Animation Source Forums

Really? What will it be called? When will it open? What sorts of things will it feature?

1: BaltoBoard

2: In a month or two, we have to time things when all 3 of us can work on it at once.

3: A forum, information pages, galleries, online colouring book and anything else we come up with that'll be fun and awesome.
(Toying with the idea of a game type of thing atm, just needs some refining before working on how to integrate it.)

That'll be something. One word: Sweet!

So after Togo gets (basically) kicked off the site, he decides to create his own site. lol I hope it works.

Look folks, I am constrained to agree with Brown Wolf -- the matter seems to be closed. Steet has made a decision, borne of compromise, and I think it's pretty clear he's not going to reverse that decision anymore. He already threw it out for discussion, and then made a command decision. If you don't want things to get worse, I'd say what's done is done.

Do I like sparkle dogs and other sparkle animals? Certainly not. I think they are vacuous, infantile and extremely lacking in serious creativity and artistic sensibilities. But that's MY opinion. I know it's shared by many of you, but not everyone thinks that way. Surely some few have posted in here. Do I like this new policy? Nope. But it is what it is. Please don't presume I am knuckling under or going soft. I am just being realistic.

You know, I think a lot of you are not seeing what may actually be a pretty smart move on steet's part. Maybe not to those of you who, like me, cannot stand sparkle dogs, but look at it this way: even the most successful fan sites (specifically Balto ones) have eventually ALL fallen by the wayside because they were unable (or unwilling) to evolve to meet the latest trend (I know, I know...). Whether they were mundane or really cool, those websites eventually fell into disuse and even death. Some are left with only sporadic activity of a very boring and uncreative type (TBL comes to mind...great as it once was...and it was one of the earliest). Steet seems to understand that, if he is going to continue seeing an infusion of fresh blood (via new members young and older), he must move with the trends and interests, and with what's popular. So...there are more sources...there are sparkle animals...there is automated fan character approval. And so on. There are compromises meant to strike a happy medium to keep the majority of members happy (regardless of their different views and social norms). No matter how it angers and offends any minority number of those members. "You cannot please all of the people all of the time", the old saying goes.

You may hate a lot of what steet has done recently. You may be frustrated with his apparent inaction and reticence about dealing with things that upset you. But when analyzed from a purely exterior point of view, steet's a pretty freakin' smart cookie. And when other remaining (or up and coming) fan sites fail to evolve in a similar fashion, they too will eventually go the way of the others, while Animation Source will still be here, standing the test of time as it always has. You cannot deny that, over time, in spite of conflicts, glitches, and changes in the rules (and growth of material), Animation Source is the one and only one which has stood the test of time. And that is to steet's credit.

And remember when you were 10-14 years of age, and a new member of Animation Source? (If you had joined back then and in that tender age range?) You were probably doing art, fiction, videos, characters or other materials which some of the longer-standing or older members would have considered exceedingly uncreative, annoying, stupid or dull. You may have been offended or upset (or hurt) by what those people said about your creations, because you truly felt that what you were doing was good stuff, and that it was going to be celebrated by others as wonderful and creative. How is that different from now? Sure...the specific trends and materials have changed. But not the underlying motivations and feelings. Think on that.

And through it all, Animation Source continues to survive and even manages to grow...against all apparent reasons you posit, and in spite of your complaints, your talk of going to other places, of this becoming another deviantArt, or what you think is going to be so different about Togo's nascent site. Other noteworthy people have run fan sites (just Balto ones, or larger ones) - Mayahuskee, Fluke (Acanis), Silver Husky, and many many others. They are all gone...or almost (if not totally) inactive. Nothing against those people or their sites. Most of them were great. But that does not change the fact that those sites are all but dead and gone now. One site, which has been here since almost the beginning of Balto fan sites (when it was just a Balto fan site) still remains, and is still active -- Animation Source.

Except they're not even fan sites anymore.

Steet may aswell just suck it up and turn AS into OC Source and be done with it.
There is buggar-all point in trying to kid himself these are still fansites for the movies they're meant to be for. You can make sites interesting and new without just going "eh, screw it" and doing whatever is causing the biggest uproar at that point in time.

People visiting to argue =/= good site.
Doing whatever the hell you think you will without listening =/= good leadership.

I don't even know how many times we mods have gone "wait ... what?" when something new was added Steet didn't bother to tell us about so we ask what we're supposed to do with it and we have to wait well over a week or two before he even told us and THEN complained about us "making up rules" when there's nothing else we could have done.

AS is a joke now and not a very funny one at that.

It's become a joke because of poor administration from the second-in-commands. I'm not saying that steet has been perfect, he has just been doing what he thinks is right. I have to agree with JC on the fact that steet has managed to keep Balto Source and Animation Source near the top of Google Searches. Something many rival sites have failed to do. Trends change, and when it does; you have to follow it. Or as JC said: It will fail.

Let's see you try to maintain your site for 7 years while throughout it's time see it expand to become larger then ever, and then get heavily criticized because you like to do things your way.

Thank you for your agreement JC. What you have said is true in its entirety.

UK, yeah I'm inclined to agree there. Frankly, I never thought this sort of thing would happen, so I really have no words.

And accepting freaking everything = moving with the trends? xD
lolok.

Honestly, if I thought it'd do even the BLINDEST bit of help, I'd happily help Steet re-vamp the rules of AS to be more in-keeping with "the times" and what the majority of members would want.

But with mods doing whatever the hell they think they will.
Admins winging it.
And Steet not telling the admins exactly what he wants.

It's going to hell.
If the people who actually gave a monkies could help it would help but they can't and I don't see it happening any time soon with the state of things as they are.

Then there's the matter if we moddies do do something that does benefit the site in some manner, Steet comes up with a supposed 'better' idea and the original plan of the mods, the plan that would help the sites, goes down the tube.

Which is what I was talking about when I said "lack of communication".

And some mods don't even do it to help, they just do it because they think they will.

Actually, you'll find many people have been trying to help and improve the site. But they appear to get silenced by certain staffers.

I have made the very same observation. Observation and logic tells me that ALL fansites will die eventually, be it of complete digression or be it abandonment, because how much can you talk about one subject? It will be exhausted. I don't belive in doing what the kids want for the sake of survival.when I was a new member at age 12, I was indeed criticized, but I learned from it. That's what criticism is there for. Mindless praise will bring no improvment. Harsh critique on DA only made me a better photographer. Harsh critique from my flight instructor has only made me a better pilot. If I made a sub-par approch, and he only praised me, how would I improve. If the mistakes I made were glazed over for the sake of not discouraging me (and thus retaining the paycheck I hand the company) and I was only praised, would you want me to fly you?

I have no intention to abandon this site, for the most part I like it. I do know that if digression forces me out then it won't be Togo's site i go to. I trust Steet far more then Togo. It's most likely such an unfortunate event would wind up an HTML/java expirement for me, after all those are two languages every programmer ought to know. I'll learn them at some point, and if i'm forced out of here, Ill get it making my own Balto site. Frankly though, I really don't want to leave AS. I like it a lot.

Its likely I will open my own site regaurdless of the state of AS simply for the sake of learning. No matter the primary motive, I wouldn't be doing it to be in competition with or "stick it to" Steet. If anything I would afilliate with AS as a partner

Meh, I gave up on these. So I don't really have a right to complain anymore. I just don't visit the fan characters section anymore. (Feel bad for the character mods = O)