Good Monday morning everyone! Mikey's watching Max and Ruby (ruby and max...) and I'm getting caught up on my favorite soap opera, As The Pea Turns. I don't watch much television and there's not usually any drama on my rural street, so I get the drama wherever I can. Lately it's gotten hot and heavy on the Veggie Site. First off, I'm not a regular poster on that site. I've only posted 2-3 times in the three years I've been a member. But I've lurked in a major way, especially when they started a digital scrapping board and then all the fireworks began.
From a viewer's perspective, I can see why some people have gotten bent out of shape and I can see why the powers that pea would like to see them gone. Just for my own sake, here's my take on it:
TwoPeas started as a paper scrapping site. When I started digiscrapping I registered so I could buy fonts occasionally and to roam the Pea Soup area for neat quotes for my layouts. I didn't post layouts because most layouts weren't digi back then and it seemed awfully exclusive to a rank newbie like myself.
Years went by and I got more involved in the digi scrapping community through design teams and through the new communities that cropped up just for scrappers like us. Scrapbook Bytes, Digital Scrapbook Place and Pages of the Heart were a few that I frequented back then. And then I discovered designers. This changed everything.
Designers were opening their own stores and message boards/galleries opened with them. There were many places to go and several communities to explore.
I found myself back at 2peas because the forums at the big stores like SBB felt too big and the designer specific communities felt too small. The forum at 2peas moved quickly and was filled with many who could answer questions about technique or anything else. I learned a lot just by lurking there.
Then they started selling their own kits, but the kits only came out once a month and they were very expensive. Some at the forum began voicing their opinions about this and giving alternatives and the Powers that Pea started deleting posts, leading to bad feelings all around. Some posts got yanked just for mentioning a commercial site. Other posts almost blatantly advertised contests at various sites and never got pulled. Certain designers were mentioned all the time while others seemed to never exist. The pea posters started talking in code and at one point they became aloof about the whole thing, but they came back and things were calm for a while.
This weekend it exploded again, amid much drama. A few hundred of the pea posters jumped ship and went to a new board. It's called DigiShop Talk and you can talk about whatever you want, including designers and you can include links to the products you mention and everything. Of course the drama continues while everyone waits for a response from the Powers that Pea, but I think they are secretly hoping that those posters who have started another board will leave, so that new people will come and replace them. People who think paying $15 for a kit is cheap and that 2peas is the only place to go. That's what I think.
Why would 2peas want people who don't buy from them to hang around and talk about other (cheaper) kits? I really think that they are aiming their marketing at paper scrappers who are thinking of going digital. Paper scrappers are used to paying higher prices for consumable paper products. Being able to pay similar prices for something that is reusable sounds like a pretty good deal.
If only 2peas would come out and say it (and enforce it fairly), people would abide by whatever the rules are. So they should just say that the 2peas digital community is for scrappers who design scrapbook pages using the kits that are sold in the 2peas store. People can talk about 2peas kits and other things unrelated to other commercial sites. If posters don't like it, they can go someplace else.
In the meantime, there are open communities on the net for digiscrappers. DigiScrapDivas initially came to mind. Why didn't everyone go there if they were looking for an alternative? Again, I post there and keep my main gallery there and yet I keep going back to peas. Part of it will certainly be a popularity thing- the cool kids posted on 2peas and now they will be at DigiShopTalk. So will I lurk there? Probably, if they get the kind of traffic that 2peas used to get.
The real question for me is, "Will it be better than peas?" What am I looking for? Am I looking for a place to hear about all the designers and their sales? I guess I could go to P4D (Promos 4 Digiscrappers) for that. They are a site that is devoted entirely to promoting digi designers. Am I looking for a site that has no advertising? I don't think any digi scrapping community will be able to do that since half the fun is in enabling each other to spend outrageous amounts of money on digi kits. So what will it take for me to join a digi scrap community?
I guess I look for a place that has a lot of traffic and a bunch of supportive scrappers who can answer my questions and make me feel at home. It really comes down to the mix of people on the board. For now you can find me posting at DigiScrapDivas and watching the drama on 2peas/DST. I guess I'll go and lurk now. :-)
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