Gallery Open House: are we ready?

[cutiebunny]

I wouldn't mind participating in an Open House again. They were fun, even though I probably received about half as many responses as I did reviews

If I remember correctly, last time there was a set group of 10 questions, and then every participant could add a couple questions that would be tailored more for to their gallery. So it would be nice if we could have a set list of questions and then each participant could add a couple additional questions for their specific gallery.

Any idea as to when we're going to start this? Hopefully we can have until Christmas to finish it. I think it took me a couple months to make it through the list.

[ReiTheJelly]

Although I'm very busy and haven't done much to my gallery in recent years, I wouldn't mind participating. It might encourage me to revamp my gallery and update descriptions.

[sensei]

If I remember correctly, last time there was a set group of 10 questions, and then every participant could add a couple questions that would be tailored more for to their gallery. So it would be nice if we could have a set list of questions and then each participant could add a couple additional questions for their specific gallery.

Maybe there was another Open House that slipped through my search, but I don't think there were ever this many questions. A little more hacking led me to Zetsuai's 2006 Open House website, which is still live and links to a bunch more questions that were asked that year. But this time I want to keep it simple: three questions per curator max.

Any idea as to when we're going to start this? Hopefully we can have until Christmas to finish it. I think it took me a couple months to make it through the list.

I want to keep it to one week rather than the most recent (2008) 37-gallery month-long event. That was enormously instructive on both ends, but reminded me too much of end-of-semester term-paper and final-exam grading to be really fun. And, as you note, that led to lots of people not completing the event, so you and I wrote more gallery reviews than we received.

To that end, I'll take the list of participants and divide them into subsets so that you won't be asked to visit more than ten. (You won't be prevented from visiting more, but I want to make participating both enjoyable and relatively easy to complete.)

If we can wrap up the preliminary dither and get a list of participants, I don't see why we can't pull this off July 27 to August 3. (Then we can start bugging the usual suspects about the annual sketch contest, if there is to be one this year.)

[sensei]

OK, so we have ten potential participants:

animeobsessed
cutiebunny
JWR
Quacker
ReiTheJelly
Rekka Alexiel
sensei
theultimatebrucelee
toonybabe
Yupa

That's enough to move ahead with. Any more dither on the procedures? I'm keeping it spare this time so it doesn't bog down:

1. I'll put up a new thread that begins with the list of participating curators. This will have links to the gallery and links to the curator's AB Private Message tool.
2. If we get more requests to participate (and golly, I hope we do), I'll subdivide the list so that no one will need to visit more than ten galleries. You're free to visit more if you have time and energy, but you should at minimum visit all the ones in your sublist.
3. Curators may ask three specific questions, or fewer, or none. I'll post these on the first message of the new Beta thread.
4. In any case, visitors should visit each of the galleries and respond with basic "overall feel," "most liked," and "least liked" reactions (i.e., a constructive suggestion, not "Inuyasha cels are sucky").
5. How about ten days as a time frame, to extend over two weekends?
6. I'll give everyone a week (more?) to prepare, as I know some curators like to have a special banner or home page message.

Tentative schedule:

July 18-July 25: Time for Beta members to express interest, submit questions, refurbish galleries.

July 26-August 4: Open House in progress: visit galleries, leave feedback, get feedback

August 5: Feedback on event, its good points, negative points, and how it could be improved.

Anything else?

[graymouser]

I wouldn't mind participating again. I really enjoyed it the last couple of times.

EDIT: I hope the fact that my main gallery is not on Rubberslug will not be a problem.

[sensei]

I hope the fact that my main gallery is not on Rubberslug will not be a problem.

Not at all! In fact in the past we have had a strong contingent of non-RS galleries, which present interesting options that, alas, aren't available with the RS homestead platform.

[ReiTheJelly]

I hope I'll have internet access during this, since I'll be in the process of moving July 28 - Aug 1

[sensei]

I hope I'll have internet access during this, since I'll be in the process of moving July 28 - Aug 1

I don't want to make this a wholly open-ended event, as the concentrated focus on gallery design and strategies makes this event especially effective. But if you need extra time to complete the visits and feedback due to your move, I think that's fine. I see that in previous open houses a few people have, for justifiable reasons, finished up a week or more late.

Good luck on your move! I know how stressful this can be, both leading up to the change and settling in afterwards.

[Rekka Alexiel]

Sounds good! I'd love to spiffy up my gallery for this event, but I just don't have the time. The design is at its most basic form its probably ever been in... lol

And sorta off the topic, I had an idea that might be fun to include, if it doesn't over-complicate the whole thing. So curators are able to ask a bunch of questions, but how about the other way around, too? Maybe viewers can ask the curator anywhere from 1-3 questions to strike up a little conversation, perhaps? Maybe I'm just lame, but I get the biggest kick out of just TALKING about stuff in my gallery. ^^;;;

[animeobsessed]

And sorta off the topic, I had an idea that might be fun to include, if it doesn't over-complicate the whole thing. So curators are able to ask a bunch of questions, but how about the other way around, too? Maybe viewers can ask the curator anywhere from 1-3 questions to strike up a little conversation, perhaps? Maybe I'm just lame, but I get the biggest kick out of just TALKING about stuff in my gallery. ^^;;;

I like this idea.

[sensei]

Maybe viewers can ask the curator anywhere from 1-3 questions to strike up a little conversation, perhaps?

I'll add this as a suggestion for the general guidelines. Meantime, you can feel free to put this as one of the "questions" you'd like visitors to respond to: "Ask me a question, or two, or three, about my gallery, my art, or my collecting habits."

[ginga123]

I'd be willing to participate in this event. The last one I did, I think, it was 2006. The mix of constructive and positive feedback was really helpful, ranging from presentation to organization, "feel" (for lack of a better term right now... pass me some of that coffee Sensei lol), etc. The event might be a refreshing community conversation catalyst. I'm a little curious myself about our dormant community. I agree with Rekka; lately, I don't have the time to add the newer genga and acetate.

[toonybabe]

Yikes! I need to clean my gallery up a little and finish updating. I'm super excited for the open house!

[theultimatebrucelee]

And sorta off the topic, I had an idea that might be fun to include, if it doesn't over-complicate the whole thing. So curators are able to ask a bunch of questions, but how about the other way around, too? Maybe viewers can ask the curator anywhere from 1-3 questions to strike up a little conversation, perhaps? Maybe I'm just lame, but I get the biggest kick out of just TALKING about stuff in my gallery. ^^;;;

I like this idea too. since most of us are pretty passionate about this hobby, I'm sure many of us would get a kick out of talking about our own collection. And if people would actually be carious about it, great honor.

[sensei]

Anyone want to send me some questions for the final listing?

I think I'm going to ask about the navigation issue again, which is something I really grapple with:

1. After you landed on the gallery home page, where was the first place you chose to visit? Why?
2. What problems did you encounter while browsing through the items?
3. What might make a visit to my gallery easier, more productive, or more fun?

(Off the top of my head: I will probably refine these later on.)

Any more newbies? I think this event was most important to me in 2005 when I was just getting things set up for the long haul.