Art Archive State of the Fan Art Forum

HanSolo29 · Feb 28, 2008

Hey all,

It's around the one year mark since I was re-promoted to lead the Fan Art forum and I would like some feedback from the community on how things are run. This is your chance to get your voices heard of what you think works well around here or needs improvement. Have a new idea for an activity or a thread? I would like to hear about those as well. I see this as your community and I want to make Fan Art the best it can be! So, please vote and respond accordingly. The poll will remain opened throughout the month of March, so you have plenty of time to get your voices heard.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

mMathab · Mar 26, 2008

I always thought forums were not meant to hold pictures and be used as a place to display galleries of pictures. But I think both are necessary. If you take lets say Deviantart, you can display a picture and receive comments directly bellow it. That would be cool if something like this could be implemented here. It would leave the art forum open for dicussion about art, or receive comments from "work in progress" stuff. This is what I feel is the worst using this forum is to keep track of the threads so that you can find new "images" being posted. I personnaly don't care much about what people have to say in between pictures updates because this is not what I'm looking for when I come here.

But stricly speaking of the forum, number of hits/views on the threads would be fun to have, lot of lurkers not commenting what they are seeing because it would give an idea how much people are interested to "see" what you are posting. An automated local image repository for the "attachments" would also be great so that we don't have to use external websites. Implementing the local image repository would allow sort by date on submitted pictures only, which would make my life easier when I'm looking for the new pieces of art that have been posted since the last time I checked, it could also be combined to the Fan Art Gallery that is about to be relaunched. Official sub-sections like 3D, photomanips, computer drawings, traditionnal drawings would also be great.

I really miss the days back when Brittany was managing the Fan Art gallery

I also want to say that you have been doing the best job moderating the forum over the past years.

Keep up the good work!

Mitth_Fisto · Mar 26, 2008

I think you've been doing a wonderful job, and the group projects and contests have been a wonderful past-time even if I only had time to participate in the one. And I gotta say I really like the current setup since I get to learn alot indirectly by looking at other peoples art work and reading the comments and recomendations for different problems. Even if I don't have a big problem in the same area it helps me learn another trick to keep it in check or even improve.

HanSolo29 · Mar 26, 2008

I want to thank both of you for commenting and leaving some feedback. Although I do see that there were a couple negative votes with no comments. Remember if you have a problem, I can't do anything about it unless you let me know.

To hit on some of the points listed above, in terms of adding new software or some kind of system for just viewing images, there's not really anything I can do about that outside of the forum setting. I would need access to the servers(which only 2 members of the administration have) and there would need to be extensive changes to the forum's layout to make everything work. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen right now. I could have some kind of designated thread for groups of images, but I'm not sure if that will solve the issue you have. For the time being, we're stuck with the forum layout but maybe we can work something out to get the most out of it.

As for the Fan Art Museum itself, I have no control over that and you would need to talk to TF.N staff. I do agree that it is a shame that it hasn't been updated in ages, but hopefully when they appoint the new person, things will start to run smoothly again.

Mitth_Fisto, glad to see that the comments and critiques left in threads are helpful. You may be interested to know that the old Fan Art Class thread will be making a big return sometime in the very near future. We're currently working out the fine details, but it should be up and running soon. So, if you're interested in bettering your art and really getting some in-depth feedback, that would definitely be a thread to watch.

DARTH-KER · Mar 28, 2008

I think the site is great and there's a great community of people here.
I don't have too many complaints other than maybe the "FAN ART" thing
you guys already touched on here so need to rehash . . . but the other thing I'd
like to see is maybe members being able to create and upload their own avatars,
and maybe a FAN ART button on the home page, so people could go straight to
that forum.
Anyhoo keep up the good work!!!

FalconFan · Mar 28, 2008

I just voted (all good, Mme. Moderator! ), but wanted to just speak to some of the comments already tendered: I don't have a problem with the way the forum set up works right now--most of us with long image lists have indeces on the thread's first page, to permit folks to access images directly, without hunting through many pages of comments. And actually, it's fun for me to read other's comments about a particular piece, so I don't mind looking through those, as well. As to directly accessing the Fan Art forum--I just bookmarked the URL, and come directly to it that way, bypassing the home page altogether--works great! I think this forum works really well--it has threads addressing the community issues, for folks to discuss upcoming events or things going on in their lives and careers, and for viewing and discussing art. It's good for me!

FF

HanSolo29 · Mar 28, 2008

Again, thank you for the feedback! It's appreciated!

