Maybe because you made quite many valuable but neutral comments that have different attitudes toward theirs. I don't think that channel and chat group is proper to be used by Niantic Community Manager to for example distribute information of campaigns, or be used by Ingress Product Manager to do Q&A session. The management there has lost control.
And more importantly, what I see here is, a moderator of that channel is doing her utmost to weaponize the IFS Artwork Contest to combat me who has been keeping pointing out the insufficiency of that channel. She has no proof that I wrote anything insulting as she said. She has presented no proof that the rejection is a group decision made by IFS-UN (without any IUENG mods involved) not her independently, and the cancel-culture rejection is audited and allowed by Niantic. For now I see it as a planned witch hunting.
By saying "lost control", here I raise an example with some screenshots sent by my friend which happened just yesterday:
This is an Ingress Discussion channel. However, you can't even forward or paste anything from the official Niantic Wayfarer channel or you would get warned and banned if you do it three times. And the mods there think that it's a correct behavior. Yes, preventing players from receiving more information from Niantic is a correct behavior there. They do everything to let information and readers stay in their channel.
Now this time a mod there is doing everything to make a moderator of their competing channel suffer without strong evidence, on behalf of IFS-UN and fevgames for which we did not see any proof.
By the way. Your channel can't do as you want. Your channel is entirely not your own playground at least since 2020/Sep/30, the moment it's used to host a formal Q&A.
Oh I forgot to mention that merely from that post, the reviewer who kicked me off, is proactively promoting IUENG in Niantic official platforms. She definitely did no biased actions on players confronting IUENG, right?
That comment is trying his best to misguide the readers. The problem actually is:
There is Conflict of Interest that Fevgames reviewer & IUENG mod did not avoid when she should
No Cancel culture should be added here suddenly, because it's not written in rules and because the interview occurred on Oct 25 is optional
The content used to support cancel culture decision, is not an insulting
The content used to support cancel culture should not be addressed to me
He is simply jumping to 4 with no evidence and make readers think like this, winking at problem 1 to 3 where the reviewer is far away from procedural justice which can be seen from the information that has been presented now
Otherwise I suppose my artwork even were not going to be selected by the reviewer who is actively promoting IUENG channel for the nature of a criticizer, the instant my codename were seen. As you are marking players with code in a motivated way collectively and you guys don't even hide it on the official forum.
Relationships among people/groups are not transactional. You are given the privilege to operate within communities, not a right. There are no laws, only how your conduct causes others to perceive you. Trying to treat these relationships/rules like codified law or some sort of binary will end poorly.
Warms my heart to see good people moderating out the vocal minority, especailly looking at the names of others who have been banned.
Simple question: why @Ishira completely didn't avoid conflict of interest when everyone can see there exists some from the information given, when she said that the decision is made by the whole IFS-UN not her independently? Is that real?
If searching IFS Artwork Competition on fevgames.net, ALL posts in the past some years are made by Ishira. Where are the other team members that's responsible for IFS Artwork Competition (not the other parts of IFS)? Group decision or not?
Fevgames and IFS-UN have their own definition of "what is proper" but:
It's not legit to challenge the qualification of winning artwork from the interview that is irrelevant to the artwork. All criterias made for the contest, is for the artwork, not for the author of the artwork or something else, and definitely not for "a historical post that appears, in the channel that the author of artwork mentioned, while the author never linked to the exact controversial post and the author of the artwork is not the single person for all posts in the channel"
It's not legit that the decision to challenge seems made by a single person who has obvious conflict of interest but not trying to avoid. Instead, it looks like the conflict of interest really matters in this case because the rejection happened in a suspicious point of time
It's not legit that Fevgames/IFS-UN do not notify Niantic for this retrospective, controversial decision
The best proof sent by the channel mod himself that IUENG channel is systematically not respecting other players, and validated the fact that the screenshots of chat dialog I received from other players, masked and just uploaded, are real.
However, you can't even forward or paste anything from the official Niantic Wayfarer channel or you would get warned and banned if you do it three times.
which is factually wrong. If you're trying to create drama, at least try to use real facts to twist the situation, not making up false stuff.
That player specifically claimed that it's from "the Wayfarer channel". Considering the fact you have universally disabled channel forwarding there we could only judge from semantics that it's a Wayfarer channel that many players know and don't need additional description. All I can think of is it's an official Wayfarer channel.
