ARRRRRRRRRGH!
That’s it. After two years of Fashcon, I’m done.
I put out a notice last week for [CRAP] or [BOUTIQUE] or whatever the hell I choose to call it that day… (my shop) and when I logged in today, I found this notecard:
Dear designer,
If you received this notecard, it’s because you:
a)Â Â sent out a landmark-only notice or
b)Â a notice with no attachment at all to FashCon in the last week, or
c)Â put the landmark in a notecard but with no picture, or
d) sent out a second notice for the sole purpose of adding a landmark.There are four main rules to FashCon:
Rule No.1: no more than 1 notice/week
Rule No 2: only new releases
Rule No.3: only fashion and av-related items
Rule No.4: always send pictures
Notice rule number 4: pictures are required. Landmarks are not. A number of you send out second notices that say, “oops, forgot the landmark.” We at Fashion Consolidated consider landmarks optional. We expect your business to be listed in Search and also in the Picks area of your personal profile. Certainly in the best case you would have a landmark in the notecard you send out, but if you forget, it really does not warrant a second notice. Consider doing a template for all of your FashCon notices that contains a slurl for your store.
Why are pictures required? Pictures are your Best Main Way to get across what you sell to your audience. They are your ads. (And the better your photography, the better a draw you will get.) If you can’t be bothered to put a picture in, shoppers do not need to be bothered to come to your store for unknown items. It’s that simple.
I am running into more and more people who do not know that the notices attachment box will only accept One attachment. This means that if you put in a picture and then a landmark, only the landmark will stay with notice – it will bump the texture out of the attachment box. This is why most designers prepare notecards with the textures and landmark enclosed in that and attach the notecard.
People who continue to send out landmark only or landmark misuse notices will be removed from the vendor rolls. We really do have to keep the number of notices down so that each notice is readable and attractive to shoppers rather than have a situation where people are just pelted with notices and click them away.
I know mistakes happen. Just try to breathe deep before you post and double check to make sure you have all of your elements in that notecard in the future.
Best of luck with your business.
Yours,
Ivy Norsk
Content Moderator, Fashion Consolidated
I’m sorry, no. Eff that. I sent out a perfectly fine notice, with an LM, but no pictures. So what? That requires a slap on the wrist from Ms. Norsk, Notice Nazi? No way. I’m not dealing with that. The re-release was something most people were familiar with, and I included the URL to the CRAP blog so they could go see for themselves. They shouldn’t be worrying about notices with pictures – they SHOULD be worrying about the constant stolen-content-creators who advertise on Fashcon.
Today I responded with another notice, and promptly left both groups – both FashCon and Fashcon Cafe.
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Yeah. Eff that noise. If you ask me, Fashcon has become so ungodly bloated that it has lost its effectiveness… and I just took my last hurrah.
–Tenshi
I’ve gotten the “you violated the rules” notecard twice and I don’t think I was ever an offender… oh and semi-rude IMs about multiple postings in one week when I most certainly did not do that. (The IMs might’ve simply been from users, not the group mods)
However, it’s a LOT of policing to do, so I can see why they make mistakes from time to time.
Then hire more “police-ers”. People who can actually do their job correctly.
The amount of notices is ridiculous too. Thank god LL implemented the option to turn those off recently. Half the stuff that comes out of fashcon is crap – and I’m not excluding my own.
But, seriously…
k, a little perspective here, but you ~did~ violate the rules, by your own admission. Whether you agree with them or not, that’s the case. The note wasn’t attacking, and was just a gentle reminder. I got the note once too, and was like, yeah, you’re right. It was something I had completely missed.
I don’t rly know why you are getting so upset about it. Rules are rules. I think you are going way overboard, but that’s your right, and well, your MO.
Ahahahahahahahahhahahahahhaa.
That is all.
You can disable group notices? please tell me how!
you broke the rules Tenshi…Everyone who breaks the rules of that group gets warned. Why do you expect special consideration?
to turn off group notices, go to the group info and on the front page there is a check box “receive group notices” or something like that.
Right on the main group info page, under My Active Title, there is a checkbox for Receive Group Notices. Unchecking it should do the trick.
In the first tab of the group info dialog box, there’s a checkbox for “Receive group notices”, on the bottom right. Very useful tool. I also noticed that some time ago they allowed group chat to be disabled on groups so FashCon is once again notice-only and not spammy with lame group chat. You have no idea how much I appreciate that update to the client…
heh, poor Annyka…
I’m not expecting special consideration. I’m expecting Fashcon to change their priorities… nagging people for something as small as that is absolutely ridiculous. They have bigger problems to chew on, IMHO.
