I'm trying to come up with new ideas to make this forum more active and friendly, and inclusive of all members, of all skill levels, in the Renderosity Poser community.

So I'm asking everyone for their thoughts and ideas.

I'm sure we all know what we would like to see less of.

So what would you like to see more of here? 

Contests? 

Challenges? 

Tutorials on different types of modeling, or content design, or how to get better renders, etc? 

I've also been working - off and on as time permits - on devising a system where we can have an in-house Poser Wiki, which would utilize the (often dead) Poser Technical forum (how many of you even knew there was one?), in such a way where all the knowledgable folks here can contribute their expertise on all the different aspects of Poser, from Frequently Asked Questions, to Tips, How-To's and Tutorials spanning all the most used versions of Poser, and especially Poser 9+. It would be like one massive, community-built instruction manual. Of course it will take a while to grow it, but it's intention is to make the Poser forum your place to come for everything you need to know that is Poser-related.

I have some other ideas as well, but I want to hear what all you guys (and ladies) think. What would keep you coming back and interacting with us?

Everyone is welcome to their input here - just be polite and tactful with your words, keep it on topic, and please don't argue.

Thanks in advance.

~Shane 

 Hmm.

We definitely need a knowledge base. Not only about 'what' but who.  Most of the nifty add on tech came from the community, and the creators really need to be credited. 

Tutorials for sure: RTFM only goes so far; there is a lot of expertise that has never been documented, and if certain people die, the expertise is gone. There is a ton of data about dynamics, rigging, weight mapping, magnets, textures, shaders, maps, rendering, modeling, pipelining etc etc etc buried under the innumberable pages of fora trivia. Having a place for that to exist outside the forums would be a godsend.

Challenges could be useful, so long as it got away from 'Doing V4 new slutwear' and Make genesis work in Poser...more or less!' Bringing in figures of old, the included figures in P-10, making Bullet friendly props, how to set up softbody, things of that nature. Something to dare folks to look beyond their comfort zone and experiment. Which is how so many things got invented to get around P4 limitations. And make the prizes unique (which would be a whole other thread).  

Oooh games.! How about Poser survivor? Every week we pick a 3D figure or prop to render in some way. You post your render, and the judges vote on the best renders and the worst. The worst render is ejected from the game. We add another figure or prop for the next week and so on. Until finally we are left with the lone Poser survivor.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2832647

We had a Poser wiki. I spent hours curating it, making sure the links to great threads worked. I wrote some stuff about shaders.

Rendo deleted it. Without warning.

You won't catch me doing that again.

Worst render might actually hurt somebody's feelings. Not a good idea.

Quote - Worst render might actually hurt somebody's feelings. Not a good idea.

You don't actually call it the worst render.

I'm always in favor of challenges. Don't call it the worst render, it may not truly be anyhow. It's the lowest scoring render.

 Tutorials would be good too. Perhaps some of the local exerts could help.

Quote - Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2832647> Quote - "devising a system where we can have an in-house Poser Wiki, "

We had a Poser wiki. I spent hours curating it, making sure the links to great threads worked. I wrote some stuff about shaders.

ETA: 

Ok, I see what happened. 

Well the system I was looking to create didn't involve using any actual wiki software. It was just going to be a system of links to threads in the Poser Technical forum (which could be moved there from this forum where necessary), and each contributing author would have their own thread, linked to by a table of contents at the top of the forum. 

I thought it might have been removed due to being an off-site wiki, but apparently that was not the case. 

As Dale B says: A knowledge base, and a wiki page (BB).

However I think fun must be included, and that means controvsery. A good argument is fun: A bit of slagging off that does not amount to tolling would be good. Rendo not being so sensitive while maintaining standards.

If I think a gallery image is crap I should be able to say so. If someone thinks I made a model that is crap then they should be able to say so without censure by rendo.

I see that in the three months that the artists anline has dropped from 2000+ to at times less that 1000: Take note Rendo.

We've had plenty of controversy and conflict to last us all a good while. That's one of the big reasons that has driven so many people away from this forum. 

If you think a gallery image is 'crap', you should be able to formulate a constructive comment that is positive and helps the artist by giving them tips on how to improve their work, instead of just saying it's 'crap'. Or just not say anything at all. Inflamatory words like that do nothing positive for the artist or this community. 

acadia posted some link threads, but they got out-of-date really fast.  my only request is for search function that doesn't usually return 1000 wrong results.  as it is now, I can only find a thread if I already know its location.

