Too many promotion threads

[Former_Member]

I'm not in charge of this team, so don't have any sway in what is allowed in this team, but in my opinion, there are WAY too many promotional threads here. I joined this team so I could have discussions and troubleshooting with fellow clay artists, not to constantly be bombarded by people starting millions of self-promotion threads. When there actually is a question or a tip by someone, I usually miss it because it's buried.

I'm thinking of leaving this team because of this. Probably no one would care one way or the other if I did, but I thought it might be helpful to suggest having ONE or TWO promotion threads or promoting games, and discouraging people from making new ones. Because I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

[Former_Member]

Alia you read my mind!!! I was about to leave the team too! It was getting a little bit too much when the top 18 posts were all promotional, and mostly the same anyway. I'm happy you brought this up, because I 100% agree!

[Former_Member]

You are not alone. I wholeheartedly agree. There has been someone recently that has really abused the new listings idea. I almost feel as if they don't realize that we are not their customer base and they are advertising to the wrong people.

I love the heart the shop above you listings. I might have followers that have never heard of you and yours not heard of me. By hearting items in someones else's shop you open a door to potential new customers for yourself and others.

Anyone who has a question or is having a problem I feel should always open a new thread. I don't always have a lot of time to browse etsy but I always look for those threads where I might be able to help someone or learn something new.

I remember a couple years ago someone was having a problem which at the time had nothing to do with me. But a couple months later I encountered the same problem. Thankfully I knew where to find it since the subject had been its own thread so I only had to browse through all the topics to find it. If it had been part of a general chat thread it would have been a lost cause.

[Former_Member]

Alia and others have contacted me about the promotional threads issue and you'll see I've started closing them. I've also contacted a few members to ask them to not continue setting these up.

For those who would like to be able to police this themselves... I'm going to write a post shortly asking people to volunteer to be team leaders. Then you should have the authority to close down spam / self promotional threads, among other things.

[Kaboochie]

I agree, why bother peddling your wares to other PC artist who wont buy your products because we would rather try and make it ourselves lol

I also joined with hope of having PC discussions.

I think creating treasuries showcasing each others items and treasury comment chains etc could be a great way to help promote instead.

[exZuberant]

Thank you, Alia, for bringing this up! I share the frustration you and others have expressed in this thread. I typically browse through the emailed digest of discussion posts, looking for anything about problems with clay or technical questions, and I respond to those only. I think "hearting" shops and having threads devoted to various themes so people can easily make treasuries of our work are also valuable, but self-promotion for the sake of trying to sell your items to the rest of this team should not be permitted (and is ridiculous, as others have said!).

Kit, thanks for shutting down those threads and for asking those folks to stop, and for all you do. I wish I had time to help with leading the team, but I am swamped with my day job and only have time to work with clay once a week (if I am lucky!).

[LaLindaArtStudio]

Exactly why I don't frequent this team much. It just seems to be the same old thing most of the time.

[Former_Member]

Promotion shouldnt be everything- I agree- but it will help you to get more views, more hearts and hopefully more sales too! As you can see there are a few new team leaders and we try to change a few things. Plese tell us what you would like us to do / change in this team :)