38 replies to this topic

[Jogumpie]

Dear SSC members,

I'd like to hear your opinions on the companies on SSC as a whole. I expect argumentation, no simple "I'm cool with it" replies. Are you content with the companies? Would you want things to change? Why are you (not) in a company? I'd like to hear all things you can tell about them.

Regards,
Gump

[Knexrule11]

I love the idea of company's, but they need some changes in my opinion.

First, I think a rule thats somewhat like "you need _____ posts, and have to have been here for _____ months to join a company" to be made.

And the rule that we got rid of "You need two members, and to have been here _____, and have ___ posts to make a company"

Right now, noobs want to be in a company right away, but no one will hire them. So they make their own company. The old rule thats gone now stopped that earlier, but now becouse its gone, company's don't get members as easily anymore, becouse by the time there good enough, they've made there own company.


I think some rules like that should be made.


Why did I join a company? Well, its just fun. Having a place to post secret stuff that only some people can see just is fun. I also think it helps me build, I don't know why.

But most importantly, I like being in our company because I've made some new friends. If I was not in Sferico, I would not be friends with Mynci, and Rsteele. They are very nice and helpfull to me.


Anything else?

Glad I could help.

KR11

[SuperTKDKid]

I love the idea of company's, but they need some changes in my opinion.

First, I think a rule thats somewhat like "you need _____ posts, and have to have been here for _____ months to join a company" to be made.

And the rule that we got rid of "You need two members, and to have been here _____, and have ___ posts to make a company"

Right now, noobs want to be in a company right away, but no one will hire them. So they make their own company. The old rule thats gone now stopped that earlier, but now becouse its gone, company's don't get members as easily anymore, becouse by the time there good enough, they've made there own company.


I think some rules like that should be made.


Why did I join a company? Well, its just fun. Having a place to post secret stuff that only some people can see just is fun. I also think it helps me build, I don't know why.

But most importantly, I like being in our company because I've made some new friends. If I was not in Sferico, I would not be friends with Mynci, and Rsteele. They are very nice and helpfull to me.


Anything else?

Glad I could help.

KR11

I mostly agree with this. The part that I dont agree with is where you say the rule for joining company. I personnaly believe that it should be a company's decision. Some wait and watch people, some don't. Builders of Faith hired me and im really enjoying it there. Of course, im a newbie (i dont consider myself one though), but they were willing to hire me and I said yes.

Also a suggestion: When you post something in your company's private section in the company forums, I think that it should send everyone in the company a notification to something has been posted (I dont know f it does this so if it does please disregard this suggestion).

[ForgotToGrowUp]

As an older member, I never got the appeal these make believe companies have to younger members.

The reason companies exist in the real world is to make money. It is the desire to make money that fosters the need for secrecy, loyalism, competitiveness and also exclusion.

Why are these traits desirable for an online community of people who enjoy sharing a past time. No one is here to make money, I assume everyone is here simply because they love roller coasters and building things out of Knex.

Companies are a product of capitalism in a society, without currency or trade they have little to no value.

Personally I think they detract from this website. As great a resource as this site is, and as fun as it is, all noobs and many others are not getting as much out of it as they could. In turn, this exclusive nature of companies may discourage the non-company members from sharing as much themselves or from participating on the site as much as they might if it were different. I have been asked to join a couple of companies but have declined saying I have no interest. I would much rather keep all my questions and answers in the open public forum.

This obsession with coasters and Knex that brings people together here is a trait of a very small subculture of the population. Why not make it as open as possible to share with this small group of like minded people as much possible. In the end everyone benefits. Ideas will grow quicker with more information being shared.

Even in the competitive capitalistic real world companies merge to make themselves more diverse. I work for a very large company in the real world and one of the underlying themes of our success is diversity and inclusiveness. We all share one thing in common, making money for our company.

You all share something much more personal, which is a love of a simple clean past time. Why not merge all your companies and become like one big open community. That doesn't mean you can't have a group of friends here or share private communications. It just means there is more information available to more people here. You will all benefit.

Just one man's opinion.

[Jonny]

Well, I think that the company idea is cool! The thing I disagree on is Knexrule11's post on how many posts and be on the coaster for a certain amount of time. I don't think it is fair. There are really good builders out there that are not already on here. What is they make a account and want to be in a company? It just wouldn't be fair that they have to have a certain amount of posts and be on here for a certain amount of months.

