anasazi are a cliff-dwelling people of the US southwest that pretty much had a thriving and pretty cool civilization quite a ways back that still holds a fascination for many people. The navajo and hopi, pueblo and paiute, and hohokam peoples all have ancestry that heads back to them at some point. One of my favorite "get aways" is one of their lesser ruins. Very quiet, peaceful and inspirational.

It's not smarts. Only reason I know about them is becuase I live where I do. If I lived elsewhere, odds are they would never be known to me, either.

"I don't know you, so I guess it's just your style to offer opinions to people."

True enough. Renderosity was started, and is set up, to mimic the RW "Artist Colonies", in many ways, where the purpose of being there is to expose yourself to other artists in the hopes of improving your craft and helping others to improve.

"I'm sure you have a following here."

I'm not certain it would be called a following. The people following me often have pitchforks, torches, and rope.

*"From what what I've seen, the forums are a bit of a free-for-all and people's feelings aren't always of much concern when posting opinions.

For myself, if I know that I may well hurt someone's feelings with my opinions, I prefer to keep it private."*

Sometimes, yes, they are. The vast majority of the time, however, the opposite is true. There are a heck of a lot more posts that are simply someone needing help and getting it, or a few folks joking around, or someone finding out something cool and sharing it than the flamefests. 95% or the time, at least, it is the feelings of others that drive the concerns in the forums.

In effect, I am extending that sense of helping others to the galleries.

I'm just hoping I don't take too much of the 5% otherwise with me.

On the otherhand, I won't worry about hurting someone's feelings. My assessments won't be personal. If people choose to take them as personal attacks, then they won't actually be looking at what I say, they will be looking at something else.

And, of course, if they don't want such things, they do not have to enable the comments, or they simply need to state only praise, please.

IM's do not have 5000 character limits. They have 2000 character limits. And, frequently, no, I cannot distill my thoughts accurately down that far. I never did take that evening news journalism class, darn it. 5,000 think I can manage -- which is apparently the limitations of the comment field.

Now, what's really cool, is that as you were typing your response, I was starting on one called in defense of those only wanting praise.

and then I read your post, and you said:

"Some people who post images are not trying to be artistic, they're just trying to have some fun and share their efforts with the friends they have here. Why intrude on that?"

And it is exactly the point i was in the process of making.

And I do not want to intrude on that. However, there is no methodology for me to be able to distinguish those particular people from others that is built into the renderosity software. So it will be up to them to signify through some means that they are doing that -- either by not enabling the comments field or by making some sort of statement to that effect in their credits or what have you.

or, of course, they could realize that the comments are not intended to interrupt their play or distract them, and simply ignore them.

The rest of my post, saying the same thing, though, was about how their doing that is perfectly fine, and that they should not be condemned or looked down on. Becuase often, from their wonderful enthusiasm, one can learn neat little tricks and get some cool ideas -- and besides, there's never, ever anything wrong with play.

We all need to do more of it.

I just don't always do it well with others. My doctors say it's congenital...

Message edited on: 12/24/2004 23:17

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)