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| Summer means new movie releases in the US, and with them, lots of characters to play with. Shrek parody created by Bonnie Davis. |
We recently witnessed a debate on the entertainer list regarding what may have been a misuse of one artist's ideas. We (the BHQ editors) won't take sides. Thankfully, we haven't been asked to do that. But, there have been times that we've been asked if there's a way to protect new ideas. The answer to that depends on what is meant by "protect."
Let's look at the options you have when you've created a new idea. You can keep it private and never share this great new idea. If the new idea is a new sculpture, it's kind of pointless to keep it under wraps. Why create art that can't be shared and enjoyed by others? Or you can share it openly, in some formal fashion, to ensure your artwork has your name attached. In other words, publish the idea as fast as you can. Being the first to share an idea with a wide audience establishes a historical record. What better way to publish an idea than to post it on BHQ, either to the forums or the photo gallery? No matter where it ends up later, you'll be certain your name remains attached to it.
While the BHQ entertainer and decorator forums are fun and educational for many of us to monitor daily, quite possibly the most valuable part of them is the ability to search the archive and look up complete discussions later. This is made much easier by using accurate and descriptive subject lines.
Let's start with why you need a subject line at all. If you leave it out, many spam filters will immediately score the message as probable spam. This means that many of your potential readers will never see it. With the huge amount of email we all receive (both important and junk), even if a message does make it into our regular mailboxes, it's easy to skip over something with no identifying title.
Now let's consider non-descriptive subject lines. We frequently see a subject like "need help", or "sculpture questions". While that might get the help you need immediately, someone looking at the archive later might not bother to read those notes (or the responses you receive) since they have no idea what's contained in the messages. A more useful subject line might be "Extending the life of sculptures" or "help on matching colors for clients".
Subject lines are also used by our archive software to help in another way. After searching and finding a note related to your needs, you may want to read the whole discussion on that topic. Let's take a specific example from recent discussions.
Recently a question was asked about stuffing objects in balloons for retail sale. If you look at that message, you'll see links above and below the message that look like the following:
Post: [new message][reply to current message]
Read: [Previous message][Next message]
Thread: [Prev in thread][Next in thread][Show full thread]
Return to index of decorator forum.
The "thread" line allows you to immediately jump to the next or previous related article, or to even see all articles posted on this topic. The only way for this to work is to use a consistent subject line. If you change the subject in the middle of a discussion, someone reading later can't follow the disucssion easily.
The forums are a great tool for the industry. With just a little care, they can be even more useful for you and others in the future.
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| Obese Penguin by Magic Ludovic |
The French balloon artist, Magic Ludovic, creates very realistic figures using very simple forms.
See Magic Ludovic's BHQ Portfolio.
