Oh gotcha. Thanks for 'splainin'. :-)

Excellent point. If I saw a thread entitled "Tutorials" and wasn't from these parts ;-) I'd most likely assume the thread was for anything tutorial-related.

I land on a lot of threads from the NEW POSTS section. So in theory, a number of people could see the "Tutorials" thread and not know there is one entitled "Tutorials For Sale"... so they wouldn't have that frame of reference as described above.

Exactly. At the very least, it implies that anything regarding paid tutorials should go in the "Tutorials for Purchase", whether it's announcements, previews, updates, sales, etc.

I don't think it's confusing at all. I think that many people choose to post in the main thread because they think it'll get more views, even though they know it's not the right place. [-X

And given how many views many threads get within the "Tutorials for Purchase" area, I think it's completely unnecessary for people to post in the wrong place on purpose. It makes it difficult to search through each area effectively.

I highly respect all the people who adhere to the rules, and to those that knowingly post in the wrong place trying to pimp their stuff, well, it's very irritating.

I think there have been a lot of really good points being made here, let's just hope the 'Powers that Be' are listening...Hi Corrie... LOL

.......Val

Wow, I didn't even realize that "New Posts" button exists! I'll have to try it out. Thanks for mentioning it.

However, in order to start a new thread, you have to start from a specific section, don't you? So people would see the "Tutorials for Purchase" once they went into the Tutorial section.

If they're paying attention. :razz:

LMAO! Good point :) Well, considering the "New Thread" button is directly below the link to "Tutorials for Purchase", they'd have to be blind, or pretending to be blind, to miss it. :P

Yep.

Heh... I can only speak for myself but I could TOTALLY seeing me having complete tunnel vision as a woman on a mission (to post a new thread of something I feel is too exciting to wait).

But yeah, I get the point... there really is no legitimate reason to be posting "for sale" tutorials in threads other than the "Tutorials For Purchase" thread.

My thought is with this section being titled "Tutorials" it leaves it open to any discussion about tutorials. So if someone asks if you're interested in a new tutorial or letting you know that they are in the process of writing a new tutorial or discusses a tutorial that another lampworker has written, I guess that's a matter of opinion on whether it is an intent to promote or spam or pimp or just discuss.

But since the section isn't specific as to what one can discuss then I guess it leaves it somewhat open.

Maybe instead of having one subtitle for Tutorials for Sale then there should be another subtitle for Tutorials for Free and the regular "tutorial" section can be left open for "discussing" tutorials. That way you know where to look for what you're looking for and you can ignore discussions that you might find as being "spam or pimping".:shock:

I think that's the clearest solution. Then no one has to worry about what is implied.

I see what you're saying Shari, but I think Kay had a good point.

So separating out the "free" tutorials won't really solve the issue, because it will still be too difficult to search effectively.

And to be honest, I think most of the time that vendors post in the main section, they know that it's not the right section, they're just trying to get more views. I don't think that most of them are confused in any way.

I think of it this way: In the grocery store, there's a dairy section. In the dairy section, there's a milk section. When you go there, you expect all the milk to be in the milk section, not mixed in with the cheese and the butter. And the rest of the dairy section does not need to be labeled "Everything except for milk".

I also like Laura B's suggestion that Corri could reword the description to make it clearer that all threads regarding paid tutorials should go in the "Tutorials for Purchase" section. And if it would make the vendors of paid tutorials feel better about their dedicated section, perhaps we should move it out of the current "Tutorial" folder and put it underneath in the Library section of the main page. Personally, I don't think it's necessary because I still go into that Paid section regularly (as I'm sure MANY people do), even with it being a sub-forum. But whatever makes it more workable.

Let's face it, someone who's selling a tutorial has many places to promote already.
Tutorials for Purchase
Gallery (for examples of what people do with the tutorial)
Auctions, self promotion, and related things
Sale Rack

That's four. Can't the people who want to discuss things for free have one section to do that without spam posts infiltrating it?? (Sorry, but if you have three or four legitimate sections to discuss Paid tutorials, then putting something in a fifth section, even one that's a gray area, constitutes spam in my book.)

I think you're right. And for the few that DO get confused, admin can easily move a thread from one section to another.... keeping things in their appropriate section.

I think this is the fairest solution for everyone. The sense I get is that the majority in this forum just want the information on new tutorials and don't really care whether they are free or paid. It's a much smaller group of people who are bothered enough by having the paid tutorials share space with the free ones that they keep complaining about it. In light of that it just seems like the fairest compromise would be to separate the free tutorials away from the main forum. That way, the group who don't want to read anything unless it's free can go straight to the free section, and those who don't care, and just want the info on all available tutorials whether they're paid or free, can stay in the main section.

Just to clarify (I don't think everyone understood what you said) you're saying:

1. Tutorials for Sale: all threads regarding tutorials for purchase go here.
2. Tutorial for Free: all threads regarding tutorials for free go here.
3. Main Tutorial Section: general discussion goes here but no pimping or spamming about your finished tutorials whether they be free or for purchase or if they are on sale.

That would work.

I agree; that would be a good solution.

Don't know how I missed that earlier... but I think it's a brilliant idea.

I don't like option 3. If a discussion gets going and someone knows a place free or purchased to direct you to for the info you can't tell them about it.

I posted my first tutorial on LE about 6 weeks ago on Snowmen. I put FREE in the title to draw attention to those people that wanted to read a free tutorial. I knew if I didn't put FREE in plain view it would be overlooked by many thinking I was selling a tutaorial. If we had option 3 and the discussion was snowmen no one could make reference to my free tutorial. Or am I misunderstanding?

