Member Survey Results

After reading over thousands of responses to our recent member survey, we are happy to now talk about the feedback we received and announce some of the upcoming changes that will be made to ArtWanted.com.

First off, we appreciate all those that took the time to fill out our survey. This information is very valuable to us and we shape our site according to what our members are wanting.

One thing that is for sure...everyone has an opinion, and it's rarely the same. With so many members and opinions on each survey question, it's impossible to make everyone happy. However, we hope that by going with what the majority of our members want, we shape ArtWanted.com into a better place.

Without any more blabbing, here are the questions from the survey and what we learned from your feedback.

1) Do you want to display your name to the artists you have added to your ArtWatch?

Most members said they would like to know the name, so we will change this page to show the names.

2) Do you generally have problems uploading images on our site?

Very, very few people said yes to this question, which is what we expected. We just wanted to know the real numbers. We are looking into a new way of uploading images, that should help out those that have occasional problems.

3) Should all anonymous comments be disabled on the whole site?

Almost all members said no here, so we will keep things the way they are. If you do not wish to receive anonymous comments on your portfolio, you can change your member preferences to only allow members to comment on your artwork.

4) Should anonymous comments count towards top ten placement?

This response was about 50/50. Because of this, we will have to make the judgment call. We have decided to not count anonymous comments on the top tens, due to the possible chance of 'comment fraud' to bump people higher up in the top ten reports. This change will take place soon.

5) Should we change our image policies and allow full nudity on ArtWanted.com?

Many people filled-out our survey, just to voice an opinion on this highly debated topic. The answers can be grouped into three categories. Those that said 'no', those that said 'yes' and those that said 'yes', but still wanted restrictions on what could be seen and uploaded. In the end, the majority of our members that completed the survey were opposed to full nudity, but it was very close race.

Although we have many members that want to see nudity on AW, there were dozens of members that told us they would leave the site if we started allowing it. Because the results were so close, we again have to make a judgment call on what we feel will be best for the website. Based on the many comments we received about this issue, and our current reasons for not allowing it, we have decided to continue with our long-standing policies of what can not be posted on our site.

MESSAGE BOARD QUESTIONS

6) Should members be allowed to edit a message, once it's been posted?

Most members still like to be able to edit a post from our survey, but we do plan to change some things, because this feature is being abused. Some members are saying something on a post, and then going back hours later and changing what was said or completely removing what they have said. We plan to continue allowing posts to be edited, but we are going to greatly reduce the window of time you can make changes in. This will allow you to make changes if you notice a typo or need to rephrase something directly after your post, but our members will not be able to change a message hours after it was posted like they can now.

7) Should our message boards be hidden from public view and only seen by members?

The responses to this question were only off by a few votes, it was almost 50/50. We see the reasons why some people want to hide the debates that happen on the boards, and we also see why some people want them available to the general public. We feel that if some of the threads on our boards were read by potential art buyers, they would pack up and leave the site. Since one of our goals is to attract buyers to the site, we want to do those things that will keep them hanging around ArtWanted.com and buying artwork. For this reason, we have chosen to lock down several categories on the boards to only be seen by our members. We have not decided on the exact sections that will be for 'members only', but this will be announced shortly.

8) Should we change our 'ban/block' feature to only block a member if you started the thread?

Blocking members on the boards has been a big cause of contention recently. This feature was created mostly for those that hate another member or that are being stocked by another member. As the block feature is being abused by several members, we do plan to change it to only block a member if they started a thread. If someone has you blocked, you will soon be able to respond to posts directly after this person, as long as they did not start the thread.

9) Should members be allowed to delete an entire thread that they had started, at anytime?

Most members did like this idea, so we will be allowing this feature in the near future. However, if a thread is removed by a member, we will post a note that it was deleted by that member, so everyone knows where the thread went and that it was not just 'zapped' by our staff.

10) Should AW moderate our boards more, less or the same as we do now?

Most people said the 'same', the next highest group said 'more' and a small percent of our members said 'less'. From these responses we feel we are doing a fairly good job of letting our members speak their mind on the boards, and only getting involved when we have to. This is how we prefer it.

WEBSITE QUESTIONS

11) Should we enable a 'no-right-click' script on our website images?

Most of our members voted to add this feature, so we will be adding it soon. Although most of us know that there are a dozen ways to 'steal' artwork online, by adding this feature we can at least discourage a few people from doing it and remind everyone else that all artwork is copyrighted on this site.

12) If we had a blog/journal feature on our site, would you plan on using it?

Most people did like this idea, so we will add it to the site soon. We don't know if this will be a premium feature or not, but it will be optional for those that do not want to have a blog/journal on AW.

13) If your portfolio images could be larger on our site, would you like that feature? (ie wallpaper size)

A very large percent of our members liked this idea, so it will be a premium feature that we add in the near future. For those that do not want to give out larger sizes of your artwork, this feature could be turned off for any of your artwork.

14) If ArtWanted.com decided to put together another book, would you be interested in submitting your artwork into the book for a small fee ($25-$50)?

Most members liked this idea as well. We don't have a time frame on if or when this will happen, but it's good to know there is an interest out there.

15) What other features/upgrades would you like us to add to ArtWanted.com in the future?

We received a ton of great suggestions from this question. It has fed our developers with plenty of new projects to work on, to always keep ArtWanted.com changing and improving.

16-17) How many other online art communities do you belong to?

Responses vary from 1-25. Many of you posted comments on what you liked about other websites and how we might add these features to ArtWanted.com - Again, great suggestions on how we can make our site even better.

18) Do you post your artwork for sale online?

About 60% of our members are selling artwork online. The other 40% just enjoy showing off their talent to the world.

19) How many pieces do you estimate you have you sold online on any Internet site?

Responses vary, depending on the artist. Most of our members have not sold any artwork online, but others have been very successful at it. Selling artwork depends on a dozen factors, but we hope that those that are successful at it can share their tips with everyone on our message boards.

20) What can we do to improve sales on our site for our members?

Plenty of great suggestions, thanks!

21-25) ArtWanted.com Home Page

These were questions about our home page design. Most all members like all of the features that we currently have, but we do plan to change things around for 2007 and improve the home page even more.

We appreciate all of the feedback from our members. The responses we get from these surveys are extremely valuable to our staff. As you can see, we take your feedback and make changes to our site to make it even better for the future.

The decisions we have made above are based off careful reading of all the feedback we received from our members on this survey. These decisions are now final and will not be changed with new debates about these topics. We have gathered the feedback on both sides of each question and feel we have made good decisions that will benefit ArtWanted.com - even if all members are not in agreement on any one topic. We hope that everyone is excited about these changes and the future of the site.

We are working on many updates to our site, so we don't have an exact timeframe on when some of these changes will go into effect, but most of them should be done before the end of the year. Thanks again for your great feedback!

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