i liked that idea of the scrapbook thing… remember that?
i guess that is like the studio.

what would this mean for the current prolifically fantastic users? ;)

personally i like it as it is… but i understand and agree about the quality thing… but i’ve been around for yonks. so nice watching The Bub grow

I think this would be an excellent Idea, especially the studio part, sort of like a full catalogue anyone can look at, but the Gallery is where you show your best stuff, which you can change,

When can we have it? Cause I know there are a few things in mine I would probably put in the back catalogue (hows that for a name)

I agree that this sounds like a good plan, I’d just like to know how it would apply to current members and their portfolio’s.

The studio idea is pretty much the same as the scrapbook idea – I just think studio sounds better!

So with current members we would probably look to work out the standing of the member in the community and then allocate the person a studio of the appropriate size. Existing works would either be allocated to the gallery or the studio.

I like the studio idea. Although we can upload just for ourselves anyhow, it’s probably not obvious enough.
It’d be good if we could still link people to things in our studios.

Sounds like an excellent idea.

I’ve noticed in other sites that are similar to this that the more popular they get the lower the quality becomes, as some people just put up any old stuff to make a buck. Do a t-shirt search in Cafepress and you’ll see what I mean.

I agree with Jo, and the idea of the studio set up gives us who sometimes just want to upload a snapshot to buy for ourselves as a card the best of both worlds

I believe that opinions here are varied enough that it won’t become a professional photographer and designer-only site, based on the idea of giving people extra uploads based on the amount of comments and favoritism they receive. If it’s good quality then it gets noticed…it doesn’t need to be technically astounding.

To summarise – that’s a a thumbs up from me :o)

hehe, el presidente! i do think studio sounds cooler too…

I like the studio idea too. It would be a more open forum for constructive criticism which people may find valuable.

mm this is a good idea. Quality is important :) Putting a cap on how many submissions… what happens when we reach the limit? is it raised/quality checked?

Peter , I like the studio name, what about incorporating into it back catalogue so buyers know the work is also for sale

eg.

REDBUBBLE Studio & Back Catalogue

I think it would be good but at the same time it could cause a seperation between the elite and the beginner and stop talented people who don’t use the forums and stuff as much to get noticed. I’m sure these concerns could be worked out tho. I think keeping red bubble of a high standard is important as it keeps us coming back for looks.

One idea that I haven’t read being thrown around:
To be able to create folders within ones own art, clothing and writing.
For example:
Art
#photography
#drawing
#mixed media
or more specific titles such as:
#whale photos
#nature series
etc

this could apply to short stories and seasons for T-shirts and all that jazz and make it a far more sophisticated system as well as making viewing of works far easier. Webgrrl, for example, has so many pages OF WORKS (about 50 last time I checked) and if we were interested in looking at her festival photography then we could just open that folder etc.

Also we could choose to set a an image or t-shirt as a default from 1-6 for it to appear on our profile, and it would stay there until we un-set it and replaced it with another image. If we fail to set defaults then our most recent artworks could take the places on our profile as usual.

Hope this helps xx

I agree something needs to be done and a split between “gallery” and “space” is good.

But who measures quality? I have seen quite a few “quality” pieces with only a couple comments/faves and a lot more “so/so” (IMHO) pieces with a lot of comments/faves…like flickr the more active/popular you are the more comments/faves you receive.

Also another Idea to think about is groupings filter within ‘my bubble’ section

I know that a lot of bubblers create search links within there art and clothing but wouldn’t it be great to have a predetermined list?

Sounds good to me!

Just a few questions though!

What happens with existing Galleries if the change is implemented?

I was considering using RB to print a large number of christmas studio shots (100 plus) at the end of the year, would I still be able to do that?

see above jessica , great minds eh, i was writing the same time as you

Interesting idea,

I think if it were to work well, the gallery / portfolio and studio sections should be seamlessly linked.

What I mean is that it should be possible to move works from the gallery to the studio , enabling the artist / photographer etc to easily update their gallery as they and their works improve … I think this would help encourage everyone to constantly refine and improve their portfolio.

just what i was thinking david, Im gonna watch this one with interest

Yes, I like this idea.

As long as I can upload stuff for printing and direct people to my ‘studio’ I guess I am happy. Given the nicely nicely approach taken I don’t really know where my work sits in this proposed equation beyond my own opinion. I haven’t had any Bubblemails about poor quality uploads so do I assume that as positive.

10, 20, 50 or 100 images, whatever, I’ll take what ever is offered but what I am concerned about is the method of gaining ‘community recognition’. I have been watching with interest what stuff makes it to the community What’s Hot? section and this is clearly views, comments and favourited based.

There is a direct relationship between comments given/comments received on RB and it is not always based on how hot the image is.

True they may not stay there long but will they already have their community recognition quota of comments and fav’s under the new system? – most likely.

What about uploading your image to the studio and ticking the box requesting the independent umpire access the image for public gallery inclusion?

That should be assess the image not access.

What about a simple thumbs up rating for comments?? If a person is commenting on the work itself, check the thumbs up box… if a person is simply replying to another comment, leave it unchecked… That way, it can differentiate between a personality who is popular/social/more active, or a work that draws attention in it’s own right.
Might be a silly idea, but thought I’d add it anyway. :o)

yeah thats a great idea cuz some people write a thankyou to everyone that compliments them which would build up their points big time

The studio idea are great, but it´s difficult to say what´s good or not because we all looks different at things. I have problems with that on my own images. I have sold some cards on RB, and most of them are far from the best when it comes to comments, and adds.

It all sounds good. The only problem I have is choosing my ‘best’ With the images that I have up already, the ones I think are my best are not as ‘popular’ as some others. So when I’m looking at putting something up, I’m stuffed if I know basically and just try them out. And more often than not, the ones I’ve hummed and haaaed about putting up end up with all the comments favourites and views, while the images I really feel I’d done well with don’t fare so well.

Guys- be careful with the word “quality” remember one man’s trash is another’s treasure equally, as a creative outlet for artists of ALL levels we need to be supportive of the people seeking a place to show their progress.
Maybe the best idea is to develop a RB platinum section- have people that are serious about their work and want to use RB as a professional outlet pay for the server space required for their own (larger) works- then limit all other users to a 250kb max image size for each image and an overall cap of 10Mb or similar. Personally I’d happily pay for the services here at RB and I’m not surprised you’ve reached this point- the amount of space taken up on your servers must be enormous!!!
Having a ranking system, I think is putting your fate in the hands of others-not something everyone’s gonna be happy about.
What WOULD be a good idea perhaps would be to have a “JUDGES CORNER” this would be where standard RB members could post samples of works for critique, etc. and if they achieve a certain level of proficiency they could be invited to join the platinum members section to increase their storage limits??
if we’re worried about the drop in ‘quality’- why don’t we do something about it- have tutorials and professional development ‘course’ I mean, of course, something more active than the forum sections….
Take the most competent photographers and artists on RB and ask if they would be interested in participating in mentoring or the Judges corner, or something….
...At the end of the day- we’re a community- so I don’t see the harm in volunteering for a little ‘community service’ -I think it would benefit everyone, bring the standard of work up and perhaps limit the amount of random postings by joe blog…..

hey if you have the space use it i rekon maybe not 10 but 30 maybe

I like the idea, sounds pretty good. Though I don’t envy the RB’ers having to go through 10k users to find out their “standing” in the community, hehe.

The suggestion seems slightly too complicated to me. How about having no upload limits, and only the most popular 10,20,50 works or those with a certain popularity threshold surface outside the studio? Unless of course, you are trying to conserve resources, then by all means, upload limits across the board would make people think about their folios more carefully.

What is probably unfortunately necessary is a way for people to bury works. digg.com has a neat way of promoting the good stuff and having a subtle set of tags (separate to the content tags) that indicate spammy, lame, offensive or otherwise crappy content. Part of this is fed by giving more weight to the opinions of trusted users. On RB, this could be based on comment/sale/watchlist popularity.

As an aside, the low quality works that really bug me at the moment are the MS Paint style t-shirt slogans that are not necessarily copyright violations, but are clearly plagiarised. There’s room for original, inspired and satirical stuff, but there’s a lot of unoriginal crud going up too that should be buried if not removed, IMHO.

There’s been concern since day 1 about RB becoming another flickr, and it’s starting to happen. Sign me up any day for having my work culled if it doesn’t make the cut. The editorial nature of the front page is fantastic, and there’s no reason it should be the only place free from “filler”.

Sounds pretty interesting, something does need to be done to address the issues and this sounds like a set in the right direction.

Pretty good point Rodger- don’t need another Flickr- I’m sure EVERYONE serious about RB wants this site to have the ‘edge’ over everyone else-we (I) want it known for it’s hight quality above ALL else….

Jonathan – we thought about charging for an account at RedBubble or charging for a premium account – but at the end of the day we really, really like the fact that we only succeed when the artists on the site succeed – our interests are aligned. We could apply advertising to the site tomorrow and probably double our income – but it would distract from the art, introduce a dissonance to RedBubble and knock our interests out of alignment.

Sounds interesting. Personally I only upload my good stuff here as I have other sites for uploading the everyday shots (flickr, etc). However, the studio concept sounds intriguing.

The determination of what’s good though, based on popularity does not necessarily amount to good works. Take for instance the Explore section of Flickr. Any popular person can get an image in that, purely based on the person rather than the quality of the image.
Popularity is rarely a sign that something is actually artistically sound.
Unfortunately the alternative is a moderated approach such as the Stock sites use, but that has it’s own issues (not the least of which are manpower and objectivity).

I I think that two pages should do for free; whoever wants to expose more than two pages should pay a minimal fee, let’s say 25 USD/Year as on photo.net where you can sell nothing but you are exposed to 500.000 viewers! I am out of photo.net for the moment and redbubble has more photographers now because I wanted my old friends to see this wonderful place! You should also consider accepting payments by Visa and….without PayPall, not very popular in Europe! Thank You

The problem that I see with the idea is that there is work on RB of lower quality that is produced by popular users, and so ends up on the front pages of the “art” section nearly every day. In fact that is one of the main themes I am seeing in users’ discontented journals; they are unhappy because they think that it is the popular work that is largely of poor quality (e.g., the white t-shirt photo that was on top of every list last week). The suggested changes really don’t do much to address that. A popular member whose work isn’t necessarily great will end up with the maximum-sized gallery and still dominate the front pages just by virtue of that popularity, while less popular members with amazing work will be denied exposure with their tiny galleries.

It seems that what RB really needs is some sort of QC process that ensures that only high-quality work makes it to the “images for sale” pages. A person could upload everything into his or her studio (great idea, by the way), then apply to have that work moved to the gallery and the for sale pagea. The work in the studio could still be for sale, just not listed in the site’s main pages. I understand that this could get extremely cumbersome, so there could be some number of gallery approvals (say 8-10) that puts a person automatically into a ‘premiere’ level. When a person reaches the premiere level, their work is trusted to be of high quality, so they can automatically upload work into their gallery (with perhaps a limit of 100 images). This gives beginners something for which to strive, and it also make it so that a user’s popularity is not the main factor that determines their listing position and gallery size, but rather the quality of their work.

