[Citizen Cow]

I think Lunatiques inquiry was more pointing towards the "OLD" call for Moderators that most thought fell to the wayside due to Dhabihs other commitments.
Now, being aware that Freddio or Sumaleth could have carried it out and it never happened seems odd.

Moderators do not have so much to do with telling people not to be an ass but more the general running of the forum.

On Poo we are involved in the contests, the weekly activities, and all sorts of things. On occasion we may need to step in and tell someone to be nice but that is actually rare. ( especially on poo... )

Admins can change titles, Avatars, and carry out the all important BANNING. Mods are more the Janitors of the forum. Moving threads to the correct forums, deleting offending posts, editing the goofy IMG tags noobs have such a hard time figuring out and answering the various PMS concerning forum members questions.


Not that Suma and Freddio arent doing these well...
But Matthew is right, the thread is about the speed of the forum.. but I believe the future as well....

[oDD]

i supect that Sumaleth thinks that apart from the slowdown sijun looks and works as it supossed to, he don't want no changes. I'm not saying its wrong nor right. But it looks to my like people like Lunatique are saying "Suma, you got power, change what should be changed" and sumaleth is saying "weve changed what we wanted to, every think is fine now".

Or maybe he wants to do something but not without Dhabhi.

I know one for sure this forum is like a grown man in babys clothes (i hope that makes sense ) The number of members is near 10000 yet there are two moderators , its so slow people are tired of comming here and waiting for the site to open, yadda yadda everybody knows what im talking about.

I would really like this forum to expand. And sombody please take off that outdated annoucement from the top of the forum.

ps. i hope i disnt sound like an asshole. Sumaleth is doing a GREAT job. And i'm so happy that Dhabih althou bussy with his work still is trying to change something. I just love this place and i can see that loving it becomes pretty hard sometimes.
_________________
portfolio | art blog

[AndyT]

Maybe I'm wrong ... but I think Sumaleth and Freddio were moderators only and are now administrators because of the thread!?
That would make sense.
Maybe the "already" meant that it's one first step???

Ok if this thread is about the future of Sijun as well ... some random thoughts:

I think writing a FAQ was a good idea ... why did that thread die?

And I don't agree with ceenda when he says that people here

[Lunatique]

I guess that's true. Sijun's been pretty much calm ever since conceptart and eatpoo slowly started their rise to prominence. I almost never see any trolls now--except when they get booted out of eatpoo and come here.

I suppose that means sijun is finally at where it should be, except for the speed issue.

[Sumaleth]

You guys must have better luck accessing this site than I do, because it took me about an hour to get this page to load.

Dhabih gave Freddio and myself admin privs a while back so that we could deal with account problems (ie. password resetting).

Those privs dont extend to server administration or anything like that. I did ask Dhabih for server access a while back so that I could upgrade the forum software to phpBB2, but Dhabih decided to take a crack at that himself (and you're using the result), but HL2 soon soon called him back again.

Around the same time I also made a long list of recommendations for the site, and spent time working on the "links" page and a FAQ, but HL2 dragged Dhabih away again before anything except the software upgrade was done.

Dhabih has always hinted that once HL2 is finished that he'd be keen to get back to Sijun, so I guess I've just been trying to keep the site neat and tidy until Valve gives him his life back.

It was me who suggested to him recently that it might be time to close Sijun, and that is why he made this thread - to see what sort of support it still has. And I'm happy to see there's some vocal interest in keeping Sijun alive, although out of 9600+ members it is a vocal minority.

Sijun is a vague shadow of the site it once was. With the exception of Spooge and a couple of other members, all of the professional art that is posted here has already been posted at the other art forums first, and it usually takes a long time to finally get posted here, if at all.

Everyone says Sijun is a really cool speedpainting thread and spooge. That's not the whole story, of course, but those are why sijun gets so many reads. If you look at the post:read ratio, it's huge. Even before the speed problem kicked in most members were coming here to read, not to post.

Critiquing and feedback has become close to nonexistant too. Considering the high number of reads, you can only assume that people couldn't be bothered any more. Or perhaps it's a measure of the lower average standard of art posted here - it's very difficult to critique the work of someone who is clearly new to art, except to say "keep practicing".

The influx of "newbies" a few years back ultimately lead to almost all the professionals picking up their pencils and moving to eatpoo/conceptart/artbq/cgtalk. One of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations.

But Sijun still has a great little community - of maybe just ~20 regulars now - with a noticably different tone to the other forums.