Maybe drama is a good word to describe the fact that moderators there sometimes explicitly driving players away from doing channel forwarding but sometimes tell players that they "don't know why the channel forwarding is disabled" and attribute it to bots.
And to describe the fact that the moderators of that channel is doing channel forwarding from for example Programmer Jokes channel, neglecting their own rules set for all players there.
By the way, by calling out other players directly (even after I masked the screenshot to comply with Niantic Guidelines), and trolling with "strong channel", everyone here can smell the intention of your suppressing other players that are managing Telegram channels. It has been pervasive under your channel and you even don't hide it on Ingress forum.
This is exactly what I'm thinking of the rejection of my artwork which happended directly after I spoke poorly of the channel that the reviewer of artwork is running. Another suppressing. Not surprising.
lol imagine not fact checking things before posting
oh wait this entire thread is exactly that
As said already: IUENG and it's group is a separate entity to Niantic, FevGames and other channels and groups on Telegram. Just because it has hosted a Q&A in the past doesn't suddenly mean that it is now a part of Niantic and that it suddenly needs to follow any special rules.
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your (Edit: this) post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in time. Suggesting that Ishira is somehow participating in Cancel Culture just goes to show that you have no idea of the amazing work she does all around, ranging from her Glyph Journal, Operation Essex and FevGames, among others (all of which she did long before joining the moderation team), and shows your bad character and a disgusting, sad attempt at stirring drama. I can't check the post on your channel myself as you have banned me from it, but I fully trust her judgement that the post went against good faith. If it's the channel I'm thinking of, than it was really stupid to link it anyway with all the harassment, stalking and TOS breaking it contained.
If everyone around you is a je.rk, maybe, just maybe, it's not the people around you.
I will have to concede your last point though that we have applied the rules inconsistently in the past. After our Halloween event in the group, we have put new rules into place that will get moderated stronger on, and have already done so, as seen by the warn for the @UKWayfarer channel.
To close out the topic from my side, I fully stand by everything that I have said and done in connection with moderating and participating in IUENG. If you still have complaints about that, feel free to report us as you have said you would.
If you like to continue shouting into the void, feel free. It's not my oxygen and energy that gets wasted. As Carlo already said, just take the L.
I of course appreciate the previous contribution Ishira made to IFS activities but this has nothing to do with current controversial event in which there seems malpractice and the evidence and information I presented is sufficient to trigger an investigation if Niantic wants to.
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in time
Here we can see from this critical sentence:
Player I...M participated into the reviewing process secretly when he has no authorization and should not
The reviewing process was done by players including (at least) Ishira (the stakeholder, fevgames volunteer, IUENG moderator) and player I...M (IUENG moderator) together
It is my post on the forum (speaking poorly of IUENG channel) that led to the disqualification of my artwork: The reason why the decision is made after Oct/31 (my post on the forum) not Oct/25 (the interview) is because the texts of interview was not brought to them in time, when actually it should be brought to nobody that does not belongs to Fevgames and not responsible for IFS Artwork Contest
I archived this page where 3-rd party Telegram channel IUENG (not affiliated to Niantic) moderator (Player I...M) in the comment directly acknowledged that he acted beyond his authority by doing a review of my artwork based on my posts on the forum, considering the fact he is not Fevgames volunteer and is not responsible for IFS Artwork Contest.
Since when can a 3rd-party channel moderator decide whose artwork to be chosen, when he's not responsible for any IFS affairs and keep claiming that he has no relationship with Fevgames and Niantic but with the actual reviewer?
@NianticBrian this is the post I mentioned in the mail. Someone completely irrelevant to IFS organizing intervened and act beyond his authority to kick IFS Contest Winner away with abandon. And he has acknowledged that here directly.
After I point out the problem of why was this player involved in IFS Artwork Contest reviewing process and decision making, he did not hide it, but edit the comment to make it escape the bad words filter and show the 4-letters bad word to readers as he wants. This player does not see it completely wrong and abu.sive that he was involved in making some decisions which he have no authorization to and impairing the reputation of Niantic, simply because he has good personal relationship with the real and single reviewer (where is the group, by the way).
Personally - I care little for the artwork drama. I agree a genuine artist created artwork should rank above AI generated art, (unless the alternatives are really poor).
And- I agree that mods of a chat can do whatever they want with their channel.
However, IUENG has and is used by Niantic staff AND seem to shun users with differing opinions to their own. (As I said I can't recall WHY I was kicked but I think it was a difference of opinion, NOT for abuse or similar).
