One another game suggestion: The Turing Test, reversed.

Using LLM API, make people:

1. Ask one thing and spot a human answering them;
2. Answer one question and make another human believe they are an LLM.

Only these two rounds (or a text box + checkbox) per a session with a set delay, from a random user or a robot. The goal is counter to the current discourse of noticing LLMs being not humans, but the opposite – people being rewarded for acting like machines and spotting real people in the web poisoned by generative models. I don't know if scores are needed, just complimenting DMs maybe, because mastering tactics to break LLMs destroys the fun.

Besides only English input for the simplicity and a stop-list of words, it needs a balancing system that mixes fake and real inputs to cause no LLM-only hours across all timezones. To make it more interesting, there should be some additional prompts to LLM, like 'answer like an old lady' or 'answer like a nerd' to make LLM seem more humane.

Theming it after spies, zombies, whatever may help.

Could you make each pixel be made up of lots of smaller pixels? Maybe some sort if repeating pattern.

I think it would be good to get some privacy and security people to work on the software. I think bots and duplicate accounts are a big issue but maybe you could try implementing some sort of new tech to solve it.

Overall it was a great experience. I just got annoyed at the Australians

Have the cooldown time vary incrementally across the canvas—so there’s a “hot” end where people can make things quickly (and get overwritten quickly), and a “cool” end where designs take longer to draw but are more permanent.

[Sorry for the double reply]
The "numbers" template style would be considerably more useful if the palette was itself numbered. At least, while using that style.

I've seen a lot of people struggling to find the template. I think that it deserves its own button.

The dark mode is amazing. Seriously, I want it for the next years. I don't think that it needs such a huge button though, when a simple half-black half-white sun icon would do the trick.

On desktop the palette has an awkward shape, as a narrow 32x1 strip that you need to roll back and forth if the window isn't maximised (fairly often, since people were doing other stuff while placing pixels). It would be great if it was a 4x8 somewhere at the right.

A lot of people (incl. myself) were struggling to tell a few colours apart. Mostly dark grey vs. black vs. navy blue and dark chocolate vs. maroon. So it might be sensible to tweak the palette itself for the next years. But overall their hue distribution was really good, in no moment I thought "damn, I need more colours".

Extra editing features:

• Colour picker (from canvas)
• Show symbols/numbers on palette when using that template display style (e.g. label colour 23 so you don't have to count)

Alpha-blending the color you're about to place means it's only a correct preview when the pixel it's over is already that color. A smaller or even circular cursor of the actual color would remain distinct from the canvas while indicating its effect more clearly.

Overloading middle-click as both scroll and color-select, when right-click goes unused, is a weird choice. Especially when empty pixels don't count as white. Early on, I had no idea why my chosen color changed seemingly at random. Later, I had to mindfully select white from the bottom palette, when every other color was picked from nearby.

I personally think the whois pixel function should also show the exact coordinates of the pixel, to make it easier to find the exact spot for templates.

Unless I missed something, the only way of doing it now was using the coordinates in the bottom left and then working from there.

That’s just a minor gripe anyway, the whole thing was great, thanks for organizing it!

Maybe replace Googles Captcha with an alternative like hCaptcha.

The chat function was quite cumbersome in my experience (as someone without a matrix account); it was pretty slow to load as well.

Maybe such thing could be integrated into Lemmy itself somewhere in the future?

First: Ta k you so much to grant and everyone else who made this project possible. I had a lot of fun, i think the problems made it even more sympathic.

One suggestion: maybe after expansion, the final canvas could be a 16:9 Format. This way its easier to find a frame for those who want to print it out. But maybe 2:1 like the actual canvas is fine too.

Im looking forward for next year :)

Not suggesting any big things here... All I propose is to have the options for toggling the canvas overlays (empty canvas, heat, template) directly within the canvas editing screen instead of putting it in the sidebar, kinda like Google Maps. I think the sidebar version would be preferred in mobiles, so you could make this desktop only.

Alternatively, you could allow the user to place pixels on the canvas even while the sidebar is opened, like the way it was for the first 48 hours of the event. Also ensure the right side of the color palette is not hidden by the sidebar.

A really small canvas with a short time sounds cool

Okay wild idea for a smaller canvas :

Have the canvas fade out to white a little every hour.

Eventually old pixels would die and people would either have to maintain or draw new stuff. It would make the timelapse more interesting and more animated by default.

If alts are really discouraged, please take steps to actually prevent them.

I would like a shorter timer for small instance. So bigger communities have a longer timer and small a shorter one. But i affraid it wont help at all.

Protected area as in minetest. It would help against grief.

Also for new account with 0 coms, just created during this canva event : restriction, second layer for drawing before approval...something like that ?

Suggestions:

• When getting rid of bots, undo their changes.
• Assign the pixel timer based also on IP, not just account. That should discourage people who used multiple accounts just to have more pixels.
• Don't let freshly created accounts to place pixels. They compound with both issues above.

Is there a history of the changes stored? I'd love to watch an accelerated animation of the creation process.

I did not find a way to simply "view the entire canvas & download a snapshot," which would be nice.