I think Sijun needs a lot of work to make it really relevant again, but I do get the impression that Dhabih is still keen. I'm sure he'll be enthusiastic to see the positive responce in this thread too.
_________________
Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[merlyns]

I must say that I love sijun, and I really wouldnt like to see it close. I think sijun will get relevant again if dhabih posts and starts involving again. I think dhabih's influence on this community would help.

I wanna say this to, suma freddio are doing a great job.

-david
_________________

[Akolyte]

Please don't turn Sijun off. I've been here awhile, rarely post lately, been kind of slow. The Draw Clubs are interesting. I think more and new activities and just a bit more involvement from some people would change the mood for the better.
_________________
-jm

[Citizen Cow]

[Freddio]

Very well said samuleth
_________________
Design portfolio

[dr . bang]

Very well said Citizen Cow.
_________________
Join Roundeye SECRET art forum shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

[gLitterbug]

I don�t really read this (neither others) forum alot lately, let alone post, but it is the origin of my forum history and art contacts and thats why I still love it.

One of the reasons I don�t browse, reply and critique much in here lately is that I�m kinda busy with getting my life together, not feeling like I�m somebody to teach somebody anything and stuff like that.

I visit these forums quite since it�s birth as far as I remember, registered ages after I found this place, caus only then I felt worthy. It�s still my opinion that is what alot of newer members lack, the deep respect I felt for the forums back the time. I don�t mean that members that are new to art and not quite on a great skill level shouldn�t be allowed to post, but when I see a post of somebody that shows off some shitty, anatomical totally incorrect fanart whatnot, it always itches me to give him a rude reply. Not because he isn�t on a spooge-level, but because he seems to lack something, maybe common-sense, maybe respect. I mean come on, if I look at some posted drawings here, I refuse to believe that the creator itself doesn�t know that it is pure and simple shit-art already. NOBODY gets any use out of that posting at all, people who look get eye-cancer, people that give an honest reply get called flamers and rude and the creator will get his ego kicked(except some �ber-retards that ignore everything anyways).

The sad thing is that writing up a guideline, asking people to post only art when they reached a certain level or when they really want to get honest critique and improve, doesn�t help,but only makes the forum owner look elitist. But not having any "police" doesn�t work too good either as long as it�s about real people (just like in real life, where you surely as hell wouldn�t want to get rid of police or other authority, so people are at least a bit affraid of punishment...) The bottom line is that I have not really a clue on how the content quality on the boards could be kept up by not doing something that will step on somebody�s toes.


One thing I DO know is, just like almost everybody mentioned already, that stuff like the speedpainting thread or the fact that spooge our beloved mentor is around keep people here and are actually worth visiting sijun often.
I�m sure that Dhabih would have lots of stuff he could teach us and I surely as hell would come back more often if he�d contribute. I know he wouldn�t be allowed to reveal tech stuff from valve, but whatever his job there is exactly (no matter if it�s textures, 3d-models, concepts,...), he�d be a great help to alot of us for sure.
I for myself would like to contribute too, but I guess I can�t start with that before I got my life together. Still if there�s anything I could do to improve this place Dhabih, drop an email into my inbox!

On hosting the forums, there are cheap but good hosts out there and I`m certain that each member with a real interest in an improved forum would donate at least a small amount of cash to keep it runnin�!

I hope my rambling made some sense and that Sijun won�t go down the drain, but rise to da top and become da cream of da crop!

[Matthew]

This is what I think:

I know that there have been a lot of thought about having some sort of ignore feature in the forum, that is according to me not a good thing and if something like that comes up it is totally un-necessary to post. I kind of think the same way about reaching a certain level before you can post anything, I mean everybody has to start somewhere and everybody can�t be pro�s in the beginning.
As what I think, and that is what others has told me too and that is that everyone has something to contribute with, even if they are newbies.

Many people has been frustrated with me and my posting and I can see what you meant way back when I posted like a maniac.
One thing that is a big problem in here and that is something I have talked with others about and that is that hardly no-one gives a reply or post in one of the newbies Threads, I mean even if something isn�t at the spooges level you can maybe give some kind of comment if there hasn�t been any replies in that thread and when it almost has reached the bottom.
I got very harsch reply�s in my threads as a beginner but they helped me very much and I think crits and comments is helpful both for newbies and Pro�s. Thou maybe crits given to me was a little bit to hard sometimes, but I had a thick skin before entering the Sijun.

Was everybody Pro�s in Sijun when the whole Forum idea started? I mean Dhabib and the other good artists must also have started somewhere, and if they had avoid to post in the forum back then the whole Forum should have been empty.
Maybe I shouldn�t post just because I hadn�t achieved a certain level of Artistic Nirvana, so I have to wait a few years before I can post a picture?

