The Great Featured Set/Home Page Dilemma (and how to move forward)


  • Fashion, Fashion, Fashion

    Hey everyone! Today's post is all about the most debated topic on URSTYLE in the past few months: the home page, and more importantly, how it runs featured sets. The community has gone back and forth and back and forth with admin over how often its updated, how you get on there, and more.

    Originally, we had a working system where sets were chosen (by a person) and the home page was updated with new featured sets every one to two weeks. This made it a goal to create sets that aspire to be on the home page so they can get recognition and likes.

    Then after a time, near when COVID-19 really started to pick up, the sets were still chosen by a person but the featured sets page was not regularly updated for weeks almost months on end and everyone was upset.

    Finally, we come to what we have today. Admin recently updated the home page to run based on an automated system that selects new sets for the home page that have been posted in the past 24 hours based on an algorithm. This new system allowed for the home page to have a fresh batch of new sets on regular rotation every hour. However, despite fixing the main problem with the previous system, the community is STILL not satisfied.

    Here's the real truth of the whole matter: We are all longing for a system that reminds us of Polyvore.

    All the complaints I have seen with the new system on the community page call for changes that would make it almost identical to the old Polyvore system. These include concerns about sets with different styles not getting enough exposure on the home page, concerns about who gets on the home page (including how "newbies" will get on there), concerns about how the automated system takes away the originality and special quality of the home page/featured sets process itself because a computer can't tell what beauty is really.

    I am absolutely not saying that calling for these changes, having these concerns, and essentially reminiscing for something similar to the old Polyvore system is a bad thing. THESE ARE VALID CONCERNS AND QUESTIONS However, we do have to see it like it is, and this is personally just my opinion.

    The thing that I want to talk about is if we are unhappy with these systems and how admin has been doing things, why can't we just work together as a community and do it ourselves? Why wait?

    So this post is essentially a proposal, starting point, or just a brainstorm session on how to create a community-made system that will work effectively for all of us! KEEP IN MIND THIS IS JUST A SUGGESTED IDEA! Here's what I was thinking:

    1. A team of 8-10 people who have been on URSTYLE and Polyvore (so that they have that veteran knowledge, but if it is decided that they have enough veteran knowledge on the platform without being on Polyvore then they can join the team as well) would choose sets for the featured collections. In order to make sure all of the set styles are represented, the team breakdown would be sort of like this:
    • 4 people would be fashion set veterans and cover choosing fashion and beauty sets, 2 people would cover home and interior sets, and 4 would cover art/doll sets.
    • These people would have to be fair and just, know the platform, and are at least pretty consistent on the platform. Who these people are would be discussed on the community pages.
    1. The team members within a category would choosing sets for the month (meaning that they would create a featured set collection for their category each week, for the month that they are given). The team members would rotate per month in a designated order for each category to avoid confusion. This would allow for more consistency and ensure that if someone is busy or going through something and can't do their month someone can cover for them. The order would be posted on the URSTYLE community page and it would be posted at the beginning of each month who is running the "featured sets" for each category.

    2. There will be a special collection for monthly contributors posted each month featuring all of sets that had been featured in any of the previously mentioned collections for the entire month (independent of category) so they get proper recognition.

    This is just an idea for a system that might work. Of course if you any ideas or details that would make it better/more effecient, feel free to comment them! I will be posting this on the URSTYLE community page (once I figure out how to mind you) but let me know any feedback you have!

    If there is anything I have learned from the current situation we live in right now it's that: WE CAN CHANGE THIS PLATFORM TOGETHER!

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    Have a great day!!
    ~ Mayblooms

ACTIVE URSTYLERS

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