Suggestions/"Room for improvement"-Thread

[Hirazi Blue]

Considering this forum is still in a "beta" stage, I've opened this thread especially for everyone to post ideas/suggestions
on how to improve this forum...

So, while nothing suggested here, will necessarily come true, feel free to post your ideas here... ;)

[dagor]

This forum should have something unique and different then other.
It`s not good if here will be just copy/paste news and shaders from other forums.
Some time ago forums was cool idea cause there was some experienced and profecient people who gave advice on forums. Some time ago we had no digital tutorials and other tutorials so we had no choise and we used forums to find answers and solve our troubles. I see total degradation on xsibase, cgtalk.com, cgtalk.ru, softimage.ru and some other 3d forums. There is no good news good ideas and all movie image and other info i could find in www without forums. As an admin of softimage.ru i tried to change situation but i don`t think it`s possible. We made some minichallenges, we stoped oftopics and holywars and there is still nothing cool. THere are just some old friends. We know each other there for few years and we just talk about how it`s doing and how it`s going but there is realy nothing interesting about xsi. We also copy / paste news from other resources.

I still don`t know what is the main advantage of this forum? What we trying to do here?
As for me i`m interesting in this forum cause i saw here some realy nice artist and i`d like to know more about them.
But in all of other things this forum is very same as other. I realy belive we should find something unique but its realy hard.

Sorry for my tone I just tired caouse of internets and i overloaded by informatin i get from www )))
May be i just need some rest from CG and computers )) Some bbq with vodka and old friends ))

My suggestion is just keep it as simple as possible. Start reqular interview with top world artist and companies who use xsi. Find time to make some unique tutorial. Ask experienced and profecieng artst to join on this community and be different and very proficient.

[owei]

..well, as this forum is BETA, as you can read above and there are just 25 users registered, you can´t expect any miracles by now concernig content...it´s online since 3 days..!! And it´s not been promoted yet except on the german xsiforum...

..personally I don´t need something special. Just a place where professionals can go to share their thoughts INDEPENDTLY and specific on softimage...
...the old SI|community was a good place to go. This one does not exist anymore and was replaced by something "insufficient", in my eyes.
Perhaps this one here can take place for it. That´s my main reason why to make this hole lot of work.
People mostly complain about certain situations without getting their "asses of the chair", if you know what I mean ;) . Though, don´t expect to much from my motivation...

..who feels motivated, feel free to take part in the development of this site, also concerning the content...

...thanks for your input..!

my 2 cents

[Deracus]

I´m completely with Owei considering the "new" Area place as ugly and insufficient compared to what was there allready.
Also i´m not thinking, that the old glamour of XSIBase will ever shine up again...i´m thinking that it will go more the other way...so to say...die by starvation and age...

But i can also understand dagor in that he want´s more than "just" a board to talk with people...

The intentions of users have changed in the last years....video-tutorials were on a massive rise, which lead to a new "basic skill level" for new artists making forums kind of "unnecessary" for them in the first place...later most of them join them anyway, because they see the benefits of meeting other, more skilled artists and getting help with rather specific problems, that are not covered by tutorials.
So the forum should offer some other benefit to "catch the interest" and get the people talking...

If you look through the landscape of forums, the most successful forums are the ones, that understand themselves more as a portal than a board...
I think some kind of "portal" would be a very cool thing to have for the future...
It should not be something, that we put all our energy in, in the beginning...there are other areas for sure, that need that attention more in the beginning...
But there should be plans for "whats next" considering offering interviews with skilled artists, writing tests or articles about new software or tutorials...all of what you would expect to be of interest for a 3D-Community that uses Softimage...

That doesn´t have to put a bigger workload on the initiators of this board...as this could be activities, that are given to members of the community, that would offer their help...kind of "open source portal community"...

So one could use, what the community has to offer...if there are very skilled artists with cool projects in here anyway...why not take the opportunity to ask them for some more details on a specific project or some interview about their way to where they are now...

As is mentioned before....this is all highly theoretic and nothing that has to be realized...just want to give my 2 cents to this discussion...

[Hirazi Blue]

If you look through the landscape of forums, the most successful forums are the ones, that understand themselves more as a portal than a board...
I think some kind of "portal" would be a very cool thing to have for the future...