Quote - acadia posted some link threads, but they got out-of-date really fast.  my only request is for search function that doesn't usually return 1000 wrong results.  as it is now, I can only find a thread if I already know its location.

I know that wouldbe a site improvement but I'm with Nancy on that regard. I'm still trying to find some shaders that BB gave away and that I lost in a hard drive crash.

More, more discussions on shaders and lighting techniques.

Quote - We've had plenty of controversy and conflict to last us all a good while. That's one of the big reasons that has driven so many people away from this forum. 

If you think a gallery image is 'crap', you should be able to formulate a constructive comment that is positive and helps the artist by giving them tips on how to improve their work, instead of just saying it's 'crap'. Or just not say anything at all. Inflamatory words like that do nothing positive for the artist or this community. 

 

"Ambient, if you think that 'Artists online from 2000+ to <900 is success then continue as you are.

Best wishes

I applaud what you are trying to do, Ambient, and wish you success. I get the feeling that too many people have been burned by Rendo's upper management decisions to get too enthusiastic about this. Who knows how long it will run for before some nameless management erk decides it hasn't been visited often enough?

The business itself is losing trust. That is very hard to get back.

"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition." Admiral Cunningham, 1941, on risking his ships to evacuate Crete.

I would think the reason that there's less people here all the time is cause.
It's summer and a bit of Dawn and 90% V6 .
which if you want to talk about V6
,So far here has not been the warmest place to talk about V6.
So if you leave V4 and go to V6 ,that means you leave here also :( 
You here people talking about a nitch thing.V4 is becoming a nitch thing.
If you wanted more of a crowd here .It's going to be all about DAZ's V6.

I'm definately all for some tutorials.

I don't have much in my store but I would be willing to donate a prize to the first mini contest.

I'd like to see something like 'Question of the Week' where users get to ask questions and our knowledegable users get to compete with thier answers for Best Answer.

Best Answer can't contain snark or rudeness.

Let the answers be judged on completeness (sorry, not just a link) and ability to make it complete and understandable to a newbie.

Maybe some kind of prize for the questioner who forumlates and writes the best question.  Something along the lines of "I need to on a Windows compatible machine, using PoserX, with XXGb of memory and plenty/limited storage space.  Is there more than one way to go about it and what approach would you take?"

Another idea might be a "Poser Dictionary."  Many times, I search Google only to discover that Poser calls it something entirely different than I did.  For instance, has anyone ever done a Google search on "reverse deformation Poser" and found out what it means?

I like the idea of mini challenges to get people out of their comfort zone by using a specific technique/tool/node, etc.

Quote - Worst render might actually hurt somebody's feelings. Not a good idea.

If they get a $50 prize to spend in the Renderosity marketplace.... for a once a month ugly duclking prize... everyone would be rendering Poser 4 renders again - ha ha...

Nude woman with IK leg screwed up and gray Poser background... winner!!  :P

Maybe ask someone like Bagginsbill or a Poser genius to share a concept they had and have a thread showing how they worked it out...

not just the end result... but how they thought through the material shader nodes... how they attacked the problem of morphing some body part... how they had this great idea for a scene at night with rain and fog and they accomplished it.

Challenges are good... if the people involved are open minded, forgiving and mostly just wanna have fun. When it's serious... folks tend to not participate as much. It's gotta be for the fun and camaraderie aspect I think ( yes, I had to look up how to spell camaraderie  - :P  )

Most likely done before but...

Maybe have a regular weekly/monthly topic on a feature provided by Poser, eg fitting room, rigging etc so that people are aware of what Poser can do and how it relates to other products out there

Cross forums - invite another forum in to discuss their interests and how it relates to Poser, eg photography (textures) or Blender, Wings, Zbrush etc,etc

There seems to be a distinct lack of women posting in the forums these days (with a few exceptions), if this is actually the case then maybe something needs to be changed on this too.

Quote - We've had plenty of controversy and conflict to last us all a good while. That's one of the big reasons that has driven so many people away from this forum. 

