03-12-2015, 09:36 AM
I think theres 2 points to this problem
1, is that there are simply too many goddamn forums. The artist community is fairly small as it is. It gets even smaller when a forum is mostly dedicated to one facet of art, such as illustration as this one is more or less. So the community is microscopic to start with. On average most forums (ALL forums, non art included) generally have about 10% of the population contributing regularly to the post count, and then usually the majority of the posts are contributed by a smaller margin like in the >5% range. In other words, 90% of the population are lurkers or just inactive
Also theres the fact that people tend to eventually get jobs concerning this field and so have less time to post what they normally would. SO you have a small community, divided by multiple art sites, divided by the general theme involved in it, divided by the general amount of posts people make with a very high attrition rate. See how fast that reduces the numbers? It's almost a natural cycle, unfortunately. People constantly turn around and say "Yea let's be the new Sijun! Lets be the new CGHub! Lets be the new CD! YEAA!!" and so you get dozens of derivative websites with gradually fragmented user bases. People don't have time to post on 20 different forums, but to be noticed you kind of have to spread yourself out that way and market yourself that way, since the community is so fragmented. It was probably different when the cost of running a server and of transmitting data was much more expensive, so there were fewer sites and more people on them but thats no longer case
When you talk about a hobby forum, thats a much broader community to draw from. Most communities are quite a lot bigger than the art community, and even when they are the same size, they're rarely this fragmented. They also don't suffer from the second point, criticism. Hobbyists can have casual discussions about whatever it is they're doing, but artists are a fairly intense bunch of people, especially the kinds that are active on forums, and the marjority of the conversation will invariably revolve around critique and feedback one way or another.
2. Most of the contributions people want are in the form of critiques one way or another. The problem is that most people are not comfortable giving critiques, for a lot of reasons. They don't think they're good enough, they're afraid they're going to hurt people's feelings, they don't know how to vocalize their opinion... It's also hard to be understood properly online, and so even if you DO get a crit and even it IS solid its possible its completely misunderstood. If people give a crit and the person shoots it down they're more likely not to want to give a crit again in the future since they'll start to think its not worth their time or that they must really be wrong about it. I think we need to encourage people to give crits, without any flinching, without thinking too much about the implications. Just be constructive about it
There's also a weird stigma where people who don't know what they're doing don't ask for help. Theres nothing wrong with dropping by someone's thread and asking them directly for feedback or a question about how people but people are so afraid of doing it. It's so rare that an artist is rude about these kinds of things if they have an online presence, theyre more likely to not respond than to give you a bad answer. And the ones that do shit talk get torn down and defamed so fast its hardly an issue.
I think to solve this we need to encourage people to be open to communication more. Artists that are good and could help others need to be more open about helping their brethren, and artists that are in need of helping need to realize that they have to ask to receive. At the same time, maybe there should be a reciprocal policy or something. If you get a crit, you must give one to that person as well or to someone else, to keep the ball rolling. Just an idea
1, is that there are simply too many goddamn forums. The artist community is fairly small as it is. It gets even smaller when a forum is mostly dedicated to one facet of art, such as illustration as this one is more or less. So the community is microscopic to start with. On average most forums (ALL forums, non art included) generally have about 10% of the population contributing regularly to the post count, and then usually the majority of the posts are contributed by a smaller margin like in the >5% range. In other words, 90% of the population are lurkers or just inactive
Also theres the fact that people tend to eventually get jobs concerning this field and so have less time to post what they normally would. SO you have a small community, divided by multiple art sites, divided by the general theme involved in it, divided by the general amount of posts people make with a very high attrition rate. See how fast that reduces the numbers? It's almost a natural cycle, unfortunately. People constantly turn around and say "Yea let's be the new Sijun! Lets be the new CGHub! Lets be the new CD! YEAA!!" and so you get dozens of derivative websites with gradually fragmented user bases. People don't have time to post on 20 different forums, but to be noticed you kind of have to spread yourself out that way and market yourself that way, since the community is so fragmented. It was probably different when the cost of running a server and of transmitting data was much more expensive, so there were fewer sites and more people on them but thats no longer case
When you talk about a hobby forum, thats a much broader community to draw from. Most communities are quite a lot bigger than the art community, and even when they are the same size, they're rarely this fragmented. They also don't suffer from the second point, criticism. Hobbyists can have casual discussions about whatever it is they're doing, but artists are a fairly intense bunch of people, especially the kinds that are active on forums, and the marjority of the conversation will invariably revolve around critique and feedback one way or another.
2. Most of the contributions people want are in the form of critiques one way or another. The problem is that most people are not comfortable giving critiques, for a lot of reasons. They don't think they're good enough, they're afraid they're going to hurt people's feelings, they don't know how to vocalize their opinion... It's also hard to be understood properly online, and so even if you DO get a crit and even it IS solid its possible its completely misunderstood. If people give a crit and the person shoots it down they're more likely not to want to give a crit again in the future since they'll start to think its not worth their time or that they must really be wrong about it. I think we need to encourage people to give crits, without any flinching, without thinking too much about the implications. Just be constructive about it
There's also a weird stigma where people who don't know what they're doing don't ask for help. Theres nothing wrong with dropping by someone's thread and asking them directly for feedback or a question about how people but people are so afraid of doing it. It's so rare that an artist is rude about these kinds of things if they have an online presence, theyre more likely to not respond than to give you a bad answer. And the ones that do shit talk get torn down and defamed so fast its hardly an issue.
I think to solve this we need to encourage people to be open to communication more. Artists that are good and could help others need to be more open about helping their brethren, and artists that are in need of helping need to realize that they have to ask to receive. At the same time, maybe there should be a reciprocal policy or something. If you get a crit, you must give one to that person as well or to someone else, to keep the ball rolling. Just an idea