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Weasyl Artist Feature & Feedback by NovaCaine
Welcome! :D
So glad you dropped by! I'm looking for feedback on what you (the users) would like to see from the artists that we feature, or hear any other ideas you may have that will help with the process of this idea.
So here's the run down:
I've been thinking of starting a thing called Weasyl Wednesday Artist Feature. It'd run and be posted under our lovey mascot wesley thus making it Wesley's Weasyl Wednesday Artist Feature. That's a lot of W's lol
What is it?
Weasly's Weasyl Wednesday Feature would be an event where we(site staff) will take a closer look at some of the great artists and creators of the Weasyl Community. On Wednesdays Weasyl staff (Wesley) will pick a an artist from the suggestion list submitted by users to be featured. When we feature an artist we will make a tweet, and make an announcement post on site(aka site announcement/news) featuring the artist and their talents! This is a great opportunity to recognize artists and their hard word, or even help gain exposure for newer or lesser known artists, as well as appreciate some of the well known artists out there too.What else will be in the feature?
The feature will be a mini bio of the artist along a description of some their best works (chosen by the artist themselves), and a fun Q&A to follow up.Can any artist can be suggested?
We would like to feature artists of all skill levels, and different areas of the community, writers, singer/song writers, 3D artists and animators, and even photographers! Of course we would like to hear something awesome about the artist that makes them special and worthy of a feature. We will keep all of the recommended submissions until the artist is chosen. Keep in mind we may not choose the artist you suggest right away. Artist with the most recommendations will most likely be featured first.How can we nominate or suggest an artist?
This will likely be done through a Google doc, or a Typeform. I have a nice Typeform set up and ready to go when the time comes. If you's like to test out the from and pre-nominate someone let me know in the comments. I'll probably select a few users at random to fill it out if there are large number who ask.Will this be every Wednesday?
While it would be nice to do so, we thought we would start out by doing the feature 2-3 times a month. If the event really picks up and we find over selves being drowned in requests for artists to be featured, then we will start doing every other week, and then eventually every week.When will this be a thing?
I would like to have this up and running by the end of spring, or early summer if all goes well. Since I'd be the main staff person behind it, I'm quite busy with school and will be finishing up in June. For now I'm working on gathering as much feedback and information I can to make it a success when it's ready to go.
Please leave your comments or questions bellow! I'd love to hear them!
I want to now what you think, you feedback is appreciated in making this artist feature even better!
Thank you!
~NovaCaine
More Q&A:
I'm back! Glad to see so many positive responses from everyone! :D
I'll sum up some your statements, concerns questions bellow:
Recommendation Bias
That's definitely something to consider. I plan on being fair with the picks and don't plan on spotlighting just popular artists. Also would depend on the info given to us. If the nomination looks like it was well thought out, with lots of information on the artist and why they feel they should be featured, then it's likely to get picked over "Pick me cuz I'm cool" type nomination.Will an artist be able to be featured again?
It's possible. Not against it that's for sure. Would also depend on how many features have come and gone beforehand as well.Where will the features (new and old) be?
They will be on the front page. These will be done via new post so all user receive a notification. We will of course will also make a twitter post announcement too. Nothing definitive yet in terms of having a page where you can find featured artists previously though. That would require site changes that, I unfortunately hate to say, probably won't get done even if I asked for it. It is something I'll certainly try and advocate for if the event takes off and proves to be quite successful.How will you showcase their art?
In the feature post there would be a mini bio, or a fun description of the artist being featured along with a Q&A. The Q&A would be fun questions aimed to help the community get to know the artist better. One of the questions will be "What are some of your favorite pieces of work you have done, or are most proud of?" This will be a chance for the artist to show ff some of their best works. Due to coding issues (mentioned above) there is no way to show off images in a news post (yet) so they will most likely just be links.Nomination prerequisites?
Yes, we plan to have a set of guidelines in place for artists who are featured. So no accounts younger than 3 months, must be active on site (we have ways of checking ), and of course have an account on site as we won't be reaching out to artists who are only found off site.
I hope that helps to answer some of your inquiries. If you have any more by all means ask and I will update the post accordingly! :D
Thank you! <3
Journal Information
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Comments
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What a splendid idea :3
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Sounds awesome! I'd be game for this!
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Sounds like a good thing all around. Would this feature artist find themselves displayed on the sight in a persistent space (such as the banner at the top of the page) or only on the front page or through various social media? Or is that still a idea in development?
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My only concern is that the lesser-known artists might not be nominated to be featured because they do not have as many active followers to engage with
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I agree with this.
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XD I can't say it even in my head, the Feature event. Featuring artists is always an incentive to try to keep doing better. DA's Daily Deviations can be a mighty helpful thing for small time artist. However, you would be featuring an artist rather than an Artwork with this. You might want to have a Limit on how many artworks can be picked for them to feature. I can pick out a Top 3 for myself, but If I'm given more than that I might just go a bit wild because I like a bunch of my art.
- It is definitely a good idea to also announce them via your Twitter. Twitter is a wide-reaching platform that can not only bring more notice for that user one weasyl, but also more notice to your site as well outside of your site itself.
