Quittin' RS Customs Board

[CHEWIE]

Owen, I really, really hate to see you leave here.  I know you didn't post a whole lot here, but I know you have a lot to offer besides just your unreal customizing ability.   I hope this doesn't affect our friendship at all, and that you might reconsider.   

And I hope that everyone can respect Owen's opinion - it seemed like a bit of a personal attack towards him.  His opinion may be different than some people's, but I don't think any finger should be pointed at him for a difference in opinion on what he thinks, or how he would handle situations.

I don't think a difference of opinion should stir any bad blood either - I understand that RS may be a bigger site than here and possibly always will be - I see it as quality vs. quantity.  I don't necessarily think RS is bad, I just think it's oversized which results in problems and maybe the people running it see it as more of a business.

As for the retarded newbies - we all seem to agree that people like that are a negative - we just have different ways of dealing with them.  I've found that different solutions work for different people.  Quite often the best way is to just be firm and deal with them from the top.  I am sure there are instances though where a person can mature over time and still be an asset to a site.  I know at first at www.yakface.com, some of the older members there didn't care for me too much at first - I was an overly zealous collector that got on some people's nerves.

The question comes up from time to time, "Why is CHEWIE still active there?" - yes, because there are a lot of great people there, like Dan Curto, Newborn Alex and many others.  Plus I do make new friends there some too, so I don't think that completely cutting off a resource like RS is a good idea - I think that even though one may disagree with the politics of some places, it's still good to keep your options open.  Similar to the debate between conservatives and liberals - you may disagree, but ultimately it's important to still communicate. 

I know that RS did not hold up their end of the bargain with the way staff here were treated and their quick banning of anyone who voices a negative word about them - but I will never hold that against their forum members, and as a non staff member, I enjoy both sites and prefer to not cut off one site.  Both sites have their pluses - to me, RS is great for new information and photo archives - here at JD, I think the forums are run the best.  I do prefer JD as an overall site, but I still like to have a bit of Scum in me too.

 

[Victor_Von_Doom]

[quote author=CHEWIE link=topic=10347.msg183656#msg183656

As for the retarded newbies - we all seem to agree that people like that are a negative - we just have different ways of dealing with them.  I've found that different solutions work for different people.  Quite often the best way is to just be firm and deal with them from the top.  I am sure there are instances though where a person can mature over time and still be an asset to a site.  I know at first at www.yakface.com, some of the older members there didn't care for me too much at first - I was an overly zealous collector that got on some people's nerves.

Thats a good point. A couple of newbies joined a few months ago and asked me for help. Initially they did not type better than Greenday. I gave them some advice - and they listened. I've been chatting with them regularly ever since, and its a good feeling to know that you are helping a new beginner get into this hobby and give them a warm welcome. They are both 13. One has become a productive, normal member, and while the other one needs a bit more work, he has made vast improvements.

However, if its some dumbass kid who thinks he knows better in his 3 minutes there than veteran members, screw him.

[Joe]

I was gonna' join RS once   Whew am I glad I didnt (it dosent seem that bad though) 

[Ryan]

Owen, I really, really hate to see you leave here.  I know you didn't post a whole lot here, but I know you have a lot to offer besides just your unreal customizing ability.   I hope this doesn't affect our friendship at all, and that you might reconsider.   

And I hope that everyone can respect Owen's opinion - it seemed like a bit of a personal attack towards him.  His opinion may be different than some people's, but I don't think any finger should be pointed at him for a difference in opinion on what he thinks, or how he would handle situations.

I really hope that wasn't directed at me. If it is that's not at all how I intended it to sound.  I really didn't want to sound negative towards Owen at all, I just disagreed with him and was trying to point out why in a civil manner. I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking anyone cause that wasn't my intention at all.

[Darth Delicious]

Somehow I knew that after reading JJ's response (especially the simple warning part) it would degenerate into Owen leaving.

Just for the record, JJ, I think you overreacted. And I know a thing or two about overreacting. Remember ffurg?

