[seangransee]

Everyone Draw: https://everyonedraw.com

I created a little experiment a few years ago to see what would happen if anyone in the world could draw pixel by pixel on an infinite, shared canvas.

It has attracted a small community of fans who use it to relax and practice their drawing skills. The community has spawned some breathtaking pieces of collaborative art, including a world map[1], a galaxy[2], and a magic forest[3].

There have been a few donations, but not nearly enough to cover all my costs. I'm fine running it at a loss while I have a job. This summer I plan to take some time off from full-time employment to travel the world, at which point I'll try to monetize this project to cover my travel expenses.

[1] https://everyonedraw.com/1/-2564/-759

[2] https://everyonedraw.com/2/9339/-7770

[3] https://everyonedraw.com/1/40117/-40

[nasmorn]

You can sell loot boxes that contain different colors. Also sell finishing coats by the pixel. Once applied and dried (moderation) the underlying pixels can no longer removed.

[greazy]

Please don't do this.

[matheusmoreira]

Sounds like the million dollar web page where you just buy pixels for $1.

[davely]

This is awesome! I love these sorts of creative community projects. Have you had to deal with trolls at all and how have you managed that?

[seangransee]

Oh, absolutely. The initial launch was a disaster because I had no way of dealing with trolls. I've learned a lot since then, and built a bunch of tools that moderators can use to clean up the damage caused by trolls.

[benstrumental]

Can you share more about what you learned about moderation?

[seangransee]

I learned how crucial moderation is for a community site like this. I originally hoped that the "good" users would overpower the trolls and create a self-sustaining community without any deliberate moderation. I was very wrong. I knew there were some people on the internet who like drawing penises and swastikas, but I totally underestimated the volume of these people.

I also learned the importance of bringing on additional help. I naively thought I could do everything myself (and I still like flying solo on the development side), but bringing on a volunteer to help moderate the site and manage the community has been incredibly helpful.

[efreak]

I played around with this for a while, and then realized it polluted my browser history with hundreds of entries. Please don't save a new history state every time the canvas moves. It would be easy enough to get rid of on desktop, but I'm not on desktop; the only way to remove these is to select them all individually and delete.

[winrid]

I built something similar for Android called Pixmap, which is a live collaborative drawing app. It was one of my first side projects! It's still online, only costs me like $25/mo to run, so...

You can also create private rooms etc.

There is also a competitive drawing aspect where you're shown an image and have to redraw it, and a matchmaking system with ranking...

[maphew]

Are these examples just different locations on the same canvas?

[Thorentis]

Isn't this a copy of Reddit's April fools /r/pixel game?

[ricardobeat]

r/pixel was like the 7th iteration of this idea on the web.

[zerd]

The oldest one I can remember is million dollar homepage.

[yamazakiwi]

which is a copy of a copy, what's old is new

[actinium226]

How do you deal with graffiti?

[seangransee]

Graffiti is part of the fun!

[insane_dreamer]

Love it!