- As a creator, I don't know how much I would enjoy doing a QnA. I like answering polls and stuff, but it may be a tad daunting to do an interview for a feature. Although I think it'd also be interesting. I guess it'd depend on the questions asked. Would there be a SKIP option for certain Questions? That'd be preferable.
- I don't think it should go by Artists with the most recommendations. It would favor well-known artists too much. i really think that the one in charge of Weekly's should Pick without recommendation bias.
- Google Docs is a Handy Tool.
- Will an artist be able to be featured again at a later date? Like say, A year later?
As for area of display, how would this artist be displayed in? This going to be a submission posted by Wesley? Will there be an area on front page that also displays Weekly Features? Could it be another tab like on front page Recently Popular, Random Art, Literature, Multimedia? Or in an area like the announcements?
Overall, aside from my concerns, Features is a VERY GOOD idea in my opinion.
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yes definitely yes.
I don't use this site much since it seems to be so small and inactive (but also I am probably comparing it to DeviantArt a bit too much haha) however I think this could help the communication between the users.
And I want to see what this community here is capable of! (^o^)/
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+1 from me with this idea too, I think it'll be a nice way to see different artists that feels 'hand picked' and not generated such as the recently popular section.
A lot of my concerns are mirrored by Uluri, and I also agree that instead of featuring artists, something like Deviantart's DD would be a good choice. It does the job of featuring an artist but also maybe one or two of their 'best' work as the eye catcher. Sometimes an artist might not be strictly fit into one category, they may dabble in a variety of things like photography and literature. So featuring one of their works might be easier to digest rather than saying this artist is known for x and x and x, and people could choose to visit their profile to get the rest of the info. Also if (lets say) the list of artists to feature runs dry, it is possible to feature another work from the same artist, instead of featuring an artist twice ~
That being said though, there are pros to featuring a 'person'. This is a nice way to bring attention to someone in the community who's not necessarily an artist but has contributed a lot to the community, such as the people who run and organise conventions, or even engineers and coders on weasyl.
So I guess it's an either or for me, ahaha, but a wednesday feature is still a very good thing.
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I agree that it's a wonderful idea and would certainly encourage artists to be more active on the site as well as get the opportunity to be exposed to new folks who haven't seen their work before. Just a featured section in general is pretty great. I know over on SoFurry and DeviantArt they have various ideas on how to do a similar concept. I do enjoy the idea of an artist spotlight of sorts though, because it does get one to know the people who produce the art as well as the art itself. The artists are often times just as interesting as the work they produce. I say, go for it!
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This sounds like a good idea.
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This sounds like an excellent idea! One thing I've noticed since returning to this site a month or so ago is a lack of a sense of community or identity. If I may be so bold, the impression I got of Weasyl back in 2014 when I joined was "that new site people go to when FA or DA is down or having drama", and that's it.
Getting people interested and engaged with Weasyl as something more than a Plan B is very important. This site has strong potential.Definitely pursue this idea further! Some great suggestions and concerns were raised by Uluri in their comment above. I like the idea of featuring a community member, rather than just a piece of art. It means that there's more that can be considered than just the popularity of one's art, like their positive contributions to the site/community as a whole.
Also, vetting for active accounts would be helpful--no real sense in featuring someone who hasn't actively used the site in 5+ years.
One feature that might be helpful would be a way to embed thumbnail/preview images into journals--I'd love to be able to host my own "feature journals" as well, if I find some cool things and want to share them! (If a way to do this already exists, I'd love to know about it.) That's one thing DA has right, any user can put together a feature journal with thumbnails and it's great for sharing art with your watchers/followers.
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It seems like a really good idea. I remember when I first came here I saw a featured artist thing and when I followed the artist--not only was their art wonderful, but they were also very nice and responded to/appreciated comments. To me, that kindness of response from an artist is really great. It showed a willingness to interact with the community. :)
I do agree with what one person said above, though--I think only active artists/users on this site should be featured. Not someone who only pops in to post things only when a certain particular site or other ones are "broken", then runs away when said sites are working again. Besides that, there's not much more I can add that wasn't mentioned above to the idea(s).
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That'd be a good idea. I like the site but sadly the user base isn't big enough yet.
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I think this an amazing idea!!!
better would be like everyone is saying,put the artist artworks and showing them with a little about the artist and it's tastes not only here but in twitter too!
also help more unknow users too,since there's so much artist who draw so amazingly but don't have popularity.
Weasyl have all to be an amazing site. -
i think it's a good idea helping artists to gain exposure.
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Hello Nova, this is a good suggestion. Perhaps a running theme per month might also help to contextualize the featured artists. Featuring popular/non-popular artists won't be an issue IMO. But I think it should have some of interesting quirk (eg. bouncy birbs or cute-eyed animals) that might have help to make the feature more meaningful or bring more draw. I'm sorry that I wasn't here sooner due to work and health issues, I hope that I can help in some capacity with this.
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sounds great, can't wait! ^w^
hey that rhymes! XD
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derFisch
This sounds like a lovely idea! As someone who's kinda bad at the whole community thing, this would be a great way to get to know the different artists on the site.