This is why I think IUENG has the issue where it perpetuates group think behavior which isn't healthy.
Agree. Though the reason used as cancel cultre during this whole controversial event is "Nobody is allowed to speak poorly of IFS artwork including channels that are relevant to IFS Artwork winner even if not written by himself" (though I'm object to to this accusation and the proof of it's my saying and my posts and my intention to share that opinion to the public, was still not given or presented by the reviewer). So even it's really poor, they think that one can't say it.
Plus IUENG is influencing and controlling the IFS Artwork Contest in a way that violates a series of guidelines. Niantic should investigate on how moderators of this channel can do whatever they want in a semi-official campaign.
Updated timeline, based on comments given above by two forum users involved:
Sep/30 the annoucement of my artwork being selected
....no questions in between
Oct/25 one Fevgames volunteer as well as IUENG chat group moderator, Ishira, asked me for an OPTIONAL interview with questions
Oct/25 I sent anwsers back
....no questions in between
Oct/31 I made a comment on the forum that speak poorly of the Telegram chatgroup affiliate to IUENG, and the comment is widely read by mods there (as mentioned above)
Oct/31 texts of my interview (that should be kept internal with IFS Artwork Contest reviewer/reviewers only) was shared between "a team", which includes an IUENG moderator, InvestigateXM, that is not Niantic or Fevgames releated and not responsible for the review
Nov/1 the same Fevgames volunteer as well as IUENG chat group moderator, Ishira, replied byebye, saying that one post wrote by someone in the channel with the link for which I provided in the optional review, is improper
original text: "I am informing you that it has been decided that we will not be featuring your artwork. In your interview, you provided a link to a telegram channel that you run with the words that it was launched to unite players with harmony. Yet, on further investigation, a post was made to this channel on September 3rd that speaks poorly of the IFS art competition and previous, winning, art pieces. This is not what we want to represent in our competition. Due to this situation, we will not featuring your artwork or interview on our website. This decision is final, have a good day. "
Nov/2 the same Fevgames volunteer came to the forum with a reply, saying that it's me who wrote an improper post
original text: "The removal of this artwork was due to a post made by the OP insulting previous winning artworks on his public channel. This post was found when the link to the channel was given to us by the OP in their interview to share for everyone to see, after his artwork had been accepted. This post did not portray the spirit of the contest thus as a team it was decided to drop the artwork from the competition."
Nov/2 an IUENG moderator, InvestigateXM, that is not Niantic or Fevgames releated and not responsible for the review came to the forum with a reply, saying that he has involved in the reviewing process and my interview was not timely brought up to them as a topic for discovery until I made a post on the forum on Oct/31 that spoke poorly of the chat group affiliated to IUENG
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in time
Thanks for the comment. Though the exact reviewer who sent me the mail of rejection has stated it's not due to the fact that AI drawing is involved, I'd like to add a few things to your comments.
This is your opportunity to showcase your artistic creativity.
By thinking about what elements should appear in the artwork, i.e. thinking about prompt words that AI system need, requires creativity. As I directly said in the interview, I would like to see how good current AI system is, and how much potential it could provide in a creative way.
I never intended to make any player think I drew the photo from zero by myself and thus get the additional honor and reputation that I don't deserve. I'm submitting because Fevgames calls for IFS Artwork and I would like to not only do some contributions but also encourage players to embrace or at least get a comprehension and knowledge of cutting edge software projects which might be the future.
Unfortunately, as far as I can see, reviewers of IFS Artwork Competition thinks "suppressing players that criticize my own 3rd-party channel" is more important than all those ideas.
Regarding the "submit in a contest under my own name", many recent contests have confirmed that doing it is acceptable as long as the originality (in traditional definition) is met. It's not how you and me feel, but the definition or originality that should be refined in the future with the development of AI system.
The problem is, that player I...M who is now throwing 4-letter bad word towards other players (archive: https://archive.ph/hujgr) on the Ingress forum, is running a semi-official campaign that is promoted by official Ingress channel https://t.me/NianticOfficial/396
If you pay attention to the author field of posts in that Telegram channel you would see that they are the same person. Considering the nature of the fact that IUENG moderators shown here (Player I, Player I...M, Player C) are promoting cancel culture (even without evidence)...
Please Niantic deprive the qualification of that playe from hosting that semi-official campaign.
