Positive reviews.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

So it seems like every time we allow a positive review post into the community, we get complaints about it even though they're allowed via the rules. For the record, please don't do that, it's not fair to the OP.

We discussed putting up a poll, but ultimately decided to make a post inviting all of you to share your thoughts about positive feedback/reviews here in artists_beware. We're asking people who are both for and against having them to argue their points here. If need be, we can make a poll for it later, but we'd rather hear good points for both sides instead of just giving something for people to click.

So, do you want positive reviews gone? Why?

Do you want to keep them? Why?

EDIT: I think it's important to note since it keeps being brought up that this community was made in 2003. Artistrecommend was nowhere near around back then.

Comments

[weirdmisty.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all that they periodically pop up, and think that seeing them every so often is actually nice little morale booster for artists and commissioners, to keep us from falling into thinking that every transaction ends up being a bad one. However, I fear that if they become too frequent, they will end up overtaking the community's primary function.

[badkitty.livejournal.com]

seconded!

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

It's nice that they're infrequent. I worry that if it's made a big deal of, loads of people will post their favourite artists here.

Yeah, what weirdmisty said :P

[westly-roanoke.livejournal.com]

Personally, if it were me, I'd say we should use Artist recommended. I mean, if I see someone who's name is here it makes me think "Ooh, they've got a beware"

That and people don't seem to get that artist recommended posts are allowable here...

[ocelotish]

You hit upon exactly why I'm hesitating. On the one hand, because the recommendations are so infrequent they might appear as a beware, but on the other hand removing any future recommendations only make the current ones look more like bewares.

[paradiseforlorn.livejournal.com]

Perhaps since there is an Artist Beware, there should be a sister site, called Featured Artists, or something like that... where people can post about Good artists, Good commissioners and so on, even good customers.

After all there are 2 sides to every coin.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

There is one. artistrecommend. It's not run by us, however.

[silverxfeathers.livejournal.com]

I don't mind positive reviews in this community. They aren't posted with enough frequency for me to notice them, so I don't think there's too many of them.

However, I can understand why people would be annoyed by them because this community is meant to warn, not praise. (And afaik, I think there's already a community out there meant to praise an artist you've worked with on commissions/trades/etc?)

I suggest a master post for praise posts. That way people can comment and leave positive reviews for an artist without cluttering the rest of the community. It could be dated sometime in the future so it appears at the beginning of the community for easy access.

Just a thought. :>

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

(And afaik, I think there's already a community out there meant to praise an artist you've worked with on commissions/trades/etc?)

artistrecommend wasn't around when the rules for this comm were originally made. It's a slightly more recent comm.

It could be dated sometime in the future so it appears at the beginning of the community for easy access.

Unfortunately, you aren't able to backlist communities, only personal journals.

[kurenaipaladin.livejournal.com]

I would rather like a sister community run by the same people- for consistancies sake. I don't MIND positive reveiws mind you, but as it was said, sometimes if you just glance by and dont think of it as some people do, that person may get a bad rap.

[poto-heart.livejournal.com]

I do like them occasionally, but I think it would defeat the purpose of the comm if they became too frequent.

Maybe instead of allowing stand-alone positive reviews, a mod could do a monthly 'good reviews/recommendations' post and people could recount any good experiences they'd had that month (or in the past that they hadn't said anything about yet) in the comments? Just a thought.

[starcharmer.livejournal.com]

I like this idea. People who want to post recommends should do it in the community specifically for that.

Like others have said, it doesn't BOTHER me when someone pops up here as a recommend but again, as others have said, I remember NAMES that were posted here. Not necessarily the posts that went with them. Unless I go back and double check, I might end up remembering that someone was posted here and assume it was a negative review rather than a positive one.

The community is -called- artists_beware. I think it should be kept that way.

But poto_heart's idea about making a post once a month or so for recommendations is a good compromise.

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

I prefer them to be avoided. The community is called Artists Beware, not artists review, positive reviews are outside the remit. I'm all for positive reviews being posted, just not here.

It's a matter of about 3 seconds to join Artistrecommend or similar, people who want to see positive reviews can see them very easily.

[meleeisgood.livejournal.com]

I agree with everyone else saying that they are afraid it might detract from the point of the community: To warn people about bad artists/commissioners, not to give people pats on the backs.

But I DO like seeing mentions of good artists because I'm not a member of any of the coms that promote artists, as I'm not able to commission anyone right now, but perhaps... having a weekly post where people can post in the comments about artists they've had good experiences with? Like a themed post, somewhat.

[alexds1.livejournal.com]

I'd rather they weren't posted here, just because this is a beware site. It sort of dilutes the "bewarishness" (haha), and there are certainly other sites to find great people to commission if that is the goal. I wouldn't stop here to find an artist, thats for sure.

[grygon.livejournal.com]

I don't mind them at all, tell the whiners to stfu can't they read the rules?

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

the rules were written before there was the option to join a recommendation community, of which there are now several

[notorious_hunty.livejournal.com]

Why not, if you ask me. Every so often I'd like to hear about an artist that didn't screw anyone over. T_T I'd rather see it on one community rather than going on multiple ones.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

This.

