What would you like on SDMB?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by the ‘jumped the shark’ thread.

What sort of threads would you like to see? What do you wish people were talking about?

Personally, I’d like to talk about comic book/webcomic writing and drawing. I know there’s other boards, but most of them are focussed on the drawing part or limited to whoever is posting their comics on that site. I’m working on getting a comic started and getting my other webcomic restarted (sort of, I got distracted by school and the comic book). I wish I could have some smart people look it over and tell me where I really screwed up.

I also kinda wish there was discussion about some of my other interests: Thundercats (the one good tcats board is mostly off-topic and all the yahoo groups are dead), Silverhawks (nobody cares, but I swear it could be rewritten to be good scifi), conlanging (which I also need/want to get back into). It’d be nice to only have to visit one board and geek out about all my stuff.

Are there any tcats fans here?

I’d start threads but I’m afraid to watch them be completely ignored (like this one might be…)

2

I agree with you on the comic writing/drawing. I’d be all up on that thread. I was originally in art school studying comic illustration, but I ended up realizing my strength was more in writing and so I transferred into a creative writing program. A part of me thinks that with the perfect artist partner I could make something great.

3

Avatars. I remember images better than screen names.

Less downtime.

An Ellis Island forum for things you’d like to post that you’re not really sure belong anywhere (even in MPTIMS).

Perhaps a SDMB affiliated blog.

4

Gods, no! I will perform sacrifices to every god in every pantheon to keep this place avatar-free.

OTOH, we really need a “Sports & Games” forum.

5

Sorry to jump on the non-avatar bandwagon (if there is such a thing); but please, no.

I’d like to see an ongoing “visiting celebrity” event, where we’d invite someone in the public eye to join in for a day. Sorta like going on The Daily Show on steroids.

6

I like it when our resident astronomers and astrophysicists or wannabe astronomers & astrophysicists duke it out in GQ over some noob’s blackhole question or something. Can’t have enough space/cosmos questions.

7

Personally I’d like to see more posts from people with usernames such as “Silver Tyger Girl.”

Growwlllll…

8

Sweet Virgin Becky, no avatars.
edited to add that if no avatars = no Sampiro, then definitely, I would consent to avatars, smilies, and even goatse pop-ups.

9

As I said in the jump the shark thread, I’d like to see less of the 10-20 page glurge threads where people talk at eachother (rather than talk with eachother) about stuff, and more threads of discussion about special interests push into the 3-7 page range.
I enjoy when I see posts by dopers who I’ve come to recognize, and have a sense of identity for. I like it when I get to interact with people and actually feel like I’m interacting with them. I’d like to think that people might have an idea of what I’m like, or at least find me memorable (in a positive light).
I love the board for what it’s about, and the culture of it, I just feel like so often people let it just become words on the internet rather than a forum.

As for Thundercats… I loved the show as a kid, and like Conan or He-man it could easily be reworked into an awesome swords-and-sorcery adventure series (comic book, maybe?), but I guess I don’t really see what else there is to discuss about it?

I love webcomics, but I mostly like niche ones that are plugged into the nerd-crowd (Penny Arcade, 8-Bit Theater, etc), and ones that are just clever and funny without pretension to art or “revolutionizing comic-dom” (Questionable Content, Bob and George, Dinosaur Comics, Bunny, Supermegatopia, etc).
I do like some more dramatic series. Such as Namir Deiter; think girly upbeat For Better Or For Worse with anthromorphic animals. Or Misfile, a series about a car-racing boy (who’s turned into a girl), and an academic over-achiever girl (who’s life has been reset to being two years younger) and the misfit angel that messed up their files in the database that runs the universe. It’s mostly a romantic-drama with car-dorkery, the fantasy elements are very played-down. Or Errant Story, hands down one of the most interesting high-fantasy universes I’ve seen yet.

I haven’t enjoyed the webcomics threads because they tend to be shout outs, mostly (like I just did). I can’t really discuss making comics much, but I could link you to newsposts, blogs, and even screen-videos of webcomic artists drawing things that you might find useful.

I guess one thing I’d like is an active board with SDMB quality discourse where people talked about fanfiction, and discussed particular on-going works. There is some genuinely great stuff, but all I can find are mailing lists that are mostly dead where the authors just send eachother the stories, or digital jungles like Fanfiction.net where there’s very little community or means to strike up genuine conversation with people.

10

I’ll pay next year’s subscription fee for the first Doper to change his/her screen name to goatse pop-up.

11

Wildstorm was publishing a Thundercats comic a few years ago. Never read it, never watched the cartoon as a kid, but it’s out there.

12

I read the first series or two. I know a lot of fans like it, but to me it just didn’t capture the fun of the series. And a lot of the art was ugly. The UK comics in the 80s were great, and the Star series was really fun (except most of them were just taken from the episodes)

They exist - I’ve seen good ones on Livejournal. It’s tough though because they’re all seperated by subject.

And I ignore the threads that are just lists. I find that annoying too - there’s no discussion, just ‘I like this!’ without even a why. I suppose people need to ask why and force discussion, but its easier just to skip them.

Hey, I’m trying. I wish I could find cool people who actually live near me

13

More book discussions. It seems the book readers have seriously gone down. Once in a while I start threads but they usually sink. I joined the board originally for the book discussions but that seems to be changing.

No avatars, sweet jesus.

I really feel the humor has gone out of the boards somewhat, and I can’t put my finger on why or what it is. More people seem to take umbrage. A few of the big names who really used to lay back and take it easy and have fun are gone, or have been driven off the boards. Everyone seems so serious. People used to complain we were too silly, now it seems like those people are getting their wish.

There was really fall-down funny thread here before I came on mythology. I have it bookmarked at home, but it just started “Would whomever ordered the phoenix steak please pick it up…we can’t cook it because it keeps rising from its ashes.” And Dopers had so many funny comments in response to that it was unbelievable. You don’t seem to see that kind of fun for fun’s sake anymore.

GD seems comprised of the same people, with the same opinions, snarking at each other. Fair enough, but what’s the point if we’re all just nibbling at each other?

On the opposite tack, I’d like the board CS quality to be a little…different. I am not going to say necessarily higher quality, but I’d like to have more discussions about opera, ballet, stuff like that. It seems like it’s all TV shows.

14

Ditto. Y ditto.

15

That would be this one, I believe. Truly demented. Good times.

16

That’s the bunny!

17

Read through that one again, came across an entry that was quite unfunny, thought to myself, “Who wrote this?”
Looked at the user name, FordPre… :smack:

18

What was yours?

This one cracks me up every time, by Greywolf:

And Aholibah is frickin funny too.

19

It was some rambling Illiad reference. It’s best left forgotten :slight_smile:

20

1.) Huh, never heard about Thundercats comics. I might have to check them out for myself. shrugs

2.) Even if they are separated by subject, I’d still like to check those out. Huh, I’d always avoided places like Livejournal before, but I might have to check it out then. Thanks.

3.) Yeah, I’ve adopted a policy of only posting if I can get in the first page, because that seems to be the only time I actually get a response in those list threads.

PS. Oh, and Anaamika, they still have goofy threads like that from time to time. Do you remember the recent “Call me threadkiller™” thread An Gadai (man I hope I spelled that right) started? That was some silly fun.

PPS. Oh, I think a while back I recommended Rumiko Takahashi to you in a thread about manga? Did you ever check any out?