The sketch groups have become a mess. There's about 20 different topics at once because people just decide to start a new one when a new idea pops up into their head. Some are great because they get lots of replies. I think in order to maximize the participation there should be a methode put into place to choose a limited amount of topics. Here's my idea: Every x amount of weeks a pole comes up suggesting a variety of subjects. We vote. The most popular, 2 or 3 max, become the topics for that period of time. This will limit the useless ones that nobody ever joins. During the weeks that the choosen ones are active, another pole comes up. Thats way once their over, new topics are already good to go. Now who starts these poles i don't know, but there can only be one at a time.
I really hope someone takes this into consideration because i'm very intrested in participting but i often find myself to be the only one with a few others...so it sucks.
Hey, I was here when the sketch groups forum was started (back in 2003 if I'm not mistaken). It began very organzied and operated smoothly, Very similar to your suggestion. We suggested ideas and had a poll. The idea with most votes became our project, period. If someone didn't like the idea, they did not enter and simply waited for the next poll. People entered their designs by the deadline and then we moved to the next vote. That lasted for a good while, But things have gotten off track multiple times since then. Members and even Brett have tried to sustain order on several occassions which is typically obeyed for a short while but eventually deviated from. Several reason cause this, one being new and old members who fail to adhere to the rules of that forum. Also, some members don't like any of the current open projects, so they suggest their own and open a new topic. I don't see any of the members from the first year of sketch groups actively participating in the current projects, so basically the group is being handled by a constantly changing member base. You may hear from Brett on this issue, but I'm sure his initial thought will be : Oh no, Not this problem again!
Ive got an idea every 2 weeks there is a "design challange" the creator picks a type of vehicle or purpose or retro come back ect. it will be called "design challange one" everyone gets two weeks to finish there car with PS or sketch anything on the final day there will be a "design challange #1 entry page" in 24 hours a poll will be set up with all the entrys in the first post along with names "design challange #1 VOTING*" the person with the most votes gets to pick the next design challange "design challange #2" and so on and so on if no one sets one up ill start one on saturday with a retro version of the 80's ferrari datona
I tried implementing that a month or so back - the first went quite well, but there was little or no interest in the second challenge which was launched twice.
I based it very much on the conceptart.org model which generallty attracts a large number of people to the challenge arenas.
I felt the brief I set was quite fun, but I feel forum member are mainly kids only interrested in drawing sports cars / mild varients of exiting cars. Which I feel is a big shame because its an opertunity to 'think out side the box' and create fun new ideas without being constrained.
However I know that Allan Mc Donald has started running competitions on www.designertechniques - were you can win prizes! so maybe that gets more interest.
Actually the sketch group internal comp partly got missed simply due to others posting in other sketch groups - that way it gets bumped down and no one sees it. I think this is a major flaw this forum - which I guess in time CDN may expand its capability.
