Commission review system?

[Mad Harlequin]

I think I agree with some sentiments made about just encouraging honest reviews.

I think this is the only really reliable solution we have right now, given our active community's limited size and its walking-on-eggshells nature. We can't place much hope in successfully implementing the kind of system that other sites have unless we change these things.

None of that really applies to free artists or people either.

I'm going a bit off-topic here, but I have to disagree. I realize that reviews based on monetary transactions would carry the most weight, but I don't think that telling people "Well, you can't be part of the discussion because you don't work for money" is particularly fair.

[Anne]

I don't really think having the button means "don't write reviews unless they have a button"

It marks "writing a review is encouraged" as a non-default situation (by default people don't have buttons)
It makes people more conscious of the fact that some people don't want reviews (and knowingly don't use the button) and as there's no way to tell if someone doesn't have it because of that or by default they assume it's safer to treat everyone as if they don't want reviews. Sure, not everyone will think like that but if there're at least some people whom the button will stop from writing a review it means it is harmful.

[noeinan]

It marks "writing a review is encouraged" as a non-default situation (by default people don't have buttons)
It makes people more conscious of the fact that some people don't want reviews (and knowingly don't use the button) and as there's no way to tell if someone doesn't have it because of that or by default they assume it's safer to treat everyone as if they don't want reviews. Sure, not everyone will think like that but if there're at least some people whom the button will stop from writing a review it means it is harmful.

Right now, not writing a review *is* the default situation, which is kind of the problem. If it makes people more conscious of the problem, which is that people don't write reviews, I don't see that as a bad thing. There are going to be "at least some people" who will write reviews *because* they saw the button, and "at least some people" who won't. But without testing it, we don't know which situation will be more likely, thus whether the idea is productive or "harmful".

This will be my last post on this specifically, because I do think this is off topic, and pretty much a duplicate of the "Honest Critique" button thread/argument.

[Deji]

Okay, so we need to encourage reviews.
My first idea would be to sticky a post on the recruitment thread prompting commissioners to leave reviews and telling commissionees to ask/remind their clients for reviews once their job is done.

We can always have a little badge (not for the signature, but for the "hire me" post itself) or a written snippet in bold, big letters, reminding people that this person wants and encourages reviews of their work, and/or to be available to be contacted for referral info when doing a background check or something. I personally like badges/banners since they're more uniform and easier to spot in a person's thread

*insert badge/banner here*
I've previously worked for: (insert list of games/clients list)
You can ask them for referrals if you need to! Feel free to scroll down and see the reviews my previous clients have left

How about that?

[noeinan]

I think that sounds great.

[firecat]

Okay, so we need to encourage reviews.
My first idea would be to sticky a post on the recruitment thread prompting commissioners to leave reviews and telling commissionees to ask/remind their clients for reviews once their job is done.

We can always have a little badge (not for the signature, but for the "hire me" post itself) or a written snippet in bold, big letters, reminding people that this person wants and encourages reviews of their work, and/or to be available to be contacted for referral info when doing a background check or something. I personally like badges/banners since they're more uniform and easier to spot in a person's thread

*insert badge/banner here*
I've previously worked for: (insert list of games/clients list)
You can ask them for referrals if you need to! Feel free to scroll down and see the reviews my previous clients have left

How about that?

that could work, just like a job interview referrals are the strongest link to getting a job. people can lie to the boss and such but other people do not.

[PyTom]

Some random very tired thoughts:

In my opinion, if you post a services-offered thread here on LSF, review of your professionalism are on-topic in that thread. (This is similar to how when a game is posted, positive and negative reviews are both on-topic.) While I think it might be a good idea to encourage satisfied customers to post positive reviews, negative reviews/warnings can be posted by those people who feel they want to post that. The original person can post a reply to the negative review, and so on, as long as the exchange remains productive and civil.

I don't think us forum admins can be expected to intervene/edit reviews, except perhaps for the open-and-shut case where a review is factually inaccurate. If you think this might apply to you, it may make sense to send your work via PM, as I have the ability to query the database to find them. I don't want to get in a situation where it's some combination of she-said and he-said*, as we're unlikely to be able to act in that scenario.

* Please assume I wrote your favorite pronoun here, I'm tired.