@TheKingEngine IMO, regardless of all the arguments posted so far, it boils down to the simple fact that the art is not your own work.
Telling an AI what elements to incorporate when generating an image is the same as requesting an artist to do a painting for you with xyz elements and then submitting their painting for an art competition. It's your brief, but not your work. You did not produce the art. The AI did.
Now, if you were the one that developed that AI in the first place, then that would be a different story.
This theory is widely used against AI drawing system. I agree some of them. However even the most conservative artists would agree that, the entire field of art will be highly impacted by AI generation algorithm in the future. It's a common thinking that it's the idea and definition of copyright and originality that needs retrofit, rather than criticizing "authors" of the AI-generated photo.
That's partially why I'm OK with not being selected. I don't even intend to receive any honor for that. I'm merely promoting some new ideas to the community. But rejecting me with doubts for AI is one thing, with some other reasons more groundless is another. I'm OK with being rejected, but not OK with being rejected with unprecedented cancel policy created just for me, in a planned bully.
If I have a steel factory forge tens of tons of steel cylinders according to my specifications, and then I tell a bunch of other people to arrange them in a particular way, whose "original artwork" is that: mine, or the steel factory's and other workers'? (See also: Richard Serra.)
Buildings can be considered art, but whose "original artwork" is that: the architects' or the construction workers'?
The thing that produced the artifact is not the same as the thing that produced "the art(work)." Given how comically bad AIs can be, I'd guess that the AI that was used here is closer to a paint brush, something with no real understanding of what it is told to do, than a human painter.
Nevertheless, it meets the criteria for IFS regarding originality and copyright and really can provide high-quality artwork.
Now IFS won't lack Media cover to pick and reviewers can feel free to excercise their decision-making power arbitrarily. They don't need to worry about what if they went too far on weaponizing this competition to supprse dissidents and consequently less players are willing to submit. They found a new way as I've shed the light for them and helped them make it their own playground. That's the way they are accustomed to, when treating other players.
AIGC is generating piles of money now. As you still thinks AI drawing system works poorly and have no real understanding of what it is told, have a quick look here https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/
Comments
Maybe because you made quite many valuable but neutral comments that have different attitudes toward theirs. I don't think that channel and chat group is proper to be used by Niantic Community Manager to for example distribute information of campaigns, or be used by Ingress Product Manager to do Q&A session. The management there has lost control.
And more importantly, what I see here is, a moderator of that channel is doing her utmost to weaponize the IFS Artwork Contest to combat me who has been keeping pointing out the insufficiency of that channel. She has no proof that I wrote anything insulting as she said. She has presented no proof that the rejection is a group decision made by IFS-UN (without any IUENG mods involved) not her independently, and the cancel-culture rejection is audited and allowed by Niantic. For now I see it as a planned witch hunting.
By saying "lost control", here I raise an example with some screenshots sent by my friend which happened just yesterday:
This is an Ingress Discussion channel. However, you can't even forward or paste anything from the official Niantic Wayfarer channel or you would get warned and banned if you do it three times. And the mods there think that it's a correct behavior. Yes, preventing players from receiving more information from Niantic is a correct behavior there. They do everything to let information and readers stay in their channel.
Now this time a mod there is doing everything to make a moderator of their competing channel suffer without strong evidence, on behalf of IFS-UN and fevgames for which we did not see any proof.
Rather than conspiracy, we see very clearly that something smells fishy here:
Conspiracy is not your perfect solution to dodge from the fact that the mod of your channel is not avoiding conflict of interest as she should.
By the way. Your channel can't do as you want. Your channel is entirely not your own playground at least since 2020/Sep/30, the moment it's used to host a formal Q&A.
Oh I forgot to mention that merely from that post, the reviewer who kicked me off, is proactively promoting IUENG in Niantic official platforms. She definitely did no biased actions on players confronting IUENG, right?
That comment is trying his best to misguide the readers. The problem actually is:
He is simply jumping to 4 with no evidence and make readers think like this, winking at problem 1 to 3 where the reviewer is far away from procedural justice which can be seen from the information that has been presented now
Otherwise I suppose my artwork even were not going to be selected by the reviewer who is actively promoting IUENG channel for the nature of a criticizer, the instant my codename were seen. As you are marking players with code in a motivated way collectively and you guys don't even hide it on the official forum.
