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Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 10/17/2022 08:33

I've been thinking that there have been a good few artists who have disappeared:

Mashpotato, Cocefi, Jamon,4tochkin, UI, miascugh, Mil, Junkboy etc

   

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greenraven (Level 2 Hired Gun) @ 10/8/2022 07:56

Sadly no. And I even tried his private email which he said were for emergencies only. Short of going down to Florida and knocking on his door I tried every possible way to get in contact with him.

Which kind of sucks because I was finally in a better place mentally and I didn't want Jal to only know me as the emo kid who kept trying to commit suicide all the time.


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Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 10/7/2022 07:51

Wow, that's sad to disappear like that. 


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Reo (Level 11 Sphinx) @ 10/6/2022 11:53

It sucks but I feel at this point it is pretty safe to say that he passed away. Gone but not forgotten. 


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Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 10/6/2022 05:39

Did anyone ever find out what happened to Jal?


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 9/30/2022 12:33
Every abandoned website is at a high risk of getting their domain name bought by a domain squatter. It's cheap to own a domain (~10$ per year), so even if only 1 out of 1000 $10k domain names sell within a year you still break even. 
 
Considering that .com domains are hugely popular and that the available names are getting scarce, it's a good gamble.
 
Domain prices are likely based upon the amount of traffic that the domain receives currently, the amount of traffic the site has received historically, and the quality of the name. More characters is poorer quality, using popular tech words like 'bug' and 'pixel' is higher quality, for example...
 
'Imagesdownloader' is a shitty name because of the plural 'images', any user of that site would always prefer 'imagedownloader.com', and the pricing algorithm knows this. Also, imagesdownloader.com never hosted a real website, making its value lower.
 

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greenraven (Level 2 Hired Gun) @ 9/30/2022 10:39

The server owner from the looks of it. I'm curious how they came up with that number though.

https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=ImagesDownloader.com

Cuz I'm seeing some other domain names for as little as $2k.


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Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 9/29/2022 17:02

Who is auctioning it?


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 9/29/2022 11:30

It's only a small fee for a truly dedicated fan!


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greenraven (Level 2 Hired Gun) @ 9/29/2022 08:20

So jal's old website is currenly being auctioned off for $10k. 

https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=bugpixel.com


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Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 9/26/2022 13:57

Pixelween concept idea with prizes is a pretty sweet idea! Well played!


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Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 9/20/2022 10:46

Oh. That also happened with the Egypt one a few challenges back too and that was the first time I had seen that happen.


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Trigonomicon (Level 10 Archaeropteryx) @ 9/20/2022 09:39

There were only one (or two?) entries submitted in time, so the ongoing challenge got extended another week.


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Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 9/20/2022 08:47

No weekly challenge?


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Gecimen (Level 11 Sphinx) @ 9/20/2022 04:41

There was a problem with the forum that alerted some antivirus programs so Sedge made some changes, the changes may be due to that.


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 9/19/2022 13:05

Maybe! My guess is that it's something more complicated, since the dates are all different and many abandoned accounts still have their old registration dates, while ones that are still active have "updated" dates. It looks like at some point there was a PJ hiccup that caused users' registration date to be set to the current date when they next logged in to the forum.


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Trigonomicon (Level 10 Archaeropteryx) @ 9/16/2022 13:28

If I were to speculate wildly, I'd guess there's some component of the forum source code that didn't expect dates to pass a certain treshhold.


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 9/15/2022 14:53
/s
 
yes that confuses me too..

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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 9/15/2022 14:52

I did indeed! I'm still new here, what's up?


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 9/12/2022 06:52

It is nice that the forum here still exists, but it's so annoying to use ;_; Changes my theme every time I get logged out, the WYSIWYG editor is confusing but also doesn't have the decency to keep my BBCode as BBCode, new post display is buggy...

Speaking of which, what's up with the forum join dates? I apparently joined last month, Hapiel apparently joined this April...?


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Zizka (Level 10 Deep Blue) @ 9/9/2022 17:24

Twitter as an alternative doesn't work for me. Sad to see it go. At least we still have the forums here. 


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 9/1/2022 12:59

Oh . . . hmm.

Well.

Alright. One last post.


