Why has GR died? Well who knows, people move on. But you can't blame the flame section, since it has been here even when GR was at it's peak points. The only ones who can answer why GR has died are the ones who left. People come and go, especially forum users. Maybe they went to newer places that fit their preferences better. Well I can't come up with anything positive the flame section has contributed to GR besides activity.. It's really just a place to enjoy the humor that goes on in it. It's just something you love or hate. But I don't see how one little section could be the cause to a vast amount of members leaving. I think the real question is, what can we add to GR to compete with the newer more advanced GFX forums.
You right, the downfall of GR is not soley because of Flame Forum, but I think it was one of the reasons for its downfall. I would love to leave it, as I don't mind it if all emotions and flaming would stay there, but it doesn't. With your question on what other GFX forums are doing that we aren't, they are all the same, there is nothing different between them and GR besides the user base. For that same question, what do you think needs to happen here to GR?
the reason why the site is less active is because the staff tries too hard to make things better. When things are just allowed to flow their course it works best. give anarchy a chance. Seriously. also the barriers to entry are too high for buying thigns. new members won't stay if they can't afford sigs. you can try and force creds to $1 for 200 creds or you could just let them d------ue towards nothing(like they're bound to do eventually) and increase the creds/post so the new guys don't get discouraged. heck inflation could be a very GOOD thing as it would make it so that in order to have any wealth you'd need to be ACTIVE in both the community AND the market place.
I did some quick SUMS. Average number of posts/topic in The Last Word: 40.5 Average number of posts/topic in Sigs: 5.9 Average number of posts/topic in Large Art: 4.5 Yes, GR lives for the flame forum. Remove that and the site will fall even further and die fast. What you need to work on is not removing the flamers, it's adding the people who care about graphics.
This is illogical. The flamers flame in The Last Word only (hypothetically). The graphics artists don't have to go there. Remove the flame forum, the remaining flamers will probably spread out further into the forum.
here's my share: unban all the people that you have banned and send them an E-mail... yes there might be just a few you have to ban short after but there might also be a lot more people that like to come back
Almost every recommendation and defense in here I have brought up before in the staff section guys, most of the staff feels differently.
Want to know why GR is going to/dying? (not that I particularly agree). It's because you all seem so damn desperate to make the site more "Proffessional", to appeal to the well known artists. And it'll never happen, GRs popularity comes solely from the fact that it's the best place for 'Newbs' to actually learn, to expand and get better. Now that part of GR has died as well, well, you can expect the rest of the community to follow. I'm well aware there's been attempts to make this place 'Newb' friendly again but they've been the wrong attempts ; forcing crews to release resource packs? Sure, some people don't mind doing things for the community but forcing people to do it isn't helping anyone. Plus, any decent tutorials that GR used to have were submitted to good-tutorials and pixel2life, this generated masses of traffic via the two sites and it's how GR became the best site for new graphic designers to develop, everyone who came here primarily came here to learn (Why else would they follow from a tutorial?). Competitions are all well and good, but again they eliminate the 'Newbs', people who are new to photoshop are attracted to GR for only 2 reasons ; Tutorials, Renders. Renders are still going strong-ish (not as much as they used to be, but enough) but tutorials is the issue. Without the publicity they used to have the traffic of GR has steadily decreased, and sure, putting tutorials on sites like that attracts a far greater number of new people...but, so what? The site isn't made for proffessionals, heck, it's not really made for anyone who's pushing onto LPs etc. But why's that a bad thing? Why shove this proffessional theme down our throats? All I've seen in News updates is about attracting a more talented crowd to GR, we don't need more. There's a good handful of people on here who are adept further in the field, enough to keep that section all alive and well...so start being the newb site again, start attracting the beginners, the people who come here to learn not the people who come here to flame.
The thing with popular vote is that it largely creates a peronal preference barrier of sorts. A lot of people wnat things implemented so they can take the advantage of it, and most of the things we talk about in staff could be mixed around and thrown around and provided with loopholes, which is something we try not to allow. Some things, when we feel the decision should be up the the public, we give popular vote a say (for instance, the skin). However, on most things, members become far too sneaky and too self-absorbed in getting a specific thing brought on (think: steam accounts). People like to think this isn't a democracy, when it basically is. There isn't a single large decision that isn't pressed through the staff, and the staff are people whom our current staff, and sometimes our active members have an input on. The sectionals and globals are kind of the congress / senate, where as the admins are the presidential candidates / supreme court justice type things. When it comes to a pressing matter that the staff feels they can't handle on their own, or that they should not decide on behalf of the site, then it becomes a national vote. This is comparable to politics such as gay marriage laws, religious laws, etc. things that are of personal choice and not forced by the government.
This. I don't think I could have said it any better myself. That was the huge appeal for me when I first joined. You were all noob friendly. As for all this talk of removing the flame forum. It won't do a damn thing. You might think it will but it will do absolutely nothing except lose some of the funniest and most laidback members we have. The flame forum is the perfect place for people to just actually have fun without fear of the consequences. You mentioned thats what the IRC is for, but honestly the IRC is dead. And you're still being moderated on the IRC. Personally I feel as if the staff wants too much power. And yes the people in the flame forum can be complete dicks and douchebags but if you actually spend some time there you'll find that they're fairly good people too. Yes this is a Graphics Community, but it shouldn't solely be based on graphics. The whole point of a community is to have a diversity and variety of people and topics. The Flame Forum just adds to that.
Very well put Broken There's no reason to make GR into another PR, we don't need professionals here with big egos. So focusing on attracting more beginners is just the best choice, beginners are the ones who will actually engage in renders, tutorials, and posting their work. If we could establish a BSoTW (Beginner Sig of The Week), it would definitely accommodate the crowd we want to attract since they will be able to participate in a competition geared towards their level.
yes, this will indeed be the case when you got a vote system. but it's good to know how you guys handle the things and I think you're doing good, but you might want to consider starting fresh again, I mean unbanning all people that have been banned. What I'm trying to say is: keep the all the members you have and unban the one's that got banned I'm pretty sure they have learned their lessen, and if not you can ban them Again, I am pretty sure there will be a few people coming back (Atleast if you send them an E-mail). The problem is that you guys have banned most of the good artists and most of the people go to A place where they can learn from the "good"artists. I am not saying that there aren't any good artists here but there used to be a lot more of them a few years ago...
Just because they're good artists doesn't give them the right to not follow the rules. They were banned for a reason and if they were perma-banned then it was also for a reason. Let them stay banned. I doubt they were perma-banned so that they could learn a lesson.
