Are things slower around here?

[Sevenstitch]

To be honest, I miss a lot of the older users, but mostly for their content

I joined in 2010, but you'll see that my first post was in 2012, although i will admit id been lurking before then

I miss the great stuff that used to pump out of this place, and when everyone was getting along, it was great,
But the overwhelming hostility scared me into not posting for over 2 years, I'd never really used a forum before this one, really dangerous waters to venture for a first timer

The user base back then, and most likely before, was just toxic
I loved looking at Tyvon's and Shawn's and Hunter's and Ridge's and Frario's (the list goes on and on) art work, it was inspiring, but it was always posted with hostility, and responded to as such

Getting rid of spam haul got rid of a lot of that, forcing users to keep their mouths in check, and begin acting like real users
Granted, there were quite a few amusing threads in spamhaul back in the day, this one being one of my favorites, but you know the story, just mean spirited hate in almost the entire section of the forum


I suppose most of us have outgrown this whole spriting thing, even if we love it, and still do it
we aren't 13 year olds anymore; it isnt as new or exciting as it once was, and we just dont have the patience for new guys by and large
mostly because they are 13, and just as unwilling to take real critique as we were

It's hard to parrot the same basic tips and terms to every new guy that posts here with a smile and polite nod
Mostly because 4 out of 5 new posters completely disregard your advice or actually tell you that you are wrong, not them

It's frustrating, but we're gonna have to suck it up, because all of our best posters over the years started as snot-nosed little brats, just like we did
We gotta mold that clay, even if we need to punch it into shape
It was never the Site that made the forum what it is, it was the users, and it's the users' responsibility to make it now, myself included



Man I rambled a lot up there, but what im trying to get at is that I loved the activity back then, but not the overall tone of the forum
And it wasn't until around 2012 that the dust finally started to settle and posting became less of a risk,; unfortunately most of the negative
element was our strongest userbase... The rest of us are gonna have to take those roles back up and get some content pumping through
here again