-DD

[Famine]

Wow. Things got awkward like Daddy just hit Mommy at the dinner table.

We all have our own feelings toward this, but let's not just cut and run, because we'd be doing a disservice to ourselves.

Consider this a small warning to the both of you, from The Noderator.

Get a life and move it along.

Kevin

[CHEWIE]

Ryan, that wasn't directed towards you at all - and it really wansn't a "rebellion statement" to what JJ posted, but I do think that it was a bit out of line, especially since everyone that is active in this section is a huge fan of Owen's work, and we all thouroughly enjoy when he does chime in his thoughts from time to time.  It will be a great shame if he doesn't come back.  But knowing Owen as well as I have been fortunate enough to through a million email conversations, I know he's not the type to try and push and argument - if he feels offended, then he moves on.  I haven't spoken with him about it yet, but I'm sure that's the way he feels.

I know that people here felt offended by RS and either did something to get themselve banned or outright left, and I'm afraid he just felt offended by this site and decided to take his stuff and go.  And JJ, I know that you meant no harm in your post - but I do think that someone who may not know you very well could feel pretty awkard and want to call it quits if spoken to like that by a senior staff member...

Anyways, I don't want this to escalate into something bigger.  And I'd love to see Owen back here.

 

[Jesse James]

I can safely say that telling people to blatantly flat out NOT come to JD on our own site because it's "not in their best interests" isn't going to be tolerated much here either, so let that be just a simple warning.

If you don't appreciate the site here

Ok.  No biggie.
Not that I ever posted here much to begin with (the orange on blue text style really messes with my eyes, giving me a weird 3D effect) but I'm outta here.  Later, OJD

I'm sorry if you took things as me telling you to pack up and leave Owen, I didn't mean for that intent.  If you read my post, I was more than complementary of your work Owen, I think you're a good guy in customizing so that's not an issue.  

I was sending just a message that while we (IE: Everyone there) are not allowed to post, even in passing, that "this or that" is at "that site or this site" over at Rebelscum's forums, we are very tolerant about other sites being mentioned...  Really it's not even tolerance, it's simply that Star Wars collecting is not just one website, it's many and we dig all the news around all the sites, and all the customs at all the various sites...

However, telling people "You're better off being there than here" isn't going to fly.  I'm sorry some of you disagree with me saying that, but that's the way it is going to be here because that's simply coming in to a site you don't post at much (Owen), and completely disrespecting the people who DO work here and who DO post here.  I know you maybe feel that way, but I was ASKING you to drop that kind of talk was all...  I don't care if Scum's your home base for customs or not, I appreciated you coming by whatever ammount you felt you wanted to, and I'm sure everyone else does, but if you feel my warning to just respect our site was a note telling you to pack it up and go then is it really I who did the overreacting here?

Maybe I'm misreading things, but from my point of view I gave a warning about something that isn't acceptable on any forum.  Show some respect is the message and remember you can be here and there...  You can talk about here and there openly, but when you imply that you SHOULDN'T be here at JediDefender, and you SHOULD be there, then I'm sorry but that's just not cool by me.  You have to be respectful to this community, that's all.

I don't want any of you to quit either site if any of you don't want to.  Do what you want, and enjoy the hobby and help expand it and make it better, but when you're at a place you have to respect them...  Voicing opinions and criticism on a site is fine, we like hearing what the people think here but you have to also remember that we like keeping our members here, and don't want them being told they should be at such and such site instead...  Both sites though?  Yeah, I think people can and should (at times anyway) broad themselves.  Seems fair and logical to me as far as my stance is concerned.

Edit:

Again, this isn't disrespecting you Owen, or any of you...  It's just a request of respect for us over here, because we do want you here and we want you happy here, but we also don't want you to leave a site you're happier at...  My post isn't asking you to leave though, it's asking you to just remember that we like our members right where they are, and if people are wanting to come over here or make this the only place they want to post customs, telling them that they're "better off at....." is a really disrespectful way to speak of our forums on our forums.  That's all, and if anything I was more hurt to see you felt that way about our site.  We'd have appreciated seeing your post count increase with customs discussion I know, but either way we would want you at whatever site makes you happy, and if that's not ours then we're sad but not going to tell you that you're better off here.  You're better off where you're happiest.  Be cool if you pop in to say hi some though.

