Quote: Ouch! I'm sorry to hear about your accident, Hino-chan . That must have hurt! What the heck were you doing with that ping-pong table!?!? Ha ha .

Well I hope you're feeling better now, and I hope you didn't get a concussion! I once had a bike accident and got a concussion, and I lost two month's worth of memory! Eventually it all came back to me though, but it was pretty scary. I felt like the guy in the movie Memento.

I have been doing fine, just working a lot this month. But I did get my painting finished, and the art opening for the group show is tonight. So I'm excited about that ^_^. You can see my new piece on MT here.

Thank you for writing back, and I hope to hear from you again. Get well, and take care of yourself ^_^...

Sorry about not replying earlier, this time I was just being lazy. Gomen nasai! What was I doing with the ping-pong table? I was playing ping-pong. Yeah I'm feeling better. Better than when I hit my head anyway. The doctor gave me some medicine/pain killers. On Wednesday I get my stitches taken out. Yay no more stitches My eye however is another story. Vision's the same. But I have a bruise on/near it there's blood over the eyelid/not on top, under my eyebrow. It's not something ya wanna see. Ok..... I'm going to stop talking about that now. Gomen, sorry, rambling habit Anyway arigato, thanks for asking, I saw your piece. It's really good Gotta go. My computer time's up You also take care! Ja ne. Bye!

Quote by mentisYes, it was nice. There were many other artists there, and I enjoyed talking with them ^_^.

Sounds like so much fun

Quote: Right. And like I said, different website do it differently, so MT would have to decide exactly what happens to various types of user content, but making it "parked/suspended" somehow may be an effective sysem.

Hmmm yeah. I was thinking of perhaps a "have you read the latest Policy?" thing after being inactive every now and then- it might make people want to log in just to avoid doing so A suspension isn't a bad idea...

Quote: Is the content no taking up valuable server space though? I would figure that if all the inactive accounts were, hypothetically speaking, deleted right now that we would probably notice a difference in server efficiency? Just a hypothetical question.

Well the content itself (the html, css and all) doesn't take that much space on the server- just when it loads, it takes its toll on the bandwidth ;D
The thing that takes up a lot of space are the images (gallery)- and it only affects the browsing and speed when there are downloads (and there are lots of people downloading at the same time, I'm sure)

Quote: I see, well I guess it's not really a big deal. I guess I won't worry about it, unless someone else does. If that ever happens, I can make my case then :P.

Indeed, you have been very helpful, and I appreciate it. Unfortunately I am not able to give you anything in appreciation... ...soo this will have to do...

~~~~<@ ...a flower for Misa-chan

So thank you again for writing me, and take care ^_^...

Thanks for the flower
It's a strange feeling to be "helpful"
Hope this week is fun for you ^^

Gomen Gomen! mentis san! now that school is over i'm catching up to many interesting things i missed on.

Quote by mentisOhaio, Chisa-chan ^_^! Congratulations on your graduation! I'm very happy for you. It's so nice to have that out of the way, isn't it? I know I was certainly happy to be done with school for a while .

oh dear.. you don't know how right you are.. the relief is amazing. demone, domo arigatou! i am sure to contribute more in MT, now that i have my time all to myself.. x33

Quote:
I was able to get all my notifications taken care of, and I had about 80. Half of those were scan submissions from people though. I can't imagine having 400! I would probably never come back, ha ha!

haha.. well, most are scans too, but right now, it's climbing back up to 200! that's why i'm grateful also to get your msg, and consequently clean up the rest of the notifs.

Quote:
These days I have a number of different things that I work on. I have been running a blog for some time now (mentisworks.org) and it does take a bit of effort to keep it running. In addition, I began working on an independent little game project called Copic Fighter (look in my blog's sidebar). Other than that I am also painting still, and I will have one of my new paintings finished in about a week or so. Rest assured I'll be posting it on MT when it's done. I have two other paintings going at right now as well, though not exactly sure when either of them will be done.

wow, painting.. i never did manual painting except in OpenCanvas. and not even as good either. Copic Fighter, does it have anything to do with Copic markers? just kidding. but i am sure to check your gallery after this post, mentis-san!

Quote:
My two most recent walls have been the Lucas Kane wall, and the Curly Brace wall. You can see them both if you browse my gallery, as they'll be at the top I believe. And I think we've already talked about our mutual affection for the work of Yoshitoshi Abe. So of course I am a big fan of Niea, as well as all of his other work. Last I heard, however, he's not going to do any more anime but is instead focusing on art books. That kind of sucks for us, because those books will not likely be published in the US .

dang - that's bad news, i love his story and sense of style. however, i wish those artbooks will be available in torrent though.

Quote:
How about you, what's new on your end? Do you have any recent works up on MT? I suppose I could just go check for myself, but I'll have to wait till I have more time. So it'll be later :P.

yea, i got plenty just copy works since i'm not happy with originals yet. perhaps i'll upload them this week.

oh btw, i thought of adding you in MSN, but you're never online, .. also, i would like to add you in myspace, but it's needing your email address/last name to send you a request.. thanks for the notif on your doujin, will check it today.