DARTH-KER said:

I think the site is great and there's a great community of people here.
I don't have too many complaints other than maybe the "FAN ART" thing
you guys already touched on here so need to rehash . . . but the other thing I'd
like to see is maybe members being able to create and upload their own avatars,
and maybe a FAN ART button on the home page, so people could go straight to
that forum.
Anyhoo keep up the good work!!!
Click to expand...

Hey there, DARTH-KER, I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say "the 'FAN ART' thing." Is it the name you have issues with or the range of work we allow in the forum itself? Could you elaborate a bit?

Custom avatars have been something users have repeated over and over again since I've been coming to the JC. This is a choice of the administration as a whole(not just this forum) to prevent inappropriate images(content and size) and there are no plans to change this anytime soon.

Regarding a link on the TF.N main page, I know there used to be one on there. It used to be listed about halfway down the page and under it, there was a text box that would list news in the art world. When you clicked on the link, it would take you to the Fan Art section of TF.N and on the left hand side of the page, there was a box with headlines from the forum and a link. I need to check that out and see if it's still there.

FalconFan, thank you for the positive feedback! I agree that a thread index is very helpful when trying to sift through several pages of a thread. In fact, I believe that is a step in the right direction in terms of addressing the issues mMathab brought up.

Glitbiter · Mar 28, 2008

I like it here, absolutely no complaints And I think you're doing a great job. Just a suggestion though, I think it would be fun to have more contests like the fan art challenge and that art class thread somebody mentioned. It would be cool to bring everybody together a bit more, though I appreciate that doing stuff like that takes time, and you might not have the time.

mMathab mentioned Deviant Art; I think it would be cool if you could see the number of views as well as comments, but I don't have a problem with the other stuff - I just do what FalconFan does. I think it's great the way it is, but that's just my five cents.

HanSolo29 · Mar 28, 2008

Glitbiter said:

I like it here, absolutely no complaints And I think you're doing a great job. Just a suggestion though, I think it would be fun to have more contests like the fan art challenge and that art class thread somebody mentioned. It would be cool to bring everybody together a bit more, though I appreciate that doing stuff like that takes time, and you might not have the time.
Click to expand...

Contests and more art related threads like the Art Class thread(which will be coming very shortly) are excellent ideas! Maybe even throw some games in there(maybe something based off of Pictionary or iSketch?). I'm always open to ideas and such for new threads and activities, so if you have them, let me know! I would absolutely love to get something going that would really shed some light on the Fan Art forum and hype up the activity.

NYCitygurl · Mar 28, 2008

Wow, missed this completely.

I think you're doing a GREAT job. It sounds like you have some cool ideas and I like the way you run this place I wish there was more activity, but (as I'm WELL aware) mods can't control that.

You're doing a super job

DARTH-KER · Mar 29, 2008

Well what i meant was that the first person to post a comment here pretty
much already said what I thought as far as the forum (the look, the set up, etc.) as
i said I think it's kool and everyone is great but as you can see i JUST found this
forum and I've been posting art for quite a few years and I ONLY just happened to stumble
onto the "FAN ART" section by luck, but i think if there was a larger button or something on
the home page that said "FAN ART" then someone who just happens to find this site might get
into puttin' up art or checkin' some out. Plus I've never been a big fan of the "posting art in threads"
format but oh well, I still think this a great site! =0)

Ps. As far as the custom avatars can't there be a system in place where the person just emails it for approval?
And if anyone should post anything inappropriate then just ban them?

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Art Archive State of the Fan Art Forum

State of the Fan Art Forum

Everything's great! No complaints!

I like how it's run, but I have a few complaints.

It's okay.

Meh. Several things could be improved upon.

This forum is terrible!

HanSolo29 RPF/SWC/Fan Art Manager & Bill Pullman Connoisseur Staff Member Manager

mMathab Jedi Master

Mitth_Fisto Chosen One

HanSolo29 RPF/SWC/Fan Art Manager & Bill Pullman Connoisseur Staff Member Manager

DARTH-KER Jedi Youngling

FalconFan Jedi Master

HanSolo29 RPF/SWC/Fan Art Manager & Bill Pullman Connoisseur Staff Member Manager

Glitbiter Jedi Youngling

HanSolo29 RPF/SWC/Fan Art Manager & Bill Pullman Connoisseur Staff Member Manager

NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus VIP - Former Mod/RSA

DARTH-KER Jedi Youngling