I like Catalin’s suggestion, but maybe more pages for free depending on amount of sales/purchases

How bout a ‘RB Professional” and an ‘RB popular” two similar sites under the same umbrella one is a subscription service catering for true artists, the other a photo sharing domain…..but both linked through the main RB page.
All current contributors to RB can be asked which site they want to continue with….
OR;
some kind of tick box at sign up for the person to indicate what they are using RB for-Sales, Travel, photo sharing with friends, etc- and what they are- Professional, semi-pro, developing, or casual user; Thus dictating the type of system requirements they need and whether they want their profile public or private (similar to Facebook)....

no idea why I’m getting strike though on my text… sorry….something I said??? ;P

All sounds good to me…cut out the crap I say!!!

Can’t see that it is going to change very much. The small group of artists who are popular because of intense networking will still be popular and will still dominate the hot lists. Not sure of what the right answer is though. Perhaps allowing genuine critiques could help to point out some of the lower quality works that get high ratings.

I’m not willing to pay a subscription fee at the moment. Not enough of a buyer pool outside the members to justify it.

EC has a point though….

I think “community standing” should be irrelevant and any quality control type stuff should be based SOLELY on the image. Joining the forums or networking doesn’t make you talented (and doesn’t make you untalented, but you get what I mean).

Just remember some of us are using RB as the shop end of our MAIN website. I really don’t want to be too limited in how many I can offer for SALE, but I’m happy to be limited in showing up in the “art” section.

Not sure I like the subscription idea, Jonathan, sorry. It sounds a bit Flickrish to me.

As to the original suggestion, that sounds quite a good idea in principle, but I fear the whole idea of comments and favourites on people’s work to boost peoples’ “ratings”leads to comment whoring. And besides which, who’s to say that there’s not some quality artist out there who isn’t getting much in the way of throughput on his/her folio but is restricted in their publicity by a limit on their folio. I think what would tend to happen is that those that are already popular and have a large following would take up all the space and all the sales, while the lesser known folks (but not necessarily lesser quality) would struggle.

I’m kinda thinking on my feet here, so I hope this makes sense.

I’m also not entirely clear on how the “studio” space would work. This would be for our happy snaps and community challenges, yes? So effectively, this would be a sort of non-commercial area in our folio? If that’s right, that sounds like an OK plan.

So to summarise, broadly in favour, but have some concerns. :-D

I do like the studio idea. It would help trim the jungle that is the gallery

One thing that may help in reducing the number of images someone needs to put in their bubble to show all their best if if active links could be added to a bubble. A lot of artists currently have other sites listed on their profile but they are not active links anyone can click onto and see that other work. It would be ideal for anyone with their own website as all their work is there anyway. Can we make the links active?

What do you mean artstruggle? I have active links to my website?

Sorry Natalie I forgot about yours but the majority are just web address references which have to be manually tracked down by the viewer.

Rather than an allocated amount of gallery space, how about a limit to the amount of art uploaded – say 1 or 2 or 3 pieces per day. It might make some people think a bit harder about which of their art they really want people to see.

Why not just get rid of the ‘what’s hot’ section an make the ‘what’s happening’ section twice the size …that way it’s just about site activity and not a popularity contest.

artstruggle – I agree the “formatting” isn’t exactly obvious or well known, but active links are possible. Maybe more info on how to do it is really needed now. Not everyone is web savvy.

I like the “studio” idae also but I think we should really focus on qualilty of the art. I don’t believe that if you don’t use the forums that your art is not good. I have been Redbubble only for a little while and I am still finding my way around.

I’m a beginner and cannot begin to work out whether my work is the populous crap, lower quality or in the not good enough for some of the redbubble community category. I joined RB as it was somewhere to give the pictures I take an airing and to gain some feedback and to learn and if I am lucky to sell a pic to someone. I have enjoyed the fact that it is a friendly community who have some common aims. I can see that many people take far better pics than me but still believe that some of mine are okay and will improve. As far as the ongoing battle everyone has about cliques gaining more viewing spots than others I don’t know how to fix it. I am now seriously considering whether I should be on RB and whether the quality police will be coming round. It is not a good feeling for the novice.

I just joined RB because I am impressed by the overall concept and execution of helping digital artists to display and sell their masterpieces. I also thought that it would be a place to gain experience and receive feedback on my attempts to create art that could generate additional income to supplement my retirement funds. I certainly don’t want to degrade the level of quality on RB, but under some of the proposals that I have read thus far, it would be a lot tougher for people like me to succeed and grow as artists.

Perhaps a section for beginning artists to display their works for comments and help (creating tutorials using some of the art posted) while still allowing them the opportunity to sell to the public would be one solution. If I were to start making sales in the beginners section, it would be a good indicator that I could start posting in the mainstream or “studio” part of RB.

OK, there are many options to trim the database and increase quality.
I think an initial approval is still a good option because you can gauge from this what a photographer is likely to upload in the future. It works with Stock sites and if you want to retain quality it’s the simple way to go.
It’s not being elitist – would any respected gallery let any Joe Soap come in hang anything on their walls?
By filtering RB can maintain its high reputation as being a showcase for outstanding work.

However, when it comes to rankings of images, as a lot of people have expressed, the site is being driven by intense networking which is creating artificial popularity.

If you put in a search you can find excellent images way down the ranks simply beacuse their authors have’nt or maybe have not the time to participate more in the community.

With a new upload system their quality work will still be there but will they get a fair crack of the whip!
It should’nt be what every little thing you do on the site is what ultimately your images are!

May I suggest a simple educational ‘marketing’ page for both newcomers and any existing members who would like some bubble ‘appearance’ hints? The ‘selling your art’ page tells the newcomer what they can get but not the best way to get it. I’m sure some members aren’t even aware they can move images around in their bubble. If the ‘How to get the best out of your bubble’ page gave information about what is most attractive to potential buyers in terms of a brief biography, inspiration text etc. How to keep the front page of your bubble looking as professional as possible with your best 6 or 9 images there (your Hall of Fame so to speak), moving less popular images down or out. And what can be put in blogs to compliment the profile like how you did a certain series of work. 2 pages per bubble should be ample for anyone to show their best. That’s 40 images. If another 2 pages were allocated to everyone in the ‘studio’ that’s a total of 80 images…a set amount that doesn’t change. The ‘studio’ bubble may be used at the artist’s discretion to either store work, upload new images ready to transfer to the main profile, house their hidden works or just an album of ‘family snaps’...it doesn’t matter which as long as the main profile remains the prominent showcase for the best work. If RB knows that each artist has a total of 4 pages they can work out their logistics from that. The obviously point which will be raised is how you keep artists from having multiple identities and posting several bubbles. It is no secret that I have 2 bubbles complimenting each other, one is my finished art and the other is my reference photography. In my case I could move my photos to my studio bubble. I’m not savvy about web access and security but I’m sure there must be some way to police the multiple identities eventually.

The other thing that springs to mind regarding throughput on a work is timezones. People who post at odd times of the day or night are going to get less traffic and, therefore, comments on their works and consequently less room in their folio as their works get overwhelmed once the vast majority of Australians (sorry but you are the majority!)come on stream. Which already happens.

I’m worried about this “community standing ” at the moment I have only what I consider to be my best bar maybe 2 or 3 at the most . My stuff never gets to the front page nor will it ever because its not popular – however I don’t regard it as poor quality . I fear I may soon be relegated to the 10 shots only. Franky don’t really know the answer, it could get really complicated.

Not sure about the studio idea I really still want to be able to print out all my own work though this is really important for me.

Limiting uploads t one or two per day like bettterphoto.com of which I’m a member maybe an answer they also have free galleries and other which you pay for depending on how much space you want.

A tricky balancing act to be certain. Not sure I have much in the way of advice, except that the impetus for ‘higher quality’ can come from the individual, the community, or the governing body. Making the individual self-police is tricky and not in what they might perceive to be their best interest, making the community responsible gives rise to cliques, and making some kind of ‘governing body’ do it would be massively cumbersome.

Another approach I’ve seen is at pentaxphotogalleries – they invited open submissions for people to get themselves showcased on the site, got flooded with submissions of varying quality, and then had to implement an anonymous community ‘screening’ process to shortlist a final set for website approval. Not suggesting exactly that kind of setup here, but secret ballot of some kind is an approach that can be taken.

If members think of their bubble in terms of a changing ‘exhibition’ then 2 pages/40 images should be ample. An exhibition in a commercial gallery would be about the same amount of work if not less. And you wouldn’t put an extra 40 pieces in a gallery exhibition if they weren’t your best or they were too similar…so why stack up your bubble any differently? A gallery director may not be thrilled if you swapped work around every day of an exhibition but RB allows that freedom.

“It shouldn’t be what every little thing you do on the site is what ultimately your images are!”

I agree with that.. not everyone has the time to interact with forums etc.. but it’s like most sites, the people who participate in these things, get more exposure, more hits on their work, more comments and sales…

I also agree that something needs to be done to keep the high quality of images, there are a lot of sites where people can upload snapshot… but you have to be so careful on what you class as poor quality or snapshot, because to that person in their eyes they think that their work is “top”.. Maybe if more of the experienced artists would comment on new members works and give them tips on how to improve, that would help with the higher quality of art..

I think that if there was a list of categories of art work available eg.. Photography/sunsets, Digital art/abstract .. there would be more sales made as visitors to the site could go straight to the list to find what they want, instead of typing in a tag, as some artists may not have that particular tag noted on their work..

Also the amount of images uploaded per day, for free access maybe 2 images per day, paying members 4 per day..

Just my suggestion.. ;)

Durotriges – our traffic really doesn’t change that much over a 24 hour period, between Europe, North America and Australia we have a surprisingly even traffic distribution.

This has been very useful feedback – thanks all for commenting.

I think RB needs to define itself, if it is primarily a site to SELL/MARKET then the quality needs to be upgraded.

If it is a ARTISTS site then experimental and other type art is OK. I think there are enough sites for ARTISTS to publish on, and would rather see a truly quality site to sell work.

Comments and favorites becomes a questionable way to evaluate marketability, I am on other sites where people produce questionable fractals etc and get zillions of comments because they have built this Scratch my back and Illl scratch your back network.

I think this new approach could be successful – the transition will be tough though.

Also, I don’t think people should discount the community here, as this is why I came here – to be a part of a creative group of people. For those of us who have ‘written works’, the community interaction is all we have.

I’m surprised to hear that Peter, that’s very interesting how the stats differ from the perception! :-D

I agree that something should be done about the tendency for some people to upload images that frankly would be more suited to a generic photo sharing site rather than being presented as artwork on RB. The problem as I see it is how to make the distinction. Community standing would identify the more vocal and talented artists but some less well known but equally deserving people could slip through the net.
The line between happy snap and artwork can sometimes be quite fine.
Perhaps a probationary period where work would not appear in Art/Clothing would be useful and the ability to flag inappropriate work may help too.

SO HERE IS MY SUGGESTION

This builds on your Idea and is only a refinement.

Unfortunately any of these limitations proposed will encourage artists to have multiple accounts.