great to hear from you again, mentis san! and see you.

-ckc

Quote by mentis

Quote by kaisui1tatsuYour welcome! And congrats on the highlighting of it. It is hard to get a really nice photo of a painting. . .you always have to have really nice lighting. I think one of the best sources is sunlight on a overcast type of day because you do get really bright light, but there is not any glare because the sun is behind the shadows.
I think that I have at least two pictures of paintings in my gallery. I didn't have a digital image of Rikku, so that submission is actually a scan of the photo. lol, either way it works! I kinda wish that my paintings would get higlighted as well. . . . but I guess no one really sees them. . . .*sigh*
Well, I will look forward to seeing more of your art work! I hope that you summer is going great so far!

Thank you again. But I don't believe it was highlighted ...? I checked the highlighted gallery and didn't see it on the first five pages. However, I did notice that it is in the elite gallery now, so is that perhaps what you meant...? If it was highlighted though, maybe you can give me a link to where you saw it ^_^.

Indeed, I am familiar with using natural light on an overcast day and I agree on that point. Unfortunately I was pressed for time and had to make due. I have a decent camera as well, but it's not the highest quality for this purpose. Though I do get 5mp on it, it's still a compact. So when I get the piece back after the show, I intend to borrow my friends pro camera to get a really nice shot of it. If I wanted to get it perfect though, I'd probably use a triangular light-source setup using Tungsten bulbs, but that's getting more technical and may not be necessary :P.

I didn't realize you had paintings in your gallery as well, so I'll have to go back and look for those ^_^. Don't worry if people don't look at your paintings though. Mine don't get that much attention either :P. I think people on MT in general prefer the digital pieces, mostly because you really have to download the full version to begin to appreciate a painted submission. They do not often look very interesting as a thumbnail image, and that's what a lot of people go by.

I'll write again after I have had a chance to look at some more of your work. Till then, take care ^_^...

lol, yea, I meant the elite gallery, it is all kinda the same to me. . .lol
And setting up a lot of stuff for a really, really nice photo can get to be too much. lol! I just use my digital camera. It does a pretty decent job, but it has to have a focal point or the camera will take a picture of something out of focus. So I always have to wait for the little green box to show up. . .oh well. It is 7.1 megapixels though, so I usually get really nice big photos! yay!
And yea, that is true about thumnails. . .sometimes they even have a pixelized look. . .Yours looked pretty good as a thumbnail though. ^_^

Quote by mentisLast night we had the reception for the group show which this painting was made for. I had some very good feedback on it, so I'm fairly excited about it ^__^. I wish you could have been there >__<.

And you're welcome. I think those scans are absolutely wonderful. I will try to make time and comment on some of them. I could favor them all, but there are just so many, so I faved the ones I liked best. But now you've got a bunch more up, so I'm falling behind .

Ooh that sounded like fun <3 But yeah, I'm stuck here ;

Lol, you have plenty of time to go through them ;D I think I might stop submitting them... I hit the back of the book and just majorly went >__>;; Anyway

Quote: Thank you again for taking my input seriously. I suppose if you don't want to remove inactive accounts, then maybe the first part of that suggestion would still be valuable. After a certain period of inactivity, the account could be "suspended." This could mean lots of things, but it would still be kept in the system. Though when people go to the user's page, the theme may be back to the default MT theme, and the it would simply say that the user is no longer active. Kind of like archiving the information, especially the unnecessary parts (i.e. UP media, etc.). The user's submissions would still be accessible of course. If the user returns, then they would have to go through a reactivation process. It's probably a complicated thing to setup, but it would further reduce server load.

That would be a rather good idea- it'd be incentive to keep logging in at least to keep your userpage content ;D

Quote: I realize that there are extenuating circumstances at times. After all, when I was traveling last year, I was inactive for about 7 or 8 months. So I do understand that. Still there are probably a number of users who have barely contributed, or not at all, and then they leave and you never hear from them again. Those accounts should probably be dealt with somehow as well. So anyway, that's one solution I have seen other website implement in different ways, and I think it's one possible way of dealing with that problem.

Well, I don't really know how the others would want to approach inactive accounts- in a way they're just there and they don't really bother anyone. So yeah, it might be a good to just reset their userpage content- put it on expire or something like that :3

Quote: Thank you very much for bringing that to my attention. I did read that part of the policy, and I believe very strongly that it should be amended. The guidelines for doujins are 600,000 pixels. My work is in a large format, and the only scanning option I have is to pay a commercial printing company to use their commercial scanner. In other words it's not possible.

I have worked in galleries and museums, and I have the experience to document large work in high quality. The painting I just submitted comes in at almost 2.6 million pixels. I believe that this more than exceeds the quality requirements. If you would like, you can tell me whom I should contact regarding this part of the policy, and I will bring my case before them.

I don't want to put all of these things in your hands, but I did want to explain myself. You have been tremendously helpful to me already Misa-chan ^_^, and I want you to know that I very much appreciate it.

I'll try to get to those scans of yours soon . Take care...!

