How would you improve these forums?

Wanna improve these forums?

Get rid of all the 'effin spam posts!

The solution to most of the forums' woes seems to be a few more moderators who are excited about cleaning house.

I don't do windows!

and he's from the UK, so he's got a great accent. very authorative. :)

I don't understand why Kevan hasn't been made a moderator by now.

He has been on the forums forever.
He has worked on a ton of movies. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1442728/
He is always pleasant.

:confused::confused::confused:

and he's from the UK, so he's got a great accent. very authorative. :)

Not only that! He sings like Tom Jones and plays foolball just like Ryan Giggs.

Not only that! He sings like Tom Jones and plays foolball just like Ryan Giggs.

wait, by football do you mean gridiron or soccer?

wait, by football do you mean gridiron or soccer?

They call it football in Wales.

Kev is also as good looking as Catherine Zeta Jones.

Kev is also as good looking as Catherine Zeta Jones.

true.. remember at the wrap party when michael douglas came up behind him and kissed him on the neck, thinking he WAS catherine?

that was embarrasing!

Hang on! What's going on 'ere?! Shush, you two villains!

:P

Hang on! What's going on 'ere?! Shush, you two villains!

:P

Long live the Prince of Wales!

Sorry about dragging this old thread back out but I would like to see a new sticky. This sticky is to show the best of AWN forums for the past month. Moderators would do the picking or the web master could put a vote button on the threads, members only.

Each month we would see the best thread, reply post, web site, picture, animation and so on.

Hello.

I have been roaming around this forum for 7 years...that's when I became a moderator here at AWN.

I've tried to be innovative and first encouraged folks to upload images on to the forum- it became the "show and tell" and evolved into the "daily sketch"

I have ALWAYS tried to stay away from the tech side of things- it's just not my orientation.

I convinced Dan to do the contests for character design hoping that they would grow into animation challenges - much like the Ten Second Club. Heck, I even wanted to make a group "relay" project (like Anijam) where everyone starts with one object or shape and goes from there.

My sense of it is we could be better about that part of it.

Except when I am traveling- I try to come to the site at least twice a day- and not post to just observe.

I am turned off by the bickering and intolerance, and downright rudeness of some members of the forum. If people could be kinder to each other- this forum would 2000% improved. If it was up to me 3 or 4 people would be kicked off the forum

I want to talk animation (if possible) and do animation. Folks don't seem to want to "talk" animation. I really love sharing the art form and learning from others and their "adventure" in animation.

I miss the visual aspects of this forum and the mentoring.

Thanks,

I want to talk animation (if possible) and do animation. Folks don't seem to want to "talk" animation. I really love sharing the art form and learning from others and their "adventure" in animation.

I miss the visual aspects of this forum and the mentoring.

and you're damn right, I believe that a lot of the visitors here are animators, including a lot of students (like myself) and I believe... if you don't want to talk about it, learn about, you never will be able to cross your boundries, find new original idea's, funny stuff, create things you never even thought it was possible..cause afterall, the reason why animation was invented was to show people what wasn't possible in real life...isn't?

The first thing I need to address is the system changes and registration changes needed to fight the spam. I'll need another week, maybe two, to get some time together to do so.

Next, we may do a little forum pruning.

At that point, we can have some more discussions about contests, stickies for certain threads, adding some additional moderators to help with some of the admin, discussion of the anonymous vs. named registration, etc.

I'm happy to make certain changes based upon some forum input. I'll admit that one of the reasons that I have not done more contests is that the interest level didn't seem all that great and they were taking alot of time that I had less and less to devote.

I'd love nothing more than to get more "visual" in the forums. We're going to be making some announcements at AWN that will be in this area that I hope will both encourage more forum participation as well as broaden the community scope of the work people post/present within the forums.

Dan

Awn Forums is a respectable community of animators and people who are in the industry or affected by it indirecrtly. We are by far the largest of the Animation Forums, yet the devotion is not there.
I understand fully that people are busy, and I mean busy, but to my young members--dudes, what's up?
We are supposed to be representing our community, but as far as I see, it is a lack of enthusiasm. I know, you have Dota forums, WOW, and other forums that are more...exciting, one worth indulging in idle and somewhat specialized conversations and animated battles with members your age.
Our forums boast more guests than it does members logged in and compared to other forums that boast over 30 members logged in at a time, it's a little...odd.
But I still love these forums because I connect to you all and I do hope some changes are implemented, one that benefits us all.

****************************************************************************************

Color Options: The forums are somewhat bland, indeed there is blue everywhere, but I think we should have the option of changing the outlook.

Member Groups: The member group status is just there doing nothing, part of the human psyche indulges the need to feel wanted, the need to call somewhere a domain; your own little squad in your own little club house. That would be cool. There can be member login threads, with secret passwords that directs the user to another mini forum or web page that features games and insights and fun little things for the group members to indulge in.

AWN Member Status: There are only three statuses for a member to achieve: Junior Member, Member and Senior Member.
The posts needed to achieve such a status is limited to a slim nominal amount. I think 50 to Member and 100 to become a senior member.
We should add more statuses, because there are some members here with over 5,000 posts and I think they deserve a title that suits their calibur.

Junior Member: 50 posts till advanvement.

Member: 110 posts till advancement.

Senior Member: 200 posts till advancement.

Advanced Member: 305 posts till advancement.

Magna Elite Member: 500 posts till advancement.

Sacred Member: 1,500 posts till advancement.

God Member: 3,000 posts final status.

Ceartain privalages should be awarded to devoted members who have earned such a coveted title. As for the names and posts themselves, it's just an idea.
These are my ideas regarding the advancement of Awn Forums. I would love to one day come and see something new that just blows the wind out of me, that would be a 'trip.'

