I'm scared...someone hold me...

[ZOMBIE USER 8124]

Heh heh...I on a whim (more like a masochisim spree) took a stroll over to the Keenspot forum. It was scary! No one likes anyone, and almost everyone seems to be agreed on one thing- that keenspace is some kind of comic dumping ground because of all the abuse and stuff. I really would like to understand what fosters or harbors this kind of mentality. There was even someone saying that keenspace should be deleted altogether. I would like to know what people think could be attributing to this! Everyone over here seems pretty amiable towards each other, even if we don't like everyone's comics. But over there...*shivers* it's mostly a war zone. Once again...scary....do not go....hold me...;_;
What do you think promotes a "get along" mentality here, and a "almost everyone is my enemy" mentality there? There's nothing different- even the color schemes in the forums are the same!!!!
I...I can't figure it out! It hurts my brain! (But that could be the sleep depravation, you never know...) Please, any thoughts?

[Jamie!]

*Holds Yanagi-san*
Don't worry, it'll be OK, honest. I went over to the keenspot forums too, and yes, it IS scary. Alot of people were upset about o'l bobby's vision for keenspot/keenspace.
I'm sure it'll all die down eventually... I hope.

But they are all showing hostility towards keenspot. [edit: I mean keenSPACE!]
Kinda like Keen raceisum (?)
Ayways, the fact that we all get along shows just how spiffy we all really are!

[Ashess]

hostility toward keenspace you mean. yeah. maybe the fame got to their head.. but what's this dream you talk about?

[Jamie!]

http://forums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.php?t=42807 <--- click to read bobbys vision

[ZOMBIE USER 8124]

Thank you Jamie!, I needed that! ^_^
(So scary, monsters are gonna eat me don't let the monsters eat me...!)
Uh, yeah the "Plan" was scary. And wierd. And had lots of holes. But mostly scary. Hooray for Keenspace unity! Yay! Yay!
I just feel forums shouldn't be reduced to senseless namecalling and tossing of various pointy objects across the room at each other! I'm sure lots of you agree! (Odd bunch, those 'Spotters....) ^^;
I just don't get it!!!

[KODAMA]

hehehe..
tell you the truth I don't really enjoy reading other keenspace comics..
a lot of them aren't exactly what I am looking for...
(disproportionate bodies/boring plots or annoying layout or comic design)

~_~; after dealing with a bunch of immature people most of my day day
the last thing I want to do is read some really badly drawn webcomic with a hidious wanna-be-an-anime-character deisgn.

bleh.. I just want to read something that I could actually learn something off,
like maybe a neat screen tone trick or a cool way to draw backgrounds or hair.. etc

~u~; (yes, I am stupid, like I said the past two times)

[ZOMBIE USER 8296]

Keenspace: Half the comics aren't even comics, just blank pages. Half of the remaining are utter trite and contrived crap. Half of what's past that is tired anime-ish cliched crap.

Keenspot: Despite being promoted well, some of these comics can't keep their own posted schedule, and some aren't what you'd call "uber comics", just mediocre work that appeals based on a target subject matter (anime, near-nudity, video games, really good art with barely any substance).

hmm... I guess that means my comic is utter trite and contrived crap? that's good right?!

[KODAMA]

"really good art with barely any substance)."

--oi.. that sounds like me (smacKs herself with the mouse)

[Kave Straye]

The thing is that you can't really take Keenspace (or even that other one) and say it's all crap, and should be beaten to a blood pulp. True there are some comics that are utter crap, but some of them are actualy REALLY good.

[Zuri]

* pat pats Yanagi-San * There there now. It's okay.

Having checked out the forums of which you are refering to, I can say that I have seen other similar arguments elsewhere. It seems that Keenspace is not viewed particularly fondly in many comic forums/cliques.

I see this happening for a number of reasons, some of which may be valid and worth considering, others are just stupid. The artistic temperment is a rather touchy thing, the sematics of which we could and have argued for centuries. I've observed that there is a sort of eliteism prevailent on those boards, of which we don't see here. I'm not suggesting that everyone who posts there is a stuck up, snobby artist, but I do see some people who seem to feel a need to push their points to a point of absurdity. It also seems that many of these 'elite' individuals ( including those on other comic forums such as comicon.com's forums ) look down on keenspacers in general. They fancy themselves the 'cream of the crop' or with some kind of authority, and even if they are still a webcomic publisher, they are still fell they are closer to being real comic artist than they think keenspacers are. I think this is untrue in many ways but that's just me. These people are also comic readers, which, I have found, are some of the most nitpicking and tempermental individuals in the world about their artform of choice, which is comics.

