Bring back dustcatchers

But many times something becomes a Dustcatcher, and then an almost identical description gets drawn later.

Maybe we could turn the "skip" button into two buttons. One for "this is undrawable" and another for "I would prefer to let someone else draw this one." The undrawables could be eliminated after a few clicks, with the others being put back into circulation.

What do you mean bring them back? They're still there, just with the addition of the bounty system. Am I missing the point?

Yeah, the dustcatcher is still around. It just takes prompts longer to get there now with the bounties in place. If they get skipped way too much, into the dustcatcher they go!

Shparks wrote:

"But many times something becomes a Dustcatcher, and then an almost identical description gets drawn later."

Not every time. Not even most times, I feel confident in guessing.

The larger point: before dustcatchers went away, there were less lame and undrawable prompts.

Some players may end with their egos in tatters because their miraculous feats of prose bore no fruit, but the game as a whole should not be compromised in order to satisfy the narcissism of a few.

ebbixx wrote:

"What do you mean bring them back? They're still there, just with the addition of the bounty system. Am I missing the point?"

Personally, I haven't had a single dustcatcher since the bounty system was implemented, whereas before I'd get them regularly. I don't believe that this is because people are now more apt to draw lame and undrawable prompts in hopes they'll get a bounty. For one thing, the fact that you don't actually know that a prompt has a bounty on it until the game is completed kind of interrupts that potential chain of causation. Also, if it were the case that lame and undrawable prompts were getting drawn more frequently because of the bounty system, there would not have been an increase in the number of lame and undrawable prompts in circulation subsequent to the implementation. IMO such an increase has (very noticeably) in fact occurred. I think the reason might be that the system doesn't turn a bad prompt into a dustcatcher as quickly as it did before.

I guess I should have titled my post, "Bring back the old timing on the dustcatcher system." It's just, that's not quite as catchy. But thanks for bringing everyone's attention to my error.

(And yes, you are missing the point.)

Shparks's idea for the button split seems like a fairly reasonable suggestion that I really feel could be of some great use (though it will probably somehow ironically bring about some stupid trolly loophole or something like that).

@Amy4537 - I suspect, but can't prove, that we're no longer getting notices when captions are dustcatchered. Given the furor that was expressed here when they were showing up on our profile pages, I have to wonder whether Reed concluded that people would object less if the captions simply vanished.

Please, if anyone is getting notifications now that their captions have been dustcatchered, I'd like to know, so I don't repeat what for now is merely a deductive inference.

I THINK I've had one caption vanish since bounties were added, but I have to rely on memory for that. When I caption (which is rarely) my captions tend to be a bit cryptic or ironic, which is a pretty good formula for low responses, and I had most of my captions dustcatchered at the time. Let me hasten to say I didn't take that personally, I expected it, in fact.

Agreed, that the bounty system has led to far fewer captions being completely rejected.

But I think the solution for lame captions (a fuzzy definition if there ever was one) remains the same as it ever was. If you don't like it, don't draw it. There are quite a few that I skip, some of which I should probably flag and skip. Personally I hate flagging and censorship of any kind, or I'd be more active that way. But I don't draw poo, or captions that suggest rape fantasies or other sexual content that many might object to.

I have a strong suspicion, given the tone of comments about dustcatchers here, that Reed lost more than a handful of users with the initial implementation of dustcatchers, so I don't really see them coming back in their original form. He made the bounty changes way too fast for this to be merely a matter of choice or aesthetics.

With any site you have to find a balance that keeps people coming, and people can be easily frustrated, and take robotic rejections very, very personally. At least that's been my impression.

I know for a fact that the dustcatcher is still in place, just with a lack of caption. I created three games at one point, and while two of them went on the more panels, the starter panel of the third vanished from my active games.

Of course, noticing this I immediately created the same game again to replace it, and that time the game went through without a hitch and even made it to top games.

My beef with the old dustcatcher system was that it streamlined the Drawception canon of situations, characters and actions. If you go by the guideline of "if it has two or more stars, it would have been eliminated under the old system" (probably a good assumption), prompts such as 'sneezing purple turkey' would have been eliminated. Seriously. The old dustcatchers were too strict, the new one feels about right.

Also, I no longer have to repeat hammering in captions as game starters until one goes through, because still about 80% if not more of starters make it through and most of them turn out great. This is a definite improvement in my opinion.