Fashcon has become out of control. I am leaving it too. I can take a bathroom break in RL….come back to the computer and I have 12 notices that have popped up. Its ridiculous. Most of the stores I go to have the subscribe-o-matice thingy(which is awesome!!) and that in itself frees up my group list.
Really.. any more it’s not worth it to send out to FashCon.. I LOVED FashCon when it first came on the scene.. I think I was one of the first who signed up and I’ve told many beginning content creators to sign up for it. It’s just TOO big now. I hardly EVER check the notices and I’ve had them turned off for at least 6 months.
I still send out a notice, but most of the time, no one even GETS it. Eh.. at least it’s not HARD to send out the notice..
The bloating of constant messages in fashcon has desensitized the potential market (yeah, I know I sound ridiculous, but this is the easiest way to describe it) … and everyone just clicks out of the notices. No one reads them.
It’s a bit pointless now, unfortunately.
I’ve left fashcon months ago, and never have felt that I was missing something, both as a vendor and from consumer perspective. On the contrary, not constantly receiving the (mostly) crap notices -no pun intended Tensh- and not being inundated by the uncontrollable group IMs has significantly improved my social interacting in SL
.
Sayin ‘so what’ to their rules is asking for special consideration. jus sayin.
I was in that group for all of about 5 minutes. The blue notice boxes were burning into my monitor.
lmao
Many of the notices from the “new” designers I have been getting are for stolen items anyways(skins, hair, etc). FashCon has become a waste of space. I recall that originally there was no picture rule. I would much rather have a landmark on the notecard than a picture. I picture is not going to get my arse into your store but a landmark sure will.
I agree that the group on whole needs more moderation. And I totally agree if you don’t find the group useful or find it more annoying than positive, then sure leave it. But if you break the rules, I sure as heck support getting a warning. I wish they were harder on rule breakers honestly.
I get what you are saying. But I hardly consider Ivy a notice nazi. If anything she’s FAR too forgiving and nice to asshats. Now, give me moderator powers and then you’d know a notice nazi. >:D
Fashcon has gone to hell, I can’t stand being in that group with the constant notices. I am sick of designers who “forget” the lms.
Honestly, I think some of them do it to make sure people see their notices.
Just get your own Subscribe O Matic thingie…they’re free for those with 500 or less customers *shrugs*
I’m always more than thankful for those – no annoying chatter.
Pardon me while I piss my pants.
Tenshi is back! I can sleep easy now, knowing the world is in good hands
I turned off my FashCon notices months ago, it was overwhelming when I was DJing and doing shoots for my blog, and I get all my news from the various feeds now in any case. I am still in as a vendor, but haven’t released anything new in ages, so I wonder why I am still in it when I am looking for group space. I guess the fact that I had to shell out $1000L to get in as a vendor is what is keeping me there.
On a side note, I know some people think it is very humourous to throw about the term “Nazi” when referring to individuals that are rigourous and unforgiving, but to me it is not a joke. My grandfather lost his entire family, parents, siblings, neices, nephews, cousins, everyone and everything at the hands of actual Nazis, and it offends me deeply to see anyone called such a thing for behavior that isn’t even remotely related. I may not agree with someone’s behavior or manner of enforcing rules, but I would never call then something filled with so much hatred and venom.
~ Ketsy
P.S. Happy Holidays & Joy In The New Year Everyone!
Not everyone is annoyed at all the notices. Put out a high quality gift in your store and drop a note in fashcon about your latest release with pic and LM and mention the free gift. Your sim will fill immediately. So Fashcon does reach a whole lot of people. However there are always people spoiling a good thing by intentionally double sending a notice. Thus the rules about the picture. You either have a picture or a notecard with a picture. That is the rule period. And you can put lots of pictures in and your landmark. Whatever will go in a notecard is possible.
Quite effective for people that know how to leverage the resource.
If you think fashcon is bad there is another one that got started that allows one spam group IM an hour. I didn’t last long in that because of all the Portuguese about the latest skin for 10L, etc. That was more annoying than notices you can disable.
But hey Tenshi, You can always start your own SCDcon group.
And allow LM only notices.
#1 -Shudders-
#2 Where to start… Oh ya fashcon has not been around for 2 years so whatever
#3 Beyond the violations of the Fashcon rules that you were flagged for Fashcon notices are supposed to be for new releases. “Fashion Harness” is what from July? Anything new but sales since then? Really… this isn’t the first re-release notice right?
