Cartographers' Guild breaks the 10,000 member mark!

[ravells]

Don't know about you guys, but I like keeping an eye on the number of members we have and the regular posters. It's stunning that we have now broken through 10,000 members. It was only about 4 years ago when there were about 20 of us. I believe that the secret to our success is pretty simple: be welcoming, be polite and be constructive in your criticism....oh and share your knowledge. Keeping the site strictly 'non application' specific and welcoming maps from any software or hand drawn has also proved to be a great success.

This is a congratulations to everyone here. Thank you all for making the CG grow and to respect the values that we hold. In the thousands of posts here we have had only one locked thread and one banned user (apart from spammers). I think that must be some sort of record given our member base, but more importantly it just shows that a polite enviornment will perpetuate itself.

For myself, I have to say that this is one of the best bbs's on the internet I've ever visited and I'm proud to be a part of it. We're all volunteers but we do what we do out of a passion for mapping. I don't know if you've checked out the Finished Maps section lately but the standard of mapping lately has been phenomenal. We have recently had our first featured map inspired purely from the tutorials on this site.

The 'jewels in the crown' have been the tutorials by RobA, Ascension, Pyrandon and Butch Curry's youtube tutorials (apologies for anyone I've left out) which have allowed people who don't believe that they can produce a decent map to make something they probably didn't believe was possible. I know I've stood on the shoulders of the people here in making my maps, the level to which people are prepared to share their knowledge is truly a gift.

So congratulations everyone and thank you for being a part of our very small but rewarding part of the internet.

All this would not have happened if Robbie (Arcana) had not built the site. Robbie deserves a huge round of applause from all of us for creating a place in which we all feel comfortable, constructive and which is a melting pot of shared knowledge. In that sense this truly is a 'guild'.

Ravs