Hey everyone,
I realize I had just posted a topic a few days ago, however I believe this is one of the most revolutionary posts I will have made here on the 405th since day one
Many of you are familiar with my crusade to annihilate all scaling question threads. Although the crusade is far from finished (and never will be finished), I figure I can always get a few steps in the right direction.
Today’s topic/rant is about the current
Official Pepakura Scaling Thread.
A few months ago, it had come to my attention that a lot of members were having trouble scaling their armour, so I decided to write a quick tutorial on scaling. As many of you know, I edited that tutorial many times to include more and more information on scaling, and the different methods to scale with. After freely offering my help, I wrote an FAQ to even further help the members out there who were having trouble scaling their armour. Now I have began to help mass amounts of members from different dedicated costuming forums with scaling their armour. However, my patients have grown thin with not the members, but the original armour scaling sticky.
Approximately 4 months ago, it had came to my attention that many new members were referring to
Post #7 of the Official Pepakura Scaling Thread. Despite the clear warning at the top of the guide, those members still used the guide to scale their armour. After seeing how terribly wrong their scaling went, they either posted a new question thread, or posted a question in the very thread that had lead them to such a poorly scaled armour part. This is understandable for a new member to do, however it still doesn’t justify why on earth that guide is still there to mis-guide our new members.
The pepakura files that the guide is based off of are no longer available to the public anywhere. They are also outdated. Therefore, any use of the guide with any pepakura files made by another member other then JediFraz would be pure armour-suicide.
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The pros and cons of the guide in post #7 of the Official Pepakura Scaling Thread:
PROS:
- Works well with JediFraz’s original Pepakura files
CONS:
-Jedifraz’s original Pepakura files are no longer available to the public ANYWHERE
-Therefore rendering the guide useless to all members
-Outdated Pepakura files
-Confuses new members
-Therefore leading to mis-scaled armour parts, stress, and for those less-patient members, quitting
-Causes me to help even more members then I should have to help if the guide was no longer there
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Now, onto the Official Pepakura Scaling Thread itself.
Although there is a fair wealth of information buried in the 31 pages of questions and answers, no member in their right mind will sift through that to get an answer. I admit I would even post a new topic or ask the question in that thread considering the amount of questions and posts in there. Its purely suicidal.
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The pros and cons of the Official Pepakura Scaling Thread:
PROS:
-Wealth of information
-Good place to post scaling questions
CONS:
-Too much information to sift through
-Too many questions, and too few answers
-Much of the information in the thread is now outdated and useless
-Nobody in their right mind would sift through more then 5 pages of the 31 page thread for their answer
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Finally, onto my proposal.
Simply un-sticky the thread and let it sink to the bottom of the barrel. Members will no longer have to sift through the thread for an answer that they will probably never find anyway. It’s a time saver, a bandwidth saver, and overall and stress saver for me any a lot of other members.
I know it is hard for me to express my stress with that particular sticky over the internet, but I think everybody would benefit if we simply stickied a scaling tutorial that actually guided people through scaling, and really answered everybody’s questions. Believe me, while writing this thread I was very tempted to step on a lot of peoples toes about this topic. I have waited very patiently for this to come to fruition, but despite me contacting a few moderators and Adam, nothing has happened yet.
I am sure this would be for the greater good of the 405th, and I know there is a better thread/tutorial we can sticky that will actually help people out there.
Vote what you think at the top of the page, or voice your opinion by leaving a comment. Hopefully the proper decision will be made by the Administration and moderation staff of the 405th.