It was quite recently (and by that, about 6 months ago) that we added the criteria in. I don't think using a camera is a problem as long as you get all the lighting right and it's of high quality (ie. you can see the details). Some people use cameras on white bond paper (baaad) and use a flash making the edges go all dark. We had to introduce that criteria to maintain just a standard of quality from the transformation of the tactile to the digital. I don't think it's a problem- just don't mention it lol. If we can't tell, and you don't say it, nobody will know It's only those really poorly done submissions (bad lighting as I mentioned before) which we can tell are bad we'd delete.

If it really concerns you though, just start up a thread in the forum (I think in the Minitokyo forum... if I remember correctly) to bring up the topic.

Not a problem at all- I'm glad I'm of some help ^^/

Hy< I think that I re-wrote this message 2 times till now, my connection went crazy - kept pushing the wrong button and lost the message .
Soo...again.
Hy! Saw the painting, very beautiful, u captured the emotions and chose the character very well, the story behind it is very emotional, I saw the Rouruni Kenshin Ova with Mira at her place and we started crying at the end, we loved it.

About the myth, well... u r gonna laugh but I choose Unicorns,I know expired, but .. horses, have soft spot for them , Every time I go to see my aunt, (a 3 hour trip)the first place I go the see, are the stables(don't think of something fancy) to see her horse(yeah , one)I'm kinda hoping that they would buy one more horse so , that this one could have company, not much of a chance, but...how knows.
My mom said that since I was little girl I was a freak with horses, so... u can imagine
Btw a good exercise, and now this is a joke, u know the Jetsons, the treadmill, u r cat
I'm gona leave u now, take care!

Yeah, I thought that if the colours changed it'd probably change it all and the whole concept
It'd be indeed nice to see them as the real piece

Thanks so much for your faves on my "RESET" scans ^__^

And sorry about this late reply~ I was a bit caught up doing stuff over the past few days ;D

But anyway, just to recap on your 4 suggestions:

1. Forum subscriptions- will probably make do- if not we'll have to move the "recently participated threads" thing to a more prominent place
2. [img] tags would probably be an option (I'm hoping this will be soon- who knows...)
3. For the multimedia tags, I think we could limit these to like one or two per page rather than have unlimited insertations of these tags... this is just to make the pages shorter and faster to load, but also let users to have their own customised pages and to continue being happy, but learn to be selective at the same time...
4. Inactive accounts... well, we've never really thought of the idea of closing them down, because a lot of inactive accounts would also include banned members, and we need to keep a record of them. There's also the chance of that user coming back after several years... but for sure, we need our email password retrieval system to actually work before that

A lot of the older members I remember being here on Mt left due to mostly the gallery and credits associated with it. Some people were just turned away because of the prospect of having to pay to upload... when the credits usually roll back rather quickly Others left because their friends did and so on... others did for personal reasons. I know one great waller who turned inactive because her Photoshop doesn't work any more... :|

I guess we'll just have to keep on trying

Thanks a lot for your replies and helpful suggestions *bows*

PS: Try not to mention that you took your doujinshi with a camera Shhh- if you peek into the Policy, you'll know why

Quote by mentis

Quote by kaisui1tatsuIt is pretty good! I kinda wish that there was more skin tones, but that is how anime is! lol
I really like how you did the hair, it does have a feathery look. I also really like the black lines that you added over softer lines, like the tear, and the hair. You can see how controlled the paint is.
The only thing that I think could use a bit more work is the eye, but everything else is great!

Hiya Kaisu-chan ^_^. Thank you very much for taking the time to comment! I really appreciate it .

And thank you so much for the compliments. I know it's not perfect, and I'm not sure that they ever are. But that's okay ^_^. That's kind of part of my style, especially when I add the black lines at the end I don't worry if they are right on. It lends the piece an element of spontaneity I think. Yes, the eye could be a bit better, but at this point it's done and I'm not going to worry about it. I try not to dwell on the details too much, and just keep going with a piece. After all, I can always improve with the next painting ^_^.

So, thank you again. I only wish that you could see it in person. It's much better that way of course. I will update the image with a higher quality photo when I have time, and probably after the show it went to is over.

Take care!

Your welcome! And congrats on the highlighting of it. It is hard to get a really nice photo of a painting. . .you always have to have really nice lighting. I think one of the best sources is sunlight on a overcast type of day because you do get really bright light, but there is not any glare because the sun is behind the shadows.
I think that I have at least two pictures of paintings in my gallery. I didn't have a digital image of Rikku, so that submission is actually a scan of the photo. lol, either way it works! I kinda wish that my paintings would get higlighted as well. . . . but I guess no one really sees them. . . .*sigh*
Well, I will look forward to seeing more of your art work! I hope that you summer is going great so far!

Oh which one is your new wall,,oh my gosh I htink I need a link.
Ah so I caught you-you like cats also,oh you will so have what to speak about with Simo not that I don't liek cats I do like them and I also like dogs and naimals genrally but I can't say that I had too much to deal with them because I never had any pets,I once kept the perrot of one of my friends for a week and she has a cat to but well we aren't talking anymore,we both did mistakes in our friendship.