The real issue is the tons of stuff on the entrance screens that diluge the visitor with a lot of marginal art and a volume of art from “SERIES” some artists have such a backlog of work that they can load hundreds of pieces as fast as they can.

THIS LOWERS THE IMAGE OF REDBUBBLE AS A QUALITY SOURCE FOR PURCASERS TO BROWSE. ===========================
Proposal

GENERAL CONCEPT

artspace unlimited

Opening screens searches are an advertising space that artist manages to promote his galleries.

An additional manual search all for keywords can be on main screens.

DETAILS

1. Artist can upload as much work as he can from his backlog of work.

2. The opening search screens are used by the artist to draw attention to his galleries.

3. He can specify up to 5 pieces from each category to represent his galleries.

4. In addition 3 latest works in each category show so that artist dosnt need to constantly manage his selected 5. In some cases his 5 selected and latest might be the same so filtering dups should be done.

5. The opening seraches are random in positioning work so each artist gets close to equal exposure., rerandomized once an hour?

The system of comments and favorites opens you up to
domination by artists who have the best networks not the best art.

============================================
Categories

CARDS- 5 examples by artist plus automatic 3 latest works
__

so that specific work appropriate for cards can be
seperated by the artist himself this will upgrade card presentation.

ALSO Believe a four fold premium card section should be set up.

WALLART 5 examples by artist plus 3 latest works
___
Filters:

Small Only
Small Medium Only
Small Medium Large

TSHIRT 5 examples by artist plus 3 latest works

FILTERS:

TShirt woman
TShirt Men
TShirt General

If Leonardo or Michael Angelo had spent all their time drinking lattes and schmoooozing they’d never have had the time to create all the amazing works that they managed to in their lifetimes. I think judging people by their popularity is dangerous mistake!!

If there was someway you could set up a project developement on-line I would be glad to contribute my time to help develope design specifications.

I am a retired software architect and having a good art site is worth while,

Again I EMPHASIZE anything based on user networking becomes obnoxious quickly as people develope networks and cronyism that reflect very little about the art.

sorry ! cant resist after heydiddles comment – lots of artists didn’t become popular till they were dead !! theres two things in life that are certain as the saying goes – death and taxes! .

Both in the forum, and in people’s blogs, I have suggested a similar scheme to the one proposed (though with different labels – I like these ones better).

I’ll add one point to this discussion -
I believe that it is the public who should ‘vote’ on the ‘quality’ of art, and not a panel, learned as they may be. It is dangerous to allocate a panel to call yea or nay on a piece of art.

If handled anonymously, the community can judge what should be appearing in the main galleries or not, without feeling they are obliged. With a community like this one – literally hundreds of extremely talented artistic people – all from different genres and age groups, it is a resource that you just cannot buy.

As a newcomer to RB (and a relative newcomer to photography), I had hoped for a little critical feedback on the images posted from a community of creative thinkers. It’s all very well thinking that your work has credit, or even receiving praise from friends and family, but it lacks the objectivity which comes from a stranger’s point of view.
However, aside from a couple of comments made while in the process of uploading my shots, there’s been nothing. And, without uploading more, or schmoozing in the forums, there isn’t likely to be as far as I can tell.
Perhaps it’s this conundrum which needs addressing? There is always the possibility that some of the lower quality shots that have been uploaded have been done so in the hope of dragging the casual viewer from the home page/gallery to one’s own pages.
Also, given that art and art appreciation is entirely subjective (see Turner prize and the contentious winners), surely, technical issues aside, quality would be a very difficult concept to police.
Ahh, what do I know? Just my amateur two penn’orth.
Mark

A simple limit on the amount you can upload per day and a limit on how much work you can put in your portfolio might concentrate the mind a bit wouldn’t it?

(sorry I seem to be monopolising this debate a bit. I’ll go a way for a while….)

Here is my two cents!

-unlimited ‘studio’ (keyword searchable and maybe in a ‘whats happening’ section), but still a max. of 5 upload per day (except for the initial folio set up maybe?) to stop bulk uploading and putting people off with a flood of one artist. Stop the mass influx that would never get shown by the artist or a gallery in the real world. Force people to act somewhat professionally.

-your best ten in the ‘gallery ‘section of your folio and the site ‘gallery’...this could be artists choice, or based half on artists choice half on popularity formula based on hits, favorites from your folio. The artist could swap the 5 they pick every day if they want to put in the effort!

-popularity sux! skill rocks!!!
Popularity is not a true reflection…
‘Objects in mirror may appear closer’ i digress!

no folio limit in studio section, no user pay..,and def, no ADS!!!

Another thing that may need to be considered: If, in 6 months time, the RB membership increases tenfold – what happens to gallery limits?

Goodnight – I’m off to sleep.

Any anonymous voting system opens up a HUGE bag of worms.

This is a good step in the right direction. Is it perfect? No. But there comes a time when you will only be able to tell if it will or will not work by actually implementing it.

I would however, like to comment on charging members…

I am so glad to hear that RB believes in the artist and only wants to succeed when they do. If you went to a pay service, I think you would loose members at both ends of the spectrum. Yes, you will get rid of some of the ‘happy snaps’ shooters, but you will also loose some high quality artists. Whatever category you would classify me as, I would probably have to leave. Now that I have devoted myself full-time to my art and to photography, I have to be much more diligent in how/where I spend my money. When I was in a full-time ‘normal’ job and just a weekend warrior, I had much more disposable income and belonged to many paid sites. I’ve had to cull it back to only my personal website as I simply cannot afford anything else until I get myself more established. I think others may be in the same situation.

Therefore you could end up with established artists just looking to make an extra couple of bucks (let’s face it, you will never be able to support yourself off of this place alone) and your weekend warriors/happy snappers with disposable income to burn. You could miss out on some incredible, new or less established artists.

Just my Canadian $0.02…...

please ignore my spelling and grammar errors, just waking up

ALSO copyright

There are obvious examples of copyright infringements and there s/b a way to report these, people can not just take pictures of objects and sell them on TSHIRTS.

Nor can you take photos of people and publish without a model release.

Artists above anyone else should respect intellectual property rights.

You need to explain the rules for the neophytes.

This has been an interesting discussion to say the least!

My impression of RB is that all of the ingredients for a site that is for artists to display AND/OR to sell/market already exists. You currently have art displayed that is not for sale and items that the artist listed for sale.

I suggest segmenting for works to display and sales. A clear distinction set up on the home page, to direct the visitor who wants to buy to that section and the art aficionados to a “gallery” for viewing those pieces on display, is all that would be needed once the Viewing Gallery and the Sales Galleria are established.

I think that the artist should continue to decide which category he wants to use. I think that everyone would agree that there are such varied tastes in art and opinions about quality that it’s too difficult to define a grading standard. There really is just one true measure – the number of times a piece of art is viewed or purchased by the public. The public has their own ideas regarding standards of quality and make it known whenever a purchase is made or clicking on a web link for a closer look at a picture or painting.

I agree with the concept of limiting the number of works for each artist as that will “encourage” only the best submissions. I would also suggest that a rating system of low to high be established for a more definitive feedback to the artist. Low ratings should require comments regarding why the low rating was chosen and that also provide constructive tips to help the artist improve his work.

I really like this site and hope that a workable solution is found.

BTW I printed one of my cards half page and full page from images off Red Bubble, both were excellent for that purpose, the copyright on the side could stay and not impare image or be easily removed by cropping.

Watermark needs to deface image, and both small image and large image are adequatefor printing cards, a right click security code sb added, I know it isnt perfect and people can take screen images but a message that copying isnt appropriate will discourage most people.

Wow, there are so many comments, it would take forever to read them all. I agree with the few I did read, ones mans trash is another mans treasure. There are quite a few of my own photography that I absolutely adore but I have yet to get even one comment on it. Soooo… I guess the artist would have the troublesome time of choosing those ten works…. but still sounds like a good idea.
I am curious to know what would happen to my photography right now. I made the mistake of putting frames and my signature on my photography, and instead of re-uploading to the same image (which I found out, will keep all your favorites and comments in tact) I started a whole new image and set the old to private (which I thought would keep my comments and favorites, but I was wrong) Sooooo… long story short, I am starting over with my comments and favorites. Oh sob story I know. I am just wondering where I would be? I am positive there are many better works then mine on RB. . . . . But this has been a starting place for my photography and I am grateful for the all the comments as they make me strive for better. Even looking at other peoples work, makes me strive for better. I am afraid I would be lost in the back pages of other people’s work. BUT, I do think it could be very cool. I would just have to have faith in my own work to get out there… :)

I think i like the ideas of what happening , instead of whats hot. that feels like i’m back in highschool trying to catch up to the cool kids. 2nd i like the idea of limiting the amount of images to maybe 20 a day. as coming from non photo point of view and i love photos. its hard to compete with a 100 new images everyday. it should be only your best not how many. anyway just my point of view

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A BUSINESS MODEL

There are comments here about artists using this site for reasons other than selling, I have a site where I have published 900 pieces, many in a series of experimentations such as SKIN COLOR STUDIES, or FIGURE STUDIES. 90 percent I do not consider as saleable. There are plenty of sites where these philosophies prevail, as well as the popularity concept within the memberships, anyone who wants to email me I will send a list of 4 sites I publish on.

None of these sites SELL anything. Some are so active that within minutes your piece is buried in the old category.

I would like to see REDBUBBLE become a serious site to SELL work. I’m not sure how possible that is on the internet but if they cant do it they will start charging for membership, someone has to pay the bills.

A system where each artist has equal representation, and control of the pieces that represent him would parralel a sound concept of advertising, if an artist were to pay for advertising in a publication he would select his own pieces to represent himself.

The issue here would be to build a business model that works as well as it can and see if the internet can be a place unknown artists can be commercially successful.

Let the artist police himself by creating his own advertising image. That is he selects a number of images to represent each category in his gallery. Leaving that selection to others is folly. It hasnt worked on other sites. They do not end up with the popular work representing the best work. and the members with the best networks dominate all categories.

And the most professional members become the most ignored because they have better things to do than fawn over a lot of marginal pieces.

Once these networks prevail it is almost impossible for an artist to get recognition without fawning over work he really dosnt appreciate.

It becomes a real issue of dignity and ethics in these situations, to the point that I have turned off comments and ratings on any site that allows me to do so.

Then views is another issue most sites cannot prevent mutiple views from anonymous visitors so this is open to conjecture as well.

All of these elements are fine for members to have, but noone should benefit in exposure because he has created a network that exchanges favors.

Lets have equal representation for all members and give them control over their own image and marketing strategies.

Besides that REDBUBBLE has already a very good interface for selling, most sites present that as a secondary issue.

I don’t believe that anyone has the right to quality check anyone else’s work, because everyone has different preferences as to what they like and don’t like. And surely its up to the buyer? They won’t buy anything they don’t like will they? There’s some popular works on here that I either don’t like or understand, but obviously some people do or it wouldn’t be so popular. There are also works that don’t get a lot of views or comments that could be excellent, so how can you possibly even contemplate quality checking work?