[Hazel-Bun]

The only thing with that is this is a hobbyist forum, and I highly doubt the people I've commissioned or and gave commisions would want to be badgered for referrals by strangers. If y'all wanted to enact something like that, maybe asking for a letter of rec. (in a sense) from them and posting that would be best? I'm of the same mind of Anne with the badge. Reminds me of the honest critique button (made me feel unwelcome and also very weary in the community/judged cause I didn't adopt it for reasons outside its stated purpose to invite honest reviews afterward. Not saying this is their view but when it came out I wasn't thrilled about it in the least), so wouldn't favor a system like this where I'm even more burdened. I'd feel compelled to have the button even though I encourage reviews and leave them on others threads when they have one here. My only bad experience being with a musician named Tyler who has no account here, hence it being a mute point to leave a bad (sorta though I got the product just not in the way I wanted) review haha I was also very new and made a lot of mistakes on my end, so there's that.

I'm by all means not against bad reviews/afraid to leave them, just that my only bad experience to date has been with people not particularly active in lemma or I've contacted cause I saw they did great work on another game. And, as someone who commisions and displays my threads to be commissioned in my sig., I would hope it's a given that I'd like reviews. But, as a consumer myself, I know I rarely leave reviews unless I was a). Really satisfied or felt they delivered above and beyond (say my short positive commen on tempus'/bonkiru's threads) or b). Did such a bad job I was fed up/ran with my cash. The latter has thankfully not happened to me or, happened in a way that I can't tell the community without airing my own dirty laundry/this person seems to be well received on others projects. Again, I know when a similar musician scam happened, it made me very scared to commission not knowing who it is. But, sometimes, if a person had an ok but nothing wow/bad with a person, they don't leave reviews. I know I don't but maybe that's just a quirk of my personality as I don't get too opinionated unless I think you're screwing me/others over, or did an excellent job.

Also, I personally prefer clear to the point reviews. I remember when the project sponsorship was in full effect and a artist I ended up not commissioning (hal or something to that effect) didn't deliver. They weren't particularly active on lemma but had a thread, and the lead person simply stated they didn't deliver on time and ran with the money. Hal replied and said they'd get on it after other artist expressed disappointment. Didn't need a rating, etc. or an indebt step by step breakdown of where their flaws were. Plus, I chalk a lot of this stuff up to inexperience. When you're young, not doing this as a job, and have little guidance, it's easier to get scammed or run into bad clients. A detailed post along with this program or whatever may be implemented to spot a bad deal before you become a mark would be nice. I believe some one on this forum has made that before (maybe sundownkid? I cant quite remember...).

I too would like a way to avoid these situations! My strategy right now is piecemeal pay (wait for some kind of progress and do half-half or something), shop around and get different rates, don't use money you don't have (paying an hourly rate/royalities as a young person not making VNs full time for example), and start with one commission on the cheaper end to see how they deliver. I hope some combo of advice and a more clear cut system would make things easier.

Very late so excuse the mistakes and such; I'll clean this post up in the morning.

[Kailoto]

I think that reviews are important, but I don't think this forum needs a system for them. Yes, the community would benefit greatly from more feedback and accountability, but in my opinion, it shouldn't be enforced. If we care about it (which I think we all do), then we can collectively make the effort to incentivize and standardize reviews by leaving them when we are a recipient of someone's services, and requesting them when we are the provider.

That's not to say that the review systems outlined so far by Deji are bad per se... I'm more concerned about the social consequences of such a system. On their own I think they would do a great job at accomplishing their purpose - to encourage accountability and present it in a clear format - but it would also pose as another barrier for newcomers and alienate anyone who has qualms about it. And I don't think the issue of lack of reviews is a problem pressing enough to require enforced action.

I'm all for raising awareness to the issue. This forum does have an unfortunate case of trepidation with critical or negative material. But that's also a virtue of these forums, because it sets the standard for new users. It tells them, "Hey, everyone here is pretty friendly and helpful, so if you want to fit in you should try to be friendly and helpful too." Even though we need to dampen it and add a more critical side, I desire for this forum to keep that core of tranquility. And a regulated system has the potential to dislodge or even shatter that.

So I think the best course would be to vote through action - practice what you preach and make sure to request and provide reviews, and if it actually matters to enough people, a new standard will be set. I do agree that we should make a topic that encourages said practice; something like an announcement in the Recruitment & Services Offered subforum should do the trick.

[Kinjo]

I don't think there's a need for such a system. Others have already made a lot of good points about this, so I guess I don't need to repeat them.