Relationships among people/groups are not transactional. You are given the privilege to operate within communities, not a right. There are no laws, only how your conduct causes others to perceive you. Trying to treat these relationships/rules like codified law or some sort of binary will end poorly.
Warms my heart to see good people moderating out the vocal minority, especailly looking at the names of others who have been banned.
Frankly speaking I agree that what you said sounds rational and resonable however the timeline of this event actually does not:
When Conflict of Interest is not avoided, the chance of witch hunting or intentional opposing specific players have risen accordingly.
Simple question: why @Ishira completely didn't avoid conflict of interest when everyone can see there exists some from the information given, when she said that the decision is made by the whole IFS-UN not her independently? Is that real?
If searching IFS Artwork Competition on fevgames.net, ALL posts in the past some years are made by Ishira. Where are the other team members that's responsible for IFS Artwork Competition (not the other parts of IFS)? Group decision or not?
more info:
The interview is actually optional:
Fevgames and IFS-UN have their own definition of "what is proper" but:
Heck I never knew that your 70 subscriber strong channel was an official Niantic Channel @PkmnTrainerJ, congrats! When were you hired by Niantic?
The best proof sent by the channel mod himself that IUENG channel is systematically not respecting other players, and validated the fact that the screenshots of chat dialog I received from other players, masked and just uploaded, are real.
buddy you said
However, you can't even forward or paste anything from the official Niantic Wayfarer channel or you would get warned and banned if you do it three times.
which is factually wrong. If you're trying to create drama, at least try to use real facts to twist the situation, not making up false stuff.
That player specifically claimed that it's from "the Wayfarer channel". Considering the fact you have universally disabled channel forwarding there we could only judge from semantics that it's a Wayfarer channel that many players know and don't need additional description. All I can think of is it's an official Wayfarer channel.
Maybe drama is a good word to describe the fact that moderators there sometimes explicitly driving players away from doing channel forwarding but sometimes tell players that they "don't know why the channel forwarding is disabled" and attribute it to bots.
And to describe the fact that the moderators of that channel is doing channel forwarding from for example Programmer Jokes channel, neglecting their own rules set for all players there.
This is what I call "insufficiency".
By the way, by calling out other players directly (even after I masked the screenshot to comply with Niantic Guidelines), and trolling with "strong channel", everyone here can smell the intention of your suppressing other players that are managing Telegram channels. It has been pervasive under your channel and you even don't hide it on Ingress forum.
This is exactly what I'm thinking of the rejection of my artwork which happended directly after I spoke poorly of the channel that the reviewer of artwork is running. Another suppressing. Not surprising.
lol imagine not fact checking things before posting
oh wait this entire thread is exactly that
As said already: IUENG and it's group is a separate entity to Niantic, FevGames and other channels and groups on Telegram. Just because it has hosted a Q&A in the past doesn't suddenly mean that it is now a part of Niantic and that it suddenly needs to follow any special rules.
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your (Edit: this) post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in time. Suggesting that Ishira is somehow participating in Cancel Culture just goes to show that you have no idea of the amazing work she does all around, ranging from her Glyph Journal, Operation Essex and FevGames, among others (all of which she did long before joining the moderation team), and shows your bad character and a disgusting, sad attempt at stirring drama. I can't check the post on your channel myself as you have banned me from it, but I fully trust her judgement that the post went against good faith. If it's the channel I'm thinking of, than it was really stupid to link it anyway with all the harassment, stalking and TOS breaking it contained.
If everyone around you is a je.rk, maybe, just maybe, it's not the people around you.
I will have to concede your last point though that we have applied the rules inconsistently in the past. After our Halloween event in the group, we have put new rules into place that will get moderated stronger on, and have already done so, as seen by the warn for the @UKWayfarer channel.
To close out the topic from my side, I fully stand by everything that I have said and done in connection with moderating and participating in IUENG. If you still have complaints about that, feel free to report us as you have said you would.
If you like to continue shouting into the void, feel free. It's not my oxygen and energy that gets wasted. As Carlo already said, just take the L.
Thanks for typing. Unfortunately what I see is it's completely doging from the core problems I concluded for readers:
and the suspicious point of time:
I of course appreciate the previous contribution Ishira made to IFS activities but this has nothing to do with current controversial event in which there seems malpractice and the evidence and information I presented is sufficient to trigger an investigation if Niantic wants to.
I just quote it here for future reference. Thanks for confirming what I guessed previously
PLEASE everyone notice that reply.
