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.
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
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 :|
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.
You can see archived things, but of course their usefulness is greatly diminished if they are hidden from plain sight... :(
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.
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.
You should post more! We're always happy to see more Mathias pieces.
Oh they are.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ
Interesting. We shall see.
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...
Discord? What's that? I tried to disco once. It didn't work.
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!
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.
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.
🐀
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.
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.
Might be worth asking Dan Fessler on Twitter, at this point.
Any of ye have any idea if Pixelation might be coming back up? It's been down for a while.
except the question was the oldest active member, and I'd say it's probably TheSarge
@moondrome
Glad to see that you are still active!
Would be happy to see more works from you, welcome back!
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 🤣
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!? 
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?
choke - tiny canvas
joke - noise is like winter snow
poke your mouse yet more
broke: limited color palette
woke: avoid single pixels and diagonals
bespoke: minimum cluster size
I'm looking for a pixel tutor (this is paid) to give me feedback and help me improve. Private message me if you're interested!
Your work was voted to be rejected due to the use of color reduction.
The WIP wasn't conclusive so we voted.
I've been wondering why my latest work has stuck on the approval level :(
haha，thanks！It's so unremarkable
I noticed I only rated twice, so where to rate it？
Don't we have enough pixel art as-is? Just close the damn gallery! :p
in other words the future is uncertain and there will be a lot of fights about galery rules and the definition of pixel art 
apparently the combination of empress and fool is strange one as those are opposing cards :D
https://tarocchi-gratis.online/en/combinations-tarot/the-fool-and-the-empress/
and the moon represents intuition as well as confusion or the sign that not everyhting is as it seems
Ok, but why we do not have a reading of the results? What does The Empress, The Fool, The Moon mean to us?
As long as you didn't vote Tower, Tower, Tower you're probably fine.
As you probably know, the Death card is supposed to indicate rebirth, change and transitions, so it's actually kind of a positive fortune. Maybe Mathias' certain death will be benefitial in the grand scheme of things. 
what if when you voted for three of the weekly chall' tarot cards, PJ had a script that used your input to calculate an actual tarot card reading for you, thereby telling your fortune as a pixel artist.
i voted for Death, Death, Death. rip
Gonna need some Top10 trophies for the Tarot weekly challenge. I have no idea how to vote for just 3. 
I hate the idea that someone might, even for a second, be tricked into thinking that those recently showing adverts of most atrociously hideous NFTs are a part of PJ gallery.
You must have visited the old one. Here's the official one:
https://discord.com/invite/gNFUyXk
imgur.com/kP3xJbL (You cant drag and drop images in Win 11 anymore :P)
Frost . . . what's the story there? Were you livin' that perpetual LAN party life?
-{ old CRT setup show-n-tell, ~2003 }-
That would be a pretty small flat, considering all the CRT monitors I don't think I could afford anything bigger than 20sq metres, and I have a dvi monitor, a CRT monitor, two CRT TVs and a LED TV, and I don't think I could store all my consoles there, so I'd have to choose a few to stay and store the others somewhere else. 
I might have to keep my ceramics 3D printer there too if I can't find shared studio space, so in terms of room it could get a bit cramped...
I once lived with around 10-11 CRT monitors in a pretty small flat (24 square meters, iirc).
It's doable, people!
@Christoballs: yeah, i struggle with space as well. but well, i already have one (not fully functional) tv so i'm this close to buy another pc crt just to have something which works :E
@Hapiel: uhm... i think asking for a freebie is highly inappropriate. however, i just looked at the itch.io page and he released the lite version for non-commercial projects for free! praise be! 
If you explain that to MRMO, I'm pretty sure he'd be able to share it with you :)
 |  |  |  |
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 ):