art forum discussion?

I would LOVE to have an art discussion forum as a sub-area in SO. Its crowded with art contests imo.

i just noticed that no admins have put their input on this.. and theyre rather important... so i was wondering whether or not you guys were going to poke your head out and shout

My girlfriend has brought up the question of "Why no art forum?" more than a few times. I'd never go in there but I'm sure a few other BLrs would.

just so you know, im not going to let this go until i hear some input from the people above who matter...

bear in mind that it is the holiday season and people's priorities may lie elsewhere right now.

alasdair

blissfulMenace said:

just so you know, im not going to let this go until i hear some input from the people above who matter...

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you forgot to stamp your feet.

as SA has linked to, there has been plenty of discussion about this in the past, but unfortunately not much action. and by that i mean by all the people clamouring for it. SO is by no means overwhelmed by arty threads at the moment.

i bet if you make a poll most bl'ers would love to see it, i mean afterall we are a group of artistic druggies are we not.

and the reason the discussion about it dies out is because, as i did, everyone figures its a futile effort as no movement comes from it.

a buddy of mine had a good idea, what if we just change words to "words and images"

I might have an unpopular opinion about this, but personally I think that if we were to have a sub forum for art somewhere (second opinion atm) then I think it would be much better suited with words. Yes it would need some major work happening before we could get it organised, but they're both creative topics and I think they're better suited together (even if it's just link wise).

Second opinion to me is asking about practical advice and sometimes personal advice as well. I know there's some art threads in there atm, but to me they don't mix. Anyway I think an art forum would be great, but like last time I'm not sure it would generate enough traffic.

a buddy of mine had a good idea, what if we just change words to "words and images"

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Ahh I promise I didn't see that until after I posted. Should probably learn to read everything before I open up my big mouth. The only issue is that it would probably be more than just images.

blissfulMenace said:

and the reason the discussion about it dies out is because, as i did, everyone figures its a futile effort as no movement comes from it.

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Highways are built to accommodate traffic, not the reverse.

a buddy of mine had a good idea, what if we just change words to "words and images"

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An arts forum, if it is as important as it is made out to be (and I myself also believe it is), has to exist on its own merits, IMO, not piggyback another, which is what it's doing now anyway. I agree though that it would fit better within the Music-Words-Film grouping.

An arts forum, if it is as important as it is made out to be (and I myself also believe it is), has to exist on its own merits, IMO, not piggyback another, which is what it's doing now anyway. I agree though that it would fit better within the Music-Words-Film grouping.

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that is exactly why i believe we need to rid SO of the burden of all the art threads that take up the first page

We don't consider it a burden.

But I'm with you on the rest of the idea.

blissfulMenace said:

i bet if you make a poll most bl'ers would love to see it...

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did you read the previous discussion thread? from the previous discussion:

alasdairm said:

with respect, it's the easiest thing in the world to click a button which says "i'd participate in an art forum".

in an attempt to put this in perspective i had a look at the number of art-related threads started in second opinion by those in this thread who are in support of such a forum (about 14 posters). there are 5000 threads in second opinion right now and i found 6.

i guess my point is that if the people in this thread arguing for such a forum aren't starting art-related threads, who's to say anybody will?

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alasdairm said:

so it's been just under a week since this discussion faded out and, as far as i can tell, there's been only one new art-oriented thread started in second opinion...

if each of the 31 people who voted for a new forum had bothered to start just one thread each, i might think there was something to the poll but, as it stands, to me it's just meaningless...

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these points are not intended to stifle discussion. rather, to show that a poll is really not that helpful in isolation.

alasdair

Originally Posted by alasdairm
with respect, it's the easiest thing in the world to click a button which says "i'd participate in an art forum".

in an attempt to put this in perspective i had a look at the number of art-related threads started in second opinion by those in this thread who are in support of such a forum (about 14 posters). there are 5000 threads in second opinion right now and i found 6.

i guess my point is that if the people in this thread arguing for such a forum aren't starting art-related threads, who's to say anybody will?

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It pains me to say this, but you're absolutely right.

