I just held an emergency discussion in the Discord channel regarding what to do with art (pic) rounds. A summary:

— Some people want fewer pic rounds, don't like having to use pics as prompts
— Some people want more pic rounds
— Having more frequent pic rounds will help create a community of regular pic entrants
— Possible to experiment with different pic round formats
⸺ Concurrent pic rounds, where the fics and pics are independent but to the same prompt
⸺ fic -> pic rounds, where pics are drawn to fics
⸻ Problem: reading fics takes a while, eating into drawing time
⸻ Solution: allot more time for this format

Current plan

— Try out concurrent pic round for next event
— Use the following cycle:
⸺ Minific rounds have concurrent pic rounds
⸺ Short story rounds cycle between concurrent, fic -> pic, and pic -> fic
⸺ This means 1/3 of short story rounds suck for ppl that don't like pic -> fic

Other suggestions

— Make pic -> fic limit the pic prompts to the top 3, or finalist
⸺ This makes it so everyone has the same prompt
⸺ Doesn't really seem to address the main concern ppl have with pic -> fic
— Run totally independent pic events, doing occasional crossover rounds (fic -> pic or pic -> fic)
⸺ Would reduce confusion somewhat
⸺ Possibly makes the two communities too separate
⸺ More work for me

I'm posting a separate thread on this because it's more far-reaching. It'll show up when I get to it (in a few days).

I'm good with this.