Split the Artist Wanted Board in Paid and Unpaid sections.

[Walter B]

Lately there has been some discussion in this board about the Manga Artist Wanted section and the "25 posts and 2 weeks time" rule. Some members have said that this rule scares away people, some of them who would have ended up paying comission work to an artist here. I think they have a very good point. It would be great if it was easier to get hired here as an illustrator.

When this is pointed out, other members respond that if you remove those restrictions then this section will get filled with a bunch of newbies looking for an artist to draw their stuff for free This is also true.

The solution: Split the board in two sections. Paid and Unpaid. Do not enforce the 20 post rule in the paid section. Just like the art gallery section has a starter gallery sub section, something like this could be implemented here. That way the pros and the people who are serious about this would have their own section without it getting cluttered by newbies looking for free stuff.

Someone who is serious about their project (and they are if they are willing to invest money on it) doesn't exclusively looks at this site. He wants to cast the widest net posible so he post his offer on Deviantart, here and in all the other sites he can find. During the 2 week you force him to wait he will probably find an artist somewhere else. If someone is actually wiling to spend money on the artists here, you should not be placing extra hurdles for him to do it.

We should be testing this right now.

[legomaestro]

A paid section doesn't stop a newbie who hasn't read the rules from posting something vague with the promise of payment after profits, so the core problem of spam-like posts from people solely interested in one goal doesn't change. The site is a community first and foremost, so it's really important that rather than becoming a billboard site for other artists and writers that people come to share skills expertise knowledge and support to grow together.

What about the opportunities these one time posters could offer? As Hasith explains so many times, he's tired of the multitude of people who say they were cheated, or suddenly request an account deletion because they got what they came for. In the end 1000 paid offers have nothing on 1 Raider who sticks with the community for a long time and becomes a part of the family. Google and other sites will give you all the pro paying artists any raider could ever want. It won't give us the people we need.

I would be less skeptical about such things if I didn't have to delete the umpteenth 1 paragraph first post of a newbie with a hotlink to their story and site, but that's not the case. No one is reading the rules before posting, and have about 0.001 ? interest in knowing the forum. So yes hurdles please in my book.

All in all, this is up to Hasith

[Walter B]

A paid section doesn't stop a newbie who hasn't read the rules from posting something vague with the promise of payment after profits

If you are going to start with the assumption that people don't read the rules then you may as well not have any rules at all.

posting something vague with the promise of payment after profits

Then change "Paid Work" to "Commision Work" so there will be no misunderstandings like that.

The site is a community first and foremost, so it's really important that rather than becoming a billboard site for other artists and writers that people come to share skills expertise knowledge and support to grow together.

Yes, and for that you need artists.

So what if the person looking for the artist goes away after he's found one? Let him go. We don't need more writers, we have a bazillion writers already. What we need is more artists. And if this is a place where artists can find paid work then the artist will probably want to stick around. Professional artists are always hungry for paid work.

 

he's tired of the multitude of people who say they were cheated

How can you get cheated? Just request the payment before you make the drawing. If you are doing work before recieving any money you are just asking to get ripped off.

or suddenly request an account deletion because they got what they came for

Thats probably because they don't want to keep recieving a ton of emails. I made a paid work offer in a board once and I ended up recieveing emails about it for 3 months. I can totally understand them.

And since we are in the suggestions board here is another one: it would be better if you could just delete your account yourself instead of having to ask a moderator about it.

In the end 1000 paid offers have nothing on 1 Raider who sticks with the community for a long time and becomes a part of the family.

Yes and more artist will join the family if this place can actually help them put food on their table.

I would be less skeptical about such things if I didn't have to delete the umpteenth 1 paragraph first post of a newbie with a hotlink to their story and site, but that's not the case

Yes but thats more a problem with the newbies themselves. At least they will crap all over the unpaid board and hopefully not in the professional board. And the solution to that is to make the "you can't post here unless you have 20 posts" stuff work automatically like it has been suggested in another thread in this section.