Combined Completed/Gallery Subforum

[mickbench]

Well,

Obstinate or not, I like the idea. I’m fed up with trawling through hundreds of WIP, to find a completed thread. But, upon saying this, the motorsports section does move slower, so picking out completed threads is slightly easier then the street or show etc..

And, we all start models, only to get fed up, or distracted and never finish them. I can name a few right now who’ve done this, but I won’t… I’m one of them. Some of them who do this are good builders as well. Steve (Hiroboy) has posted a few times on how to also prepare pictures. That “should” be a sticky regardless. It’s good advice he’s given. Advice most, even me forget to take, and I wager some haven’t even bothered to read it.

So, a completed sub forum, where members can showcase their latest works is a good idea. It does take the completed model away from the virtual workbench, and puts them into a virtual showcase.

As for viewing models that only interest you, I don’t tend to do this myself, as I tend to build from the whole spectra so I enjoying looking at any type of scale auto model.

Anyhow, I’ve said my bit. I’ll just wait and see what happens.

[RallyRaider]

Willimo I don't see any reason to lay down draconian rules. It will pretty much be as it is now except we'll come up with a burst to guide any newcomers. For instance it would be nice for the initial post in the completed thread to have a link back to the WIP thread. Not a requirement, just handy.

[klutz_100]

It's kind of interesting how this whole topic arose, has developed and the different (sometimes seemingly strong) opinions it has evoked.

For what it's worth I kind of feel that:

a) Any change should be made for a reason i.e the change should address a genuine problem or bring some genuine added value. So far, TBH, I have the feeling that this whole subject came about because the new hot-rod sub-forum answered a question that nobody had actually even asked (in the sense that there was a real, significant demand for it - but maybe I am mistaken)

b) If heavy traffic in the street forum is actually a real and relevant issue ( by this I understand it to mean that there are so many new threads (not posts) appearing that relatively new ones are dissappearing into a black hole somewhere to be lost for eternity) then certainly the simple and elegant suggestion that has been made to have a seperate "Completed/Gallery" sub-forum should go a long way to resolve this. It should theoretically cut new threads by 1/3 if we assume that for every 2 progress threads started only one is posted as completed.
I have to say that personally, while I don't actually see the "disapperaing thread" issue as a problem, I do think that none the less a combined "Completed" sub-forum would be a nice idea and makes more sense than a e.g "hotrod" or "motorbike" or "Ferrari" or "WRC" forum.

Overall a forum, I guess, serves 2 basic functions:

1. Share ideas, techniques etc that help EVERYONE improve
2. Massage our egos by showing everyone how clever we've been and collecting as many "oohs" and "Ahs" as possible.

The proposed split should let us all have our cake and eat it.

c) At the end of the day - as can be seen in many of the posts - the whole "all for one and one for all" WIP forum lobby versus the "each to their own" lobby is actually all to do with subjective preference and therefore to my mind falls into is more about the Forum's philosophy and mission as defined by the owners/administrators. They should make the call. Whatever they decide to do some will like it, some won't at first but everyone will calm down in 2 weeks and get used to it. Ulitimately thread title and thread author will probably be the best measure of whether or not you wnat to enter a thread. But looking into threads - even those that are outside of your core field of interest - is free, you lose nothing but always stand the chance to gain something and to my mind is what a forum is all about

d) Post policing mentioned by Mick. Again it's a Forum culture/philosophy thing that falls to the Admin to decide the rules and "enforce" them. Some areas will be quantitative: image size and quality, use of punctuation (it's always possible to tell the diffeence between a non-native speaker who is trying his best and a sloppy native speaker) etc others will be more qualitative: image quality, should posts contain 15 pictures of the same shiny body at various glamorous angles? etc. Personally, I think that (based on my vision of a forum) there could/should be some slight improvement in this area.

e) I think our mods are good - even great, do a thankless job which is rarely appreciated and are intelligent, experienced modelers and I'm quite happy to go with their decisions (even if I don't agree with them ) because it's highly improbably that they are going to do anything outrageous. Democracy is fine but someone's got to be boss

Sorry for the long blurge - I like this forum a lot for it's diversity and it was my right to post this and it's your right not to read it

EDIT 1: Sorry for all the mistakes in my post
EDITY 2: Sh*t I write slowly! By the time I finshed writing this, another 10 posts had appeared

[MPWR]

The idea has been suggested and enthusiastically embraced by a number of members that project threads be divided into In Progress and Completed categories. This would hopefully have several cool benefits. One would be to slow down the speed with which build threads slide off of the front page of Street/Show. Another is that it would almost turn the In Progress areas into 'How to' workshops, and make Completed into a sort of gallery.

One of the things that will have to be decided is what differentiates an 'In Progress' thread from a 'Completed' one. If this restructuring happens, some lucky moderator is going to get to go through the great tome of Completed and In Progress threads, and divide them into one category or the other. Now would be a good opertunity to decide what the division criteria should be. We can also go into any guidelines to be suggested about posting in these categories.

If you have thoughts on whether or not this change should take place, if Motorsports should remain separate from Street, or anything else, please post them in other threads. This way we can address this particular question and hopefully come to a good decision on it.

So, what are your thoughts?

[Mr. Me.]

It`s good idea I think.

[RallyRaider]

How about a motorbikes WIP subforum?

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by RallyRaider

How about a motorbikes WIP subforum?

Is this a joke?? Why?

[RallyRaider]

At this stage it is just a surprise, possibly even just a test. Something we were leading up to but were intending to be gentle about. Cat's out of the bag now...

Could be worse, how would you feel about an AF military modeling forum?

[RallyRaider]

Man this new things happening AF is something else. Hope you enjoyed the debate guys, the Admins have spoken. AF Auto Art now looks like this:

Automotive Forums (top level) main page
- - Automotive Art
- - - - Car Modeling
- - - - - - WIP - Street
- - - - - - WIP - Motorsports
- - - - - - WIP - Muscle Car/Hot Rod
- - - - - - WIP - Motorbikes
- - - - - - Completed Projects/Gallery
- - - - Diecast Car Modeling
- - - - Sketching and Drawing
- - - - - - Non-Auto Art
- - - - Graphic Manipulation
- - - - Remote Control Cars

I wish I could hang around and start organising things but its 1:30 in the morning here and I have to go to bed. Stay calm, don't hyperventilate.

[D_LaMz]

I like the Progress and Completed seperated.

[JTRACING]

it was fine the way it was

[RallyRaider]

And I expect it will be fine the way it is. We are still the same people who make this community a great place to be. Now we've just got a whole lot more real estate to hoon around in!

[JTRACING]

And I expect it will be fine the way it is. We are still the same people who make this community a great place to be

Yes for sure no argument here about that,
just giving my on the layout lol

[RallyRaider]

For the majority the division should be quite clear but there are many members who in the past have combined all their pics into one thread. In that case the common sense option (to me) would be to leave those threads in the WIP section. If the builder wishes they can post a new thread in the Gallery forum, in fact I'd encourage it.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Lovely. Now A/F is becoming Scale Autofied. Nothing simple can ever be left well enough alone.