"Artists Beware"

Hey everyone, what you're seeing here is a compiling of all our most commonly asked questions to the moderators of artists_beware! This list will always and forever be in constant motion, as people are curious and questions come quite often!

The Artists Beware FAQ


Q: I received a warning from ____, are they even a mod?
A: The moderation team of Artists Beware is as so, in alphabetical order:
kayla_la = Mod/Maintainer
kerstin_orion = Head Mod/Community Owner
neolucky = Mod/Maintainer
oceandezignz = Mod/Maintainer
shukivengeance = Mod/Maintainer
sigilgoat = Mod/Maintainer

Each moderator has a "mod icon", usually something cute with a top hat and a Mod/Moderator notifier in the icon; see my own for one example. So if you see these names or icons, you are talking to an actual A_B staff member!



Q: Why can't I post to Artists_Beware? When I try, LJ tells me I cannot post here!
A: At the top of every LJ community page is a black or grey nav bar that will tell you your membership status in a community, as well as give you shortcut links to doing various things within said community. You MUST be a member of Artists_Beware to be able to put a post into the queue, so if the nav bar is giving you a link to JOIN A_B, click it and follow the steps.

And as a reminder, you do not need an LJ account to participate in A_B. You can use Twitter, Facebook, OpenID and Google+.




Q: I sent in a post to Artists_Beware, why isn't it showing up after I send it in!?
A: We are a moderated community. All posts are reviewed to ensure that the report format, when used; is used correctly, screencaps are properly censored, that the beware is a valid one rather than a revenge piece, or in the case of an advice post, is not a repeat of something already covered in the past.

Approval can take anywhere from 3-10 days.



Q: How do I know if my post got in or not?
A: If your post was approved, there really isn't much in the way of a notifier unless you have chosen to track new entries posted to the comm, or you use the A_B twitter (@Artists_Beware) for when we add new entries to the comm.

If your post was rejected, you are going to get an email from lj_notify, with the title of "Moderated submission notification". This email will tell you that your post has been rejected, and the reasons why will ALWAYS be included, from a member of the moderation team. If you have very strict filters on your email accounts, please keep a look out for emails in your spam/trash folder from lj_notify as it is not uncommon for these emails to wind up there.




Q: What do you mean by "censor out all real names"?
A: If the person you are bewaring does not use their legal name on the web spaces where they do business, you cannot display it in screencaps or mention it in the body of your post. Even if their legal name is on their Paypal account, or the signature of their emails, it still does not count towards a public online presence of their real name. Please censor these out.



Q: Where can I host screencaps for my beware?
A: The moderators of A_B strongly recommend users join the service: Imageshack.us for their screencapping needs. You can upload images to their site and actually CHOOSE that the files being uploaded, are not resized into smaller unreadable files. You can so something similar with LJ's Scrapbook feature as well.

We also do not recommend using FA/DA/IB/etc. to upload screencaps, as these sites generally do not allow for that.



Q: What is an LJ-cut?
A: An LJ-cut is a piece of LiveJournal-based HTML coding that allows for a very wordy post to be condensed down to make web browsing easier for everyone, and to also be kind to those who do not desire a cluttered Friends List on LJ. This code is very easy to use, just like you would use a bold tag or an italics tag.

We have instructions on how to insert an LJ-cut into your posts in our Report Template, but here is the actual LJ FAQ article on them: LJ-cuts.



Q: Why do you only tag the BAD artists? What about the GOOD ones?
A: LiveJournal has a hard limit on tags, and as we are a community based on warning individuals of shady business people and their practices rather than good ones, we are saving our resources for those. We DO have monthly positive feedback posts though, feel free to browse through these, or use the LJ community artistrecommend to promote the good eggs of the art community.



Q: Is Artists Beware a 'drama comm'?
A: Many people have varying opinions about this community, and unfortunately this is one of them. There are those who unfortunately think informing the buying and selling public of shady individuals of various levels of popularity is tattling/drama mongering.

The staff tries very hard to keep drama down, if not immediately out of the community by viewing entries before approving them, discouraging our members from going to artist or commissioner pages and making rude commentary, and cultivating a strong aura of professionalism for this site (positive reviews/discussion posts/etc).


Artists Beware is what you make of it, and we hope that you see it as a resource for who to buy from, who to avoid, and advice on how to make yourselves better business people/customers.