ReyRey's secret is out!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahah . . . *koff, koff*.

Best laugh this week.

Now we know why Rey hunts down squirrels with his bike.

No point at all. It was a question as to why they stopped coming here?

I agree that they make periodic stops once a year or so to say "hi", but for the most part, almost all of them are absent.

Some possible reasons they are no longer here:

1. Was it FaceBook?
2. Did the site just get boring?
3. Was it the implementation of Advantage?
4. Did they grow up and realize that posting was wasting their time when they should be dedicating their free time to making a living instead?
5. Was it that one or two of their favorite PSC members stopped showing up, so then they followed suit, resulting in a domino effect?
6. Was it because PSC lost the charming aspect of being a fun, comedic/artistic site and instead became a more serious professional artistic site?

...or perhaps all these members just "got a life"???

I don't know for sure. What I do know is that I miss the socially dynamic atmosphere around here that these old members used to bring to the table. Cracking jokes, making people laugh with insanely funny posts.

Most importantly of all. There were less regulations about what a member could say or do that would get them banned. True, some posts would get deleted for showing "man-ass" or other vulgar topics. However, the chatroom was hardly ever censored and anyone could post a photo of women in bikinis or what have you.

It seems now, the default excuse for censoring everything is the popular "this is a family site" excuse. But in all honesty, in the years I've been here, I've seen perhaps 1 or 2 people who were minors and even they were over 15 years old and able to handle it.

Oh well, I suppose life goes on. New generations of members appear and disappear over time. Perhaps it's just the life cycle of any website.

Still miss those members though. Damn nostalgia always gets the best of me.

1. Most likely had an impact on empty chat, yes.
2. Certain personalities kept this site lively, yes.
3. 5-day Advantage was in place when I joined. Many have expressed their disdain for the 30-day Advantage...including myself.
4. Let's hope so. Many have a family now and need to provide for them.
5. Same answer as #4 except for the "Let's hope so".
6. "Became a more serious professional artistic site?"

I DO hope you'll stick around, Raptor, and set a good example.

I truly believe that it is the life cycle of any online community. This site isn't the same site it was when many of those members you mentioned were still active on a regular basis.

Things at PSC have changed, and believe it or not, mostly due to member demand...erm...request.

What is considered a winning post now is totally different than it was in contests in the past. (View stats and portfolios of those you listed, you'll find totally different winning entries than today. All source wasn't ever quoted...)

Chat is now public (user demand...erm...request). Anyone who works for you or you work for can now see what you type.

I'm still here, but the migration of users here is common to other online communities I've been a member and moderator of.

Love,
momcers (as Mezopunk used to call me...and still does, on Facebook)

*edit*
And I agree with Eve's post 100%.

Who's up for Strawberry pancakes?

I know one reason why some of those people left, it was the use and abuse of aliases. It was such a common practice that at some stages there were more people using an alias than there real PSC name, just like I beleive you are.

Look I have been here for a while as well and yep Im normally the first to wanna hit the way back machine and re-visit the good old days of PSC. What I wont do is hide who I am to voice my opinion, ok I could be wrong here but I think this is just a very old alias that some one wants to stir a little trouble with. (That being said I dont think this thread is any trouble hence the fact of my confusion of the use of an alias)

Lets look at this shall we...
1. You joined 6th Sep 2003
2. You have made only 2 entries in all that time 1 in Sep and the other in Dec 2003
3. Only 2 forum posts, and they are both in this thread
4. All of a sudden you pop out of no where.

Im sorry but why hide behind an alias, this thread is a good thread. So the PSCBI in me, (Photoshopcontest Bureau of Investigation ) calls this shenanigans. Come clean there is no reason to hide behind the curtains unless you want to make trouble. Ok that said becasue I like this thread Im going to answer some of your quotes.



Well when most of these people left Facebook was not even a comic book yet

Come off it boring, why do so many people keep joining and coming back

Ok have to agree advantage did take the edge of that spontaneous thing but I beleive we have a good attempt to recreate that with the speed chops and a 7 day advantage would be better in my opinion. (As showcase said to me once just dont look at the advantage page if you dont want to use it...just like the old days )

Yep agree here I now do this for a living and to tell the truth coming home and doing a chop just dont have the same effect it use to...but I still have fun and participate in other areas.