If you think a gallery image is 'crap', you should be able to formulate a constructive comment that is positive and helps the artist by giving them tips on how to improve their work, instead of just saying it's 'crap'. Or just not say anything at all. Inflamatory words like that do nothing positive for the artist or this community. 

 

I post my images to the gallery on a fairly regular basis, mainly as an easy point for the few friends and members of the family who are interested in what I do.  They are all uploaded with the both positive and negative comments allowed.  While rare, there have been occasions when people have offered critical comment and advised how the render could be improved and I have always agreed with the comment.  For me renders and like written documents in that you can get too close and see what you want to see. 

I have always been pleased when others have taken the trouble to advise how I might improve and always make a point of emailing them to thank them.  The point is that they were all helpful, saying something is crap does not assist any improvement.  I get annoyed in the real world when people make comments like 'I would not have done it that way' but fail to offer an alternative.

There may be occasions where there is so much wrong with a render the temptation is not to bother but even here there is no need to pull the render to threads just pick one or two improvements and let the artist learn a step at a time, after all we all had to start somewhere.

Tutorials would be good and aslo seeing projects at stages through their creation, whether it be props, figures or materials.

It is a shame the BB has has such a bad experince here as I, and I believe many others, have benefited from his vast input.  More credit to him that he still adds so much to the forum.  I think the recent thread on realistic eye reflection materials is a good example of the sort of thing that could exist in this thread.  It took the process a step at a time explaining what each node did and the impact it had on other materials.  It also made suggestions of how the materials could be tweaked to personal preferences.

There are of course many other expamples from many other contributors but I picked the above example only because it was recent and a good example of what I would like to see. 

I love to see a moderator  friendly, capable, respectful to all members poser users (and not just a few) and the time they take to write here, I think it would help a lot

People like bagginsbill, Snarlygribbly, colorcurvature and others must be cared because  THEY ARE  the forum.

Quote - There seems to be a distinct lack of women posting in the forums these days (with a few exceptions), if this is actually the case then maybe something needs to be changed on this too. 

Not to change the subject from the original thread but I'm a woman.

Trying to decide if a poser is male or female is often difficult particularly if you only have the member icon to go by.

While I suspect some of the peole have left the forum because of the arguments, whether because they don't like arguments or do and see a lack of them here, I do feel other factors are at work.  The changes in the market and the creation of Dawn and Hivewire must have had an impact, afterall there is a limit to how long you can spend each day in forums.

This thread is at least an attempt increase the use and usefulness of the forum and that has to be applauded. 

This morning, for the very first time in all the years I have been coming here, I got not a single message of any tread being updated.

Some ten years ago, I'd wake up, and have some 2 or 3 pages of new posts to read.

This morning, none, not a page, not a tread not a single post.

But?
It is not better on any other forum either.
Forum activity slowed down on all Poser / DS sites.

In the beginning, everything was "new".
Now we are pretty much settled and only the occasional question pops up.

Free stuff slowed to a : Ok I"ll release a free item, so they will come to buy my "for sale" stuff.

But?
I have to admid; The quality of the free stuff is far better then the qualtiy of what one could buy 5 years a go. So end users are getting the "hang of it";

And some advanced free apps like Blender are helping a lot.

As far as the market goes, well, it is saturated, so no heavy change in the future.

Poser10 / PP2014 are one year old, so no new figures can be expexted from SM soon.

DS/Gen2 are too deep into each other so, nothing "new" is to be expected there either.

Hivewire Dawn and Dusk hypes are pretty well over and still too new to expect something "new"  in the close future.

So, we are in a pretty stable and calm period, for at least another year or so.

The future?
Here is a "wild guess":

Around this period NEXT year we"ll see Poser 11/ PP2016 with hopefully improved figures.

Two months before that, DAZ will anounce a "Game Changer". LOL.

And one month before DAZ, we will hear from Hivewire that DAWN 2 is coming to take over the market.

From now thill then it will stay calm and the usual occasional fire to put out.

Male / Female? Easy.

A basic tutorial would sound something like this:

For a "male" you pull 1 vertex forward.

For a "female" you pull 2 vertex forard and push the male vertex back in.

The "delta"s of 3 vertex tell you if its a "male" or a "female".

LOL.

And you can only distribute the "delta's".

More LOL.

OK, I'm off, I'v got a garden to prepare for winter.

