Today, on the chopping block: EMG forums

[ellenmillion]

At one point, the EMG forums were hopping. They've never been the kind of zooming social platform that some forums achieve, with dozens of posts a minute, and I've always been honestly happy with that, because I'm not the kind of person who has time to hang out moderating a forum all day every day. We had a good, solid community where we could exchange lots of heartfelt market and business advice, get a reliable artistic critique by several people within a few hours, rant about a bad client, or share something silly. There were always a handful of interesting posts to read each day, and projects to discuss and brainstorm on. EMG-Zine took most of its form there, as did Fantastic Portfolios. Most of the sites got their feedback and took their final form through user discussion on those forums, with lively and thoughtful input from our users - almost exclusively member artists.

We've always been blessedly, blessedly free of drama. I blame this on the fact that I have always been the most active participant (or close to it), and I have always been a fan of common courtesy. I've been clear that I wouldn't tolerate meanness, and set a general example of friendly but firm, trying to offer thoughtful counterpoint to opinions, act encouragingly and fairly to all the members. (Also, I wrote the paychecks. That might have played a role...) I've had to have private words with... maybe one artist, ever. The only threads I've censored have been spam.

Ah... spam.

Spam joins were a big bother for a while there. At one point, there were hundreds joining every day. I kept 'em out, and Tiziano helped me kill them, before the forums were upgraded to the point where we could keep them from joining effectively. Even if they don't make it through to leave their spammy little links on the boards, it was still a bit of a buzzkill. We got hacked once, too.

Largely, those problems are behind us, I hope.

But wow, has it slowed down. It used to be that a new member was greeted by between four and a dozen people. Now? I say hello when I think to check the boards, three days later. Or a week.

There is a TON of great material on the boards, but it's largely static, now. I keep it updated - I updated it just tonight, actually - because I have learned my spam and hacker lessons quite thoroughly (don't leave out of date software on the web, boys and girls!), but rarely remember to post anything there anymore.

Does anyone USE forums anymore? Is this worth trying to blow the dust off of? I would love to see the critique boards active again, and if other folks were to meet me in the effort, I'd love to post WIPs for review again, and chat about businessy topics and see how you are. Has Facebook and Twitter and Livejournal replaced this role too thoroughly, or would you stop in if it was active again?

I'm... not sure what to do here yet. You, gentle readers, may act as jury in this matter, because it's not something I COULD single-handedly revive.

Comments

[selinafenech.livejournal.com]

I don't know if people do use forums anymore? Or at least, not many people I know do. My AFAE forum and Sanctuary are both generally ghost towns.
Even for myself, the lure of forums just isn't strong anymore. I used to be a major forum junkie, so I don't know what changed? I spend most of my time on Facebook now but I don't see it as actually having the same functions... and yet, forums have become unattractive?
I think one thing facebook has that very few art forums I've ever seen have had is interaction with art FANS as well as artists, which is nice. Art forums have never seemed to lure in the public, pretty much just artists only.
I'm not really helping with the question here am I? Lol, just musing...

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

For me, Livejournal and various gaming blogs take the spot of the forum/news-reading I used to do.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Yes, maybe a blog would be an alternative to the forum. *thinksthinksthinks*

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It's a thought. Community blogs, for instance, you could have a blog that is postable to by various artists.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Lol! Musing helps...

The thing I don't like about most social media that's popular is that important things sort of flow away after they've been posted, so only the most recent things get noticed. I like the organization of forums. And search functions!

I do like the 'fan interaction' aspect of facebook and LJ.

Hmm...

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah Im going to agree with what Selina said above. Places like Facebook give you the interaction with the art fans, whilst forums are primarily a private association of artists. (Which is nice.) I personally have no desire to visit any of the forums I used to frequent before facebook & etc. However, I think an EMG facebook GROUP would be interesting and well received.

[nixjim13.livejournal.com]

I don't visit EMG forum much because I don't have time to critique, and I haven't really contributed much to PA or the Zine (in the last year anyway). I go there occasionally for submitted descriptions - to see how other artists have done the same character, or to see the updates - but mostly you post them over on Lj so I rarely miss things.

It's funny how forums have died. I used to love them, but I think a lot of the contributors have moved to Facebook ... which I really don't like using - mainly because I have a number of real life friends, work colleagues and families so I feel I have to censor myself. I tend to read LJ and have a lot of rss feeds. I prefer blogs over facebook. Forums still have their place I guess.

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

I like forums, generally speaking.

I hardly ever check the EMG forum because it was already pretty dead when I came back to it.

Would try to help revitalise it if a few more people join in.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I've started making a point of posting announcements - and links to my chopping block posts - there again, and I've started a new greeting thread and a thread for talking about the new coloring book. It will probably take a while to re-gain steam, but I'm giving it some prods.

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

I keep forgetting to check it these days as well (ever since the Real Life Shake up I have been having a hard time keeping up with a couple things I used to do all the time). I loved posting WIPs and getting feed back. While FB is good for some things, I can't share WIPs of a PA piece on there! (ack, gotta run to work now)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

The PA WIPs were one of the best features - I'd love to see that revitalized. I'm going to make an effort to post my next one...

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

I find that the "email me when something happens" feature makes even slow forums useful. I don't know if you can set this up for new threads; I've only used it on threads I post to.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

That IS a handy feature. And... hmm, yes, I think you CAN set it to watch threads you haven't posted on, as well as forum areas that you want to watch (so you can get new thread alerts).

[(Anonymous)]

I occasionally visit the EMG-forums. I don't have a facebook account, so forums make up most of my interaction on the internet.

But being just an occasional contributer to the e-zine, I don't have access to a large part of the EMG-forum. And most of the activity seems to be happening there.

That said, being only an amateur artist and writer, I doubt I'd be able to contribute much to those parts of the forum, even if I did have access to them.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Hmm! It's an interesting idea to open up the artist forums - now that the fantasy art shop is pretty well defunct, I might make those... not necessarily public, but open for anyone to join.

[redokapi.livejournal.com]

Forums are interesting. An active forum will draw in new people and keep people interested, but how do you make a forum active without people to start with?

I've mostly lurked in the EMG forums, mainly because I don't like to post much until I get to know the community. I do this in pretty much any online community that I didn't start. While I'll post in an active forum/discussion, I'm just not much for trying to start conversations, unless I know the community pretty well.

I'd be interested in seeing the EMG forums more active, but don't depend on me to be a heavy poster.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yes, ideally I'd like to see **enough** people just modestly involved.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's so true! Everything is about blogging/posting/tweeting about what **I'm** doing, what **I** think... very little of it is really discussion anymore.

And agreed entirely on knowing too much about some people...

[ryokomusouka.livejournal.com]

While it has only a marginal relevancy to your particular project, I'll use my World of Warcraft experience anyway. :P

I have access to two separate forums for my WoW play: the overall game forums that Blizzard manages, and the much smaller one my guild manages.

The Blizzard forums are a known cesspool, even on good days, However, there's a huge amount of information that can be found there, if you're willing to sort through the drama and emo and angst and OMGNERDRAGE. It's a sprawling complex with minimal moderation. It's very busy.

Our guild forums, on the other hand, are used by less than fifty people, are updated maybe once a week or so and are quite out of date. Most of us talk in-game and can mention of-the-moment type things right there. However, the forums are great for static information, like our Christmas list, and funnies that are hard to link in-game.

I use the guild forms more, because I feel like crap after hanging around the Blizz forums for a while.

I suppose it boils down to what you want to use it for. For an archive of static information, a blog or CMS with articles might be just as easy to set up and monitor as a forum. Dunno.