It's official Etsy, I'm breaking up with you. All of my items have expired and I'm outta there.
I'm sorry Etsy, I tried, but it's not me, it's you. No really, it's you.
I know we never had the most involved relationship. I was there and I posted items and even sold a few. I didn't really bother you and you never bothered with me. You kind of just left me to my own devices. I was never featured. Never noticed. I was a member and yet it seemed like there was a whole other community living there that had no interest in me whatsoever. Why was I never one of the in crowd?
I liked your chat rooms, until I got bored watching people promote themselves.
I read your forums if the topic interested me. It rarely did. The admins weren't ever really heard from except to say "you're calling out, I'm shutting this thread down". Problems never really seemed to be addressed. EVER.
Problems would just go on, and on, and on with no idea of when they would be fixed. A bug here, resellers there. But anytime anyone tried to talk to you about it, they either got ignored, a form letter, or shut down for causing trouble.
I really don't understand how you can select a reseller to be featured. I would understand if it were a randomized computer program that selected the items, but the front pages were hand selected by the admins. Clearly they wanted to promote those people who would bring in the most money and mass produced items bring in a lot of money.
Isn't that kind of the opposite of your mission statement? I would understand if that was what you advertised yourself as, but it's not. You advertise yourselves as handmade and yet I can plug in just about any copyrighted fad and find plenty of mass produced items or out and out copyright violations. Copyright is a law by the way and violations are illegal.
Lately the problem seems to be that payments are going to the wrong seller. How on earth is this happening? Hypothetically, if someone wanted to buy a mug from me, how does their payment go to a jewelry artists in Zimbabwe? And the fix that you recommend is for me to talk to my customer and work out a means of payment? How can you not be taking the site down for maintenance to fix this egregious problem? And now (hypothetically) that artist in Zimbabwe has my paypal information which might enable them to clear out my bank accounts.
I could handle being ignored. I could handle a bunch of cliques that turned their noses up at me. What I can't handle is complete and utter incompetence at the single thing you're supposed to be doing for me - providing a working shopping cart for my potential customers.
I could go on. If I get started on a comprehensive list of ways that you have failed and have pissed me off, we'd be here all night.
So goodbye Etsy. I'll be at Artfire if you need me. I don't think you'll notice my absence though. But I'll be watching you implode from a safe distance, reminiscing about what could have been if only competence had been a part of your vocabulary.
Showing posts with label etsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label etsy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Etsy VS. Artfire - Market Research Experiment
* For those of you looking for tips on selling and just the highlights of this article, skip to the summary at the end.
As I get a little more serious about selling my pottery, I've started to look into venues other than Etsy. While selling pottery isn't my main goal in life, it's important to me to appear professional in every way when I present myself to the world.
I've opened an Artfire shop just to see how it compared. Oh by the way, this is going to be a long ass post. You may want to grab a cup of coffee and a snack. Don't worry, I'll wait. Need a mug for that cup of coffee? No? Ok, can't blame a girl for trying. We all settled in for a nice long read? Ok, let's go.
In my twenties, I worked for a marketing research company. Not the career for me, but I learned so much while I was there. So in the spirit of what I learned there, I conducted a little Market Research on Etsy VS. Artfire - what do the buyers see?
Our players:
Me! Yes yes, I rock. No please, sit down. No, no, really I don't deserve it. PLEASE! No applause, just throw money!
Bryan - Internet friend of mine. In his early 20's. We only chat every few months and it's usually brief. Doesn't know anything about my pottery. We've never met in person. Zero knowledge of my preferences.
Paula - My BFF. My biggest fan. Insists on being present at every kiln opening and all of my rejects end up in her kitchen. She does know my preferences on the experiment at hand so her opinion might be a tad tainted.
My Hubby - Tends to be a bit removed from my pottery hobby but loves that I do it. Might have heard my preferences but is never shy to disagree with me so I trust his opinion.
The mission - Compare and contrast my shops on both Etsy and Artfire. Then go to the front pages of each and try to find my stuff.
In order to show that I tried to conduct this experiment in such a way as to elicit real opinions and not just telling me what I want to hear, I'm now going to post the conversations I had with Bryan and Paula unedited.
[13:20] AlexMMR: do you have a couple of minutes to conduct an experiment for me?