One of the comments above was about buying your own work (which we intend to do), so what if you’ve uploaded something you intend to buy (and therefore probably like it) and be told it’s not good enough so you can’t have it here?

Last comment

Being an artist dosnt necessarily guarantee any business expertise, opinions here may represent the users but not good business. If RB wants to be successful at marketing they need business models and business advice.

With a decent business model the artists that want to sell and can sell will come and stay, the rest may leave if it isnt the kind of community they want. There are plenty of art sites offering these type of networks and communities.

There is a fundamental issue, can art be sold on the internet? And can RB be a part of it. I assume RB has to sell to exist, or maybe they could survive with advertising? You cant have what RB is becoming and have serious buyers get past all the confusion and distractions of F#@! tshirts and RubberDuck copyright infringements.

I dont NEED to sell art but it would be nice if we gave it our best shot.

If number of comments on work is used as a metric it will encourage “comment spam” rather than well thought out or appropriate comments.

You will see a lot of “nice image! comment me back!” x 500

The same if forum postcount counts towards increasing your limits.

The only fair way that I see is to have sales count towards your increase of space, or let people that want more space pay for it. </ the economist>

I don’t like the idea of an anonymous ranking of other peoples work to decide if it is “good” or not.

I totally agree with Tanya Housham no one else has right judge or quality slot an other persons work

I have just joined the site but because of the comments I am considering leaving,eg: If I said something negative about a piece of art THAT WOULDN”T GO OVER VERY WELL.

i think its a very good idea (initial post of this thread) to combat the decline of this site… it has become a joke.

like the studio idea that sounds great, also like the idea of having works graded by you guy’s we only upload our best shot’s & hope that each work has it’s own merit’s to be on that trhis site, big fan of redbubble & the way it is policed had no cause for comlaint so far

Sounds good, but I have noticed, no matter how good your work is, it’s mostly the popular people who get plenty of comments. :-)

Sounds like an excellent idea. The best one I’ve heard so far!

Most of all, I like the Studio idea.

The Studio would be the right place for travel photography, photo reports and journalism: photos that can be very well executed as much as interesting but they cannot have the requested features to sell as art.

after reading all the posts and deliberating the question, i think that to make people think carefully before they upload “is this quality”? there should be an upload limit whether this is per day/ week etc im not sure, but as others have said there are many great works being un-noticed on a daily basis as they get pushed down by the more popular images or by the not so good snaps that are uploaded in there hundreds- (well quite a few)! all in the space of half an hour.This limit would give everyone a fair chance to get seen.
I like the idea of a studio for the same reason.

Can I just link to THIS forum thread in order to avoid re-treading old ground?

As a non-pro please let me know when I have to start deleting my work that is not good enough to be considered ART…. I agree there should be a limit as to how many a day you may add. but the above statement is what people starting out are going to think. I do also think the HOT LIST is a no go. A limit will make even the newest artist look at their work and pick the one they feel is their best .

I agree…..I think an upload limit is a must.
By the way….what about an additional watchlist/favourites/comments limit a day?

I agree this sounds like a good plan. Something should be set

I agree with Joan above….
I have only recently started taking photographs and I think i have learnt an enormous amount just looking at other peoples work on here.
But who is going to decide whats art and whats not.
I must also add that I find it a bit irritating going to someones bubble and finding that its just a facebook imitation with photos of their friends and family ….....
I don’t know….

Nobody likes limits Benjamin but your suggestion re. watchlists/favourites certainly deserves consideration.
I have thought about this myself, but the only problem is when members run out of being able to give comments etc, they just have to watch!

Maybe they could gain”credits” from number of views or favouritings they have received ( on a monthly or daily basis)or something like that.
A ponder for RB?

limits are good… best work will be displayed, work could be rotated. i agree with steve (up there somewhere) that popular artists work will always be at the top. it isnt hard to network, but some excellent artists are not into it.
have Red Bubble considered private selection? it is, after all, a business first. shouldnt RB decide on gallery size for individuals? maybe based on sales and a ‘panel’ that looks for quality?
the favourites and watchlists rating system really doesnt work for most people. its a popularity thing.

I like ECGardners comment earlier. I do think that RB is heading in the right direction, and has some good ideas. It just has some holes to work out. I think that it is unfortunate that the artist can’t look at their own work and figure out what should be posted or not, “we are our own worst critics” after all.
However after multiple blogs on the topic of quality, I am curious how many Red Bubblers went back through and changed their portfolio? I have removed multiple photos and have listed on some that they are just there for fun and will come down in a week (mainly because they were cute, but not up to my standards for myself).
I am impressed with Red Bubbles concern and I see that RB is listening.

*Just a thought ::: Maybe one photo that we make our own judment on, and change when ever, with our name and a link by clicking the photo to view the rest of the picture one has in a folder. Then there would not be so many pages to thum through. And our journals not shared with the public or comments giving on a picture, so our comments and concerns are keep in the commuity, Mabe use the bubblemail for a tool to comment? I dont know just a thought

I think it’s a good idea. I also agree on the comment about the images on the “what’s Hot” It seems an image appears on there based on how many comments it has received (including the artist’s own comments)??? Surely you would just have to comment on loads of people’s work and expect a complimentory comment in return and then comment on that comment (!!!!!) in the hope you receive so many, it will make it onto the what’s hot. I have even seen people just putting random posts saying “check this out” etc, with a link to their work. Can Red Bubble not randomly pick what they think deserves to go on the what’s hot… I’m sure everyone on here would repect their judgement!

Dont think anyone has right to pass judgement? Try to get a photo on ISTOCK or any of the professional sites for commercial art and photos where they expect to SELL STUFF. 99.99% of these here wont make it. Probably NONE of the altered photos would make it. I dont want RB to be like that, but somewhere in-between where an amatuer doing his best work can have a chance to SELL.

And apparently some do sell work here, but I see most of those have bought as well so if you have a bought and sell does that mean they bought their own work?

I agree with Michelle. I, along with some other designers, feel ignored because we don’t go around advertising ourselves and receive less comments than the ‘popular’ ones.

Dominic, I bought one of my cards but it doesn’t show that I “sold” an item.. it says that I bought one.

Ok thanks Faizan, and congrats

I think your posted ideas are fine. I would say a 30 to 50 limit in their gallery and the ability to swap these out at any time.

I don’t like the idea of a subscription with unlimited posting, because that is what other sites do and it doesn’t stop people from flooding the pool with snapshots. It also changes this into a site where revenue comes from subscriptions and sales are secondary (as peter stated).

I would suggest that you find a group of artists or organization outside Redbubble to do any judging or grading of works. There are many public service organizations who would do this for no charge. Some of the “friends of museums, gallerys etc” type groups would be ideal. They should be a mix of age groups. We are all more interested in what potential buyers like, not what our friends think!!!

Instead of putting an overall limit, I’d prefer a daily one. Let’s say something like 3 arts and 3 t-shirts or something.

Before I dash off to work:

Using volume per capita to control quality, vs using quality to control volume per capita.

If there are no intentions of limiting ‘capita’ (memberships):

Then, any system put in place that limits volume but not quality will fail as membership increases.
A system that uses quality filtering will naturally filter volume.

My answer is quite simple, everyone should be treated equally and should not have the quality of their work judged by anyone ,whether it is good or bad ,it is their work and they are proud of it and should not take a back seat to the work of others no matter the category.

I think a daily limit of maybe 4 subs a day…an overall gallery limit will kill this site in a heartbeat, especially when it faces competition from the likes of deviantart which is completely free

I like Marks last remark, and agree with many of the above. I wonder if what is needed is a 4 month trial of a new system to see what bugs need to be worked out. Popularity voting has been an issue for a while and also, with the new group function coming up, whats not to stop someone from forming a group that makes multiple remarks on group member sites. Then you would get into the problem of which group has more members and which group has more power. That is why I like ECGardners remarks way up above somewhere.
So, my suggestion, is to run a 4 month trial, see what works, what bugs need to be worked and reevaluate in 4 months.

After reacting twice by culling my images already in response to comments made by other RB members, I’d certainly appreciate some definitive guidelines sooner rather than later.

To those who “don’t think anyone has the right to pass judgement” . Think about what we have now. RB passes judgement on a photo/artwork based on how many comments etc it gets. I have noticed that my photos suddenly improve in quality if I run around commenting on other peoples work. I’m know that other people have noticed this too, though those who use it the most are also those who deny that it exists – or at least refuse to talk about it. You will notice that most of the people who do abuse the system have not commented on this thread.

I really don´t like the fee sugestion, because it will cause to loose many members and it doesn´t guarantee to have more “quality art” than before.

Regarding the amount of pictures that are more suitable to be on a more personal space (like Flickr or Facebook) I think it would be a good idea to put it somewhere (the F.A.Q maybe) that this is an artistical and commercial site, meaning that there are tons of way to share your personal photos, but that this site have a different approach.

Personally I have RedBubble for my photographies, an account on Da for my photomanipulations, and finally a Facebook for my personal use. I cannot agree more with this “RedBubble is a site for your best work”, because even though I have more pictures Icould upload (I hava a problem with my camera right now, so they are not recent) but I don´t post them because I feel they are not good enough.

And last, about the popularty, I´m afraid it will scared the people that are just starting here and any other that would like to become a member, the fact that they may think there is no place for them left.

Overall, I think it’s a good idea, but as others suggested earlier, I think it’s important that it’s easy to move stuff between both sections. Also, it would be handy to be able to link directly to individual entries in your “back catalogue”, so for example if you wanted to put a link into the critique section, you could without using up one of your gallery spaces. This covers the case where you might want to get people’s thoughts on a particular work before you move it in.

Folders are a great idea!

I agree with the comments about others deciding on the “quality” of a work, so if there is a way to leave that decision to the artist (and a limited number of “gallery” spaces seems to me like it would be the most viable solution), then great.

What I don’t think anyone wants is for people to feel alienated, or that (sorry George) some pigs are more equal than others.

We love the bubble and the bubble loves us! Maybe we need a Little Red (bubble) Book :-)

I have ploughed through all the responses. Wish I hadn’t. You’re going to have a difficult job, pleasing us all.
I suspect that if this (subjective) quality push takes over. If the popularity rating isn’t changed a little, to stop the wroughting (?) of that system, my bubble of enthusiasm will burst.
This may be a good thing. I’ve neglected so many other aspects of my internet addiction.
I wish I had solutions. I just hope that RedBubble doesn’t lose that village market place atmosphere, where anyone can put their wares up for sale and quality simply stands out naturally.
For quite some time now, I have been concerned that when I point others to Redbubble I mean outsiders, who haven’t heard of Redbubble before they report back that they do not find it as user-friendly as they’d hope (for non-members).
I know! This didn’t help!
Before responding, I looked for a definition of “quality”. That didn’t help. It seems to be what the beholder thinks about it and I repeat, there doesn’t seem to be so much input from the prospective buyers, or visitors to Redbubble.

Derid

As a retired software developer, I can tell you you need a pretty good Idea of where you want to go before you write any code. Writing code can be expensive proposition.

So just try it awhile may not work.

I am against any system based on popularity because they aways get corrupted.

