Lets revive the forum!

[lolbbq]

So... i love this forum a lot. Ive been posting here since the beginning. And it bothers me that its so quiet around here, cause this place has a lot of potential. what i love about the forums is that its a nice community, its very laid back, and Randis (and mods) have done a great job of keeping the forum up to date and with cool/unique features. I feel that its time to get this place running like it used to back when it first opened up over a year ago! There are lots of artist who are looking for a nice community to be a part of. Lets make the Kitchen a place for those people! WHAT ARE SOME IDEAS THAT WE CAN USE TO REVIVE THE FORUMS!!!??? Post, Comment, Share. -Aryeh (lolbbq)

[Mugshotpro]

YES! The mods are getting ready to change up the portal page and promote some of the projects that have been going strong(RPG and Gangbang) But please members, post your ideas about what you would like to see here in the kitchen.

[Dm7]

I agree completely with you, I find it harder and harder to hang out in the forum because there's nothing for me to see except for SB So... let's get it more active! GB is a good start indeed and RPG? Has it started yet? I might get in it after I finish my summer vacation!

[Meteorskies]

I hear your concerns, but here is how I see the problem: we already have good and interesting activities on going, and we have already tried big contest with real prizes. The main problem doesn't come from what is available here, but from the fact that out of our 900 members, only a maximum of 20 are really active (members on the chat mostly), 10 to 15 are a bit active (updating their sketchbooks). There is no magical solution. We have hundreds of lurkers. Why don't they become more active? I don't know. I think we're working hard enough on different kinds of activities. I know that what attracts people the most is some kind of class/workshop, because they want to improve. Battles frighten them because they lack confidence (I don't think it is because it's not interesting). When Randis released his Eye Study, we got our record of connections and the most viewed thread. Obviously, renown artists would be a plus for bumping our member's participation up, but renown artists are professional most of the time, and they have other matters to attend. The active members will hone their skills and get some attention from other communities in time, so this community will actually have more renown artists if they stay active here. The reason why the activity was so high when it started is exactly that: it was brand new and had just started. We've added tons of new activities and nothing has fundamentally changed. People are just versatile and grew bored. Now what? Since the calendar activity was a fail, I don't think we'll launch something like that soon, at least not before we get more active members. Again, the point is not to get members, but ACTIVE members. The thing is, we can't force them to be active. The point is to find a way to get them willingly active. Battles in all sort we'll continue as there are always people interested. Rumble Riots as well. We're almost in summer. Some people will get more active with more free time, and some won't because they'll do something else. You guys want more activity? Fine, but get involved. Comment on sketchbooks, give critics on them (I know you do you who've posted here, but I'm talking to the lurkers who read this). Another thing I noticed: new members apparently never read the threads. I can't count the number of people barging in and asking what a RR is, what a GB is, etc. I even saw people not knowing there was a RPG project while there is a GODDAMN WHOLE SECTION FOR IT. For that, I can't do anything but cry all the tears of my body on people laziness. Regarding the RPG, Jakey and I are working on it. It takes some time because we're working on the game mechanics, and we're only two on this. Unfortunately, considering how far we went with it, we can't ask for some help on the mechanics now as there will be disagreements for sure. However, what people CAN do is develop the visual side of the RPG. There are descriptions of the races, templates and all what is needed to do something. Environments development will never stop as the world is meant to be constantly enriched. The RPG will actually be some kind of art class/workshop/course in the form of a RPG. I won't detail everything here, but we have well defined this with Jakey. Hopefully, it will bring in members interested in practicing and learning. Know that mods work on getting more activity here, but know as well that there is no way we'll suddenly get 25000 members (note I didn't even dare saying "active"). It will take time, and there is no reason to be worried about the current low activity.

[Luneder]

We need workshops and tutorials mainly since those are what makes sites like this one active. I have a 3 week break starting this weekend that I will use as an opportunity to set something low maintenance up. I can easily get study corner going again in a way where I am not forced to make study for each week like last time. The current activities have the problem of requiring setting up with the other members. Conceptart.org has something like our art battles, the activity there really is not that strong compared to say character of the week where people can join anytime without much interaction other than posting WIPs. For the optimum setup we would need topics that require a new thread each new topic, this translates into needing a sub-forum for finished topics, this will keep from having threads that have so many pages that those that want to join in would have search for the topic.

[kuroyue]

To be honest, I find it pretty odd that the most active places on this site are the most constructive places, rather than the general catch-all lounge procrastination-galore forum. That's the number one reason why I've come to this site, really. We could try sending out an email to all registered members to "come back to the forum, there's lots of stuff going on, we need you, ESPECIALLY SINCE WE ONLY HAVE LIKE 15-20 ACTIVE MEMBERS OUT OF 900", or something? Haha I don't know. I even kind of want to suggest adding an ultimatum like "btw we'll be purging all inactive accounts that haven't posted since ______", but. that. probably doesn't help, does it? .-.

