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OMG! It's been a year...

GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
edited February 2020 in Site News #1
hzipp5qiorj6.gif

Looks like 12 months have flown past since the big forum move, so I guess I should make a thread about it. At some point I was planning on some song and dance to mark the occasion, if we got this far, but honestly it just kinda slipped my mind until now. :grimace:

So uh... Yay! 12 months. I guess it's a good time to ask 'What do you want from us?' again...

Is there anything you particularly like? How about dislike? What would you like to see more of? What features would you like to see? Is there something that would totally make you visit more often? Is there something keeping you from visiting more often? Did you know we have a Discord and that it's actually pretty good? Do you want challenges? Video content? Live streaming? Podcasts? Reviews? Tutorials? Articles? More models? More Star Trek? Less Star Trek? Better Star Wars? Should we just move to TikTok?

Basically, once again, let us know how we're doing, and what we should be doing instead. :)

Or, you know, just post GIFs... :tongue:
Post edited by Guerrilla on
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Posts

  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    This is the site that hooked me oh, so many years ago. I still like to visit. The software changes are superficial. Keep doing what you're doing.

    I always prefer more original Star Trek, but that's me. I have my own site for that. So, again, just keep doing what you're doing!
  • xiaorobearxiaorobear670 Posts: 168Member
    I am really glad for the update last year- it caused me to come back, and I'm glad I did so that I can be inspired by everyone else's talented work.

    It could be cool to see some sort of incentive for tutorials or video content from the userbase, though I'm not sure how.
  • count23count23359 Posts: 778Member
    Bringing the site back brought me hope that niche hobby sites like SFM would survive the rise of Social media.

    so far so good :)
    Formerly Nadesico.

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  • rojrenrojren2294 Louisville, Kentucky USAPosts: 1,968Member
    It seems much more lively, than a year ago.

    What's your perspective on how it's going, Guerrilla?
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    edited February 2020 #6
    Well, I ran some numbers again:

    984 (678) users have logged in on the new forums.
    306 (157) new users have registered.
    However, 103 (46) have turned out to be spammers, and subsequently banned. Spam that has made it to the forums is still in single digits.
    335 (219) threads have seen activity since the move.
    13 (7) models have been released.
    6 month milestones in parenthesis

    So, basically things are pretty much moving along on the same trajectory. Member and visitor numbers have nothing on follower numbers even small scale social media outlets, but I'd like to think folks are a little more engaged than idly browsing reposted content, but maybe I'm projecting. :tongue:

    I'd like to see people make more use of the "new" features of the site like Self Promotion and a more sophisticated Releases forum, but I'm guessing in the end we don't have that much to offer to people already doing their thing on social media, and the traditionalists who prefer a forum don't care about streaming their work or doing stuff on Youtube or other socials. I dunno. I should maybe be more active on our channels to see if those will bring people to the site, but it's honestly pretty tedious work.

    I would like to see more new stuff. Most of our activity is in the decade spanning project threads, which I love dearly, and were a big reason why I wanted to keep the site going, but it would be neat to see a little broader selection without having to fire up Artstation occasionally. The amount of active threads is actually growing slower than the rest of the site, which tells me that posting is mostly focused in the megathreads and very long term projects*. This is nice because the work is very high quality these days, but it also means that its scope is a little limited. I'm not that interested in the popularity of site. I decided pretty early on that the quality of work and community is more important to me than views, but I guess it would take a certain amount of people to make cool things like challenges a realistic possibility.

    I dunno. You tell me. That's why I made the thread :p

    [edit]: *actually, not 100% sure about this one. I'll have to check the database to make sure
    Post edited by Guerrilla on
    McC
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  • komarokomaro348 CanadaPosts: 752Member
    edited February 2020 #7
    I make 2d pictures and some 3d objects, but out of the scifi category. Didn't want to publish here, because it seems out of topic but also it's for exposure purposes (read: to sell and generate traffic). So, I don't know about it.

    Love the way you managed the changes and the site.
    Post edited by komaro on
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Eh. We're a 3d scifi art site. As long as you hit 2 out of 3, it's fine. :)

    There's a tag for Real World and thread prefixes for 2D, 3D, Practical, Animation and Photography.
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  • rojrenrojren2294 Louisville, Kentucky USAPosts: 1,968Member
    The challenges were fun, but I think I was the only one with an entry on the last one.
    (yet I still didn't win =) )
    I know it's very despiriting to go to the trouble to arrange a competition and no-one takes part.

    I suggest you avoid the 'tedious work'. The last thing anyone needs is admins that come to dread the work.
    Guerrilla
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    edited February 2020 #10
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    [edit]: *actually, not 100% sure about this one. I'll have to check the database to make sure

    Ok, so out of the 343 active threads since the migration, 269 are new and 74 continued from the old forums, so it's not as significant a chunk as I thought initially.

    Oh, but 46 are mine though, and mostly for administration things, so those probably don't count...
    Post edited by Guerrilla on
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  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    edited February 2020 #11
    Bottom Line. I am so glad this site is back up and comes across clean on my Firewall/antivirus software. Thanks Guerrilla. So I echo the idea of avoiding tedious work so that you burn out on maintaining the site.
    Post edited by Brandenberg on
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    I love the site and how invested in it you are, Guerrilla. Even before you took over the site, I remember you being one of the most avtive mods/admins.

