Sta.sh
Basically, as CVs, when we are giving a DD, we are doing so because we think the image is interesting and well-done and deserves your attention. It may be technically exquisite. It may be technically quite good but exceptionally thought-provoking. It may be exceedingly creative. It may be all of these things! Above all else, it should stand out in some way from others in that medium or gallery.
Holiday Card Project 2012 Wrap Up
Hello all,
In this section of Daily Deviations (DD) PE week I wanted to write about how your suggestions are processed and then turned into DDs, but with a bit more of a focus on the process of how we Community Volunteers (CVs) utilize the note system. I felt it was a place where some common problems arise which may not be talked about all too often resulting in confusion and frustration for both suggesters and CVs.
The Note System
I think many are aware of this but just for the sake of being clear, CVs use the same exact note system as every other user on the site. We do not have any special bells and whistles to organize our notes other than the same tools you all are also given. There is no special tool or program that sorts or does anything special with our DD suggestions for us, it is entirely up to us, how we choose to sort them in our note system.
Let's take a closer look at how the process works, shall we?
~deviantXYZ sends a note with a suggestion to ^CVabc Once ^CVabc looks over the suggestion they decide if they want to DD the piece or not Given that ^CVabc files their suggestion notes they will then file the note with the suggestionIt all seems very simple, I know. How hard can it be to look at notes and then file them once you make your decision right? Sure, filing them is very simple. The problems come in when you start to get multiple suggestions for the same piece. This is where you find yourself digging through your folders looking for that one note that was sent 158 notes ago just so you can be sure to credit everyone who suggested the piece. Or imagine you had the piece suggested to you several months ago but it wasn't eligible because of the 6 month rule and now that it is you need to go back and find that one suggester all those notes back?
Suggesters Getting Lost In The Shuffle
To anyone who has frequently suggested DDs, it happens that pieces get suggested and your name doesn't get listed as the suggester. As unfortunate as it is, it's just something that happens for various reasons. While I started to touch on some reasons above I'd like to break things down a bit more here to give some more understanding to the situation.
CV already set the DD before it was suggested to them by ~deviantxyz so they were not listed.It can happen that you will suggest a piece that a CV has already set as a DD before you suggested it to them. While some CVs do not mind adding additional suggesters to DDs which have already been set some would prefer to spend that time doing other things in the community. Please keep in mind that these features are not about having your name listed as suggester, it is about getting the suggested art seen.
It was suggested to a different CV.Sometimes it just happens that the same piece you suggested was also suggested by someone else to another CV or that the other CV saw the same piece and decided they liked it enough to DD it.
It was resuggested by someone else at which point the CV changed their mind about featuring it.As CVs we often get many notes with suggestions to sift through to decide what we want to feature and what we don't. Sometimes we may have an influx of really great suggestions and some pieces that get suggested to us may not make the cut as a result since we already have so many great pieces to feature. That's not to say that the others are not worthy of a DD, but rather that there are times when CVs are more able to be a bit pickier. And then.. there are times when good suggestions can be a bit scarce. What happens if at this point the CV decides to feature the piece as a DD but doesn't remember who suggested it the first time around? It's nearly impossible to go digging through months of notes to find who suggested it first to list them as well and to do so would be a big waste of time when it's about the art being featured and not who suggested the piece.
It was suggested by too many people to list them all.This one is pretty self explanitory I'd say, but for the sake of being clear I'll explain this as well. Sometimes there are pieces that get suggested by so many people it literally would be impossible to list each and every suggester, not to mention it starts looking a bit tacky when you have 10+ users listed as suggesters in the DD blurb. But in cases like this the CV will usually just write something along the lines of "Suggested by many" in the DD blurb.
So You Weren't Listed as A Suggester, Now What?
We understand it can be disheartening when you finally suggest a piece only to see it on the DD page without your name listed as the suggester, especially if you are not used to suggesting many DDs. Remember, the idea of suggesting DDs is supposed to be about helping to get the art you are suggesting seen rather than getting your name listed as a suggester. It may help to take comfort in the fact that something you suggested was featured as a Daily Deviation so not only has the artist YOU suggested recieved a DD (which is a beautiful feeling on it's own), you now also have a bit of a feel for what to suggest in the future to help get other artists seen via DD (and hopefully have your name listed as suggester next time). The best piece of advice I can give in this situation is to be happy that the piece got a DD and keep on suggesting! Mistakes happen, CVs are only human, and there is no reason to let something so simple get you down.
Reflecting Back On The Note System
As discussed above we are now all aware that CVs use the same note system as everyone else, and we are now also aware that there are problems that arise that can result in suggesters not being listed. Did you know that there are some things you can do as a suggester that may help us CVs in locating your suggestions should we ever need to dig for them?
ThumbnailsI can not stress this one enough, if you use thumbnails when suggesting it can save us much time and hassle if we ever need to wade through our sea of notes to locate you as a suggester. Using thumbnails allows us to see the image directly in the note rather than having to click on the link to see it first so it could potentially save us a lot of time would we ever need to find your suggestion.
Limit suggestion notes to one artistBy only suggesting one artist per note, again, it can help us organize our notes appropriately as we may want to place one artist into one folder and another into a different one.
Only Suggest each piece to one CV.Be sure that you are only noting one CV for each piece you are suggesting. When you send a suggestion for the same piece to more than one CV you can cause unnecessary confusion and frustration.
In Closing
As Cvs we don't have magic programs to sort our DD suggestions for us, we simply do our best and hope that it's good enough.
Happy Suggesting
=Dediggefedde's note search script proves that it is possible to do browser side, too, but it takes up lots of bandwidth I think, and it apparently works fine if you have a few dozens of notes but it doesn't deal well with my 6000+ notes at all