How about a forum collaberative image.  I don't mean we all work on a single image idea, but we have all render out say the 200x200 png of our choice (png for transparent backgroundness).  Then some kind volunteers compile them into a single image.

So everyone gets a spot and we end up with a big old collaberative collage image, a real community project :)

Maybe we have a theme and we do one every month or two.

John.

This was tried before, and every single one of them was deleted because it contained copyrighted material.

The "Fair Use" clause was apparently over ruled when all of them were deleted.

If fair use was not upheld for that idea, chances are better than good that doing so would violate the same policy it did before.

Don't get me wrong, it is a neat idea. But at the same time the site has to protect itself.

Quote - How about a forum collaberative image.  I don't mean we all work on a single image idea, but we have all render out say the 200x200 png of our choice (png for transparent backgroundness).  Then some kind volunteers compile them into a single image. So everyone gets a spot and we end up with a big old collaberative collage image, a real community project :)

Maybe we have a theme and we do one every month or two.

John.

Now that's a shame

I was going to post that I don't think the fighting has kept me away but it has. It has certainly forced me to post less because I simply don't feel welcome. Part of it is that this forum, specifically at this site, explodes when you mention just about anything that someone can get on the other side of and then it just spirals all out of control. The only times, recently, that I have posted is when I I've read things that I felt were dis-informative or "spun" in a certain direction or are imbalanced but I am not even going to do that anymore. It is simply not worth it. If I want my blood pressure to rise, I'd rather it be because I'm excited about something than to waste time arguing with people who are eternally cemented in one point of view or have all the answers or want to pit one side of "whatever" against the other. That aside, I am always open to anything, anywhere that can be done constructively and positively to make folks feel welcome on any site, to allow them to learn and to help them enjoy Poser and of course help them with issues when I feel that I have reasonable expertise to suggest a solution. My passion is to make things, all sorts of things, that I hope people enjoy using as much as I enjoy making them. Doing a wide range of different things has given me some insights into how things work, how they could work and I like to share that knowledge with folks. Plus, I'm always learning something, either discovered or through others, almost every single day. I still find Poser a thrill and a half to use and play with and I still wonder at it. I am eternally optimistic, disgustingly so, and the worst four-letter word you can say to me is "can't" because I'm going to do my best to turn that into a three-letter word. Those tangibles and ideas are why I enjoy being involved and it's who I am at the core of it all.

latex, which BB shader do you need?  I've got links to several here.

Quote - This was tried before, and every single one of them was deleted because it contained copyrighted material.

The "Fair Use" clause was apparently over ruled when all of them were deleted.

If fair use was not upheld for that idea, chances are better than good that doing so would violate the same policy it did before.

Don't get me wrong, it is a neat idea. But at the same time the site has to protect itself.

Quote - How about a forum collaberative image.  I don't mean we all work on a single image idea, but we have all render out say the 200x200 png of our choice (png for transparent backgroundness).  Then some kind volunteers compile them into a single image. So everyone gets a spot and we end up with a big old collaberative collage image, a real community project :)

Maybe we have a theme and we do one every month or two.

John.

Copyright violation? This doesn't make sense. If everyone is contributing their own work to a group project then there is no copyright violation. You can't violate your own copyright. 

Quote - I was going to post that I don't think the fighting has kept me away but it has. It has certainly forced me to post less because I simply don't feel welcome. Part of it is that this forum, specifically at this site, explodes when you mention just about anything that someone can get on the other side of and then it just spirals all out of control. The only times, recently, that I have posted is when I I've read things that I felt were dis-informative or "spun" in a certain direction or are imbalanced but I am not even going to do that anymore. It is simply not worth it. If I want my blood pressure to rise, I'd rather it be because I'm excited about something than to waste time arguing with people who are eternally cemented in one point of view or have all the answers or want to pit one side of "whatever" against the other.

I understand and respect your views but, despite the fact that I also try and look for the positive anything, I find this part of your post to be very sad.  There have indeed been some people who post who feel either their way is the only way or seem to want to impose their veiwpoint.   On the other hand I have always found your posts to be balanced and well argued and you are clearly in a position to bring a fact into many a situation when much of what has been said was either wrong or someone's opinion.  When people like yourself, and I know you are not alone in this, leave a forum such as this it is the average Poser user that suffers.  The nay sayers and trolls of this world just move onto another forum with, I suspect, a smug feeling of a job well done.

