Hrmmm. I wonder if I fall into the "rudeness" catagory.

If you all recall a post I made about how people critique isn't very helpful if all they're going to say is "Wow! That's awesome!" or "Great work!". A critique is meant to dismantle a work and discover either its flaws or applaud its highlites. But for every single post to read "GREAT WORK!" was getting a little monotonous. How are you supposed to learn anything if everything thinks you're already doing a great job?

Granted, SM is a place for newcomers to Maya and some of them are just starting out. So they tend to see the majority of the work here as much higher quality than what they can produce, so their reaction will be to praise what they see. But for the rest of us, the ones who have been at it for more than a minute, we should be more constructive with how we critique. There was a time when even the mods were following this path. And because everyone got so used to it, when I started critiqueing the way that I do, people got offended. Thought I was ripping them apart. But I was just being honest and instead of taking what I said as constructive, they felt abused, embarrassed, and humiliated. So they felt I was attacking them personally.

Sorry, just wanted to touch on that for a minute.

What I'm sure you're talking about when you say rudeness is some of the harsh statements being said by a few of the "new" members. Our older, more salted members know how to handle themselves. It's all the new people coming in that have to learn the ways and grow accustomed to how we do things here at SM.

This is to be expected. Anywhere you go you'll have those kind of people. But it doesn't mean it will be tolerated. We try to cope with these individuals by letting them know that their treatment of others here should be like how they want to be treated. If the problem persists, then we delete their posts. If they contiune then Kev or Dave hit the BANNED button and the problem is gone.

As for the WIP forums, of which I am Moderator, I will admit there has been a bit of negligence on my part. But as was stated earlier, it's because of the job. Real life sucks sometimes, and I wish I could stay all day on these forums with you guys because you all are so great here. But I have to pay bills, and the hours are long for me. I get on when I can now and when I do I usually reply in mass. You'll know I've done that when my name is in every LAST REPLY spot thru the entire forum.

Mikey has been pretty good at backing me up in the WIP forums. He's been handling a lot of the problem children rather well and keeping the place clean. I, on the other hand, have been going thru and cleaning out all the oversized images that some of you still can't seem to get under 640x480.

I try to reply to most of the posts in the WIP forum. Some I offer suggestions, others I simply say "keep it going". But mostly, I try to keep a presence there. If the consensus is that we need another mod at the WIP forums, then by all means bring one on. Nothing wrong with sharing the wealth.

But as for those rude individuals, the next time you see something out of line, let one of us know and we'll deal with it ASAP. if you see someting like that, check how many posts they have. Guaranteed it will be in the 10's. They'll come and go, or we'll ask them kindly to leave. Either way, it's under control.