[Enayla]

Mm... I thought I'd chip in, though I don't have the time to read through all the posts.

One thing I've noticed about Sijun, is the change of mentality.

Now, I'm not that old here, I've been around for a while though. I was even moderator for a little while =P

When I first joined, even though people were -already- saying Sijun was in a decline then, everyone was so friendly. The critiques that were given were friendly and helpful. The welcomes that newbies, such as myself at the time, received were very warm. The comments were pleasant without sucking up. There wasn't as much 'worshipping' going on as there is now.

Newbies weren't greeted with 'you suck', and critiques weren't offered because they had to be, no matter how rude or... dumb they were. I think it's the attitude that's changed. If the friendly attitude had stuck around, it'd have been different, now. People are angry, irritated, and upset. The newbies are angry because they don't get any replies. The oldies are angry because the good old days are gone. A lot of people are angry at the very small number of loud and obnoxious people that try to very determinedly ruin the mood for the rest. Then there's a group being angry at Dhabih, too. I admit I were, too, at one point, but I can understand why he doesn't want to go here anymore.

People are angry, and unpleasant. I don't think it's the influx of people or the lack of 'elite', I think it's the fact that people get upset and annoyed over tiny little things, and go around bitching about them, thus ruining the mood further.

The well-being of the forums have been put on the shoulders of the few very talented people out there, instead of letting it rest where it belongs. On all people who WANT the forum to be a nice place.

So, be nice.

It's easier that way.

If you want the place to be better than it is, then stop complaining about the bad stuff, and try to improve what's good.

I guess I should shut up, though, since I'm not really a regular anymore =[

[Reid]

quote:

---

Originally posted by eyewoo:
I think I know where you're coming from... but it is that ability to find, to recognise, to know how to embrace the accident and make it work for you that is the essence of discovery. That applies to art, science and act of living. In my humble opinion...

---

That�s an extremely good point because the only way we learn is through our mistakes. I was just trying to point out the people who don�t try, don�t have any basis for their piece of work, and then leave it to other people to sort through the mess and tell them what works.

And I don�t think it was an issue of newbies and pros coexisting, but an issue of crappy posts bringing down the quality of the art, and everyone being forced to sort through new artist�s sketches (who, as discussed earlier, probably aren�t looking for critiques and taking art seriously, but rather attempting to boost an ego).

[zak]

just skimmed throught the thread. i just thought of something. maybe what were missing is some sort of feel for professionality. not saying that the forum should be going all funny and stuck up, what i am thnking is all those post saying "newbie here" "first piece ever" "my crappy little addition" and stuff like that.

i recon if people would do more of an effort, ESPECIALLY WITH THE TITLE wed have a more overall professional feel, hence, the feel goof factor goes up. right now, what we have is im a newbie, so im allowed to be crap. just gimme the comments anyway. i know ive done that in the past, and i regret doing that very much. it is only now that i realise what i actually did, because im getting to know everyone. i thnk this rule should be added aswell.

i still think the waiting period is a good thing. or rather as an alternative, we should set something like the new person, has to produce lets say 5 pieces of his work, to be accepted. im sure if we had a pro' hed have those 5 pieces, otherwise he wouldnt be a pro.

i came here because i loved my art, i still do, and coming here makes me love it even more, because i know that im not the only one. however i feel that most new people dont think that way. lets dish out the facts:

*theyve hardly ever drawn much of everything.

*they come here see all the "cool shit" and say i wanna do that too, so joining this place is gonna make me instantly good.

*they come blurp out their stuff with their titles saying "newbie here" and "my shitty little ____"

that really puts a dent in the forum. they should see this "must produce 5 pics to gain member status" as a chance to practise, and these pieces of work, would probably increase the quality of their work greatly to something worth a crit other than go practice some more. i mean if the person needs to practise , theres no two ways about it, they just have to.

anyway, thats my little addition. no offence anyone, i guilty of these crimes aswell, but im trying to better myself.

-zak

[Jaymo]

quote

Quote:

I guess I should shut up, though, since I'm not really a regular anymore =[

Not being a regular anymore doesn't mean your suggestions count less. And I think you are right. But who am I to say this, I'm not even a reg...well.

I still think this place could use some more moderation, that "be nice" thingee just don't work on a suggest-only level, I'm afraid.

