art forum discussion?

TheLoveBandit said:
One last comment, is that I'd suggest a smod (one of the ones who have adopted this forum?) ensure there is nothing of staff-only concern and unapprove such comments...then push this to SUPPORT where the members in favor might get a) more awareness of BM's effort and b) help in making the cause known and making such an experiment justified.
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i'll take care of that this afternoon.

alasdair
 
blissfulMenace said:
alright well i suppose i can be patient then, it just makes me sad to see this thread slide down the forums into the abyss where nobody will see it ever again..

i suppose you could call the cry up there a bump if you will. i suppose some advice on how to keep at least some attention to this might be useful, because i have this feeling once the threads slide down the ranks it will be 6 months before anyone even speaks of it again and we have to start the whole process over again
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Maybe think of a sound format that the forum could be in- such as different artistic categories etc. and write up a plan- when the ideas are just etheral as such they tend to be forgotten; something concrete would be more motivating I would think.

On another note, I think we need a Bluelight Book Club, but that too can wait.
 
swilow said:
On another note, I think we need a Bluelight Book Club, but that too can wait.
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There is nothing new to invent, the patent offices should be shut down, we've created all there is to be created. All that is left is to retry old ideas in the hopes that they might someday work with better success. ;)
 
i'm assuming that thread was archived because nobody ever came back to it?

i mean you have to admit there was a lack of followthru.. on a project like that you kinda gotta continue to track progress and see how everyone is doing..

the last post was one day after the idea was posted and not even you returned to it and it was your idea. at least even you should have gone back a week later and asked if anyone was keeping up. or were you not even keeping up yourself :)
 
^Actually five days- if your talking about the Words thread.

Damn I was sure the book club was a winner...:(
 
TheLoveBandit said:
One last comment, is that I'd suggest a smod (one of the ones who have adopted this forum?) push this to SUPPORT where the members in favor might get a) more awareness of BM's effort and b) help in making the cause known and making such an experiment justified.
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Making it so, numbah one! Engage! :)
(hope you don't mind, alasdairm)

---> Off to Support for public digestion.
 
bM - the words example was more a toss at swillow, not you or your idea. And you're right, follow through is needed to sustain anything (obviously a bunch of slackers involved in that reference...damn lazy druggies). I've no doubt the enthusiasm you've shown here could sustain such a forum if you had enough believers to help you from turning it into your own journal-playpen. ;)


Point remains, the philosophy is not 'build it they will come' but 'see if they are here and then build it'.
 
I think that the success of the photo contest thread is due to the fact that an entry can be generated pretty quickly. I don't know how long everyone takes to go out and photograph, but I know that it could be done in under a minute if one were so inclined. I think that is the reason for the success of the photo competition over the 2-D competition, because it is much easier to take a photo and host it than to create a drawing or photoshop image or painting or what have you. If you look at words, it is mostly short poems with really no formal structure. I just think that people don't have the time and/or motivation to spend a long time generating original content. Creating art can be very time consuming and a lot of work.

That isn't to say that it couldn't succeed. I know that during one discussion of the possible creation of an Arts forum I said that I would contribute and was in support of it, but then things got complicated in life and I didn't really have the means or motivation to do so and I really didn't :\. But things changed and I now am in a position where I can/would like to contribute again. People contribute when they can (I am actually waiting for the next 2-D design competition to start because I would like to contribute to that. I would also like to see perhaps a short film competition). I think this is apparent in the photo competition. The pool of contenders is constantly changing. I know some people seem to contribute every round, but lots of people will throw in a submission only when they have the time/inclination. I think that you have to entice people to compete sometimes. For instance, the "Photographer's Choice" round had a huge number of entries, because it allowed more people to contribute. It caught the attention of more people and thus drew greater participation. The photo contest, in virtue of its long tenure, has also gained some momentum, and drawn more participation because of this. I think that these things lend some credibility to the "if you build it they will come" argument, because it shows that once an arts thread has been established in the proper way, and is structured in such a was as to be very inclusive, it can be successful.

As it stands, the Arts threads related to creating original content have not been as successful because they never really gained the momentum that they needed to be successful, which could be due to the fact that they are sandwiched into SO and do not have a good "user base" if you will. These are both problems that could be solved by creating a place that attracts people that would be interested in them in the first place. It's why you create a community arts center rather than telling all the artists to use the school gymnasium for their art shows.

