only a few here post answers to questions. or try to. and if this is the attitude Maya Books why would anyone bother?
Politics.
It doesn’t seem right for designers to help one another because technically they are competitors.
I’m a student, so it doesn’t seem right that I help a professional too.
If I ask a question on concept, I will be accused of trying to steal other’s ideas.
If I ask about a research, I will be accused of being lazy to do my own.
Seriously, I pretty much lost all my enthusiasm about this precious design professional forum after a few weeks.
If you want info on Maya books I suggest you go to a forum for video game designers/artists/animators. They use the application more often than IDers.
There are a few on this forum that do help out.
I know how you feel YKH. I have to thank you for commenting often on my questions and comments, even when I don’t agree with you 
It feels like there are about 5-10 people that utilize this forum…and half are unemployed or students who have many questions and few answers. Anyone have an idea why designers don’t seem to want to discuss design?
I don’t think I agree with molested cow that it is politics/competition. With so few people ever posting, I just don’t think it is likely I will be in competition with them anytime soon. In real life I have held back from telling people about opportunities that I wanted though.
Could it be that the profession that we have such great passion for contains just as many apathetic souls as the rest? I hope not. Or is it that designers are so busy eating yellow foam and being yelled at engineers/marketers that they have no free time left to chat? Perhaps in a few cases…any other ideas?
Maybe because ‘design’ is an unabashedly visual medium. And we’re trained to (and are comfortable to) express things with drawings, sketches and mockups. A letter-length post might be too difficult for most designers.
This is not intended to be designer-bashing…but there just might not be that many designers who have the disposition to read, think, and respond verbally.
Might be particularly true if the boards are mostly monitored by designers without a lot of experience. Not a lot of experience, probably not much to say.
sadly, lots of folks look down on others who don’t already know the things they do, and also don’t have an internal need to help others. if you see an accident, there will usually be 4 types of people:
A-The ones who just keep rolling by as if nothing happened
B-The ones who sit there and watch at a distance
C-The ones that will be the first to get out of their cars and help if they see it’s needed
and D- The ones that wait until somebody else already starts the help, then they jump in after they see everyone else involved, then they feel like they actually contributed (although they weren’t needed at all, the real work was already done by “C”)
Unfortunately, I think most people in the world fit into modes B and D.
There is no rule here against posting images. Let’s have a dialogue with those.
Time. Severe lack of. Enough to quickly read but not often to respond. (?)
molested_cow - i call it Maturity. pro or student helping should always be right. i understand losing enthusiasm tho.
lauren - ? GiR not answering Q is not issue. issue is helping someone then getting Attitude later (you saw other threads yes?). this place is vacant. attitude empty it more.
Mr-914 - good discussion goes both ways. happy we dont all agree. but wish was more than you, me and few others. your right. theres few visuals shown. as if MoMA is waiting for these peoples work!
think i’ll keep my help to PM and email. thought registration would improve forum professionalism. it hasnt.
I agree, it’s always the same few people that keep coming back. Feels like a small bunch of retirees always gathering on the same park benches yapping endlessly about the same topics, over and over. Heck, we may now be a nice, polite crowd, but our numbers guarantee we’ll have no impact whatsoever on anything and anyone design-related or not.
I still miss the anarchy of the old boards that, even with the tonnes of junk postings, yielded - at their best - much richer and thought-provoking discussions from a more varied and much larger goup of contributors than now. Many posters in the past were from fields other than design and allowed us to see ourselves from the outside as well. Picture wasn’t always pretty, things often heated up or went straight down the gutter, but for the more broad-minded among us, nothing was taken personally and much new insight was gained from even the worst of confrontations.
Conflict can be a source of learning and improvement, if properly managed.
Even legally-risky stuff like employer-bashing or ganging up on some well-known designers (you know who) exposed the less magazine-worthy side of ID - the abusive employment picture, the deceitful business practices, the hollow egos self-appointed as design ambassadors to the world, and so on.
Core has done ID a major disservice with registration, it instantly took away from the spontaneity with which practically anyone anywhere could add his comments or thoughts or, yes, burps and farts. But these are part of everyday life too.
What you have now is a lame, pedestrian, censored and essentially castrated little self-help club, sort of a Designers Anonymous for individual professional healing.
To advance the cause of this battered field where ABS stylists are venerated in books, magazines (and by some governments!) as worthy “leaders” in society, Core should have actually “designed” an intelligent discussion forum platform open to all, not the me-too version here, copied off countless others on the net.
Some of us still think design IS about taking risks and facing adversity head-on. Core has apparently decided our club wasn’t exclusive enough. Designers do help one another even if talk isn’t exclusively about design. What’s needed sorely here is input from those outside looking in - the business folks, the engineers, the salespeople, the buyers of our work, and such.
