I have been on other jewelry boards and found at least one that had a very useful subgroup--"please critique" or something like that.  While show your work would remain the place for people to post and safely get their kudos, a subgroup that was meant for work to be critiqued would be more helpful for those who actually want a polite but honest critique of their work.  Even as a relative beginner, I find this type of forum useful because I can see some of the same problems as have been pointed out in others work for correction in my work and use the suggestions.

All in all, now that the pages load faster, I have been quite pleased with the redo and hope to spend even more time perusing the forums.

klarsp

I like the suggestion. it wold be a place to post something  and say "this piece just is not right, can you help me figure out whats not working?"

Thank you for your comment sparklebee. 

Does anyone else have any feelings about this idea-positive or negative?  I haven't gotten any sort of reply from the powers that be but I would guess that they would be more likely to pay attention to the request if it generated more interest.  I think we are all trying to grow as artists and sometimes a truly honest critique from a group of creative people who know as much or more about the work I am doing as I do can be invaluable (and hard to get from the significant other sitting across the room.  "Yeah, that looks nice, hon"--just isn't useful in that regard).

 klarsp

 i think that would be a great idea. you couldn't get a negative comment in "show your work" to save your life. which is fine on one hand but on the other we're not children here who have to be applauded for every mud pie we make.

 I'm sorry everyone -- I thought I responded to this, but obviously didn't! I mentioned the suggestion for a critique thread to Hazel (Art Jewelry's editor) and she likes the idea. We have to run it past the Online department, since they're the people who set everything up. I will keep you posted!

And almost a year later...anything cooking on this suggestion?  I find it odd at the lack of responses to threads in SUYW.  I just cannot figure it out but I think a new critique forum would definitely create more activity. Thanks!

I know, the response rate has gone way down. it is too bad. 

After looking at the amount of posts and responses to the show us your work forum group, the editors decided that adding another forum group for showing work would only decrease traffic to each group, because the number of users who currently post in show us your work would be divided among both groups. Instead, we've altered the explanation of show us your work so that more people will understand that the forum group isn't just for posting pictures, but also for offering feedback on other people's work. We would also encourage people to state that they want honest feedback, not praise, when they post their work.