Well as you speak about her I guess that you are older than her and what can I say if she likes to cure animals and if she has guts well good luck!
Oh put a link by the way with your new wall because I don't know how do they arrange them in the galleries lately with all the changes!Hugs!

Heeeellloo My Dear :]
ehehee sweet girl you say ^^" thanks :3
and as I promissed here are my crappy works :P
bored in work :P
weirdo
again bored but this time in home xD
:P
not finished it's a char from game Lineage 2 Her name is Ellimere, and she belongs to Jasmine (she's from MT too :P)
not finished again :P this one is my char, from same game and her name is Ven ^^"
very old I draw it few years ago, but God I'm super lazy xD
bored at work again and again it's Ven :P
well that's all from my crappy works :P
I believe that ure on my friendlist (i like i didnt remove you so u have to be there :P)
I'm from Poznan ^^ it's middle west :P(dunno if i wrote it correct xD) I hope that u will get here soon
AAAAND no, ure not boring me at all :P I'm glad that u're writing to me ^^ and that u remember me xD even if i'm not often here :P
Btw. i got cold i hate getting a cold xP I hate to be sick :P
Take care too x3

Thank you a lot for your support,it is really welcomed.I am really happy to have friends like you!I feel al ittle bit better,still tired and people can see that on my face so sometimes it's pretty hard to go outside.I had a ruff day today because I had to go by foot to the university,all the town(almost) was blocked and I even had an exam and am mid term.I must say that these passed few days I wanted to be with people,I mean till I feel much better than now I want to talk with people and to be around them and they do really help me.I mean even when you are sad you still get the power to smile,to laugh!
I am so sorry I am really not good with the options on MT and I didn't even got the time or the patience to learn more but I really want to altough I don't seem to show it so much maybe because I am also very lazy!
Oh I see that you and Simo are talking about cats,don't tell me you have one too?
I saw that you spoke about your sis,she is a veterinary,do I remember it well?That is so nice,I must say that I wouldn't find the guts to do this kind of job!
Oh about my e-mail,I stopped using that because of some old friends of mine who made me suffer let's say so I said that I should change it and the one I use is mira_fujita19@yahoo.com
Hugs!

Quote by mentis
I think it is very important to cherish the good friends that we have. There are not many in our lives, not real friends anyway. I am sorry to say that I have not had any luck making new friends since moving to this new town, and it's already been about a year. So that's why you see me writing to people in places like MT '.

Yes, she did say that it was her doing, getting you into anime and MT . And thank you for letting me know about Mira-chan, I will write to her again ^_^.

Ha ha, that does sound like a lot of animals . I believe that blue-eyed cats are not actually blind, but deaf. I'm pretty sure that is correct, but I'll have to ask my sister again who works for a veterinarian.

My cat is about six years old, and she is a gray "mackerel" tabby and has gotten pretty fat after being spayed a few years ago (spayed means she had an operation not to have anymore kittens). Her name is Leilu, and she's pretty cute most of the time. Not so cute when she's getting into trouble though. Well, maybe even then she's cute ^_^...

Thank you again for writing me, I appreciate it. I know that Mira-chan doesn't come to MT that often anymore, so please tell her I said "hello."

Hy , Bravoo! sorry just saw the post , her connection is back on! Whoppy!
About the friends department and moving , I kinda know the feeling-_- I moved 2 times till now, where I am , and I can say that is hard, new people, new surrounding's and a pretty hard shell to crack. But sometimes is worth all the trouble, I wish u all the best in finding friends that are worthy of u.

About the blue eyed cats please do ask her, I would like to know your sister is a veterinarian? wow , I think she really loves what she does, she's a lucky person, not many people have that luck to enjoy their work with the good and the bad.
6 years old, she's pretty old, my brothers just turned 8 months , about the spayed operation (thnx for explaining, I need all the help I can get with mt English ) , I'll let my cat to give birth to a first series of kittens and after that I'll take her to a vet. I like her name, sounds like the one from the movie the 5th Element, Leloo( Hope that my memory is still good), love that movie
Btw thnx for participating on my thread. That threqad is actually for my use, , I have an assignment to do on my English class and it involves presenting a Myth(Thnx and don't worry, correct me, every time, as I said I need all the help I can get )
I'm gonna tell u Bye now. Take care!

Hey there!You know I kinda missed the net and my friends too!I had a family problem these days,my grandmother died and I was in a sort of shock and I still am,I just had problems with sleeping and so on.I am grateful to God that she didn't suffer because as I found out she died in her sleep.Now what can I say I am also to busy even to think and I am pretty grateful that I can't think so much because I am so busy,I will probably go nuts if I thought too much,yeah she was old but not so old(she was about to reach 80 years) and well in my country there is this habit to touch or kiss the hands of the dear person who died but I just couldn't because I wanted to remain with my last memory of her when she was still alive and I also had in high school a collegue who took his life and after I touched him I was about to faint,I even scared a few collegues so I guess I also have a sort of trauama,I simply am afraid and I prefere to keep the memories with her before all of this happened.I don't want to speak that much about it,I still can't believe it.I was afraid to sleep these days,I slept,actually I tryed to sleep with mom and dad for 3 days and I didn't let them sleep either and after about 4 days of a few hours of sleep I kinda feel dizzy even if last night and yesterday I managed to get some more sleep.Now I have a friend who slept over yesterday and she'll sleep here also today.Now I also have exams these week and I will think less at what happened.I am pretty afraid to be alone so these days I didn't even had net so it was pretty hard and now that I have I'll probably find someone to whom to speak!