As has been proven on BL time and time again everyone will get excited about the prospect of an art forum. Then what happens is that they start campaining for it, the forum opens up and the traffic dwindles down to almost nothing (bit like EADD Events). Personally I'd like to see one here, but perhaps there's something else that could be worked on instead that would last longer. Feel free to prove me wrong though.

even if traffic is low i dont understand what the problem is in opening up an art forum and seeing how much traffic we can filter through it...

at the very least it will give a real home for the competitions instead of dirtying up the main page of SO

we can't just create a forum every time somebody says "it would be cool to have a new forum". there has to be a reasonable level of demand and somebody has to demonstrate that demand merits a separate forum.

it's not clear that the current crop of art-related threads are 'dirtying the main so page - that's a matter of opinion. one other poster here (an so mod) says they're no trouble at all.

currently in so there are 8 (out of 40) art-related threads on the front page. that's only 20% and, even in mlb, that's a pretty poor batting average

bluelight used to have an 'art' forum and it died (in traffic terms). why would a new forum succeed where the previous one failed?

alasdair

^do you think it was because the scope of VPA was too broad? i never really frequented the forum, but i could see how art threads would get lost amongst tv and movie discussion.

a buddy of mine had a good idea, what if we just change words to "words and images"

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Art isn't just images though of course. Unless you were to propose a purely visual arts forum. I do suspect that that would get a lot of traffic in the end.

Hi there. I'm an admin, and I'll be happy to share my thoughts, though I only speak for myself, and not all the admins

As ali pointed out - holidays are among us (watchout, one might get you). I, myself, am in the middle of a 2 week jaunt to visit family and such, so online time is limited. But that isn't to say such questions or ideas aren't worth commenting upon.

I'd have to agree with several of the experienced naysayers primarily based on the failure of past efforts, the fact that the content currently has a home (SO, while perhaps not ideal, does accommodate), and as ali pointed out a poll is pointless when contribution and content is what's required to show a need for such a forum. I would commend SA for his leadership in the photo contests in SO over the past few months, and while I sometimes think they muck the forum a bit (I concede it isn't a perfect home), I doubt those threads would survive as well if it weren't for the effort of a select few (I'm thinking of BA during the earlier trials and SA over the past several months). Yes, there are a lot of people participating, and contributing, but even in the latest contest efforts were made to draw in other people to vote as the number of entries nearly matched the number of people with interest

The adage remains - show the content has overrun or at least halved a forum's discussions and it will have earned it's own forum, IMO. Right now, that's not the case.

One counterpoint I'll throw out for consideration is that since the previous administration left, all we've done is grow - adding S&T and S&G and DS for example. Previous admins looked harder at forums and chose to merge them or kill them off entirely should traffic not be deemed heavy enough to warrant a seperate forum. Perhaps it is time to give such a look again - though nobody wants to be the bad guy and say 'hey, we're closing your forum' It's easier to grant people's requests than it is to kill their dream because it didn't live up to expectations. But we don't want to grow willy-nilly and will put a lot of discussion and review into such a decision before adding more forums. The best you can do to help your cause, as has been repeated several times, is to have those who want the forum show the need for it by creating the threads, the discussions, the content. Then we've got no reason to say no.

blissfulMenace said:

i bet if you make a poll most bl'ers would love to see it

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You mean like this? A poll is simply an opinion. The fervour we see again and again in people's desire to see an arts forum is simply intent. Intent plus opinion does not always translate into content. In fact, in the case of arts content, it rarely seems to be the case.

alasdairm said:

currently in so there are 8 (out of 40) art-related threads on the front page. that's only 20% and, even in mlb, that's a pretty poor batting average

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Seven out of those threads are related to the photo contest and one related to the 2-d art contest (which has withered away already). That makes the picture of averages an even sadder one. A photo contest does not an arts forum make. It was a fantastic idea by BA and I am more than happy to upkeep it (and enjoy doing so), and it can certainly serve as a building block for an arts forum. Let's face it though, it's the only block right now.

I'll keep backing the idea of an arts forum. Once again, we need the traffic to build the highway. The way I see it, we're quite a ways off yet.

... or whatever TLB said.

Miss Peks said:

I might have an unpopular opinion about this, but personally I think that if we were to have a sub forum for art somewhere (second opinion atm) then I think it would be much better suited with words. Yes it would need some major work happening before we could get it organised, but they're both creative topics and I think they're better suited together (even if it's just link wise).

Second opinion to me is asking about practical advice and sometimes personal advice as well. I know there's some art threads in there atm, but to me they don't mix.

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I agree with that part of your post. I'm all for giving it a try; I know nothing about art and feel rather worthless as a S.O. mod at times, as a result, because of the high volume of art-related posts. I'd really love to see it given a (second sort of) chance.