Hi all! As promised, we’ve been discussing our policy on WIP threads, and we’ve landed on something we hope you’ll all like. First of all, we’re bringing back WIP threads to the Marketplace forum! We’ve listened to all of your input and feedback, and I agree that having vibrant, living work-in-progress threads is not only super fun to watch and participate in, but also a terrific way promoting your content and connecting with the community. Our goal is to help build the Marketplace into the best possible community for creators, and being able to post work-in-progress content and promote your work is a large component of making that happen.
Not only that, but we’ve created three new tags for threads: WIP, Gauging Interest, and Support. I’ll explain their purposes:
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Gauging Interest: This tag will be used on a thread where someone is pitching an idea or a small number of ideas, and gauging community interest in that. I like the option of using voting because it encourages participation, but it’s not a requirement. For now, we’re limiting this kind of thread to one per user. Think of it as a public brainstorming thread, and a way to start building interest in your content!
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WIP: Once you’ve started building your Marketplace content and have something to show, a WIP thread is the perfect way to go. In order to make sure each WIP thread is as cool and full of content as it can be, we require the initial post to have at least 2 - 4 screenshots, or a small video showing progress. If it’s just an idea or a few sentences, it may be better to either start a Gauging Interest thread, or keep working on it a bit more so it’s ready to show off. Start off with a punchy initial post with some nice eyecandy, then keep updating it with progress and show your content being developed. Think of this as the beginning of your marketing campaign.
The idea is that each WIP thread will be visually interesting and content-heavy, and it helps cut down on clutter if every WIP thread starts out strong. -
Support: This tag is for support threads for released content, so content creators can respond to customer feedback and post updates. One idea we had is that you can request changing your “Released” tag to a “Support” tag, so that a thread is essentially ‘upgraded’ into a support thread after it’s released on the Marketplace. It’s up to each individual content creator whether or not to have a support thread, but I think they’re a terrific idea. It’s a way to directly interact with your customers, it shows the community how easy and pleasant you are to deal with, and it’s a powerful way to build a good reputation as someone that not only creates great content, but cares about their customers and helps them with any issues that arise. Some people link to their support threads on their Marketplace product page, and I encourage that.