There are sadly lots of ways to violate a license, which is a shame.

I was thinking of ways to minimise the possibility, freestuff only maybe.  But ended up thinking that it might take most oft he fun out of it :)

John

Quote - latex, which BB shader do you need?  I've got links to several here.

I know that I had two shaders that were for rust on metal. One of them allowed for rust on an image map. I was searching for those a couple of nights ago. Now I'm not sure that BB made them but that they were given away in a discussion thread. I do know that I had one that BB made that was named cellophane. At this point, I'm not even sure of what all I lost, except they would have been shaders released since Poser Pro 2012. I really should have made a backup of my BB Material Shaders. But I stupidly did not.

I need rust shaders, dull metal, 'dirty' shaders grimy shaders and maybe even slime shaders, to help illustrate pictures from my best friend's novel that is Post Apocalyptic (a few of my characters are in here fiction work as well). I have a large collection of freebee props that can be used as Apocalytica (especially if I get brave and try the Morph Brush to make dents). And I have a lot of Stonemason's background sets. I see he's made a few more Apocalytic sets at DAZ so they're in my wishlist there.

in snarly's ezmat thread, I believe snarly posted BB's slime shader et al.

in addition, ezmat contains corroded metals IIRC, which BB may have included in early matmatic distrib.  no wait, matmatic 1.5.0 was semiprecious surfaces with scattering, but rustymetals is in EZmetals presets.

I recall cellophane as well, but didn't spot link immed.

What about a weekly troll hunting contest - $50 GC for anyone who shows up on their doorstep and custard pies the little darlings :) Seriously though, what about a weekly Q&A session with a variety of artists/creators. Not just the famous ones, but a nice mix of people so we can learn about techniques and inspirations. Or perhaps creators take it in turns to make a monthly freebie and other artists show what they can do with that.

Becuase of what Joe said and why he doesn't post and in the recent survey is why I suggested a newbee sub forum to this one to ask questions and where condisending posts are removed quickly.

There are seaoned vets here and I think newbees are afraid to asked questions becuase they think they will look foolish in this forum and are going to get blasted with the RTFM posts

There's a lot of value to fostering folks who are new to Poser. Don't we want new people to learn and enjoy it, tell others how awesome a time they had at Renderosity (and other places)? Don't we want growth as a whole? Another thing is that newbie might feel so welcome that he (or she) explores and learns and creates freebies or products that blows your socks off or comes up with a concept or idea nobody thought of. Or that newbie might just turn out to be an awesome, positive person that makes others feel welcome down the road. You know, it could infect people in the best way. There are so many good angles to look at by just exercising a little bit of forethought, restraint and compassion. That doesn't mean running off, picking flowers and joining the hippie movement either (well, unless you really WANT to, which is fine by me). We were all newbies at one point and also people learn things at different speeds. We also all have specialties and things we struggle with. But that makes us diverse and interesting as a whole and a community interlocks like that, where you lend your strengths to the strengths of others and accomplish things.

Every successful group has a leader rather it's a army,transportation providers or hippies.
What happen to the hippies ? Where did they go ?
Why did they fade away into memory ?
or maybe the best question would be
Who is the hippie leader now ?
What do we call hippies now ?
What do hippies look and dress like in 2014 ?

So who was the biggest transportation providers of horse drawn carriages ?
What do we call are carriages now ?

I've always herd empires rise and fall.
but Rome etc etc are still on the map ,maybe they just morph in to something else.
But CGI trueSpace R.I.P Softimage R.I.P 2015.

V4 was are leader but now we all use diffrent characters.
Would there have been a Poser empire with out Vicky ?

Will Poser,Renderosity survive with out a leader ?
Is there a group with out coherence cohesion ?

Since Renderosity has all the experts for all the CGI App's here.
If I where Renderosity I would give the experts a very very good reason
 to make the Best & Hottest female Characters Poser has ever seen.
Long before it's to late.

A killer new mesh that delivers will draw the biggest crowd Renderosity has ever seen.

It is interesting to compare this forum to another which I visit, rmweb. That forum is about model railways, but there are a lot of similarities. Both sites cater for hobbyists and the membership have diverse interests around the central theme. Some members are happy to buy and use 'off the shelf' items, others prefer to make things for themselves.  Sometimes there are arguments, and sometimes members pack up and leave over some percieved injustice, but generally rmweb members get along.

