Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Art and Creativity Forum

I have a question about this forum. I was considering sharing some of my literary works (original and fan-fic stories) but the place hits me to be more of a marketplace than somewhere to share ones art and writing. There is nothing wrong with a marketplace, but it seems to me to be somewhat contrary to the forum as I quoted above.

Anyway, I'm on my third beer and am waxing philosophical here. Just sayig that it feels like somewhere I would go to sell a story, not share one.

It is both. Place to sell/buy and to share. But most people are honestly more interested in the first; however I have shared a few things and gotten a couple replies. I'd love to see work of yours.

I guess I’m being too idealistic. I may just leave this to the commercial and share links to other sites that are more artistic.

This forum is meant for both avenues, work or sharing, though artists take control a lot of the time of the former because RPR is a great marketplace; It's a site designed specifically for original characters, which generate, generally speaking, more commissions than fan works do (so has been my experience).

However, simply because this is the majority of what the forum is used for does not mean you can't still share your works!

I personally have a mix of both, where I have my first post as all of my prices and things, and my subsequent posts are art I want to share (commissions or not). You could easily do something similar, where your first post is, say, links to wherever you post your work, a ko-fi or something, and subsequent posts are links to where you post your works and small summaries attached or something. :>

If you decide not to post your pieces themselves here, then Archive of our Own is a very good site imo, even if it is more fandom based :>

I'm not really sure what it is you're after. You mentioned something that appears to bother you, but... not what it is you'd like to see.

If it's more separation, I remember seeing a prior request for a dedicated marketplace.

Yeah, that’s it. A seperate marketplace. But never mind. It isn’t important.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels less inclined to share my creativity in a buy/sell want-ad section.

I do have an AO3 account and it works fine for what I want.

It's not a bad idea, I wouldn't be against it necessarily myself. If I recall correctly, one of the main reasons Kim refused to split forums this way in the past is because one would yield significantly less traffic and make a forum appear 'dead', which looks bad to new users and is discouraging for existing users.

I don't know if that's still true for the Art and Creativity forum though. If it is, it's a good reason not to split it up, but if traffic for both types of posts is pretty decent, then it might be worth revisiting the idea for sure.

Perhaps there could be a trial run of this? Spilt the two up and see how much traffic each one gets? If there isn't enough traffic, then just put them back in the same forum again. If there is, then make the change permanent.

Or perhaps just a marketplace subforum within the Art & Creativity section, something say lets activity from either show on the surface.

It'd be kinda terrible if the mods made the effort to sort shop vs share threads only to have them remerged, but if looking dead is the main concern, then I think a subforum should handle that fine.

I almost wonder if there's an option to make it sort of like the LFRP function, where an artist can make a forum and categorize it on a spectrum of "Art share == Both == Art Sell" or something?

Idk, this subforum thing seems like a nice idea :>

Actually, I feel what you're saying. I go into Art and Creativity Forum to share poety, and it always feels a little weird, like that I'm in the wrong place for that. But when I poked around and realized there's not another place that's just for sharing, I went ahead and did it in there. Sometimes I wish there was something more clearly there for works people want to share. For instance, more evidence that people aren't sure where to put it is the fact that there's a "Short Story Fun" thread in the "Forum Games" section, where people share short stories. That seems like it should go in the Art and Creativity section, but it also seems like the person who made it up, didn't think it fit there, but that it fit better into the games section. So...it does seem like people go looking and can't always find a place that seems right to put it (short stories, poems, creative writing), so it's kind of scattered around in different places. I've seen poems in Smalltalk, for instance.

It doesn't bother me to use it for both marketplace and like place to share, but I just wanted to say that I get what you mean, how it feels like it should be separate. But the traffic flow makes a lot of sense, too, for a reason not too...so...I see how that could be an obstacle to it.

Exactly! I think it is really cool how so much artwork, commissions, and such is sold/bought/traded here. The forum heading would suggest it a place to share creativity, but it doesn't prohibit the creative commerce. It seems to me that it is two different veins of creativity, and the ad part seems to overrun the sharing part and can be a detriment to people who consider sharing their work. Being this is primarily an RP site, it may make sense on some level to combine the two I guess.

I am considering posting threads for my works there and I’ll share a links on my profile so anyone who is curious can view and comment on it all if they want.

And on that Short Story Fun thread.. I loved Pastel Galaxy’s writing there. Others too! it is a worthy thread that!

Yes it is! I love that thread.