremendous.

But lately there is just nothing to choose from, it seems. I've had animated snow/sand out the eyeballs. I know how to make lightning and man, I'm so fed to the teeth with grunge...

I enjoy working from tuts. I really do. I used to purchase those huge Photoshop books that showed how to make a car floating at a stop sign or how to repair an old photo, and now with the Internet it's just colossal, the amount of information and knowledge being shared.

Sadly it makes those half-hearted tuts even more dismal. Poor screenshots or none. Links elsewhere to see a finished work. It's kind of crap, you know? And it's unnecessary.

I think having a separate area for sigs would be a great idea. Perhaps it would inspire people to do non-sig tutorials more often.

Thanks again.

Hollie

Great post Hollie, and I'm glad you found us and took the time to sign up and share your thoughts. Your views simply prove that my resolve to be strict in our acceptance policies is completely justified and welcomed. It's a real shame that so many feel that if they simply whip up a tutorial on creating a grunge signature or how to create scanlines, they can produce an easy method of generating traffic on their sites at your expense. I am very grateful that webmasters take the time to submit to this site and look upon us as a vital piece of their "traffic" strategy, but I am definitely tired of folks recycling the same garbage and abusing the system. Luckily we do have people out there that submit some fantastic quality tutorials, and actually show us something new and convey a message of teaching, rather than dictating. Unfortunately we have to deal with the less than desirable products as well, and I will always do my best to keep the acceptance standards within reasonable limits.

Thanks again for your post and I hope you drop by and check back on us. You're welcomed to contact me directly any time should you have any additional questions, comments or concerns. Same goes with everyone... your feedback is ALWAYS welcomed and appreciated!

Faken

[blinek]

Like it has been said before, there is more to photoshop than making signatures. I was begining to become quite fustrated of having to go through the photoshop tutorial section and seeing a sig, userbar, or scanline tutorial every three 3 seconds.

Not only where there so many of these tutorials, but the quailty of them was for the most part quite bad. Links everywhere and poorly elaborated steps on how to get from point A to piont B.

Im not saying that all sig tutorails are horriable, Im only stating the fact that the mojorty of them are and that there are so many of them.

I thank you for creating a section for these turorails, so the browsing experience is much more enjoyable.

Best Regards,

aeiko

[SKETCHi]

Nice rant Faken. At another popular tutorial index website the owner had a very similar rant a little while ago. It sucks that this problem is so wide spread, especially when it is so easily remedied.

I write tutorials for traffic, but I take pride in the tutorials I write. I want them to actually help the visitors who find them, not just show them the same effect they see everywhere else. I make it a point to not include any brush packs, nor have I ever written a tutorial on how to make a signature. I love getting comments telling me how easy the tutorial was to follow, or how much it helped them learn about the program.

I think the problem is that the majority of people getting into graphic art are young. These kids only know about 10% of what Photoshop is actually capable of, so they write about what they know... or what they have seen...

Thankfully there are exceptions, there are still plenty of great websites out there with knowledgable staff members who write great quality tutorials. Sadly, it looks as though they are greatly out numbered by the kids who got Photoshop a week ago and think they know it all.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now... you guys have done a great job tossing out the bad ones so far and I hope you continue with your high standards.