The sandwich rule seems to have been forgotten very often lately. Its very important when giving feedback or else it is taken negativly and people react defensively( such as using inapropriate manners to release fustration). Although to me, 99% of the work shown here looks great, i always try to use this rule when iam giving a negative feedback to avoid being targeted in inflamitory topics. Just remember GOOD BAD GOOD.

I read over that finlandia thread and was very decieved to seel how brutaly some people said things, which i understand why soem people became angry: It's not what you say, but how you say it that determines how one will react. Iam not telling people to give special treatment to younger kids, but jsut watch the way you say it as it can easily offend someone and create a snowball effect.

Id hate hating comming here because people can't be a little more pollite and carefull how they say thing.

So like my mother said when i was small : " When you don't have anything nice to say, dont say it" but translated in french.

Sincerly,
Francois

if we are talking about [kids] under the age of 18 here.i wonder ;where are the parents in all of this,they should be guiding and watching ther kids, on the internet and for all when they are on a forum where they have contact with a lot of older people.what i see is that the kids from parents that are on the forum here[dads/moms//modellers] are behaving the right way,with respect to others and well educated.as for [SOME] kids that have no parents here are going loose ???thats because there is apperently no control over them when they are on this forum.
if we want new blood in this hobby then to seperate them on a kiddy forum is a bad idea.it is the mix that makes this forum what it is and what makes it work.,everybody learns from each other.there is no differents in being younger or older

greetings jeroen,.

The recent 3 posts by (Paul, Jim, and Ken) particularly inspire me to write that I think the community does WIN when we all get our ideas and formulated thoughts out there. All of you raise important issues about the direction of the site and what we need to remember going forward.

For myself I ALWAYS want Armorama to be a welcome place for everyone who wants to share and learn about modeling. Will everyone who posts stay true to that ideal? No... but because we aren't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better. Will the first modeler reading this who does not want to improve your skill or make better models or dioramas please raise your hand? I would suggest that the first person who did wasn't really serious about our hobby. And that is something we need to keep in mind. The Internet is full of people who aren't quite ready to interact with society on a regular basis. I think we are all pretty tolerant of others, but this fact is one that weighs heavier on the staff of this site than others. One bad egg can cause a lot of impact on the site as a whole. And as pseudo "parents" of the site we look at that as a threat no matter how much we try to otherwise. So forgive a few of those that do this regularly. If they didn't have the best interests of Armorama and the community at heart then they wouldn't be a staff member.

As I think I told Ken, as regular users we can all decide what kind of site users we are going to be. I have no right to ask more of the membership here as you all do a great job of supporting the site (and acting as pseudo parents too sometimes), but think of this analogy....




I personally have done both. The moaning never got much done except made all the people in line either nod and say "yeah dude" or give me a scowl. :-)

Food for thought. And...my door is always open.

Cheers,
Jim

I admit I haven't read all the posts as I really don't understand why things get so blown out of proportion in a hobby that is suppoed to be fun... and only fun. Maybe because we in this part of the world have to deal with such hardships in our every day lives that I tend to see all this as trivial. I guess people really do not appreciate freedom unless they are forced to live without it. In my world, I'm just happy I can get a model every now and then and work on it.

Regarding the "Basque" remark in the other post. I certainly take exception to that since I have to deal with a lot of remarks (NOT HERE) about all Arabs being like this or all Moslems being like that. So, in this age of the internet where you can talk to people everywhere, a little tolerance can go a long way.

I would also like to say that I think having a forum for beginners in general(regardless of their age) would be a good idea. I am 45 years old but a beginner. I have refrained from posting any pics of my work because I didn't want anyone to make fun of them. I may handle critcism better than "PMP" did, but it would dtill hurt if people made fun of my work. So, I just telling myself I'll wait till I get better. Also if you have a post for beginners, then maybe some people who are only interested in seeing high quality work would not check out the posts in that forum to begin with.

Finally, I would just like to say to everyone here, please don't always assume that people understand exactly what you're saying and what you're intentions are.. even with emoticons. We have people from different cultures and a remark that may seem perfectly OK to you could be insulting to someone else. I don't mean that we have to tip toe around always afraid of saying things. But just make sure you write your thoughts down as clearly as possible.

I hope nothing I said was offensive to anyone. And just remember guys.... MORE FUN AND LESS TOUCHINESS.

I am one of the younger guys, 14. I like to build models, and I like your feed-back, but I just wish some of you guys would focus more on the actual model, instead of the fact of it being from a different late war, with an early war camo job. I know historical acurateness is important, but itr gets you down when your first post is one telling you ,you need to repaint your model cuz its of the wrong year

Hmm, I see very few younger modelers actually offering input here. So if I may be pretentious enough to offer input, here's what I think- Honestly, when I post work here, I expect the model to be commented on as if it was built by someone older than me, or younger than me or whatever- in short I expect the model to be commented on because of what it is, and what needs improving and what I may have done right. If criticism was being watered down because I am a younger modeller, it would have less value for me. I think that a separate forum for younger modellers is not a good idea at all- if people want criticism that is less harsh, let them mention their age in their post. I personally feel it greatly improves my skills to be criticised as harshly as possible on all my models, and it does no dampen my enthusiasm in any way. (For the record, I'm 15, but please ignore that fact when commenting on my work.) That's my 2 cents anyway.

I didn't think about putting anything more than my 2 cts. in my earlier post but after reading all the posts again there seems to be some recurring themes that may warrant writing another 2 cts.

Firstly (for me) I've always believe and still do that all the staff here have always acted in the best interests of Armorama. They may do it in their own way but the motivation remains the same. After all how many people would be nuts enough to donate their precious free time to do something if they didn't care enough to do so. That's a positive.

That leads to the second recurring theme which is caring. All of us as can be seen from the posts here care strongly enough for this site to write something about it. This is a bigger positive.

Thirdly segregation may not always be the key but rather more tolerance is needed as Hisham puts it. I can appreciate what he says coz I come from a multi-racial country. Tension and racism can still be found since my country has progressed from trying to do each other in to talking about doing each other in and that's progress. It has its effect and its still a little voice in my mind even in a very tolerant place like Armorama. A positive that can be improved upon.

Lastly Jim's original vision for Armorama should still be kept as the guiding ideal and he's realistic enough to believe its an ideal and expects us to falter along the way, which we have and will continue to do so in the future.

Having bored you guys with all that I have to say its way to serious stuff for a Friday. Jim about those pics of the blown up castle.........

Well, if you're going to trivialize some VERY thoughtful replies, that, I suppose, is your 'right'...Jim

I usually do not post comments in strings like this, but I learned a very usefull thing about comms during Basic Training years ago: Think - Push - Talk. Works great in internet forums as well.

Erik