To put it simply, not all cases of a given issue are really suitable for explaining it. It varies from topic to topic and issue to issue, but having a really on point example can help me illustrate to the student what the issue is, as well as why and how they might avoid it. As long as the work is organized and clear, the quantity of pages to go through isn't really an issue - although in cases where they are haphazard, half-complete, and otherwise disorganized, that can definitely make things harder.

Doesn't happen often, and when it does, it's memorable - I remember on December 24th 2021, I received a Lesson 5 submission made up of half drawings across some 50 pages... That one was a challenge, and took a solid 3 hours just to explain why it required a full redo.

In most cases however, effective critique benefits from examples that are clear. It's very easy to have examples of an issue that aren't quite as obvious or neatly packaged, and that simply makes the task more difficult.

I completely understand where you're coming from, and how a student may be inclined to view the situation, but I still feel like you're missing a key point here, and it's a difficult one to make without discussing money, and who gets paid what, which is admittedly uncouth.

In your reply you acknowledge everything drawabox has done for you, and I appreciate that - but at the same time you express disdain at the idea of "earning" your feedback. That would make perfect sense in the context of a customer paying for a service - a customer should only be expected to pay for the service they receive, a simple exchange.

But that isn't the case here. Our course is designed such that people who have limited budgets can still receive the same feedback as those with more money to spend - those who can afford to allow credits to expire do so, and those who can't simply spend every credit they receive. It does not cover the full cost of the feedback they receive (by the end of Lesson 5 the total cost of feedback as paid to the TAs is $70 USD, and due to overhead fees we lose about 15% of what the students pay), but that is the nature of the system we've set up and we balance it out in other ways. Our priority is that students, despite financial difficulties, are more able to receive that reliable feedback.

While the large quantity of work associated with our course in general definitely helps make this possible (as it staggers out the homework submissions) just as the strict requirements we impose do, most of the workload throughout this course is still in line with what is beneficial for the student.

The chest challenge is quite different from everything else this course offers, however. It is entirely based on looking specifically at the very unique designs the student produces, and so it is extremely time consuming to critique. Finding those best examples, explaining the concepts in the context of the work, doing draw overs and so forth.

After the TAs get paid, and the processing/overhead fees are taken into consideration, if a student has spent every single credit they received, that leaves about $10 USD left over to cover the time I spend on critiquing everything after Lesson 5. The cylinder challenge, lesson 6, the wheel challenge, lesson 7, the texture challenge, and the chest challenge. Ten dollars to cover what averages to 3 hours of work, the last hour of which is occupied by the chest challenge.

Limiting to just the mandatory parts of the course (1.5hrs worth) we're looking at $6.67/hour. Adding the texture challenge brings us to $5/hour, and adding the treasure chest challenge brings us down to $3.33/hour. Minimum wage where we're based is $11/hour.

Now I absolutely could increase the credit price of the chest challenge, but that doesn't really align with our core principles as a business, which is to reduce the financial barriers necessary to receive reliable feedback, and eliminate them entirely for our learning resources.

The other option is to ensure that those who do decide to pursue the chest challenge are few and far between, which given the fact that it is optional and not actually a part of our core course material, nor directly focused on any of the topics we present as being among the course's goals, seems pretty reasonable to me. And of course, we do that by asking for a ton of work.

Cut the work in half, and the rate of submission increases - and at that point, we'd probably stop offering feedback on it altogether. I'm sure that would be fine for those mainly interested in being able to say they "completed" every part of the course, as the additional assignment would be taken off the table entirely, but it would be a loss for those who genuinely wanted to learn about design.

Besides - I haven't run into any issues with the other students who submitted the challenge. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but they completed it as assigned and I provided their feedback without issue or complaint.

All I ask is that you do the work in the way it was assigned, and that when I am working for below minimum wage for your benefit, upholding my end of the bargain I outlined in Lesson 0, you uphold yours and take all the time that is required of you, regardless of whether you personally feel it is beneficial. I suppose if you really took issue with the assignment but still felt compelled to do the exercise, you could have asked if your modification was acceptable, instead of moving ahead with it of your own volition.

Circling back, you may notice that the examples I chose when providing my feedback were from the first half of the challenge where you were more inclined to prioritize what was asked of you.

I hope my explanation was clear, though if you have any questions on why we operate in this fashion, feel free to ask.