I do understand the need to curb spam @discordiant ...including people dropping youtube links of Other people's work.
I disagree however with the intent that photography or original art videos need to have in-depth descriptions to give them value.
I am not seeing anywhere that written work needs to have hand drawn art to offer a visual, or an original photograph or video in order for them to have value.
Writers are allowed to source unoriginal images, or use no images at all.
I have worked in high end art galleries, for years...and I can tell you that the only description we would hang by a high end painting OR photo, is the name of work, name of artist, date created, and Sometimes the price. All this on a little card below the art.
If art needs a description, then it is not portraying the feeling, image, concept, etc...that the artist was conveying (or trying to convey) with their work.
The more words needed to show these things, the less value they have, in the world of fine art, in my experience. As a writer, you may not understand visual art, however.
I would suggest, that a claim of Original Work be added at the end of art posts. If it is original, that is all that should matter for true value.
If someone claims it is original when it is not, then it falls under plagiarism.
Aside from that, there is already a once a day minnowsupportbot usage, so that prevents those who would take 8 photos of random things to get 8 upvotes a day from doing that.
I really do feel it is unbalanced to require visual arts to include written descriptions, while writers are not asked to do original visual art to make their posts have value.
Here is an example, in case you need a visual to believe me. The Packards are High End artist, people I have known for years, and sold their art. http://www.packardgallery.com/paintings.html
I lived with a foster father that was a professional painter. He had paintings all over the house. But if I or anyone else asked what they meant, he would usually not say, just counter ask; what does it mean to you?
These are guidelines, not rules. We try and look at each post individually. If it adds value, then it adds value. Your recent post is an example of a pure photography post that doesn't really need words. You did add some.
Somehow, I knew that if I put a number on the amount of words, everyone was going to freak out.
I have apparently failed to express in the post how subjective we are about this. We try very hard not to go around being totalitarian about a post having exactly the correct number of words. We look for the intent of the post, the value in it, the effort that went into it. If we can see all those things line up, we consider it worthy.
I can tell you feel strongly about this, and I appreciate that. I will edit the post to reflect this, since I apparently worded it wrong.
Thank you, yes I do feel strongly about it...possibly because I grew up in strong artists communities, and have stayed in the arts my entire life.
The amount of words doesn't bother me, it is the idea that visual arts are not worthy without the written word...
I do understand the daunting task what you are doing must be, and I really do appreciate the effort you are putting into it, and the goal you have.