[Sumaleth]

Well we've had the whole range of opinions now, from those who are passionate about keeping the forums as they are to those who are passionate about cutting out anything remotely crap, plus every permiatation between.

And that's great. Since we're only discussing ideas at this point it's good to see what the range of opinions are.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it; thanks to Dhabih for fixing the forum problems!

--

Maybe it's time for a little Sijun forums history? Pull up a chair.

You all know Lumental, right? A digital art forum that only accepts artists of a certain calibre so that even though there'd be fewer posts than somewhere like Sijun -every- post is worth looking at.

That's exactly what the early days of Sijun were like, except it just happened naturally - it wasn't enforced.

Sijun was the first place to bring together a lot of good digital artists to the one place. There were -no other forum- for them to go and it was really only known about by people who were very much into digital art.

Sijun started in September of 1999 and continued to improve for a good 6-8 months or so. This is the period the old-timers keep refering back to as the good old days.

But then as the popularity continued to climb it drew interest from more and more beginners and intermediates. By the second half of 2000 the forum had a little over 1600 users and a lot of the original members were definitely seeing a fall in quality on the forums. No one who joined after ~July 2000 would really understand why people can be so passionate about the time before then but you'll just have to trust me; there was a HUGE and very noticable difference in the forum as membership grew.

Around September/October 2000 Sijun was getting about ~60 new threads (thats threads, not posts) per day (a lot more than it gets now) and it became impossible for many members to keep up. It really was like trying to find a diamond on a dirt road.

There was a lot of talk then about what to do, and pretty much all the same ideas came up then that have come up now. We talked about a FAQ (and it was made but I don't know what happened to it), and we talked about posting rules (never followed though), we talked about the quality of art that should be posted, and we talked about splitting the forum.

Forum? Singular? Yep, back then there was just one forum. There were people passionately against splitting and there were people passionately for more heavy handed changes, but it seemed like a good compromise. So in December 2000 Dhabih decided to split the forum into Discussion/WIP/Gallery, with Random Musings added for the more off-topic stuff.

It did need to be done, and in hindsight it's easy to see a lot of benefits and also some negatives that came from the split.

But it never addressed the main problem with the forum which was the flood of less-than-attractive art to the forum. Most of the people on any sort of "art" forum are there to admire the art - I'm at Sijun for that reason more than anything else - and unattractive art is a major turn off, especially when you -have- to wade through it in order to find the good stuff.

As a result, more and more of the best artists who got this whole ball rolling lost interest or didn't have the time to wade through the forums. Including the guy who started the forum.

This exodus has left behind all the beginners and intermediates (myself included), although we're lucky to have a handful of artists regularly keeping the quality up (Robertson, Enayla etc). But the days of re-paints and indepth feedback has all but gone, partially because the people who were best able to provide that level of critique are no longer regulars but also because most of the work posted here now needs "practice, practice, practice" before serious comments can be worth anything.

But like I said earlier, you -need- to know the history to understand why some people are so upset now. And I've let my own frustrations come out which I didn't intend to do.

And that brings us to current day, which is really just October 2000 revisited but with an extra 5000 members.

No matter what changes might be made to Sijun there is unfortunately no chance of getting back to the "good old days" for so many reasons. Not the least of which is the large number of forums all covering the same field now - this dilutes the quality of a single forum the same way that lots of beginners do.

Personally I'd like to see all the art forums converge back into ONE GOOD FORUM again.

And they all lived happily ever after?

Row.

[mannyp]

Hello,

I'm glad people are still passionate about cleaning this place up. I've been watching the forums for the last couple of years, and although I don't post much, just merely "watching" others is a help.

Perhaps a couple of solutions to a new Sijun would be to put a "New User Registration freeze"... something to stop the flow of an already massive populous. The link for "register" would send the person to a page explaining why there is a freeze. Now, I know this might end up doing more harm but this would be done on a temporary basis -- sort of a filter.

I know it sounds like it would end up creating an elite forum, but it would only be temporary until the stale and inactive accounts were removed and the community was better organized.

The reason why I suggest this is that it would allow one to control the influx of new people (both newbies, intermediates, and pros) and allow the community and new members to "get to know" each other without having a sudden flood of noise and terrirtorial pissings.

You could do halt new registrants for a temporary period, and then re-enstate it on a sort of calendar event (bi-annually, or more) or whenever there seemed to be a population explosion.