[13:20] Bryan: Yes I do
[13:21] AlexMMR: Ok. I've gotten so good at pottery at thsi point that I really do need to start selling it. I've had an etsy store for a while but I'm thinking of moving over to artfire. So What I'd like you to do is to check out both shops
[13:21] Bryan: oh fun i'm all over this
[13:21] AlexMMR: tell me which one you would like better if you were shopping. Check out the main pages of both sites and tell me which one you would be more likely to purchase from
[13:22] AlexMMR: The first one is etsy. My page is http://www.etsy.com/shop/alexmmr and the main page is http://www.etsy.com
[13:22] AlexMMR: take a minute and look around. Go to the main page and see if you can even find my products, that kind fo thing
[13:23] Bryan: ok
[13:23] AlexMMR: Then after you've experimented there, try artfire. My page is http://ugabugabowls.artfire.com and the main page is http://www.artfire.com
[13:23] AlexMMR: I'm goign to make my husband do this too and blog about the results
[13:24] AlexMMR: brb while you experiment. Potty break.
[13:25] Bryan: Etsy was really easy to find you by searching by your name....your stuff is gorgeous on here too. Looking at artfire now....
[13:28] Bryan: oh artfire by a longshot! Etsy seems very one-off, buy a bowl, never see you again....artfire invites you back, it seems. They're equally user friendly, but artfire is much better to build clientelle or to get your name out
[13:28] Bryan: Girlfriend is here. I'll be back later. Glad i caught you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so we have one vote for Artfire. Let's hear from Paula.
[21:57] AlexMMR: wanna take a break from the sound and help me with an experiment on which pottery store I should focus on?
[21:57] Paula: ?? still trying to decide?
[21:58] AlexMMR: I just want to quantify my opinions iwht other peoples opinions. it will also give me something to blog about
[21:58] AlexMMR: I'm running an experimetn with people. I'm sending them to each of my stores and compare. And then the front page of each site and have people try to find my stuff.
[21:59] AlexMMR: So http://ugabugabowls.artifre.com vs http://alexmmr.etsy.com
[21:59] AlexMMR: then http://artfire.com vs http://etsy.com
[21:59] Paula: Well the Art fire site is WAY easier. I spent about a hour and played there the other day
[21:59] Paula: Looked up bowls, mugs, color - whatever
[21:59] Paula: WAY easier and your stuff came up a lot
[21:59] AlexMMR: oh awesome
[21:59] Paula: ya
[22:00] AlexMMR: how much would it matter to you if you had to join a site in order to purchase?
[22:00] Paula: your blue ruffle bowl came up a lot as did the heart bowls and the ...shoot - the light gold mug??
[22:00] Paula: I am totally screwing up the description
[22:01] Paula: honestly - if I have to join a site to by something. unless I REALLY REALLY love the product and literally can't find it anywhere else, I would move on
[22:02] AlexMMR: ok, that's what I thought about the joining thing too
[22:02] Paula does artfire require you to join??? I didn't notice that
[22:03] AlexMMR: no, etsy does
[22:03] Paula: oh - gotcha
[22:03] Paula: ya....I'm totally liking artfire
Okey dokey, that's 2 votes Artfire. Believe it or not, that was the brief part of this blog post. Now we get into the research I did with hubby. I took 5 pages of notes on that conversation. You might want to refresh that coffee.
You're back? Brave soul. Here we go.
We started out at Etsy. He did a search for "Mugs" and immediately said "oh forget it!". There were 7760 listings on 370 pages. Totally overwhelmed. Wouldn't bother looking at any of them because there were so many. Knowing my inventory, he looked up "Mugs Carved". My stuff was on page 2.
I asked wht he thought of the competitors. His general impressions on the quality he would find at Etsy. The quotes I wrote down were "definite mix. some plain. some amatuerish and some professional and well done. Half look like they were made by kids. Some look very good."
We moved to my etsy shop and I asked his first impressions. I got a half hearted "It looks ok". I asked if having to join a website would prohibit him from buying. He said yes.
We moved on to Artfire. First impressions at comparing the two? Artfire looks like you're buying from an artist. Etsy, you could be buying from an amateur.
Artfire front page - it shows you more stuff. It looks more populated with product.
Did a search for "Mugs" and got 23 pages of listings. He said he would be more likely to search through all of those pages since there weren't hundreds of them.
He really liked the "Search within the search" function and said it made things a lot easier. At this point, we discovered that my stuff wasn't showing up. After troubleshooting, we discovered it was because he was searching "Handmade" and Artfire has their pottery in the "Fine Art" category. I immediately posted a plea to Artfire to move the pottery category based on this finding and then recategorized all of my stuff to be found under "Handmade".
When we did search under "Fine art" (again, the average customer ain't looking for mugs there), my stuff was on page 1 of 14.