There are some points there about keenspace that I can see. There are problems with keenspace, that even we, the keenspacers agree with. Because keenspace is free to everyone, there is a lot of crap and a lot of dead stuff that ends up on keenspace. There is no form of quality control which is both good and bad. It is good because that means everyone gets a shot at trying their hand at a comic, but bad because it becomes very difficult to seperate quality material from generic crap. There is no pressure to meet a quality standard, update standard, or even to post anything at all. There is a feeling of comradie and equality here in that we are all kind of on the 'bottom rung' of the online comic scene, just trying to get better and enjoy what we do. Its a hobby, something fun to hone our skills on and maybe even amuse someone. It makes for a more unified and open community, at least, I think.

Personally, I think that there are some things that could be done to improve keenspace's reputation that don't have anything to do with keenspot or whatever, although I know that the admins and such are likely very busy and don't have the time they would like to spend on the free end of their services. Not to mention, I'm pretty much a complete nobody to them, and my ideas are not substantiated in anyway..but, here are my pennies regardless.

Complaint #1: "Keenspace is full of crap, you can't find anything but crap on it."
Possible Solution(s): As keenspace is ment as a free hosting service to *anyone* who wants comic space, there is going to be crap ( and probably a lot of it ). HOWEVER, I believe that this particular statement is frusteration based. Keenspace is very disorganised and despite efforts to the contrary, remains so. Probably due to volume of sites. It is very difficult for someone to just walk in to the keenspace main site and locate a comic, or comic group which appeals to their interests. It seems to be the general concensus that most 'good' keenspace comics are found through personal faves link lists, fan work done or a more popular comic, dropdowns, or by word of mouth.

Now obviously we would not want to destroy keenspace's principle function of being a webcomic hosting service for everyone, but I think that it could be tweeked by organization and making it easier to locate comics on the space.

Firstly, I suggest some way of searching the comics here. I know there is the new keenspace guide, but it's still horrifically hard to locate the type of comic I would want to read. Also, it seems very incomplete, which is frusterating. But it is a good start in the right direction. There needs to be a way of easily and quickly locating comics by type, genera, subject, #of comics, etc( keyword or category). Something that I found missing from the guide ( I don't know if it's planned or not ) is an art sample ( ie- a 100x100 icon perhaps?)as comic readers are generally visual people and like to see an idea of what a comic might look like before they bother to go and load the entire page. personally, i find an art sample to be more useful than all the text in the world. Also add a way for the artist to edit or submit information about their comic. I know mine for a fact has a very incomplete listing. A rating box may also be handy, but I do realize that those can be fudged. Perhaps it could be reset once a month.

Secondly, I suggest omitting sites that are empty and old from the main listing and overall search. It would make Keen look more 'clean' in that at least all the comics you find in the listing have been updated in the last six months or something. I'm not saying delete them from the server or restrict access, but basically don't allow empty or dusty sites to be included in searches, so when people find comics via the search, they know they are active comics. I think this would make keenspace look a little cleaner and encourage people when they get their accounts to get something up and to update more often.

I also think that exceptional comics should get some form of recognition on Keenspace. Keenspot is like a holy elevation hardly anyone from Keenspace reaches. Its like winning the lottery. You have to be popular *and* liked by the admin. But what if you may still be pretty damn good but maybe you don't suit their tastes? So why not have something on Keenspace which recognizes excellence? Would it be possible to develop something like a Keenspace only awards? or maybe just a Spotlight section, accessable from the main site, which highlights the best/most interesting of keenspace?

Complaint #2 - Most Keenspace comics suck in art and/or writing. ( basically more 'Keenspace is crap'.)
Possible Solution(s): I know I joined Keenspace to work on a comic to get better at it. I think other people might have joined with similar aspirations. I think a lot of us Keenspacers are 'works in progress'. Perhaps we can help each other? There is a tips and techniques forum now, which I think is cool. What about a comic art and writing tutorials area? Maybe as a part of the gear? Accessable from the main site? Tips on writing, art, photoshop, psp, layout, typography, resources, yada? Anyone else be interested in something like this?

Thats all I can think of right now. I've rambled quite long enough.