I am repeating, but I believe the artist should load what he wants unless RB has a capacity issue, then HE CHOOSES which pieces should represent him on the searches. The search pieces should be limited to 5 per category, 20 pieces total in search engine unless more categories are added.

The categories Photos, wall art, cards, Tshirts.
Probably allowing the same piece in multiple categories which would count as multiples toward the 20.

Once number of artists is too large this could be cut down.
This way artist controls his own presentation.

Then when a client selected an artist that they liked the “Style” they could see more of his work.

Limiting what is loaded isnt the issue here, the issue is fashioning a presentation for the site, the two are not exactly the same issue.

It is not logical to confuse these two issues.

If RB has a limit issue that should be decided on its own merits.

Then as a seperate course of action a presentation should be designed.

Ive seen people here do a series of 30 to 40 characters all of which are fine TSHIRTS and someone interested would enjoy reviewing the gallery. The artist needs to pick a few to represent his series, not eliminate the series from the site or take 4 months to upload it.

Redbubbles suggestions have credit, there needs to be a limit on the amount of images in a memgers gallery and there needs to be some sort of guidance as to what type of artwork is “best work”

The suggestion of using comments as a feedback mechanism to allocate the member with larger galleries is not a good idea. In fact I believe there should be a set limit for all members of 40/50 works.

I would also suggest that the forum be used for what it was implemented as posted by James Peirce, 1May 17, 2007

“The Business of Photography – A New Forum

We’ve just launched a forum to create a space on the site for everyone to share their ideas and experiences about selling themselves and marketing their art work. Tell us what’s working for you, ask questions and put a few crazy ideas out there as well.

Also, I’d like this forum to be a place were we can all talk about interesting strategies to market RedBubble itself, dream up cool viral marketing ideas and spread the word to expand the bubble-verse.

RedBubble Needs You ! (you’ll have to imagine the guy pointing his finger)”

Hi Dominic, I guess what I was trying to express is a Beta version that would allow the major bugs to be worked out. I do think that it is going to be impossible to please everyone on this issue. There are so many different responses here that you could set up 20 different web sites and still not cover all the ideas of what a perfect Red Bubble would be.

I reckon that you have some good ideas there. I tend to weed out the trash in my gallery …... those that have’nt been faved, or have the least comments,.... I’ll delete, to make way for new work. If I visit someones gallery with more than four pages, I’ll retreat, because it takes far too long to browse through everthing. So, there we have it, four page limit, deleting the unloved after a fortnight.

personally i’m not one in favour of a fee.

i just joined redbubble and at first i loved what i saw, real talent and i thought hey this is a place for me to expose my artwork and i can use site to help get my tshirt designs out there. but now it’s like people are flooding this site with some seriously questionable designs. i think it would be nice if you guys could somehow gain that quality that made me fall in love with this site.

its so sad that it has to be sorta high school. haven’t we learned from those cheesy predictable high school movies? popularity never pays. i feel alot of quality designers are pushed aside and somehow squab makes it to the top.

my two cents submitted, good luck with figuring it out.

Richie

Then what
delete halloween, xmas, easter ,mothers day ,fourth of july ,graduation day, fathers day , St patricks day, and who knows how many other days in the international community

etc every year and reload it every year

This is a card site AND TSHirts as well can be seasonal

4 pages wouldnt even cover a nice collection of greeting cards.

There needs to be folders and other means to control the Store front for the artist

Again
and I say this respectfully
we confuse the volume issue with the presentation issue,

i’m with ECGardner, Steve and Natalie

Someone mentioned perhaps 30 instead of 10 images. I agree, as some artists and photographers by nature are more prolific and create quality pieces x

There are a number of serious issues raised here but I think that you are looking in the wrong direction.

How an image is ranked on this site is dependant upon the comments received and the favouritings (is that a word?). Even as I write there is written at the bottom of the screen in parenthases the sentence plaease play nice.

There are a lot of people contributing to this site who are dedicated to the production of high quality work and their personal development as artists in whichever field they pursue. These people are becoming frustrated, undermined and undervalued by the manipulation of the system which elevates mediocrity.

Much depends upon what people want from this site and it ist impossible to please everyone. That much I acknowledge. I myself having departed from the professional scene in 2001 and then having spent some time lecturing feel that I can make a valued contribution to the site. The problem that I have is that, while recognising that there is a lot of dross uploaded I cannot comment or give constructive criticism without further elevating it’s status. The only option available is to not comment.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Today on around page 35 or thereabouts are a couple of images by Kimbob1. The beast slayer is one. This is a really nice shot. it is correct in every sense. The costuming and propping are excellent. The lighting is from a large soft box with a reflector in a 2:1 ratio and spilling onto the background. This is lazy lighting. This is Joe in the corner shop lighting. Should she have gone to the extra effort of using the main light as it is, one to one and a half stops lower and used either snoots or spots to accentuate the metallic quality of the sword and give more dimension to the subject then this immediately would have raised the images far above the ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, lighting is an art form and take many years, so I suggest that it is inexperience and that she will achieve a much higher potential.

In around the same place are the “world is not enough” images. These are challenging images which could also benefit from more dramatic lighting but this however comes down to personal taste and I cannot fault the work.

What is affronting is that these images are outranked by a shot of a mouse on a desk. This is an insult to my intelligence.

From my own experience, one of yesterdays submissions, “I am the lizard king” is a compilation of three images; two daylight images and one taken under artificial light. These have been manipulated to give the impression of moonlight with consistent lighting and contain a full tonal range. This was outranked by a shot of a child taken with flash on camera and had a comment that said ‘excellent lighting’. If a first year student brought that to me I would have sent it back saying do it again.

I have to admit that I am bewidered by the underwhelming response that my work receives and am frustrated that most of it ends up at the back of the deck where only he most ardent explorer will search. If it wasn’t for the fact that Paul Vanzellas has been kind in his praise of my work that I would have been gone long ago.

This is the problem. If a better system is not found the site will lose the kind of people which drives it and attracts new members.

If a piece of work is crap why can’t we say it.

Instead of muttering about limits or charges or studios why can’t we just be honest about and say why we don’t like it.

Most of the comments that you see attached to images are fatuous trite and cliched. This is not going to assist anyone in their personal or artistic deveolpment. This is only creating a situation where the system can be manipulated. As Steve Vizard can tell you, market manipulation is something whioch is taken very seriously in the outside world and I find it curious that in all that I have read, the word ‘ethics’ has not been mentioned once.

I would propose that a system be introduced whereby an image, piece of work or T shirt design (I don’t wish to be discriminatory here) be given a numerical ranking so as to neutralise the ‘propaganda’ comments that abound on the basis that a negative ranking be justified with positive constructive criticism.

This would be a deterrent from making submissions which are mediocre and create an environment where people can be more self critical and learn from the criticism that they receive.

I don’t wish this to sound like sour grapes. It isn’t I know my work is of a high standard I wouldn’t put it up if it wasn’t. If people don’t like it it is their perogative but I would like to know why.

Does that sound reasonable?

I am new here but I have enjoyed the community so far. I think RB is unique in its community from what I have seen out there on the internet . Since you have put bubble mail in I have gotten to know some fascinating people here and have been amazed at the quality of their work, but I have not seen any of these people on the ‘popular page”. i had to do to a lot of searching to find them. I think a lot of great art is buried here unless your a major networker. I think the comments made by EC Gardner and Natalie based on my impressions are right on. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you dispensed with the popular category and just had community section.

This seems like a great idea. I echo some other’s concerns about unlimited uploads via subscription, as that just means a lot of people put money into being able to post poor artwork.

Interesting… it’s still all about pictures.

I think the idea is good, but would it be possible to filter the comments so that you could only register one “vote” on a piece from each person, and would exclude the artist’s return comment or thank-you’s as a vote? That way the popularity couldn’t be artificially elevated. It seems that there is a need for some type of filtering, since there is “lobbying” of sorts through the forums, etc. Mostly unintentional, I would assume, but still it raises the popularity of a piece greatly.

Another problem is that sometimes you may think a piece is great, but the community remains lukewarm, whereas, something you think is somewhat interesting, the community loves. Seems some type of sounding board would be good…

Ditto Jo O’Brien.

I agree something has to be done but not sure that a “popularity” rating is the way to go.
In his time, Van Gogh wouldn’t have rated at all.

I don’t have any better suggestions but can’t help but feel that some people are taking themselves and their art toooo seriously.

What makes one work better than another?

I thought this was a creative “community” not a “professional” site.

Eclectic

Ynfortunately ANT RATING system becomes corrupted by the NETWORKERS. I think we should let threm network but the search engines need a democratic process without votes or rankings, a before the election process like an “EQUAL TIME” doctrine.

I like RedBubble’s suggestion.

I think something needs to be done to highlight the best work, and this should work. I know that being popular doesn’t always equate with best work, and networking does seem to make a difference. Perhaps the Redbubble people themselves could promote those who are good, but who don’t get millions of comments, by increasing the size of their gallery. After all, they run the site, they are artists and should be trusted to know good art when they see it!

Also, I think the number you are able to have on your watchlist should be limited. Just how many is it feasible to watch! Some bubblers have 50+, I just don’t believe they are really watching so many! One page full seems to me to be more than enough.

And while I’m on the subject, limit favourites to, say, 2 pages.

This would force everyone to concentrate on what they really think is best.

Hmmm…. so many great ideas- obviously whatever the response-everyone here is concerned and passionate about RB.
A couple of other thoughts that came to me…

One.
RED BUBBLE; You NEED to go back to the beginning. What inspired you to set up this site? whether it was to make a site for ARTISTS or for photosharing, the core idea behind the creation of RB was what was important to you then and it needs to be now. Try not to spread yourself too thin and explore to many directions too fast.

Two.
Generate a survey of ALL RB members- send it out in email form and do a thorough census of the site.

Three.
Consider the option maybe of having an application process and image vetting. (I know people hate rejecting others work but….) When new members join the site (assuming RB are going for Quality over all else) the must present a folio of 3-4 pieces as their initial gallery pieces- theses are assessed before membership is granted- if their not good enough comments are sent back to aid that person in presenting a strong folio next time. Likewise, when new pieces are submitted by existing members, instead of the piece being instantly uploaded to their space there is a, say 12hour, QA period, which gives RB the chance to weed out the ‘crap’ (you know what I mean) and contact the member with comments about quality standards before the images become public.

Unfortunately, the reality is if you want the quality to stay then your gonna have to be a little bit harsh and step on a few toes. Your not going to please everyone, but as a lot of people have pointed out RB is not the only site they can share photos on and they need to be aware of the quality standards expected by RB But if quality is the result of a little unpleasant work and a few bruised egos it’s worth it. As for all the current users that don’t consider themselves artists, in the true sense of the word, well, as I mentioned before perhaps setting up some kind of mirror site will be the answer.

This may sound awfully cynical, but the idiots who upload 50 kazillion lame slogan tshirts and silly pictures of their pets are the same people who will pay money to have those things printed up.

It doesn’t make good business sense to alienate the great unwashed does it?

Kate- why not offer a printing service with one-off uploads to cater for that type for thing then?

