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[Steven Sweeney]

Gee, Marvin, you've outdone yourself.

Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson

I think the bulk of those who choose to not participate here have no interest because there is just not much going on.

Then they're partly to blame, don't you think? Must be the same bunch who sit in front of the TV, don't vote, don't volunteer, and wouldn't think of mentoring without submitting a bill for services. The ones who sit in chairs, arms folded, and say "Entertain me. Learn me."

I also blame some of the moderators who let their own personal agendas get in the way.

Marvin, if you're going to champion the ideal portrait artist as a rebel, it ill serves your thesis to complain a few sentences later that some moderators have their own self-interest at heart, or that they have a "personal agenda." Is there anyone less interesting than someone who does NOT have a personal agenda? And anyway, do you not have your self-interest at heart? Of course you do.

Lucian Freud is a rebel. Traditionalists aren't. Nothing wrong with that, but no use conflating rebellion with rabble rousing.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. It's broke!

Yet you keep coming back. Is there nothing at all that you like about the Forum? If not, why the visits to the snoozefest? And why the contempt, without offering a single practical suggestion, save to bemoan the mediocrity of all other practitioners and to cite unspecified accepted "tenants" (who, after all, merely occupy apartments, though many do have personal agendas.)

How does this compare to the forum you offer on your website?