Okay, how sad is it that I mostly seem to use my LJ for these little rants, recently?  I promise to work on that...


But anyway.  I don't know how many of you out there on my f-o'list are icon makers, or icon enthusiasts, like myself.  Perhaps not very many.  But to those who are: Am I the only one sick and tired of this "no animations" rule EVERY icon challenge seems to have these days?  It used to be just stillness communities (and that's fine; I mean, it's sorta the whole point), but now it seems practically every person who runs an icontest has something against animations.  (There are exceptions, but — in my experience so far — they're rather few.)

Where does this hatred come from?  I have a vague idea that it all started — back during the big stillness movement, I mean — because animated icons kept getting all the votes in challenges, and mods thought this was unfair to those who don't know how to do animations.  I'm not even sure that's the real reason... but if it was, this was years ago; this was back when icon animation was new and exciting.  These days, most experienced icon makers— heck, even the amateurs, know how to make an animated gif.  And hardly everyone outright prefers animated icons to still ones.  In fact, it might even be the opposite.

I don't know... all I can say is, every time I see in some icontest community's rules the words "all effects allowed, except animations" I cringe a little.  If you're not a stillness community, this just doesn't make sense to me.  Why single out and ban one specific kind of icon, when that's not even what your challenge is about?  It's not like there aren't plenty of other effects some people might "not know how to do."

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