Signing Off: A Signature Fanclub - Come Join!

[rocoboq]

@iris @zey
Iris, that last sentence you typed up said everything. All we have remaining are coding veterans who have been here for a long while, and not really anybody who is just beginning their coding journey. I remember when I joined, it was wonderful being a community of some experienced coders and some not-so-experienced coders, and I was getting so much help that helped me to grow.

I miss that so, so much.

I miss the excitement of helping a new coder grow and become better at what they enjoy. I miss getting harsh (but helpful and respectful) criticism on my pieces of code. I miss meeting new coders and gaining new friends in the coding community (which rarely happens nowadays since fewer and fewer people are joining). I miss the old club

However, I definitely agree that more and more people are getting more responses quicker, which is a very good thing. But Iris is right that people are simply asking for compliments, and it's all the same stuff. I am pretty much saying the same thing for ever signature I comment on. "It looks really nice! I really think the color scheme works well, and the images and gifs used work really well. However..."

I suppose what I'm saying is, I miss the variety.

[Aliria]

@ZeyDaan

I am kind of a newbie coder, and I can definitely say I don't like these rules.

I'm not very good at writing critique. This means that often when I want to ask people's opinions on a new signature, I look at the last few posts, decide I can't really write any good comments on other people's signatures, and then don't post because of it. I've become a passive stalker of this thread, which is no help to me or anybody else.

[ryuunosuke]

@ZeyDaan;

i feel like there has at least been some benefit to the new rules implemented - it's not all negative.
some excluded users have been getting back into the thread, not fearing of being 'skipped' again in
favor for a more popular person's critique.

but, it really does intimidate others. perhaps the general beginning of the thread should be less
wordsy, and more friendly - perhaps some images? ah, i'm not really sure...
the rules could be edited, to make sure that everyone is included, but i'm not quite sure how it
would work. maybe a limit to how often you could post for compliments..? a rewards system for
helping out others? but then again, helping out others (code-wise) is mostly done on Digitally
Distinct, which gets most of the helping-out done there. so i think this thread's 'old feeling' of
helping others has not disappeared, but mostly migrated to Digitally Distinct.

[gods]

@kap, @para, @asteria; tahnk you for the feedback! unfortunately, it looks fine on my screen, so if i fixed it, it would look wrong for me... (curse browser/comp differences!) i usually try to avoid text symbols/borders since they come out different sizes on different computers/browsers, so i'll keep that in mind for next time :') thank you again!

@zey & those who also commented on rule stuffs;
i agree. as much as i like compliments & giving compliments, i want when i ask for "feedback" for it to mean constructive feedback, not just compliments. i always try to include at least a bit of suggestion in my comments (sometimes thats hard tho, i get it). i can understand long responses being intimidating to new members as well (i write long ones tho, as you can see, i get wordy or like going into detail...), so i want it to be more... i guess, relaxed?

i think it would be fun to meet more newer coders (i like helping them out on DD! so doing it here would be fun too). as much as i like the rules, since people dont get skipped over as much, i feel they kind of... stop actual discussions. i like getting responses & commenting on others, but ive always been that way. things have sort of shifted over to a focus on commentary, while questions & general sig discussion seem to vanish... the thread has definitely slowed down (like what aliria said, its hard for newer (and sometimes older!) coders to give feedback if they feel they arent good enough for it).

if the people who asked for change arent benefitting from it (i dont know who asked for it, so im not pointing fingers) and the rules are detracting from the thread (tho there are some benefits), the rules may need a bit of tweaking. i like the idea of making sure everyone gets comments, but, like others have said, thats definitely become a focus on compliments, and i dont like that so much. iris & para summed it up well; commentary is getting repetitive also.

personally, i dont have any suggestions for fixing the issue (i wish i did), tho i think the "Adopt a newbie" idea is a nice one. it could get both old & new members involved, and also share coding knowledge. i think it would also be more fun with discussion of thread/form coding as well (i dont do too much of that myself & would love to talk about/learn more about thread coding!). like jyushi said, a lot of the "helping" is done on the DD thread, but i definitely think this thread could still be used to talk about signatures in general (i really liked when people posted questions for others to answer! that was fun)

this reply is a huge mess & im sorry about that. i feel like im just repeating myself :') if none of this makes sense i apologize!!


on a side note, i might stream the making of one of my signatures, if anyone is interested! hopefully that might spring up some discussion...? (there would also be a bit of image manipulation & gif making/editing involved)

[asteria-]

@zeydaan;
well, hmm. i can't really say i *dislike* the new rules ( in fact i actually kind of like them even though i usually get skipped over anyway ), and honestly i kind of do agree with aliria:


@ZeyDaan

I am kind of a newbie coder, and I can definitely say I don't like these rules.