[ZOMBIE USER 8296]

I quite agree with the idea of cleaning out Keenspace, I even have a friend who's had comic space for at least a month and hasn't done anything with it, even though I keep yelling at him to do so. I think that's the biggest problem, someone comes to the site and keeps finding empty comics or comics with only a few strips from a year ago and gets sick of trying to find any good comics.

The other thing, about tips and tricks, there actually is a place in the forum, <A HREF="viewforum.php?f=695">clicky!</A>, where you can go for that, and even if you don't want to go there, many people just ask for opinions on their comic in this here General Discussion area from other comic peoples. I for one have gotten a couple forceful prods in the right direction and am working to improve my comic.

Anyway, part of the reason some of the KeenSpot comic peoples might not want change is so that they aren't associated with the general rifraf of KeenSpace

[ZOMBIE USER 8124]

Thank you Zuri! ;_;

It's funny, because I have an odd analogy; Keenspace is like the Projects/slums (ok, just work with me here ^^;) They are necessary, they house people who need it. A lot of crap goes down there, but a lot of good people come out (like artists and doctors and social workers and nurses and things). And people think it's an eyesore. But what can you do? Of course you'll get the local boozer, or the dirty old man in B23 down the hall, the woman that lives in the dumpster, or the guy who hasn't paid rent in 6 months. But do people want to burn down the Projects? No, they petition to clean them up. I'm insane, I've been awake for 24 hours straight now, and this seems like a great simile right now. But you get what I mean! I personally don't have a problem with the 'Space right now, but I can see that it could be better. Everything, no matter how good it is, can always improve just that little fraction. I just wish that people didn't get in <i>barfights</i> over it! It's like a pentium 1 running on 16 megs of EDO ram...you kick it and wait and yell and wait and click and yell and wait and scream and then it loads solitare just fine ^_^ (I have just described my laptop. Pathetic, ne?) Alright, enough rambling- my point is, support the slums? No, that's not it...support the....dirty old man in B23? No! Support keenspace! Be glad you're here! And everybody knows your name. And your name, and your name, and even your name. And I know I'm thankful for what little free webspace I can get nowadays, especially without a bandwidth cap! ^_^
Ok, I'm done, I promise, I'm traumatized enough, and so are you. Thanks for listening to sleep-depraved-ness

[Twentyfour]

I started a "KeenSpace=BAD????" thread... I came to two conclusions based on peoples replies(ranging in the 40 range right now)

1. OFFBEAT! really isn't that nice of a guy... *shrug*... he's highly opinionated and doesn't think to highly of well...anyone.... I dunno what anyone else thinks, but he dropped off my x-mas card list

2. Alotta people believe in stereotypes overthere(and to be fair, here too!) And tend to just believe what someone else starts as a rumour. They're all talking about there only being 1500 comics here, then someone says we're 7000 strong.... a quick stop by Kisai's guide(god bless Kisai for makin it the way it is... i.e. BETTER!)and you'll see EXACTLY how many cmpletely emty comics there are, you can view by updated last etc.... Just a buncha lazy whiners are the only oes to fear, for the most part KeenSpot people are nice intelligent people. It's the uninformed assholes that tend to start up shit like this.

And with that, I'm gonna go start 3 more comics and never update

[ZOMBIE USER 8296]

tee hee

[Chascraw4d]

*hugs Yanagi-San*

On the flip side. There are over 7000 or so Keenspace comics and yet there are fewer than (guessing) 50? regular posters in these forums. People tend to only post here because they like the community, which helps make this a friendlier place.

I wouldn't say we're on the 'bottom rung' per say. We're definately a step up from comics posted on free sites like geocities or altavista. However, I do think we tend to get the lion's share of flak because we're at least organized enough to present a decent target.

Keenspot might be a little oversensitive as well, simply because we share so many resources. If the Keensites in general are having bandwidth problems (as they have been in recent months), then Keenspace makes the most convienient scapegoat for frustrations

[Sidwood]

It's not our fault that half the sites on Keenspace have no comics. It's the administration's fault for not deleting those sites after they have been clearly abandoned by their respective artists. 'Spotters who say that there are no good comics on Keenspace aren't looking very hard. They are blinded by thier own (false) sense of superiority.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic; I can best relate this situation to the Soviet Union, circa 1950. Here, we have an oligarchy of cartoonists, enjoying better exposure, more readership, and M-O-N-E-Y for their efforts. And then there's us Keenspacers. The rabble. The plebs, the proles, etc. Call us what you like. We don't get to have all the fancy bells and whistles like the Keenspotters do, and the so-called "disorganization" and "confusion" is a direct result of it. The servers are always down, there is NO intervention of KeenAdmins, except to occaisionally say "salsbury steak will be served on Tuesday" or some other unimportant blurb.