While I mostly agree with what you're saying, I personally think, the most successful communities (subtle wordplay!!! ) thrive on being exactly that: a community. Everybody should take an active part in helping this community evolve into something that sustains itself...

And I do not necessarily agree with your view on "portals". I could name some portals that definitively show, that this only really works, if and when you are ready to truly and very actively maintain this. Maintaining such a portal, however, could turn out to be a lot of work...
So yeah, maybe in the future...

[Deracus]

There is one thing that i encountered...there seems to be a problem with the "reading recognition" of the board...means that there are some "light bulbs" infront of the forums, that are bright for me allthough a click on the "View new Posts" in the top right shows, that there are no new ones...

Same counts for some posts...would be cool to have something like "mark everything as read" to

Also it would be cool to have some bigger buttons for "go to the first unread post"...to sedate some of the subforums that the users is not interested in but also dont want them to stay "bright and flashing forever"

[owei]

...thanks for your input..! There is a text button "mark forums read" on the right side of the first row of the board index...

...and yes...this button is to tiny right now...I´ll keep that in mind..!

cheers,
oliver

[Hirazi Blue]

A very minor feature request (I have no idea, however, if it is hard to implement or not ):
our friends at CGTalk send out email notifications already containing the "name" of the person who replied.
I find this very convenient, but obviously it is not a necessity... ;)

[owei]

I´ll check this.. ;)

EDIT: seems to be that I have to dig into variables...haven´t found the correct one by now..

EDIT II: ok...found out, hope so..I have to edit some scripts...I´ll put on the to do list ;)

[owei]

Hi guys..!

There have been some complains about the board index. Some people think, that the list shown here at first sight, seems to be overwelming to new user, because there are too many entrys in it...

Tell me please, what you think about that issue...!

It can easily be folded in into the upper classification, such as general, softimage and so on...so let me know...!

best regards,
oliver

[Deracus]

hmm...difficult. Yes...there are quite a lot forums...but on the other hand, i´m also not very sure about which one to cut off...

[owei]

..I didn´t want to cut anything off, perhaps just only show the categories...just a thought..though most people seem to be ok with this list ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Well, if you really want/need to simplify the index page, IMHO you might try the following:
1) merge the two forums that exist under the header "rules" ("rules" & "read me first")
2) make all the download-forums a subforum of a new "download"-forum and only show that
3) move the "upload instructions" to the new "download"-forum and make it a "sticky" there...
;)

[Hirazi Blue]

A probably strange request: would it be possible to add a forum under Showroom that's dedicated to works of a less-professional nature? What I mean by this is, that I (for one) wouldn't dare to post my meager attempts at personal projects between all of the brilliant professional stuff some of you come up with, if this automatically means having to be measured and criticed by the high standards professionals obviously and rightfully strive for... A forum where hobbyists like me could show their "work" (and I use that term lightly!!! ), without having to fear the full wrath of professional critique, would help, as those commenting in such a forum would/should know to "be gentle". Okay, this turned out more of a rant than a feature suggestion, but I hope you still get, what I mean...
;)

[Deracus]

Contra!

A splitting serves no one, as it would then be up to the user to decide, whether his work is "pro" or "noob"...and also would it make everyone even more afraid of posting stuff into the "pro"-section, as there would always be the sword of Damocles, that others would blame you for posting stuff, that isnt as good as you thought in the wrong section...so again:

i am against this kind of seperation. Everyone should post in the one and only showroom, no matter how "top-notch" his work is or not...
This community should serve as a pool of opinions and critics, that aids everyone who takes part in evolving his work. So it shouldnt matter which level of quality is shown...as long as it is shown

[danko]

Contra!

A splitting serves no one, as it would then be up to the user to decide, whether his work is "pro" or "noob"...and also would it make everyone even more afraid of posting stuff into the "pro"-section, as there would always be the sword of Damocles, that others would blame you for posting stuff, that isnt as good as you thought in the wrong section...so again:

i am against this kind of seperation. Everyone should post in the one and only showroom, no matter how "top-notch" his work is or not...
This community should serve as a pool of opinions and critics, that aids everyone who takes part in evolving his work. So it shouldnt matter which level of quality is shown...as long as it is shown

I agree with this, even to aovid situations seen in other forums where reigns some sort of "everything is always commented as being good", critics are what effectively makes your skill evolve