the problem isn't that the BKP is competitive. dov isn't competitive and e has tried to communicate over and over again that people shouldn't see themelves as being in competition with other artists.
the problem is that the kids themselves are competitive. these are the same kids who are of the generation where their parents kill each other over after-school sports; they have to compete in chool for grades, they had to compete in day-care for attention. forgive me if i'm being overanalytical but nobody ever told them they had to compare their work with other people's, and CERTAINLY no one told them that they had to compare their popularity-- except themselves. every comment on popularity or ratings being important or fulfilling that i have heard has come from the mouth--erm, keyboard, of someone under 18. other people have commented on its importance or its effectiveness, but i don't know any grown-ups who "vote down" dolls or who seem to see people's acceptance of their kis-work as their acceptance of them as a person.
the younger kids seem to have their own community & seem to think that the "grown ups" don't necc. want to be a part of it. i have had to tell younger kids time and time again that if they want a serious answer to a question that they need to ask someone w/more experience and that we are happy to help them. & usually after they have done it they are pretty happy, but they would never go and do it on their own and many of them don't seem to realixe that there is another kis community that is made of of older,wiser people and kids alike. i've been able to insinuate myself into the kid-stuff on occasion, i think because i still consider myself a kid, but there's an obvious generation gap & there are times when i just can't communicate with them. some of these kids only talk about the validity of their work in terms of EA & EC or ratings, and frankly, that's a problem with them and their little social system, not with the BKP. do any of the older artists (i don't mean age wise, but people who were kis'ing for a considerable time before the instigation of subscriptions) act like this?
i also feel like there are many reasons to remove oneself from voting. i've considered it. but that isn't because i don't like the idea and i would still vote on other people's dolls; it's because i don't like the fact that about once a month or so i get an email that says something like "i'm telling all my friends to vote against your doll because you did X." that's not the BKP's fault, that's the fault of these very same kids about whom jade is voicing concern.
i don't know, it still may be a decent idea to do something. again, i think possibly making the free subscriptions dependent on something besides votes (but what?) would be helpful. these kids wouldn't feel the way they do about ratings and competitiveness if the part that they see as being competitive were "just for fun" and they only felt like they were competing with themselves. again, frankly, killing free subs flat out would solve this completely. something dov said on the ML struck me-- he said there are 700 subscribers and 400 people getting free subs as artists. aren't there only about 400-500 artists making KiSS dolls? i know other people who aren't KiSS artists who are receiving subs, but it seems like this is't some real privilege being handed out only to people who are doing a great deal to help support OW, which was how it was communicated to us originally. i've gotten way more time than i would think i deserve. i'm trying to make myself deserve it by doing reviews, but still...of course then we have to worry, would some artists stop making dolls completely or stop sending them to BKP, and would that convince some paying subscribers to drop out? i don't know.
okay, i have to think about this some more
tea
Posted on Jan 26, 2002, 10:28 PM from IP address 66.108.105.52