Anyway, that's just my input. Ciao!

[iandredd]

I only recently joined sinjun. The main problem seems to me to be that a lot of new people are lacking in common sense . I can easily understand the frustration at the volume of repeatedly asked questions. Already I have seen more than one person instructed to use the forum search. Its a shame they cant figure this out for themselves. I've had a good look at some of the old posts and there is some excellent information there. If people would spend 10 seconds to do a search on something I think a lot of pointless new threads could be avoided. What this comes down to is impatience and laziness. This is evident in some peoples posts who don't even bother to use full stops. People just need to take a little bit more time and think before they post. There have been many good points about enforcing this and I tend to agree with most of them. I think we should embrace diversity but its obvious if a 12 year old has taken 15 minutes to draw an outline of a wizard and I'm pretty sure that type of work is not what this forum is intended for. Unfortunately it seems a predominant attitude that people want something without working for it.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: iandredd ]

[zak]

whooohooo, thanks sumaleth for tellin me about this lumental place. who gives a damn if i cant register, im off to lurking there ^__^

[f3rdz]

I put my vote on anything that will make this place better again.

Nice to hear former moderator (Enayla again. Not to mention some other oldies. Who knows when this place gets better, we'll even get a single liner from Dhabih himself.

[Fate]

Well the forum is back up and all, hope it's not too late to give my two cents to this...

It has been a few years since I joined this forum and I was lucky enough to see many talented people showing their works here and like everyone else I feel that lately the forum has been filled with too many newbies with their lousy works, and from what I observe they tend to generate negative atmosphere because simply....they suck, and people like to flame them, and you know the rest right.

I am a total newb, I'm one of the younger members in this forum and I don't post here much at all, in fact, I've probably posted about two pics during my two years of lurking in Sijun. THAT is because I didn't have anything worth taking up the forum's space for and the ones that I posted are the ones that I put alot of time and effort into so that it could atleast come close to the standards of other more talented members. Nowadays there are new members who post up their five-minute sketches and I wonder, what could they be possibly looking for? Crits? Positive comments? What more could the forum members offer than to say "practice more"? and they don't need to come here to hear that do they? That's what their school art teachers are for!

I'm not here to whine and complain about newbies, it's just that I think from what I've read almost everyone raised an issue about newbies and that's probably because it's one of the major factors that caused this whole mess. Honestly, if they are not good it's because they lack practice and they shouldn't even bother coming here because it's DIGITAL art forum and most newbies haven't even reached the level to actually 'extend' their skill with digital art anyways so Why even bother? I think the forum needs to be harsher to newbies, and I don't care if I'm banned as well if it's for the sake of this forum

I'm done now

[Dr. Bang]

This thread is useless if Dhabih isn't back

[hedlamb]

i lurked in 99'....didn't register til 2000. this place started it all for me, as far as digital art forums go. so....i vote for anything that will bring "order" back, with or wothout dhabih.

nothing against him though, he did start this board...hell.

[yeah bob]

i disappeared while one week, and i'm astonished about # of posts! )
i didn't finish to read completely D thread...

so, somebody can have a contact with Dhab?
Anyway the sumaleth's offer is interesting

i'm glad to see a lot of oldSijunERS

[jasonN]

Geez. Haven't checked the forums for a few days and then I see this thread is on to its 5th page! I thought that Dhabih must be back for it to have gotten this long! I guess not....

The key to a good forum is to just be sensible and use COMMON SENSE. But since this is the internet, it's pretty much impossible. :P

[The Magic Pen]

I dont understand why the guy can't pop in and say " hey what's up im busy with Half-Life 2 "..I mean at least that would be civil

[Catfish]

^ It's not just a matter of taking 20 seconds for a single post. If Djabih did confirm he's hanging around, there'd be a short deluge of posts clamouring for his attention...

I'm kinda a long-time lurker here. I don't post much since I'm a poor artist, but I love the artwork & am content browsing that, and answering the occasional tech question.

I guess a large part of the problem we're having here is due to massively increased traffic, which is diluting the quality. I'd be inclined to start deputising a few more moderators, and crack down on the moderation.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Catfish ]

[Asurfael]

After spending an hour reading this thread, eating quite a few cookies and a bit of rice chocolate (and having a break after that to smoke a cigarette), I feel like contributing to this thread.

