I'm talking about the activity on this forum.

Back in the day when I checked out the forum at the end of a day, there were so much new posts, multiple chops and the general chat had at least 20+ new posts.

Today after checking if people posted a reaction to my chop, the whole forum had about 3 new posts, three, on the whole forum?!

What happened to most of the people that always were so active on this forum?

Or has virtual chopping just became less popular then it once was?

It's a shame to see that a forum that was once so active, became so inactive over the years..

Don't get me wrong, it's not that i'm bitching, i'm just curious.

Oscar

Simply put, no one cares.

They dont care because:

- The forum is filled with a generation of ungrateful entitled shitkids, that want their virtual "likes" or pats on the back, without criticism or feedback of any kind. None of that, because they dont care about the car modification scene, they're just fishing for compliments, if they speak English at all that is. They'll take shortcuts to do that, like cheating with chops. They dont even attempt to hide their ignorance of cars in general.

- The above shitkids chased the mature people away. The original chopping generation has gotten older and is no longer willing to dedicate any time outside their 9 to 5 jobs/education, friends and families to this mentality.

- Every time the mods try something different, people simply do not give a fuck and complain afterwards.

- Not only the members undermine the mods, but mods undermine each other. Many good ideas have found a silent death behind the scenes or in public, because of lack of follow-up. Then there's the mismanagement and double standards for members.

- Promises of updates of forum infrastructure and setup have not been fulfilled. Some decisions were made all the way back in March/April. Those have been "forgotten" and J_HUI recently asked the mod team to come with those ideas all over again. Think of stuff like a better showroom structure, more dedicated sections, recognition for providing good feedback.

- The members dont really seem to care, and the mods dont really seem to care. Some of the mods have gone so far as to say everything save actually saying "fuck this shit". What they'll get for it, is a reach around from J_HUI and an honorary green name with mod privileges to keep.

- In conclusion, there is no activity because there is no community. It is normal for there to be highs and lows in activity, but what _normally_ keeps people coming back is the rewarding sense they get from becoming better at putting their ideas into practice, and helping others do the same. It's funny because the market for car photoshops has never been bigger than it is right now. You can get massive international attention with thousands of comments on social media, but they are meaningless compared to a good community. Without that people just give up entirely.

If I didnt have autemo in my bookmarks I'd just about forget to visit now and then entirely. It used to be different when you could always come here to have a chat about a common interest and come up with new ideas to shape using photoshop. You'd visit a showroom and see chops that actually have enough meat on their bones to form an opinion on. Now pop culture and instant gratification seem to be the keywords describing this community.

~Bart out.

Edit: In before the shitkids who will actually agree with your post Oscar (and possibly mine) and still not contribute.

Thanks for your reaction Bart, you couldn't be any clearer.

I have to admit that I dont use the forum as much as i used too, not even close. But thats mainly because I just dont have any time/motivation to finish or even start a chop. Which is understandable because, like you said, all the old members now have a busier life and much more important things to do, including me.

But back then even if I didnt make a chop, I just came back to the forum to look at other peoples chops, stories or whatever posts were made. Everyone could share their story here and post chops no matter how bad they were, but still get good C&C so they could improve on every chop. I also have the idea that almost everyone "knew" each other back then, because everybody was so active. So I totally understand your point of the missing community "feel",

When I take a look in the showrooms, I'm happy to see that there are still some very talented artists on the forum tho. On the other hand it's sad to see that people nowadays only comment for the comment. Just saying things like, "good job", but without giving any critisisim whatsoever, or even worse only place a comment to get a donor or a background used.. Or post a chop just to hear whats good and not what could've been better as you mentioned aswell.

About the whole Mod thing, I cant really go into that, as I have no clue about whats going lately.

I think I/we just have to accept the fact that the forum isnt anywhere close to how it was back then.
We had good times, and I still want to be gratefull for the many things I learned here, If it wasnt for this forum, I would never had the skills i have with photoshop nowadays.