    One thing I'd like to see go away is the automatic draft saving. Is it a necessary feature? I don't think so, since there's a big button marked "Save Draft." It's not so annoying most of the time, but I was in a low coverage area a few minutes ago trying to post a reply but I couldn't post for a moment because the forum was saving. (you know you're doing a good job if this is the only thing I can think of to complain about)
  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9696 Posts: 5,299Member
    Just block the script as this site is modular in a way you can eliminate "features" one by one vs some other software whom source block code so it is all or nothing. It drove me up the wall, not in the wait as you mention but in the miles of saved drafts that pile up on the server as they save sequentially and save anything typed.

    Have to go hunt down the line of code. It should work in most clients that have addons that can block scripts. Used it on android and various windows clients.

    https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/applications/vanilla/js/autosave.js

    Each day we draw closer to the end.
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    edited February 2020 #14
    Turns out there actually is an easy way to disable autosave for everyone, but I'm not sure how many people prefer keeping it on. So, I'm looking into coding some additional functionality for opting in or out.

    [edit]: I suppose a button for clearing all drafts would be pretty useful too...
    Post edited by Guerrilla on
    evil_genius_180scifieric
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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    Turns out there actually is an easy way to disable autosave for everyone, but I'm not sure how many people prefer keeping it on. So, I'm looking into coding some additional functionality for opting in or out.

    [edit]: I suppose a button for clearing all drafts would be pretty useful too...

    I love that last suggestion.

    I agree that disabling it for everyone isn't the way to go, as some people may like the feature. Just a way to turn it off on the account level would be cool.
    scifieric
  • BrandenbergBrandenberg1655 CaliforniaPosts: 1,937Member
    Oh, I do have a suggestion. Do you have access to more emoticons? Expand the choices a little?
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Yeah, it's a little fiddly, but I can add more emoticons. Are we missing something?
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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    Are we missing something?

    Rolling eyes is always nice to have.
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    We have :eyeroll:
    :eyeroll:
    
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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    We have :eyeroll:
    :eyeroll:
    

    Ah, I wasn't sure. When you hit the little emoji thingamajig on the posting box, it doesn't come up.
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Yeah, it's not very useful. You can type : and then an emotion to get a better selection.

    :-1: :+1: :angry: :anguished: :astonished: :bawling: :bleep_bloop: :blush: :cold_sweat: :confounded: :confused: :cookie: :cry: :disappointed: :disappointed_relieved: :dizzy: :eyeroll: :expressionless: :fearful: :flushed: :frown: :grey_question: :grimace: :grin: :heart: :heartbreak: :hushed: :innocent: :joy: :kiss: :kissing_blush: :kissing_wink: :lol: :love: :mask: :mrgreen: :naughty: :neutral: :no_mouth: :open_mouth: :pensive: :persevere: :rage: :relaxed: :relieved: :scream: :skull: :sleeping: :sleepy: :smile: :smiley: :smirk: :sweat: :sweat_smile: :sunglasses: :tired_face: :tongue: :triumph: :trollface: :unamused: :warning: :weary: :wink: :worried: :yum:
    evil_genius_180
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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    Thanks for that. I feel I knew that was there but I just forgot. :blush:
  • rojrenrojren2294 Louisville, Kentucky USAPosts: 1,968Member
    I had no idea that was a thing.
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    I don't know why, but Norton Antivirus started to flag the site as Dangerous. I left a positive review to try to help. The site owner can go ask for the site to be cleared, I think.

  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Thanks Eric. I jumped through some hoops and filed a dispute with Norton.
    scifieric
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  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    Thanks Eric. I jumped through some hoops and filed a dispute with Norton.
    Excellent! I put in a good review. I was the only review at the time.
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Took a little pestering, but it looks like we're a reputable website again. :)
    scifieric
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  • rojrenrojren2294 Louisville, Kentucky USAPosts: 1,968Member
    Reputable? I'm not sure I'd go that far... :#
    Guerrilla
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Guerrilla wrote: »
    Took a little pestering, but it looks like we're a reputable website again. :)
    Nicely done!
  • japetusjapetus2937 SeattlePosts: 1,397Member
    What's the status of image attachment in the site? I remember it used to be pretty limited file sizes. Can we attach full rez files now? How much image space do we get? Do I have to keep hosting the images on my domain?
  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Depends. The limitations are much more generous this time around, and there's no allocation of space per member at the moment (there is an upper limit on single upload size from server side, but that's set pretty high). That being said, I'm not made of disk space, so I need to pay for it. Also, people still need to load the pages, and we don't really do anything with the images. So, I do appreciate hosting the truly high res stuff yourself, and linking to it instead of attaching inline, if we're talking several megabytes in filesize per image.

    So no, you should not run out of attachment space, but would be polite to keep the page loading times (not everyone has great Internet) in mind, if you're sharing something truly massive. :)
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