Category Discussion

Colleen · Category Discussion

We need to slim down the amount of categories we have in OLA. There are too many in OOAK.

There is a Tonner Doll in Dolls and in OOAK, I think those all need to be in repaints. All the fashion dolls.

There is ACEO in OOAK and in ART. And self representing artists are in both.

So what about......
OOAK (One of a Kind) Art Dolls
Babies
Bears
Repaints
Reborns
Fantasy Art Dolls- (which in my opinion would include animals, chibis, fairies, historical, etc.)
Fantasy Art Dolls may contain artistic nudity
Gothic/Horror <---this could even be put into fantasy section cuz they sure aren't real. LOL
OOAK Supplies

We just need to tighten this up so we are found easilyl
There are too many categories to check separately and we want it to be easy for the collector. It would be different if the cats were looped in a way where we could browse the entire cat, but we cant

This is not to offend those of you who worked so hard on getting the cats, I appreciate it, we just want to make it a bit neater and easier now that we know how their program works:)

Opinions/Suggesstions? Please?

Speak up folks! do not lurk

if you care about this!! wav

him-n-hers

Well....IMO...
We do have too many in the OOAK catagory. For one thing, there are several with 0 behind it making it look like we hardly have listers. Secondly, if someone comes into a catagory to look for something in particular, sometimes another sale is made because they've happened upon something totally different and unexpected they see, want, and buy Smile

I agree the gothic and horror ought to be together, or even in fantasy.

I feel fairy babies ought to be in with fantasy/fairies. Actually, I don't think we need a baby catagory, because if they're Reborns, then they should be in Reborns.

Reborn and Repaint ought to be together...if it's a reborn baby it belongs in Reborn/Repaint.

I also agree that Tonner (and the like), ought to be grouped with Repaint, or go to the doll catagory.

What I think can be confusing too is that the doll catagory and the ooak catagory have the same verbage...ie:doll/self representing, etc.

I think Maddy has done the prefect thing for her Chibi's...she's listing them in both the Collectible Doll catagory, AND the OOAK fantasy catagory. Where that can be done, at least as we're trying to get things established, I think it's a great idea. There's no additional charge to use 2 catagories. In the long run tho...I'd like to think everyone would go for the OOAK catagory.
IMHO, Fantasy can entail anything with fairy wings, fantasy creatures (of the unusual), mermaids, unicorns, draggons...all these give the catagory more lookers.

I have been wondering if there isn't some way we can link the Collectible Doll catagory and OOAK catagory together. For instance, when you open the main page of Collectible dolls, on the left side it says 'similar' items or some such...why can't they list OOAK on the left as well? Likewise when we have OOAK opened, let it show Collectible dolls on the left for a 'similar' item to search. One leads to one to another, etc etc.

And about viewing the entire catagories, I'd like to find out about that.
When I went in to look at real estate I wanted to view ALL of it with a search for my state. I had to go to each real estate listing to do that. 'Homes', 'acreage', 'mobiles', etc.
Has anyone been told by ola that they can't or won't show a view of ALL the listings at once in a catagory?

sculpturefromtheheart

I just think this is bigger than just our category and OLA shopping needs to be made more intuitive.

The whole thing should be organized in broad categories at the top tier and then narrowing down with subcategories and sub-subcategories where appropriate.

The most important thing is that when browsing you should be able to wander through each level of the heirarchy. You should be able to choose exactly how broad your search will be.

If I wanted to look for a blazer for instance. I would go to the top category, Clothing, and all clothing should be displayed. Then down to Women's Clothing, now all Women's Clothing should be displayed.

Then if there is a category for Jackets/Blazers, all items in that category should be listed. Whether or not I find what I'm looking for I may find other items I'm interested in.

I shouldn't have to look for the specific Clothing:Women's Clothing:Old Navy: Brown Blazers to find what I'm looking for.

There are way too many top tier categories that are far too specific and must be looked at one at a time, thus when the 12 or 13 million listings that are currently running are distributed so widely it gives the false appearance of scarcity.

Now for us, I would think we belong in maybe Art > Art Dolls> OOAK > Fantasy
That's 4 levels down but you should be able to "drill down" and look at ALL Art, all Art Dolls, All OOAK Art Dolls and then all Fantasy Art Dolls

My hesitation with OOAK being the top category is that anything can be OOAK depending on your interpretation - creatively damaged furniture, an extra big potato chip or my kid's 20 year old backpack that she put a ratty CareBear sticker on... personally I like my work being categorized in Art or possibly Dolls because it feels classy Laughing

and... its a broad, appropriate description that makes sense if you look at in a heirarchy.

