Open Art? Not so "Open" maybe not so "Art" and definitely no "Community"
Open Art?
I stumbled across this site, called "Open Art - the Community of Young Professional Artists" (rel="nofollow" in the hyperlink in a hope to NOT improve their search engine ratings)
- Open: can you call open a so-called community where members have to submit a CV, participate in an interview before acceptance, and have to be a student or graduated of an Art university?
- Art: nowhere on the site is defined that Art means - painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, video, music? In my conception, "Professional" is not related to what university have you graduated, but to what you do for a living.
- Community: no comments, no feed-back, no favorites, no open subscription - enough of a community! More, a "Open" one!
Here is the time for a disclaimer: I did not encountered the site by chance, I know a person working on it (I used to know), so people may consider me biased. I hope this will not be considered a personal vendetta.
Back to that site, it also suck from a technical point of view:
- Static HTML! How dumb is that for a "Community" site? Whitout feeds and syndication is next to useless
- Terms and Conditions section is a .DOC file! Yes, can you believe this?
- validator.w3.org. Should I say more? I wonder about this one, I know the makers of the site used to price validation
Personal. Offensive.
This is a message intended only for a few people around me, so DO NOT LOOK AT IT if you do not know me in person, you may be offended.
Sorry for spam
Having some free time and nothing better to do (and no mood for doing something better) I went to my blog and added labels to each post, way back to its creation, about 3.5 years ago. The result? A completely broken RSS feed.
So sorry, my apology to all Planet sites aggregating my blog, it was not intended.
Update: Planet linux360 took my spam perfectly (ignored it), Planet Open CLipArt so-so (only a couple of misplaced posts) and Fedora People was the worst, all posts in the feed misplaced. Guuess were are the most readers :p
Update: there is a follow-up to this story
Update: as this is is of interest mostly for the Romanian readers, I did a Romanian translation.
Posts
Nothing special done, it was just a matter of correct configuration to start with. :)
ReplyDeleteNicu, a community is a group of people sharing the same interests or goals. In this case sharing the same profession. We like to call it open because anyone who's meeting it's criteria is welcome to join in. In order to keep it fair we had to establish some rules. It is not a matter of discrimination but rather a matter of recognition.
ReplyDeleteBefore all this you should have considered that this SPLASH is just the first step in the process of creating the community. Your criticism doesn't seem to be rooted in fair judgment. We feel sorry to know you don't like what we do but our main goal is to build the site for the community and if they like it and consider it fair we are happy.
The type of Art we are promoting is totally different than ClipArt that you promote. We don't expect you to understand but give it a try.
Regarding your comment about html static pages we like to keep the technical part for ourselves and not disclose this to you, given that we are on a different level of knowledge than you are.
We hope that you will not hold a grudge against us and that you will visit OpenArt as soon as we will launch the complete version of the site, most certainly at the beginning of March. Good luck with your work and try not to insult us again in the future! It is not nice nor correct.
Sincerely,
Open Art Team
So you have replied! Unfortunately without a direct contact, so I have no chance other than replying here... Or at least reply using your full name.
ReplyDelete> We like to call it open because anyone
> who's meeting it's criteria is welcome
> to join in.
I maintain my position about you do not understanding the meaning of "Open" and the meaning of "Community"
> Your criticism doesn't seem to be
> rooted in fair judgment.
I aknowledged some bias on my part.
> The type of Art we are promoting is
> totally different than ClipArt that
> you promote. We don't expect you to
> understand but give it a try.
Much to your surprise, I understand it well, as a proof I already posted a follow-up pointing to some really Open Art Communities.
> Regarding your comment about html
> static pages we like to keep the
> technical part for ourselves and not
> disclose this to you, given that we
> are on a different level of knowledge
> than you are.
You are really making me laugh with the part about the "level of knowledge". Is enough to say I have reliable information about the development processe in your company? Or should I add at least *one* of your sites contain code made with technical advice from me?
> Good luck with your work and try not
> to insult us again in the future! It
> is not nice nor correct.
I used to be nice and correct...
> Before all this you should have
ReplyDelete> considered that this SPLASH is just the
> first step in the process of creating
> the community.
If it is the first step, you maybe should not have advertized it in your portofolio, where it was added not a long time ago (yup, I discovered the site browsing your portofolio, wanting to be up to date with the wonderful websites developed recently by your company)
We like to call it open because anyone who's meeting it's criteria is welcome to join in.
ReplyDeleteBy your definition, any enterprise, business is "open". Microsoft is "open". I can become a Microsoft employee if i meet the criterias. So Microsoft is Open.
You're stupid.
Anonymous said exactly what i was going to say until i scrolled down to his message...
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, "open art team" as far as i can see, nicu said nothing personally scathing to any of you, however, i read your reply, and find:
"We don't expect you to understand but give it a try."
"we are on a different level of knowledge than you are."
if you were trying to unalienate people, im sure that this is the best way to do it. NOT.
thats my two cents...
what the hell are you all talking about??
ReplyDelete