[Meteorskies]

We need workshops and tutorials mainly since those are what makes sites like this one active. I have a 3 week break starting this weekend that I will use as an opportunity to set something low maintenance up. I can easily get study corner going again in a way where I am not forced to make study for each week like last time. Agreed. That's why we changed a bit the RPG into a workshop like activity. The current activities have the problem of requiring setting up with the other members. Conceptart.org has something like our art battles, the activity there really is not that strong compared to say character of the week where people can join anytime without much interaction other than posting WIPs. For the optimum setup we would need topics that require a new thread each new topic, this translates into needing a sub-forum for finished topics, this will keep from having threads that have so many pages that those that want to join in would have search for the topic. Disagreed. It's not because we won't have to set up with other members that they'll become active. Plus, I would like to mention that the "enter anytime" battles have already been tried here. It was a Battle Royal, created by dZ-ero, and it was a complete fail as NOBODY entered. Moreover, having threads all over the place that wait to have participants will make the forum look even more dead and neglected. We could try sending out an email to all registered members to "come back to the forum, there's lots of stuff going on, we need you, ESPECIALLY SINCE WE ONLY HAVE LIKE 15-20 ACTIVE MEMBERS OUT OF 900", or something? Haha I don't know. I even kind of want to suggest adding an ultimatum like "btw we'll be purging all inactive accounts that haven't posted since ______", but. that. probably doesn't help, does it? .-. Not a solution. People won't appreciate threats nor they will take us seriously if we beg them.

[Dm7]

Yes I agree that giving out tutorials and such is the key here to attract more people. After all CA and CGTalk have countless resources for that. And I bet that our audience are made mostly of self-taught and school-taught students who are looking for ways to improve their skills. With that being said, I am willing to contribute on color theory and such after I get my style worked out. However, it won't be until after I'm done with the summer vacations. Meteorskies is right. I agree as well. Adding more thread/forum might make the forum look more empty than necessary so we better keep it simple, yet resourceful. After all, simplicity rules. The rest, well, he has said it all so I'll end it here. P.S. Btw thank you Meteorskies for the hard work with RPG and such. Much appreciated!

[Meteorskies]

So here is a discussion (well, a monologue actually), Pui had: I think what happens is that our kitchen art forum is in the non-mainstream end(versus sites like cgtalk, cghub, 3Dtotal). In reference, i think in some ways, we are similar to Polycount.com. they have a extremely tight community. and their community ranges from a mature to professional artists. With that being said, I dont think by trying super hard to get kitchen to the mainstream lane will work, because to get main stream, our admin community NEEDS to be all top notch artists in their respective fields to draw in the average attention. We only have Randis, maybe eWKn, and CGaddict as the most infamous artists in the kitchen community, but with that being said, i think we are a pretty darn good non-main stream group. We seem to attract a good deal of starters that are either just turning 15 and found out that there are more to the internet that just porn, as well as people that had gone through art school some years back, and picking art back up. In our kitchen chatroom, we are providing a very group environment as well as motivational mood to encourage them; to either think of art as a career, or helping them get back to there feet. I for one think that that is our biggest selling point. But only at a fraction of millineum that these guys pop in from time to time though. So, what i think is, if we can somehow exploit that side of our community, i think we will be able to improve more at our non-mainstream community point. We have try many contests and challenges b4, non turn out so well, b/c our forum is non-mainstream, we dont attract as much fancy artist as the mainstream ones, and we shouldnt direct too much man power to try and force our community to move forward something that it dont want to. I enjoy putting a sort of personality to our forum. and I think our forum is a medium side empty classroom. Most of the time, when they pop into the room, they freaking STAY in the room, or regularly pop back in, A LOT! What we need to do is maybe find some way to show that " hi we got a classroom at room 2B, its a great place to talk about stuff, and hi we play with chalks at the board too, wanna do some quick doodle(RR) with us?" "- Sure, why not?" they say. And with that, we get them to enlist in our classroom. And now my mind is blank, i am done with my ranting. ^^ sowwie if i didnt offer any solution to the conumdrum. XD... In every situation, there is Always ALWAYS a solution sitting next to it. you just gota kinda find multiple uses to get the answer. We only learn about its existence right after the answer is found..it becomes so freaking obvious that you wanna hit your self in the head ^^ I must say I agreed all along his monologue, so I skip you my contribution to the discussion ^^

[PuiArt]

*nods*