10 Questions about IMG / Forum Discussion Thread

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Here's a couple of questions that I hope everybody will take time to answer:


1. What is the best aspect of the IMG forums? What do you enjoy the most?

2. What is the worst aspect of the IMG forums? What do you dislike?

3. Are you happy with how the forum works and looks like? Have you experienced technical issues? Is it easy to use?

4. It is well known that the livery competition is the only area of the forum with frequent activity. Do you have any ideas on how to make other areas of the forum (template competition, off-topic, racing stories, etc.) more active?

5. Do you think the forum is attractive enough for new members? Do you have any recommendations / ideas on how we could expand our userbase?

6. What would you like to see in the blog?

7. What do you think about the community itself? Is the athmosphere friendly and supportive?

8. Are there any new features that you would like to see added to the forum?

9. Promoting the forum: are we visible enough around the internet (social media, racing sites, art sites)? Any ideas on how we could make IMG more visible to potential new users? Would you be willing to promote the forum?

10. How do you see the future of the forum?

Thanks, everyone.

[Quiksilver]

added it to FB hidden group...most active part of IMG

[Pezzarinho17]

1. What is the best aspect of the IMG forums? What do you enjoy the most?

The livery competitions personally, but seeing what others are doing is a good incentive and thought provoking too.

2. What is the worst aspect of the IMG forums? What do you dislike?

I guess purely answering the question presented, it is quiet here... There is a tendency to post items and not see any response to them, even the "quick chat" area moves slowly. Spambots are a pain as well though, especially when I keep hoping it to be a response to 3D work I have done!

3. Are you happy with how the forum works and looks like? Have you experienced technical issues? Is it easy to use?

Functionally it is great, much easier to use than the Robs Workshop Reborn forum ever was. Spambots again are only thing you could possibly say are wrong, but it's not exactly an easy answer!

4. It is well known that the livery competition is the only area of the forum with frequent activity. Do you have any ideas on how to make other areas of the forum (template competition, off-topic, racing stories, etc.) more active?

I am frequent visitor on the GTPlanet forum, and having MANY times more members helps as there is always something new to read. But I do tend to spend most of my time viewing the off topic area there - funny picture thread, funny gif thread, caption competitions etc. They also have a motorsport discussion area which is good - crazy racing incidents, race discussions, even livery discussions (both best and worst)!

5. Do you think the forum is attractive enough for new members? Do you have any recommendations / ideas on how we could expand our userbase?

It is a very specific focus, you have to be at least interested in graphic design AND motorsport to get involved. Realistically, you need to do designs yourself though to get involved.

Although we are here to make top quality designs, perhaps open it up to newcomers more? I got involved wanting to join the top ranks, and there only used to be a "best newbie" score to achieve. I still just hope to not come last, but I've had to get to that level pretty quickly to keep involved. Maybe a rookie competition (no podium achieved in competitions to date, and rookies still able to enter main competition if they wish. After a season or 2 (3 / 5 rounds rather than 10) of rookie league, if same people are winning again we can vote that they move on to only competing within top comp.

Further to above, not everyone owns or knows how to use the top design software. Perhaps therefore we open up an MS Paint league? Can still achieve quite a lot with it and it would be a good way of enticing people to get involved perhaps.

Finally, I have done some 3D liveries before within rFactor and would like to see some more competition using full blown 3D skins!

6. What would you like to see in the blog?

Being honest, I haven't looked at it so far. Thinking about getting people involved again, tutorials are a must. Livery design reviews would be good as well, pointing out what everyone likes / dislikes in a design so it can help make competition entries suit more tastes.

7. What do you think about the community itself? Is the atmosphere friendly and supportive?

Definitely! There should be more of it though, complimenting certain designs and talk after competitions as well. (I think I'm focused on only 1 area clearly!) Was talking at the weekend about football and it actually makes a lot of sense here, in that I spent a season with a team who would regularly leave me on the bench (I know I'm not good - it was never a surprise!) but what kept me going was that the manager of the team took the time to explain what I need to keep a look out for, where to improve and what I did well after getting game time. It applies here, in that you will force people away if they post a design and then get a low score with little explanation on what was done wrong or right.

8. Are there any new features that you would like to see added to the forum?

GTPlanet uses a notification system rather than highlighting an entire forum as having a post you have not read yet. It is much more useful on a forum with THOUSANDS of messages posted a day, but it does help focus on what you want to see when you come back. You basically just mark a thread you would like to watch, and when there is a reply you get a notification at the top right like Facebook has.

9. Promoting the forum: are we visible enough around the internet (social media, racing sites, art sites)? Any ideas on how we could make IMG more visible to potential new users? Would you be willing to promote the forum?

No. Even knowing that the site exists, it is hard to find! The blog will help generate status on google, as long as you use key words (such as art, graphics, design, liveries etc.) in each post and post regularly. Just posting an image will not help without text.

I use Twitter to promote anything racing related so I would be happy to do so there. Facebook is kept to socialising with friends though mainly, as I used to post my blog posts there and apparently people weren't that keen on seeing them all the time...

It is tricky trying to become visible, as nothing is stronger than word of mouth. Mouths are what we are lacking though and why we need to become more visible! Just find other forums and sites doing what we are doing and post the link I guess. It would help if we had a set "introduction" piece written here that we could copy and paste to outline what it is we do, rather than typing it up fresh each time. Just up to us to then use it where we can.

10. How do you see the future of the forum?

Ironically, not changing much from where it is today! The layout is great and it just needs some more members. GTPlanet has really taken off online though and so there is no reason we shouldn't actually be able to get members here working out in the motor racing industry as designers.

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

This is exactly what I wanted to achieve with these questions! There's plenty of good ideas and comments here

I guess purely answering the question presented, it is quiet here... There is a tendency to post items and not see any response to them, even the "quick chat" area moves slowly. Spambots are a pain as well though, especially when I keep hoping it to be a response to 3D work I have done!

It's true what you say about the quietness. When it comes to spambots, that has indeed been a problem but the good news is that we have found ways to combat them. Thanks to the countermeasures we have taken, the number of spambots signing up has fallen a lot, and on many days there's not a single bot appearing!

It is a mystery why they target the 3D forum, though.

I am frequent visitor on the GTPlanet forum, and having MANY times more members helps as there is always something new to read. But I do tend to spend most of my time viewing the off topic area there - funny picture thread, funny gif thread, caption competitions etc. They also have a motorsport discussion area which is good - crazy racing incidents, race discussions, even livery discussions (both best and worst)!

This is pretty much my dream for IMG; besides being a place for posting artwork, it should also be a place to chat with likeminded individuals. I don't necessarily want the heated debates of the bigger forums, though. But this does underline the fact that we have to expand our userbase somehow - I have a feeling that our members avoid posting only because they know that their posts are unlikely to get a response, and that creates a vicious, self-feeding cycle.

Although we are here to make top quality designs, perhaps open it up to newcomers more? I got involved wanting to join the top ranks, and there only used to be a "best newbie" score to achieve. I still just hope to not come last, but I've had to get to that level pretty quickly to keep involved. Maybe a rookie competition (no podium achieved in competitions to date, and rookies still able to enter main competition if they wish. After a season or 2 (3 / 5 rounds rather than 10) of rookie league, if same people are winning again we can vote that they move on to only competing within top comp.

This has been a big concern of mine. I think a lot of newcomers might think that they're not good enough to be here... and that's totally wrong because IMG has to be open for everybody interested in motorsport graphics, even if they've never used graphical software in their lives.

I mean, my first livery looked like this: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c192/ ... attery.gif
And my first template looked like this: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c192/ ... h/mini.gif

I can understand why somebody with that kind of quality might not be willing to join IMG... But they should. It should be all about learning and having fun while doing that. So maybe that's something for us to think about - not advertising IMG as the place where awesome graphics come from, but more as a place where people learn how to make awesome graphics.

Further to above, not everyone owns or knows how to use the top design software. Perhaps therefore we open up an MS Paint league? Can still achieve quite a lot with it and it would be a good way of enticing people to get involved perhaps.

Finally, I have done some 3D liveries before within rFactor and would like to see some more competition using full blown 3D skins!

MS Paint is something that could be experimented with in the 'Other Competition', and if it picks up steam, it could get a forum of its own. When it comes to pixel software and pixel graphics, that's something that we can't overlook. I happen to know that there are very active communities on the internet that are dedicated to creating tiles and sprites for Super Nintendo-style 2D games!

As for 3D, it's not a secret that we've wanted that for a long time. It's just that we don't have enough 3D-oriented people around to get started.

6. What would you like to see in the blog?

Being honest, I haven't looked at it so far. Thinking about getting people involved again, tutorials are a must. Livery design reviews would be good as well, pointing out what everyone likes / dislikes in a design so it can help make competition entries suit more tastes.

I've thought that livery design reviews might be a good idea. Tutorials in the blog could certainly help draw newcomers to the forum and gain us some search engine visibility so that is something that needs to be done.

I use Twitter to promote anything racing related so I would be happy to do so there. Facebook is kept to socialising with friends though mainly, as I used to post my blog posts there and apparently people weren't that keen on seeing them all the time...

Perhaps our social media expert Quiksilver can enlighten us on whether we have a Twitter page? I don't know much about it but it does seem like whenever some politician or sportsman posts something in there, it's soon all over the press, so I suppose it could be an easy way to earn a bit publicity.

[Pezzarinho17]

Thank you for the responses! I didn't realise how long my answers were until I posted it, but glad it was worth doing it and hope others do so to.

It is still very early days so no reason not to try things out or panic because people aren't yet coming to the forums. Firstly we need to find topics we are happy discussing, then do so for others to see this is not just the place where you post images then return to Photoshop!

Great to see your first designs in there too, great idea for a new thread!

Thanks again, I'm sure with enough time and effort we'll get IMG to where you and others want to take it!

[Quiksilver]

We dont have a twitter account..FB allready takes to much of my time away

[Pezzarinho17]

I don't really like Twitter that much as it moves on too quickly for my liking, it is very easy for things to get missed without spamming out! I commented on it purely in a sense that I personally would only be willing to share blog links to here on my own personal account.

[Quiksilver]

i just see the numbers of involment...about 1/5 of the world is on facebook...and about 1/10 of that is on twitter..so FB is atm the place to be..and i hate twitter somehow..its crap with all those odd messages(or message formats)

[Pollie]

Twitter can be realy usefull . Tim Corronel is a big twitter user and he told me some of his vision on twitter. but I don't think its a big thing for us.

[Pezzarinho17]

I got into it when I had my own blog and after speaking with Matt Somerfield, SomersF1 blogger. He found Twitter vital in generating web traffic, but also in how you are able to interact with the people in your business as well. But I think it worked for us as solo efforts as it is what gave us the community. We should be our own community here, so we just need the initial draw of fresh faces and we progress!

[Auke]

I think Pezzarinho17 sums up my feelings about this forum as well, so thanks for that

In addition: I studied mechanical engineering and had a lot of practice with 3D-software as well, like Solidworks, AutoCAD, and some 3D-analysis tools like Ansys. Since my current field of employment doesn't require that kind of software being used, my knowledge is very rusty. I'd love to freshen it up again, but then I'd have to find some free time which is hard having two young kids.