discussion Great build gongs.

[monica]

oh yes Si you are right and its good to see most off us think the same as for me i enjoy it hear, and its ran very well by John and the others,and realy cannot add much more to whats been said

by all the others as ,its a nice friendly enjoyable site, , and the only one i give time too, as i can sit and read for hours ,

 

[flyjoe180]

Medals, likes, who cares so long as you enjoy your builds. If you get nothing what doe sit matter really, the world will not end because of a rating. You only get better by practice; friendly and constructive criticism is the path to improving one's skills. And if you are happy with the result then that is all that matters. As a mostly-brush guy, Mr A probably needs to broaden his horizons regarding painting. Maybe his surname is hole?

 

[Guest]

While I have a certain amount of sympathy with Person A's original comments about overly praising work that doesn't deserve it, that does not mean one has to be nastily critical. A well reasoned, polite critique of a piece of work can help you improve much better than one that just slavishly parrots "Good job well done" or one that just picks something to pieces without offering any justification or reasoning.

When I first started on the forums, I was very cautious about posting things that I thought "were not good enough", but thankfully I've developed a tough enough skin over the years that I can accept the brickbats without too much offence and improved my efforts so that I don't get that type of reaction most of the time!

I'm always looking to learn new or better ways of doing things and even more importantly, I enjoy sharing what I've learned with people (when I can find time to post that is!) and I enjoy seeing what other people produce.

 

[BarryW]

Interesting. What this 'Person A' said is nothing to do with elitism, it is all to do with him being an 'a-hole'. Elitism we can all aspire to, if we want to that is, being an 'a-hole' is not something worth aspiring to. It is great to have many modellers on here of all abilities. We can all learn off each other and even beginners can often teach things to the more experienced. Any forum that comprises only of people like 'Person A' would not be worth joining. Besides, for all we know 'Person A' might be unable to stick two parts of a wing together....

 

[Guest]

I suppose there will always be the rivet counters and elitists that just think they're better than everyone else, they'll find somewhere to be happy with their prima-donna behaviour. But I don't think that somebody like that would get on well in a friendly atmosphere like SMF.

From my own experiences, I came here a little while ago as a nooby returning form a 30+ year hiatus, and despite not building anything for my first 3 months here everybody has been friendly and helpful. I've learnt a lot from watching other members builds and experiences, asking questions, and, hopefully, been able to pass a little knowledge on myself where I can. I've never felt intimidated by anyone here or felt an unfriendly atmosphere or been talked down to. This is how it should be, Scale Model Forums is a great place to hang out, whether a time experienced "top end" modeller or a newcomer to the hobby. We can all share our experiences and everybody can learn a little along the way. I am a member of other forums (what! there's other forums ) some bigger than SMF, but this is the friendliest, the best, and definitely my favourite haunt, and the one I always visit first and stay the longest. It's always a good thing to give a little praise in whatever form, no matter whether the build is museum quality or somebody's first effort, a little boost does everyone good and encourages them to do a bit more and hopefully do it a little better as experience grows.

These "elitists" can go elsewhere as far as I'm concerned.

 

[eddiesolo]

So, in conclusion we seem to agree that SMF is a great forum for all, novice to experienced, with a wealth of knowledge and people willing to give that knowledge. The gongs etc are a nice feature but do not feature highly in the 'prestige' of the builds, members or site although they are given by sensible people to various builds to show we appreciate the effort as well as the piece itself.

I think that rounds it up nicely.

Si

 

[PaulTRose]

i think one of the good things about this place is the positive attitude of the Admin/Mod team, which promotes the friendly atmosphere

in recent years ive had two bad experiences of the opposite which kind of soured things

one was an armour forum i stumbled on, small and seemilngly friendly and since i wanted to learn more about armour at the time it seemed like a good place. after six months of posting and not getting much response i realised you had to be in the 'gang' and it was virtually impossible to break into the inner circle. it was one of those places where it seemed if you didnt spend 6 times the amount of the kit on aftermarket extras you wernt taken seriously.

i build on a very tight budget so cant compete like that.

i had just done a Sherman that i thought was some of my best work (still do) but after a week it had had no comments at all, made a little whinge of a comment and all of a sudden they all pounced on the thread and ripped my build apart.......not my idea of fun so i went thro deleted every pic i had ever posted and told them to go forth and multiply

about 2 years ago i joined a car model forum, i already knew a couple of guys there so expected to be sort of welcomed

as soon as i started posting i started to get 'warnings' appear in every post.......not telling what id done wrong, simply pointing me to a portion of the rules and regs

asked someone what the crack was and it seems the admin was a control freak/grammer nazi.......dont know if any one has realised but its rare i use capitals.....just one of those things,....was lazy when i started using t'internet back in the dark ages and never got out of the habit. seems the admin had tok a dislike to it lol, but it annoyed me that he just wouldnt even contact me to tell me what i had done wrong! i started reading the rules and regs, had to use correct english (was an american site so that wasnt going to happen lol )with correct grammer blah blah blah............then i found the bit about pictures.........had to be in focus, correctly lit, no untidy work benches, etc etc.....with example pics!!! plus all sorts of other restrictions

so i went back and made a post about how it was my habit not to use caps and would find it hard to change, and it would have been easier if admin had told me what my infringement was rather than having to ask. next time i logged in i found all my posts deleted, my profile deleted and my isp blocked so i couldnt even join again!!!

thing is im a mod on a forum and i recounted the story in the mods lounge about how we are so different.....one of the other guys said he had got banned there cos he went to the defence of a newbie who didnt have english as his first language and the admin was pulling him up on it

but what goes around comes around cos 6 months later the admin closed his site (after 10 years in existance!) and cos he 'knew' the admin of the site im a mod on lots of his guys came to our site and found it a breath of fresh air cos of the lack of constraining rules...............the admin guy joined up too and encountered me and the other mod who got banned

im so glad this place isnt like that, i really like the layout and design and some of the features ive not really seen any where else, i wish i had the time to contribute more here cos it is an enjoyable place

 

[downscale model art]

i only joined this forum because i liked the friendly atmospere and the non eliteist way that it works. as a guy who lacks confidence, its the only way i can showcase my builds because a lot of them would get sneered at. if i felt that my models were astonishingly good then whats the point in being in a forum? i wouldnt need to because id be a conceited arrogant toad who knows everything.

 

[Guest]

In general, as this (model building) is supposed to be a personal hobby, I try not to take things too seriously.

I won't salute bad work as good work, because I cannot lie. Some people don't like that I am (or can be) brutally honest.

If I notice what appears to be a mistake, I will say it appears to be a mistake (because the camera can be misleading), but I won't pounce on it and adopt the righteous attitude of "I toldja so". (I used to do that when I was much younger and less sensitive or sympathetic to the feelings of others.). I did come from a broken home, and in a way that makes me a broken man, so I must work on that old attitude...