SFM - Have your say

[Comco]

Hi everyone,

Here at SFM we are continually looking for ways to improve our member's experiences and enhance our community. To this end, I'd like to get your input on how you think SFM as a community is travelling. What are we doing well? What are we struggling with. What do we downright stink at. I'm taking a bit of a risk in opening this up for discussion in here as I know a number of people will use this as an oppertunity to further their own agendas but I am willing to deal with potential problems because I feel it's important that our vision for the future of the site and where we want to go is the same as your vision.

We have these type of discussions regularly in the staff area of the site but I thought I'd break tradition and do something a little risqué this time and ask the for feedback an open forum.

Some points to consider in your answers:

• What are we, as a community, doing well?
• What would you like to see that we aren't currently offering/providing?
• What do you personally get out of coming to SFM?
• Is the atmosphere here at SFM a positive one that encourages learning and development or otherwise?
• How can we encourage growth of the community?
• More importantly, how can we encourage more involvement from the community, some of whom are occasional posters and lurkers
• If you are a lurker or occasional poster, why is that? Of course, time is a big issue, but are there any roadblocks that you see in the community that prevent you from becoming more active?

[Comco]

A word of warning: I will take a dim view (as will all the staff) of anyone who attempts to highjack this thread for the purpose of personal attacks and the likes. I am not interested in who you think does or doesn't deserve to be banned from the site etc. If you have an issue with a particular member, take it up with them, or, if that is not working for you, feel free to approach a staff member, but keep things of that nature off the boards and certainly out of this thread. I am happy to hear if you think, for example, that the staff here is heavy handed for example, but lets avoid specific finger pointing. The point of this thread is to hear your ideas and get your feedback, not to allow for a public venting forum for all your frustrations.

If you do have a complaint, try to think of a way we can overcome it.

As with all forum posts, be diplomatic, tactful and respectful of other members. If any staff find posts that are contrary to that criteria, you can expect your post to disappear rather quickly.

Feel free to open up the discussion. I have deliberately left the topic fairly open to allow you to take it in whatever direction you choose.

One further thing: I cannot guarantee that we will implement any ideas given in this thread. What I can assure you is that the Administrators as well as the other staff are interested in your input and that the discussions here will be carefully considered in decision making processes.

[JDR]

I'd like to see more emphasis on the art that is produced. I've been complaining a lot lately about "fanboy threads" for lack of a better word, and the shift in focus away from the art and towards secondary concerns like technobabble about someone's design etc. I realise these are natural side effects of the overall sci-fi theme of the forum, but I think they should remain in the background and not take over.

I think we should have less frivolous stuff in GD for one. Not many people want to hear someone's theory about how photon torpedoes really work. We don't need to have threads about the psychological disposition of fictional characters. There are plenty of forums out there which cater to that sort of discussion. Yes, there is a GD section, but its on a graphics site and I think should be a little more biased towards graphics issues.

I also think there are perhaps too many sub-forums here which have little to do with sci-fi graphics. I personally think the newsbot is unecessary and nobody really pays much attention to the thousands of automatic posts that arrive in the news section. It would be better to have a news forum that actual users can post interesting and relevant things on, with strict guidelines in place, of course.

[Comco]

Fair points JDR. I'll maybe use this thread as an oppertunity to try and explain some of the thinking behind some of the decisions you see around here...

On the topic of the miriad of sub-forums. For years, we have been posed with the question of how do we cut down on a bunch of off-topic threads appearing all over the forums. How do we keep things on topic? One solution to this is to create sub-forums to help keep these discussions out of the high-traffic areas where they are likely to annoy users and in their own small, specific areas. I do totally understand your point and it's a constant balancing act. Anyone who has been a member here for more than 6-12 months knows that we reorganise the forums like it's going out of fashion. Demand for some areas ebbs and flows and we try to react dynamically in adding and subtracting areas as their relevance changes...We're probably due for another round of reviews on our various sub-forums soon. Rest assured, it is a topic of continued discussion in the staff areas.

Some areas, such as the Photography section, while not being scifi-related are certainly related to the skills used in 3d art and are also pretty successful as sub-forums but I totally see your point that we need to keep an eye on the sheer number of forums we have going so as not to overwhelm people.