An excerpt from the discussion over at the Kremlin, a.k.a. Keenspot:

I can SEE the difference between your 'KeenSpot' and your 'Keenspace' sites; they probably could not be combined; Keenspot is fairly well organized, and Keenspace is a total mess of titles (the majority of which do not actually contain any work).

Bah! Bah, I say! Like I said earlier, all these sites on Keenspace that have no work are only still around because THEY WERE NEVER REMOVED BY THE ADMINISTRATION!

There is an air of classism behind the Red Curtain, and I don't like it one bit. They're constantly referring to us as "second-tier" comics... P'shaw.

[ZOMBIE USER 9264]

Hey sometimes being the underdog is fun, but after some close examination; wow, KeenSpot has many an opinionatied jackass!

No offence to anyone, but quite frankly I find most of the comics on KeenSpot sub-par. The only reason they're there is because some guys like them. Its an opinion thing. My favorite comics are mainly in KeenSpace or just not on the KeenNetwork.
Basically, it seems like since they get chosen over us, they get the right to loath and ridicule us.

I wish I could prove them all wrong.
*plots*

[KODAMA]

maybe if users could kill their accounts on their own (in the member homepage)
there would be less keenspace sites with junk (and old old [as in years] stuff)

:d.. I kind of wish there were a way to report abuse too
(ex: keenspace sites storing MP3s or other non-comic related stuff.)


~u~ (just a suggestion)

[Sidwood]

::MY 7-POINT PROPOSAL FOR KEENSPACE AND KEENSPOT::

1) Keenspace needs to be torn down and rebuilt. In the new version, the abandoned sites (the ones that have no comics, or no comics since 1998, etc.) will be deleted from the server. There needs to be an extensive card-catalog system, separating the 3200+ strips into browsable categories.

2) Keenspot should only have 30 strips on it. The strips that go there will be decided annually by a vote of readers and creators. The top thirty will go to Keenspot (and recieve all the benefits found therein). If that means that some existing Keenspot comics have to go, then so be it. That's democracy for you.

3) The KeenCon should be held at a convention more centrally located (center of the U.S., that is. Apologies to non-American 'Spacers.) Why should a 'Spacer (or a 'Spotter, for that matter) in New York or Toronto have to fly all the way out to California (where, coincidentially, many of the Keen-elite are resident) while West-coast residents get to take a short drive? Why don't we hold it in Chicago or something? St. Louis? I'm not sure, but I think they have comic conventions there, too.

4) The Newsboxes for Keenspace and Keenspot should be a combined package. That means Keenspot comics will advertise for Keenspace comics. And Keenspace comics will advertise for Keenspot comics. And speaking of the Newsbox, how does it even work? Is there even a Keentag for it? I could never get it to work, no matter what I did. But I digress.

5) You know that little bar at the top of Keenspot comics? Y'know... "Want more Keen? Try this spot..." and then the dropdown? Make one of those for Keenspace comics. We need all the cross-promotion we can get.

6) Eliminate the absolute authority of the Keen Four. I touched on this subject in Point 2. Why should the Keen Four be the only shareholders? Go public! I'll buy some stock...then they actually have to listen to what I have to say. If I had to fly all the way to California to go to a Keen shareholder's meeting, it would be worth it if even ONE of these points would be implemented. (Note: I'm pretty sure that Keenspace HASN'T gone public, but I could be wrong.)

7) Both Keens should put out even more comic books. I know that Keenspot prints a lot of comics (and it's STILL not enough), but Keenspace hardly puts out ANY. Those presses should be operating CONSTANTLY.

Now, I'm not privy to the details of Keen's economic status (i.e. ad revenue figures, comic book sales figures, sever costs, etc.) But I'm sure this plan, maybe with some slight adjustments, can be brought to fruition.

============================================

My... fingers... are... BLEEDING....

[Sidwood]

Anyone who has thoughts on my 7-point plan, posted above, should post their comments in the new "READ IT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" thread. Thankie-poo.