Gallery Open House: are we ready?

[sensei]

Some private messaging has reminded me that it has been a long time since Anime-Beta hosted an "annual" gallery open house. (The most recent thread I found is 2006, but there was one in 2008 also, interrupted by a major site crash as a thread in the RS forum records.) Is there any interest in reviving this tradition?

As I recall, in 2006-08 it tended to get cumbersome, as there were a lot of active members then, and at one point each participant was allowed to ask five questions which each visitor was expected to answer. With (as I recall) about 30-40 galleries that everyone had to do this for, it took weeks and weeks. I did finish (huff puff) but got feedback from only 2/3 of the other participants. An earlier version was much leaner in directions and just lasted a weekend. That was actually more fun and in its way more constructive, as I was just beginning and in need of some pointers from older hands.

There are a lot of ways we could handle this event, but it would speak to something that I've heard grumblings about, which is the drop in chatter among collectors of late. Things were quite intense even five years ago, and my archived file of emails among collectors runs well over 1000 pages. But now newer collectors sometimes feel that their developing galleries get too little love, especially when they spend extra time developing helpful descriptions of their new acquisitions. And it is always intriguing to get into a gallery that collects something unfamiliar, which is (I think) one reason the "Something fun" thread keeps going and going.

Anyone?

[JWR]

I would not mind partisapating in one tho I can see how it could get a bit labor intensive. Maybe pair off in groups of 5 - 10 rather than everyone do the whole group if we get a lot that wish to do it.

[sensei]

I'd thought of that to keep it relatively simple. The 2008 version, IIRC, limited the number of questions curators could ask, but still seemed to grind to an unwieldy halt. There also were issues of people not getting the feedback, as the RS system is prone to being intercepted by spam filters. But as with the cel/sketch contests, there are ways that these issues can be worked around.

Let's see how many people are interested in the idea, and then we can think about ways to organize it.

[Rekka Alexiel]

Sounds like it would be fun! I don't know how we could keep it simple enough to work smoothly but you can count me in on this one. I was hardly active here during the last time this event went on. :p

[Quacker]

You know I will be in Sensei.

Depending upon the timing & my project-schedule, I may even be able to put my hand up to help with planning and/or organizing.

This will be my first 'Gallery Open House' so I am intrigued to see how this unfolds.

[kamidake]

I probably dropped off the face of the planet in 2008, but can somebody describe what would be involved for me? ^^;

[toonybabe]

I am definitely interested!

[animeobsessed]

I'm interested in another gallery open house. I received some great feedback the last time we did it.

[sensei]

I probably dropped off the face of the planet in 2008, but can somebody describe what would be involved for me? ^^;

The basic premise is that people interested promise to visit other curators' galleries, notably ones that you would not normally browse regularly, and leave feedback on the gallery's design, approach, etc. This part of it was often given a little focus by the curators' giving a couple of questions to answer. (It was five in 2007, which everyone agreed was too much, two IIRC in 2008, which was better.) Meanwhile, the other curators visit your gallery and leave you feedback.

The challenge is that you agree to visit [X] number of galleries, and [X] other collectors agree to visit your gallery and leave you feedback. In 2008 X=35 (IIRC, the thread apparently went kaput in the last crash), so it was a month-long commitment. That tended to get unwieldy, so the suggestion emerged that we break the list of volunteers down to subgroups of about ten apiece. I'm willing to coordinate this, and as it doesn't involve creation of a website, voting, prizes, etc., it's a relatively simple thing to throw together.

People do have to be willing to give constructive criticism and take negative judgments in stride, though. I still recall how one visitor thought some of the art paper I used to back cels looked like Christmas wrapping paper. Well, so it does. I still think my gallery improved in several ways after the event, partly due to suggestions from visitors, partly due to ideas that I got from visiting other galleries.

[theultimatebrucelee]

I'd be interested in that too, sounds like fun.

[Yupa]

I really like this idea. However, I'm not sure if I would be able to give others good feedback. What makes a good gallery? Personally, I love reading descriptions under each cel or sketch that tells the context and maybe some interesting observations. But other than the descriptions I don't know what to comment on.

[sensei]

With one big job done and a little time, I'm ready to move this ahead another notch. First, I did some casting about on the Beta Archive and on my hard drive, and I find that there was an open house event in May/June 2005. It lasted one weekend and had fifteen participants. Sadly, the thread no longer exists, but I saved some notes that indicate that there were about 18 participants. There was, as I recall, no structure other than that we were voluntarily asked to choose ten from this list and send our reactions to the curator. It was loose around the edges, but simple (comments were submitted via the RS feedback function, which worked then).

This was followed by a somewhat more elaborate open house in 2006, documented in this thread. That had thirty participants, its own website, and a set of rules similar to the cel/sketch contest. Curators were allowed to post a slate of questions that each visitor was asked to answer. From the thread, it looks as if it became very difficult to carry out, due to website difficulties and the fact that it ran over three weeks time. (I see that I opted not to participate formally, but it looks like I did sneak into some of the galleries that I hadn't visited in 2005 and leave feedback to some galleries.)

