Mod post: And the results are in!

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Based on the poll, we will continue to accept posts asking for advice here on Artists_Beware!

However, because I still want to keep true to the purpose of this community, there will be some conditions. They will be spelled out in the userinfo edit coming up in the next couple of weeks.

Once again I want to remind everyone we are open to suggestions for the userinfo. This isn't just editing some words, this can shape our community by providing the guidelines for posting and behavior. I don't want to dictate changes, and I'm sure there are some great ideas out there. So please, hit me with 'em!

Comments

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I think it'd be easier giving suggestions if we knew exactly what the problem is with people asking for advice. Because I'm not seeing it O_o

Giving advice to both artists and customers always has been an essential part of the community, as it's goal is "to help decrease the stress and release inner frustration, if any, from poor art commissions and requests" and what better way to do that than to help prevent poor commissions etc. and the stress thereof.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

The community was initially started to warn of bad commissioners and bad artists. And yes, advice has been a significant part of it for some time. I just want to set a few guidelines so every post isn't asking advice. I like the advice posts. I think they definitely help prevent warning posts.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Myself, I don't have a problem with advice posts, but I think the reason people are tired of them is that some are repetitive. If we had something in the community info about not starting commissions before being paid anything, and other answers to the more common questions, it might cut down the repeats a bit.

I'm glad advice posts get to stay. :)

[honeymane.livejournal.com]

is there somewhere we can make suggestions to improve the community?

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Personally, I get tired of repetitive posts.
While warning posts still have value when repeated, admittedly, people asking the same question over and over again does get tedious. But tagging and not approving repetitive posts would solve that.
We have new mods, put them to work!

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Suggestions like that are welcome any time. You can put them here, email me (my email addy is kerstinorion at gmail dot com), or you can message any of us mods through the livejournal message system.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Can we have a "No deleting of posts without mod approval" rule please? It's a real pain in the neck to go looking for a post and to find it's vanished because someone got butthurt or they resolved their problems/were pestered by the artist/commissioner to take it down.

Also it defeats the point of having an artist beware community if everytime people get their own problems sorted they immediately delete the post and the artist/commissioner proceeds to screw others over.

[honeymane.livejournal.com]

Well, my suggestion is that perhaps this community could use some sort of database, like a wiki or such.

My reasoning that it can be rather difficult to find out information about artist before hand. Although LJ of course archives entries here, without tags or some idea of the artist's past.

For example, I've been trying to research into an artist I commissioned, but I don't know whom they were (if they were indeed already part of the community) before I found them. With some sort of searchable database, it's be easy for an entry to include all the history of names and such that an artist might have gone through and used in the past.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

The tagging is being caught up on as we speak. Our new mods are working hard on that. Tagging posts creates a searchable list of names and subjects. We try to include every alias mentioned in the post and aliases from previous posts.

To find a name or topic, go to the list of tags for the community and do a text search (ctrl-F in Internet Explorer and Firefox, don't know what it is in any other browsers). You can search for the whole name or just a few letters, in case of spelling variations.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

That is definitely one addition we are considering. Enforcement will be difficult, though. We can't prevent a post from being deleted, only punish the post-deleter after the fact.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I know enforcement would be a pain but I kinda hope that having an actual penalty for non-approved admin removals of posts might make people a little less inclined to delete them at the very least.

[stormslegacy.livejournal.com]

My only concern is that sometimes artists hold commissioners hostage with "I'll do it if you take down the post" It's not cool, totally not right but I'd worry that it might cause more difficulty in fixing some issues as it removes what little leverage a commissioner in a tough situation has.

[stormslegacy.livejournal.com]

Since posts are modded before approval--

I totally like advice posts, but lately there have been some that are very vague, and often come across as more rants than a question for advice. Can you reject those and ask the person to make their objective more clear? I do feel people periodically post because they already know the answer but want others to reassure them--those kind of posts really aren't helpful.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Hence why I said "no deletions without mod approval". If there's legit reason to remove it, I can't see the mod's saying no.