I think people forget to have fun in the progress, Aren�t we all here to have fun and change some cool ideas, also to inspire eachother.

Citizen Cow has a very good point in his latest post.

See you
Matthew

[gLitterbug]

As I said above, I don�t think people should be allowed to post only when being a pro, hell no, I don�t care for people being a pro or not at all.
BUT there is a difference in somebody posting something when he knows what he�s doing and wants critique to improve (or praise if it�s great already) and someone posting a picture of a half-assed drawn guy where you can see that the creator doesn�t even know the arm consists out of muscles like the biceps and triceps and is not just a blobby mass.

I�m here for "fun" too, but I�m here for the "meet other cool people, get inspired, joke around, give and get critique, learn and improve" kinda fun and not for the "meet retards, look at shitty artworks, argue with idiots, give critique that I get flamed for and which won�t lead to the artists improvement anyways" kinda "fun".

It probably sounds like I�m elitist, bah I�m far from even thinking I�m anywhere near being a pro. I buy and study all anatomy books I can afford, practice and still I don�t come here and show off all my anatomy sketches. You know why? Because it wouldn�t have any benefit and I realize that. I�ll post that stuff once I reach a level I�m satisfied with and not maybe embarass myself .

I don�t believe you can get constructive critique on every level of skill, except things like "practice anatomy" or "start to understand value before you use color too". You have to learn how to hold the pencil before you draw with it. - I think it�s similar up to a certain level of skill, and NO I don�t talk about spooge skill, I talk about the VERY basics caus that is what I�m talking about all the time when I use terms like shitty.

An ignore feature would not be wise imho. I want to be in a community consisting out of people I like, respect and have a good time with. Having to put half the people on the ignore list caus you can�t enjoy your stay otherwise wouldn�t be what I�m after. I hang around in a certain irc channel all the time, caus I feel "home", there are great people that make me connect to it each day and have a good time. This forum used to be very similar to the irc-channel feeling wise and I hope I can feel home here again.

Altough this is the internet and alot of people think it�s their anonymous digital playground where they can give shit to people, I�m taking it very serious. There are real people sitting behind computers and just like in real life you can�t get along with everyone, but I don�t believe in giving shit or being annoying to somebody more than in real life just because he can�t kick your butt.
I don�t think people should hide behind their forum anonymity either, so if you think I�m an asshole and feel the need to tell me, fire away! ICQ: 108180837, Aim: rotz81.

[Citizen Cow]

Oh, I dont thinks its THAT Serious. ( Please PM me with your Phone number though so we can yell at eachother like adults )

The following comments are general observations from many years of Forum Trolling.

Noob art ( like mine) is fine to be posted. Sparingly. Noobs get bashed due to the fact that when they draw a blobby armed mess people are kind and tell them they should start with basics and practice anatomy and persepctive. The Noob then goes and draws 10 more peices without ever really stopping and studying anatomy or persepctive. Sheer Volume does not create talent.
After 3 or 4 posts of a noob not taking advice and not showing that they are practicing and strengthening their weak points people get pissed. Pros and noobs alike. Its as if they have wasted their time and their crits fell on deaf ears. SO why continue?
The next noob comes in posts his DBZ fan art and people just dont want to waste their breath giving an obvious Crit of PRACTICE ANATMOY, PRACTICE PERSEPCTIVE again.

No one expects a Forum member to be a pro when they join. But many that join are already pros. being on a forum does not make you a pro and posting 1,000 times does not make you a pro. Practice does. And believe it or not - not all TRAIL AND ERROR and Practice pieces need to be posted. Until you have acheived a certain style/ level thats exaclty what your work is . Practice.
If you feel you have made a breakthrough and finally get "HANDS" or finally get "EYES" then post your progress. Understand not EVERY piece is progress.

[gLitterbug]

Well put Citizen Cow. Thats kinda what I meant.

[saturnfive]

This place is fantastic with a nice helpful atmosphere that welcomes pros and novices alike: every time I visit, I get inspired or pic up something useful. It must stay open!
_________________
Saturnfive Design

[Ragnarok]

I love this place and if I can do something to keep it open, I'd gladly do so.

About the posts and that sort of things... I myself contribute mostly on the random musings area, because my skills are not at the level I consider good enough to post. Why? Because I know which are my weak points and I have to get time to work on them. And until I don't feel my level is good enough, I'll refrain from regular posting.

(I've actually posted a couple pictures in my time here, but usually with a time lapse of 6 months inbetween them)

Also, I like the new draw club. Well, I like the fact that it's being constant this time

About new features... I suggest we give ideas of the things we want to include, if any. I myself would like to see something similar to concept drawing: giving a short description of something and then drawing your ideas about it. It might be interesting, even if it probably is already being done in other forums.

