Yes, that's right, LMAT doesn't work. As much as you want to say otherwise, you know it's the truth. I really wish it would, but it doesn't. And here's why:

1. Disreperencies

People often do not understand the rules of LMAT. For example, take this dialogue from LMAT February:

Originally Posted by LMAT February, posts 441-442

However, it is common knowledge that one may remove his own tiles if he wishes, if not stated in the rules. Some people (like Jerry) follow the word of the law, while others (like Cooba) follow the spirit of the law.

2. Disagreeing

While I understand that it is hard to get 20 or so people to agree on a general theme, it must be done a lot more swiftly, lest the team wastes more time. People often disagree on things such as the presence of horizontal rain (which sparked the dialogue above), the color or texture of ground tiles, sign designs, or even the name.

3. Lack of effort/caring

Quite a few tiles submitted by certain people are obviously shoddily done, showing the prowess of 5 minutes in MSPaint. Furthermore, these people are upsetted when others do not like work of this quality in the tilesets. Sometimes, mini-projects are taken in order to salvage the tiles, however most of the time they are removed by group consensus. The main problem with this method, however, is the lack of speed for it to be effective. Which brings me to number 4:

4. Lack of time/motivation

While this has been stated before by many people, a major problem with LMAT is the lack of time a group has to create a tileset. However, this is not exactly a fault of Violet's design, however, because people can be motivated to design an entire polished tileset in a few days (see LMAT Valentine's Day). Rather, this is a problem with the team taking up too much time to create a tileset. Instead of more time to snooze in bed, the LMAT crew needs a cup of coffee to motivate them to get the tileset done.

While there may be other, smaller problems with LMAT, these four are the major ones we need to take care of. My suggestions to help improve LMAT include:

• Include a new rule: "The LMAT leader has the right to add, remove, or otherwise modify any rules, with notice"
• Be more clear with the rules. Try making it easier to read. That way, people might be more inclined to read the rules. Doing something as simple as proving a few spaces between lines may make the difference to a good amount of people (I know it does for me).
• Encourage effort and reward it, and remove all artwork below a certain level of quality. Quality doesn't necessarily mean a 5-minute drawing in PSP. A good drawing can even come out of MSPaint.
• Decide on a theme in the first post of LMAT. This is probably one of the main factors in making LMAT Valentine's Day so speedy.
• Reward the LMAT crew for achieving small goals, such as "create a textured background by 15th April" or "create a full ground tile set by 10th April."

LMAT has the potential to be great, we just need to be able to squeeze this potential out.

The last month-long LMAT which had a theme beforehand was September, and we all know that turned out to become so bad no one even finished it.
Coming up with a theme as we go along at the most takes up the first week of LMAT, and allows more creativity in tiles.

Otherwise, I agree with you.

The definite theme should probably not be decided by a single person... lots of creative minds around here would be wasted. In the past, there was usually something that looked like a general direction, then people started randomly adding stuff... maybe we could all make suggestions or even a poll beforehand.

I like Fawriel's idea a lot. We should do that from now on.

Originally Posted by Odin

Include a new rule: "The LMAT leader has the right to add, remove, or otherwise modify any rules, with notice"

The LMAT... leader? The person who posts the thread never had got any special privileges over the tileset's direction, and giving them to said person would just annoy people.

Originally Posted by Odin

Be more clear with the rules. Try making it easier to read. That way, people might be more inclined to read the rules. Doing something as simple as proving a few spaces between lines may make the difference to a good amount of people (I know it does for me).

Alright.

Originally Posted by Odin

Encourage effort and reward it, and remove all artwork below a certain level of quality. Quality doesn't necessarily mean a 5-minute drawing in PSP. A good drawing can even come out of MSPaint.

That I agree with. If one wants his/her tiles in, he/she could at least make them look good before adding, however they decide to do it.

Originally Posted by Odin

Decide on a theme in the first post of LMAT. This is probably one of the main factors in making LMAT Valentine's Day so speedy.

Meh. Myself I don't think that deciding on a theme in the first post had any impact over Valentine Day's progress, but whatever.

Originally Posted by Odin

Reward the LMAT crew for achieving small goals, such as "create a textured background by 15th April" or "create a full ground tile set by 10th April."

Explain "reward".

Originally Posted by Fawriel

The definite theme should probably not be decided by a single person... lots of creative minds around here would be wasted.

"decided"? If one such creative mind finds him/herself wasted, why doesn't he/she change the theme around?

Originally Posted by Fawriel

In the past, there was usually something that looked like a general direction, then people started randomly adding stuff

...and if I'm not much mistaken that's also how February worked.

Originally Posted by Cooba

"decided"? If one such creative mind finds him/herself wasted, why doesn't he/she change the theme around?

....what?

Originally Posted by Cooba

...and if I'm not much mistaken that's also how February worked.

...yes, that's what I said.

Originally Posted by Fawriel

....what?

Let me reword what I had in mind. There's no such thing as one person deciding on a theme. Say someone edits a lot of the LMAT in progress and a creative mind doesn't like what the first person did. However, nothing stops the second person from editing the LMAT as much as the first person did and thus said creative minds aren't wasted because they still can change the theme to be what they want it to be.

Originally Posted by Fawriel

...yes, that's what I said.

So you actually dislike the way all the LMATs have been done?

Originally Posted by Cooba

Let me reword what I had in mind. There's no such thing as one person deciding on a theme. Say someone edits a lot of the LMAT in progress and a creative mind doesn't like what the first person did. However, nothing stops the second person from editing the LMAT as much as the first person did and thus said creative minds aren't wasted because they still can change the theme to be what they want it to be.

Well, that was in response to what Odin indirectly said about the theme; that the topic's poster should decide on one.

Originally Posted by Cooba

So you actually dislike the way all the LMATs have been done?

Not really. Could be improved, though.

I think the main factor contributing to Valentine's speed was the fact that it had an extremely low standard of graphic quality, so tiles didn't take much time to work on and weren't intimidating at all.