I'm thinking, if I were a buyer/collector I wouldn't want to have to wade through hundreds of very narrow categories to find what I'm looking for. And along the way I may find items in the broader category of Art Dolls or even Art that interest me and that's good!

We want maximum search exposure and we don't want to be penalized if we happen to choose to list in one of the many adjacent or distant categories that though appropriate is rarely searched.

Does that make sense?

I love it that OLA has been so responsive to our requests for categories. We fought for ages to get our own category on eBay that allowed artistic nudity to no avail but it defeats the purpose if having so many categories winds up making it harder for buyers to find us.

I have every confidence however that OLA wants us to be successful and will organize appropriately once the reasons are made clear.

Its so nice to deal with actual people rather than a huge corporate "entity" so big they don't really care about us little guys...

Colleen

I agree totally about the searching but I don't know if we will be able to get them to change their programming. LOL Hopefully, HOPEFULLY that is part of what they are working on in the changes they are implimenting.

I will send out a mass email later today. I am still drinking coffee and waking up. It is 11AM here and I got up less than an hour ago. Laughing

I am not a morning person.

Faerydae

I'd say do not combine gothic and horror with fantasy unless you want to hear folks bitching about hideous dolls next to their pretty ones. Which was already starting to happen to be honest.

Sadly - I tried to get the other subcategories condensed, BUT - other groups ... have requested them to be added on, so, the only ones I can actually affect now are the ones I asked to be added in the first place.

I still like seeing us in our own category. Since there is an Art Dolls sub-category in the other categories, and we can list in two places at once, I do not see any reason to kill the OOAK category.

It offers a huge chance to educate and increase visibility, and has already done a great amount of that the very short time it has been in existence.

Faerydae

Oh and repainting and reborning are two VERY different things. They aren't the same and deserve their own spaces.

I was not able to get the tonner and other fashion dolls removed. I tried the first day they showed up. Since someone else asked for them, renee was not going to remove3 them because I asked for them to be moved.

Colleen

I like having the OOAK category also. BUT there are just too many subcategories that each of us can list in. Unless we all list in one cat, we will be spread out and won't get the exposure. IF they were searchable together then it wouldn't matter, but there are just too many, IMHO.

Does anyone know if their programmers are working on their search tools? I think if that were simpler, it would solve just about everything.

BUT, I still believe if you search OOAk Fairy, you will find all of us BUT you will also get supplies:( I do not like seeing the supplies in with the dolls. It is one of my pet peeves actually. Mad

I don't think my collectors care what colors of silk I have available or what my prices are for micro beads. LOL

him-n-hers

Hmmm...well, I agree that it's nice to educate everyone about OOAK, BUT, when your trying to get started in a new place where newbies don't think of OOAK...their going to look in either Dolls, Collectibles, or Art. Not sure that this is the time to try to seperate OOAK with it's own catagory.

I like what Lorie said. There is a heirarchy.
I'm wondering why we can't have our fairies start under 'Collectibles' which leads to 'Dolls', then have sub-catagories of what we currently have...minus a couple.

I don't mind Goth and Horror being together in their own place under a sub-catagory of ooak. Nor that Repaint and Reborn be seperated from us. I do think Repaint and Reborn ought to be together tho...here's why...there aren't enough of them to make up a catagory of their own individually and it appears that ola has no one interested. IF the catagory ever grew, then I think it'd be time to seperate repaint and reborn.

ACEO already has a catagory for it under Art...I've seen several duplications, we need to get rid of one of them.

Here's the other thing, besides the 4.00 lousy dollars, lol, the top two reasons that others who haven't come to ola yet are complaining about are those 4.00 and the catagories. Catagory has been a BIG thing to the artists for years. If we can get it right at ola, I think we stand a better chance of getting those artists AND their buyers to come over.
I do know many don't seem happy with a catagory called OOAK there, but would rather it's included in a sub-catagory. That and the fact that they seem to want to see us nearer the top of the alphabetical search list.

I'd like to try to work on both these situations with ola, in person.

Also, Colleen, can you maybe make a big capped "CALLING ALL MEMBERS'' on the main page to direct them here, or continue this there? Telling them we need to get as much feedback from them as possible about catagories?

Faerydae

I'm going to be a stickler and say that I like having the OOAK category by itself and I just don't see that it has any impact to that extent.

