The State if the PB Design Community

[Kami]

Jul 10, 2010 4:04:39 GMT -8 xcessive said:

I think "share" was what he meant when he said band together. At least that was my interpretation.

mm, maybe. whenever i hear 'band together', though, i think of lost, lonely people on an island struggling to survive and are suspicious of newcomers. xD edit;; or people 'banding together' against like, a dictatorship, etc.

[tovarisch]

What i meant was, instead of each of them trying to set up seperate forums, all joining the one forum.

As for sharing experience and knowledge, I have never been an active member of a graphics community that doesnt do exactly that.
It's all about how the admins create a culture.

[Anselm]

I only filled out a form and this thread got popular

I agree that attitudes were a major factor in why there was no "new breed" to take over as such when the older ones left. I suppose I'm unusual in having been here since 2005, through the heyday of 2006 and then having seen the decline. Attitudes got the old GDD board closed and this new one set up - and I think a lot started leaving after that.

But it's right to say that the community thrived because like-minded people created the same type of forum - and all helped each other improve. I was never quite good enough for that elite group in all honesty, and a few of us were sort of in between, but mostly the development was all of them together.

And as for the point about all joining the one forum - how about GDD here? I know I have a vested interest in saying that, but this board has always been the big one.

[Michael]

One of the helping reasons for the downfall is that people love to run their own forum ... instead of deciding that they'd rather contribute to a good solid forum, they all want to run their own...

In an ideal world (YEY!) you would have a designer & a coder as the admins (they don't have to be the best on PB - just active) then you would have another designer as the gmod. These 3 people would design the forum & keep it going.

However, everyone's power hungry so something like this will never ever work.

Not to mention that a lot of people lack the skill to actually bring something innovative out. The last skin I saw that was innovative and I thought: "Hmm that's good!" was in the times of mAsDeisgns and more explicitly the Despotic premade skin.

Designers are too cautious to break the mould when they design a forum so they all look the same - they need to turn round and say to a coder "This is what we want - do it!" ... not "Can we do this?"...

Why do the boards have to be structured as they are? Why do things have to be square? Why does the menu have to be at the top?

The summer is here - it's the perfect time for people to use their time effectively and collaborate on something that could be big ... but will they? Perhaps, will it work? No - 'cause someone will want power etc.. and they won't get it.

It's been tried before - and failed.

[Anselm]

I think that's the attitudes thing again - everyone wants power, wants to have the best forum, etc.

Though I think certain forums definitely stuck out, I'm thinking ZD/SSD/G101 as the big 3 then places like SZ, DX5, VC later on doing well.

I found this thread, quite interesting too.

[iiPod]

In a way I agree and disagree with everything that's said.

I 100% agree that the PB designers are dying out, all the graphics orientated forums are gone and it's left behind a breed of sig-whoring scan line using web 2.0 obsessed 'designers'. Rockafella is holding a PB skin competition over this summer and I think it'd be the perfect opportunity for ProBoards to make a comeback to it's original design prowess.

The main thing that is lacking is coders. There are enough OK designers on PB, who will all get better as time marches on (Alusion, Toshiru, iDesign, Rockafella (God already), myself, Tovarisch and xcessive. Off the top of my head). We can all make a fairly OK forum design, yet when it comes to coding we are mainly restricted to the premade codes of the past, (in most cases) hotch-potch CSS, Wrighty (Michael), JD and Chris off of SZ if you entice him.

I'm open to any design collabs that people may want to do, just drop me a PM here and I'll add you on MSN.

About a super design forum, I think it'd be a great idea if there is no out and out admin but a stable base of people whom all have power over boards and whom all contributed to the design of the forum. What really needs to happen is something.

[Michael]

i am more than happy to code something... So long as its not the same as all of the other forums out there... If it looks really good and unique, i will happily throw my all at it. Ultimately though, you still need admins :/ or some heirarchy.

[Thesealion]

I have noticed that the bigger forums have been dieing out. I joined proboards about a year ago but only found support and the bigger forums about 6 months ago. I have tried to learn Javascript so i can help with coding but i just am not good enough to do graphics. So when i created my board i had a problem. I decided we should just focus on good coding and then have some graphics in the background but i realized that every good board NEEDS A GOOD GRAPHIC MOD. I have been looking for a good graphic mod for about 3 weeks but it is just to hard to find someone who is willing to spend their time helping others with graphics. I have noticed that allot more people my age are focusing more on coding and leaving the graphics to others. Yes the graphics community is dieing but i think that once people start realizing that good forums must not just have amazing codes, it must also have good graphics to draw in new members.

[Rockafeller]

I too have been here long enough to watch most of the decline and from my opinion really started with the fall of ExDat and g101. But that's beside the point.

I agree with some of the posts of above and some I strongly disagree with. Proboards definitely used to have a huge network of pb development forums, and now it's safe to say pretty much of it is gone. There are some straggler forums that are doing, ya'know, kinda ok, but maybe that's only because they're just starting out. Hopefully they'll grow bigger in time.