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/31/2022 18:55

Aaaand, it's back online, but of course in its inevitable non-interactive form..


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/28/2022 02:35

I sent Dan an email 2 days ago, no reply..


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 8/25/2022 06:25

Pixelation still serves a purpose: entertaining me every morning. Is that not sufficient ;D


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 8/25/2022 02:53

Absolutely agree. Some invaluable threads did happen there, which I'd love to see  preserved.
Last I knew, ptoing owned it and ran it. I gather Dan took it over?

#freepixelation


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Christoballs (Level 7 Neanderthal) @ 8/25/2022 02:50

Quite a few pages have been recorded on the Internet Archive, but it's far from being complete...


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skeddles (Level 11 Sphinx) @ 8/24/2022 12:12

it had some great threads, would be nice if we could at least archive it for future reference. I'd be willing to host it.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 8/24/2022 07:48

For Pixelation, it may be the case that it just doesn't really have a purpose anymore.

A nigh forgotten relic of the past.

Covered in dust.


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/23/2022 09:39

He is still super active on twitter. I wonder if he is ignoring messages, or if nobody simply contacted him on a channel that he reads? (I only tagged him on discord, but that worked once before...)


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CELS (Level 7 Lotus) @ 8/23/2022 06:31

Tried to PM Dan Fessler. No luck.


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Amorph (Level 4 Sea Turtle) @ 8/23/2022 01:14

RIP Pixelation, a real shame :(


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Manupix (Level 11 Godzilla) @ 8/22/2022 09:47

Fair point. I asked him to submit it himself, makes more sense.

Sad for pixelation


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Christoballs (Level 7 Neanderthal) @ 8/22/2022 07:36

Yeah, we could definitely have helpcomputer's interview as a news post!

Pixelation seems pretty dead


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 8/21/2022 15:27

Cool man! Good stuff. Thanks for posting.
(Why not a news link so it pops in the main part of the site?)

 also . . . is uhhh Pix just dead now?? https://pixelation.org/ 


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Manupix (Level 11 Godzilla) @ 8/18/2022 02:40

Hey PJ

Check this interview.


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Trigonomicon (Level 10 Archaeropteryx) @ 8/14/2022 12:53

@eishiya: Wooow, It's amazing how many "hidden features" this site has. Now the hall of fame is 4090 pages long! I wonder if I can manage to find myself in there somewhere...


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DioShiba (Level 4 Shoggoth (The Mountains of Madness)) @ 8/14/2022 08:38

Yeah I can't particularly blame you on how you feel on Discord. It would also appear that most forum spaces are dying out save for the Newgrounds BBS which seems to be more active than several other forums that I've come across these days.

I feel like part of the problem stems from how people want more instantaneous group chats. On one end that can be nice because you can talk like it's a regular conversation with a group but for the more long term stuff it becomes difficult to really navigate a particular chat room to find a specific post someone made.


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 8/13/2022 08:16

I just noticed that even though the "Highest Rating", "Newest Pixel Art", and "Most Favorites" browsing categories top out at 84 pages via the website, if you manually put in 85 or more via the URL, you can view more results o: This 84-page limit annoyed me for years, I'm surprised it took me this long to see it's not a hard limit.

Time to browse some art that's rated well but isn't the same stuff that's been highest-rated for years <3

Edit: On the topic of Discord: At least on Windows, the "reduced motion" option isn't fully implemented, which means it's not possible to disable the animation on the PJ server icon at the user-end ):


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skeddles (Level 11 Sphinx) @ 8/11/2022 14:38

I really despise discourse, I find it very messy and hard to use. I'm excited for the discord forums, though I dont have access to test them yet. I'm thinking of just shutting down the Lospec forums, it seems that forums are just a thing of the past. The vast majority of what's posted to forums is not worth archiving, and most people who have something worth saying on a forum don't post much on forums. And if a forum has to compete with a discord, I don't think it really has enough activity to stay afloat.


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b236 (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/9/2022 02:16

that's a good track!