#4 So you got a warning right? Hey you made a mistake, etc. What did you do? SPAM fashcon with the SCD “Exposure Solutions!” notecard, not once, but twice???
#5 Yes Fashcon suffers from many issues, they picked a bad business model and are forced to accept marginal designers and have a bad designer to consumer ratio. So leave them.
#6 Breaking the rules, getting called on it, getting pissy, then double breaking the rules to spam the over 10,000 fashcon members.
or are there special rules for “special” people???
Maybe fashcon should add another rule, no free items.
For me turned in another freebie group, 90% of the announces I see starts for free, hunt or event.
I think it’s ok that time to time some designer offers something free, but I think fashcon wasn’t designed for this purpose.
Also fashcon I think turned a bit like fashion feed, lot of crap and something good in between. Recently i just pick the notices of skins and 90% of times is another eloh mod
Your reasoning regarding the annoyance of being policed demonstrates your disregard for the rules of the group. I eliminated that in my life by just leaving Fashcon due to all the notices, pics or not. So I do understand that Fashcon can be a pain but your ranting regarding being notified is a little egotistic. What really sets you apart in the, “But don’t they know I’m Tenshi!,” self illumination is the sending of advertising for your own blog that is both classless and petty. But such is the nature of things…deleting bookmark.
I was in fashcon for all of about a week, over a year ago, and it was the most annoying friggin thing ever. Plus, once you find one of the fash feeds, who needs fashcon?
LOL slow week? Nothing else to pull the drama queen routine over? This is just sad. Do you expect special treatment? YOU broke the rules and that notice was neither offensive nor attacking you must not have had anything else to bitch..err I mean blog about this week.
The pic texture rule probably came out of complaints from people showing up at locations for crap. Everybody complains about everything. One person might like it and another will hate it. You can’t make everyone happy.
Oh, I knew you guys would love having me back. Hugs!
Tenshi’s blog, Tenshi is entitled to vent
How anyone manages to stay in Fashcon more than 10 minutes amazes me – sooo spammy.
And..erm…yeah, would personally rather have an LM than a pic anytime.
In the same way as the Fashion Planet feed has, Fashcon has sadly become a victim of it’s own success.
When it was started, and for perhaps the first year or so, other than the very irritating group IM spam (which now has a solution, thank you LL) it was a joy to be a group member from the consumer POV. All the quality designers were members, up-and-coming newcomers got noticed, and the ration of crap to quality was relatively low. However, as it grew it became more unmanageable – both for me, the consumer with just so many goddamn notices, and for Honey, it’s founder. She employed Ivy and set those tough rules in place in order to make it MORE manageable… but at the same time introduced the sign-up fee and HUD. It seems to me that with that, rather than Honey herself vetting the content creators before allowing them to send notices, anyone who pays the L$1000 can now do so, bona fide creators or not. It was noticeable that at the time that was introduced the quality of items advertised dropped dramatically (and no, not JUST because that’s when I started creating :p ).
I have had notices turned off for FashCon for a long time now, which is a shame, but as a designer I notice a definite relationship between the timing of notices and traffic/sales, so as an marketing tool it’s not to be dismissed. It takes a while before newbies find the feeds, and a huge chunk of the SL populace doesn’t partake of the blogs at all but like to know about fashion.
I’ve had the handslap notecard from Ivy in the past too, and yes, it pissed me off, but I knew the rules when I signed up so it’s my own fault. Seems like you took it a bit too personally Tenshi
I found Fashcon to be a great way to reach people originally… now I have a minimal response unless I post with a freebie at my store. And then if I have a freebie at my store, people ONLY come for the freebie and I don’t notice an active sales spike. But… posting notices is free… if one person buys something as a result of reading Fashcon, it’s worth it.
Separate topic, but semi-related: I seriously think the freebies are damaging the demand for products that cost L$. I didn’t think so before but the amount of freebies and hunts is getting extreme, at the same time as a sales slump.
I don’t notice a timing at all with fashcon notices, and haven’t for quite a while – neither have other designers I know. The most you get is the freebie hunters, who will pop around if you have something new.
The handslap notecard from Ivy needs to be more specific. Majorly, it says at the top “You’re getting this notecard because you did something wrong.”
Erm… ???
Anywho, yeah. Fashcon has indeed become a victim of its own success.