I joined a company because when I first joined SSC, I thought that you had to be in a company. When I realized I didn't have to be in a Company I didn't care and just thought it would be cool to be in one. My first company I join, RAM ( No longer a company ) was cool. Sadly, I was still a noob and apparently I was not aware that Spamming and bumping old threads was not aloud ( I was very stupid ) So I got Booted . My Second company was Airtime Coasters. It was a cool company. But then, after a while the staff, Kool Coaster Kid, stopped being on the sight and the company members were all gone. Me and Eggo quit because of no activity. No other companies wanted to hire me so I made Mini Coaster Creators! For noobs and old members!

[da master826]

I believe that you need to be here a certain amount time, not posts, to make a company. But people can be hired by companies whenever with whatever number of posts.
I don't think the company classifications are necessary because all the members do all of the things anyway, and there have been very few joint operations.
Other than that I can't think of any major problems I have with it.

I joined Aminspec because I though it would be cool, and since it would be hypocritical if I didn't when I strongly supported the original idea. I really enjoy being in, and especially Co-Presiding Aminspec. It's great to have smaller communities inside a big community so you get to know some people better.

- Da Master826
Aminspec Co-President

[the_burrito_master]

I think the companies have definetly helped improve peoples all around building styles, But I still think just about the same thing as I did when it was created. I think it's just segregating the SSC community. I wouldn't miss the companies if they no longer existed, to me it's kinda pointless.

I will say it's amazing what some of the companies have done that they couldn't have if they weren't together.

Just my 2 cents.
TBM

[Maxlaam]

-snip-

They are just like a role-playing game. What's so bad about it?

Oh wait, making money? DD does make money, most of the time though

[Jogumpie]

Seeing so few activity in most companies, I wondered if people are still liking it. I do think that the 'company craze' is over.

[Rollerboaster]

My interest in companies has died, but maybe that's just because my interest in knex in general isn't as great anymore. I think the site as a whole has just been pretty slow lately, or at least it seems that way.

[TheSUCKCrew]

I suppose it's just because of the fact that I'm in DD, but I experience it as a really good thing.
As long as you join a company that has the same skill as you, you're golden IMO.
There are times you want to ask something, but you are not in the mood to get comments from total noobs/people that are too good for you, you can always ask your company for help.
Companys definetly are a good thing to me.
We just have to make sure that there will be no un-neccesary companys.
If there are less companys, there will be more members for each company, so they will get more active.
A company with only 4 people will never work, because if you start a discussion there, it will take ages before you get a comment, and most of the times they will not help a lot.
And the rule for how long you must be on the forum before joining, is a smart thing.
In the first 2 months of a members membership, he will improve the most.
But when a company asks a noob to join in the first week, there is a 80%chance he will say yes, only because he thinks all these coasters are better as his.
Giving someone a little time before letting them join would work for me....

-Suck.

[~stεεlspectrum~]

As I recall, the companies were first created to help people specialize in a certain 'industry', such as inventions. And in some cases, it has. By being in SteelWay Inventions with other inventors, it has inspired me and given me ideas to make my own inventions.Unfortunately, I feel that the people who have benefited are the minority.

I think that a lot of companies have had a neutral effect on people's building. From my experience, people often join a company because they think they will automatically benefit from it, or even just to say they are in that company. The problem here is that very little discussion or working-together is going on inside the companies, defeating the purpose.

Lastly, I believe that companies can even have a negative effect on some members. It seems to me that people who are not in a company or do not get into the company they want feel rejected or 'noob-ish' (in some cases).

Overall, I think that the concept of companies itself is not a bad one. However, the way they are implemented on SSC and the way the individual companies are run here tend to have a negative effect.
I'm not saying we should completely do away with companies. In fact, I take a lot of pride in my company and I have formed pretty close friendships with other members in SteelWay. There are some exceptions, like Dutch Details, that actually do stuff in real life and benefit from being in a company. But for the most part, companies aren't helping SSC's builders as much as we hoped.

-Steel

[Old_Hag]

I think steel hit the nail on the head there.... The Steelway forum(s) are pretty much dead.

[-=TK=-]

But the fact is that all the members of DD live in Holland or in Belgium, we all live close to eachother, look at Koen and me, we only have to drive 2- hours to be at gump's house (i think). The other companies are a bit dead as i saw in the posts above me, but i think that there dead because a lot of members of the company won't react anymore, they just lost interest in this site. And you may have a comany with 10+ members, but if the half just isn't online and a quater is online but never posts anymore, you could say that the company is just dead.