A big difference is that rmweb members pretty much all respect the tongue in cheek  "Rule 1", which is "It's my trainset, I'll run what I like", a similar phrase for here would be "It's my render, I'll use what I like". The hunt for the perfect figure is futile. It's good that there is a choice. Everyone should feel free to use whichever they choose, and there is no reason to attack vendors or users who choose differently.

Quote - It is interesting to compare this forum to another which I visit, rmweb. That forum is about model railways, but there are a lot of similarities. Both sites cater for hobbyists and the membership have diverse interests around the central theme. Some members are happy to buy and use 'off the shelf' items, others prefer to make things for themselves.  Sometimes there are arguments, and sometimes members pack up and leave over some percieved injustice, but generally rmweb members get along.

A big difference is that rmweb members pretty much all respect the tongue in cheek  "Rule 1", which is "It's my trainset, I'll run what I like", a similar phrase for here would be "It's my render, I'll use what I like". The hunt for the perfect figure is futile. It's good that there is a choice. Everyone should feel free to use whichever they choose, and there is no reason to attack vendors or users who choose differently.

One of my other hobbies is 16mm Live steam model railways and I have to say my experience is the same as yours.   There are some that make their own models, others that buy replica models and are extremely hot on the exact details (often referred to as rivit counters) and those like me that can't afford the exact replicas and buy generic models.  On the whole they all get along and while I do not have the skiils to build, or the money to buy replicas, I can admire such creations and the skills used.

I wonder what it is that makes discussions on 3D software so heated or makes personal views so intense.

What I would really like to see more of in the forum is help and a warm welcome for all 3D artists irrespective of the level of experience.  There was a thread here not so long ago where a new purchaser was so frustrated with Poser he was asking the legality of and where he could sell his version of Poser.  Lots of people jumped in, not to tell him where or how to sell but to ask questions to try to understand his frustration and then help.  In a short space of time the OP was producing renders and having fun.  That is what forums should be for, showing others what fun this hobby/profession and trying to help them join in the fun.

I don't know how you can bring such a forum about but I would support any proposal I thought was a step in that direction. 

Lots of great ideas and input you all are coming up with here. Thanks for that and I hope you keep them coming.

"I wonder what it is that makes discussions on 3D software so heated or makes personal views so intense..."

I put it down to boredom for the most part.  There's nothing worse than a quiet forum, and it's clear that threads with a heated debate in progress will get the most views.  I think it depends on how an individual sees a forum that determines their behaviour on it.

For some it's like a second home (a second family even), and I suppose those are the ones who don't enjoy a good heated debate because I suppose they might see it as a threat to the quality of the community.

For others, a forum is mainly a way to kill time (and boredom), so a heated debate about the software they use is more attractive to them than going somewhere else.  That also happens to be my personal take on it, I'm only here when I have nothing better to do (and that's far more than I'd like), but heated debates never bother me. 

It's so boring here sometimes that I actually log in, look at the Poser forum Index and log out again.  The only time it's worth staying is if there's something genuinely useful to look at or there's a heated debate going on.  There's really only a handful of people here who's threads I bother to look at just because of the person who's started the thread.

When I choose to read a thread I do so by one or two criteria:

• Thread Title
• Thread Authour

I just glance at the index and make my decision.  For example I'll always look at Clarkie's and RorrKonn's threads because they have a gift for starting threads which you just know are going to start a shit-storm (and that's a good thing).  I say thumbs-up to them because they are the sort of people who keep me interested in the forum.  I might die of boredom otherwise.  I always look at Vilters' threads because he's knowlegable in low-poly and figure engineering.  I always look at aRtBee's and Baggins' threads because of the tech stuff posted there, stuff that just doesn't get into manuals (but should).

So there's different reasons I bother here, but if any of those aspects were taken away, I think I'd eventually stop logging-in due to mind-numbing boredom.  I'm not saying that those people are the only contributors worth reading, but what I am saying is that those appear (to me at least) to be the backbone of what the community here currently is - they sort of hold it together in their own ways.