The new rules sound good, but they do sound intimidating to starting artists. But what quite a few of beginning artists fail to realize is that there are loads of newbie/intermediate forums to visit, and sijun isn't the only place on web to post your art at.

Unfortunately, even the good newbie forums I used to visit have become flocked with newbies that absolutely don't even care about the rules. The worst case I've seen was one guy who popped into one forum and posted a thread "I just came to this site 10 minutes ago, and in 5 minutes I did my first drawing ever. Please C&C".

Counterstrike can be one game to blame this at. It has attracted quite a few of teenagers yet not aware of netiquette to internet. But another thing is, that internet has become a standard of quality living in industrialized countries. You are an outsider if you don't go online. Modern chatrooms are a thing to blame at also. Quite a few of them don't have any moderation, so capsing, !!! and !?!?! have become a standard behaviour in quite a few chatrooms.

From chatrooms people move on to IRC, instant messaging services and bulletin boards. As they have learned that in chats capsing and impolite language are a standard, they go by the standards they have learned in irc and bulletin boards as well. After they get thrown out, they wonder what did they do wrong, and convince themselves that the oldskool bulletin board moderators are assholes (excuse the language). So they start spamming.

A rule of regulating posts/new threads ratio would be absurd, as quite a few newbies would make senseless posts just to get the right to post their art up instantaneously.

I am a newbie to anything computer related. I got my computer around a year ago, and I've been using it for art purposes for almost half a year. During that time I've become an intermediate artist, too good to get proper critique in newbie forums, but not yet skilled enough to start my own threads at sijun. I'm convinced that after a few years of practice I will some day start my own thread here.

I try to do the best I can to comment on the art. I've visited the random amusings a few times, but I don't feel the need to go there. Most of the time I help the beginning artists as best I can with their questions. I also try to comment on the work by artists a lot better than I am, as in a thread about "what is good comments" quite a few of the professionals claimed that comments by newbies can be extremely helpful sometimes, as they don't know all of the fine detailing stuff yet.

The thing is, how to get people away from the carelessness? That is a difficult question. A quiz about the rules would be one answer. There was once an artist community called side7.com (which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore, as it took too much money for the private person to hold it up). Over there, artists from all skill levels seemed to work nicely together. They checked work by others, and commented on them. The rules were strict, but as you couldn't register if you didn't know the answers to the quiz about copyright and posting rules, most people that passed could work nicely together regardless of the skill level.

However, I'm not convinced that a quiz would work all that good here. I do think that even if most forums like this don't add direct links to other forums, a good thing to do would be to redirect beginning artists to some forums that are more suitable for their skill level. I'm pretty sure quite a few of the people who visit here know good newbie forums, and we could put together a list. I'm sure that a lot of people would feel more at home posting at forums that are closer to their own skill level. Good comments are good comments, regardless of whether the person giving them is an oldskool sijuner or a newbie like the person posting. I for once can't seem to be able to give constructive criticism about a drawing in which everything is wrong. I was, when everything was wrong in my pictures as well.

So, what am I trying to say here? Newbies should be allowed to post if they want to. I've learned a great deal here, giving critique to even artists that are better than I am. And I feel good when I can help people, regardless of their skill level. However, we should be able to point out newbies to newbie forums and free webhosting, in a some sort of a FAQ. That could give the newer artists a community that would welcome them heartily, and it would spare the people looking for great art here from the art that was done in 5 minutes.

If somebody wishes for it, I'd be happy to write about some newbie/intermediate forums that are extremely good, and write a few pointers for free webhosting (which seems to be a problem for quite a few of the new people here). Also if anybody would like to recommend me some good newbie forums I should add to such of a FAQ (I'll do it anyhow for my site sooner or later), please feel free to email me URL's to such forums. I'm more familiar with newbie/intermediate anime/manga styled forums, as that is the art I started with. My e-mail is [email protected] , in case anybody wants to give me pointers for good newbie/intermediate forums.

I've been on a few oekaki boards divided to intermediate/skilled sections. And believe it or not, people did post in the intermediate section as well. So instead of bashing (or at least discouraging) the newbies, we could point them to communities that would welcome them with open arms.

Just in case somebody didn't bother to read this all: Rules are good, newbies are good, and newbies have places that suit them and we should point them towards that.

