So on some of my latest posts, those being the P-31U SeaDragon, and my Tic-Tac UFO replica, I’ve gotten complaints from moderator EternalDarkness about my posts. On both occasions, he removed said posts, and stated that the reason for removal was for my thumbnail I was using. Now, Eternal has been very kind to me so far, and hasn’t issued any strikes, but at this point I feel like something should be said about thumbnails on posts.

of course, leave it to me to bring up something that’ll probably get me close to permabanned, among other things.

Thumbnail art is cool, it allows a person to get a “preview” of what they’re looking at before they click on it. Now oftentimes, thumbnail art is made to look cool, intriguing, and other things that may be eye catching. That’s the whole point of thumbnail art, to grab the viewers’ attention, and interest them more.

Now obviously, I’m pretty sure almost everyone here has seen the clickbait thumbnails that lots of copy+paste youtubers enjoy doing, because it grabs a viewer’s attention, and it gets them to click on the video, hence the term “clickbait”. Now on a YouTube video, you kinda have to watch through the whole thing to understand what’s happening, and to have enough context to know what’s going on in the video. This can end up being a problem, as if you don’t see what’s in the thumbnail in the video itself, that can be kinda annoying, as you’ve just watched that entire video to see what was on the thumbnail, only to be met with the conclusion that it was never there. Frustrating, right?

However, in my personal opinion, and from my personal experience with some posts, this “clickbait thumbnail” doesn’t really translate to SimplePlanes; you see, when you download an aircraft, you’re immediately met with the entire thing, unlike a YouTube video, where you have to wait to see the whole thing. Instead of gratification over time, it’s instant gratification upon downloading a user’s creation. Because of this, clickbait isn’t exactly as “bad” as it would seem. For example, let’s say someone posted an M1A2 or something, and used a hyper realistic 3D render for the thumbnail, and then when you download it, it’s nothing like you saw. Of course this would be frustrating, but the clickbait is immediately realized upon seeing it in your designer, unlike a YouTube video where you have to wait and see. This means that you can just go right back to the SimplePlanes website, and look for something else that piques your interest.

Another thing to note is if the user creates an art piece for the thumbnail. I, like some other users I’ve seen, am pretty good with traditional and digital art. As you saw with my P-31, I made a little thumbnail art piece that depicts the P-31 underwater, as it would be. Obviously, it’s very easy to tell that it’s not an actual SimplePlanes screenshot, so there’s really no element of trickery in the thumbnail, it isn’t exactly misleading in the same way a clickbait YouTube thumbnail would be, especially if in the description itself, there’s normal images of the creation, that clearly depict what it actually looks like in game. Even if there aren’t any screenshots like these, if there’s normal pics after the thumbnail pic in the secondary and tertiary thumbnails, then the user can clearly see what it looks like in game as well. So this rules out the element of misleading, as even before downloading the creation, you can clearly see what it looks like in game, as long as you take the time to actually look at it, or atleast read the description, instead of just immediately downloading it.

And hey, some of us prefer to have aesthetically pleasing thumbnails, just because they look nice, and they look more professional than just a screenshot of what it looks like in the designer. I know I certainly do.

Now there are some exceptions that can and/or should be made, with things like ridiculously over-edited thumbnails that have too many words on them or images that aren’t related to the post at all, and/or they cover up the actual image of the creation to the point where it’s hard to make out what you’re looking at.

I say, as long as there’s a clear shot of the actual creation that very clearly depicts what it looks like in the game and/or designer, either in the secondary and/or tertiary thumbnail, and/or in the description as well, there shouldn’t be any penalties or rules against thumbnail art or images.

Here! Let me give you some examples:
(I am looking at these from a moderator’s perspective, or atleast someone who doesn’t much care for elaborate thumbnail art as much as I do, as normally I really don’t care what someone else’s thumbnail looks like)
Non-Clickbait Thumbnails:

Here is the thumbnail:

And here’s the actual thing in game:

As you can see, the thumbnail depiction of the aircraft clearly depicts the creation, just like the screenshot does as well.

Here’s a thumbnail:

And here’s the in-game screenshot:

Sure, it has lots of shaders and raytracing to enhance game quality, but the creation is still very easily seen in both images.

Here’s the thumbnail:

And here’s the actual screenshot:

As you can tell, both images clearly depict the aircraft, and there’s no misleading intentions with the thumbnail at all.

Misleading thumbnails:
(I apologize to those who I may call out)

Here’s the thumbnail:

And here’s the actual creation:

Now don’t get me wrong, this thing is really cool, and super fun to drive around, but that digital camo on the thumbnail is misleading, as typically camo like that is very hard to create in SimplePlanes, and it’s very impressive when someone does. And when you click on it only to see that it’s a flat green color, it’s a little underwhelming.

Here’s another example:

And here’s the normal image:

Now this one isn’t really as clickbaity, but the black silhouette of the ship in the thumbnail does kinda make it difficult to tell how much or how little work was put into it. Awesome ship though, very nicely built.

Anyway maybe you kinda see what I mean now.

And let me tell you about my case, cause in regards to my recent thumbnails, it’s not supposed to look misleading, it’s not supposed to be clickbaity, and it’s not supposed to be overly attention grabbing, I just like using cool thumbnails because they look cool, and that’s all. I have absolutely no intention of misleading people or falsely advertising my posts. I’m not that kind of person nor will I turn into that kind of person, I’m not the kind of player who puts huge bold words all over their thumbnail or who puts off-topic anime characters on their thumbnail, I’m simply an artist who likes to share their work in a way that lots of people will see and appreciate it, I never asked for so much negative attention from moderator(s).

Thank you for your time.