Thanks a lot Shay, for your detailed comments. I certainly can speak for 
Stephen too.

On 20-5-2013 17:08, Shay wrote:

> rounds after that, but have not participated since. If it helps, here are the
> reasons why:
>

> my account was lost altogether) for the user name Shay. Yes, I can get a new
> account with another name, but I would prefer my old account associated with my

> would certainly have commented, if not entered a time or two, if my account had
> been accessible.

You confirm here what I was beginning to suspect. The "contact us"link 
seems indeed dead. I tried it myself yesterday and to date, as one of 
the team, I still have not received it.

This is becoming a serious worry. Colin (the technical owner of the 
site) is not responding to our (Stephen, me) mails, and either the 
mentioned link goes exclusively to him and he automatically drops it or 
something else is happening.

BTW, after controlling,the password you used for your new membership 
seems to be the same as for the username Shay. Could you please confirm 
or infirm this?

>
> 2. Small audience. Producing something for a small audience of like-minded


> feedback.

With the policy of not using the book titles, or in a derived form, we 
surely can do something about that ;-)

>





> media to look at. Consideration of any one item is almost unwarranted.

As far as p.b.i. is concerned, there still is a fair amount of active 
commenting from the remaining community.

At the TC-RTC, commenting on uploaded images is very poor indeed and I 
frankly do not know how to improve incentives to do this. I confess that 
I do not comment enough myself in that respect...

>


> /how/ to finish an image. Many of the interminable WIPs I see are modeled with
> techniques that will grind progress to a near-halt long before an image can be
> completed.

Absolutely true. I guess technical preoccupations overrule the wish to 
finish an image...

>
> 5. The quality on a lot of the images is terrible. This might be related to the
> slow death of the POV-Ray newsgroups, but things that used to be a matter of
> course (decent sky, metal textures, radiosity) are missing from many of the



> foremost, your image should convey that you give a shit.

Absolutely true. Again, I guess that technical preoccupations overrule. 
While I recognize myself in point 4, I certainly do not where point 5 is 
concerned :-) Over the years, I have acquired a huge collection of 
pieces of code, tips, tricks and what not, which I constantly use in one 
scene or another I am working on, and gleaned from the POV-Ray 
newsgroups. I think this is an essential procedure for anyone here. 
Maybe that is not done so much any more or maybe people are not really 
interested any more in producing quality.

>
> ******** Suggestions:
>





The p.o-t is a good suggestion indeed.

>
> 2. Give more constructive feedback to all of the entries. Encourage people to


Indeed. Again I am thinking about making commenting an obligation when 
voting... However, that would also need some "action" from Colin  :-(

>
> 3. Encourage everyone to back off the bad copies of professional work and
> explore still life, abstract, surrealism, architecture and other genres more


Not sure I follow you here. What are the bad copies of professional work 
exactly?

>
> 4. Go back to the book titles.  The tc-rtc survives, if barely. The irtc does


 From the beginning, there has been grumbling about the book titles, 
many people feeling surprisingly unsure about how to interpret them. I 
don't think that Stephen and I will really abandon the titles concept 
but adapt it to a different (wider?) scope.

>


Hmm. Not so narrow for some people :-)

>
> 6. Post actual WIPs (emphasis on the P) in P.B.I to encourage anyone there to
> come take a look at the tc-rtc.

Personally, I am a bit reluctant about this although I understand the 
idea. While working for the TC-RTC I want it to be entirely my own work, 
without suggestions during progress which might influence the outcome. 
However, I might consider posting the finished scene to p.b.i. and get 
the comments afterwards...

>
> 7. Find my password.

I did. See point 1.


Thomas

Post a reply to this message