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dracontes

Of Dinosaurs and Dragons
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Some more context on my Facebook profile.

It's nice to have a private place where you can bounce ideas off similarly-minded people and generally be sociable but I've come to realize, as for other Web 2.0 modes of interaction in the past, that there's a risk of that becoming all you do. So after a year or so testing the likes of Facebook and Discord as chatting platforms I've decided Skype is the chosen one (for now at least) and it seems to me that the first chat group I've joined on there has an activity level I can keep up with.

So all invites to join chats elsewhere are preemptively declined (as are for other venues like forums and sundry sites). Thank you for your comprehension.
 
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Let's see if I can summarize this ramble of mine on why I am turned away from most art contests into easily digestible points.

:bulletred: Always read the rules in detail. Overwhelmingly you'll find an item that says you relinquish your commercial rights pertaining to the submitted artwork or even all of them to the entity holding the contest just to participate.

:bulletred: All things being equal, a contest corresponds to a ballot where a "ticket" is something for which entrants likely worked hard for and yet only three of them at most get a one time payment, resulting, if that hasn't already happened, in the complete forfeiture of the winning artworks to the contest manager.

:bulletred: I hope it's clear that this is a trap designed to have most of the entrants work for free under dubious pretenses, which is especially troubling when children are involved. A lottery ticket compared to this is a sound investment. 

:bulletred: I would like it that otherwise ostensibly idoneous institutions such as are those whose purvey involves scientific research would consider other, far more transparent methods to obtain artwork.

That's about it, I think. I'm not sure that even if this situation is satisfactorily resolved I'll participate in one of the many paleontologically-themed scientific illustration contests due to other considerations, but, all the same, this is something that cannot be in a society that should appropriately value people's work.
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SpecPalaeo

Hopefully one of the more productive community-oriented efforts stemming from #buildabetterfaketheropod. I hope those of you approached by the administrator can exercise forbearance regarding the pertinent recent bout of querulousness over Brian Engh's modest proposal, but that exercise, with time, has have given Lediblock2 a better appreciation for those that like their speculative fiction with a bit more inventiveness. That said, I'm sure the more conservative  imaginings will also have their place there.
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...an admin wonders about the point of it all.

So beyond all the issues pertaining to my livelihood that take precedence over most community efforts I can part-take in, there's this failure of communication I don't understand and consequently can't figure out a way to tastefully resolve and frankly leaves my charitability tattered and frayed far too quickly. So unable to be agreeable enough in this situation most of the time I move on to other things.

Let's see for how long I can avoid that tropism this time around.
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...Thus time for the customary dA anniversary post. 

I guess most of all I must apologize for the state of neglect I've let things come to here. I can only promise to do my best to more regularly upload art and generally interact in this venue.

Work on Palaeos continues at a good clip. Perhaps once I get to illustrate things there an uptick in activity will be seen here.

I'll see you now and then.
  
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