[Muzman]

(forgive the attention getting title, but I think I need one, as I shall explain)

Now, I know it'd take some serious scraping to get a thimble full of respect for my views around here. That's ok, we all know how it works. Post a few pictures-that-make-you-go-ooo! and I could just about be a white supremacist and get away with it. (yeah, plus I don't say much, don't crit much, don't chat etc etc)
But I really want to know what the hell the problem is. This is a poll, if you like. A senate inquiry. A truth commission.
It's all about testimony.
Seems to me everyone's so enamoured with the notion that this place has gone to hell that no one noticed what it was really like. Honestly, I don't know what you're all seeing. Complaints like "You can't get sensible crits anymore" (sensible crits were always a rarity anyway), "Everything's a mess" (A mess?! You should have seen it when there was One forum), "There's flamers and trolls and idiots" (well it's hardly a warzone like some places I've seen. You were expecting everlasting paradise perhaps?)
Now, folk are probably annoyed that I've misrepresented their views and are convinced that I don't know what I'm on about. And others will just say I'm contributing to the problem and this thread is just more evidence that the place is fucked. ('cause everyone knows the place is shot, duh). Well perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about. Perhaps I have missed all the action. (I do check fairly regularly, but I hadn't even heard of the whole Lumental thing 'til the other day.)
So tell me. And give citations too, because frankly I don't believe most of you; a couple of relatively minor incidents became an entire "situation" that doesn't exist.
Don't bother disgreeing with some reply above you or anything. Just tell the story as you see it, with examples.
Please, I'm serious.

[Poprocksz]

The giant mishap is over for me....
I still come here all the time....
It hasn't changed the way I feel about Sijun......don't worry about it

[MeatyCheesyBoy]

Quite honestly Muzman, I was thinking the same thing earlier today. I haven't been a member too long, only like 9 months (I guess that is sort of long considering its longer than like 2500 of the members, but not long compared to you) but really nothing has changed that drastically over the last 9 months. A few jerks have come and gone (StNeill777). There have been a few "droughts" where very little was posted, and there has been a definate rise in the number of members but really nothing has changed. Flame wars only occur in the random musings section for the most part, a comprehesive crit is still hard to find, and kick ass artists still exhist. So a new board was started and a few good members left, more will come along and many of those who 'left' still post here. Sijun went through similar 'problems' 9 months ago when I started up. A lot of people were joining at an incredibly fast rate. The solution at that point was to create a few new forums. Now sijun is going through growing pains once again but its still just the same old sijun, just a lot bigger.

I've been thinking of ways for sijun to endure this round of growing pains and here's what I came up with. What if Dhabih or someone else wrote a script or something that would limit the number of registered members to say 5000 people. Once it reaches 5000 then sijun accepts no more new members but every two weeks or so the script checks all the accounts and if someone has not posted in the month prior to the check then their account automatically gets deleated and they get sent an email informing them. So, at that point, sijun once again can accept new members since the count would have fallen below 5000. This would encourage people to be more active but might also encourage garbage posts once a month from everyone (everyone in fear of losing their accounts) as well. Also, a system like this might have people screaming out 'Lumental Nazi elitism' or some other such bullshit. Just an idea.

[Dan3d]

I'm a complete newbie to this forum ... been checking in and out for about a month or so. I am a member of a few other forums ... one for a real time 3D game engine I use and another for art. Each forum has its own "flavor". At first I was excited to find Sijun's forum, but after a few days of lurking here and even posting a few images, I got quite disgusted with this place.

On the other forums I frequent there seems to be (overall) a much more mature attitude among those that post. Flames are kept pretty low and most everyone seems to want to help in some way. True, neither forum is as large as this one, but one of them has over 2000 registerd on it, so it gets pretty busy (and we have our characters there as well).

As I see it, I come here to look at the images, get ideas and, from time to time, to get help with images I create. These are the three main reasons I come here. It seems I can rarely fulfill any of these. Whenever I post an image I get very little feedback if any. I'm an "unknown" here, but that didn't stop people from commenting in the other art forum. It seems (over all) that people here are more interested in flaming, arguing or complaining than actually posting an image. As a result, there seems to be very little to gleen from the posts here.

Ok, don't take me wrong, there has been some great and awesome stuff posted here. Still, over all, I don't find this is the case. I find that I would rather "hang out" at the other forums or find something different.