But anyways, to blame a lot of fall on 'elite designers' is rude and doesn't recognize many of the other significant reasons of the inactivity. What is an 'elite designer', exactly? I for one have always loved giving comments to criticism, that doesn't mean I put every newcomers thread on my list of things comment on.

Also, the statement that there's no 'newblood' is largely false. The list given above by iipod of designers now is the new wave. I don't care about Reedy, Murasaki, Smangii, Pen, Sunjo, or any other designers that once had their heyday here. They're gone, and it's sad, whatever. Good for them, they're out doing their thing. And it's not just designers btw, it's coders too; which many of you have left out of this discussion. there's a pretty good list of them too but i'm too lazy to think of them all. Anyways, it's time to stop thinking about them and move on. Their reign on proboards has ended. lol

I agree with that one of the main reasons many of forums have died because of staff and hierarchy issues. Everyone wants to be a staff member or some ruling ultimate power figure with teh cooliest baddass skinned forum ever with out doing any of the grunt work. And that's been a problem for as long as I've been here(2005) and not something recent. 'Heck I've been the problem once or twice. Sorry.

I like the idea of getting something together but I don't want anyone to jump off and start without proper planning and thought. which has also been a problem for awhile now, which Wrighty has already given the perfect scenario of what actually happens. lol

I'm open to help with any project.
--
Now, as iipod said above, Yes, I will be holding a proboards skin competition this summer because I'm tired of waiting for pb support to have one. If you are interested PM for my details. Right now, it's not at a stage where I would like to announce it's full presence.

[Thesealion]

I like that idea. Maybe i can try to participate even though i will totally suck it

[Renegade]

Jul 10, 2010 3:33:16 GMT -8 xcessive said:

Its pretty hard to miss the fact that the rise of the RP boards on proboards almost directly coincides with the fall of the major graphics forums.

Not true. RP boards havr always been huge on PB. But, design forums didn't increase proportionally to everything else, perhaps because its harder for a designer to dedicate time to more than one or two boards.

Going with the idea that anyone wanting to make graphics for PB tends to be someone who's here a lot as well, you can see the problem - Support doesn't have tons of 13 year olds around anymore. These are the people who would be excitedly skinning forums, joining all the design forums, eager to learn and make their own. So where have they all gone? In short - to places that make it easier for them; as well as FaceBook.

You see, when the guys thought of as the best PB designers now, got that good, many of them didn't like dealing with newbies. If you answer a newb question by telling someone to Google it, then they go off and do so, and wherever they find their answer is where they stay. And if you want critiques on images, rather than short comments like "awesome!1", then there go your fans (the ones who might join your board because they'er in awe of your talent).

[iDesign]

I agree with the point above. I think the biggest problem with PB designers is that I can't think of all that many who didn't get an anti newbie attitude. The moment you start thinking you're the best, it shows through in the way you present yourself online, and in my view, makes you less approachable. I know that when I was pretty new to design, I was put off PMing more experienced designers for help, because you just got the feeling they didn't give a stuff. That's definitely not a good thing as an admin. Which coincidentally, most of them were.

So I think what the design community needs is to open up a bit more to the newbie designers, because they could be the future. It only takes one person with the right idea and attitude to make a hugely successful forum, but that'll never happen if they get blanked for 'being new'. I mean, how much of the 'godly' design community was probably helped out by others on PB at some stage?

[Toshiru]

Jul 10, 2010 7:42:13 GMT -8 iiPod said:

About a super design forum, I think it'd be a great idea if there is no out and out admin but a stable base of people whom all have power over boards and whom all contributed to the design of the forum. What really needs to happen is something.

It happened before and let's just say it didn't go out too well. People are greedy and want recognition + power.

Honestly, I think something like v5 will get everyone to start coming back. Most great coders will come back to code and the design forum craze will as well. Too bad v5 isn't coming this year.

[iiPod]

Jul 10, 2010 12:47:09 GMT -8 Toshiru said:

Jul 10, 2010 7:42:13 GMT -8 iiPod said:

About a super design forum, I think it'd be a great idea if there is no out and out admin but a stable base of people whom all have power over boards and whom all contributed to the design of the forum. What really needs to happen is something.

It happened before and let's just say it didn't go out too well. People are greedy and want recognition + power.

Honestly, I think something like v5 will get everyone to start coming back. Most great coders will come back to code and the design forum craze will as well. Too bad v5 isn't coming this year.

I'd like to think that the aforementioned group of people whom I wrote about weren't power hungry, belligerent dimwits.

[Anselm]

I've heard that DX5 is likely to come back with V5, and I think it may stimulate skinning (and definitely coding) a bit. It'll be interesting to see the effect, because the last 'boom' as such came, I think, with the release of V4.

I've had a look through the posts just before GDD was closed - general attitudes thinking some weren't good enough because they are newbies, etc - and I understand this, since designers only improve alongside those who are as good as, or better than them, and in those cases, didn't want the 'noobs' joining their battles. Not sure what noob thought of that back then