And where do we go from here? Hrmmm... interesting question. I'm going to be real honest and say I wish I had some interesting answers for you... but I don't. Last week, we kind of covered the closing of one of our forums, and my mixed impressions of that one. And on that one... Mixed is an imprecise word. Most words are imprecise... they approximate reality and they approximate feelings. As descriptions they always fall short of the things they try to encompass. Unfortunately... they're the best thing we've invented so far. In a lot of ways, that's a shame... they're not always enough. I think it's safe to say that as a community website we're hitting a point of some major and probably not well forseen changes. Not as a community - the "community" is never encompassed by any one website. Never will be - there's too many of us spread out among too many places, with too many ties and common bonds. Heh - the ties that bind and gag. ;] A major factor in this was the unexpected closing of one of the sites most browsed forums. Easy to understand... C&D was like a soap opera on steroids. ;] Changes from that are rippling all across the community - even the people whose major reaction was "Huh? What's C&D?" are feeling the ripples. And wondering what changes are next... So do I... I can see the ripples in the massive influx of guests into the sites other "off topic forum", the Virtual Tavern. Getting to where there's hardly anyplace for Wizzard to park his dragons any more. ;] And I can see it in the speculations running across the site... the biggest ones being "Why?" and "What next?" And it's possible that no one will believe me when I have to respond with "I haven't the slightest". Uncharted territories. And whenever you cross into uncharted territory... you spend time groping without a clear path ahead. And bumping into things and barking your shins. And, in the midst of all the speculations, there's one certainty... at the heart of all the changes are growth. I don't think there's ever been a graphic artists community of this size before on the net [correct me if I'm worng]. And there aren't any manuals for this, nor are there any roadmaps. When there aren't any roadmaps, it's easy to say where you want to go... a lot tougher to say how to get there. And sometimes it's tougher to decide precisely where you're trying to go in the first place. When you get beyond the maps... you're building it as you go along. These questions are going to continually come up, I think. And as long as we're growing... the changes will continue to come. A part of those changes is that as members, we get to decide how we're going to react to them... or in spite of them. We get to ask questions, and then decide what we want to do when those questions go unanswered. And I can see those decisions going on around me also. Sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly... but always being made. We get to build this as we go along also. ;] The sign on the top of the page says "The Grapic Artist's Community". A community isn't a website - it's a living, breathing entity made up of people. And of some of the most indendant, contrary, argumentative and flamboyant people around - artists. What binds us together is a love of creating, even if we can't agree for two minutes on what we're creating, or what we're going to create it with. Or how we're going to create it. But... this thing that we're creating, these ties that bind us, is and has always been a labor of love shared between us. In spite of our continual bickering and snarking. ;] *shrug* At some point in the midst of all of the changes, we'll come to a point where we'll decide wether this thing that we're creating and the site - or sites - that house it are going in the same direction that we are. And if not... We move on and build again. We are bigger than the things that contain us. And bigger than the things that constrain us. Sherman Barnes [Ironbear at Renderosity] Ironbear's Featured Column (click here)