I have some suggestions for rules for custom commissions. Obviously these are just my opinions and not intended to offend anyone and not trying to assert that my way or way of thinking is the best way or the only way. Grain of salt accordingly.
Suggested Rules
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RULE #1` - Everyone is a guest here ( other than the site owner/site admin) and no one is entitled to any form of commerce. Anything you buy or sell or trade or display for commercial purposes of any kind is a courtesy given to members as guests, it's not a right. It's not something that any member is entitled to for any reason. Any and all commerce related privileges can be revoked, removed, created or reinstated for any reason. If you have a problem with any rules put on site, clearly meant for the greater good, then go start your own commercial site or forum and you are wished the very best of luck in all your commercial endeavors. All guests/members are welcome to make suggestions, but unless you pay the light bill and bandwidth, you only have the right to be heard, not actually listened to, there's a difference.
( First thing to nip, IMHO, is any sense of entitlement. No one is owed jack. Not on site, not in life, not anywhere)
RULE #2 - Barriers to entry. Anyone wanting to sell custom commissions to SSF members, even off site, but use SSF, its features, resources and bandwidth as way to promote your commercial material will be subject to SSF rules. If you don't want to abide by this, promote your work somewhere else and best of luck to you.
Every public for sale custom artist who wants to promote their work can have one sticky thread in a dedicated subforum on the board. This is the place an artist can promote work they can actually sell. The initial post must contain the artists email and samples of their work. No discussion of prices or transaction information will be present in any public post or any PM using SSF resources. Take it to email.
( This isolates the artists and any issues with them in one area)
RULE #3 - To get a sticky post, the artist must have
A) X amount of tenure on SSF based on registration date
B) Y number of individual trade references on SSF for either trade/sale/buy
C) Z number of posts on SSF
X, Y and Z will be determined by SSF Staff. Existing approved artist will be grandfathered in.
( This ensures the artist is an active member of the community, which decreases any incentive to grab cash and run. The grandfathering ensures the minimization of lactating and complaining by folks who have done some custom work in the past)
RULE #4 - Full Transparency. Each artist will
A) List each person who has paid by user name and amount total paid, but no other information, in chronological order.
B) Be required to complete items on the list in chronological order, no "leapfrogging"
C) Each entry will have date of commission started, date of payment and date of commission completed when done.
D) Payments will only be allowed through PayPal
E) All commissions, once paid, have 40 days to completion. Buyers are encouraged to file with PayPal for non performance at day 40.
F) Whenever total commission dollar amount reach 1000 dollars, no more new commissions can be added to the list until a previous one has been completed.
G) Custom artists are expected to maintain their thread. If you don't want to do it, sell somewhere else and good luck to you.
H) Any ten individual incidents of non compliance in the thread and the thread will be locked, no more commissions can be taken and you can never promote your custom work for sale on SSF ever again.
( This achieves multiple things, IMHO. First each potential buyer has a chance to see how "stacked" the artist is. Second, the artist has incentives in place to do fast turnaround. If they can't, then don't sell it. Third, no leapfrogging saves the acrimony of people the artist really likes or hates getting their stuff first. It just creates bad blood. Fourth, artists are forced to give regular updates, preventing angry threads about wheres my stuff. Fifth, people can see if the artist has really horrible turn around times, and can avoid them accordingly. Sixth, there are money and time hardcaps, including the ability to file a PayPal claim, which removes the pure money enforcement burden away from SSF and into another service's hands. )
RULE #5 ( aka The Howes Rule) - No more proxies of any kind. No more being a middleman to facilitate a sale with third party money. No more being a "voice" to update buyers because the artist doesn't want to do it. No promotion of any artists work for them in any way.
( The problem with proxies is they can front their rep, encourage a third party to take a majority of the risk and financial hit and then later walk away and say they sent a few emails but they have no control over it.
RULE #6 - If at any point, 5 sticky threads and their artists go out of compliance, the entire section will be deleted and no more custom commission work can ever be promoted on SSF again. Forever.
( The burden of keeping a custom artist honest should be on his custom artist brothers. There is an implied self interest for artists to regulate themselves and each other. It's like the military, even if you didn't do it, it's your fault. It's your fault for being there and not stopping it. Artists are encouraged to make sure their brother artist are in compliance. No offense to any artist here, but you can't just lay all this on Howes, many of you probably by action or inaction helped to bring the rule changes onto yourselves.
My view on it. Grain of salt accordingly.
Gekko