Now I am happy to know that there are people who missed me,hugs,you guys make me feel better!

Quote by mentis

Quote by kaisui1tatsu

Quote by . Thank you for sharing this with me, as I don't believe I've seen it yet. What artbook is it from?[/quote.minitokyo.net/">me(...) how can I not fav something from my favorite artist? I can't . Thank you for sharing this with me, as I don't believe I've seen it yet. What artbook is it from?[/quote Thanks so much for the comment and fav! I am so glad that you liked it! ^_^
The full title of the art book is Yoahitoshi ABe Lain Illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired. I still have alot more scans to submitt, but some of the images don't fit together perfectly, so I am going to have to fix them up a little bit. More stuff to do in the summer I suppose. . .^_^

Indeed, I do have that one as well. I just didn't remember that image in there so I had to check, and there it was towards the end ^_^. I'll be looking forward to those additional scans you're going to upload. Take care...

Yep! I de-spined the book so I could get the scans, but I don't have any protetion sleeves that are the right size for it. Do you know of any sites or stores that have a variety of protector sleeves?

merged: 05-13-2007 ~ 08:35am

Quote by mentis

Quote by kaisui1tatsuYep! I de-spined the book so I could get the scans, but I don't have any protetion sleeves that are the right size for it. Do you know of any sites or stores that have a variety of protector sleeves?

Indeed I do. I have always been a fan of the Itoya ART Portfolios for my storage needs, and they are also archival. Best thing though, is that they are pretty cheap too! So you get good quality for a great price (and no I don't work for them ).

They may be available at your local Micheal's or AC Moore (big chain stores), but you can also get them in just about every local art supply store.

If you'd rather shop online, you can get them from the Dick Blick (art supply dealer) website here... http://www.dickblick.com/zz150/19/

So they are pretty easy to get. I don't know that you'll find a better solution anywhere else .

Awesome! The only thing that I don't like about them is the 24 page thing, but I just looked at the page that you gave me. ^_^ There are other sections in the book too. . .so I guess either way it will work out. Thanks bunches!

Quote by mentisHi Kokuyu ^_^. Thank you for your reply. If you enjoyed the Rokujo wall, and are fond of that more traditional style, you may also like my other wall... Senseki.

I agree with your sentiments about art. For me, art is not a luxury as some people believe it is, but rather it is a necessity. I believe art makes the world a better place, and without it life looses its meaning. Then we must also ask the question "what is art?" But that's another discussion altogether .

In any case, thank you again. I was glad to read your comment. Take care...

You are welcome

thanks very much for your recommendation. i shall check it out sooner.
yup, originally, art is very much a solid visual expression of human [civilization]. but in somewhere between 15th to 19th centuries, the appearnce of ornamental decorations had created an art of different classes. thus, art became a sign of social classes until the war torn them apart. i wonder if you have heard before an art movement in Germany called Bauhaus? that movement stressed that art is a need rather than luxury. thus, many of its innovations including architectures abandoned decorations ah, i'm getting too far to art history

Very much indeed, an art with meanings in each and every lines and objects are better than art that's for decoration purpose. it lasts longer because it has our feelings attached

Quote by mentisI like this piece quite a bit. It reminds me somewhat of a painting I did a while back (Uyoku). Although the styles are somewhat different, the composition has a similar feel to me.

I think the face is especially good in this. Your lines are clean and sharp, which lends a strength to her expression. Nice work .

not to forget, thanks very much for your comments and adding into your favourite ^^ yeah, the eyes are your reminder indicator, right?

the composition was quite rough because that time, i used inappropriate materials, like wrong pencils. but it was listed as elite item due to the fact of the 'creative' idea in composing this piece

but my apologize for not having any thank you card. the photobucket was jammed once more.

hmm.....do you have any idea how the culture of giving thank cards begin? when i was here in the beginning, the thank card was so popular that it looks like a rule.

i apologize for late reply. do take care and see you around

Quote by mentisI appreciate your reply Misa-chan ^_^. It's good to hear that I'm not the only one who has been aware of these trends.

I actually was not aware that there was no leeching safeguard anymore, although I suppose the credits to act as that. As you said, I too enjoyed the level system to be honest. It made me strive a little harder, but then again only to a point. I noticed some of the elitism associated with that system. When I first started out, having to reach level ten to download scans was a great goal to reach. I was very happy with this because it made me interact with the community, and back then this place did seem more vibrant.

Now we might all be equal, but as you have mentioned people don't really contribute to the community as much. I strongly believe that the forum would benefit from having thread reply notifications. It won't solve anything, but for many people it will give them the opportunity to continue a discussion. This is because I see one of the problems being that people do not return to thread once they posted in them.