Until then, see you at the park next time, I’m off now for my little evening tea.
no one is ever happy with what they have.
People were screaming for registration, now its a disservice? its a no-win situation it seems.
I do agree however that the forums are much slower but I find that the responses (if i ever get them) are more direct, relevant and serious than all the superfluous crap from before. So basically we had 2 choices: more activity that is saturated with trivial, anarchic crap, or little activity that has more concentrated info.
im not saying either is better, it relates to preference. It would be nice to see more activity here though
I’m sort of amused that even with registration, people have still chosen to be anonymous here. Contrast with an ID mailing list like IDFORUM where most people post under their own names (certainly, the option of an anoymous hotmail account always exists, but most do not do that).
I’m not sure exactly what to make of this particular phenomenon, but it has something I do, I think, with the relevance of a forum like this to the work we are doing everyday.
And of course, there are pros and cons of anonymity and public identity, I’m making an observation more than a criticism.
Steve: Indeed, that is interesting. I think anonymity brings the authority of some posts down. If this person posting all these improvements to my work is a high school student flipping burgers who just thinks he is the second coming of Teague, I wouldn’t take those with the same weight as a seasoned professional who has been in a hiring situation many times before.
I’ve posted a link to my website, my resume, my email address and an instant messenger service. I’ve received messages from students and recent grads, but I feel a little guilty because I know that there are others with far more experience to field their questions, but who have decided to live in anonymity. In order to encourage them to come out of the closet, I want everyone to know despite the outrageous things I have occasionally said, I have not yet received a death threat, or a flood of resumes.
Lastly: thanks for mentioning IDforum Steve. I hadn’t heard of that, but I will sign up now.
d-flux said:
People were screaming for registration, now its a disservice? its a no-win situation it seems.
I agree, and as a member of Core77 management it is a bit frustrating to us. My feeling is that the number of legitimate posts is about the same (from the old boards to the new boards) but all the crap has been cut out.
We thought that would be good, but it seems to have taken some of the life out of the discussions.
Not sure what the best solution is, but we are definitely open to suggestions.
Stucon–
The reason a lot of people wanted registration was to add some credibility to discussions-- a profile allows for that. Your handle is not an anonymous username-- you have an email or website attached and consistently post under that name. The problem is the blocking of anonymous posting. Open the forums up! Allow for anonymous posts. Keep the registration as an option for those who want a consitent username.
I guarantee this solution will allow for the best balance of credibility and anarchaic bullshit.
i totally agree.
i havent even had the desire to post since the new registration. i tried often to give meaningful crits but also ranted at times when i felt i needed to do so. wether it was because it was something some moron said or because i was having a bad day, it was at least more fun. hell, half the good discussions were sparked by something one of the lowlier contributors to this forum would belt out. remember ufo? often times it seemed that if enough young, inexperienced shavers got out of line, then in would come some old timer to lay down the law with his/her experience and knowledge, maybe shedding a little bit of light for all of us.
besides, it doesnt take a genius to see that half the greatness of this site wasnt the design knowledge it harnessed. go to school or get out there and work if you’re looking for that. (or at least check the materials and processes section).
what made these boards great was the way it captured the personality and dreams of design and its creators at that particular time. and im not just talking about within the field. it gave any given person an insight to how we felt about alot of issues. no, it wasnt always pretty, but i think that the people in sales will forgive us for that. maybe karim rashid wont, but who gives a shit about him anyway.
the point about the “us too” mechanics is right on. these discussions used to be unique and gave us a sense of individual forum. now its like all the rest of them. boring crap.
let the people who want to login, login and the rest of us rock. this is censorship. do you even see the people who cried for registration contributing to any great effect these days? dont let these forums go the way of the 90’s. you used to be cool man.
I left these forums for about 6 months because of the filth trolling it daily, but now i’m back. The bickering gets old, but what bothered me most was “creative people” treating other “creative people” very very poorly.
I think I post MORE often since registration. I don’t have to read 100 inane posts to get to the 1 that is interesting/intelligent. Now I only have to read perhaps 10 heh;)
One possible balanced solution would be to have ratings like on other message boards I’ve seen, or a way to ignore posts by non-registered users. That would keep the crap out for those of us who don’t want it, but would allow those who do to view it or post it in the same forums.
maybe problem is ---- what is this forum for?
lots of requests for guidance on portfolios and jobhunt. little talk of design. this really seems to be for students. and new grads. and crossovers. not pros.
this is different than other forums. no real moderators here. other places people show off their work. here everyone hides their work. CG forums people post images take criticism and learn. here people show nothing and avoid criticism. maybe because people who dont even show their work criticize the most. and egos are too fragile.
lots of things to think about. first one might be deciding what this place is for. right now it’s mainly blind leading the blind.