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cain3
Oct '19
1

Hey gang,

I’m officially working on updating the Collaboration section!

Specifically, with some new rules!
I felt that it might be best to create a basic form that must be used in all future submissions.
Something that can be used by the requester to build from and maybe even help them learn more about their own project and get a sense of what they’re looking for. All while giving us a better idea of what they want.

Based off of a lovely guide created by @silverraven0, I’ve devised this short form for collab requests.

  1. Tell us a little bit about yourself:
  2. Project Details / Pitch / Sample:
  3. Paid or non-paid? Collaboration? Partnership?:
  4. Skills you are looking for / what you are looking for:
  5. Required Software: (Optional)
  6. Schedule/scale: (Deadlines, the length of the work, etc)
  7. Contact info: (Be it through PM's here or outside the forums)
  8. Link to your Portfolio and/or Previous Work

Ideally, this won’t be followed strictly, and be more of a starting point for everyone. It could be considered the “Bare Minimum requirements” for a good post. We will enforce this and any submission that doesn’t follow the basic structure, it will be automatically closed.

If you have any comments, concerns or information you believe is crucial to a good post, feel free to let me know here!

Thanks!

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    Oct '19

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11How to make a good collaboration or partnership offer - GUIDE tapas.io
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0Writer looking for artist for covers (Unpaid) tapas.io
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There are 80 replies with an estimated read time of 17 minutes.

Rasp
Oct '19
1

Don't care for it honestly. It feels too much like a checklist. Yes most of these are best practice types of things but serious entities will do these anyway and others will just fade into obscurity.

This seems like the mods creating work for themselves. What does this actually add besides more overhead for the section? I don't mind suggesting these but actually enforcing them? Seems like pointless busywork, Tedious and Unnecessary.

It feels a bit like someone on the mod team (or more likely a manager) arbitrarily decided this was a problem and that they needed to do "something" this is "something" so why don't we do this?

I reminds me how my old boss INSISTED we update the lab machines monthly. Even though they were working fine and it was probably better to leave well enough alone. (if anything we were risking the new patches breaking things! We never had time to test ahead of time...)

This smacks of someone looking for a problem to solve, as if they're worried what people will think if they don't look busy.

Jenny-Toons
Oct '19

To be fair, this sounds like it would start to solve people commenting on collab posts asking if someone is unpaid/paid and actually have people set up just exactly what they're looking for.

Let's be honest -- lot of people who make collab posts don't know how to sell themselves or their ideas. And a number of times, people have to comment and ask for more info or give suggestions to improve their pitch. That, and let's face it -- in recent time here (least for a few months), people have A) complained that these posts are a dime a dozen, B) complained no one was answering their posts, C) complained people were commenting just to fix said post or D) all of the above.

You were here to see the "Writer vs Artist" and "Visionary Thinker" debates/arguments/vents, no? Yeah, a lot of these collabs had a hand in some of that unrest.

So yeah -- I kinda think it would help. Probably won't stop people from making bad posts entirely, but having at least a guide helps people formulate their pitches better. It's why we still have advice and tips on what to include in elevator pitches. Moreover, as noted:

Rasp
Oct '19

You think it would help but really, it won't. It won't change anything it will just mean more work for the mods closing down these posts. If someone else wants to waste time helping the people who didn't put in the effort there is zero harm in letting them.

And if anything the people complaining about bad collab posts are only wasting their own time. I mean they have no reason not to just scroll on. If you're not going to be helpful and just complain you should not be in the thread period. Why not punish those derailing the thread instead?

Luminosophy
Oct '19

I guess I'd add "Link to portfolio/ previous work" although I don't know if that just falls under the first point already?

GesuGesu
Oct '19

It will at least crack down on the lazy posts that don't share anything and say "dm for details".

Second, it's nice to have mods crack down on posts not following these guidelines to save us the eyes to read poorly written posts, despite the extra work.

