h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

^ Nuff Said

I'm with Count Zero on this one. The Editors should listen to his complaint, as they should have listened the last time he made it.

There's a difference between listening to the complaint and doing something about it.

The latter requires one of *us* to do it, and we had far too many other things to do.

I won't be making any more smileys in future unless there is a group dedicated to making them.

Well done for your work, Mala. How long would it take you to convert those three smilies into an anti-aliased form? A day? A month?

I'm sure if the eds asked you or one of the other artists nicely, you could fit it in some time in the next year, and they could issue the new smilies whenever they're doing an upgrade. But it is certainly not going to happen unless the Eds put it on their list of things to do, and they don't appear to have done that.

If you're going to go all sarcastic about it, I refuse to do *anything*.

Fine. They should listen & act positively to address the concerns raised.

Oh, grow up.

Oh dear. Has it come to that?

I said elsewhere about this that the smilies have been one of the most discouraging things I've ever been involved with on this site. I hate to say that, but it's true.

I could list details of why this is, for every stage of the process (and it was by no means all the Eds' fault), but I'm sick talking about smileys. I'm just waiting for the time when the fuss dies down, the talk all stops, and they become part of the on-site furniture again.

Exactly. Would it take me more than a day? Probably not.

Do you have any right to *demand* that I sacrifice yet another day for it? No.

Mala, I don't do sarcasm.

Anyone able to recommend some free OSX software so I get some practice in between now and whenever there's room for a new CA?

Mala, I have as much right as anyone else to make suggestions as to how this site can be improved.

There are a number of artists. I wasn't suggesting that it had to be you.

If it does take a full day, then it may not be worth it considering what else you or the artist concerned could do in a day.

Breathe in nice calm fresh air folks.

Breathe out all that nasty frustration.

Malabarista - Gnomon's right, he doesn't do sarcasm. I read it as a straightforward question, and it was one I was curious to know the answer to. And if anyone's earned the right to comment in pure hard volunteer hours, it's Gnomon.

Me, I don't give a monkey's whether smileys are anti-aliased or not. I just don't care enough. But I can appreciate Count Zero's point and - having volunteered for h2duties in my time - I can appreciate the frustrations of the CAs.

The long and the short of it is that the new batch of smileys are an absolute treat.

Now - tell me - is the rumour true that if you type what shows up is not the letters at all, but a gif *showing* the letters? What ELSE would an smiley look like?

B

The GIMP. And the sooner you send in a test picture, the sooner you can probably start. Go to the Community Artists' page and volunteer as soon as you like - I'm sure more would be welcome.

You can see the Elvis smiley here:

http://www.h2g2.com/A31170494

Apologies to non-Brunel people for the forced skin change in that link, but I wasn't sure it would work in other skins.

Oh, the forced skin-change didn't work. Try this:

http://www.h2g2.com/brunel/A31170494

Sorry, I'm simply fed up with all the complaining, because most of the people doing the complaining haven't a clue what's involved and don't care - they just want to look clever.

Stupidest smiley comment - someone didn't like the because "wings are white"

I'm not saying that nobody's allowed to be critical, so long as it's constructive. "Oh grow up" is not constructive.

I'm sure that Gnomon means well - the smileys probably *would* look better antialiased - but right now, I'm happy to have the whole mess behind me and don't want to hear about it for at least a month.

Ask me then (not demand) and I just might do it. But I've put far too much time into smiley-making as it is, and it simply doesn't seem worth it, because whatever I do doesn't live up to people's expectations anyway.

There wasn't one.

I'll download GIMP after the midnight hour, large file. And see how I get to grips with it. Cheers KB.