What if Tapas had a mentor program?

[UbePie]

Why not have the list in the forums? I am on one hobby forum where they had penpal program. Anyone who wants to makes a post about themselves and if someone is interested in being their penpal they PM them privately. However it is the responsibility of the orginal poster to update their post.

That way mentors pick from a pool of people that want a mentor and they have basic info. In that way the mentor doesn't have to put themselve out there and they can choose privately who they want to work with.

[joe_galindez]

I don't know what a human swarm is but I like the sound of it.

It used to be that a large group needed leaders because it couldn't vote on things fast enough or easily enough. But with a simple web interface, it can now make decisions for itself, and in real time too. And that's not all:

To test the value of human swarms, researchers at Unanimous A.I. enlisted groups of novice users and asked them perform a number verifiable intellectual tasks. For example, these groups were asked to make predictions about the winners of the NFL playoffs, the Golden Globes, the Super Bowl, the 2015 Oscars, the Stanley Cup, the NBA finals, and most recently the Women’s World Cup. In all cases, the predictions made by swarms were more accurate than the predictions made by the individuals who comprised the swarms. In fact, the swarms consistently performed better than even the most skilled individuals in each group. The swarm also exceeded the tally of “votes” given by the groups, trumping the traditional methods of characterizing populations. In short, initial testing suggests that human swarms do more than reveal the “wisdom of the crowd” – they can unlock the collective intelligence of populations.

A swarm consistently outperforms its best members. A swarm made up of regular people will even outperform the average expert:

We took 50 regular movie fans, just average people, and we had them first predict as individuals who they thought would win each of the categories, and then we had those same 50 people work together as a swarm to predict the same set of Oscars.

And what was remarkable is that individuals were on average 44 percent accurate, which doesn’t sound great, but it’s actually really hard to predict the Oscars, there’s a lot of categories. But when those same 50 people worked together as a swarm they jumped all the way up to 76 percent accurate, which was almost double the accuracy when they were working together as a system. And what’s even more interesting is that we can also look at professional movie critics, because all that data exists. The average professional movie critic was 64% accurate. So what we saw is that these 50 average people were able to amplify their intelligence to the high end of expert level performance.

Here's what I propose:

1. Get a mixed group of artists to agree to work together.

2. They either poll their subscribers or involve them in the swarm in order to decide what they'll be collaborating on.

3. The artists move to a smaller swarm to hammer out the outline and plot.

4. Next they write the novel or script using a wiki.

5. If this is a comic, the artwork takes shape through a similar approach. Start with several sketches, vote to keep a few, and work on the survivors until it's time to vote again.

6. Each artist takes turns posting chapters under their own names. This creates a roving audience that will boost everyone's subscriber count.

[punkarsenic]

so, at first, i couldnt see that working on the basis of it being... such a big thing. but now it sounds kind of cool? i think you should split this off into another idea, man, it deserves its own discussion!

[kip]

Honeslty this sounds more like a collabortiaon, which is fine? But I think the idea of a mentor program is to help improve artists in a one-on-one environment, I feel like a program like that could be a bit defeating to the trainees and seems to have more of a “product” goal than an “improvement” one.

[joe_galindez]

I feel like a program like that could be a bit defeating to the trainees and seems to have more of a “product” goal than an “improvement” one.

Possibly. But actual experience is a big part of learning how to do something. A collaboration probably won't replace the master-and-apprentice arrangement but it just might be an improvement over the traditional writer's workshop.

• Editing someone else's work is a fantastic skill-building exercise. You can't see the mistakes in your writing until you learn to recognize them in other people's.

• Workshops are competitive, at least in my experience. Everyone is busy building themselves up and tearing everyone else down. People are much more cooperative with collaborations.

• Workshops only give you enough time to write short stories. The experience is useful, but it doesn't prepare you for the ordeal of writing a novel. On the other hand, a workshop group is sure to produce a book if everyone works together. If a student wishes it, they can continue collaborating in smaller and smaller groups until they're finally writing by themselves. Call it the "training wheels" approach to becoming an author.

[kip]

I understand where you’re coming from, but I think you misunderstood the mentor program’s idea!
The “result” isn’t a product, or at least, it doesn’t have to be. It’s also one-on-one, so there’s no “tearing down” other people.
It’s simply assigning a personal tutor to an artist (or possibly writer) to allow them to learn from the other’s work process and receive personalized professional(ish?) critique, and improve as-they-go.
The swap project sounds like a good way to get people to practice and produce more content, which I agree is very much a big part of the improving process, but both projects touch on very different areas in the studying process.
I think your idea can be great, but probably should be seperate to the mentor program!

[joe_galindez]

I think your idea can be great, but probably should be seperate to the mentor program!

Like I said, the collaboration is better-suited as an alternative to the traditional workshop format. It's also got a promotional aspect, so it really does occupy a different niche.

[somuchcheeseomg]

Love this idea! I hope it comes into full fruition!

[ZatchZ]

The problem with that is that a lot of the popular creators don't find themselves very skillful in art, so most likely they'll turn down the offer. That and, a lot of the popular creators here also host their comics on Webtoons.

[punkarsenic]

don't find themselves very skillful in art

i dont know how important that would be? a popular creator is skilled, one way or another, in being popular, and has experience they can pass on, be that in art or in dealing with fans and self promotion, or even if its just reading along with the comic and tweeting about it sometimes (although ig that dont require a formal mentorship setup lol). im not sure what the problem with creators hosting on webtoons would be though?

[ZatchZ]

I've met a lot of skilled artists that whom I've asked for a mentorship, but the most common response I've received was that they weren't skilled enough or not qualified to teach.

[punkarsenic]

hmm.. that makes sense, as a response, but i think if the mentorship program made clear what was expected on both ends, that wouldnt be as much of a holdup

[munazatoon]

good idea, sometimes i think i need some mentoring, Not by one mentor, but from a lot of mentors!

maybe it need some classification on mentoring, like one guy handle mentoring in lining art, and other guy teaching about how to create story and flow, etc

[Wolven_Sister]

I'm actually gearing up to teach some classes in my area for people who want to learn how to make comics. I'd be totally down to apply to be a mentor if Tapas takes a liking to this idea, if not for pay then at least for more teaching experience to help those who want to teach improve.