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Is the forum worthwhile?
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Message
Posted
Like Tessa, I’d been a POL member for quite some time before I came across the forum, although don’t remember contributing much to it at the time. More recently, about four or five years ago, I remember people complaining that the forum was too quiet and at that time Dawn even thought it was in danger of being shut down. It’s picked up a lot since then, especially after Paul introduced the Inspirations thread, and today it seems to be thriving in comparison, with a few other regular threads. Yes, new members would be good, but those that have joined don’t often seem to stay around for long - and some have left because they felt offended in some way, but unfortunately this does happen when the written word can be so easily be misinterpreted. It might help bring in new members if the forum was mentioned in the introduction on the gallery home page - I think this has already been suggested but no action taken. It would also be useful if the forum had a decent search function - it’s pretty useless when you’re trying to find an earlier thread that has dropped out of sight.
Edited
by Jenny Harris
Posted
I’ve written a lot of artists equipment reviews, brushes, supports, paints etc plus numerous WIP demos over the past decade, many for Dawn, some for the Editor Sally - which went into TA magazine, some into this forum section under the appropriate heading which are still available to read.
Was the lack of comments demoralising? It could be I suppose…but it didn’t particularly bother me.
Rarely did I get any feedback from the forum, perhaps the occasional comment… but it doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody read them or found them helpful - people just don’t feel the need to comment!
I agree with Jenny, past threads are difficult to find, the search engine isn’t great!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
YES, YES, YES, certainly worthwhile for those of us who use it. The fact that this is a core group shouldn't be seen as diminishing the value. I think it could be better advertised perhaps, and as others have said the search engine isn't the best. One suggestion would be to update the user guide, how would one of the moderators feel about doing that? The most recent topic under that heading didn't really fit.
However, I for one have certainly benefitted from reading and learning from the discussions, getting helpful information from my occasional questions, and learning about the artists that Paul and Jenny do such a good job with on the inspiration thread. I always look in but haven't commented much, recently I am taking Alan's warning to heart and trying to be more active. There are some good suggestions about trying to promote it more.
Edited
by Sandra Kennedy
Posted
The forum is certainly worthwhile. And debate should be encouraged—not squashed. It's perfectly true that each of us has an opinion; but things'd be pretty dull if that were not the case. As for prospective new members being too inhibited to post for fear of appearing foolish, take a look at other web forums devoted to art. You'll find a veritable cornucopia of imagination-boggling questions of the likes of: "Is it OK to paint acrylic over oils?", "Oil paint over varnish?", "Polyfilla as an oil primer on cornflake packets?", and so on, and so forth(!)
Posted
Sandra, the moderators cannot make any changes to the forum headings - that would have to be done by the web techies!
We only have limited authority on the site, mainly that of policing and deleting inappropriate forum posts, including being able to ban any suspected spammers and those (generally new) members who’s posts may contain embedded links to sales sites… and so on!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Thank-you for your reply Alan. I didn't actually mean to suggest that you should change the forum heading, I just wondered whether the forum guide could be updated? Presumably someone could just write an updating post, reminding people of the rules (no personal criticism etc), and perhaps some info re searching? Just a thought.
Posted
Exactly so Sandra. The forum guide is largely defunct. When I first used the forum I went to the ‘guide’ expecting to receive guidance in its use. A reasonable assumption. But no guide, no rules, no helpful hints. There should be such a guide anchored firmly in place so it’s always the first thing you see.
Some of the topics have some relevance to its use, a query about multiple postings, for example, but most don’t. There’s nothing to stop me starting a new post in there about painting my toenails…if I felt so inclined.
Maybe only the moderators should be able to make posts in the forum guide.