Ultimately you've got some bad apples, sure, but they shouldn't spoil the bunch. Calling people out in their threads when they scam you should be good enough. Apparently people have a hard time doing that -- but it's not a matter of being "unfriendly" or "stirring drama"; it's being honest about what happened. And if the person is a decent human being, they'll take that criticism to heart, apologize, and even reach a compromise. Else, you've just saved other people a lot of trouble. Win-win situation.

[TheKiwi]

I don't think that telling people "Well, you can't be part of the discussion because you don't work for money" is particularly fair.

I think I was a bit misunderstood there. I didn't mean that they aren't part of the discussion (especially seeing as I personally don't work primarily for money), just that my points about professionalism and everything aren't as applicable. IE Leaving a comment in someone's personal art/request thread saying that they're slow and don't take requests because they didn't take yours.

Anyway, I just wanted to echo a lot of the other people before me. Especially @Kinjo, who I think summed it up the best.

As a small footnote, though, the caring/nice/we're-all-friends-here community is received differently by each person, I think. I'm pretty new here and haven't integrated yet, but the vibe I get a lot more is just a lot of friendliness and not a lot of feedback. Especially since I joined with the intent of getting a lot of honest feedback so I can improve myself, I like to know if I can rely on this forum as a good place for VN creation, and so far I have mixed feelings. This is especially true in the case of commissions, where I don't know if I can really trust anyone there. Not for the sake of they're bad people, but I know that people won't leave honest comments if the commissionee gave them trouble.

[sasquatchii]

Just spitballing here, but if we created a forun with advice on finding and working with creatives? We could talk about our own experiences, failures, successes, etc.

What do you do when an artist hasn't been in touch with you for over two weeks?
How do you manage an entire team of people?
How do you work with your team to create deadlines?
How do you decide a budget for a team of five?

So far we have subforums for artists, music & sound designers, and writers, and then we've got this one oddball subforum called creator discussion where all the other stuff gets talked about.

By having a dedicated subforum dealing with the more human element of creating visual novels- working on teams- maybe more of these kinds of topics and questions would be discussed and help people in figuring things out. Right now these kinds of questions pop up every now and then on the creator discussion board, which is about ten years old and pretty lengthy to browse through what with all the other topics.

Of course, I'm not really being helpful as far as answering how we can rate & review artists, but I think something like this could help from a higher level perspective.

[PyTom]

Just spitballing here, but if we created a forun with advice on finding and working with creatives? We could talk about our own experiences, failures, successes, etc.

This isn't a bad idea, but isn't this what the creator's corner is for?

[SinnyROM]

Just spitballing here, but if we created a forun with advice on finding and working with creatives? We could talk about our own experiences, failures, successes, etc.

This isn't a bad idea, but isn't this what the creator's corner is for?

I might be wrong, but maybe what sasquatchii means is a forum specific to project management. That's what I'm gathering from mentioning budgets, team organization, etc. I can see how a separate forum can be useful for those wanting a more managerial role in the process, especially with the rise of Kickstarters and the importance of using funds wisely.

As for a review system, I would like to see more encouragement of accepting criticism, so long as it's constructive. When it comes to transferring money, clients should not feel hesitant to post about a negative experience. Simply posting on a provider's thread should be enough; the only qualm I have is that not many people will read the most recent post and look at only the first page of the thread. If more awareness can spread this shouldn't be a huge problem.

[sasquatchii]

I might be wrong, but maybe what sasquatchii means is a forum specific to project management. That's what I'm gathering from mentioning budgets, team organization, etc. I can see how a separate forum can be useful for those wanting a more managerial role in the process, especially with the rise of Kickstarters and the importance of using funds wisely.

That's exactly what I mean! I guess you could argue that the Creator Discussion board is for that as well, but I always just thought of it as a melting pot for miscellaneous topics that seemed to focus on visual novels as a medium.

Maybe an entire subforum dedicated to project management/teams/budgets/etc could help raise awareness of some of the issues we've been talking about within this thread?

To be honest, whenever I've had problems working with other creators I never thought to turn to the LSF for help (even when working on VN-related projects!!). I *have* asked some people that I knew from the LSF, on twitter, though. I'm not really sure why that is! I guess I thought maybe there wasn't a good space on the forums to ask for help working through team-related conflicts? I totally see now though that the Creators' Discussion board is a space where one can safely do that (as people have been doing so recently), I only wish I'd realized it sooner!!