[Pyrocitor]

We haven't had any contests for a while, last one was the greeble contest in February wasn't it?
BTW I don't think anyone's received their awards for that yet have they? Not that I got anything

It could be interesting to have some community WIP threads or something like that, which lots of people could get involved in. You would just need someone to manage the thread and maybe an easy way of organising the thread.

[Comco]

Care to expand a bit more on the idea of community WIPs Pyrocitor? Who do you envisage they would work?

[biotech]

I'd like to see a little more tollerance towards other peoples ideas, and that if you know your not going to like a thread, maybe to just stay out of it and leave it to the people that do.

I like the fact that general discussion isnt about art, this is a community, and its in that forum that the community flurishes.

Every other forum on the board is about art, there needs to be somewhere where you can just talk about tv, or your kids, or the weather.

Now my next point isnt true of all the staff, but for some its as if being on staff elevates them above normal posters, and the normal rules of politeness that applies to us no longer applies to them.

Also it would be nice to see mods in threads that dont need moderating, I know they have to turn up when there is trouble, but it would be nice to see them when there wasnt, just showing up and posting in the forums they are looking after, letting people know they are still there.

Growth comes from encouragement, so every little bit of praise helps, even if its short and sweet, it could make all the difference to someone new posting some art that otherwise goes neglected.

[Comco]

Originally Posted by biotech

Also it would be nice to see mods in threads that dont need moderating, I know they have to turn up when there is trouble, but it would be nice to see them when there wasnt, just showing up and posting in the forums they are looking after, letting people know they are still there.

That was an unexpected piece of feedback and one that made me wonder. However, I just checked the first 5 threads in both the WIP and 3d Gallery forums...In both forums, a moderator (not to mention Admins and Sensei etc) posted encouragement or feedback in 4 out of 5 threads.

Also of note is that 9 of the top 20 posters are staff members. Those are pretty reasonable stats, considering that a lot of the staff devote a few dozen hours of work on the site every week. I do hear where you are coming from but as you say, we need to be where the trouble is at times. Believe me, I wish that weren't the case. There isn't many of us who actually enjoy having to settle member squabbles and flamewars.

[Pyrocitor]

Originally Posted by Comco

Care to expand a bit more on the idea of community WIPs Pyrocitor? Who do you envisage they would work?

I'm not 100% sure on that one
It would be quite a bit of work but maybe a community built ship that the initial design is done by members from the 2D side of the community and then it moves to the 3D section where it's built and anyone can build turrets or greebles or whatever for it. So it would need someone with plenty of time on their hands to compile all the parts and do overall progress renders of the ship, and yea it wouldn't be the easiest thing to organise, but it could be interesting

I'm actually planning on making one that is for building the weapons from the video game series "Ratchet and Clank" that anyone could join in and build a weapon (there's like over 100), so that wouldn't be too hard to keep organised.
Threads like that would probably be quite easy to setup and could get some more people interested because it's not like your dedicating yourself to building a whole ship, just a small project.
I'm just wondering whether to have it setup so there's a list of all the weapons that are currently being built or have been built with links to the first post, and then the person who is building it can just post links in their WIP posts so people can follow individual WIP's easier.

this post turned out a bit longer than I originally intended, hopefully you'll understand all of it

[Freak]

Originally Posted by Comco

That was an unexpected piece of feedback and one that made me wonder. However, I just checked the first 5 threads in both the WIP and 3d Gallery forums...In both forums, a moderator (not to mention Admins and Sensei etc) posted encouragement or feedback in 4 out of 5 threads

I guess I am the one, in that four out of five. That being said, I always see the same people post in my WIP threads, but that is due the friendship I have built up with them here and other forums. When I see how many people have look at the wip and not post a comment to say weather they like it or not is a little dishearten. You get the feeling that people are not liking your work.

At present the have not been a major flamewar, for a few months which is a good thing, weather this is down to the Mod team or people realising that it was not fun.
But not to long ago, they where happing to often, I know some members got feed up of it and left, and only pop in every now again to see what happening, but not being a big part of the community that they once where.
Some of the courses of the Flamewars where the same old things and members. But we did not see anyone get punished for it. I guess what I am saying, is that if the Flamewars got the level it was before, the person that was the course of it should be Banded, for a short time. Given then level of how bad thing get. They would then be an example to the rest of the community on how not to act.

With all that being said SFM, is a great place to a member of, I have learnt a lot about 3d while being a member here and have had a lot of help with the question I have had.
It a fun place to be, I hope SFM has a long healthy life in front of it.