I'm not very good at writing critique. This means that often when I want to ask people's opinions on a new signature, I look at the last few posts, decide I can't really write any good comments on other people's signatures, and then don't post because of it. I've become a passive stalker of this thread, which is no help to me or anybody else.


i'm not very good at writing critique either, to be honest. the good majority of people who post here are people who i greatly look up to as coding inspirations, and i honestly can't find anything wrong with a lot of the signatures i give feedback on. of course, i do try to speak my mind as much as possible, like i'll comment if someone's text is spilling over or something, but also—i think the main problem for me is—i just can't come up with anything better.
and that's how suggestions happen, right? you picture any improvements you can make, and then you talk about them. i think that's an issue for quite a few coding rookies on this thread (in addition to the intimidation thing!!), speaking as a rookie myself. ^^;
i think another thing is that i tend to take things very, very personally. even if it's about my signature, haha! so, i tend not to focus on the 'bad' parts of the signature, whether it's mine or someone else's.
i also really, really like the 'adopt a newbie' thing—that would be really helpful!!
ok, that's it for this rambling, awkward post that makes zero sense :')! basically, i get the rules but i agree with gods and jysuhimatsu—it should be a little more relaxed, and maybe a little friendlier and less verbose!

[Zetirian]

Ideas on how to improve the thread:

Adopt a newbie: Interesting idea, will take on board.
Reward system: We already have this and no one has shown any interest. In addition, I don't know about anyone else, but no one should be bribed to use this thread.
Using images on the front page: There was only 5 warnings ever given before the rules were updated to accommodate these rules, and these were mostly based on art theft and negative criticism which was rude. It is safe to say the rules and the front page was informative and working well. In the last few weeks, I have ended up giving out over 20 warnings with almost all of them towards users who simply didn't give a comment to a previous post, and almost all of them are related to this rule.

I am essentially punishing people for asking for signature related questions. That is all I am doing here. I hate it.

-----

Thank you all for your comments. There are good things to come with these rules, which is why they went ahead and became official, but now it is somewhat obvious that they aren't for everyone. This thread's main demographic is from newbie to intermediate. It isn't meant to cater to Veterans, that is why Sig criticism exists and it has been endorsed by this thread and DD instead of ignored, same with signature respect and rate the sig above you because there you can get unbias commentary from any user in CS who has or hasn't got any coding knowledge, which will always lead to a challenge to anyone.

We can't cater to everyone, but we can sure give it a go, and as of right now the only demographic these rules accommodate are intermediate to veteran coders at their top potential (not being ignored being a thing only veterans seem to experience considering the pm's and offsite comments on the fanclub's performance however it is hard for a newbie in coding to make comment on a veteran's signature without giving it praise. I remember not being able to comment on a veteran code myself, I couldn't because I didn't feel as if my worth was at the level yet where I could make a comment on a veteran code) where these intimidate and drive away new coders, and those who are progressively learning more.

Please do not think of this as an ending of the posts, please continue this discussion. I will be posting and giving tabs and answering any question or making commentary from the thought processes at that time. If you have any questions to ask me, ask me on this thread, I won't answer PM's.

-----

Go for it gods! The stream and jazz.

-----

It's kind of sad that this is the most active the thread has been for a while.

[asteria-]

@zeydaan;
could i give another comment? i'm just asking, i'm not sure if you still want replies ^^

[Zetirian]

@asteria-
You don't need to ask, if you have anything to add or make comment on or anything, please feel more than welcome to add your comment, this is for everything but I think commentary on a signature should be on hold until this blows over since this is more important.

I am going to take a back bench for now but will answer any question if one is brought up to the best of my ability, or if a post is specifically asking something of me, I will get involved.

But I have said my piece, this is a community effort. I encourage everyone to say what they believe is right, not to follow someones word blindly. It's a community effort.

[asteria-]

@zeydaan;
thank you so much for clarifying! i agree, to be honest.
um, another thing i'd like to add about these rules is that...they are my rules. i started coding in about late april/early may, so i honestly don't know what the thread was like without them.
basically, my point in my first post was that i like the concept, i just think they should be a little more relaxed. for example, recently after a hiatus i posted a question asking for feedback on something, which was against these rules (?). i don't take criticism amazingly, but all kinds of feedback still would've helped me. in hindsight, i'll definitely improve my criticism-writing skills too.
so yeah, i think the rules should be a bit more relaxed, but we should keep them in spirit—after all, they were added for a pretty good reason!! ^^
idea: maybe instead of just saying 'after a hiatus', we could define a time period like a week or two? i think that would help. maybe just clarify them a bit??

edit:
@gods;
ooh, that would be so cool! i'd def like to see that.
maybe i'll do a stream too, if i can find a safe way to do so!

[rocoboq]

@gods
I think that would be a great idea! I hope I'm awake when you start the stream; I'd be very interested in watching your progress. I usually procrastinate a lot and do a lot of side things (unless I'm very focused), so doing something like that would take quite a bit of preparation on my side.

@Zey
Now, I know this would take a lot of work and could potentially end up going up in flames/become useless, but what if there was a thread made that was specifically geared towards more advanced/veteran coders? I don't even really know how it would work, but it could be a place where the veterans from when Shiganshina fell *COUGH* don't know where that came from... Aaaanyways, as I was saying: it could be a place for the veteran coders to chat, talk about technique, and all that jazz. I don't know, I'm not always the greatest with that stuff, but if it did go into play, I would be more than happy to help out. I simply think it would help to make this club better for the newer or less experienced coders. Of course, the veterans could certainly still post here every if they wanted, but there would be another little community with people like them.