People will still post random stuff, as they always do. But those who are interested in a topic will then be able to come back to it easier and continue to take part in it.

And concerning the pointless GB posts, especially the "comment/fav" ones, I'm not exactly sure. One of the things I have noticed though, is that many users are not writing. They will simply post an image, which has a generic "thanks" in it. So this isn't even a post, but spam as you have noted. I believe that there is not usually a necessity for images in GB posts. It's an interesting novelty, and I don't mind it when holidays come around. So maybe, the thing to do would be to disable the image tags in GB posts. If we want holiday "cards" then there could be a designated day or two for each holiday where the images are allowed. Not having images in GB posts would also improve speed. Just think how many images are in user's GBs, that would then not have to be loaded anymore?

When you can't post images anymore, you are forced to actually write something. What a novel idea! This would force some people to be a little more personal in their "thank yous."

Overall, I don't think there's a magic pill to save MT from all the negatives. Sometimes I get frustrated with how slow the servers are, especially when they sort of randomly stop responding. So I think that a few limits on posting content would help. The elimination of images in GB posts would be a good start. Additionally I think there should also be a limit on content in userpages. Some people have so much crap on their UP, that it takes me forever to scroll past it just to get to the GB section. I mean, who really reads/looks at pages and pages of "friendship banners" and fan images for bands anyway? Some people take it a little too far. Music is also unnecessary and creates a lot of lag. I know some people like it, but it's really kind of pointless don't you think?

Anyway, I should probably stop while I'm behind . I feel myself getting frustrated thinking about this, and I don't want to rant at you. Though I hope that I have made some valid points. In the end, one thing is certain: something does need to change. If MT is to survive, and not become a hub for lurkers and useless content, things do need to change. At least a little.

Thank you for reading, and take care...

Oh mentis *huggles* It's like you are psychic and can read through all the things we've been discussing lately

We have been discussing about turning off image tags in guestbooks (though it'll probably be an option for the individual browser-) and we're slowly working out stuff on that. As for the long userpages, we've been thinking about imposing some sort of limit as well.
In my opinion, text can be unlimited (because it's just text...) but like you, I really don't like music. And youtube video after youtube video *_* I once was at someone's userpage and he had about 20 videos one after the other!

There are so many problems- but I guess it's about slowly dealing with each one by one. I'm hoping that we get more bandwidth (though I'm not really sure, because I think we did that recently- and by recently I mean 6 months ago *blanks out*)

Hopefully things will get better- and we might be able to get a thread subscription option ^^

But yeah, I guess after we fix these problems (whenever that'll be... there is an endless list of "to-do"'s), we'll have to think of some incentive to give members- that is, non-hierarchical, not subject to abuse and rewarding for members to contribute. Actually, I've been thinking of a new feature (keeping this secret for the meantime :P) which can recognise members- so hopefully that might help... though we have to implement another thing before that can happen properly ;D

Thanks for your posts <3 I don't mind rants at all :P I remember when I was a wee little member I ranted a lot about gallery comments (because I thought they seriously sucked) and a whole heap of other things like that terrible shoutbox ;D

Quote by mentisWell, how can I not fav something from my favorite artist? I can't . Thank you for sharing this with me, as I don't believe I've seen it yet. What artbook is it from?

Thanks so much for the comment and fav! I am so glad that you liked it! ^_^
The full title of the art book is Yoahitoshi ABe Lain Illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired. I still have alot more scans to submitt, but some of the images don't fit together perfectly, so I am going to have to fix them up a little bit. More stuff to do in the summer I suppose. . .^_^

Quote by mentisHi again Simo-chan

Now I think I understand... Though I believe Mira-chan has said that you are also friends in real life. She spoke fondly of you, and so I am happy to see that someone treats her well. She deserves it. And that is why I wanted to express my gratitude.

So what are those pets that you're going off to feed, hmmm? I have a cat. She's chubby, hairy, and annoying, ha ha! But I still like her. At least when she's not being noisy, begging for food, or shedding all over me .

Take care...

Hy!
Really nice words! and u are correct , in real life also.
We met 3 years ago in our first year at the university.She's the "master mind" that pulled me into the "dark" anime community and introduced me to MT. To which I'm very grateful
Right now, she's going to a tough period , she's ok but I'll let her tell u all about it.

oooo, I'm so sleepy-02:17AM(don't laugh but I usually go to sleep before midnight)so now I'm yawning like crazy>_< ,But I'm not given up , the computer is all mine .
A cat, I love cats! U got to love them, especially when they Purr! That calms me down .How old is she,btw? Did u know I just found out, It seems that cats with blue eyes are blind:(
My pets? ok... 2 cats, brother and sister and one dog but because I live in a house(backyard) Everyday is a reunion of cats from the neighbors, 2 aren't enough, let's count 6 and don't forget my dog that btw goes crazy when he sees the other cats, so u can imagine my everyday life with them.
Don't forget the fact , that the 3 of them are craving for my attention and there's a real competition and jealousy going on there .