Why the hell would we need artificial poster titles, or place any value in post counts? What is gained by that?

Why not let the integrity and honesty of any given poster be the arbiter of their worth?

Ken is right, this isn't some kind of MMORPG. The contents of the posts should speak for themselves, not how much a user posts and what title it gains him or her. As I see it, we also shouldn't try to create "official" cliques of posters as the segregation could easily lead to flame wars between interest groups organised in such a way.
Personally, I'm quite OK with the colours, too. Rather soothing to the eye and to the point. I don't want too many colourful distractions on pages that I read a lot on.

Just trying reach that "Sacred Member" status. :D

I am turned off by the bickering and intolerance, and downright rudeness of some members of the forum. If people could be kinder to each other- this forum would 2000% improved. If it was up to me 3 or 4 people would be kicked off the forum

Heh... I bet one of them is me. I'm an old school troublemaker. :D

I've loved AWN for years and, thanks to Larry, even had the honor of writing an article for the Animation World Magazine. I love this forum and even though I don't post often anymore, I do come to read and I do post (and behave myself now!) when I have something to share.

I'd love to be involved in something! Even if it's just participating, I'd love to see new stuff, and I've really liked the character design contests and the anijam idea sounds cool.

As far as Dark Angel's rankings... I haven't ranted that much! No time! Maybe it would be an incentive to...

Whatever value it has, I'm a member who's enthusiastic to help.;)

Sorry Chaos,

You weren't even close to the trolls I was referring to.....

Thanks

Sorry Chaos,

You weren't even close to the trolls I was referring to.....

Thanks

Whoo...

That's nice to hear! :o

Thanks

Andcompared to other forums that boast over 30 members logged in at a time, it's a little...odd.

Most of us run in invisible mode. Especially those of us with "godly" status, and probably all of those mindless spambots.

Please don't clutter a nice forum with some heavy graphic skin. I enjoy the new blue.

For those who still have good memories, you might remember that a number of years ago, our forums were hacked and destroyed. At that time, when we reset them, we decided that we weren't going to make program mods to the core of the forum system because each mod made it harder and harder to upgrade as new forum versions came available. Consequently, we've been using all the standard features, no slicker UI, header graphics, etc.

It's interesting to me that we have so many people that browse the forums without participating, something like a factor of 20 or 30 to 1. We still get a steady stream of new user signups every day.

I'd love to get more participants, though I'm not sure how that might be achieved.

Let's get this new signup / anti-spam move in place here and then we can look to other areas of change / modification.

I already pulled the contest forums - I'm tempted to pull down the VFXWorld forums as well. I'm open to all suggestions as we move forward here. I appreciate everyone's opinions.

Dan

Why the hell would we need artificial poster titles, or place any value in post counts? What is gained by that?

Why not let the integrity and honesty of any given poster be the arbiter of their worth?

Okay, so I was a little too MMORG or what ever. I just thought it would be cool to have artificial titles and groups, is it too much just to voice an opinion. Any way Ken I was wondering, since you're a teacher and everything, do you force your students to achieve greatness by subsidised slander or do they just fear to disappoint you knowing the consequences. I know if you were my teacher I would be scared out of my pants to fail any of your classes, but in the end I would come to terms with the fact that you're just trying to make a descent person out of me and I'd respect you dearly for that. That's why I love all of my mentors and teachers, because they are like my second father or mother.

Okay, so I was a little too MMORG or what ever. I just thought it would be cool to have artificial titles and groups, is it too much just to voice an opinion. Any way Ken I was wondering, since you're a teacher and everything, do you force your students to achieve greatness by subsidised slander or do they just fear to disappoint you knowing the consequences. I know if you were my teacher I would be scared out of my pants to fail any of your classes, but in the end I would come to terms with the fact that you're just trying to make a descent person out of me and I'd respect you dearly for that. That's why I love all of my mentors and teachers, because they are like my second father or mother.

Subsidized slander??? WTF is that?
I'm not the one would tried to convince people he was a 17 year-old college degree-holding TV producer working on some fake western-produced anime TV series.
You've bankrolled any slander directed at you quite nicely, twit.

As for me and my teaching manner.........several of my former students and colleagues post here, and they can tell you what I'm like in class.
Feel free to ask for them.

As for your outcome........I have no interest in your future well-being, nor have I an iota of respect for you.
Obviously these "mentors" of yours haven't passed on the lesson of being yourself, instead of trying to decieve others by being who you are not.

Since the question of this thread is "how to improve the forums", I have to wonder aloud why an obvious fraud like yourself feels the need to remain in such forums? The value in a posters presence rests in their integrity and their worthwhile contributions borne from that integrity, but you threw your's out trying to be someone you are not. The coy commentaries you make, the dancing around your own failings----there's very few people that don't see through it.

In my opinion, your presence devalues the point of forums like this because nothing you comment on goes without the questioning of your motives or veracity.
I make no secret of of my contempt: were I the site owner--I'd put you neatly in the trash along with all the spammers.

Eh...trolls are everywhere.

Hang around long enough and one will always ruffle somebodies feathers.

Me myself, I've had differences with mods and others often enough...and (usually) take it with a grain of salt.

But I always come back here to AWN, because I know we all love animation. I know I do.
(Heck, it seems the spammers do, too!)

Anyhoo, the polls speaks for themselves...

Keep up the good work Dan and team!

Cheers!
Splatman:D

Hello,

I agree with Splatman to the point that TROLLS should be kicked off the forums- let them forage in the trash heaps.

Nothing like having a conversation interrupted by a troll.

If so many folks are signing on- maybe they will post more if they are not intimidated by trolls, etc.

Thanks.

I like animated smilies