Thanks for this forum!

[Philippe Hurbain]

I must admit that I was skeptical to move discussions from Lugnet/cad to here, but seeing the huge activity here now, and all the new guys appearing, it was a wise move! So many thanks to all involved in the creation of this new LDraw home!!!

[Orion Pobursky]

Trust me, I was the last person who wanted to move. I love Lugnet but due to it's continued stagnation after Todd left, it became a huge barrier to fruitful discussion. A lot of the critics of the move weren't the people going to conventions and meetings to hear people say that they'd love to contribute but Lugnet's system was too cryptic or too much of a hassle. So I waited... a long time... too long probably... and it broke my heart to leave but had to be done...

[Tim Gould]

My experience after creating the flickr LDraw group was what convinced me. So many people signed up to say hello who had never once posted on LUGNET because they couldn't. After that I knew we had to make somewhere accessible.

Tim

[Jim DeVona]

I think it's a very encouraging sign for health of the LDraw community that there has been so much activity here. Sometimes I worried it was stagnant or even sort of cliquish, but now I think that impression was just an artifact of Lugnet's intricacy. I am enthusiastic about the new projects and discussions I have read about here.

[Jean-Philippe Ouellet]

Speaking as one of those long time lurkers, I've been reading lugnet.cad since I first found out about ldraw in fifth grade, but haven't ever been able to contribute.

As soon as I saw the post announcing the opening of these forums, I jumped on over and was among the first to sign up.

I am extremely thankful for the creation of this forum because it provided me with a voice in the community that had not been available to me before.

On a similar, albeit less happy, note: As a minor gripe, I still have no proper way of conveying my thoughts to the LSC as their forum is private. I think it is perfectly reasonable for the LSC to want to restrict posting in its discussions to only its members, however, I simply wish that were not the case, especially since this community (so far) seems to be a place where nearly all discussion that takes place is constructive. IMHO, I don't see why the LSC shouldn't simply be the authoritative voting body of the LDraw community, and open discussion to the community at large.

I understand the importance of not passing amendments which would be counterproductive to the advancement of LDraw in general, and that it is the members of the LSC who are best equipped to judge whether a proposed change would have adverse effects or not because it is comprised of members who best understand the workings of the currently available set of ldraw tools, and to whom the effects of said changes would be the most readily apparent. None the less, I still wish I had a proper channel for providing input to the fundamentally democratic process of establishing standards.

Just my two cents.

[Orion Pobursky]

I still have no proper way of conveying my thoughts to the LSC

The description of the "Parts Authoring and Official File Standards" forum says "the official public forum for the LDraw Standards committee" and the "General LDraw.org Discussion" forum is the same thing only for the Steering Committee.

[Tim Gould]

> On a similar, albeit less happy, note: As a minor
> gripe, I still have no proper way of conveying my
> thoughts to the LSC as their forum is private.
--snip--
> apparent. None the less, I still wish I had a
> proper channel for providing input to the
> fundamentally democratic process of
> establishing standards.
>
> Just my two cents.

You certainly do have a space to contribute to LSC discussions, as I do here (for example). Especially if you mark you post with 'Attention LSC'.

IMO democratic development of standards will almost always fail because it is so far from a black and white issue. There are always two sides to any decision and trying to find consensus in a large group is just impossible. However, you can always read the discussions by the LSC and comment on them in the open forum.

As with any organisation a balance must be found between democracy and pragmatism. Either extreme has problems.

[Jean-Philippe Ouellet]

My mistake. Apparently I am blind.

[Orion Pobursky]

No worries! Glad to have you.

[Jude Parrill]

I agree. For quite a while, I'd used the LDraw files and wanted to contribute, but wasn't able to join LUGNET. I mean, I remember the 90's fondly as well, but come on, forums have progressed so much since then!

I was really happy when I was finally able to sign up and contribute on these forums. Unfortunately, nowadays my job keeps me pretty busy, which means less time for LDraw, but I'm still glad I can participate when I feel like it.

[Chris Dee]

I felt the same, but I am really encouraged by the new enthusiasm that this forum has generated.

[Jordan Ladd]

I am tremendously glad that this forum exists! I just stumbled on the new MLCAD version as I was at Frye's looking to buy a good computer to run LDRAW on. The associate helping me out stumbled on your forum looking to find what other people were running. Needless to say I was pretty excited to get home and install the update hoping beyond hope that the "undo" button actually worked. I almost scared my wife when I shouted and jumped out of my chair when I tested it out. Hooray! No more saving every two seconds on large builds.