I think that some of the company's are still alive, but the ones who aren't alive anymore, or just aren't active anymore could forget the company. If i looked at the forum of gump about what the company's are doing at the moment, i saw that Adrenaline Coasters, with CC10 etc. that everyone of that company almost never work with knex anymore, or just don't post it over here.

Just what i wanted to say about the fact that some company's aren't very active anymore...

-=TK=-

[RNB]

I agree with TK. I'm a DD member, and I think it helps me a lot. There are some companies that don't do anything, so I think that companies should be removed.

[Pyro]

Meh, Im conservative. *Votes No.*

[Jumpge]

I pretty much just joined SteelwayInventions and i really like how everything is going with Steelway and all companies in general, but there does need to be some changing and tweaking. Yes they might be kind of pointless, but I really think being in them has an affect on people because you can share your innovations, has the feel that you can build better, and you can make private threads that you don’t want to release to the public, but under the wing of a company.

First off, you can share your innovations on this site very well under companies very well. Take for instance, there is the “Patent Library”, but JPCoaster and Steelspectrum made the Invertigo and Boomerang mechanism in Steelway’s thread. They developed this with a thread that really got everyone in the company’s input on this innovation. It was pretty simple to make this invention, but JP brought the idea to the table and we made it happen under SteelwayInventions thread. Same with a lot of other mechanisms used on coasters on this site brought forward with innovations.

Secondly, I think that you can honestly build better when your in a company. I do not know why this has an affect on building, but I think that it has something to do with the brain, well actually a lot with the brain. I honestly think i build better in SteelwayInventions because I’m confident that I build better when in a company. When your not in a company, you think that your not good enough of a builder and you feel sad which then affects your building. But when in a company, you do then feel confident that your building well enough that your in a company which then affects your brain to make it feel better which in affect, makes you build better! But the thing that needs to change is that as i said, people feel bad when there not in a company which then can be very depressing to you since you think your a bad builder. What could happen is when you join, you have to have a certain amount of posts or a certain amount of rides made. Now necessarily, you could have 200 rides and they all could be horrible, and yet your saying, “BUT I HAVE 200 RIDES MADE AND THE LIMIT TO BE IN A COMPANY IS 4” or something like that. So I think that SSC as whole could have a decision or make a rule about the limit of rides, posts, or whatever experience to be in a company.

Lastly and most importantly IMO, I think that having threads under a certain company is very important because if your building an coaster with a little tracking that you want great shaping on that you don’t want to release to everybody on the site, except your own company, this is very valid with the companies. If your building for example a zack-spin coaster that has little tracking but all automation, you should be able to have this privately under a company. Automation takes a lot of skill and if your trying to figure out a simple automation system but struggling on it, companies are there to help you and give their honest opinion to you. I really find this the most valuable thing to a company and their members.
So as Knexrule said about the noobs coming onto this site and wanting to immediately being in a company, I do think there should be a rule of how many posts, rides, or how long you have been on the site to start a company. That should be one of the smaller but valid things concerning most people right now.

So this is my opinion on all of the things that are concerning me right now on this site with the companies. But that is just my 2¢...

[Jogumpie]

What do you guys think of changes like these:
-Needing 2 founding members for a new company, who both have at least <number> rides in the database.
-Requests for setting up a new company will have to be processed and judged by the active staff members. We feel that there should be a few large companies instead of many small companies. Most of the smaller companies are just there because the founding member wanted to have his own company, and in the end he cannot find many members to join him.

[Maxlaam]

I've been sneaking around all the companies forums the past week or so and I came to the conclusion that the only active companies that take it seriously are:

-Builders of Faith (Like to role-play like they own a real office too)
-Aminspec (Damn, kuddo's to you guys you are really buzzing like crazy!)
-Steelway Inventions (The occasional post but usually something fairly cool)
-Dutch Details (At least 5 posts in the forum everyday)

My idea is to remove all the smaller companies as of now and have a cap at 6 or 7 companies. There is no point in having 2 people sitting there in their little spec of forum doing nothing, just wasting forum space.

[Knexrule11]

^^ I like them

^ Sferico's been active and "takes it seriously" too.