Jenny-Toons
Oct '19

Bruh, those kill me. And what's crazy is that most of them say in the same sentence, "this is going to be turned in for a publication company" or "we're gonna turn this into a manga and sell millions"

Like, kiddo -- if you go to a literary agent or a publication company, and you go "dm for details", they're gonna toss your stuff in the trash because you've wasted their time. As harsh as that sounds, it's true, and hopefully people would be able to learn something from the guidelines and learn better how to sell themselves.

Rasp
Oct '19
GesuGesu

You don't have to read the section at all. If you're not interested scroll on, that's what I do. I don't begrudge anyone who puts up a shoddy post, I've done that from time to time myself and I know how I feel when the mob comes in ripping up what I'd written or worse if it was bad enough to have the mods come down on me.

If you wanna gatekeep fine split the Collab forum into amateur and professional sections. Let the amateurs do their thing without fear of making mistakes and have the pros section curated for those who wanna get things done.

KRWright
Oct '19

That would still require the mods to enforce the split.

Rasp
Oct '19

Yeah but then they would only need to review posts in the Pros section. Which would be far less work.

KRWright
Oct '19

Definitely a positive move forward I think. But also second that there should be a prompt to a portfolio in the form as well!

GesuGesu
Oct '19
Rasp

I've actually muted collab posts, so I don't actually see them.

I only know what goes on when news hit me through friends of another "oh the collab post drama again"

cain3
Oct '19
Rasp

I hear you.
I understand this may create extra work for us, but I'd imagine it'd be no more work than maintaining the Intro | Feedback | Shoutout area with repeat topics.

Unfortunately, the way the forums are now, the time and work that would go into splitting a category would be astronomical. As each topic would have to be moved by hand into a new category.
I also feel uncomfortable at the idea of moving someone's topic to an amateur category. I can imagine that it would be more disheartening than asking for a little more information.

My main goal is to give first-time requesters an idea of what they're asking for, which, in turn, helps us understand what they want. It doesn't have to be strictly regulated, if someone misses one of the points but has the gists of it, I'd be inclined to let them be.

IndigoShirtProd
Oct '19

I think the list you have is a good starting point. It might dissuade those who haven't put that much thought into starting a collab from posting and possibly wasting someone's time. I think that's most people issue with some of the collab posts in the category; they feel like a waste of time even to just look at the post.

rajillustration
Oct '19

I think it's a good starting point, like other people have mentioned, to leave a form for people to actually form a pitch before they post so they don't just go "hey I gotta great idea for a manga!" Something that is needed is a requirement to show a sample of their previous work, let it be in writing or even a draft of a comic because there are far too many collabs that are so afraid of leaking their ideas that we can't actually form an opinion. People interested need to know what level the op is at and I think some people are hiding it by not showing any of their portfolio.

And what may help as well is to give an explanation of how copyright works. Most of the collabs I see are about splitting profits but they make no mention of who owns what, or if they are allowed to do things off tapas with their artwork like make merch, post to other platforms, etc. This is basic stuff for illustrators but it feels like most people who are new to this don't know how to make a contract for that or that this is something they would have to even think about--that most illustration contracts for art actually have a limit to how long you can use it or what countries it's used in, etc. I'm sure that for writers there's similar copyright issues they would run into as well, like as to if they still completely own their characters and story, and how much is the artist's and how much is the authors, and that if (it would never happen) but if they had someone else who wanted to buy the story for film or whatever, who owns it? Who are they buying it from?

Like most collabs are younger people who are just starting out who just want to sandbox together a comic, but you gotta start learning about copyright at some point, and it's best to avoid confusion over who owns what when several artists and writers work on a project, and then one just decides to split. You have to know if they split, do they take their characters? Do they not?

cain3
Oct '19
Luminosophy

Good catch! Added it to the list.

Also a really good point. :shook_01: Copyright is such a large topic, it may be beneficial to link to resources to keep the guideline/rule post from being overwhelming. Like a list titled "First time? Things to consider", which can link to a number of things that go into detail.

Rasp
Oct '19
6
cain3

I'm not asking anyone sort the existing posts just make a new empty category for Pros going forward and leave the old one alone.

I wouldn't waste time going back.

