I Love You Guys

[Eff]

Due to recent server issues I had come to resent comicgenesis as a home for my comic. But the other day I signed up at another comic hosting site (which shall remain nameless) to potentially mirror my comic, and help promote it. I got as far as their forum before I ran screaming.

Sprite and stick figure comics were everywhere, there was bickering going down that to any sane observer resembled monkeys throwing @%#! at each other. One particular thread "What is ur age??" really drove the point home. As each respondent chimed in with a number in the low teens, and expressed absolute shock that one responder was as old as 20, I knew it was no place for me.

The civilized discourse found on CG forums is evidence of a reasonably dignified collection of artists and writers, regardless of age. There's no other place I'd rather be, server issues or not.

[Jackhass]

This is one of the nicest messageboards I've ever posted on.

It's so nice I'm about as mean as people get around here...and I can assure you I'm harmless.

[That guy]

...there was bickering going down that to any sane observer resembled monkeys throwing @%#! at each other...
The civilized discourse found on CG forums is evidence of a reasonably dignified collection of artists and writers, regardless of age. There's no other place I'd rather be, server issues or not.

Wait... so we can't throw @%#! at each other in civilized discourse? Well, great, now I have a whole bag of this crap to get rid of.

I completely understand, though. Cat Legend and I hopped servers once-upon-a-time ago because we were offered a place in an upstart collective. The other comics there were impressive and it was free and potentially classy... and then things went sour.

As it turned out the one guy in complete control - barely outta High School - was a bastard. He DID offer site design for free... but in addition to taking exceptionally long times to fix problems with sites, he refused to give any control to the authors OF those sites. When he felt like someone wasn't completely respecting his total authority, he used his control over all of their hard work as a threat, deleting people's archives out of spite on more than one occasion. He was paranoid, and boasted about reading people's PMs (that's PERSONAL messages) whenever he thought they might be "talking about me behind my back." I felt like his Jimminy Cricket, telling him he was being unethical and he couldn't get away with this stuff if he wanted to run a real business.
Then he threatened Cat Legend the same way (she "insulted" him by saying he would have to finally fix her site or she'd leave). He went batshit when I told him off for that one. I said I ought to warn the other people that he was doing this to members and he threatened to delete the entire collective and blame me. He continued to send me threatening emails and IMs for weeks, changing eMails every time I blocked him, until I earnestly threatened to press harassment charges.

So, yeah... haven't had any trouble waiting for a glitch or hiccup to blow over here in a LOOOONG time. And they always do. YAY C.G. ADMINS!

[Reinder]

DO name names, because other people might be looking for places to mirror their comics, and should know who to avoid.

[Eff]

I've chosen not to name names because I am a reformed bridge burner.

It's definitely one of the big ones though, something about an intoxicated mallard...?

[That guy]

As for me, no, there are still people from here who are on his server, I don't think that's a great idea. And linking to it might make him notice this thread and probably block me like he did last time I talked about him on forums. He actually searched his own name just in case I had brought him up to hunt down what people were saying about him. There are some fantastic comics which he blocked me from reading, and which I had to get around by changing IPs. His reason was that he ws sure I'd post something about him on their tagboards. Not kidding. I had been a big fan of Flatwood and Dead Days and School Spirit BEFORE joining and suddeny I couldn't access their sites. After getting around it I posted on School Spirit's board under a pseudonym for a year. I expect by now he's stopped being able to recognize my IP address, but I'd still rather just call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

EDIT:

Something about an intoxicated mallard

No! Not Boozy Paddlefoot!

[Dutch!]

Don't worry, Thatguy. I knew who you were.

And you can use your own name now, I'm on another server... a free one which lets you get away without having ad banners on your site.

Less said about that silly little rampage the better, eh?

[Eff]

Thatguy, I've gotta admit I'm sorta jealous. See I've never had any sort of evil nemesis stalking me and trying to shut me down. Let alone one running operations from a kiddie pool.

[That guy]

You're my hero.

[Dr Legostar]

[quote="That guy"]but I'd still rather just call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.quote]

you've been reading far too much harry potter.

honestly, i can't say i've wandered too far from CG in respect to internet communities, but even I know this is one of the good ones. the few forums i frequent outside of CG are mostly populated by CG people anyway, so it's not really an issue.

Though from time to time when things get out of hand it saddens me just a bit to realize that the CG forums actually qualify as a shining example of what is good in internet communites. As bad as we get, the rest are worse.

[Rcmonroe]

DO name names, because other people might be looking for places to mirror their comics, and should know who to avoid.

I was briefly hosted by "He who must not be named" as well, and although the problems I had with him are nothing compared to what Thatguy and Cat Legend went through, they were enough to make me bail after about a month.