I guess because they figure there are already people who do that.

Fair call… ;P

Lets do it

Jonathan van is spot on. RB needs to decide what it wants to be.
At the moment it is a little unclear to newcomers what the site is and even the ‘about us’ page lacks sufficient detail. Why is the ‘about us’ link buried away at the bottom of the page, there should be a strong, clear statement of what RB is featured somewhere prominent.

i think this is a good idea, both the gallery and the studio place.

Jonathan, You worded it perfectly.

One problem that needs to be nipped in the bud, is the fact that you can sign up under different aliases. I have already come across this in a discussion thread, where someone used an alias to present a very contentious monologue on how the images on the “what’s hot ” section were so bad.
It made me wonder if others have aliases as well. It should be one artist one account. Other wise people are going to use this loophole to skirt around any image limits placed by RB.

I have another 2 cents to put on here, bear with me.. I’m thinking it out as I go :o)... Think of a real life, has four walls and a roof gallery… It only has so much wall space. Just because you’re a better artist or photographer does not mean you can disobey the laws of physics and put 100s more images/paintings on those walls than an emerging artist, does it?

I for one LOVE the studio idea, but I think the quality v quantity debate has managed to sidetrack a helluva lot of people here.

I still believe in unlimited uploads and free space, because there are so few websites that offer that to artists, and I simply can’t afford yearly subscription fees. Added to the fact that my work is not for sale (yet), it would more than likely turn me (and others like me) away from the site, even though we still feel we have something to offer.

The images uploaded every day won’t necessarily be seen by the greater public until it is put in the users gallery, no? So… while work remains in the studio, still for sale, only the best pieces will be available for access by the wider bubble community.

I like that idea, but in the interest of killing all popularity/comment whoring plays aimed at getting more gallery space (remember those walls in a real-life gallery now), how about everyone gets the SAME amount of gallery space. The more prolific uploaders can then have a chance to rotate their stock through the gallery, getting new stuff in there to be seen, letting older stuff sit back for a while, and all the while not flooding the system with so many not so quality/artistic/whatever else images.

If a potential buyer likes the stuff in your gallery, they can just pop out back to the storeroom and have a poke around. I doubt it would affect anyones sales (it may in fact increase some) because all of a sudden we’re ALL on equal footing, and have exactly the same chance to be seen as each other.

I’m new here, and have spent the last couple of weeks becoming familiar with the site and beginning to upload my work. I joined RedBubble because I like the concept and look of the site, and because I really like the cards and mounted prints offered.

I make my living as an artist, selling both online and in the non-virtual world and, eventually, intend to direct my buyers to my RedBubble site in order to simplify some printing and shipping issues.

With that said, I’m not thrilled with the idea of my business here being dictated by “popular vote”. I work 12 – 16 hours a day, and won’t spend a lot of time becoming part of the social scene here, which would put me at a distinct disadvantage. I won’t “campaign” for votes to be part of an online selling venue. Even one I like as much as I do RedBubble.

I also don’t want the restriction of offering my work a handful of items at a time. If it’s necessary to be “juried” in by admin, or to pay an annual fee, that’s fine—but, once I’m in, I shouldn’t have to worry about the perceived “quality” of every work I post.

Also, I’m not here soliciting “critiques”; I get plenty of that, in person, at shows and exhibits. After selling my work for more than a decade, I’ve learned the only relevant critique is a sale being finalized! Cynical but true.

I know RedBubble is a very young site and still experiencing some growing pains, so I guess I’ll put the brakes on a bit until some of these issues are settled. I’ll keep an eye out for updates.

Nicole, you have some really good comments, but what you are suggesting at the end, would be a temporary fix to the problem. As more artists sign on, it will head back to the way we were. I can’t imagine that RB has unlimited resources to allow multitudes a chance to upload large quantities of images. RB is a business and as a business, has to make a profit to exist.
I do like your idea of having some images not seen by the greater public. I think that is a good idea.

I hope the revamp doesn’t see the end of favourites and watchlists though. I love that aspect of this place.

i’m fairly new here and haven’t been able to spend much time here but here is my suggestion…
Everyone has one “EXHIBITION” page for “photo”,”t shirt” and “art” works.
these three pages have their best self picked works on them and the main redbubble front only chooses works from these pages to display.
this would encourage people to only display their best works in their EXHIBITION pages.

Everyone also has their own “GALLERY” with 3 main photo, t shirt and art folders and self named sub folders so they can store the rest of their works in some sort of order so that other people can browse their galleries when looking for something specific to buy.

Redbubblers would have to display their very best works to get people interested enough to go and browse their galleries.

people would be able to buy from both the exhibition or gallery areas.

cheers,

Shane

You know, thinking more about this, wha’ts the big deal with people submitting lots of photos? I mean, when I see someon’s art that I don’t personally care for, I just don’t look any further. It only takes a split second to glance over it and ignore further.

What’s bad to some people, might be just what someone else is looking for to buy. Stores don’t usually have only a few items for sale, and especially internet stores. This is the goal; right? To sell?

If the “What’s Hot” page is the issue, then just use a filtering system so you don’t get false high ratings (1 vote each different person) – and leave the quantity of submissions and the number of favorites allowed the same as it is now. I have lots of favorites because I will most likely buy sets of notecards of “like” art (either color, style, etc.) If you limit my number of favorites, I won’t be able to do this.

As far as people having too many on their watchlist – let them. I think it would be irritating having all those works and changes come up on your My Bubble, but, hey, maybe some people feel more involved that way. Again, no big deal. It doesn’t involve me.

RB is a wonderful place, so please keep the changes to a minimum. It really does work, so please don’t fix it.

Makes me sad to think of RB changing drastically.

There are a few comments now supporting the concept of the artist controlling his own exposure, I hope that trend continues.

I would add a first tab to home called ARTIST and default to that, all of the other stuff could remain.

I see no reason this is an either or choice.

The site could easily support a StoreFront model and a community model.

The artist tab would allow selection of categories to browse as other tabs do.

Selecting a piece in a category will bring you to the artists Promotion page for that category. This would include 5 features and folders to caategorize his work further and an Artist stetement.

Limiting inventory isnt a good business decision. Improving quality would be.

There are only two ways to grow a business, increase product line (Categories) and increase your audience (Customers), it is that simple.

also I think we need a 4 fold card for those who really want to attack the card project.

Also a long sleeve jersey in clothing section. This neednt be much heavier than a TSHIRT but should be opaque and should be wider neck to wear layered then you have a year round program.

The reason limiting inventory isnt a good business decision is it dosnt cost anything. in other endeavors limiting inventory might be a good business decision.

My current best guess is there are 2000 members and 110,000 pieces published on Redbubble.

This is low compared to most sites.

DeviantArt has 42,000,000 pieces, Deviant art is a jungle. But a well run site.

If RB had 5,000 artists with 400 pieces each that would be 2,000,000 pieces less than 1/20 of DeviantArt.

So sheer volume has no real issue here.

For example an Artist over time who had an aggressive TSHIRT project could address 10 hollidays with 5 shirts per holliday and another 25 general female and 25 general male.

This is 100 pieces for an artist/designer to produce a comprehensive line of TSHIRTS, that would serve as a reasonable TSHIRT store front.

The alternative is that RB developes it’s own store front of 3-400 TSHIRTS and selects from its possible inventory and diminish the artist representation on the site.

Any storefront produced by any user system is bogus.

A storefront of purchased items would probably work but that practically eliminates any refreshing of inventory and we would still have the problem of getting focus on new items so the inventory could be refreshed.

An artist/designer that really wanted to focus on his best shot at marketing would be glad to pay for a storefront stratup, I pay $29 annually to ARTWANTED for an expanded membership. A fee would be VERY appropriate for a serious endeavor and weed out the dablers.

I mean that the rest of REDBUBBLE would remain the same.

After an artists generated x amount of revenue he could earn a fee-free storefront.

sounds good

RB, I agree with Frank… it sounds good to me :)

There are some artists on Redbubble who are good – sorry, very good – some excellent – better than I’ll ever be – but who seem not to be sufficiently critical of their own work. Because they can upload as much as they want, they do. If they were restricted in what they could display, they would be forced to select their best, and the end result would be an even better portfolio than they have now.

I would rather see one or two superb pictures uploaded each week by someone, than several daily, some of which are below their own standard.

What I’m trying to say is, make the good even better by encouraging them to choose their best.

And I think this can be achieved without asking anyone to pay.

The way this was achieved on a site I recently left was for uploads to receive ratings from one to five from other artists. Your portfolio then had an average rating – if one of your works was a bit ropey it got a low rating and knocked down your average which encouraged you to either improve it or remove it.
This seemed to work; apart from the odd jealous idiot who gave people low ratings because he/she saw other artists as a threat.
It was about the only good thing about the site really.

(Sorry for the long post, but it was thought at length!)

I like the original idea RB is asking our thoughts on. Not too complex, not a huge different path for RB, and a faily good solution to what seems to becomre a problem.

I suggest that only artworks that are for sale were allowed in one’s “gallery” (images not for sale should remain in the studio, with studio pieces not appearing in search results (which seems better for potential external buyers)). This way it doesn’t seem to me that a daily upload limit is necessary.
I like tags as they are, but there should be an efficient system to make really irrelevant ones go, to be complimented with a “BUT” search feature allowing to refine a search by excluding spam taggers’ names (or just exclude irrelevant terms)

I like the idea that more recognition gives more gallery space in such a context, it feels like climbing a ladder of achievment, even though I agree that users feedback/grading is not optimum (but I don’t read other suggestions either that wouldn’t be hand-handled, and don’t have any myself).

But for one’s gallery I’d suggest 12 as the minimum available in each category art/clothing (1 page full of pieces), then 24/36/48/60/80/100, growing their separate way between Art and Tees for each artist. How about limiting even the current most popular artists with the 24 gallery, sort of equalizing everyone for a new start ? ;)

The tough part is indeed to decide how everyone is going to get access to bigger gallery space. It’s hard to comment on this as you only know about your own stats really, or guess about others through forums or comments. And it’s even more difficult as one’s own views are added to the stats.
(For the reader’s information, I joined in early August, and am reaching 980 views and 76 comments on 11 pieces in my Art section, including my own and estimating that about 200 of these views must be my own – if you wonder why, it comes from reading the comments and more-than-average tweakings in some descriptions. And everything seemed to accelerate with the last pieces in the past two weeks)

As about most answers so far seem to agree with the gallery/studio evolution, I think it’d be helpful to suggest RedBubble staff what criterias should be implemented to give access to bigger galleries. It can’t be views as long as your own ones count, but if they didn’t, and only single visits did, that would seem a fair part of the criterias.

So here are my “gallery upgrade conditions” suggestion for the art section (from the beginner point of view, and I don’t use the Tees enough to tell about them) :
- 100 views minimum on each of 80% of the images in the gallery (9 pieces with 100 views out of 12, 20/24, 38/48…)
- a minimum of 10 comments on 50% of the images in the gallery
- a minimum of total favourites equal to twice the number of images in the gallery
- probably a minimum in sales, but haven’t made any myself yet, so hard to say here, I’d say half the number of pieces in the gallery no matter the image product (cards, prints…)

This might seem like a slow progression, or too fast depending on each RB member experience, but don’t forget the studio would hold an unlimited number of sellable pieces too (though I think huge collections become useless, and I wouldn’t disagree with a limit even there), so those criterias could easily be made even more drastic !

