art mefites talent

February 12, 2008 6:28 PM

So I missed the deadline to call in my question. That would have been fun, but life has been crushing, it happens. Since I can not wait until the next time - Matt, Jess, Cortex, JB, others?: we have MeFi Music, which is really so much fun, but so many MeFites have other talents. Can we expand MeFi Music, or add another category, to include other arts? I would really love to see short stories, poems, paintings, photos, etc.

The structure would probably need to differ from the music page, as with photos people would want to post a gazillion. Maybe limit photos and paintings to ten per post, a two or three poem limit with perhaps a character limit as well, same with the short stories etc. Longer works could be a link to someone else's site etc. Anyway, we have some awesome artists here; the music has been great, just imagine what the rest can treat us with? Bring on the creativity.

posted by caddis to feature requests at 6:28 PM (36 comments total)

Matt, Jess, Cortex, JB pb

(think peanut butter)
posted by iconomy at 6:39 PM on February 12

sorry pb, you should probably post some more, but really this is more about my swiss cheese brain than your lack of posting. Anyway, what about the art?
posted by caddis at 6:40 PM on February 12

Isn't this what Projects is for?
posted by chrisamiller at 6:43 PM on February 12

I think this has been addressed before, though I don't recall the outcome.
posted by necessitas at 6:46 PM on February 12

You can call in until tomorrow morn at 10am Pacific. So keep calling, yo.
posted by mathowie at 6:52 PM on February 12

Seriously, we only have like three good calls right now and we could use more.
posted by mathowie at 6:52 PM on February 12

Isn't this what Projects is for?

No. It isn't a website. It is more like music. If you have a poem post it, not post a link to your site with 20 poems. On music the same people keep posting - which is a good thing.
posted by caddis at 6:53 PM on February 12

I was going to come in and say that we have, I think, talked about this before, but I don't remember the outcome, either, and I could definitely see a Mefi limerick and haiku site, with all the literary people around here.
posted by misha at 7:13 PM on February 12

Once Ravelry is open to the general public, I hope we can get a side-bar link to the MetaStitcher group over there. Knitting's an art too!
posted by web-goddess at 7:18 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

Poetry and short stories? I don't think so. The internet doesn't handle text very well.
posted by Pastabagel at 7:27 PM on February 12

*posts ASCII art of self stabbing Pastabagel in the eyes with knitting needles*
posted by wendell at 7:30 PM on February 12

What we need is a place where there can be these illustration contests, see? And any design that gets submitted to this contest may end up getting printed on shirts that I then sell and then give you zero dollars. But there are fabulous prizes. And of course Matt will be very grateful. I can really see this taking off!
posted by Dave Faris at 8:29 PM on February 12

(think peanut butter)

Or Pastabagel. Or piratebowling. We're all the same person.
posted by piratebowling at 8:36 PM on February 12

Let's all get really drunk and call in! It'll be grand.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 8:44 PM on February 12

Yeah, I'm not falling for that again, Dr. President Steve and His Wiley Roundup Elvis.
posted by Item at 8:58 PM on February 12

No. It isn't a website. It is more like music. If you have a poem post it, not post a link to your site with 20 poems. On music the same people keep posting - which is a good thing

How hard is it to throw your poem up on a google pages website (or one of ten-bazillion other free web-posting sites)? Or to link to your flickr page for art?