I was very surprised at what happened when we went to my shop. The first thing he did was click on the artist blog. It never occurred to me that he would be the type of shopper to give a hoot about anything other than the actual product. Then he clicked on my bio. He felt that there was more information about the artist on the Artfire shop page. The tabs were not only visible to him but they invited him to click.
I asked what knowing the artist does to his perception of the products. He said that he had a better feeling about the artist [since getting to know them a little] and that purchasing would be a more personal transaction. "I'm more likely to like what I get."
In general, the Artfire page looks more like an actual company website as opposed to a listing on Ebay. On Artfire, the add to cart button was easy and he expected to be able to add to cart and keep shopping. He also liked that he could easily see the various categories within the shop to narrow down his search.
We went back to Etsy to explore the means of getting to know the artist there since he didn't see those links the first time. I pointed out the add to cart button there. He said it was smaller and doesn't invite you to click it like it does on Artfire.
Here are my next notes, I don't remember exactly what elicited these answers. "If I know what I'm looking for - Artfire." "No info about artist on Etsy." "More artist connection on Artfire." "Artfire looks better, pure and simple" "[he] wants to get to know the artist so when [he] purchases a gift for someone, [he] has a story to with it" "quality of products about the same on both sites"
Ok, I think we can agree that this is now a 3rd vote for Artfire.
*** So here's the summary
1) Three out of three voters preferred to buy from Artfire
2) Etsy has so much stuff, it's too overwhelming to actually look through
3) Joining a site just to purchase an item will prevent them from buying
4) I need to write more tags
5) Artist blog and bio make a connection to the customer which increases their chance of buying
6) Pics of my studio in my blog give the buyer confidence because the buyer knows it's not just someone who took a class and is selling off their rejects but rather someone who is committed to the craft.
7) Artfire - Buyers are not looking in Fine Art for their functional pottery!!!
8) Artfire looks like an artist commerce site. Etsy looks like a random listing on Ebay.
9) Artfire invites you to shop around, stick around, and buy again. At Etsy, there's a feeling of buy your damn thingamajig and get the hell out!
10) The various links from the Artfire store (blog, etc) are visible and inviting to click on. On Etsy, you have to really want to find them to look. This leads to a more enveloping shopping experience.
11) Customers generally prefer Artfire. Period. Game over.
Rock on folks!
As I get a little more serious about selling my pottery, I've started to look into venues other than Etsy. While selling pottery isn't my main goal in life, it's important to me to appear professional in every way when I present myself to the world.
I've opened an Artfire shop just to see how it compared. Oh by the way, this is going to be a long ass post. You may want to grab a cup of coffee and a snack. Don't worry, I'll wait. Need a mug for that cup of coffee? No? Ok, can't blame a girl for trying. We all settled in for a nice long read? Ok, let's go.
In my twenties, I worked for a marketing research company. Not the career for me, but I learned so much while I was there. So in the spirit of what I learned there, I conducted a little Market Research on Etsy VS. Artfire - what do the buyers see?
Our players:
Me! Yes yes, I rock. No please, sit down. No, no, really I don't deserve it. PLEASE! No applause, just throw money!
Bryan - Internet friend of mine. In his early 20's. We only chat every few months and it's usually brief. Doesn't know anything about my pottery. We've never met in person. Zero knowledge of my preferences.
Paula - My BFF. My biggest fan. Insists on being present at every kiln opening and all of my rejects end up in her kitchen. She does know my preferences on the experiment at hand so her opinion might be a tad tainted.
My Hubby - Tends to be a bit removed from my pottery hobby but loves that I do it. Might have heard my preferences but is never shy to disagree with me so I trust his opinion.
The mission - Compare and contrast my shops on both Etsy and Artfire. Then go to the front pages of each and try to find my stuff.
In order to show that I tried to conduct this experiment in such a way as to elicit real opinions and not just telling me what I want to hear, I'm now going to post the conversations I had with Bryan and Paula unedited.
[13:20] AlexMMR: do you have a couple of minutes to conduct an experiment for me?