Something like this would definitely make the site more buyers-oriented, the artists more keen to outside marketing, while preserving the creative community, the ability for new members to evolve, and not adding overintrusive subjective appreciation of each artist’s value.

(Sorry, no ideas about writing section (are written pieces available for sale ? Would be cool to print some sort of books or leaflets)

Thanks for reading, and thanks even more to RedBubble for asking us, it’s just amazing !
(Oh, and excuse my english mistakes!)

oh, and I think the acess to RB members’ studios should be reserved to other members

Regarding the upload process guidance, it seems there are many Tees made of photographies, which doesn’t seem to fit with the guideline. I haven’t seen any in real yet, but if graphic pictures print better on clothing, that be emphasized before they are uploaded.

Let me start by apologizing if I repeat previous posts, I’m beat and didn’t have the time to read everyone who posted previously. Just wanted to put in my two cents.

I like the studio idea. We could use our gallery space to showcase our best work, but still link to our studio in case anyone wants to see more. If I am correct in my understanding, if a work is uploaded to the studio, it would not show in the recent/activity monitor? What I have noticed lately is a lot of “series” type photos where not much has changed picture to picture, which clogs my activity monitor and makes me frustrated when searching the recently added gallery.

I do not like the idea of limiting space for new users. This turns the site into a popularity contest. I’ve only been on RB about a month, and I have been given a very warm welcome, so don’t take this as sour grapes, but sometimes I feel left out when reading the forums about all you lucky Aussie’s who get to meet up or discuss picture locales that you have in your backyard. Since these people are inherently more involved in the sight, they will get more comments/views. I do what I can to contribute to the RB community, and I love the time I spend on here, but sometimes I can’t keep up, and I have noticed (as has been pointed out before) my views and comments drop off significantly when I take a break from the forums and browsing, even if I have uploaded new work.

If we have a studio, would gallery space be limited for everyone? In this case, would we really need to limit space specifically for new users?

With a few tweaks, the new user limits could work, IMHO. Maybe if a “New User Gallery” was set up. New users would be given a “junior account”, allowed full privileges, with the exception of how many works they could upload. Images could be displayed (perhaps anonymously?) and current members could rate them. Once a junior account receives a set rating, they earn a full account. This is just me thinking off the top of my head here….

...last one for today (might depend on what you finally choose for the new tagline) :

Why not call the art / clothing sections the RedBubble gallery (like it’s all the same gallery hosting the best of various creators), and what you call each member’s gallery a store or front – store instead ?
Then a member’s ‘studio’ is split into :
- the individual back – store (pieces for sale, accessible to non members but only from the member overview, not from searches or global RB gallery)
- the studio itself, only available to RB members, where nothing is for sale, that could host snapshots, scrapbooks, art in progress, art for critique, etc…

(all this maintaining the current ability to hide any picture from others’ views in any part, and as mentionned before, each member being able to move a piece from one part to the other as he wants, but updating the ‘gallery upgrade conditions’ status accordingly)

yep, haven’t read all of the above, but sounds fantastic to me.

I’ve taken so long to reply because we’ve gone bush, and my ‘net access is sporadic at best. I am pleased that RB is trying to weed out the chaff …

The studio concept is great – then those people who are not offering works for sale to others can fill their walls with their kids/puppies (no offense please Nat ..) and print them off at will .. without flooding the shop front with work that, although important to them has no appeal to anyone else!

I like the gallery and studio idea, but would like to see a facility for other people (members and general public) to link to a particular artist’s studio if they’d like to see more of that artist’s work – so it would be a choice thing by the viewer. For instance, if a purchaser/other member sees an image in the gallery that they really admire, they may want to get a feel for the rest of that particular artist’s work. And it may just happen that they actually prefer something in that artist’s studio to what they see in the gallery. It is impossible to judge what is going to appeal to any one person…...after all, we all like to make a sale, and to me it is irrelevant which of my images sells. Most of what I consider to be my best work is not work that would appeal to the large majority of people seeking to buy for their own homes. I don’t create specifically to impress others, but I’m wrapped if someone likes my work enough to purchase it.

Just to add something else – perhaps a limit on daily upload is a good idea so that ALL new images have a chance of being seen within a certain period of time before being swamped and hidden in the dungeons of our studios (especially those of us who don’t rank high on the popularity list, if it comes to that).

Oops, more: I don’t think the gallery should be a popularity-based thing, it should be a specific number of images chosen by the artist himself/herself. And everyone should have equal space/numbers of allowable images in the gallery otherwise you could turn away potentially very good artists, and it will just become an elitist site. However, where do the writers fit into all this???

Thanks, Whirligig. You are wise and have put into words exactly my thoughts on this matter.

Ok here is my dollar two 98. Studio is a great idea for those that really want to sell there work or show case it, have it rotate. No favorites just rotate that way you will be on the front page once in a while. If it’s not for sale why post it ?! your images take up space on the servers. I sell stock on fotolia.com and they have a really tuff policing policy that they go by if it doesn’t fit what they think will sell or meet there customers needs it doesnt get excepted. I don’t think we need that but the quality has to to go in some works, it has gotten to the point if you have a digital camera your a photographer. A lot of folks here have spent thousands on equipment and im sure they are upset at the person that says I am a photographer because I spent 200.00 on a camera. yes I know the camera doesnt make the photographer but it sure helps and those of us that try to make a living at what our passion is it is frustrating. Ok enough of the high horse.
Have galleries for your self for different types of work scenics,flowers,(yes I do a lot of those) seascapes, painting, what ever when you have to wade through all of a artists work it gets tiring to find what you are wanting. Key words are a must I have noticed some of us don’t use them, how is a customer going to find there work if it isnt key worded. Charging after a certain number is reached might help to pay the bills but those that make that number should have a special place on the home page or a space that says elite artists here again have those people rotate through a certain page. Promote an artist work via google or encourage the artist to promote there work here with other web sites adds. Google has whats called adcence for your own personal web sites. if you have your own web site use it google pays you and drives traffic to your site too. Does red bubble advertise on the web? if not please do. sorry for ranting but I think this site rocks. there are other sites out there but over all this is the place to be for quality work and super nice people.

The system proposed by ECGardner looks reasonable for me. IMHO RB needs some kind of content filtering.

@EC – first, kit doesn’t make a photographer and I’m sure you know that. :-D. Second, I’m not sure there’s a need for splitting up the gallery like that. We have a content filter already: if you want to search for a specific image type do a tag search. I do, however, agree that everyone should be equal in the amount of space allocated. I am very fearful of the consequences of gallery space allocated by popularity.

The more I think about it, though, the more I actually quite like what RB is proposing. Upload your images to a studio open to the community to come and have a look around, comment, criticise etc. Have a public gallery where the best are displayed for sale (perhaps, being thoroughly bloodthirsty about it, if you want a criteria for entry maybe it ought to be sales pure and simple). The best selling images get the exposure, RB makes money and we get to keep the site going! :-D

Durotriges, I agree with your idea, but I think I would like to see a link from images in the public gallery to those artists’ studio spaces (from individual images to individual artist spaces) so that viewers can actually also go and browse around there if they wish to do so. I’m sure that you will find people interested and purchasing images that are not in the gallery space as well. This way it will be a choice thing by the viewer whether they wish to browse the studio space as well.

When I first joined RB, I asked about how many photo’s where the limit, and the feedback was around 30 to 50. Well I have found that it is very hard to maintain that small number when I am trying to give the buyer a choice. I try to keep around 4 to 5 pages ( 80 – 100 ) and that is only what I concider to be the best of each batch, and that requires me to return to deleting every couple of weeks. I have noticed that some members have 60 plus pages, and to me this is just taking up far to much space. I like the sound of the restricted number of shots, and I also like the idea of the gallery as well.

I don’t think any of my images have made the front page (not when I’m looking anyway) but that doesnt make them bad, just not-so-popular. Everything I put up has to be something that moves ME. I assume that’s true for many RedBubblers.

This whole popularity thing has worried me from the beginning because it can be self-perpetuating. I know certainly that there are a miriad of brilliant pictures that dont get over a dozen comments – presumably because they are posted then never found again.

Having said that there is plenty of dross. But maybe others consider mine dross? So who am I to criticize them?

who will say what is ‘quality’ work and how?

Wow.. I haven’t read this whole thread, but would it be possible to hide all the comments people make about images. That way the artist still receives them, but you don’t have all these comments making Redbubble just like all the other sites. If Redbubble is to be a genuine ART leader then the comments should be hidden.

When I look at art on RB and see 50 comments, I don’t read them, I view the art.

I agree with the many comments in regards to other sites, what we have now is a delicate situation, which may need a sledge hammer. I am strictly amateur, I may have a slight concern about the overall quality of my own work.
As far as limiting new members, not so sure that is the answer, I think it just may better limiting all members to a set number full stop. Whether that be 10, 20, 50 or 100 max. If an quality artist has 100 top quality works available on RB or 200, I don’t believe they would sell twice as many because they had twice the gallery. On the other hand a member with 300 average works is still unlikely to sell any works.

RB should go with Quality rather than quantity.
Not based on ratings. If you limit an average Jo to 50 uploads, then the chances are he won’t stick around. If an account become inactive hide the members work until the re-emerge.

How many works of art do we now have here? How many are up-loaded each day?

TBC

I agree with the Gallery and studio idea, after all you do produce your work in a “Studio” and display it in a “Gallery”

I’m probably repeating other post’s but as RB asked for our feedback here is mine…..

It seems to me the more prolific you are i.e. the more comments you make on other peoples work and posts you make the more you receive on your work, and that would then make you a popular artist, and therefore to get yourself noticed you need to spend a lot of time cruising everyones art and leaving comments!

I think a much better system would be for people to vote on the work and have a statistic showing something like the following for each piece of art

17 people viewed “This Picture” and rated it an average of 7 out of 10

That said there is a huge amount of fantastic photography on here that regularly has me foaming at the mouth, unfortunately I do not have the time to sit and comment on everything I see.

I also like the idea of having sub folders, some people have a lot of work, and when I’m looking for specific images it can take ages to search through an artists entire portfolio, so why not have them be able to put seperate them into themed folders that they can name themsevles.

The most frustrating thing for me though is I’ve just moved house and do not have broadband access yet at the new house!! (just thought I’d share that)

Voting is just as much a network thing as comments, artist should select his own pieces for search engine.

I think this is a very nice idea! Just so long as RB doesn’t turn into some snooty art club… but I don’t think it will =) How will the new Bubblers know when their gallery has expanded? How much room will the existing Bubblers be allowed when/if this is implemented?