While it has been observed that an arts forum may not succeed by virtue of its existence alone, this doesn't preclude it from succeeding if it is able to find a good base of users; if it is able to hit its target audience. I think that to point to the state of individual art-related threads as being indicative of a general disinterest in the arts and thus proof of the unavoidable failure of an arts forum is to jump to conclusions. Rather than being indicative of a lack of support for arts related threads, it could point to a lack of a proper "forum" (pun intended) for arts related threads to achieve their potential.

Another thing that fuels the perception that there are not many arts related threads is (as has been mentioned) that many of them are scattered amongst the other forums. There are threads in PD, SO, the Lounge, CD, even S&T, that would fit in an Arts forum. They just diffuse over the rest of the board.

One of the keys to making any such forum a success would be to make it known that it exists, and good leadership (moderation i guess). The photo contest probably would have died a long time ago if SA wasn't committed to running it.

Anyway, I have lots of ideas, but I've already written enough.

To sum it up, I guess I am saying that I think it could be a success, it just needs the right ingredients to get the momentum it needs to continually draw new users, as well as keep those who would contribute regularly, to generate new original artistic content and discussion. I think there is a good chance that they are out there, it is just hard to rally around a bunch of random threads throughout the board and a handful of threads that lose traffic and visibility by being dumped into a forum that doesn't get a great deal of traffic in the first place.

I want to write more but I will stop now.

p.s. no offense or anything to anyone who runs SO or any of the threads I have mentioned.

p.p.s. add "IMO" to every conclusion drawn here. I don't have any data or anything to back it up, it is just conclusions I have drawn from my own observation.
 
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lookie there, weve gone public! hooray!

and ninja id say both of those are more than qualified to fit the forum specifications

im also kinda glad you posted that second one because it made me smile.. although i didnt go past the second page because im about to go crash out..

i rather like the idea of communal art pieces tho... especially with the crazy crowd we have around here
 
ok, i havent read the entire thread, but first its so cool that someone actually noticed what i had to say. props BM~

i am myself a fine artist and a recovering drug addict, and id LOVE an art forum here at bluelight; it almost seems intrisnsic to the nature of the sight; art is so often inspired by the use of psychoactives that it seems like a website devoted to the discussion of psychoactives would be interested in all aspects of their use. art is definitely a prominant aspect of the drug-world, and as such i feel it should be included in the repetoir of fine forums ya'll have goin here.

my suggestion is to modify the words forum; have it be "words and images," to allow for the creative outflow of psychoactive use to be presented in the same fashion that we encourage poetry to be posted and critiqued.

the rules of the words forum could almost directly apply to images too--just allow for the addition of your visual and maybe even audio recordings into a forum thats already set up for that kind of traffic.

my 2 cents.
 
i don't necessarily want to single people out so treat these comments in the spirit of the devil's advocate.

pennywise and s1ck for example. between you, you have started one art-related thread in second opinion. if vocal proponents of an art forum such as you guys aren't starting art-related threads in so, who's to say anybody will?

i just don't see anybody making a really solid case (in my opinion, "it might work", "it would be nice to have" and "let's just try it and see" are not solid cases). have you read the previous discussion (with the poll)? what conclusions do you draw? i draw the conclusion that, if you beg the question, a lot of people will respond positively. lots of them wil even click a box that says "i'll participate!". that's the easy part - the hard part is proving there's enough content to start, and (harder) proving that there will be enough content to sustain a new forum once it gets going. for me, one of the easiest ways to do both is to start content on the subject in so but so few of the vocal proponents can even find the energy to do that. it's hard to reconcile such action with the pro-forum rhetoric.

i know i sound like a grumpy cynic but, in my defence, i was a moderator of bluelight's last 100% art-oriented forum - v&pa - so i do believe in the concept.

alasdair
 
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alasdairm said:
i just don't see anybody making a really solid case (in my opinion, "it might work", "it would be nice to have" and "let's just try it and see" are not solid cases).
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I don't see how it would be possible to make a case that it "absolutely would work." How can anyone say that anything absolutely will happen? Even laws of physics are not absolute.

alasdairm said:
have you read the previous discussion (with the poll)? what conclusions do you draw? ...the hard part is proving there's enough content to start, and (harder) proving that there will be enough content to sustain a new forum once it gets going. for me, one of the easiest ways to do both is to start content on the subject in so but so few of the vocal proponents can even find the energy to do that. it's hard to reconcile such action with the pro-forum rhetoric.
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I have read the threads and poll. My point was more that people probably don't create art related threads because they have failed in the past, and I was arguing that that failure isn't due to a lack of interest but rather a lack of a proper groundwork for their success. I remember that the last time the topic of an arts forum came up, there was a marked increase in arts related threads, but the movement died out because (i would argue) they lacked the stability and support that having their own forum would generate. Nevertheless, I understand the argument you make and think that it does have some validity, but at some point I think that Arts threads require the next step to be sustainable. So I am trying to start some more art related threads, only two so far, but I hope to brew up some more soon enough. One is in SO, the other in Words*