Just make a new one with the new rules in place from the start and ensure everyone knows that's how its going to operate.

I mean if these new rules go into the old category you'd either have to do the same thing or leave the old posts alone.

I'd rather give people the option of using the more free-form category if they prefer or feel uncomfortable sharing details. (Sure you and I know there isn't any harm sharing ideas, but I think everyone is entitled to their view on that. I'm not sure I'd want to forbid collabs where they refuse to share details publicly.)

Leave the pro section for the well organized and preferably paying.

CastingCallClub does something similar for independent video productions.

Now I'm currently right in the middle of a collab that came out of that section of the forum and its going fantastically and I know if these rules had been in place I might not have bothered posting it because at the time it was an undercooked idea I wasn't sure was worth developing. Still I found someone enthusiastic to work on it and through mutual trust and hard work we're very close to revealing something I'm damned proud of.

If my half-assed post had been shut down out the gate that one-shot would never have happened. It's why I'm taking this personally.

If that sort of semi-off-the-cuff idea pitching is no longer welcome in collab then I have little issue never using it again. I just feel you'd have thrown away the things that did work about it.

Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't feel like dancing around eggshells every time I wanna pitch an idea but I'm not 100% confident in it.

If I knew I'd effectively to fill out a form every time I had a stupid idea with potential I wouldn't have become a writer.

I wouldn't mind if I was ready to commit to the project but if I was I'd not be in collab looking for warm bodies, I tell you what.

Look I have no idea these will be enforced and that's the problem, I have to worry about without knowing so I'll feel like I have to jump through every hoop just so I don't have to go back and start over.

All I want to is advocate for a place where people can pitch ideas without feeling like they have everything figured out in advance because that is a tomb for creativity. (Plus how much of a collaboration can it be if its that far along and key members are not on board yet?)

Both styles have their positives and pitfalls and doing both feels like a decent compromise.

Maybe consider opening the new branch just as an experiment? see how they work alongside each other then re-evaluate.

Jenny-Toons
Oct '19

I argue that it's less about having a full idea out in the open and more about being completely honest with your intent.

Something along the lines of

"Hi there, I'm so-and-so. I have an upcoming idea for a fantasy-romance comic featuring dragons, princesses, and knights. I don't have a full plot fleshed out, but I do have some character sheets and written ideas here:
(shows example)
I've done work in mostly fantasy-romance, which can be found here: (show examples).
As of now, I'm just looking for someone to bounce off ideas with (fellow creator, anyone who likes fantasy-romance, etc). I don't really know if this will be a long-term collab or a short-term, but as of now, because the idea isn't fully developed, I would just like someone who is interested to talk about some concepts. Once we have a full idea, the idea of unpaid or paid will become a question."

I honestly feel a lot of these collabs go south because they leave people hanging. They expect everyone to be mind readers or to do to the dms, eager to hear more. But it's just easier to show what you have so far, what you've made so far, and be honest about your intentions, along with being reasonable.

Again, these aren't necessarily set in stone rules. It's less about filling out a form and more about people being able to look at your pitch and go "ok, I understand what you're selling" without needing to ask. Because, as you said before, most people just ignore it if they don't understand right from the start.

Rasp
Oct '19
2

I'd agree if it weren't for this line right here.

Enforce was Cains word not mine.

Have a space where these guideline are 'Enforced' and one where they are not. Once I have to worry about a 'guidelines enforcer' and have to dance around their approval then the pressure to have an answer to every question goes up considerably because its impossible to know where the line is. These guidelines are too broad so the safest course is to have all your ducks in a row because you don't wanna deal with the 'guidelines enforcer'

I know I don't. Don't need the extra stress if I'm not 100% behind my idea.

Let this be an opt-in program. Then nobody can complain if their post gets flagged

Let me decide if my stupid idea is worth the extra effort and worry about having a mod picking over my pitch.

By the nature of these loose rules not even the mods know truely what the line is and my judgement and theirs are almost certainly not always going to match up. I don't want to deal with that unless I'm SURE I have a killer idea and by that point I doubt I'll have much use for a collab thread.