Should OSF have an archive/"Old work" section?

Thanks all for all the many thoughtful replies! There's definitely a range and diversity of opinion here, but it seems like for now the tentative(?) consensus is that people are generally in favor of seeing old work/posts from OSW and other sites, but for now we should merely identify them as such in the title and post them in the General Talk forum. For now we (meaning GubernatorFan really!   ) won't create a new "archive" forum but perhaps down the road one can be created and posts will be moved there and also "new" archive threads can be created there after that. And, to address people's concerns about archive threads being usually locked from future commenting like on other sites, we can create the forum such that those archive threads can still be commented on. Does that sound about right for a summary?

My biggest concern is that I didn't want to inundate this General Talk forum with a bunch of my old threads, most of which the current membership have probably seen. By creating the archive section members can go there if they want to see other members' old work, and the General Talk section will remain uncluttered by old stuff and more about current work and new products/issues. In other words, I just don't want to irritate people by crowding the first page with over a dozen of my own work threads. I know I can choose to spread it out, but knowing me I like to make a project of such things and would love to just do it all at once.

I'll hold off for now until there's a bit more clarity, but I do want to thank GF for taking the bull by the horns and making this site a reality! You deserve much credit and all our thanks for taking this on! (where's that thumbs up emoticon anyway? )

Stryker2011 wrote:
TGF, I would love to see your Eowyn and Aragorn rebuilds/mods posted here. Those projects were amazing; and if you wouldn’t mind, some new, and/or, additional notes to especially Aragorn would be most helpful to me, and others (I have that ACI Aragorn and I still haven’t swapped out the body or worked on his hair to make it the amazing figure I remember yours turning out to be).
...
I’ve been doing my best to help build this site by searching for and posting New Product threads as much as possible, but I’m only able to do so right now due to the chronic illness which has been kicking my butt and keeping me from being able to work; once that changes, and I’m hoping all these doctor visits and new treatments will make that happen, I won’t have the time to search for and post as much. Others will have to help out.
...

Thanks so much for the kind words Stryker2011! I've actually been planning to update/expand my two Aragorns (soon to be three or four!) so I will post on it, whether incorporating the original threads or not. Not sure when though as I too am going through some health issues which are actually preventing me from really working on my projects at the moment. So frustrating... I hope you recover/feel better soon. I for one really appreciate your work in support of this site!  

shazzdan wrote:Reposting old work here is not going to help because people are still using free image hosting sites. Those sites can close down or change their policies just like Photobucket did and all those photos will be lost all over again. The advantage of using OSW is that it has its own photo storage capacity. How many free image hosting companies have been around for as long as OSW? I would love to see some of the older projects on OSW reproduced here because I missed a lot of them the first time around, but we can't delude ourselves into thinking that the images here are going to be any more permanent than they are on OSW. Based on historical evidence, any images hosted by OSW will be around for a lot longer than any images posted here.
...

I agree shazzdan that nothing is guaranteed or completely safe. But for me it's at least as much about the text/history/background/how-to/etc as it is about the pics.

I actually ponied up for the photobucket ransom (I know, I'm a sucker ) because I felt it was worth it. It's either about spending time (to re-upload all the pics) or money, and time right now is more valuable to me than the admittedly exorbitant $400 they charge. I've gone all in on this hobby over the past 18 years, so I'm viewing that as just another fixed cost, not unlike the fixed costs in RC flying of AMA dues or club memberships.

But for me, more than the pics hosting, it's about how I describe my work, how I present it with the carefully chosen pics, how I describe my process and methods. Posting these threads has become another outlet for me to express myself besides actually customizing/creating the figures/dios/vehicles/planes. I don't use Facebook or other social media, which is how most people seem to like to express themselves, so these sites and my RC sites are it.

So, being able to put my archive work over here is just another way to share it and have a "backup" copy of my words/pics/work on the internet. Hope that makes sense!

tankgirlfuzzy wrote:By creating the archive section members can go there if they want to see other members' old work.

How do we know whether we want to see it until we actually see it? I never the visit the archive sections on any other site unless an archived thread turns up in a search result. Just put everything in General until the number of posts becomes unwieldy. Then think about subforums.

