Invitation requests

Yes I think this is something we (the admins) should mention/address.

Any artist you know who demonstrates a high skills level (in their 3d app of choice) is more than welcome to join these forums (through an invitation from you, a pre-existing member).

Consider it like gmail (ie...building membership through the passing on of invitations)....only here we would like to maintain a bit of a filter that allows skilled artists only....so please be wise in choosing who you would like to invite here.

We don't want this forum to degenerate into a place run by immature 12-16 year olds (like the3dstudio, which was a once-flourishing forum). Not that age matters....we'd just like to maintain a higher level of artistic maturity

Make sense?

Overall...invite all the talented artists you (or any other member of this forum) want!

can we have some kind of template for the invitations?

Just a question here... Isn't anyone that searches and finds this site able to signup? ie. there is no way to strictly enforce the invitation only policy.

unless these guys submitted the site to search engines, no.

Hi Global,

Yes...a search engine would bring people in randomly...but we're not too worried about that.

What we DON'T want to happen, is...say....someone posting a link to this forum at another large graphics forums (cgtalk or something) and then having 200 lens-flare, teapot inducing newcomers following it and joining.

Although were not currently putting too much effort into screening those who do come, we figure that there's not too much of a worry over 1 or 2 newer artists coming from a google link, then somewhere else (ie....DO NOT post this link at the3dstudio! hahaha)

Overall...once we get enough members, I don't see a problem with having anyone join...but at this point were still trying to built a talented artist userbase first.

Btw...this isn't uncommon....even cgtalk screens their 3d Finished Work gallery, and removes images not deemed of being up to quality (I learned about this because someone complained since their work got deleted hehe )

But with the forum, I'm 100% you can make an register/activation. So if someone register, he must wait until you active the account.

Only don't know how to delete an account, I know you can ban someone, but delete his account sound harder

Yeah, that activation is easy enough to implement, even deleting a user is easy as!

I think Tyson has pretty much covered my views on this subject. Thats why it should work, because we had the same idea.

The forum is to start out as invite only, as in anybody is welcome and won't be screened joining but the main way to get them here is by word of mouth. We don't want you posting the link on other forums just yet like Tyson said. After about a month or two once we have not only a solid userbase of talented artists but a forum with some good worthwhile discussions that are informative.
During this first stage, all content on the site will be heavily moderated. As Ridestowe has found out after I deleted a few of his articles. We won't accept random crap that will clutter the forums and be of no use.
A big note also that ties in with that is that we want you guys to keep this forum clean and tidy at least for this starting stage. What I mean by that is Subject names which are descriptive, no broken links or anything... things like that.

After this first stage, once things have been set up nicely we will start marketing these forums and getting all sorts of traffic in. Would like to have a new design for this forum, something that ties in a highlights kind of thing. If you guys feel like designing something but are stuck for ideas.... A new design for this forum would be nice to see.

All things will be heavily moderated around that time. Might need a hand from you guys so if you feel like being moderators that could be your time.


Ridestowe... just tell them what the forum is about, what the "rules" are, who is part of it and what we hope to become. That should do.

Also...if you do invite someone...make sure they know it's because you like their work! Part of the coolness of an invite-only forum, is that you know you're part of a tight-knit group of talented individuals (and that you're one of them!)

We want people to be attracted to this site because it's one dedicated to quality work and informative/helpfull discussion! ....not just any work and any discussion

i am the talentless

I didn't get an invitation...

*Global shows Feniks the door and politely asks him to leave... (whilst tapping his baseball bat lightly in the palm of his hands)*

im pretty talentless but im working on it

same here but yo udont see me complaining

one way to ensure a certain elite nature is to stop new people from posting new topics in certain areas, or even posting at all, spraloid has used this to great effect, in essence they split the forums up into the masters and everyone else. they lso have an extremly strict rule about posting an image or link with EVERY post, meaning that even the simplest thread can be a treasure trove of amazing in information,

for example my post would simply be deleted if i didn't explain my point with a link like this http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid ... ?TopicID=2

on the downside spiraloid is quite dead most of the time, they have no young keen amateurs to keep the place alive, (something that i think 3rd-d.co.uk has suffered over the years, people who were so keen and productive at first simply grew older, got jobs, stopped posting as much. the closed nit community that was so strong to start simply scared away new members.

i'm rambling now

That's actually kind of a cool idea.

Although I don't think simplycg should ever get quite as harsh as that....what might be cool is having separate private subforums that are detached from the rest of the forums currently available. Once an artist gets to a certain creative level, he/she is invited to those subforums.

I dunno if something like that will ever be implemented here...but either way it's food for thought

Well I am all for encouraging talented people to this site, but I don't think that must be at the expense of those who are not so talented but are willing to learn. The private forum is food for thought - but I don't quite see how that would attract new members. I wouldn't want to judge the creative quality of an artist and certainly wouldn't want to be judged on a 'creative' basis.

Maybe this is because to me 'elitism' is a bit of a dirty word. I'd far rather see people post using common sense and having a clear and valid point, crit or question. Although Ant's suggestions are a little too harsh, that sort of thing would encourage people to post before they think. (Oh, no wait... I got that the wrong way round - hehe)

Personally I'd like to see more 'in depth' tuts and high end learning resources here - (though I appreciate that they don't just pop out of thin air and most of us are working crazy hours). Perhaps have a featured artist every now and then.

Just my 2 Baht anyhoo.

Yea good points globes......although the thought of "private" sections sounded cool at first, I agree with you that there wouldn't be too much of a point to them

*makes a note that Global is never allowed in the private forums

like i said, spiraloid is a ghost forum mostly, its not the dirrection to go, but its something to think about, its not that you have to be super good to get in the private section though, simply post informative posts and obey the rules, having said that it was enough to put me off ever posting...