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Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 8/8/2022 09:55

Hello there! A friend of mine made a track to my pixel art "Attack Of The 50FT Foot"
https://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/142518.htm
 

Here is the music track and it's absolutely lovely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3qk1g0anWg


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 8/5/2022 08:07

I recall encountering some security holes with Vanilla and removing it from my site for that reason. Hopefully at least that has been fixed in the years since. The actual software was... fine? It lacked a lot of the conveniences of Discourse, and at the time I was just sad that it wasn't as full-featured as the older forum software :'D But again, it might've gotten better since.

I've only heard of Flarum, never used it or seen it in the wild, so I can't judge it.

The benefit of Discourse, to me, is the myriad little convenience for people writing posts. You get a live preview (much better than WYSIWG editors), you can drag/copy+paste images and files into the post, you can get OpenGraph link cards, that sort of thing. You can edit the post right on the page, add tags, etc. Async is great for editing. If only they didn't use it for everything. It's unnecessary and harmful for just reading things :|


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/5/2022 01:42
Ah yeah, I haven't really looked closer at the technical aspects of it.
 
Vanilla forums and flarum feel a bit similar I guess, would you know if those are any better?

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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 8/4/2022 20:12

Discourse has a lot of good features, but it also feels bloated to use because it's almost entirely asynchronous JavaScript stuff, and I run into some bug with it or other almost every time I use it because of that - systems like that are houses of cards that collapse at the slightest irregularity in one's connection. It's also harder to customise because there's both a client-side and server-side layer you have to deal with, though people have made a lot of cool plugins for it.

I'd love to see the posting experience of Discourse combined with the more server-oriented, JS-light reading experience of older forums.


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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/4/2022 03:32
I really like the Discourse (not discord) forum software, with some modifications for pixel aesthetics and zoom functions one could build a modern functional forum with relative ease.
 
Maybe there is even a good chat plugin for it too.
 
I've often thought about looking into that option, but starting a forum and gathering a community is a huge mission these days I guess.

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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 8/4/2022 03:10

You can see archived things, but of course their usefulness is greatly diminished if they are hidden from plain sight... :(


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 8/2/2022 17:47

That's an interesting perspective, I hadn't thought of that.

Well it looks like all Discord "forum" posts will automatically archive in a week or less. I don't think normal users can see archived things. I surmise this new feature will still feel like the typical immediate Discord experience.


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SeDiceBisonte (Level 8 Spaceman) @ 8/1/2022 12:37

I like the idea of Discord adding a forum feature. Aside from forums being a better format for archiving information, I think that they are less intimidating for those of us who are very introverted and/or shy. I just hope they do a better job of it than the threads feature because I agree that is terrible.

I can see that the difference is largely psychological, but a forum feels less immediate than chat in a way that is less stressful.

Thanks for linking to Helm's YouTube, CELS. I had no idea that was a thing and I had a great time watching a couple of his cluster studies. Reading his critiques on Pixelation back in my lurking days was hugely inspirational and informative.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 7/31/2022 20:33

thanks man


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Amorph (Level 4 Sea Turtle) @ 7/31/2022 01:03

You should post more! We're always happy to see more Mathias pieces.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 7/30/2022 19:12

Oh they are.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ

Interesting. We shall see.



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Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 7/30/2022 15:40

They're working on a new forum feature, I hope that improves it all a bit, but it still wont be as searchable and archivable as the old internet forums...


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greenraven (Level 2 Hired Gun) @ 7/30/2022 09:12

Discord? What's that? I tried to disco once. It didn't work.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 7/30/2022 05:23

nah nah keep them long rants comin'

Yyyyep it's all Discord now. I know.
Unfortunately, like you point out, Discord is a here-and-now type platform. Nobody wants to scroll up through the mire of old conversations. Whereas on a forum there can be multiple spotlights cast on as many topics as needed, Discord can only accommodate one focus per channel, at a time. Great for current chat, terrible for organized archiving.
(the recently added Threads feature kinda sucks and doesn't really help)

Taking a step back and viewing the whole situation, it may largely just be the reality of internet culture shift - the shiny new twitter era. Short, fast, convenient content bites in a lightweight fast interface is now the norm, and phpbb forums feel ancient.

May the darkness consume us, amen.

i should just shuddup and post something new. you've certainly been popping off lately, CELS. awesome work man!