I too have noticed less sharing of ideas and more promotion on purchased tutorials and wonder if this is where some of the frustration threads have come from on purchased tutorials lately. You know the ones like "where's all the free ideas? No one's sharing tips etc." threads. Now there may be more sharing threads that what I'm seeing, I don't know as I rarely go past page 2 and on page one 75% are promoting purchasable tutorials.

For those who make purchasable tutorials please in no way take everyone's comments to mean we don't want to buy tutorials cause I think the market has proven that we do. I think I'm up to 25 or 30 now and I've had several people to make comments this last year that my beads have definitely turned a corner. But I would like to come into the tutorials section and see more sharing tips like I used to when I first joined LE several years ago.

I imagine it would be OK to direct people to a tutorial, just not to start a thread to promote your own.

I just went back to main tutorials page is this is what I found

13 threads offering free info, bead or otherwise
3 threads asking for info on technique
1 showing results of purchased tutorial
4 talking about tutorial in general for what ever reason
4 promoting purchasable tutorial

So according to my own research I've proven my above statement as false as the majority (at least at this time of writing) are overwhelmingly free info.

Donna, the good thing about the "pimping my two day sale" threads is that they die quickly because they usually don't get any responses. That doesn't mean that they aren't annoying when they're put in the wrong spot...

Isn't that the way it's supposed to be now??


I have no problem with someone asking a question on how to do things and being directed to a purchasable tutorial if it covers their question, as long as it doesn't stifle legitimate discussion. I thought what we were discussing was the proliferation of promotional threads in the main section.

I love the "for sale" tutorials; I've purchased many. I like the Tutorials for Purchase area and I go there to choose which ones I want to save up for. I don't understand why it's necessary for the same basic thread as four others previously posted, to show up in an area it doesn't belong.

and I think I read Shari's idea differently than you did, Amy.

See, to me, Shari's idea seemed to read:

1. Tutorials for Sale: threads regarding tutorials for purchase go here.
2. Tutorial for Free: threads regarding tutorials for free go here.
3. Main Tutorial Section: general discussion goes here, as well as announcements about paid tutorials and current sales, and questions from possible tutorial vendors about making a tutorial on stuff, etc.

And I think if we do that, a lot of good information will get lost. Not every "free tutorial" is a written step-by-step document. There are lots of free gems within threads that ask questions. So if we separate out the "free" stuff, then someone has to go back and recopy stuff to the new "free tutorial" section to save it, otherwise it'll get lost in the deluge.

I remember a really long discussion about "newbies" who didn't bother searching for the answers to the questions, and how important searching is before you ask for answers, otherwise you're showing a sense of entitlement, etc. Shouldn't we be trying to figure out the best way to make sure that valuable information isn't lost and requested ad nausium??

Getting back to Kalera's statement:

Why can't we just do that with the main tutorial section right now?? That's a lot of what people have been asking for.

Well that won't fix a darn thing, really. Personally I think that all the threads about tutorial sales and discounts don't even belong in the tutorials for purchase section but I guess Corri doesn't agree. I think they should be kept in the self promotion section. You already announced your tutorial months ago, any further sale or discount threads are spam to me. Spam.

(raising my hand...) But isn't having 3 separate forums just going to complicate the issue? To solve this problem we have to address what's actually causing it.

The reason there's a problem with keeping posts where they should be is that the paid tutorials forum, because it's a subforum of the main tutorials forum, is perceived as receiving less attention. Tutorial authors feel if they don't post about their paid tutorials in the main forum too, they will be overlooked.

The easiest way to resolve this problem would be to get rid of the paid tutorials subforum, replace it with a free tutorials subforum, and let both paid and free tutorials be discussed in the main forum. That way, all tutorial authors (both paid and free) would be free to post in the main forum, anyone who wanted to see info about all tutorials (both paid and free) could find it in the main forum, and the free tutorials subforum would be limited to discussion of free tutorials only, for those who don't want to see any posts about paid tutorials. Seems to me that that way, everybody would be happy. Paid tutorial authors wouldn't feel they were being segregated from the "real" forum where all the action is, and those who are only interested in free tutorials would have a subforum dedicated to free tuts, where paid tut authors aren't going to feel a need to crosspost because they can already post in the main forum.

To sum up, I'm suggesting:

Tutorials - Discussion of any tutorials, paid or free
Free Tutorials (Subforum) - Discussion of free tutorials only

Mind you, I suspect that if Corri really wanted to make any changes, she probably would have already.

I'm still thinking about the rest of your post, but I wanted to respond to this.

I think that "the paid tutorials forum... receiving less attention" is a false assumption that many vendors make, and I would disagree that the Tutorials For Purchase section is overlooked by everyone. I realize that's why vendors do it, but I disagree that isn't as good of a section. I think it's the perfect section, because I think us customers know that that particular section is where all the polished gems are, the ones that people spent hours and hours perfecting their tutorial.

That's where I go when I want the special techniques and book quality tuts. There's no need to market to me everywhere. and I know I'm not alone in that.

I think you would find that with your suggestion, your tutorial threads would get buried on page two or more much quicker than they do now. Mixing the paid tutorials in with general discussion would mean that no one would be able to find the paid tutorials easily. Right now they are easily accessible once you sort through all the "for sale" threads that should be deleted. I'm not sure why tutorial writers would think that their thread would get overlooked in the paid section. I never thought that. I never pimped mine in the general section either. Never. It doesn't belong there.

Just my opinion.

I didn't say it received less attention or that it isn't as good of a section. I said it was perceived to receive less attention. It's the perception, whether or not it's true, that is causing this problem.

And your tutorial is one of the one's I've purchased. I saved up for that from the first moment I saw it.

And it didn't need to be in the main section.

You called it a ghetto earlier. :lol: