Big Changes On the Wind

[Ashley]

Big changes are happening here at CAA.

Firstly, you may notice that Shatterheart and Gypsy are now classified as moderators. This is not a demotion, but merely a new staffer organization we have agreed to try. So no one go throw rocks at them or anything, they didn't do anything wrong.

Secondly, we will be overhauling the forum systems greatly. We plan on:

1. Locking the Art Corner. This means that you will still be able to access it, but no longer post there.
2.Converting the merchandise forum into a link
3. Merging design and tutorial forums
4. Combining site reviews and link forums
5. Combining the arena, the tavern, and the OOC forums
6. Giving the anime and manga database review forums a new forum of their own
7. Merging the TV/Movie and Sports forums
8. Merging the Who's Who and the Welcome forums
9. Creating a new forum for Member Projects
10. Merging the Testimony and Bible Study forums

Hopefully, we will be adding a new layout and new sections soon to make CAA more than just a forum, but a true Christian resource.

Lastly, we would invite all of you to post your ideas and suggestions for new projects or areas you would like to see us add in the Comment Box . Realize, of course, that all ideas are up for consideration by the staff and will not happen overnight, but we are here for you guys and we want to know how we can serve you best. Thanks for giving us a reason and an opportunity to continue to serve you!

[Hephzibah]

While most of those changes sound rather good, I was just curious as to why lock the art corner? Where will we be able to submit our art to be critiqued without flooding the Gallery (which only allows you to submit one picture at a time if I remember correctly)

[Ashley]

Considering a good chunk of artists here have Deviant Art or Shezzy Art accounts, we felt it was mostly a waste of resources to have the Art Corner when we already had the gallery. It may be more tedious to see all things by your favorite artists, however in the long run we felt this was a more pratical use of our bandwidth. We locked it so you could still see the old threads. ^^;

[Hephzibah]

Actually, when I go into the art corner I can't see any threads. Also, what if members dont have D-art accounts... I know personally I'm not really game enough to put my work up there. Perhaps the art corner can be limited to those without such accounts? (or am I just being irrational?)

[inkhana]

We're working on the problem with the art corner

For the meantime, feel free to go ahead and submit however many pieces you want to the gallery; if I recall correctly you can add more pics in subsequent posts. The thing is though...a lot of people who are posting here are cross-posting in DA, SA (or another gallery) and then we have the art corner, which is redundant in light of the gallery system. So there are a lot of options for most people...it's not like members can't post pics anymore. But we do have storage space and bandwidth to think of.

[bigsleepj]

9. Creating a new forum for Member Projects (member webmanga threads, recruitment, etc....

Cool.

See new sticky for details).

Uhm, which new Sticky would that be? I can't seem to locate it.

Edit: PS: When will these changes take place and would it mean that the CAA will be off-line for a few hours / weeks?

[Ashley]

Actually, that's because I changed my mind on how to order it. No new sticky necessary. ^^;; Basically, it's the projects board expanded to include member's webmanga.

[the_lizardqueen]

What about Olorc's Coloring Contest? It was in the Art Corner, and what about any other general art threads?

Sorry if I seem to be complaining, I'm mostly just curious, and somewhat worried about the contest..

[Debitt]

Question - I don't want to seem like I'm complaining because I like most of the changes that we've got here, however I'm not entirely keen on combining the Tavern/Arena/OOC Chat. I'm worried about all the info threads for the RPs getting buried under the Tavern/Arena stuff. =O Maybe just combine the Tavern and Arena instead, since those are closer in purpose?

[Shao Feng-Li]

Fine by me.

[Yeito]

Maybe for the DA and SA links you could post them onto a sticky in the art section? o_o are you allowed to do that? ... -_-; Just wondering...

Or we could just tell everyone to post their links in their sigs o_o;

[Gypsy]

[quote="Yeito"]Or we could just tell everyone to post their links in their sigs o_o]

There's that too. ^^

I feel like one of those people that holds a megaphone in an end-of-the-world movie: Do not panic, please remain calm! (No trampling me to death, either.)

Don't worry about losing anything out of Art Corner, guys, it's not going anywhere yet. We've just noticed that there's lots of mulitple picture posting going on and it takes up huge amounts of space. No contests or art is going to simply be trashed.

Thank you for the very constructive feedback so far, and don't be afraid to voice your opinion or thoughts in any of these matters.

[Kireihana]

New layout *0*

*eagerly awaits it*

[bigsleepj]

New layout *0*

*eagerly awaits it*

Its already here....I think.

[EireWolf]

um... if you're going to lock the Art Corner, could you do something to look up art in the Gallery by artist? because I try to keep track of certain artists more than others (due to how much art gets posted now).
and being able to post more art in one thread in the Gallery doesn't really work because the Gallery threads aren't listed in order of most recent posts. we basically -have- to start a new thread for each piece of art to get attention for it from the Latest Images and because the Gallery threads are listed in order of when each thread was started, not by most recent posts.

I have had the same concerns about the Gallery for a while. Somebody can post a comment on my art, and I won't know it for months, because I have to go digging every time I want to check my gallery threads.

Also, might there be a way to group pictures by artist? Perhaps each artist can have a seperate "thread" that shows a gallery of his/her work. I don't know if this is even possible, or if it would eat too much bandwidth, but it's an idea.

Thanks, mods and admins, for all your hard work! We love you!

[Syaoran]

OOOOOOO.....changes....awaits us.

[ChristianKitsune]

I kinda like this overhaul kinda... and I appreciate what you mods/admins are doing! ^^

All my concerns have all be noted..so I don't feel a need to repeat them... all I have to say is.. I don't have an DA or SA account..and I don't plan on getting one...

but as long as the gallery is still up..no biggie for me! I only post my art there anyways...

I guess I do have a question, CAA won't be off line for all this will it?

Again, YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! Can I hug you?

bah.. I will do it anyways,

one for ashley

one for Old Philosopher

one for Inkhana

one for Gyspy
on for Shatterheart

one for UC Pseudonym (sp)

one for Straylight

and one for LightBringer

[Stephen]

Many of the changes have already been done. So no, there will be no downtime during this transistion.

[Retten]

This should be interesting to watch come to pass xD I cant wait for the new layout though Keep up the good work "super mod/admin team" ( <---I couldn't think of anything else at the moment ...)

[ShiroiHikari]

As far as Gallery threads go, can you guys not just subscribe to the thread and let it notify you when someone posts in it?

[uc pseudonym]

Speaking to the CAA membership in general, thank you for bearing with us as we try to regain our balance after the change.

As far as Gallery threads go, can you guys not just subscribe to the thread and let it notify you when someone posts in it?

While I feel this is by far the best solution, a fair number of people do not use the subscription system.

[Alice]

Big changes are happening here at CAA.

Firstly, you may notice that Shatterheart and Gypsy are now classified as moderators. This is not a demotion, but merely a new staffer organization we have agreed to try. So no one go throw rocks at them or anything, they didn't do anything wrong.

Secondly, we will be overhauling the forum systems greatly. We plan on:

1. Locking the Art Corner. This means that you will still be able to access it, but no longer post there.

So we can't post art any longer?

[uc pseudonym]

Art can still be posted in the Gallery, merely not in that forum.

[Hephzibah]

As far as Gallery threads go, can you guys not just subscribe to the thread and let it notify you when someone posts in it?

That works, but it means that new people probably wont be able to view our art... unless either A) they are willing to search through tonnes of other people's art to find a ours or B) ours just happens to appear in the random art box.

I dont want to be a nuisance, but I think that having a sticky of who has DA/whatever accounts would be a good idea, and getting those people to post there when there is an update.

[ChristianKitsune]

That works, but it means that new people probably wont be able to view our art... unless either A) they are willing to search through tonnes of other people's art to find a ours or B) ours just happens to appear in the random art box.

I dont want to be a nuisance, but I think that having a sticky of who has DA/whatever accounts would be a good idea, and getting those people to post there when there is an update.

But ppl can also put their DA accounts addies in their sigs too right?

[ShiroiHikari]

The forums also have a search feature...

[Syaoran]

What is a DA Accout? I know you put art in it put what is it to be exact.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Ya'll can just use Image Shack (see signature). It's way easier then msot galleries it seems.

[inkhana]

Syaoran, DA (DeviantArt) is a site where members can get critiques on their pics, etc. I don't use it so I don't know exactly what other features you get, but it's mainly just an art community.

[Ashley]

Ok, here's the solutions we've come up with to the problems mentioned:

What about the coloring contest!

This will now be a part of the Art Contest forum.

Where shall we put general art threads?

In the general forum. It's just too much of a repetition and drain on our resources to have an art corner AND a gallery when one will do the job of two.

How can we search for just one member's art without digging through the entire gallery?

You can search for all posts by a certain member and restrict our search engine to only the gallery posts. We may have a better solution later on, but for now this will do.

What if we listed all DA/SA accounts in a big sticky?

This isn't the best idea for us because DA and SA are both out of our control as far as content goes, so we'd like to avoid any possible litigation for leading people there.

The new OOC board is too clogged to submit new ideas

A new forum for only ideas (and, if necessary, the "OOC threads" of approved RPGs) to seperate those threads from the arena/tavern posts.

If you have any other constructive feedback for us, please let us know.