@InvestigateXM said:
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in timeHere we can see from this critical sentence:
I archived this page where 3-rd party Telegram channel IUENG (not affiliated to Niantic) moderator (Player I...M) in the comment directly acknowledged that he acted beyond his authority by doing a review of my artwork based on my posts on the forum, considering the fact he is not Fevgames volunteer and is not responsible for IFS Artwork Contest.
https://archive.ph/4ciq0
Since when can a 3rd-party channel moderator decide whose artwork to be chosen, when he's not responsible for any IFS affairs and keep claiming that he has no relationship with Fevgames and Niantic but with the actual reviewer?
@NianticBrian this is the post I mentioned in the mail. Someone completely irrelevant to IFS organizing intervened and act beyond his authority to kick IFS Contest Winner away with abandon. And he has acknowledged that here directly.
A new edit record for that important comment
Post edited by InvestigateXM at 2:55PM
After I point out the problem of why was this player involved in IFS Artwork Contest reviewing process and decision making, he did not hide it, but edit the comment to make it escape the bad words filter and show the 4-letters bad word to readers as he wants. This player does not see it completely wrong and abu.sive that he was involved in making some decisions which he have no authorization to and impairing the reputation of Niantic, simply because he has good personal relationship with the real and single reviewer (where is the group, by the way).
Personally - I care little for the artwork drama. I agree a genuine artist created artwork should rank above AI generated art, (unless the alternatives are really poor).
And- I agree that mods of a chat can do whatever they want with their channel.
However, IUENG has and is used by Niantic staff AND seem to shun users with differing opinions to their own. (As I said I can't recall WHY I was kicked but I think it was a difference of opinion, NOT for abuse or similar).
This is why I think IUENG has the issue where it perpetuates group think behavior which isn't healthy.
Anyway that's my two cents.
Agree. Though the reason used as cancel cultre during this whole controversial event is "Nobody is allowed to speak poorly of IFS artwork including channels that are relevant to IFS Artwork winner even if not written by himself" (though I'm object to to this accusation and the proof of it's my saying and my posts and my intention to share that opinion to the public, was still not given or presented by the reviewer). So even it's really poor, they think that one can't say it.
Plus IUENG is influencing and controlling the IFS Artwork Contest in a way that violates a series of guidelines. Niantic should investigate on how moderators of this channel can do whatever they want in a semi-official campaign.
Updated timeline, based on comments given above by two forum users involved:
Sep/30 the annoucement of my artwork being selected
....no questions in between
Oct/25 one Fevgames volunteer as well as IUENG chat group moderator, Ishira, asked me for an OPTIONAL interview with questions
Oct/25 I sent anwsers back
....no questions in between
Oct/31 I made a comment on the forum that speak poorly of the Telegram chatgroup affiliate to IUENG, and the comment is widely read by mods there (as mentioned above)
Oct/31 texts of my interview (that should be kept internal with IFS Artwork Contest reviewer/reviewers only) was shared between "a team", which includes an IUENG moderator, InvestigateXM, that is not Niantic or Fevgames releated and not responsible for the review
Nov/1 the same Fevgames volunteer as well as IUENG chat group moderator, Ishira, replied byebye, saying that one post wrote by someone in the channel with the link for which I provided in the optional review, is improper
original text: "I am informing you that it has been decided that we will not be featuring your artwork. In your interview, you provided a link to a telegram channel that you run with the words that it was launched to unite players with harmony. Yet, on further investigation, a post was made to this channel on September 3rd that speaks poorly of the IFS art competition and previous, winning, art pieces. This is not what we want to represent in our competition. Due to this situation, we will not featuring your artwork or interview on our website. This decision is final, have a good day. "Nov/2 the same Fevgames volunteer came to the forum with a reply, saying that it's me who wrote an improper post
original text: "The removal of this artwork was due to a post made by the OP insulting previous winning artworks on his public channel. This post was found when the link to the channel was given to us by the OP in their interview to share for everyone to see, after his artwork had been accepted. This post did not portray the spirit of the contest thus as a team it was decided to drop the artwork from the competition."Nov/2 an IUENG moderator, InvestigateXM, that is not Niantic or Fevgames releated and not responsible for the review came to the forum with a reply, saying that he has involved in the reviewing process and my interview was not timely brought up to them as a topic for discovery until I made a post on the forum on Oct/31 that spoke poorly of the chat group affiliated to IUENG
The fact that your artwork was disqualified was only discovered by us through your post on the forum. It was not brought up to us at any point in timeThanks for the comment. Though the exact reviewer who sent me the mail of rejection has stated it's not due to the fact that AI drawing is involved, I'd like to add a few things to your comments.
