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Miscellaneous Ramblings

• Playing Nice in the Email Forums
• Featured Member Portfolio

Flowers by Janice Whitehead

Playing Nice in the Email Forums

We want these forums to be an open discussion of industry issues and news, a place for artists to express their ideas and creativity, and a go-to location for those in need of help or assistance.

In order to allow fast delivery of information, these forums are unmoderated (i.e., whatever a subscriber posts immediately goes out to everyone else - postings do not have to go through an approval process). Because of this, everyone involved in the forums need to follow a few common sense rules, i.e. - everyone has to play nice!

The most commonly broken rules include:

• Advertisements for products, events and services, balloon-related or otherwise, are expressly prohibited. It is acceptable to include one line in your e-mail signature indicating that you are a vendor. If you have a balloon-related product that is genuinely new and unique, you are encouraged to post an announcement to the Classified ad pages on BalloonHQ.com, but not to the e-mail lists. Balloon HQ sponsors are also encouraged to send monthly press releases to announce@balloonhq.com.

  This means if you stand to make money from what you talk about in the post, don't post it. BalloonHQ has advertisers who pay to have their products and services featured (these advertising dollars are what makes things like the Email Forums free). Out of fairness and equality, if you want to advertise your book, website, product or self, you have to go through the proper channels.

• Remember that these forums are read by many many humans. The Internet has unfortunately paved the way for "anonymous" people to say whatever they want to say without concern for the effect their words have. This is a wide-spread problem, not just related to the Balloon HQ Email Forums. There is a simple rule of thumb when posting a message to an email forum or blog; something I learned from my mom at a very early age.

  "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." - John's Mom.

  Many offending posts stem from a heated response to a hot topic. You read something that either greatly offends you or you strong believe in and you feel you MUST post a response right away, without taking into regard the power of your words or who reads them. To prevent this, if you feel the need to respond, write it but then wait 24 hours before submitting your post. After 24 hours you might see the need to edit your post. Once you post a message, it cannot be recalled. It has been sent to the inboxes of hundreds of subscribers. On top of that, it has been forever archived on Balloon HQ for ANYONE on the Internet to read.

  So remember that the person you are writing about could very well be reading your post. Don't say anything about them that you wouldn't want said about yourself to the hundreds of people that receive the forums postings and the thousands that read it on the website.

Long story short, "play nice or get out of the sandbox."

Featured artist portfolio: Janice Whitehead, Balloons By Janice

Easter Bunny by Janice Whitehead

You may have seen Janice Whitehead of Balloons By Janice in Blair, NE at Balloon Camp in the past; 2 years ago as a competition winner, last year as an instructor. Janice's creations range from large to small, but her most eye-catching sculptures are made from fantasy flowers. She has used this technique not only in flower creation (she recently developed a new carnation style) but also in other sculptures as well (see photos, left and above).

Visit the portfolio of Janice Whitehead

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