Category Discussion

Colleen · Site Admin Joined: 15 Feb 2008 Posts: 453

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

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Colleen

Sugarbritches · Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:51 am Post subject:

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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Dianna

Colleen · Site Admin Joined: 15 Feb 2008 Posts: 453

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

him-n-hers · New Member Joined: 15 Feb 2008 Posts: 333

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 · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:21 am Post subject:

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

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