Frankly, I would prefer not to join yet another art-related community, mainly because names will get posted, by those warning and those praising. Not everyone keeps a running scorecard next to their computers or in their art collections, so names get twigged, often without remembering what sort of community the name was seen on.

It's not like there isn't an index of tags one can use to look up JoeFurryArtist, and see how many or what sort of feedback has been given about him.

[msmanuscript.livejournal.com]

Considering as the title of the journal is "A Community to Warn Others of Good, Bad, and Ugly Commissioners" I say we stick to that. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We've seen the ugly so many times. And the bad come in hordes. Now and then, the good is a great thing to see.

Perhaps if there's a "limit" to them. They don't pop up all that much, but for the piece of mind that will keep people from posting all of their favorite artists here. Something like:

"Must have a minimum of five transactions with the good-review, and span over the time of two years." Then it shows that the person is reliable time and time again, and over time as well. Then it keeps the community to a beware, with a level of promotion. The posts come so rarely, I don't think that a limitation is needed. But I know it'll give some people some breathing room if they think it'll pop up more often than not.

[dimespin.livejournal.com]

I've seen the phrasing "[artist] has been posted on Artists Beware," "[Artist] was bewared" and "I'm going to beware you." which shows that people are truncating the community's purpose and thus stereotyping what it does and what it's for and what it means to show up here, for the purposes of simplicity.

Whether this means the community should follow this trend or not I have no opinion one way or the other.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

LOL We've been verbed? Score! We're big-time now!

[koisnake.livejournal.com]

When I see somebody posted here, I automatically assume it is for a bad reason since this is Artist_BEWARE. It's like posting about dogs in a cats community.. sure, they're both pets, but it will just confuse people.

[herraardy.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of either removing the good messages, because being mentioned within this community is never considered a good thing, or doing something like poto_heart's idea.

Most all of my times commissioning or being commissioned have turned out just fine. I have MANY more positive reviews than negative reviews... but those would just be boring as all that means is the person is doing exactly what they should be. It's like saying, "I ordered something from X online store and it actually showed up!" Unless someone is going above and beyond, then there's no real reason to say anything... at least in its own post.

[dragon695.livejournal.com]

A little of the good is sometimes a breath of fresh air in the ocean of bad and ugly.

[dragon695.livejournal.com]

Another good reason why AB should build up its good reviews is because they provide excellent case studies to help artist and commissioners who are at odds understand how to make a transaction go smoother in the future. It is one thing to fire off criticism, it is quite another to say: "take a look at how these guys handled it." Especially helpful, of course, are situations that could have very easily gone terribly wrong but, thanks to both artist and commissioner, turned out very good.

[immortalpanda.livejournal.com]

I read this community to know who to stay away from, not who people recommend. If i wanted to recommendations, I'd go to artistrecommend.

[emlan.livejournal.com]

I dislike seeing positive reviews here, mainly I feel it's much tidier and most of all more userfriendly to just send such posts to more fitting communities. Also feels a bit like the praise will be missed by those who is interested anyway, if I'm someone looking into commissioning an artist and wanna see whom the other kids have liked, I wont look for it in a beware comm.

[skiota.livejournal.com]

I'm not really for or against it either way.

But I think that since there is a community on LJ already for positive feedback, that it could go there, since this is mainly a community for warning commissioners and artists.

[bonegrind.livejournal.com]

I think it belongs in another community since this community isn't really associated with 'positive reviews'. It seems off topic unless the review is about an artist someone had problems with but has now been resolved.

[keeperofdreams.livejournal.com]

I also like the idea of the monthly 'good artists' roundup post several people above suggested. That way good artists can get a nice high five and those who don't like non-beware posts can just skip one simple entry.

[malik-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh, this sounds like a great idea!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_patches_/]

I would prefer the positive reviews gone, as nice as they are for people to give and get them...
It's just sort of confusing and seems unrelated to the very title of the community. I joined this group for the purpose to see who to be wary of... Not to see who I should commission. Simple as that.

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Looks pretty damn unanimous to me, can't believe so many people jumped on my case when I commented that a positive post was out of place a few months back... Sheesh. If it wasn't clear, I'm all for doing away with positive posts on this community, it's counter-intuitive.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Unanimous? There are posts that are in favour of keeping them. I wouldn't call that unanimous.

Either way, we're going to wait a while and let everyone voice their thoughts. Most of us on the mod team are fairly neutral to the issue and wouldn't mind it going either way.

[weirdmisty.livejournal.com]

I'm just throwing out an idea here for a possible compromise, since there seem to be several of us who like positive reviews but don't want them to overpopulate the comm.

Perhaps there can be a mod post every week or so, on which people can comment with positive commission experiences they've had? (Or monthly, if weekly is too often) That way, people would still be able to spread positive experiences, but it would be with moderator-controlled frequency, and no one would get confused by the post and mistakenly think it was a beware instead of a positive review.

EDIT: haha, seems I wasn't the first to come up with this idea xD

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a possible compromise. We'll probably wait a few days and then discuss it amongst ourselves and figure out where to go from there. But we're open to ideas! We already know we can't satisfy everybody (if we remove them, people who like them will be upset. If we leave them, people who want them removed will be upset. If we compromise, people who wanted them completely removed will still be upset), but we're going to try to do what's best for the comm.