[13:20] Bryan: Yes I do
[13:21] AlexMMR: Ok. I've gotten so good at pottery at thsi point that I really do need to start selling it. I've had an etsy store for a while but I'm thinking of moving over to artfire. So What I'd like you to do is to check out both shops
[13:21] Bryan: oh fun i'm all over this
[13:21] AlexMMR: tell me which one you would like better if you were shopping. Check out the main pages of both sites and tell me which one you would be more likely to purchase from
[13:22] AlexMMR: The first one is etsy. My page is http://www.etsy.com/shop/alexmmr and the main page is http://www.etsy.com
[13:22] AlexMMR: take a minute and look around. Go to the main page and see if you can even find my products, that kind fo thing
[13:23] Bryan: ok
[13:23] AlexMMR: Then after you've experimented there, try artfire. My page is http://ugabugabowls.artfire.com and the main page is http://www.artfire.com
[13:23] AlexMMR: I'm goign to make my husband do this too and blog about the results
[13:24] AlexMMR: brb while you experiment. Potty break.
[13:25] Bryan: Etsy was really easy to find you by searching by your name....your stuff is gorgeous on here too. Looking at artfire now....
[13:28] Bryan: oh artfire by a longshot! Etsy seems very one-off, buy a bowl, never see you again....artfire invites you back, it seems. They're equally user friendly, but artfire is much better to build clientelle or to get your name out
[13:28] Bryan: Girlfriend is here. I'll be back later. Glad i caught you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so we have one vote for Artfire. Let's hear from Paula.
[21:57] AlexMMR: wanna take a break from the sound and help me with an experiment on which pottery store I should focus on?
[21:57] Paula: ?? still trying to decide?
[21:58] AlexMMR: I just want to quantify my opinions iwht other peoples opinions. it will also give me something to blog about
[21:58] AlexMMR: I'm running an experimetn with people. I'm sending them to each of my stores and compare. And then the front page of each site and have people try to find my stuff.
[21:59] AlexMMR: So http://ugabugabowls.artifre.com vs http://alexmmr.etsy.com
[21:59] AlexMMR: then http://artfire.com vs http://etsy.com
[21:59] Paula: Well the Art fire site is WAY easier. I spent about a hour and played there the other day
[21:59] Paula: Looked up bowls, mugs, color - whatever
[21:59] Paula: WAY easier and your stuff came up a lot
[21:59] AlexMMR: oh awesome
[21:59] Paula: ya
[22:00] AlexMMR: how much would it matter to you if you had to join a site in order to purchase?
[22:00] Paula: your blue ruffle bowl came up a lot as did the heart bowls and the ...shoot - the light gold mug??
[22:00] Paula: I am totally screwing up the description
[22:01] Paula: honestly - if I have to join a site to by something. unless I REALLY REALLY love the product and literally can't find it anywhere else, I would move on
[22:02] AlexMMR: ok, that's what I thought about the joining thing too
[22:02] Paula does artfire require you to join??? I didn't notice that
[22:03] AlexMMR: no, etsy does
[22:03] Paula: oh - gotcha
[22:03] Paula: ya....I'm totally liking artfire
Okey dokey, that's 2 votes Artfire. Believe it or not, that was the brief part of this blog post. Now we get into the research I did with hubby. I took 5 pages of notes on that conversation. You might want to refresh that coffee.
You're back? Brave soul. Here we go.
We started out at Etsy. He did a search for "Mugs" and immediately said "oh forget it!". There were 7760 listings on 370 pages. Totally overwhelmed. Wouldn't bother looking at any of them because there were so many. Knowing my inventory, he looked up "Mugs Carved". My stuff was on page 2.
I asked wht he thought of the competitors. His general impressions on the quality he would find at Etsy. The quotes I wrote down were "definite mix. some plain. some amatuerish and some professional and well done. Half look like they were made by kids. Some look very good."
We moved to my etsy shop and I asked his first impressions. I got a half hearted "It looks ok". I asked if having to join a website would prohibit him from buying. He said yes.
We moved on to Artfire. First impressions at comparing the two? Artfire looks like you're buying from an artist. Etsy, you could be buying from an amateur.
Artfire front page - it shows you more stuff. It looks more populated with product.
Did a search for "Mugs" and got 23 pages of listings. He said he would be more likely to search through all of those pages since there weren't hundreds of them.
He really liked the "Search within the search" function and said it made things a lot easier. At this point, we discovered that my stuff wasn't showing up. After troubleshooting, we discovered it was because he was searching "Handmade" and Artfire has their pottery in the "Fine Art" category. I immediately posted a plea to Artfire to move the pottery category based on this finding and then recategorized all of my stuff to be found under "Handmade".
When we did search under "Fine art" (again, the average customer ain't looking for mugs there), my stuff was on page 1 of 14.
I was very surprised at what happened when we went to my shop. The first thing he did was click on the artist blog. It never occurred to me that he would be the type of shopper to give a hoot about anything other than the actual product. Then he clicked on my bio. He felt that there was more information about the artist on the Artfire shop page. The tabs were not only visible to him but they invited him to click.
