clorophilla

I noticed that the forums are visited by a relatively few group of TDers. We had many entries recently and may be it could be difficult for them to discover all the potentiallity of this site. What about a monthly invite to forums, challenges etc sent to all users (or to the newest ones) on their update pages?

Baldur

Do we really want to promote it?

clorophilla

English is not my mptherlanguage, so I can't see if you are joking or not
Anyway, I moderate a forum too, and know how much work it needs, if this is what you would say.
I begin this topic because I saw less interest to joining the few last challenges; but I joined TD just at november 09, so may be it's only a seasonal matter... It was just a suggestion

Shanley

The challenges are something assumed by the TD-ers, not by ThinkDraw. So if a challenge doesnt get attention, I suppose the moderator should do something about it. Personally, there are never enough pics for me in a challenge anyway, so each time i had the honor of carrying the baton, I tried encouraging the older and newer TD-ers to enter pics.
(Anyway, i belive Baldur was mainly thinking about 'private' channels. Truth is ...people who join the 'TD' community adapt well without TD's intervention in the process, people who only enjoy looking around for a day or two just get the other distracted...not that this would be some sort of catastroph, but it's still weird..)

spam

I do agree with Clorophilla the forums are used by many of the regular TDer's - please do not take offence by my comment and sometimes seems like we would be intruding to join in or add things - although I have made a few comments I know sometimes I look, think and step away again. Although can't see that this would be a problem with the younger members as they are very used to the big wide techno world a few of us older ones maybe more reticent. I love reading all the postings though and find the stories very entertaining - Baldur you have a great way with words and sound such fun.

spam

And yes Shanley you do encourage people to join in and enter the challenges - I know I love looking at all the pics and reading others comments as well and to me this is a greater part of this site.

Login

Many TDers avoid the forums and so miss the challenges, so I can see what clorophilla is getting at. They probably don't want to join in the chit-chat but may join in the challenges if they know about them. Maybe each new challenge could be accompanied by a drawing, created by the challenger. The title could be 'Community Challenge - Motherhood' for example.

Shanley

the idea is good, but there are times when pics get swept away immediately. i believe the solution could be implemented more easily by simply following Q's example: adding a comment at each pic saying what the pic was made for and adding a link perhaps. I know I did this and people asked me about the challenges a couple of times. Maybe some just looked it up on the forum...i couldnt know.

Baldur

I wasn't joking, but perhaps my thoughts could have been more clear.
When the BBC featured ThinkDraw and drew lots of attention to it, we were beseiged by so many new people that that site became very 'difficult'.
Pictures were not loading properly, people were losing drawings when trying to submit them because of the traffic.
Also instead of just a couple pages of drawings being added to the Gallery each day, we got many pages.
Good drawings got quickly washed away into oblivion before many could enjoy them.
My fear is that if the Forums got a lot of extra traffic we would also lose more than we gain. It would become very difficult to find what you want to read.
I myself do not want to encourage our numbers to double or triple.

clorophilla

Yes, I understand what you are saying. I wrote my thoughts because when I found TD I saw in the gallery there was sometimes many pics about the same theme, but i didn't understand why and how, and toke some time before find the forum, the informations and understand what the challenges where. I loved it, but it was not easy to understand, because it was not easy to find the rules (may be because I understand English not so well).
Anyway, the suggestion to explain the challenges as a comment to the pictures (owns or of others) could be a good idea.

Baldur

I agree it would be a good idea to explain the challenge in the comment section of each drawing done as part of the challenge.

One you will see regularly is called Fun Tuesday. One person chooses a theme each Tuesday and others follow their example.
You will see the title of these pictures often start with 'FT'.

Dragon

I don't think there's a problem with more people joining in the forum if it's not suddenly innudated with banalities. I've found that some people (I think usually young folks) will start a new thread for any little thing they think of. A lot of these new threads would have fit just fine into a previous thread, often one that's still on the first page. I've also seen some people who are seeking attention make comments in every thread on the page though that was mostly one person who is thankfully gone now.

I guess what I'm saying is anyone is welcome, we just ask that their comments be pertinent to the thread or conversation. I don't think any of us regulars want newcomers to feel like they're being shunned.

matthew

But... I live for the shun...

Shanley

I live for the sun and the sun doesn't mind me..

mrozowski

Great play on words Shanley! I find the forums interesting, but don't have the time to interact much. When I want a laugh, when I need a distraction, I love to read the Think write entries and view the Challenges. New people are good and will help shape the future of TD. I am very grateful to the person who asked for the Repeat button. Without the forums you really don't have the chance to "meet" the other TD community. I love the other countries forum, too! There's so much more than art here, but I would love to see a different home page for TD...a page where a user/visitor could choose where to go first and description of each destination. Draw...Choose a theme and create a picture...Gallery...See what others have drawn and comment and rate pictures...Forum...Join the TD community discussions etc. I don't always want to draw in the same theme I last drew in, but that's the default when I log in. Maybe I want to go directly to the Forums and not draw. The tabs are a good idea, but not as attention grabbing as a portal page. Okay, I've now made up for not posting in the forums for quite some time with this one post. You can now go back to talking amongst yourselves.