I think the separate dolls category and then the duplicates in collectibles and on art are FAR worse.

If it goes away, I'm not so sure I'd be as happy at OLA to be honest. I love being away from the whole dolls thing.

Faerydae

For what it is worth I do think redoing the categories is pointless at this time and is sort opf jumping the gun.

Folks aren't coming because they feel eBay is still a viable option. NOTHING we or OLA does right now will make that big of a difference ... not while folks can still talk themselves into believing eBay isn't changing as much as it is. They will rationalize that decision by trying to find any possible issue with an alternative because it suits them, not because it is something that can't work.

I say wait until a few weeks after May hits and 8then* start looking at it.

Vicki, if you do see folks at a Monday meeting, please let them know that I'd love to have someone concrete to talk with - better yet Chris Fain. I have a few software suggestions after doing some research but am VERY reluctant to go through first level folks.

sculpturefromtheheart

Faerydae

Well for me a large part of my interest in listing on OLA is having the OOAK category.

Remove that and it would lose a large distinction for me, to be honest.

I'm just one person though.

But on that personal note, I would likely just then group OLA as being just like any other venue. To be brutally honest part of the reason that I put so much effort into that venue was due to having that category, and I would imagine that I would be less likely to put as much effort into OLA if we lost that category. I found it really special and inspiring. JMO.

Eh now I'm all getting bummed out. lol.

Colleen

The point of this discussion is to improve the category we list in. As it has been mentioned, it looks like there are no listings in the OOAk category because everything is so spread out.

There are so many duplications, ie ACEO's and others already mentioned, it's mind boggling. I myself am not sure where to list, when I list a fairy.

FD, I am sorry you feel this way, this discussion was in no way meant to hurt anyone's feelings or bum anyone out. It is a discussion, discussion is good.

OLA is new to our artform and being able to tweak this category subject is OK Smile

It doesn't mean that anyone is being picked on. It just means that it needs tweaked. that's all. I think most of us are in agreement about that.

I wish the other members would join in this discussion. It is important to get those listing in OLA involved and get their opinion.

Sugarbritches

Hey girls.......I really do like that there is an ooak babies catogory.. one of the things I didn't like about ebay was combining OOAK reborns with the sculpted dolls..........you would have to look through 2 hundred reborns to find 10 sculpts that were actually polymer sculpts....all the reborns have the word sculpt in there title..yes originally they were sculpted by someone but it really made it hard to search for hand sculpted Babies,and a lot of the sculpting artist don't put polymer sculpt in their title..the majority of fairies are ooak polymer sculpts so that catogory was a lot easier to find what you were looking for, Maybe a catogory with OOak Polymer Sculpt Art Dolls would give us a special catogory.I do love looking at all the fairies and it is easier to desearn Babies from Fairies in the listing pictures without having to read every title ...I have had a couple of my Mommy's complained about having to read every title to find the polymer sculpts ...but I do agree I don't like looking for art dolls and finding clothes and supplies listed with them.and then again when I go on looking for a little frilly dresses for a doll I don't want to have to look through all the dolls either...Right now it looks like there aren't many baby artist here so my catogory has 5 items listed and 3 of them are mine.....lol...........I know a few of the other polymer baby artist and have sent them emails about OLA and have gotten responses that when OLA gets more artist and collectors they will come then.........Duh!
Oh Well......so it's not going to be an easy road to take but we just have to hang in there and I really do appreciate that we have a nice site that's working with us and not trying to drain every penny they can from us...
Dianna

him-n-hers

Dianna,
Thanks so much for giving us your input! Smile

I see what you mean. What you do is unique and surely doesn't belong with reborns! We have to keep that in mind if we look at any changes.
Please keep checking this thread incase any more issues arise. We need input!

Have a question... are you thinking the main category for our pieces ought to be listed under 'Art', then sub-categories of ...
'Art Dolls'
'OOAK sculpts'
'OOAK fantasy'
OOAK babies'
???

Ya know, about your other artists friends saying they might join IF more list there...OMG and Grrrr.... I've heard that from fairy artist's too, and it makes NO sense! Don't they realize that if everyone is saying that, then no one comes.... they just have to take the leap, be a pioneer, alternate listing places if they must, but LIST! Sitting back doing nothing isn't going to get us anywhere. eeeeeeeekkkk!
Sometimes I want to shake people! shaking2

Colleen

I don't know, Vickie,
Someone mentioned to me the other day that there are more doll collectors than just about any other collectable. So, should we be in dolls, art or stand alone? I guess those are our choices.