Naw if that was true then the place would have collapsed long ago into the cyber graveyard.

I beleive it still has some charm and lots of fun left here, shit look at this thread alone with the interaction of 2rey and myself and others joining in. Check out chat some times yeah its slow but we spark up on occasions and still have a good time. I also like the profesional aspects as well. If it was not for people like Occecid, Ledirlo, thbeghin, Splodge, Showcase, DoctorWu and jerry717 these guys taught me what I know today, (thats a good thing by the way ) Ok along the way I got some lumps and bumps and some stirring along with those lessons, and I agree the site is less boys club than it use to be, but the heart is still intact for what PSC means to a lot of people Im sure of it.

So Raptor when you say "I don't know for sure. What I do know is that I miss the socially dynamic atmosphere around here that these old members used to bring to the table. Cracking jokes, making people laugh with insanely funny posts." As Raptor I dont see how so come clean and fess up on who you really are you just may get a surprise on how things can still be the same around here.

P.S.


Its not only the members, of which I know at least 8 who are under or on the age of 15, its also the fact that a lot of us let our kids share our passion of PSC, both my kids come here and enjoy the art, my daughter has an account and has entered a few contests. I like that and was prepared to have my beloved chat compromised. (We should have kept advantage chat...just saying is all..K ) My son shows his friends the images he likes and I dont have to worry about cyber-creeps and rated R stuff, the swearing he hears from me...what Im an ex sailor K

Wow this is the first soapbox post, from me for 2010..

"Member demand", but from the new generation of members though, wouldn't you say? This is fine and I'm not complaining at all. However I believe the site evolved from the old skool members leaving and the new generation of members having no concept of how completely fun it used to be to have the freedom of expression that we all used to have.

Or maybe this all nostalgia and it never was so great back then. Glorifying the past or something like that.



Exactly. Represents my point about the site becoming more about being based on professional artistic images instead of comedic pieces that made everyone laugh.



Well, chat was always public back then as well, so that couldn't be any cause of old members leaving? In fact, that seemed to be a positive move to return the site back to its roots.




Yes Nancers, and seeing your name in here is a breath of fresh air.

In summary, it must be just the life-cycle of any community website as you say. Out with the old, in with the new. New ideas, new member demands = new website.

ohhhhh.... So it's Nancers' fault!!!

Oi put some cloths on will you, and the kettles boiled and ya outa milk.

This is actually not true. If you were here during 2002/2003, you would have seen that it was actually part of the fun in the chatroom to have aliases. Members created usernames such as God, Buddah, Jesus, etc. to joke around and all of the regulars in the chatroom knew who they were and if they didn't, then they didn't really care, because the aliases weren't intended to ridicule other members or make them look foolish.

Other times, aliases were created to allow a member to start with a clean slate to try and see how well they could do with their VPP ranking.

Some examples of aliases at the time include:

Basil = Doodler!
Chrispis = kurakima
greycow = Chopper
MoZub = Mousew/purpl
...and many others.

There wasn't a single complaint about aliases back then until the new generation of members in 2004 (newbies at the time) came on the scene and began to take the site way too seriously and felt outrage at the idea of there being more than one username for a person.

An outrage that I attribute to one of two reasons:

1) A feeling of being alienated by not being included in the private alias jokes taking place in the chatroom.
Ask any veteran members from back then if they gave a rats ass about aliases. The large majority of them will tell you that they could care less.

2) Animosity with a new alias submitting new quality posts was to them, considered "cheating".
Hence the transition from the site being a fun comedic/artistic site to one that became more about serious professional artistic posts and striving to outperform other members in the statistics for egocentric reasons.

Times have changed though, the site is now almost 9 years old, and perhaps aliases have gone from a joke to one that can be seen as more destructive. However, the only destructive alias I can think of would be one that posts spam. Other than that, I don't see the harm in them.

It's pretty simple. The site gained a little revenue.
Without that revenue the site would almost certainly, nahhh, certainly would not exist today.
None of us like 'all' the changes over the years, but without
those changes PSC wouldn't be here.
I would choose that it be here even though I don't really participate anymore. (note: I don't participate on account of a bunch of frustrations that all stem from one cause....aliases)