I guess I am saying, as a newbie, there is really not that much to attract me here, especially since I can find most of the art posted here posted somewhere else as well. What does this forum have to offer that is unique when compared to other art forums? It seems, at this point, only the amount of complaining. For me, this is not a drawing point. Quite the opposite.

[Steven Stahlberg]

(First of all:

quote

Quote:

So a new board was started and a few good members left

...it was the other way round, a few good members had stopped posting to Sijun - no I'm not including myself - then Lumental was created, invited them and they started posting again. And then they got blasted by a lynch mob from here.)


The real 'crisis' I think is that as of right now this is a mod-less and master-less forum. With enough spare time on his hand, and if he's evil enough, any single
person can totally ruin such a place. I won't go into detail on how because that's bound to give some moron ideas, and anyway I'm sure you can all imagine... Sijun needs mods, and soon.

Nobody seems to have heard from Dhabih in like 6 months or so, except for when the forums went down, it's several years since he updated his website it seems, except for the text on the right. Somebody should find him, talk to him, open up a dialogue.
If he sees Sijun as the 'mutant in the basement' as someone wrote, then he should hand over the keys to someone who isn't afraid of opening the door and cracking the whip.

I've an idea for a script too, one that stops any new account from posting for either a. 1 month, or b. 30 log-ons, whichever takes the longest. What good would that do?
It would stop the troll (or at least slow him down a lot) who creates multiple accounts so he can keep on flaming after he gets banned, or create flamewars posing as his own enemy, etc.
It would create a cool-down period for really excited people, people too excited to read the FAQ and the rules.
It would force the newbies to learn the rules of behaviour, even if they refuse to read the rules, by lurking for a month.

Muzman, I see what you mean. But this place was never meant to be like the internet in general, far from it... it was meant to be a 'haven' for creative people, a sanctuary from all the crap out there, a place of study and learning and inspiration, of seeing what others are doing... a place of thinking about art. So what if it hasn't lived up to its potential so far, in your experience? Doesn't mean it can never happen.

[travis travis]

hum... I might as well just literally repeat myself instead of rephrasing in five different posts

'Enayla - good for you. Moderating this bullshat of late wouldn't be a healthy experience. The only real 'problem' with the forum right now seems to be that it's full of arbitrary complaints. And when you have time for all this ponderance and pontification, people... it seems rather obvious that you are not spending your time on art.

*smack* '

[Bishop_Six]

I like the idea of forced lurking, steven. Oh, what I would give for a place with serious people who are civilized and willing to give helpful crits.

[Dthind]

It seems to me that the simple fact is hundreds of new people joined in a very short period of time. And, (duh), no one new them and they knew no one here. So what was the 'Style' here changed because of the influx of new personalities. Some of the older members stoped coming by, mostly (I assume) because their personal preferences and situations changed, not JUST because so many new people signed on.

The same rule should still apply:

1) Don't react to morons (easier said than done)
2) Don't be a moron
3) If you don't have anything nice to say, DON'T say anything (as in comments not related to the cirtique of an image)

On a side note:

4) Random Musing appears to be open ground, so leave it that way. Just keep the shit out of the gallery.

[MeatyCheesyBoy]

Steven, you are right a few of the members stopped posting before Lumental was created but many of them stopped or slowed down afterwards. I'm not denying that sijun is what everyone has said, I'm just saying, that it's always been that way, its really nothing new.

If you look at Dhabih's account, he only has 400 posts, he's never been really active in the forums even before the "crisis" at hand. Next, the moderators are a relativly new thing, they didn't exhist when I joined 9 months ago. So Sijun being a a mod-less masterless forum as you put it is the norm, not the exception.

Like, I said, I'm not denying that Sijun isn't everything that you claim it to be, but I do contend that there is no "crisis" since Sijun has always been this way.

On a side note, I actually agree that something should be done to clean up sijun, I've felt this way long before our current "crisis". I think a good start would be for someone to talk to Dhabih and get him to actually post a set of rules that members can actually read. The FAQ tells how to work the board but not how you're expected to behave on the board.

Also on a side note, I think Lumental is great, I read it almost everyday (not everyday because traffic is pretty low on it). But I actually wish they'd keep a tighter reign there and follow some of their rules a little better. If you want to comment or flame me for this, email me privately, we don't need this crap clogging up sijun anymore.

[Steven Stahlberg]

No comment or flame, I agree with everything you wrote there.