Why do you participate in the Makeup Artist, Hairstylist, and Fashion Stylist Forum?
It appears that people participate in this forum for a variety of different reasons.
What is yours?
1. Some people seem to want to exchange information on products and application techniques. Some people seem to enjoy mentoring others. Other people seem to feel that it is a waist of time. Why should they teach others what they know on a forum for free. They may be teaching makeup classes for pay. How can you sell the cow if you give the milk away for free?
2. Others seem to want to exchange information about the business side of makeup, hairstyling and fashion. Their postings seem to be about how much money people are making, agencies, marketing yourself, unions, and networking to get jobs. This value system seems to rank people regarding salary and doesn't seem to address the art in makeup artist.
3. Some people seem to want to post their work and get constructive criticism on how to make it better.
4. Others want to showcase their work for their fan base, but don't really want to get a critique, especially from people who's work they feel is inferior to theirs. What they really want to say is, "Go Me" and bask in their glory. :-)
5. Some people seem to want to gossip and give unsolicited critique about makeup in movies, video, print, other sites such as model mayhem, other posters and postings on the forum, etc.
6. Some people are lurkers. They are interested in reading, reading, and reading what other people have to say, but aren't really inclined to post messages themselves.
7. Some people are interested in all the different aspects of makeup, hairstyling and fashion. Others are only interested in one particular aspect or a small subset. They may feel that they are waisting their time filtering through a lot of postings to find the few that interest them. They would prefer that people that they often call amateurs would simply leave the forum so they won't have to filter through so many postings.
Did I miss anything? Why do you participate in this forum?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of the different reasons for participating in the forum are wrong or any are better or worse then others, just different. It can become confusing however, if a person posts information expecting to get a certain form of information, but instead, gets information regarding other aspects then what they expected. Also, it may make a person reluctant to participate post at all or do specific things like showcase their work, if it also opens the door to critique, gossip, pay scale and clients.
A photography forum that I participate in divided the forum up into several sub-forums, so for instance people who were only interested in the business side of things, didn't have to filter through all the postings about how to use equipment.
In one of the sub forums keywords are used in the title of the post, so if someone posted some images and started the posting with Showcase: And Then the Name of the Images, everyone knew that they could post attaboys or attagirls, but shouldn't tell that person that their image would have been better if they had done Bla, bla, bla. If they tagged the posting with Critique: And then the name of the images, everyone know that they could say what they liked and didn't about the images and how to make them better, etc. A similar moniker could be applied to Gossip: And then a name of a Movie, website, person, etc. To signify that it was unsolicited critique. By putting these three things into a separate forum, people could choose to participate or not.
Here is the link, if you are interested in seeing it in action:
http://www.soocool.com/forum/
Please understand, that I am not necessarily saying that this form has issues and I an not dictating or even telling you how to make it better. I am just saying that this is how a photography forum was set up to allow people to filter their input.
Any decisions are up to you, the moderators and leaders of this forum.
But back to my original question.
Why do you participate in this forum? What is fun for you and what isn't?
Your friend,
Robin
It appears that people participate in this forum for a variety of different reasons.
What is yours?
1. Some people seem to want to exchange information on products and application techniques. Some people seem to enjoy mentoring others. Other people seem to feel that it is a waist of time. Why should they teach others what they know on a forum for free. They may be teaching makeup classes for pay. How can you sell the cow if you give the milk away for free?
2. Others seem to want to exchange information about the business side of makeup, hairstyling and fashion. Their postings seem to be about how much money people are making, agencies, marketing yourself, unions, and networking to get jobs. This value system seems to rank people regarding salary and doesn't seem to address the art in makeup artist.
3. Some people seem to want to post their work and get constructive criticism on how to make it better.
4. Others want to showcase their work for their fan base, but don't really want to get a critique, especially from people who's work they feel is inferior to theirs. What they really want to say is, "Go Me" and bask in their glory. :-)
5. Some people seem to want to gossip and give unsolicited critique about makeup in movies, video, print, other sites such as model mayhem, other posters and postings on the forum, etc.
6. Some people are lurkers. They are interested in reading, reading, and reading what other people have to say, but aren't really inclined to post messages themselves.
7. Some people are interested in all the different aspects of makeup, hairstyling and fashion. Others are only interested in one particular aspect or a small subset. They may feel that they are waisting their time filtering through a lot of postings to find the few that interest them. They would prefer that people that they often call amateurs would simply leave the forum so they won't have to filter through so many postings.
Did I miss anything? Why do you participate in this forum?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of the different reasons for participating in the forum are wrong or any are better or worse then others, just different. It can become confusing however, if a person posts information expecting to get a certain form of information, but instead, gets information regarding other aspects then what they expected. Also, it may make a person reluctant to participate post at all or do specific things like showcase their work, if it also opens the door to critique, gossip, pay scale and clients.
A photography forum that I participate in divided the forum up into several sub-forums, so for instance people who were only interested in the business side of things, didn't have to filter through all the postings about how to use equipment.
In one of the sub forums keywords are used in the title of the post, so if someone posted some images and started the posting with Showcase: And Then the Name of the Images, everyone knew that they could post attaboys or attagirls, but shouldn't tell that person that their image would have been better if they had done Bla, bla, bla. If they tagged the posting with Critique: And then the name of the images, everyone know that they could say what they liked and didn't about the images and how to make them better, etc. A similar moniker could be applied to Gossip: And then a name of a Movie, website, person, etc. To signify that it was unsolicited critique. By putting these three things into a separate forum, people could choose to participate or not.
Here is the link, if you are interested in seeing it in action:
http://www.soocool.com/forum/
Please understand, that I am not necessarily saying that this form has issues and I an not dictating or even telling you how to make it better. I am just saying that this is how a photography forum was set up to allow people to filter their input.
Any decisions are up to you, the moderators and leaders of this forum.
But back to my original question.
Why do you participate in this forum? What is fun for you and what isn't?
Your friend,
Robin