Which brings me to answer Shane's question regarding what I'd like to see more of:

It's simple, I'd like to see more power in the mods hands to allow debates to continue to a more heated level than they currently are, because like it or not, those are the ones that generate the views and therefore keep people logged-in.  I don't know whether my reasons for visiting the forum are typical (boredom mainly), but if this place starts turning into some sickly-sweet herd of 'dogooder' minions, I think people will start dropping off the radar because there's nothing worse than a boring, humourless, debateless forum.

What started these "battles"?

Mod note: I've edited your post for being pretty much all personal opinion (stated as facts, in regards to the Poser vs DS debates), and for being completely off topic. 

My own view is that allowing more heated debate would be damaging. There used to be a subforum here, I think it was "Complaint and Debate". The idea, if I recall correctly, was that this area was less moderated and people could let off steam in there., so there was a lot of heated debate.

Unfortunately, people being what they are, the battle lines drawn up in there then affected how people interacted with each other across the rest of Renderosity. In addition some people like an audience, so they still kicked off arguments in the more popular subforums, where the biggest audience was.

Hey Pumeco,

I'm not trying to start a shit-storm when I start a thread. Generally, when there's a quiet lull in the forum, I like to start a thread that I think will engage people, and I like to start a couple at a time. It isn't the only forum I visit, but it is the one I'm most active in.

**
@Ian**
But forum divisions can be a forums biggest enemy.  On Renderosity we have a forum for each program, which is understandable, but for the sake of shock value, just imagine if, say, the Poser and DS forums were merged into one big forum.

I admit a single Mod would need constant health checks but can you imagine how lively that forum would be?

On the face of it, the suggestion could be likened to putting a Piranah in a bowl with a Goldfish, but look at it this way, look at how much the user of one program will learn from another.   Look how much extra people will see each others post and therefore, help each other out in the long run.  Look at how much larger the viewing audience would be if you wanted to show off your latest WIP.

Now, let's say Renderosity lumped all the 3D forums into just one General 3D forum.

There's a Carrara forum here, there's a guy spent years creating an animation and all his thread got was one or two comments, but had the forum being a general 3D forum I'm guessing more people would have seen it and commented.  A Poser user isn't going to ignore an animation posted by someone just because it's Carrara.

It's 3D, and that should be enough to interest a DS, Carrara, or Poser user.

People ask questions here in the Poser forum and there could be Carrara or DS users that have the answer, but because they're in another forum, they didn't see it.  So to me, Renderosity is overcategorised.  I mean who on earth is going to bother posting in the ZBrush forum here when they see it's totally dead?

Of course they will choose a more lively forum, one where ZBrish is discussed.  Again, a single 3D forum would solve it and if I were an admin here, I'd have a massive restructure where the main categories are:

• 2D
• 3D
• General Discussion

Off the top of my head, that's it, that's really all an artist community needs.

@Clarkie
Just don't stop posting or lose the knack or I'll die of boredom :biggrin:

Yeah, listen, I want to see a "Report Victoria" button adding to the bottom of each post so that when people press it, the coordinators, mods or admins can delete it ASAP.  If we had that button then Victoria would not stand a chance here and only Roxie posts and threads would survive!!!

Pretty soon the message would be clear that only Roxie is allowed and then I'd be more popular!!!

My suggestion is the best one here because it kills two birds with one stone.  It gets rid of Victoria and makes the forum a better place, because if everyone was Roxie users, there would be no point in arguing about which figure is the best.  They would all be using me and they would all agree, that yes, I am the best!!!

Later,
Roxie - Girl With Blade

mod note: edited for referring to content of a post that was also deleted. 

"Hey Pumeco,
I'm not trying to start a shit-storm when I start a thread. Generally, when there's a quiet lull in the forum, I like to start a thread that I think will engage people,"

I would also like to see more intellectually honest thread titles that indicate what  the OP really wishes to discuss.

Example of Honest intention:  Thread- "I need to save V4 without all those Magnets"
I then go on to seek the advice and discuss options given from those  helpful CR2 techies who jump in with helpful suggestions on how to achieve my stated objective.

Example of DISHonest intention:Thread-"I need to save V4 without all those Magnets"
I then Immediately Launch into a not very subtle tirade about how Bloated V4's Cr2 is compared to Dawn,Roxie etc because I really want to try yet again to convince people to stop using V4 and use the figure I am Desperately trying to save from its inevitable place in the ash bin of poser history.