This was followed by an even more elaborate open house in 2008. The thread for this is also no longer available, but I saved a copy of the participants and their questions. It had thirty-eight participants and its own website where curators could post questions they wanted visitors to answer. Some asked only one, most asked 3-5 questions, and one asked all visitors to respond to ten questions. That event seems to have started in March and dragged on until June, matters not helped by a spectacular Anime-Beta website crash that took place in April. I did participate, and left feedback for all 37 galleries, but noted that about a third of listed participants chose not to reciprocate. I think at this point the event seems to have fallen dormant for want of anyone to take on what had become a rather daunting task.

What I'd like to do, based on the comments above, is return to the earlier simple model. So far we have seven people indicating willingness to take part. Based on the experience of the more elaborate 2006 and 2008 events, I'd prefer to keep the event short (let's say a week) and the numbers of galleries to visit limited (let's say ten). So if thirty more Betarians decide that they want to be involved, rather than have a month-long gallery crawl, what I'll do is randomly divide up the list into sublists of no more than eleven galleries. (Lessee: 37 participants would mean four sublists of nine or ten galleries.) I liked how letting curators ask questions option added focus, but it can also add time: let's say curators can ask no more than THREE questions of visitors. But if they prefer, they can just let visitors give their own personal reactions.

I'll post the sublists of participants and their questions (if any) at the head of a new thread devoted to the 2013 Open House. You find which subsection you're in, visit the other galleries in that sublist, and leave feedback for each of them. Let's say "using Beta's PM function" as the RS feedback system has, I gather, become potentially faulty. That would also save a copy of the feedback in case it gets lost in cyberspace: one of many problems with RS feedback is that your message is not saved anywhere as it's sent, so if it's miscarried, the visitor has to reconstruct it from scratch (which I had to do more than once in 2005).

So much for rules. I'd like to keep it focused enough to carry out, not so focused that it turns into a "gallery contest." Obviously if you finish early with visiting the galleries in your subset, nothing stops you from peeking at galleries in other lists.

OK? We can dither over the procedures, but meanwhile how about participants confirm their interest by PMing me and giving me the questions (if any, but no more than three) that you'd like visitors to answer in their feedback. That will let me start generating lists and (if necessary) sublists for when we are ready to go.

[Rekka Alexiel]

Okay, sounds great! But I'm a little confused about the questions that you want us to think about to ask visitors. Do you have any sample questions that would help get a better idea what you mean by that? Sorry, I'm really drawing a blank here. lol

[sensei]

I've actually still got the zillion questions from the 2008 Anime-Beta Gallery Crawl: give me a sec and I'll abstract some as examples. They range from simple "What part of my gallery did you like (or not like) the most?" to fairly complicated " Do you like to see a series with a large number of items (over 15) broke down in subsections such as character, episodes, etc or have a shorter list on the main page with all cels/sketches listed on multiple pages for that series? Should sketches be listed separately from cels even if there are only one or two for a series or should all sketches be mixed with cels? In other words, you want to see a long list on the main pages or multiple pages once you go to a section. Or do you even care?" (That got by as one question in 2008.)

[sensei]

I just did a quick copy/paste of a part of the 2008 questions. These are some pretty typical questions:

- What's your overall feelings about the gallery?
- What do you like best about the gallery?
- What do you think could be improved?
- Name one thing you like about the gallery design.
- Name one thing you do NOT like about the gallery design.

- How quickly does my site load for you?
- Is it too busy?
- Are there any changes you would like to see made to my gallery descriptions or images?
- Do you find the site easy to use?
- Are my sections for each series clear enough and easy to navigate?
- What should I definitely change in my gallery to have a better look?

- Do the thumbnails get you curious enough to want to see the entire image?
- Are you satisfied with the descriptions for some of the cels/sketches?
- Do you ever read the descriptions for my cels?
- Do you want more technical information about the cels like the number,size, etc.?

- Would you rather see cels in the misc section have their own title sections? Or leave it be?
- Settei - Is this something that you would like to see more of? Or should I stick to mainly cels/douga/etc?

- Any thoughts on improving exposure on my gallery?
- Any advice for attracting visitors?
- Do you prefer my custom made gallery, or would you prefer to see it on rubberslug like most of the cel community?
- Which item would you steal if you could?

Some are obviously very specific to one gallery with an experimental or unique element. Others deal with issues of non-RS galleries with user-designed formats. So these are just "teasers" to show what's been asked in the past. Many curators didn't ask any questions, and in that case I just went on my visit with the first three questions in my mind (Overall feel, most liked, least liked).

One suggestion from an old teacher of ethnographic strategies: avoid "yes/no" questions. "Do you like my gallery design?" --> "Yup." "Nope." "What do you like about my gallery design?" is more open-ended but "leads" the visitor a bit: "Please tell me you liked my gallery!" So perhaps "What does my gallery design make you want to do?" will elicit more honest responses, all the way from "Go to another gallery!" to "Start exploring!"

Again, asking no questions at all is a perfectly valid option.