Personally I discard most FashCon notices, including landmark only ones. I open the ones that look/sound interesting so I want a notecard with pictures, good pictures that is, if they’re sucky…well. good writing in the Notice and notecard gets my attention as well. By good I don’t mean that it has to be in perfect English, but that it’s interesting and is informational, and has reasonably good grammar.
I could go on and on about the SL fashion economy/freebies/marketing/skin glut/fashion glut.
I think, “everyday low prices” and “bargain sections within brands” and “good customer/frequent shopper discount cards” are a better marketing solution in the long run than mass quantities of freebies. I personally don’t do the majority hunts, my SL time has limits and hunts are very time consuming without a “walthrough”, and if I use a walkthrough that sort of defeats the purpose of a hunt.
I like Subscribe-O-Matic but the free SoM limit is 500 and I bet even some small new designers could reach that without too much trouble. I also think some of the “freebie” stuff is essentially designers competing for shoppers valuable group slots. Frankly if they had “cash value” it would be high for many shoppers.
At first FashCon was wonderfull for me both as a consumer and creator.I find myself clicking through notices and not reading them. I send a notice out when I have new things just because I keep hoping it will be worth it. It isn’t anymore. I am not a great designer but I think my things are pretty darn cute and worth buying but sometimes I feel that being in FashCon may now hurt my business as Fashcon is now being associated with low quality and stolen content.I think the rules are there for a reason…but they need more than that and it needs to be moderated more thouroughly. They do have more important things to worry about ..but they need to do both..moderate not only the set rules but moderate the content they are allowing to advertise. Im not talking about taste or style it is obvious when something is made horribly or stolen.
FashCon is HUGE – too huge. I left a few weeks ago after having my group notices turned off for about three months, but what is the point of that? Now Fashcon is just quantity over quality IMHO.
I used to use FashCon to advertise my store, but with group notices ever five minutes, how can a small designer complete with “ZOMG, FREEEEE SkInS n BLinG”. If I could work out a way of getting the newbies in SL involved with reading, perhaps even producing blogs, then that would be the way to go for me.
So, Tenshi got in trouble. No one likes having their wrists slapped – but doesn’t -
“I know mistakes happen. Just try to breathe deep before you post and double check to make sure you have all of your elements in that notecard in the future.”
– sound patronising?
Fashcon was a good thing when it first started up, a great way to reach people about new products – but I think it’s time now to put it to bed.
Ideas on a postcard?
I dig Honey – shes an electronic music junkie like me. She lurks around the clubs from time to time – house heads RULE. Thats my two cents LOL.
Late to the party as ever. I wanted really to thank people for commenting here. Feedback is *always* appreciated, positive and neg.
I just wanted to correct a few things as they have a tendency to get written into history if not. FashCon has always had a “send pictures” rule, since January 2007 when it started. It’s also always been about new releases of fashion and av enhancement items – the rules basically haven’t changed since I wrote them the day I started it. Blame me!
Also – contrary to pop belief, I never vetted content – by policy. The introduction of the kiosk system was merely to find a technical solution to allowing the group to continue to exist beyond a few hundred designers – it didn’t change any policy or remove any level of moderation of content. It raises VERY big issues to vet either at the point of entry (in whose opinion is a designer “not good enough” or never likely to be so? how could I resource an apply-and-reapply vetting system?) or at the point of notice sending (how? who can moderate so many notices? etc.). With 1900 designers, you can imagine the likelihood of becoming embroiled in non-stop debate and never going to a club again (!) is 100%.
With regards to stolen content – I don’t think FashCon is rife with it, but a small volume will always exist in a floating population of so many designers. When blindingly obvious cases exist I deal with them rapidly with a sword of vengeance as I did yesterday. But it’s just *not* so obvious in many cases and I usually get shouted at from all sides for months! I still await some better objective community-recognised means of establishing guilt than the very flawed DMCA process, but for now FashCon policy as laid out on the blog continues – and I encourage all who think content is stolen to encourage designers to participate in it.
Part of FashCon’s story is all about pushing the boundaries of group technology beyond what’s been done on SL to see if it’s possible to scale beyond a few hundred people sending notices – and most of what I’ve been doing in the last year is that. I’ve now got a kiosk system that just about makes it manageable still. The challenge now is to see if I can scale the more personal elements in 2009 – notice volume and content – to something the majority of people still want while making the group still inclusive, encouraging to starting designers and not a screaming nightmare of controversy to manage (which it often is!). Like every more seasoned resident, I’d like to see more quality in lower volume, and I hope to find a way to provide this.