@_@ Got to say, Good Night! I'm almost asleep ! I'm giving up! Bye! Catch u later!

Quote by mentisHey Kentaro-san, wie gehts ^_^? Vielen dank fur die favs. Bitte vergeb mein rostiges Deutsch. It has been a long time .

I very much appreciate it . Especially that you favored Mai, because my paintings don't get that much attention here on MT. A few people like them, but not as much as my Rokujo wall for example.

I am working on another painting right now, which will be finished in about a week. When it's done, I will also submit it to MT. If you'd like to be notified, feel free to put me on your watchlist .

Thank you again, und tschus!

hey mentis,
dein deutsch ist doch sehr gut

no prob with the fav. i like your mai-pic and your drawing style is very good.
so you will go right now on my watchlist

bis dann

Quote by mentisHi Chisai-chan . I am very sorry that I didn't write for so long. I know you posted in my GB some time ago. I haven't been on MT for a little while, because I got busy with life, work, the blog, projects, and everything else.

After my notifications started to pile up, I was afraid to face them all :P, ha ha. Well, it's good to see you're still doing good drawings. And now you've turned into Niea_7! ^_^ one of my favorites! So does that make you one of my favs too? Ha ha...

Well, I hope to hear from you again. And once more, I'm very sorry for neglecting you and the rest of MT ', gomen.

hey mentis-san! so nice to hear from you again! ya. it's been busy here too last couple of months, otoh, i got my college degree 5 days ago. so it's cool. no problem with not writing as early as you would like, sometimes it happens to me too, especially when notifs go as high as 400+ .... .. however, it's really great to hear from mentis san again. anything new that keeps you busy? hehe. niea rox, as well as ABe. tnx for the comments and tc!

Thanks for the nickname and your welcome. You said/typed that I could drop by and write/type a few lines so here it is. I haven't seen your other pieces yet but I'm going to. You take care too. Ja ne! Bye.

P.S. My grammar's horrible. Sorry. Gomen.

Quote by mentisHey, Czesc Karo-chan! It's been such a long time. I see you're still around though, and you're userpage is different now too .

Do you have any new artwork? I'd love to see some . Hey, you might also like some work by this person... nooka.minitokyo.net, her drawings remind me of yours a little. Or is it that your drawings remind me of her? Hmmm... :P....

Yak tam w Polsce? I got my US citizenship in November, so now I can get a passport! I can finally visit Poland again after all these years . I'm excited, and I hope to go soon. Write back and let me know how you are doing. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you ^_^.

Take care...

Hey hey, soorry again for late reply x3
"Karo-chan" - that's sweet xD
Yep, I'm still around, buuut not as much as used to :P, i visit PDTC, and i'm faving sometimes :P, yeah, my up is differend but messy :/ I need to change there someting but I'm too lazy to do that :P
As a matter of fact yes i have new works, but...again to lazy to post them, but i'll post them for you later , As for that person, i don't know her..but she has interesting works :P

In Poland...it's ok xP right now it's rainig ha ha :P (it's 9:08 pm and i'm still in work :P)
Ohh u can get ur passport? That's great! :3 congratz to you my dear I hope too that u will be able to go to Poland soon
I'm glad that you wrote to me^^
Take care :3

Quote: Thank you for writing back . The reason I said I didn't know if you spoke English was, well I just didn't want to make any assumptions. But I suppose maybe I should have spent more time on your userpage :P.

Once more, I am happy that you enjoyed my work, and also that you like my userpage. The layout is made up of two characters from my paintings (which are in my gallery). So maybe you'll find other work in there that you'll find interesting ^_^.

I did not realize that English was so widely taught in your country, though I think that is good. Just don't forget your own heritage in the process, ha ha . I've always wanted to see the middle-east. But with the way things are going these days, I doubt that this will come to pass. Just so you know, even though I live in the US now, I'm actually from Poland. Just wanted to point that out :P.

I'm actually listening to a CD which is a reading of poetry by Hafiz, along with instrumental accompaniment. It's quite wonderful. Not sure if you've heard of him, but he was a Sufi mystic. I find Arabic music very enjoyable in general.

Anyway, I'll stop boring you now, . Nice to hear from you ^_^. Take care...

ahh nice, now i get to tell you the same, i never met a person from Poland ^^ nice to make your acquaintance ^^

again sorry for the late reply...just ...kinda been rather occupied ^^'

hahaha true, when you think about it, it would be hard for a person who does not know english to be around MT, everything here is in english ne...

lools well...i think it is interesting around here at times, and you are right, with conditions as such, i won't expect to hear from you anytime soon that you decided to drop by the middle east for a visit

oh? Arabic music...heheh pretty odd i rarely find myself liking a song...more into Japanese and English songs as well as a few Korean and Greek ^^ ..never heard of Hafiz...hmm oh well ^^' glad you are enjoying it then

take care too ^^ hope to hear from you again as well
have a nice day and life

Quote by mentisAh, okay. I haven't noticed this before. That makes it a little easier. Previously I tried getting there by going to CP/Forum Posts, but that doesn't link the threads they were in, so I quickly stopped using that feature. This helps, but of course, as you say, it doesn't tell you if there have been any replies. I believe that a "subscription" option is a must for any forum, and most forums out there have it. In fact, MT is the only forum I belong to that doesn't :P.