Think of it as "The Vending Machine Argument." If you want a vending machine to get a lot of traffic, for people to buy candy bars and chips and such, you want to make sure that people will be able to see it. You put it in the employee lounge or something (ie you put arts related threads in their own forum). If you put it in the boiler room (SO), no one is going to buy anything from it apart from the people who know it is there already. Judging from the fact that there is a "homeless threads" forum, people already are confused about where to go for even as basic questions as "Help, oxy question." If no one knows where to look, it isn't surprising that they don't contribute. Bluelight appears on Google and other search engines for the same reason. Do you think it would be as popular, or successful at all, if it was just a part of a larger forum?

alasdairm said:
i know i sound like a grumpy cynic but, in my defence, i was a moderator of bluelight's last 100% art-oriented forum - v&pa - so i do believe in the concept.
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I know you aren't a grumpy cynic. You are just a natural contrarian. ;)


*I consider the Words thread an arts thread because I also support the idea of a "words and images" forum, with the suggestion of possibly stealing the music production threads from the music forums ;). The idea would be to get all user generated artistic content in one forum, while still reserving the space for the discussion of visual arts other than music and film/tv on the consumer side. There could also be discussion of artistic technique in music and film making, however, more dedicated to the craft of producing the art than discussion of content not produced by users. Not to denigrate Words, but traffic and discussion there is pretty slow, and it wouldn't necessitate the creation of a new forum.
 
pennywise said:
I don't see how it would be possible to make a case that it "absolutely would work." How can anyone say that anything absolutely will happen? Even laws of physics are not absolute.
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i understand that. i didn't say anything about making a case that "absolutely would work".

if 'people' put as much effort into creating some art-oriented traffic as they do arguing the need for a separate forum, i believe the case would be stronger.
pennywise said:
I have read the threads and poll. My point was more that people probably don't create art related threads because they have failed in the past, and I was arguing that that failure isn't due to a lack of interest but rather a lack of a proper groundwork for their success.
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if the people arguing so vocally for a new forum give up that easily, bluelight definitely does not need a new art forum (yet).

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
if the people arguing so vocally for a new forum give up that easily, bluelight definitely does not need a new art forum (yet).
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I don't understand how the posting of any number of failed threads by a vocal minority is going to prove the need for an art forum. I could go start 50 art related threads in SO right now, and unless they got more than token participation, it would prove nothing more than that one person (me) wants an art forum. I understand that my continually posting arts threads would do more to prove that I want an arts forum, but what is the point if, due to the situation that I have argued exists, they will ultimately fail anyway? It will just continue to show that I want an arts forum. Where exactly does one draw the line between sufficient and insufficient effort?

I understand that things are as they are and starting threads in SO and trying to generate traffic that way is the best that we have to work with, but it may not be enough to work with to generate whatever amount of traffic is deemed necessary. Furthermore, given the limited nature of the resources available for trying to get an arts forum going, I think that arguing for one in this thread is an acceptable way of achieving that end. It is just another tool available.

Given that you used to be a mod of the V&PA forum, and you have said that you support an arts forum in an abstract kind of way, makes me suspect that the "put up or shut up" argument that you offer could be a backhanded way of motivating people to make an effort to get an arts forum started. I might have seen what you did there. ;)
 
pennywise said:
I don't understand how the posting of any number of failed threads by a vocal minority is going to prove the need for an art forum. I could go start 50 art related threads in SO right now, and unless they got more than token participation, it would prove nothing more than that one person (me) wants an art forum. I understand that my continually posting arts threads would do more to prove that I want an arts forum, but what is the point if, due to the situation that I have argued exists, they will ultimately fail anyway? It will just continue to show that I want an arts forum.
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my point exactly.
pennywise said:
Given that you used to be a mod of the V&PA forum, and you have said that you support an arts forum in an abstract kind of way, makes me suspect that the "put up or shut up" argument that you offer could be a backhanded way of motivating people to make an effort to get an arts forum started. I might have seen what you did there. ;)
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indeed.

:)

alasdair
 
just want to put my voice in as someone else who would definitely view and post on an art forum

i'd love to have a place to talk about my work, other BLers' work, or even just something cool i saw in a gallery
 
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