A page out of Apophysis

[Elhrrah]

I think I figured it out; we're missing user-group interaction.

Something that adds to the popularity of Apophysis, is the fact that there is a defined user community which actually does things; weekly challenges, artist of the week, interviews, tutorials, and so forth. If we started to copy some of those things, take a page out of their book, we may be able to increase the activity here. Previously, we've had nothing to talk about, other than screaming for the next version and lamenting the lack of processing power. By adding a bit of competitive interest, things might take off.

Thoughts?

[ndesprez]

We did have a competition on the site but I had to take it down because the submissions were too few, the votes were going to a different site and the contests were a pain to setup. On top of that the ballot was blatently rigged.

You have to keep in mind that Chaoscope community is still very small, a tenth of Apophysis' community would be a very generous estimate. It'll stay that way as long as Chaoscope's creative potential is a fraction of Apophysis'.

Creating this forum goes into the direction you'd like us to take. I think it's a good first step. I will try to improve communication further by converting the news page to a proper blog. But I think that before we emulate Aphopysis community events we need to grow in size and that'll only happen when more people want to try Chaoscope. In any case I wouldn't have time to keep entertaining the whole user community so someone else would have to be in charge of that, unless I go full time on the project.

[Elhrrah]

So why don't we start off small? Instead of having a competition, contest, or anything that's labor-intensive, why don't we go with a 'chaos subject' for the week/fortnight/month? That would allow most users a chaotic common-ground, which we could tie into as the community grows. Another thought that I had, was the fact that a healthy percentage of us maintain deviantArt pages; what if we got together and advertised? With some linkage to this forum, a bit of word-wrangling about the chaos subject, and some background on the software, it might help get the word out.

I also just had another thought, but I'll have to track a few things down first. It might be possible to leverage something with dAgnostic...

[Maryetta]

Advertising is the best way to get people aware of Chaoscope. And each advertisement should point to one or more galleries of images (preferably the best available).

As to all of the places that may be posted to, there are about:
• 48 different fractal related email discussion lists.
• 12 forums.
• 6 Usenet Newsgroups.
• Lots of blogs.
• And a few thousand other venues.

[ndesprez]

I'm all up for advertising but I think it's too early. Let's wait for 0.4 release. There used to be a Chaoscope related group on deviantart, called chaoscopers. It's been inactive for a while. Maybe those of you who have an account there should revive it or create a new group?
If anyone comes across a nice unknown Chaoscope gallery, can you let me know about it?

[commandersozo]

I recall that group. I sent them a note asking whether they would start up again or not. No response, which I guess was a response in it's own. Given the choice, I would love to liven it up. There are plenty of people on DevART who would take Chaoscope for a whirl, if they knew it existed.

[Elhrrah]

Hinging off from a small discussion Sozo and I had, perhaps we should revitalize the dA group in the form of a 'Chaos Library.' We could create an account with a password listed on these forums (in a members-only section) with the purpose of hosting a community dump of attractors and view settings. It could help both long-standing users by giving them a chance to share their work, and entice new ones with an easy-to-access database.

[commandersozo]

^ An idea I would participate in.

[efi]

With the new Group feature on dA it should be much easier.