Now, maybe I've become a little jaded having been on MT for so long, but maybe there is something to this... It just seems that participation in the MT community, which is so wonderfully encouraged initially (and that's one of the things that drew me to MT), has now become stale and shallow...

To be more specific, I find that many guestbook entries are merely "thanks for the comment/fav." They are impersonal, and not even meant to actually thank the person, but to increase the users post count and raise their participation level. I think the problem with forum posts is also related to this issue, with users posting just to post. As a whole, I see this trend where communication in this community is become impersonal, and less mature. I don't know that there is a whole lot one can do about it, but I am always willing to come up with ideas if so desired.

So that's my take on things. I don't even know if that's helpful at all. But maybe it's at least informative. Thank you for listening, I really appreciate it, Misa-chan ^_^!

Take care...

Yup, you're completely right about the forums and just about everything.

We've noticed the trend with the really poorly thought out forum replies and the thank you messages. We're thinking of ways to reduce those thank you messages: simply because they are spam (if they are in text form, minus the images we don't really care as much, but overall they shouldn't be copy and paste messages) and it encourages people to just fave everything to get guestbook replies, friend adds and a couple of other things. We don't mind the activity, but as you said, it's shallow and it's not a very meaningful kind of interaction. We're hoping to somehow tweak that so that we'd get less of those messages.

As for the forums, they've long been kind of crappy because people simply don't want to engage in long discussions. They want to keep their posts short and get the credits in rolling. And it's usually these threads that engage people... there was some stuff here: Problems with Minitokyo and How to Address Them: a Discussion

There's a bunch of stuff many members have written down... we haven't really implemented any of those, though.

The forum is hard to change or fix though- it has to do with the community and communal or collective objectives of the posters. Some people post for credits, others recreation, and some really do want to engage themselves in the community.

I guess a lot of this forum and stuff just happened to be the result of the general community- we had a different community back then (smaller and probably people wanted to work for their levels). The thing about levels which is so appealing, is the privileges you could get: level 10, unlimited downloads, level 20, groups, level 50, shoutbox, level 100, legend. In a way, it really did give Minitokyo a hierarchical kind of thing- you felt pleased to be "elevated" than many others, but as a result it ended up in elitism and bullying of others.
In reality, the levels weren't really an indication of superiority- they were only just indications of how active (or hyperactive :P) you were on Minitokyo. But this made people very active... which kind of just worked *_* (even though people abused the system...)
There were those who would do anything to get up to those levels quickly in order to gain a "higher status" when they clearly didn't deserve to: a tasteless ecchi wallpaper which would make you gain 2 levels overnight. And so on.

Without these levels, I guess people found the prospect of earning credits to actually be able to do the things they previously could do for "free" or get to very easily (I remember I got to level 10 in like a week) unattractive.

In a way, I see some benefits of the previous system (no use making leeching accounts, because you couldn't download scans until level 10... or at least I think so anyway- too long to remember ) and the activity bursting through.
But then there are some in this system- I personally think it's fairer and everyone is much much more equal.

But at the same time when everyone is so equal, it almost... makes the community really generalised...? It might be a very simplistic way of putting it, but I guess it's sort of like "who cares about what I write- even if it's stupid. Nobody will care". Whereas I think the in the previous system, I'm sure there are some people who are like "ZOMG I'm level 95, I must act like I'm a really mature person and really helpful member to the community- MAYBE I MIGHT GET PROMOTED WHEN I GET TO LEVEL 100! YES!" and then write something meaningful at least.

I guess, whether or not anyone had that kind of motive isn't very important: I guess the important thing is that the levels did somewhat influence even the most immature people into writing something thoughtful to contribute. Whereas nowadays, people (though very very few) have their eyes on an elite member status (it's just human nature to want higher levels, or a pretty username)- simply because there are priviliges- again!

It's that sort of curiosity that makes people want to keep contributing good things because they want to know what kind of privileges there are. And by saying that, people will eventually do things, hoping that it'll help them step by step closer to satisfying that curiosity: making reports, writing good posts, posting good gallery items and comments- writing good guestbook posts to have more closer friends in the community and setting themselves out a very good image.

Anyway, I've gotten a bit off topic and farfetched lol, but I guess part of the problem with the forums is that people stopped posting at least meaningful posts (a great majority, anyway), because they don't believe that there is a need to write anything thoughtful or long. They want to get the credits in order to download more and be able to privilege themself when they want to make a new group or download gallery items. The privileges of status and the curiosity of levels and "I wonder what a shoutbox looks like..." has been minimised to basically only "what privileges do admins/ elites/ mods/ retired mods have?" - because we have eliminated the numerical levels and their assigned bonuses.

I wish there was something we could do to elevate this level of curiosity in the community- and I highly doubt that the levels system would ever come back. But it would probably be great if there was a similar thing- only less hierarchical.

Anyway, sorry for the longwinded post!

^^/