*phew* enough ranting from me. Please let me know if you want me to compile a list of good forums and free webhosting servers.

EDIT: fixed a typo.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Asurfael ]

[eyewoo]

that would be a good resource list... yes, I'd say take the time to compile it...

[Rat]

*Before I say anything... no matter how it may sound, this is not a pissed off rant, it's just a statement not meant to attack anyone or anything*

I've seen that a lot of people have said things about drawings that "...obviously took [person] 5 minutes to do...", but is that how long it would take you, or the other person. I'm sure a 5 minute drawing of say, a hand done by a skilled artist could take someone else less skilled 4+ hours of hard work to do. Some things obviously took 5 seconds, like, for example, a stick figure, but things like the aforementioned hand could've taken the artist the aforementioned amount of time (4+ hours).


(The 4+ hours/drawing of an almost well-proportioned hand is from personal experience.)

*runs away before she gets hanged*

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Rat ]

[Funk Master Kane]

I just wantd to make a reply cause it doesnt look like this thread is long enough.

Wurd

[Dr. Bang]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/people.htm

"Dhabih Eng - Artist (pronounced ZA-bee)
Dhabih, who's been playing games since he was six years old, has a degree in Interdisciplinary Art from the University of Washington. He started making a name for himself by doing freelance design work for gaming magazines (Electronic Gaming Monthly, Official Playstation Magazine, PC Gaming World) while still in school. Dhabih has also done web design and worked on the Quake2 TC pack "Zaero" from Team Evolve. He started at Valve by doing freelance work in mid-1998, and signed on full-time in early February of this year. Dhabih is truly a world citizen, having grown up in six different countries (Australia, Macau, Canada, China, Taiwan, and the USA). You can find out more about Dhabih and check out some of his work by visiting his website, [url=http://www.sijun.com/"]http://www.sijun.com/"[/url]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO Not at Valve Official site.

[Aiko Ito]

Hi all old time sijuners,
I don't know if anyone will still recognize me, but out of some strange feeling I had a need to look at this old forum and get inspired. Last time I looked was some months ago, I have noticed Dhabs absence but had no idea it was this bad. Obviously he's still paying the bills to keep the site going yes? Way back in the day I used to have icq contact with him, he was busy but usually answered stupid wow your amazing comments and he took the time out to look at my artwork. I have no idea wheres he's gone or what he's doing. I'm thinking that yes maybe it is time he let this site go, let someone else take control.

[Sumaleth]

Rat:

The question isn't really how long someone spends on an image -- it's whether it's worth posting.

I have pictures on my harddrive that I spent weeks on but never reached the point where I thought it was worth posting. So 4 hours to me still sounds like "playing around" and is really quite separate to it's worth as a post.

--

Asurfael:

If you think you can write thorough but clear and concise FAQ entries on all the free web services then please do and I'll start collecting bits together.

And feel free to email me those forum links with information. I'll add them to my Link Archive thing when it's working.

Row.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Sumaleth ]

[spinnicus]

Hmm.

[Anthony J]

I bet you to hell nobody remembers me

i'm member #29

I was one of the first guys on the sijun forums and I remember when I e-mailed dhabih and he'd actually get back to me with a lengthy response about how he did his artwork. Because of Dhabih Eng's work, I bought myself a digital tablet and started my education as an artist. I got into sheridan college last year in a 1 year fundamental program, from there I got into a 3 year illustration program.

I thought i'd post with my original name to see if anybody remembers me ??

I'm now known as the infamous Mangled Alecto from roundeyes secret forums.

Dhabih where are you man ?!
and from what i've read in this 5 page thread
is people miss you, and somebody should be taking control of these forums to keep them inline and organized. This is the longest ongoing forum community i've ever visited...and in order to make it last, some things need to be taken care of.

well anyways back to drawing
oh and go see "Road to Perdition" with Tom Hanks, wicked movie !!

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Anthony J ]

[Matt Elder]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anthony J:
I bet you to hell nobody remembers me

---

I wish I could put money on that as I do remember the name. Long time no see would be an understatement. That URL you gave isn't exactly the best. Do you have another one with some of your more recent stuff?

[gowansy]

testing

[jHof]

Anthony J - I remember your name. You were posting when I was around atleast.

[Dr. Bang]

LETS never let this thread die.

[Freddio]

hmm I don't know about that.