I have been a hidden visitor to the critique section quite a bit and I have noticed a lot of critique mine links at the end of people's comments. I recently submitted my newest design and while I value other people's comments about my work it bothers me that in order to get comments you have to be a comment whore.

Most of these comments are a short sentence:

I like the design, crit mine

What is the point. For a little while I tried it and felt dirty. Pulling people away from someone's design without providing valuable feedback to that artist just feels wrong. So I decided that I would instead try to leave comments of value, with no link, and see how my critiques fared. It didn't work. I was thinking that by putting a comment that might assist the artist in perfecting their work they might follow through and check for any critiques in my profile. They could then click on those and see if they had anything to say.

Apparently in order to get critiques, or at least to get people to look at a design I must spam up others critiques and join the cycle of dumbness.

Of course this isn't just a threadless problem, I have noticed a similar problem on the etsy forums. I had more sales when I would waste an entire day posting a comment and my link to a thread. Never actually saying anything that mattered, just doing the internet equivalent of blurting out the first thing on my mind and including a link. Now that I don't feel like "advertising" that way my sales have dropped.

I just don't understand the need for this type of "advertising". I would rather have my work draw people in, which I think is scarier for the artist, then be the artistic equivelent of an impulse buy. Of course I am going to end this post with links to both places.

Check my Critique

Check out my shop

Ha Ha tricked you