I asked what knowing the artist does to his perception of the products. He said that he had a better feeling about the artist [since getting to know them a little] and that purchasing would be a more personal transaction. "I'm more likely to like what I get."
In general, the Artfire page looks more like an actual company website as opposed to a listing on Ebay. On Artfire, the add to cart button was easy and he expected to be able to add to cart and keep shopping. He also liked that he could easily see the various categories within the shop to narrow down his search.
We went back to Etsy to explore the means of getting to know the artist there since he didn't see those links the first time. I pointed out the add to cart button there. He said it was smaller and doesn't invite you to click it like it does on Artfire.
Here are my next notes, I don't remember exactly what elicited these answers. "If I know what I'm looking for - Artfire." "No info about artist on Etsy." "More artist connection on Artfire." "Artfire looks better, pure and simple" "[he] wants to get to know the artist so when [he] purchases a gift for someone, [he] has a story to with it" "quality of products about the same on both sites"
Ok, I think we can agree that this is now a 3rd vote for Artfire.
*** So here's the summary
1) Three out of three voters preferred to buy from Artfire
2) Etsy has so much stuff, it's too overwhelming to actually look through
3) Joining a site just to purchase an item will prevent them from buying
4) I need to write more tags
5) Artist blog and bio make a connection to the customer which increases their chance of buying
6) Pics of my studio in my blog give the buyer confidence because the buyer knows it's not just someone who took a class and is selling off their rejects but rather someone who is committed to the craft.
7) Artfire - Buyers are not looking in Fine Art for their functional pottery!!!
8) Artfire looks like an artist commerce site. Etsy looks like a random listing on Ebay.
9) Artfire invites you to shop around, stick around, and buy again. At Etsy, there's a feeling of buy your damn thingamajig and get the hell out!
10) The various links from the Artfire store (blog, etc) are visible and inviting to click on. On Etsy, you have to really want to find them to look. This leads to a more enveloping shopping experience.
11) Customers generally prefer Artfire. Period. Game over.
Rock on folks!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Artfire forums mess
There's a whole lot of hullabaloo going on in the Artfire forums right now. I've read as much of the history as I can get my hands on and here's my understanding of the mess.
Some sellers were becoming inflammatory towards Artfire in the forums. As always happens in any internet forum, those who are in the mood to fight got all up in arms and started bullying those few who dared to speak up and say "cool your jets". The silent majority simply ignores inflammatory and bullying behavior and the few who enjoy a good fight just go on congratulating each other for being so brave to "stick up for themselves" when really all they're doing is fanning the flames. So the flames get bigger and bigger. Artfire admins decided that this was bad for business and shut down the few instigators and then deleted the fiery threads.
When the admins explained why this was necessary and gave a hypothetical to help illustrate why this was necessary, everyone continued to flame because they would take the words out of context and react by gut instinct (which is easy to do when you're already pissed) rather than read the entirety of the reasons. Thus, wrong conclusions were jumped to and again, everyone congratulated each other for being quick on the flaming bandwagon. It grew out of control, even the Etsy forums exploded with misinformation about what was happening at Artfire. So again, the admins said "enough" and deleted the thread.
Today, various threads are popping up with people complaining about how the admins have handled things. They claim that they are just asking questions. And how dare Artfire shut down their questions just because they disagree with Artfire admins!
I call Bullshit. If you want to ask a simple question of the admins and get a simple answer, you email them. Privately. The only reason to ask an inflammatory question on a public forum is because you want the admins to shut you down so you can point a finger at them and scream "Seee? Seeeee!? It's so unfair!!!! Who agrees with me???".
The reasonable people are emailing the admins with their opinions privately. They want to be heard and they are being heard. The unreasonable want to scream in public and get an army of angry people to back them up. It's a big ego boost to have an angry mob supporting you.
The forums are now being moderated. They attempted to allow the artisans to moderate themselves via decorum and good common sense. When given freedom, someone will always take advantage of it and ruin it for everyone else. They scream the loudest and believe they are in the majority because they are screaming louder than those of us who are quietly discussing the issue with reason.
We in the USA have the right to free speech. All that means is that if we say something the government doesn't like, they aren't going to come to our door with rifles and shove us in a box until we shut up. It does not mean that we have the right to use someone elses resources to be jerks, especially to those people providing the resources. Just because you have the right to speak, that does not mean that Artfire is required to provide you with the megaphone and audience.