Naming the name at this point would serve no purpose, because it's pretty clear he is no longer actively recruiting comics. In fact, he doesn't seem to be actively doing anything; if you go to the site you'll see the spammers have had control of the forums for a year now, and a lot of the comics that are listed on the front page are actually hosted elsewhere now, he just never bothered to take them off the front page.

In any event, yeah, it was a relief to return to Comic Genesis (although if I was still on CG I woulda been really annoyed by the recent server problems).

[Shishio]

Sprite and stick figure comics were everywhere, there was bickering going down that to any sane observer resembled monkeys throwing @%#! at each other. One particular thread "What is ur age??" really drove the point home. As each respondent chimed in with a number in the low teens, and expressed absolute shock that one responder was as old as 20, I knew it was no place for me.

You think CG doesn't have its fair share of sprite/stick comics? Also, I don't see the relevance of the community of the other service, I doubt it's required of you to participate to use the service, just as those who use CG's service are not required to participate in the community here. And those who don't use the service, such as myself, are welcome, or at least tolerated, as long as they follow the rules.

[NakedElf]

There's a great difference methinks between the forum and the hosting, as Shishio pointed out. I've visited the DD forums out of curiosity, and just found them full of spam and left... but that doesn't say anything about the efficacy of the system as just a backup host.

But yes, good fora are hard to find...

[Yeahduff]

Certainly the hosting and the community are two different things, but they are necessarily tied. If a community bugs you that much, it wouldn't be horribly illogical to be lukewarm about attaching yourself to the services offered by the community.

[Shishio]

But yes, good fora are hard to find...

That's the impression I get from reading what people have to say about the majority of internet users, but honestly, I have seen very few forums that are as bad as Eff is saying. I know they're out there, but I think there are a lot of forums largely consisting of intelligent people, and that those forums are not as hard to find as you seem to think.

[Kels]

but I'd still rather just call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.quote]

you've been reading far too much harry potter.

[/quote]

That goes a loooong way further back than HP, dude.

[Killbert-Robby]

I love these guys too :3

*AHEM*

I mean, grrrr, I am man, I have created the bonds of a hunting pack here, nothing more >:|




...... :3

[Adobedragon]

I have a mirror over at the soused fowl. And it's...okay. Just "okay."

My experience with their forum is very limited. I dropped by one day; did a search for information on how to customize my page; found what I wanted and left.

In terms of community, though, I've met some nice folks and found good comics (stuff beyond sprites and generic teenybopper manga) via the built-in commenting system.

It's the actual comic interface that I take issue with. In that CG is far superior. With CG, all you are required to have is one ad banner at the top, and the "This comic is hosted by..." at bottom. Beyond that, the layout of your comic is pretty much up to you.

It is possible to "customize" your page at DD, but you are still stuck with multiple ads and the service's clunky banner framing your page. Recently, they added an advert right under each comic. The results are clunky, awkward pages that take forever to load on dial-up. (Yep. I is poor. No broadband.)

None of the other free services that I've encountered* offer the ability to control the look of your page that CG allows. So while the recent downtime was more than a little irritating, I'm glad I stuck it out.

(*Doesn't mean there aren't any similar hosts; I just haven't found one yet.)

[Eff]

You think CG doesn't have its fair share of sprite/stick comics?

Oh I'm certain it does, but when a community APPEARS TO BE as largely comprised of them as dd, I flee in horror. There are good sprite comics, there are good stick comics, but some creators will use it as an excuse to create vast archives of drivel.

Also, I don't see the relevance of the community of the other service.

I would describe the community and atmosphere of a provider as more important to me than the reliability of the service. Call me old fashioned, but I like to maintain a little dignity. Particularly where my creativity is involved. If I didn't give an eff what people thought of my comic, I'd have exported some quality 4 jpegs for posting on smackjeeves and called it a night.

The shortbus will get you to school just the same as any other bus, but your classmates might wonder about you as you step off it every morning.

(What I mean by this is disregard for the branding of my comic, including producing low quality images to post on a low quality site would be RETARDED.) This does not directly refer to ANY PARTICULAR HOST.

Edit: added some bold, underlined, capslocked italics for Black Kitty

[NakedElf]

I used to ride the shortbus to highschool, back when I went.

Then I went to MIT. *shrug* Hella embarrassing at the time, but in the long run it didn't affect me or people's perceptions of my intelligence.


As for the actual topic, I don't think your average reader is necessarily going to 'respect' CG anymore than DD. It's not like we have the best reputation, either... I've read some quite nice comics on DD, and I frankly as a reader, I couldn't care less about the hosting service's forum, I just want to read a good comic...

That said, I agree somewhat with adobedragon; the lack of options like 'archives' pages has really put me off reading comics on DD because if I can't get through the archives in one sitting and have to close my browser, then I can't easily navigate back to where I was. I would consider DD as a 'backup' site where readers could access the latest comic in case of CG problems, but not as a main site...