Christian Zammit

I so appreciate your input on this subject. As also being a host, I find myself very involved and understand much of what you are saying. That being said, I also find there are many things I do not know yet and am definately a work in progress. I do like what you suggested about having the numbers of votes be shown for all of the works in the challjenges. Perhaps on the challenges that receive so little activity, it should be closed down for that reason. I do like the idea of meeting with other RB members in my area. Have already met with one and went to lunch and out on a garden tour. Great time and felt like she was an instant friend. People who share similar passions will always have GREAT conversations. Yup, you are on my favorites list now, if you were not already and I thank you for bringing up these subjects. My hat is off to ALL of the hosts and moderators who give so freely of their time and thought. ~Marjie

Being the host of 4 groups at this stage I really appreciate everything that you have said but most of all I really like your “WHAT WOULD I DO?” Thumbs up for you for those lovely ideas!! We have just created a special group for Hosts only please go and have a look Link

I am so happy about that Christian and I am so glad you have joined

Aloha Christian, mahalo nui, thank you so much for your wonderful encouragement and kind sentiments!

As a Host and Moderator of several groups, one of the benefits for me personally is the creative environment, a wonderful and enlightening exposure to a wide variety of photographic and artistic subjects, styles and masterful techniques. I have learned so much by viewing and studying the beautiful works of many talented members on this site.

For the most part, hosting is a tedious and unbelievably time-consuming endeavor. I believe most members do not actually realise just how much time, focus and positive energy is required to properly manage a group. There are many wonderful members on RedBubble who respect the guidelines and submit their work accordingly and appropriately. There are a few members who completely disregard the group guidelines and broadcast their submissions. I quietly question the motive and find it fascinating when someone, as an example, submits a sunset image to a group devoted to Still Life, etc.

It is always important to be senstive and openhearted as we take into consideration the language issue as well, as there are many members on this site who are not fluent in English, and so, keeping this in mind, I simply remove the inappropriate work and move forward. It is one of the greatest lessons in life when communicating with people to maintain an open mind and never take anything personally.

Even so, I find hosting groups on RedBubble to be tremendously rewarding and I enjoy it very much. I especially enjoy offering features and showcasing the beautiful photography and works of art of those members who are truly talented and skillful in the medium of their choice. One of the many reasons I do this is to try and encourage sales. While the social network is fun and quite wonderful, I have many family and friends on this site, the sales and income for all of us is the primary goal.

The gallery archives within those groups I host are very much like my own personal collection of images and works of art reflecting a wide range of creative talent, aesthetics and material interests. As I try to remain objective and broaden my scope in my own personal tastes, I also try to raise the bar and permit only the finest images to pass through moderation. For every image accepted into one of my groups there are hundreds of snapshots that do not make the grade.

I work very hard on this site and, other than an occassional sale, the only real compensation I receive is the wonderful positive feedback and encouragement from family and friends. My work is an altruistic gift. It is a selfless job. Personally I believe it would be nice if RedBubble would offer the Hosts some manner of tangible compensation. After all, we are doing all the work. For all the Hosts of RedBubble, it is our time, energy and efforts that build this relatively new website as we all work together to filter the submissions, generate sales, drive the content and protect copyright. The highest quality of art displayed on this website is a reflection of our own personal standards.

I encourage everyone to join and participate as I make every attempt to display on RedBubble only the very best works of fine art.

I send you warm greetings from the beautiful island of Maui and wish you a fabulous day! Aloha e Malama pono,

Sharon Mau

Sharon said a lot that I could also say. I host a group I started and co-host two groups started by others. One group has pretty strict criteria and I have to reject a lot of work. Some people submit the same rejected piece over and over. But seeing the work in all the groups grow and the aesthetic and feel of the group coming together is very rewarding. The group I started pertains to the city I live in, and seeing other people’s perspectives of it is wonderful.

When it comes to challenges, I think group members need to be more conscientious of the rules, for sure. I see so many challenges with completely inappropriate entries. I know language is sometimes an issue but if you are in a group dedicated to dogs, chances are they are not looking for images of ostriches in the challenge.

When I vote in challenges, I always vote for work other than my own.

Thank you for your insightful posting, Christian!

Hi Christian,
yes hosting groups is a labour of love and if you want a great group you need to be dedicated.
I host a group that has been on redbubble since the inception of groups. What I have learnt in all the time I have been doing it is.
On the whole the members are great, yes you do get a few that make life hard.
The serial clickers, as they are referred to, simply check all boxes when uploading new work.
You get a feel for this and simply remove their work not giving it another thought.
Others make simple mistakes, with some actually apologizing before the mistake is discovered.
Others again simply do not understand the principals of the group and it may be through no real malice on their part.
I try not to let these little things get me down anymore, I just deal with them quickly.
Also if you respect your members they will respect the group.
What would I do?
Challenges
It is a good idea about revealing votes after the challenge accept I’m afraid it might open a can of worms and be counter productive for members.
You see, as you mentioned, no low vote challenges you may end up with six people tied on first place. That is not silly to think if the winning entry only has 2 votes. The top ten will still be displayed but it will be ordered so that the latest entry to the challenge will be displayed first.
You can’t really fault anybody about this because of the structure of the software. Members may start complaining, how come I got the same votes as so and so but I’m not even in the top ten.
I think it’s better to have everybody feeling as positive as they can.
Home Page Features
I can help you out here. I sometimes get my challenge entrants featured on the homepage by submitting them here it actually give all members a chance to select some images they would like to see. Also it would be great to have an archive of homepages and this has been requested before ( Brilliant minds and all that). What I do is get a screen capture of the homepage, upload it into my profile but hide it from others, then I publish it in my groups news and forums. Also if your selection is selected then homepage profile usually also posts it in the above link.
My Examples Asking for the selection Letting me know through that forum and My newsletter
It really excites me when these things happen!
The other thing to do is check out the Group Hosts Group it is a great way to keep up to date, find out useful hints and discuss problems you might be having in your group.
Hope I’ve added to this helpfully.