I too like the Studio and Gallery options/ideas. I think limiting uploads to a set number per 24 hours is needed, it will give more exposure to that image, more chance that it can be seen by more people. The ability to create subfolders for specific content would be wonderful. Another (bubble) thought, what if there was an Exhibition Gallery featured prominantly on the front page – where would be buyers could go. This Gallery would operate like a proper Exhibition, whereby 50, 80, 100 works are selected and displayed for a set period (1 week) with the artists name as a link under each image, limit one image per artist. This Exhibition could run themed weeks, with each previous weeks content available to review retrospectively, ie. seascapes, abstract, portraits, Wild animals, domestic animals, floral etc etc. There is so much potential here for development, but there definately needs some measure of control.

maybe admins could review new accounts before letting them go public? I don’t mind a bit or arbitrary decision making in that regard, and it would at least keep the worst snapshots out. In fact, if red bubble management shapes the site according to their own ideas of what’s artistically worthwhile, the site would come out looking more coherent in terms of what’s on offer.

SOMEONE asked about volume

Best I can tell from search engine Sep 19 2007

ART total 109,000 1170 per day based on last 7 days
Tees Total 8000 144 per day based on last 7 days

These are small quantities for an art site
but large quantities for a store front

So is RB one single storefront or a storefront for each artist?
a basic question to answer as well.

If it is a store front for each artist he should design his own represeentation.

If it is one storefront based on cummunity popularity then RB is the same as ARTWANTED, DEVIANTART (42,000,000 pieces)and all the rest of the art sites, who by the way probsbly dont sell a lot, I know for a fact with 400,000 pieces ARTWANTED sells 10-100 pieces a day (Their number andf I would guess more like 10 than 100) and that includes what is bought by members of their own work, for example I bought 24 mugs with my own pieces on it.

If it is a site offering individual representation to each artist controlled by the artist it is somewhat unique.

Artwanted allows paying members to load unlimited but only the first 3 each day go into search engines. Non paying can load 3 per month a networking popularity site which features artists by comments, hits and favorites I am a member and dont like system as a marketing thing, but overall it is my favorite site to post to, I joined in March 2007 and have 280,000 views.

DeviantArt loads unlimited no fees everything goes into seach engine a networking popularity site. Most people seem to allow free downloads of their pieces. This is a very well designed site. Probably fast becoming the FOLK art database of our world civilization.

myartinfo is a startup and loads unlimited, no real identity yet.

MYARTSPACE dosnt sell and dosnt have limits, but also has no identity that I can observe.

The sites that sell encourage large size files, the sites that dont impose file size limits which is a pain, you have to prpare special files to upload, dont know why they just dont reduce them. My designs are often 30+mgb and designed to print poster size or for fabric, if I reduce to high quality JPG are 3-10 mgb. JPG is a killer for transparecies and conversions to PNG because creates a jagged aura around outline.

Sites like ISTOCK photo impose strict guidlines and review each piece, mainly photo and vector art. They are a site for commercial buyers and set a high standard on technical qualities, I submitted 10 photos and had 1 accepted.

I’ve around a little while but have had only 3 comments on my images from 300 odd views so about 1% with no sales, probably making my thoughts somewhat redundant

But anyway

The studio area is a good idea, I think that the artist front end should be to highlight their successful sales(excluding to themselves).

Also I’d like to able see what people are buying as opposed to seeing what people are saying is nice.

You can see what some people are buying on forum here

Forums/soapbox/thankyou buyers

http://www.redbubble.com/forums/4/topics/2190

A ‘newby’ limit of 20 to start would be better and is a good idea.

Can’t quite see how a ‘studio’ will limit uploads if people can still upload as many as they like and still make sales from the ‘studio’.

Maybe a ‘selling’ area, and a non-selling ‘community’ area would work? So the very valuable community feel is not lost, where people can still blog and share photos.

Certainly please don’t make it elitist! One of the joys of RB is the International community feel. I know I certainly appreciate that.

Finally – thanks to all at RB. This is an amazing place and I hope it stays that way even if certain things have to change.

dave

Mine is more of a question with regards to the cards is there a way to incorporate written text into the card to complement the image?

with thanks
Saan

don’t you think the best judge of the quality of art here are the “buyers”? Not a bunch of people who have set themselves up to be the be-all and end-all of what is and what isn’t “quality art”? is that all RB is now? a competition to see who gets the most comments and who makes the most sales, who’s the most ‘popular’? these images people have decided are ‘happy snaps’ or not very good – how on “earth” is seeing one of those going to make a buyer suddenly think ‘oh this place isn’t very good – look, i just spotted 1 boring bad quality photo out of the hundreds of brilliant and amazing photos’. the fact is, the majority of art here is wonderful and incredible. so what if someone is uploading heaps of photos of their latest party or family shots? you just skip right by them. the ‘elitist’ feeling i’m seeing lately is really starting to get to me. there are amazing artists/photographers here whose work is excellent, and there are not-so-great artists/photographers whose work i don’t want to buy – but big deal. i just look for the art that appeals to me, for whatever reason whether it’s ‘techniquely’ perfect or whether it’s just a cute or pretty shot, or maybe it makes me grin or laugh.

ok well that text formatting didn’t work. heh. i didn’t mean to have some of those words in ‘quote’ form, to imply that i was using them sarcastically or anything.

I like the idea of a Gallery and a Scrapbook or Studio, but do not like the idea of setting limits or charging a fee.

One of the wonderful things about RedBubble is that it is open to all. With such openness, there will be poor quality art, but there is also extraordinary work!

What about making comments available for view for members only and a rating system for public view. Say a system of stars from one to ten, with those averaging five and above to be featured?

I will often browse the Recent images looking for ones to add to my Favorites. Eventually, I buy cards from my Favorites, including my own.

I would be sad to see limitations on images uploaded, but a Judges Corner could be interesting if the Judges favorites are featured.

I’d be concerned about any restrictions or allowances based on popularity, as there are loads of very talented people on here who don’t many viewings of their work. I think the studio idea would be ok as long that work could still remain available for sale. otherwise perhaps some small advertising to allow for an increase in server space.

Wow – well I got to the end and read every post. Thanks all for taking the time to comment. If I can quickly summarise I think there is broad, but not universal, support for the idea and some people are concerned about how we implement it. I’ve also heard a strong consenus that people don’t like the concept of ‘popularity’ and it should be downplayed / dispensed with (and I’m understanding of this).

We’ve got a ton of stuff we’re building and I can’t make any promises on when we might implement this – but we are listening and adapting (and I think the idea is a goer).

After reading all the entries, and woozy on headache pills I wrote a little bit this morning in my journal, inpisired bu these posts. In an obvious self-promotion (drum roll…oh ok, TA-DAH) here’s a wee rant about pet photos on redbubble:
pets rule

Hi RB. Way too much to read. I have just visited the Art – Everything – Recent, pages and i feel the need to comment. It’s getting a little ridiculous.

The suggestion of Durotriges, 4 days ago of ‘A simple limit on the amount you can upload per day and a limit on how much work you can put in your portfolio might concentrate the mind a bit wouldn’t it?’ i like.

It’s a good, simple solution and requires you to think hard before posting.

Categories are a good idea also. I do not have children nor a dog or cat, (although i do like them) so i’m not so inclined to see every pic of someone’s pets or children. Or random friend pics for that matter.

Good luck finding a solution.

@ Peter – that seems to be very succinctly put. We trust you to make a good decision on this! Good luck. :-)

Hi all
Well Im a real newbie here and read as much of the previous posts as I could, I’ve been up all night , so if I repeat anything thats said previously I apologise.
It’s seem that there is a division, between those that believe they are an “Artist” and those that believe in “Art”. My personal belief is that an artist should let their work go once they have made it, and that the only form of dictating how that art should be perceived, is with a title if they so wish. After that it is only art if someone else perceives it so, based on their interaction with the piece. there also seems to be a sense of commercial need versus artistic expression, if you don’t like it don’t comment or buy the piece. But to dictate what qualifies as art, or put down another persons expression of themselves through art, I would have to ask what qualifies you…I have seen an image on here that was done by a guy who admitted he had a mental disability, it was of a toy cabbage sitting in a toy chair, called “me on mastermind”, so is it the image, or the concept that makes it art. I find this kind of attitude, is in conflict with what little I know of RB philosophy , and my own Plus surely if your an artist you have the ability to empathise with other artist, and the struggle, none of us where born as an artist. What is the issue is it RB is running out of space or is it the Artist are feeling their not getting noticed enough.????
The ideas for seperate gallery pages, limited uploads, different ranking / voting system I agree will make the RB universe fairer for all, but any system can be corrupted just look at the world we live in.
saying all that I like the idea of the seperate pages..
also the idea of voting / ranking a piece 1 to 5 stars for example, can only be done once per voter, perhaps this may reduce abuse of the system.
Maybe we could have three pages (with limited spaces or not )
A studio page as mentioned before, accessable by all, for commenting only,
with the ability to transfer easily to your- Gallery page, for 1 to 5 star ranking only
( 5 stars = ” This is exhibition quality ”, aquire x- amount of five stars, to submit piece to yours or RBs Exhibition page.As before all systems are subject to abuse. I hope I have not offended anybody and I hope all this is readable as I have been up all night.
Here’s to a bright rebubble future for us all
Ej

I don’t know the answer, but I do agree about who has the right to say its art or not, unless its ponographic…there is a difference in ponographic and real art. Sensual nudes are very artistic, but others believe Hustler is art! Who’s going to judge all of us… There are a lot of ametuers on this site trying to do their best and learn, will the ametuers be cast aside… If there is 15,000 members, that should answer those questions from some as to why their not selling…lots of competition. I like the studio idea, I have seen soo many ask for constructive critisim, advice, etc. WE REALLY WANT TO LEARN ALL WE CAN TO IMPROVE OUR ARTISTIC TALENTS. MOST WORK I HAVE SEEN IS VERY GOOD, SOME NOT MY CUP OF TEA, BUT NONE THE LESS VERY GOOD. ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, SO IF OUR WORK IS TO BE JUDGED AS TO WHAT WE CAN UPLOAD, I SUGGEST MANY MANY DIFFERENT AGES OF EYES.

I would just like to add my voice to those who think that a simple limit on the total amount of work uploaded is the best and fairest solution.

There Are Many Wonderful Ideas Here I hope this is where I am to post mine rather confused and nver commented here before … I love the creative gallery her and being a part of it, I would like to suggest something to improve enthusiasm for writers here which is to include somehow frames written poem or story for purchase and some price for this often I have read other writers work yet there is know way to purchase this and support and encourage the writer also… I wish there was a way to categorize writing into folder or group would make it easier for both writer and reader… and some text changes would be awesome too …
Well hope someone reads this have a wonderful day
Amber Elizabeth =))

its a bit late and after all these comments probably this one is unwanted. But, if you link the ability to add more than (say) 20 works with comments, then it’s one way to guarantee that RB is kept exclusive since we can just boycott newbies. So I don’t like that. Also, as experience increases work improves (not nec. the case with mine I admit) so limiting the number allowed until sufficient comments are there seems to defeat their ability to grow.

Better portfolio management tools are the answer. I have images I’d like to delete or refine etc but no-way have I the time to go through the way things are. I might target things with more comments or less fav’s etc but it’s impossible without getting such info in a usable fashion.