IFS Artwork Competition, in its criterias, said:
Are you creative?This is your opportunity to showcase your artistic creativity.By thinking about what elements should appear in the artwork, i.e. thinking about prompt words that AI system need, requires creativity. As I directly said in the interview, I would like to see how good current AI system is, and how much potential it could provide in a creative way.
I never intended to make any player think I drew the photo from zero by myself and thus get the additional honor and reputation that I don't deserve. I'm submitting because Fevgames calls for IFS Artwork and I would like to not only do some contributions but also encourage players to embrace or at least get a comprehension and knowledge of cutting edge software projects which might be the future.
Unfortunately, as far as I can see, reviewers of IFS Artwork Competition thinks "suppressing players that criticize my own 3rd-party channel" is more important than all those ideas.
Regarding the "submit in a contest under my own name", many recent contests have confirmed that doing it is acceptable as long as the originality (in traditional definition) is met. It's not how you and me feel, but the definition or originality that should be refined in the future with the development of AI system.
The problem is, that player I...M who is now throwing 4-letter bad word towards other players (archive: https://archive.ph/hujgr) on the Ingress forum, is running a semi-official campaign that is promoted by official Ingress channel https://t.me/NianticOfficial/396
If you pay attention to the author field of posts in that Telegram channel you would see that they are the same person. Considering the nature of the fact that IUENG moderators shown here (Player I, Player I...M, Player C) are promoting cancel culture (even without evidence)...
Please Niantic deprive the qualification of that playe from hosting that semi-official campaign.
@TheKingEngine IMO, regardless of all the arguments posted so far, it boils down to the simple fact that the art is not your own work.
Telling an AI what elements to incorporate when generating an image is the same as requesting an artist to do a painting for you with xyz elements and then submitting their painting for an art competition. It's your brief, but not your work. You did not produce the art. The AI did.
Now, if you were the one that developed that AI in the first place, then that would be a different story.
This theory is widely used against AI drawing system. I agree some of them. However even the most conservative artists would agree that, the entire field of art will be highly impacted by AI generation algorithm in the future. It's a common thinking that it's the idea and definition of copyright and originality that needs retrofit, rather than criticizing "authors" of the AI-generated photo.
That's partially why I'm OK with not being selected. I don't even intend to receive any honor for that. I'm merely promoting some new ideas to the community. But rejecting me with doubts for AI is one thing, with some other reasons more groundless is another. I'm OK with being rejected, but not OK with being rejected with unprecedented cancel policy created just for me, in a planned bully.
By the way, the reviewer has already stated that AI is not a reason that would be used for my rejection.
But who knows? If they can't find any problem on me, they will probably refer to this as a reason again.
If I'm not proactively telling them that I'm using AI, I suppose they will find some other new reasons then.
When you have decided to kick someone criticizing your playground out, you always can find a reason.
My 10/31 criticizing, her reading and 11/1 instant rejection. Sounds just like a result-driven, vindictive act.
If I have a steel factory forge tens of tons of steel cylinders according to my specifications, and then I tell a bunch of other people to arrange them in a particular way, whose "original artwork" is that: mine, or the steel factory's and other workers'? (See also: Richard Serra.)
Buildings can be considered art, but whose "original artwork" is that: the architects' or the construction workers'?
How many advanced, AI-based features in Adobe Photoshop may I use before the resulting image is no longer my original artwork? What about the rest of Photoshop's features?
The thing that produced the artifact is not the same as the thing that produced "the art(work)." Given how comically bad AIs can be, I'd guess that the AI that was used here is closer to a paint brush, something with no real understanding of what it is told to do, than a human painter.
Nevertheless, it meets the criteria for IFS regarding originality and copyright and really can provide high-quality artwork.
Now IFS won't lack Media cover to pick and reviewers can feel free to excercise their decision-making power arbitrarily. They don't need to worry about what if they went too far on weaponizing this competition to supprse dissidents and consequently less players are willing to submit. They found a new way as I've shed the light for them and helped them make it their own playground. That's the way they are accustomed to, when treating other players.
AIGC is generating piles of money now. As you still thinks AI drawing system works poorly and have no real understanding of what it is told, have a quick look here https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/