Sandbox twaddle

[wolf]

I'll put in my 2 cents worth here:

Let's remember that this is an international forum, so you're likely to encounter both native and non-native English speakers. Sometimes unintended meanings and nuances creep into posts because a poster could be unaware of how his thoughts translate into English; ie it can be grammatically correct, perhaps even correct for a formal situation, but will sound horribly condescending in informal situations like this. It's always a good idea, I found, to clarify what a poster really means before jumping on him.

How do I know this? I've been living with a German for the last 7 years now.

[dani luddington]

I go away for a day and look what happens, all **** breaks loose!
I guess what "some" of more seasoned folks on here maybe aren't understanding is first for "some", it is hard to jump right in and chat with folks they dont know yet.

A lot are new to Origami and don't know what to expect from a forum. Then when they get the guts to jump in (i.e. show thier design or have an idea to share), they get responses that aren't positive or constructive and they get discouraged, upset or feel that they need to defend themselves. I am not jumping into this unknowing, because it happened to me yesterday.
I got shot down pretty hard, doesn't make me want to come up with anymore ideas, thats for sure.

This "should" be a place for learning and sharing, I tell everyone about the forum! But if this is going to be the attitude when they do come here, should I continue to tell them about it? (Don't answer, it's rhetorical).

Sincerely, dani

David I think your octopus is great! And I love this place, I have learned soooo much, lets not let it implode, please! I think we can all check ourselves before we speak, right?
(ducks waiting for the onslaught, chuckles.)

[thedeadsmellbad]

Think of the frog-base X-wing. It was Joseph Wu's first model, my third, and countless others came up with the same thing. Sure, the style and shaping may have differed between the designs, but they were still the same basic structure--a frog base.

I made mine from a bird base with sinked flaps.
X-wing

I like your Octo David, I have never tried one before.

[DavidW]

Two years later I'm back! The first thing I have to do is apologize. Reading this thread freshly now, clearly I blew up at Chris when he wasn't trying to criticize me. I had a very short fuse that summer because it was an extremely stressful time for multiple reasons. It made me see things skewed and completely explode at inappropriate times, such as this thread.

I've read or been part of some really idiotic exchanges, but with egg on my face I have to admit that this one really takes the cake.

[origami_8]

It´s nice to see you back.

Sometimes we are all wearing colored glasses that make us think things are worse than they really are. Nobody on this Forum tries to insult anyone else but unfortunately its sometimes hard to convince someone on that when he thinks its otherwise.

Hope you will have a good second start here and don´t mind to show us your new folds/creations, we would love to see them.

[DavidW]

Thanks Anna.

[GreyGeese]

isn't this octopus a very common first try? a blintzed birdbase (I don't know, if it's the right term)... some doodeling and there's the octopus
nice anyway


Christian

Meadowlark Lemon to high-school basketball player: "I was making shots like that in the first grade. Nice job though, really!"

[~folder~of~paper~]

Wow. This is how a simple misinterpretation can end up as a large and pointless argument. DavidW; Your model was nice, which Chris said. There are various models quite similar.

When you fold, you're bound to come up with something that someone else has already. I folded an original modular, but it turned out that ingenius idea had already been used.

Chris was just pointing out how the model was folded. He said it was nice. You did overreact a bit, but Chris did react back. He didn't mean to be rude. I'm not taking sides; this isn't dodgeball!

Personally, I like your octopus.

[Nick]

isn't this octopus a very common first try? a blintzed birdbase (I don't know, if it's the right term)... some doodeling and there's the octopus

How the world has changed - when I was a lad, we thought creating octopii was for advanced creators only - my first creation was a 3 side pyramid (wow!) and typical first designs were penguins or insects with too few legs. Now in this era of crease pattern challenges, an octopus, with all limbs present, is damned with faint praise.

For what it's worth, I also thought the reply less than positive. One or two on this list seem to be young & keen, but haven't quite grasped the joy people have in displaying their own modest creations and how sensitive they are to implied (or overt) criticism. I see an awful lot of very average work posted on this forum, but surely the best tactic is simply to ignore it?

I was equally opinionated in my younger days, but thankfully the internet wasn't around for me to share my wisdom with everyone on every topic (or I probably would have done ) Moderating doesn't mean you have to take sides or to reply to everything - a good moderator does their job almost invisibly - I know how much better the o-list is for Joe's off-list interventions.

[aesthetistician]

This discussion makes me wonder how much research you should do before deciding that your design is reasonably original. For instance, I recently came up with a pretty simple flower, and I'm sure someone else has found it first. But short of posting it here, I can't think of any way to know for sure. Thoughts?

[origami_8]

Well, I´d say it´s your design even if someone else should have come up with it first but you didn´t know of it. When you find out of an equal design later, you can already say independent discovery of ...s design.