I will still hop by now and then, and hopefully finish a chop and post it on here!

And I know I kinda sound like an old man right now haha, with my "everything was better in the old days" talk, but in this case it really seems like it is..


And to finish it off for the "shitkids", you suck! a Forum isnt only a way to show off to other people how "good" you are, its about the Community, and helping out people to get better at what they are doing. Keep that in mind!

Oscar

Yeah, what Bart said pretty much sums it up. The thing I miss the most is the felling of community.

Nowadays, and from some time till now, kids can't take criticism, they cant give good comments, and take revenge on the chops of those who try to help with their replies. Believe me, this has happened to me, after I comment someones chop saying what they could improve, some of those would visit my threads to say my chops sucked. I couldn't care less, really but it starts to degrade the community feel of the forum.

New choppers, they don't have other artists to look up to, imho. Yes we have roobie, jack, hugo, iacosky, but these guys, or at least most of them, aren't so active anymore, and what kept me motivated when seeing them work, was exactly that, seeing them working, and watching the evolution they'd go through and me as I followed.

The felling of seeing yourself do chops that get to be as good or better as some of the works you once admired. That sentiment of seeing yourself overpass barriers over and over again. That's gone now, for most of choppers. It's all a simple c/p of a i.e. vw golf, over another vw golf, a civic over a civic, and as long as there's someone willing to wow and drawl over their chops, they'll keep doing shitty chops, and become shitty kids that can't take any criticism, or constructive reply.

I for myself, am not so active lately because of work, I own a company with my brother and it takes my time from 7am to 9pm, and my free time is to spend with family, gf and friends. But still whenever I can, I try to take a look around and help new kids, and post wips( cuz I can't finish anything now ) to try and keep the new-choppers motivated.

Hopefully someone will be able to put this forum back in its rails, and active as it once was

The two main problems as I see it is

1. The transitory nature of forum members.
Even the most popular forums though they may have a reasonably consistent number of active members it is generally down to older members leaving / posting less and new members joining in. On forums with a very large member base or where the topic of the forum is simpler it masks the slow turnover of forum members. This forum though suffers though with being small in the first place and that to get the top takes a lot of skill and practice, so when one of the advanced or elite choppers goes quiet it is both noticeable and a big reduction in forum ‘skill’ resources. Time also factors into this, not the time to read the forums and post but the time it takes for full chops.

2. Lack of skill / short cuts.
This really leads on from above, with people leaving whether from intermediate or elite showroom it reduces the amount of skill on this forum and as it is unlikely a new member will join with equal or better skill. It also seems that a lot of the new members just want the ‘z0mG uber l33tness amazeballs chop’ instead of constructive criticism. I can’t remember which thread it was put the OP slagging off a poster for posting criticism and asking for someone from a higher showroom to comment even though the criticism was just. The whole idea of the showrooms is to receive criticism, obviously no one wants to be criticised all the time but just to say ‘good chop’ or whatever doesn’t help the poster improve their chopping. I think this lack of wanting honest responses has led to people taking shortcuts and copy pasting almost entire cars onto their ‘base’ which while it can look good doesn’t really show any skill.

The question is though how to improve it? Unfortunately I don’t really know. Though maybe in the description for the showrooms to say something like ‘Post in here for stark and honest criticism to improve your chops to get into the next showroom’

lol , guys i have been in the chopping scene for a lot of years and every ounce in a while a thread like this pops up .. sometimes this just happens ... will always happen ....not only on chop forums ..
some people (like me) have found other hobbys or dont have the time ...
and you just have periods where its less active or .....

What Rich said, and then partly what the other said. One thing is that with the newest versions of PS and their like, photoshopping has become a lot easier than it was, if you know how to do it. Which maybe makes the gap between n00bs and pro's bigger. And then there are the people who thinks there are rules to modifying cars and chopping them, of which I can sometimes belong, and sometimes disagree a lot with. The whole C+P 'cheatchop' war probably chased away a few members, some of which we won't miss, and some who just misunderstood the whole situation.