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CELS (Level 7 Lotus) @ 7/30/2022 05:00

Realistically, I think the only option that makes sense is to ensure that there's a good community for critique and cooperation on Discord. It seems to be the only arena where different generations (X, Z, etc) have a reasonable chance of interacting.

On Discord, veterans like ink, Morganne, HDMD, Weerdmeester, Korban, etc, ask for and offer feedback. Not the same dynamic of the legendary Pixelation threads, partially because it's chat vs forum, but far better than any real alternatives I'm aware of. 

Shame about Pixelation, but skilled feedback is necessary for quality posts and IIRC SeinRuhe has been more or less keeping it going single-handedly (others contributing in periods) and that's not sustainable. The heart and soul of Pixelation, IMO, was skilled artists willing to spend hours teaching others. (And even less skilled artists, daring to offer feedback too!) Anyway, that's a long rant. I'll get off my soapbox. 

Edit: Also, shout out to Helm for this video, which has some of that Pixelation spirit.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 7/30/2022 03:02

Good thoughts! I agree with all that.

And so due to the points you lined out, the quality of content greatly suffers, I think.
Quality of the content is what makes you want to go to pretty much any site, right?
The heart and soul of Pixelation was always the critique subforum and the interactions that happened there (I personally owe a LOT to it).
For a long time now, in my opinion the average quality of posts is really low - i.e.  "How can I improve my character?" And the posted character looks like it was drawn in 9 seconds. etc etc

I 100% wouldn't be into pixel art if it weren't for Pix (while I havent posted new junk here in a while, I've been working on an unnannounced pixel game for last two years).

still down, hope it comes back. Or maybe it's time to can it. dont know.

🐀


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CELS (Level 7 Lotus) @ 7/29/2022 04:18

I would assume it's just the wrong format to attract the younger generation, and the older generation moved on to other things (professional work, kids, drugs). I also wonder if there's a global shift towards individual learning through observation rather than collective learning through cooperation and sharing advice. Partially because you can just Google and YouTube everything.


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Mathias (Level 7 Junk) @ 7/29/2022 00:13

Good times back when Pixelation was the place to be. My post count is over 1k.
Does ptoing no longer own it?

It seems to have gradually declined into obsolescence. I wonder why that is.


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Christoballs (Level 7 Neanderthal) @ 7/26/2022 07:35

Might be worth asking Dan Fessler on Twitter, at this point.


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eishiya (Level 7 Bunyip) @ 7/25/2022 18:18

Any of ye have any idea if Pixelation might be coming back up? It's been down for a while.


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gawrone (Level 11 Pixeljoint) @ 7/25/2022 01:29
I have two more questions:
 
Who is the youngest active user?
Who is the median active user?

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Christoballs (Level 7 Neanderthal) @ 7/23/2022 07:00

except the question was the oldest active member, and I'd say it's probably TheSarge


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greenraven (Level 2 Hired Gun) @ 7/22/2022 19:30

jal, the answer is and will always be jal.


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Gecimen (Level 11 Sphinx) @ 7/20/2022 08:48

Hello moondrome! I'm 43 too :) 


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Theoden (Level 11 Special Agent) @ 7/13/2022 14:00

@moondrome

Glad to see that you are still active!
Would be happy to see more works from you, welcome back!


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moondrome (Level 7 Merfolk) @ 7/11/2022 22:50

Yes Irena, as you said age shouldn't really matter :) now is time to make some good pixel art. I need to find a computer screen first 🤣


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Irenaart (Level 10 HP Lovecraft (Author)) @ 7/11/2022 08:01

Hmmm, I'm not sure who is the oldest member, but I'm currently the oldest mod, and, bahhh, older than you. But who counts such trivia!?


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moondrome (Level 7 Merfolk) @ 7/11/2022 05:15

Hello ! I just checked my first submitted pixel. It was in 2012. Ten years ago! Not too active lately but still lurking around .   And this year I'll turn 43... I'm an old timer . Who is the oldest pixel artist still active in the community?


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gawrone (Level 11 Pixeljoint) @ 6/20/2022 15:32

choke - tiny canvas

joke - noise is like winter snow

poke your mouse yet more




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