[Phrubruh]

Wow! How did I miss this thread? I guess I've been too busy at work to keep up. Anyway, I've decided that I will no longer post my customs at RS. The only people that comment on them there are basically members of this board. So why make you comment on the same thing twice?

I really love the sense of community we have round here. It reminds me of the old days Jesse James talks about on the old Forgotten Force Customizing ListServer. I really miss those emails of look what I just made. It was there that I saw my first painted R2 figure and thought that was so cool that someone painted him red. I had to get into this so I painted up a vintage death star droid to be movie accurate. It was also a great place to trade and get to know so many people. Heck, we didn't need ebay back then. We traded fodder and showed our results. It was fun seeing the legs I traded used on a new figure.

JD has a great store watch forum. Our southern California thread holds semi monthly meetings of collectors at different locations. We get together and have lunch and trade items we found. It would be great to do such a thing in the customizing section. It really promotes a sense of community. I also like how we stick up for each other when attacked at RS. This is just a really good place to be.

Now, I've found there are other smaller boards that have multiple custom sections such as marvel super heroes and GI Joe. Its fun to see what people can do outside of star wars. Heck, have you seen glassman's marvel superheros? Very cool!  Commando Customs one such site. They seem to have a completely different group of people there. They're GI Joe section is amazing!

Anyway, I'll continue to post comments over at RS but not new work. There are just too many sites I've found and I see the feedback over at RS to be the least helpful. I think the only moderator over at RS that's decent is Dan Curto. I think he's just too overwhelmed what with work, family, the custom alliance and the news postings to keep things under control over there. I wish the other moderators would help him more. Oh well.

By the way, when is someone going to fix the FFURG forum? It's been down all week!

[In Rem]

Phruby -

Thank you for that. This thread has gotten into a bit of a venting exercise, and I never meant for it to be that at all. (In fact, I requested that this thread be locked or deleted last night, as it's turned into something I never intended)

I was merely saying:

"From now on, I'll be doing almost all of my posting here. The tone of some of the Noobs on RS has gotten embarassingly bad, and I've decided to leave it behind.

I'm only posting this b/c I want folks here to know the reason I'm no longer commenting there or posting my work there.

I'll still, of course, post comments and occassional work here to share with what seems like the last best haven for polite, informed, and interesting conversation and comments about SW customs."

I wasn't mad at RS; I wasn't mad at all. I was just burned out a little on sifting through RS and decided I wasn't going to post my work there anymore. From there it's blown up in to a big "thing". For me, until the past couple of days, it was never meant to be a thing at all.

Then CHEWIE posted over at RS asking for nothing more than a respectful forum there (a perfectly reasonable request, I might add), and some people have actually resisted that suggestion there (?!).

The response CHEWIE got from some people at RS kinda cemented my decision to keep things over here... I can only invest so much time and energy, and this is the place *I* - *PERSONALLY* - have decided to call home. I'm not bashing RS. I'm not bashing any individual. I'm not looking to change the world. I'm not even attempting to do any of that. I'm merely observing a difference, assessing my level of interest and enjoyment of customizing and sharing my work online, and making a personal choice.

Unfortuately we may have lost Owen to this, and that sucks. I'll just have to drop in on his site from time to time.

Now, before we upset anyone else over something that was never intended to upset anyone in the first place, let's admit that JD and RS are different and appeal to different tastes and lock this thing down.

[Jeff]

Now, before we upset anyone else over something that was never intended to upset anyone in the first place, let's admit that JD and RS are different and appeal to different tastes and lock this thing down.

Fine by me... locked.

ps.
There are plenty of threads regarding RS that pop up in Watto's Junk Yard so feel free to discuss RS in one of those if you need to continue...