I'll agree that the drawback of projects is that you can't get public feedback, as you can in Music. If that's your problem, perhaps that could be changed.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:49 PM on February 12

If bookfilter ever arrives I think I might shit myself so hard with glee that I'd rocket to Jupiter.
posted by Kattullus at 10:26 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

The short stories thing would be really, really good. There are quite a few talented writers here. I know the default answer is Projects, but there's something formal and somewhat sterile about Projects -- maybe it's because of the anonymity of comments or the feeling that you have to setup the post in a presentable way just for some short story.
posted by spiderskull at 11:34 PM on February 12

This would be very cool, especially a short stories section.
posted by Corduroy at 1:12 AM on February 13

I agree that this would be good. I loved the MeFi writers group for the short while it lasted and I'm sure this would be just as good and it probably wouldn't die the same way. (Photos, paintings, crocheting, whatever, could be on there too. I don't really care. I just want the short stories. But I'm not against these things being on there.)
posted by sveskemus at 1:16 AM on February 13

please no
posted by matteo at 2:13 AM on February 13

I love this idea. Short stories with a limit, photos with a limit, poems with a limit. This is a great idea. If it has limits.
posted by twirlypen at 3:03 AM on February 13

I'll agree that the drawback of projects is that you can't get public feedback, as you can in Music. If that's your problem, perhaps that could be changed.

Projects also doesn't have tags as far as I know. So you couldn't, for instance, browse projects for all knitting projects the same way you can go to music and pull up all instrumental songs or all electronic songs etc.
posted by juv3nal at 3:06 AM on February 13

You'd have to have the same sort of quality control you have for the blue. You'd have to ask, is this the best of the web, this photo of Aunty Edna's cat licking it's butt? With stories, photos and art, this should increase the moderator work three-fold which should then open up a moderator position on the antipodean side of the world. Let's write job applications in the form of haikus now.
posted by b33j at 3:35 AM on February 13

Really, aren't there other outlets on the internet for this sort of thing? Does Metafilter really need to be the one-stop shop for every little burp we emit?
posted by Dave Faris at 3:51 AM on February 13

Yes, please.

(And if MefArt could be up by the 29th, that'd be good...)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:15 AM on February 13

Really, aren't there other outlets on the internet for this sort of thing?

Yes there are, but that is not the point. Really, aren't there other outlets on the internet for music?
posted by R. Mutt at 5:22 AM on February 13

This sounds like a good way to turn mefi into myspace/LJ. Random photos, random ramblings, random writings, etc. Why not just go whole hog and supply them with a hosted blog and be done with it? Slashdot does this.

Although, I could see projects expanded to allow commenting and feedback.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:00 AM on February 13

I want to
Believe

But I don't know if this is a good idea. I love short stories and poetry. I'm not a knitting fan, but if we need a subsite to get this project finished and see the fruits of it, well then damnit make it happen.
posted by cashman at 7:08 AM on February 13

I want to
Believe

Heh.
posted by cortex at 7:50 AM on February 13

Yeah, I should have done the ascii art to make it more obvious. Dangit.
posted by cashman at 7:51 AM on February 13

I think we would be better served to expand the selection of social networking sites in the associated profile section to be a little more fresh and inclusive. It seems like it was set up once with real hype stuff at the time, hasn't been updated much since. There is DeviantArt and Flickr though, I think together they both cover these kind of works pretty well.
posted by prostyle at 8:33 AM on February 13

Also something I think that would help is the ability to view all of the accounts voluntarily associated with a certain service. If the whole idea is for us to enjoy sharing common interests, I think this would make it easier from the outset. Maybe it's possible now and I have missed it?
posted by prostyle at 8:47 AM on February 13

Well, things other than poems require some kind of serious hosting, methinks, yeah? I mean, as you said, people would post a ton of photos all the time, which is what flickr is already good for, and we can put our flickr links in our profiles. video hosting is intense, and invites the kind of problems on matt that youtube is currently undergoing.

so perhaps a good idea would be to have a subsite (with rss feed) where people can submit their flickr profiles and youtube profiles, and then just have it update automatically as people add to that.
posted by shmegegge at 9:04 AM on February 13

Another vote for mifoto :)

Anyone know when we can expect the next music challenge?
posted by Static Vagabond at 11:40 AM on February 13

Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to post poetry on the internet should spend ten minutes at poetry.com.
Start here, and wait for the auto refresh. See how long you can last before madness overtakes you.
posted by seanyboy at 4:23 AM on February 14