It is very time consuming and my two groups have only just got started, l don’t know how we will go if we get 1000 plus members lol, but we will see, l find it hard to reject submissions especially from people on my watchlist, that is going to take me a while to get used to its hard to say no !

This was a great description of the site and I much appreciate your thoughts towards the hosts. I co-host several groups and they are extremely time-consuming but rewarding. By the time I moderate and comment on the images in the group and then check out everyone’s new work on my watchlist (where possible), manage a little read of other bits, several hours has passed. Good job I am a hermit LOL
You are already on my watchlist :)

Quite so,Christian! Just added you on my watchlist! , it was a pleasure!Greetings from italy. Luv! ;-)

Christian,
I agree with your ideas to improve the challenges.
Want to add a few :
- it would be great to follow the votes collected by each entry
- challenges that get too few entries (less than 12) should be closed without voting
- I would like to see MY entries in each group. I have a lot of groups where I have reached the maximum upload limit. Instead of leaving the group and reentering, I would like to remove a few entries and replace them with new ones while leaving my best contributions to the group theme in the group.

To understand a little more how difficult, tedious, time-consuming and sometimes under-appreciated it is to be a Group-Host, read the carefully constructed rules, responded & expanded I chose to write for the Adelaide/SA group.

Despite this expanded version, I still have to pound my head against the wall occasionally when I see artwork that, whilst it was shot in South Australia, is inadequate, poor, not large enough to print and not art. But that is only my humble opinion.
I agree that groups are merely a way to categorise work.
Totally agree that a better editing system is required for seeing/removal/changing artwork within groups.

Thank you Christina, I host two groups, one is a joy and the other is a pain in the posterior. I treat both the same so the only thing I can figure is the group subject has to influence the images and artist that are drawn to it.

Sorry about the miss on your name, sometimes my fingers typing and my brain do not cooperate.

I’m a group host too, so I can totally relate! I pretty much agree with your journal and everyone’s comments!

Had to come back to leave another comment – grrr… I hate when people don’t READ THE RULES for challenges! I’ve just had to remove about twelve images from a challenge that had already begun voting (thought I had caught all of them before it started) because they weren’t in the group as stated or didn’t meet the rules when they were submitted to the group! I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of bubblemails asking why, and I’m just going to say “did you read the rules???” So frustrating!

I run three groups on RB and it can be a challenge at times. It would be nice if there was an easier way to create group news with linked thumbnails of the features. Each week I copy the image location and paste into the forum post and add the link location for each of the twelve images but it would be handy to have an automated feature which displays the last 12 images featured in a group in a tidy little widget for easy copying and pasting, much like the widgetbox http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/art-by-vanessa-pike-russell-redbubble

would like to see a feature where you can track a challenge like you can track forum posts

Groups are so individual and ofttimes strange that it’s a wonder there are so many. LOL! I think I’m one of the very few hosts who has never received a complaint. I’ve had numerous inquiries about why something was rejected but none of those has even garnered an unhappy response. I don’t seem to be doing anything any differently than any other host but the horror stories I hear curdle the blood. :-O Of course, featuring is the only thing I concern myself with where I host and submission approval where I co-host. Can’t get into too much trouble there. And working with co-hosts doing the parts they do best like challenges/contests makes it easier for all concerned. If you like what you’re doing, you’re gonna do it well and let the crappy stuff roll off your back easier. If you get overwhelmed in Red Bubble, you are doing way, way, WAY too much!

There’s no way I’d reveal vote tallies because as said earlier, people can and probably will feel very unhappy about the results. And while we’re a community of artists, we need to be as support of each other as possible cuz goodness knows the rest of the world thinks we’re nuts. Better to make one person very happy than to have 9 others feel 2nd rate, in my opinion. And voting in challenges has to be tough since an artist would only submit a piece if the artist felt it was worthy of winning. Voting your own piece “2nd rate” goes against human nature! LOL!

I’m at Red Bubble as an artist to sell art first and foremost. Everything after that is fun or doesn’t involve me. The social networking has been extraordinarily wonderful and a bonus I wasn’t expecting. And groups are a great way to focus your networking by interests. I feel obligated to keep my groups running smoothly but I’m sure all other hosts feel the same way about their own groups. I love being featured from time to time but I GREATLY appreciate the work other hosts put into groups I’ve joined because they are the ones keeping my work alive for people with specific interests.

Great topic, Christian!

My one group has gotten too big, the other is just getting off the ground…..One is very time consuming, the other is a walk in the park. Overall, the better the rules are spelled out, the easier it runs. Reject per the group rules, and generally there will be no issues.