Tank Girl, your old work (and everyone else's) is welcome here. I didn't think shazzdan was necessarily opposing that, and he has actually confirmed it.

If there are going to be subforums then most threads belong in one of these two catagories: "Commercial stuff" and "Customised stuff". The first is where all the product announcements, reviews, and collection threads go. The second is where and kitbashes and customised stuff go. "General" is for everything else, like this thread. Three subforums would be manageable and encompass a broad enough scope to not confuse people.

That isn't such a bad idea,

I can see that Guber, DFC and I are going to have to have a bit of a pow wow sometime.

CHEERS!

Those three categories should see fairly even activity too. There is nothing worse than a site with lots of subforums but only one or two of them get the majority of the traffic.

Sounds good to me, just have to see what the other two think.

CHEERS!

I am not thrilled by the idea of subforums, as I have always enjoyed seeing postings across the whole range of our hobby. That said, I recognized the need for streamlining and organization. One thing I have been missing from the old forum are the tags that we could add to new topics (threads). After working my way through the Forumotion help files, the easiest solution to that appears to be the insertion of hashtags on the first post in a topic. For example, #military or #civilian or #fantasy and so on. Keep that in mind when creating new threads. If you have created a thread (topic) already, you can go back and insert them by editing your first post. The moderators and I will try to go through existing threads to do this -- as much to help sort things out as to test it out.
You can then search via the hashtags and you can even set up hashtags to follow in Profile.

I'm easy either way so long as we can find what we want when we want. Do we wait for DFC and see what he thinks?

CHEERS

Rogerbee wrote:I'm easy either way so long as we can find what we want when we want. Do we wait for DFC and see what he thinks? CHEERS

I believe DFC has repeatedly indicated his support for members to just go ahead and post their old work (in responses to Fox and Tank Girl). And I agree. This is a brand new venue, and it takes time to accumulate new work, so if members wish to display, discuss, or remind us of their previous bashes, scenes, etc., they should go ahead and do this (several are already doing this anyway, to universal delight). And with the hashtags, sorting should be easy enough.

Interesting discussion.

I see validity in all the arguments.

I'm not such a huge fan of subforums, but when well managed, they can can be of huge organizational benefit. The deliberations above are fruitful.

I might be inclined to go along with GF's rationale above. Just post it here. When and if the necessity arises, posts can be rearranged. Couple that with the fact that I'm basically lazy these days and haven't been working on much, retro posts are about all I've got working.

So does this mean I can finally post my 1:6 diorama of the "Springtime For Hitler" vignette from The 1:6 Producers along with a homage of nude and semi-nude female seamless bodies inspired by SHOWGIRLS?

What?

Too soon?

DeltaForceChung wrote:So does this mean I can finally post my 1:6 diorama of the "Springtime For Hitler" vignette from The 1:6 Producers along with a homage of nude and semi-nude female seamless bodies inspired by SHOWGIRLS? What? Too soon?

You have a Will Ferrell custom dancing around in WW2 uniform?

Well, that took a turn, LOL!

CHEERS!

DeltaForceChung wrote:So does this mean I can finally post my 1:6 diorama of the "Springtime For Hitler" vignette from The 1:6 Producers along with a homage of nude and semi-nude female seamless bodies inspired by SHOWGIRLS?

What?

Too soon?

GubernatorFan wrote:

DeltaForceChung wrote:So does this mean I can finally post my 1:6 diorama of the "Springtime For Hitler" vignette from The 1:6 Producers along with a homage of nude and semi-nude female seamless bodies inspired by SHOWGIRLS? What? Too soon?

You have a Will Ferrell custom dancing around in WW2 uniform?

Rogerbee wrote:Well, that took a turn, LOL!

CHEERS!

    Now that I would like to see!!

Okay, it sounds like we have a plan, so hopefully soon I'll start porting over some old threads and see how the response is, and I'll try to remember about the hashtags and putting "archive" or "old" in the title. If at any point you guys start to find it annoying, please tell me!  

Thanks again to all for the feedback.