If you want to talk without moderation, start a blog. It's free. You have every right to say whatever the hell you want to say when you provide yourself with the resources to speak.
Artfire forum moderation is the correct business decision. They have every right to allow the discussions that they believe will boost business and to erase those discussions that they believe will harm business.
If you don't like it, start a blog, speak all you want, and blast them from the rooftops if you so desire.
If you want to ask questions regarding the changes and express your disagreement in how it was handled, go to the source - email the admins directly. They will eventually answer you.
But don't go into the public forums that they are providing and talk shit about them and then get all up in arms when they don't kiss your ass for doing so. They are doing what they believe is best for business. That's it. If you disagree, you are free to leave and you are free to setup a new shop however you damn well please. But if you're going to use their services, you're going to have to play by their rules.
I agree that forums should be moderated. I'm glad Artfire is doing it. I really don't want my potential customers watching a bunch of bullies bitch and moan about how the service they are taking advantage of sucks. That's bad for my business.
Thanks Artfire. You're going through some major heat right now and it's probably going to have a short-term effect on the bottom line as the bitchers and moaners shut down their shops. But it's going to improve business in the long run.
Some sellers were becoming inflammatory towards Artfire in the forums. As always happens in any internet forum, those who are in the mood to fight got all up in arms and started bullying those few who dared to speak up and say "cool your jets". The silent majority simply ignores inflammatory and bullying behavior and the few who enjoy a good fight just go on congratulating each other for being so brave to "stick up for themselves" when really all they're doing is fanning the flames. So the flames get bigger and bigger. Artfire admins decided that this was bad for business and shut down the few instigators and then deleted the fiery threads.
When the admins explained why this was necessary and gave a hypothetical to help illustrate why this was necessary, everyone continued to flame because they would take the words out of context and react by gut instinct (which is easy to do when you're already pissed) rather than read the entirety of the reasons. Thus, wrong conclusions were jumped to and again, everyone congratulated each other for being quick on the flaming bandwagon. It grew out of control, even the Etsy forums exploded with misinformation about what was happening at Artfire. So again, the admins said "enough" and deleted the thread.
Today, various threads are popping up with people complaining about how the admins have handled things. They claim that they are just asking questions. And how dare Artfire shut down their questions just because they disagree with Artfire admins!
I call Bullshit. If you want to ask a simple question of the admins and get a simple answer, you email them. Privately. The only reason to ask an inflammatory question on a public forum is because you want the admins to shut you down so you can point a finger at them and scream "Seee? Seeeee!? It's so unfair!!!! Who agrees with me???".
The reasonable people are emailing the admins with their opinions privately. They want to be heard and they are being heard. The unreasonable want to scream in public and get an army of angry people to back them up. It's a big ego boost to have an angry mob supporting you.
The forums are now being moderated. They attempted to allow the artisans to moderate themselves via decorum and good common sense. When given freedom, someone will always take advantage of it and ruin it for everyone else. They scream the loudest and believe they are in the majority because they are screaming louder than those of us who are quietly discussing the issue with reason.
We in the USA have the right to free speech. All that means is that if we say something the government doesn't like, they aren't going to come to our door with rifles and shove us in a box until we shut up. It does not mean that we have the right to use someone elses resources to be jerks, especially to those people providing the resources. Just because you have the right to speak, that does not mean that Artfire is required to provide you with the megaphone and audience.
If you want to talk without moderation, start a blog. It's free. You have every right to say whatever the hell you want to say when you provide yourself with the resources to speak.
Artfire forum moderation is the correct business decision. They have every right to allow the discussions that they believe will boost business and to erase those discussions that they believe will harm business.
If you don't like it, start a blog, speak all you want, and blast them from the rooftops if you so desire.
If you want to ask questions regarding the changes and express your disagreement in how it was handled, go to the source - email the admins directly. They will eventually answer you.
But don't go into the public forums that they are providing and talk shit about them and then get all up in arms when they don't kiss your ass for doing so. They are doing what they believe is best for business. That's it. If you disagree, you are free to leave and you are free to setup a new shop however you damn well please. But if you're going to use their services, you're going to have to play by their rules.
I agree that forums should be moderated. I'm glad Artfire is doing it. I really don't want my potential customers watching a bunch of bullies bitch and moan about how the service they are taking advantage of sucks. That's bad for my business.
Thanks Artfire. You're going through some major heat right now and it's probably going to have a short-term effect on the bottom line as the bitchers and moaners shut down their shops. But it's going to improve business in the long run.
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