I don’t consider this by any means obvious to achieve and don’t take the task lightly, but please do expect some changes in early 2009 if you’re still interested. In a way it’s a huge social experiment, to try to keep something so large as useful to as many people as I can. *Any* changes I make are risky and not everyone’s going to be happy, and I have a large consultation document discussing many proposals that’s been on the go for months. I’ll make some small ones to just ameliorate the problem firstly, and then maybe do some more radical things. Part of what I’m likely to do is streamline effort to survive which means *stricter* reaction to content control – something many have been telling me for a long time I need to do – and this of course may provoke more reaction as I see here. I’m sorry about that in advance – I hate being schoolteacher, it’s not my natural role – but if I don’t, it cuts against increasing relevance and interest of notices for people. And, quite honestly, I’m snowed under.
Finally, a word about “staff”. Firstly there are only 3 people who speak with FashCon’s voice: me, and my staff members Ivy and PK. If anyone else IMs you about FashCon notices, they’re speaking for themselves and you should respond accordingly – I can’t control what others say. Secondly, please don’t have a go at my staff for notecards you receive – blame ME. They’re just doing what I say, under a lot of pressure of sheer volume a lot of the time, and have to cut corners to even see the light of day. I apologise if sometimes communications are too broad-brush – we just don’t have the time to deal with the volume of issues in a one to one way. My staff are great and help me think things through, but policy decisions are mine, so please crucify me, not them.
FashCon isn’t for everyone, and some of my best friends wouldn’t dream of joining
That’s ok, and of course I also respect anyone for whom the rules are too restricting for what they want to advertise – there are plenty of other ways to do it. I find it extremely hard to followup on all these issues individually on blogs and in IMs – with 10,000 members, it’s imposs. But I’ll be more present again in 2009 on my own news page now other projects are over and hope to open up some debate there.
Honey is convinced that starting a group somehow makes her a part of the fashion scene and even after it swelled out of the bounds of being useful, she now claims that it’s a “social experiment” and she’s “testing the boundaries” when she’s actually just got nothing else to offer SL and is desperately clinging to her one vestige of e-fame.
Back when joining designer groups was the only way to get info on new releases and deals, FashCon made sense as an option to keep up without abandoning all your other groups to make room. But with Subscribe-O-Matics and blogs and the fashion feed (which is still easier to navigate than a day’s worth of FashCon spam) there’s no more use for FashCon, except to inflate Honey’s unwarranted self-importance and to keep up on how low the standards of “design” have really sunk in SL.
I agree that FashCon was much more effective when they were more discerning about who they let in.
It used to be that sending a notice to FashCon would immediately get visitors to my sim. That is no longer true because most people don’t even look at notices any more. I have to admit, when I sign on I rarely even read them.
BUT there is no reason for you to throw a fit because you break a rule and someone politely reminds you not to. You aren’t any different than anyone else in the group and if they can’t break the rules, neither can you.
Ivy is too nice already. It’s not like she just booted you from the group, it was a polite notecard.
If you don’t like the way FashCon is run start your own group and leave, no need to post a blog entry calling Ivy names and whining like a teenager that you don’t get to do what you want.
Correction: I agree that FashCon was much more effective when *there were less designers in the group and more quality.
I would find Tenshi’s ire more annoying if I weren’t painfully aware that FashCon’s rules are not enforced in a balanced fashion. Week after week, at least one designer will ONLY send a landmark. And they don’t get kicked out for repeated rules violations. If a new designer did that, they’d be booted within a month. Ivy may be peaches and cream, but she and her staff need to quit favoring some designers over others. The rules apply to all or they apply to none. It’s that simple.
Lysana, if you see that happening *please* drop me a notecard about it with a frequency report of LM-only notices for the people you see as unfairly treated either way (not here – I can’t keep up). FashCon rules apply to all equally.
Oh Dear Abbey, bitterly jealous much? Dare I say your highly transparent criticism, or shall i say “deconstructive criticism” yearns for attention- so here it is. It is so easy to judge in fields clearly *not* your own. I’d suggest you take a good look at yourself in the mirror Abbey, before inflicting such harsh judgements unto others as you may not like what you see and stemming from your tone, you’ve seen more than a glimpse of what others have seen in you. Take some time and look deep into yourself and make the changes you so desire in others and perhaps the world might not be such a harsh place for you afterall.