Just my two cents...
_________________
"Ever forward, my darling wind." -Master Yuppa
Seigetsu

[Drew]

Since I never post any artwork, I used to try to contribute by critiquing newbs. What I noticed was that I would tell someone to practice the basics and tell them what the basics were, and over the next few days they would post every line they drew looking for crits. Also, I'm baffled by newbs who post right under such a thread with newb artwork of similar poor quality, and I'm forced to tell them the exact same thing.

At Poo, we've taken to telling such newcomers to "come back in a few months" and I think that's the same attitude that folks around here need to have. Crits are somewhat less than useful when you can honestly tell the person that they need to work on everything. It's not a matter of elitism, it's a matter of us keeping our sanity and being able to help the ones that care enough to study on their own for a couple of months.

If we raise the bar for what we expect from newbs, we'll get serious newbs posting serious efforts which we'll be able to seriously critique.

[Freddio]

Well, I personally think anyone should feel free to post any art on these boards.

If we start trying to doctor the posting trends of the forum we could end up with something like Lumental.

If you dont want to look at the noob art, then don't look at it
_________________
Design portfolio

[Svanur]

[fellipe]

there is no life without the spooge. move him before you kill the forum

edit: wow i joined on nov 2001... and, 40 posts?! ok i dont post here too much, but i visit every now and then. i love the speed paitings and themed threads, mainly because everyone good post there.
_________________
>>

[Drew]

[AndyT]

You are right Drew ... but many newbs seem to think their stuff is cool.
Many come from other boards where everything is great and intriguing.
They need to hear an honest opinion first.
And as long as there is no announcement or faq that newbs should read nobody can complain.
Everybody is allowed to post anything until it's stated otherwise IMO.
_________________
http://www.conceptworld.org

[Drew]

Look, this can go two ways. Either the WIP section will be mostly a bunch of newbs who can barely draw posting frequently and not getting any help (as it is now), or it can be serious beginning artists posting their hard work and getting good critiques. I would much prefer the latter, and I don't see how it would work any other way.

"Practice life drawing, perspective, read up on color theory, draw for an hour a day, and get back to us in 2-3 months with a piece that took you an hour or more". This critique applies to 90% of WIP right now. I don't even have to look at the art there to know it's true, because it's been that way for months. This is exactly what I'm proposing telling newbs who aren't yet at a level where we can help them with critiques.

Not to go away, or stop trying, but just to practice a bit before they post to a boards with nearly 10000 art enthusiasts all over the world.

[Matthew]

I just hope that Dhabib won�t leave this thread too.

Matthew

[wirewolf]

GFXartist.com would be more than happy to host sijun.com. I believe Arno has already send him an email. Hopefully he will accept. We have a great server and are looking into possibly getting an even faster one in the not too far off future. Besides the server we have an excellent connect. Just take a look at how fast the site is... normally... it cranks. ;]

Anyways... I would hate to see these forums die so I hope he accepts our offer... or anyone elses... so long as these forums stay alive.

Colby
Server Manager
GFXartist.com

[Citizen Cow]

SOLD!

[Gort]

HOLY KASHIZNIT!

[Andromeda]

whatever you do Dhab ...

DONT TAKE DOWN THE FORUM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT even for a little while...
ITS PART OF MY LIFE GOD DAMMIT !

Im selfish !! This forum is part of my life as much as it is for others !

I was a lurker when it first started out ! then i joined ! now ive been here three long years ! and i never stop coming back to check at least once a week !!

i tell my friends about what goes on in sijun forums, (even tho they dont know what im talking about)

i tell them about Socar Myles the rat queen, about tom carter changing his name to Gort, about Dr bang about flat, about well.. i gossip about everyone...
i talk about that dart thing in general forums, i talk to them about sijun geographics ..

Me-"hey Lunatique just got married"
them-"who?"
LOL
_________________
�This be my website�

[maxetormer]

Well i have not all that much to say
nvr the less all the discussions are very good and interesting to read.
I am not that new to the forums but untilll realive shorth time i did not though that my work was wothy of beening posted now i think is worthy, so I am posting regulary on the forums plus since i had not the skills, i did not posted recomdations, but now i do.

I think that this is a place to get inspiration like non other place on the web
don�t shout it down PLEASE.

I can�t become a veteran here if u take down the fourms, and i want to become a veteran so dam badly now that i have new skills and a wacom tablet
I have posted 5 commets on the WIP seccion i will do that daily but keep the forum up
_________________
Never underestimate the stupidity of the human race.Sorrow is the contrast of happines then sorrow is some how the esence of happiness + =