BUT if someone is collecting fairies, which is what most of us do, where would they look for fairies?
Dolls?
Collectables?
Art?
Figurines?

I don't know, just throwing out options here. I know most of us don't look at our artwork as dolls but if we go to a show to show our work, what kinds of shows do we attend? Usually doll expos, right? Not art shows or do we? hum......

I wish everyone would pipe in and let us know what they think? I just think we need to discuss this. Discussion is good Very Happy

Sugarbritches

Well, I think what we all do is art but I don't think that is what catogory our collectors look in......... I think first they are OOAK but a lot of things fall in there too,the second catogory that all of us would fall under is (Polymer Sculpt)whether it is babies,fairies,mermaids,fantasy,any dolls that are sculpted from clay, I love looking at All the art dolls but all art dolls are not hand made the way the Polymer artist do them, so I personally think the catogoy that would cover all of the clay artist would be Polymer sculpt,,,,sub catogory under OOAK.....that would cut down on some of the sub cats......and make it look like we are all united in what we do and proud to be linked together......well........you know what I mean...then later when we get swamped with clay doll artist....(wish wish cross our fingers) maybe we could sub divide then, when the need arises........ that's just my 2 cents worth...... gosh this brain storming is work...lol[img]

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Colleen

LOL- yep it is work. it makes my brain hurt. LOL

him-n-hers

Welllll, Colleen, you and I may have read the same topic elsewhere about catagories for our type of pieces. I'd also read something similar.

I think the thing is, collectors and artists see our pieces differently. A collector will typically go look under 'DOLLS' and then start looking at sub-catagories under that.
Many collectors refer to our pieces as Art Dolls. None of them think about what type of material their made of, infact, some of them have no idea what their made of believe it or not, lol.

When I saw my first fairies at FantasyWithin's website, I went searching on ebay and had a heck of a time finding them. My first place was typically 'dolls', didn't see them, then went looking under 'Art' and 'Sculpts'...still nothing. I finally went back to Dolls and typed in 'fairy' and found tons of them! Smile

The thought of OOAK never even crossed my mind. So yup, I do think 'Dolls' is a good catagory to lead one to us. Just MHO, but I think under 'Dolls' a sub-catagory should be placed there saying 'Art Dolls'...for one thing, that puts us first directly under the 'Doll' catagory when folks are searching. Then under Art Dolls I'd suggest a sub-sub-catagory of our others such as 'ooak fantasy', 'ooak babies', etc.
However, there are some sub-sub-catagories that shouldn't be listed, but rather should be grouped with our 'fantasy'. As a collector I've found it's too much searching to have to go to 'critters' to find pieces like Maddy makes. It disappoints me that I could be missing cute pieces like hers because their in another catagory. I can understand the babies for reasons Dianna mentioned, but critters, mushrooms, trees like Joyce has, oddfaes pieces and mythical pieces...I prefer seeing lumped into our fairies and mermaids. I can't begin to tell you how many of those mythical pieces I've bought because I 'happened' on them while looking for a fairy. Normally I wouldn't have even known of those pieces had they not been in our listings, much less gone into a catagory set aside for them.
Tonners and ADEO's don't even have to be with us at all...they already have catagories. Plus, when there are catagories created that simply keep showing there are -0- listed, it doesn't look good to either buyers or sellers who we're trying to get interested in coming to a new site.

The above is all just my 2 cents. We really need to get more input from everyone here IMO, and, I also think we need to make sure everyone will be reasonably active at ola before we overwhelm them with too much in the way of changes.

Right now I know we have many of us listing in catagories that are all over ola rather than under one catagory. Not good IMO. I know I'm even sick of having to click this and that in order to find if so and so or so has something listed...and if they do...where the heck is it this time?!
I find Maddy lists somewhere else completely and wouldn't be able to find her if it weren't for her email notices. Lorie fortunately takes advantage of listing in 2 catagories...but if she lists her lovely jewelry or funny things I find her listings somewhere else. And there are a couple others from the OG who've listed in totally different catagories...some under Art, some under Dolls, some at OOAK....and sometimes I happen upon something that's in a catagory I didn't even know existed! lol

Faerydae

I think most folks tend to use keywords, and that if I do a search on OOAK - heI do not miss Maddy's or anyone else's.

The two categories in my head allow us a lot of freedom, but OLA really does need to up their game. Sad