Giving Credit Where It Is Due

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Many creators find it incredibly frustrating to produce beautiful creations that bloggers use in their pictures and then fail to credit in their posts. Now, sometimes that is deliberate. Understandably, some bloggers like to withhold what specific skin they wear or some other item because they don’t want to be copied down to the last detail, hoping to retain their individuality. Other bloggers who don’t credit everything, do so because they see their role as highlighting a new release, promoting the new dress, the new shoe, the new hair and don’t credit anything more than the one item that is the focus of their post. For me, I credit everything but my shape which is not for sale. Other bloggers use items they make and sell themselves and so don’t credit them for fear of looking opportunistic and also don’t credit similar items by competitors so that they are consistent. There are many reasons why people don’t credit everything and I can understand how different people come to their differing opinions.

Yet, I empathize with the creators whose work goes unnamed and unknown. In a business with such low barriers to entry, there is a lot of competition and marketing is integral to any Second Life business success. SL Bloggers Support has launched an initiative to address the frequent exclusion of credits for poses with a Pose Appreciation Week from Nov 19th through the 25th. This reminded me of Achariya’s PoseMaker Challenge back in 2009. I remember that challenge as being a very successful effort that resulted in more bloggers crediting poses after it was over.

How can you make sure you don’t forget key elements when you write up your credits?

Tips for Preparing Your Credits

  1. Use the Copy Outfit to Clipboard to get most of your information. It’s in the Outfits Window, in the lower right. The Save As… can be selected and dropped down to  Copy Outfit.
  2. Add that information into a pre-formatted template that lists all the items you wish to credit in all your posts.
  3. When copying credits from  SL into your template, complete store names. Do not use the store’s abbreviation unless that is how the store can be found in search. Test the abbreviation to see if it works in search. Simply copying and pasting is not good enough since some stores do not put the store name on their items.
  4. Do not just use Copy Outfit to Clipboard alone as it does not include poses or decor.
Here is a copy of the template I use. You are free to adapt it to your own use. If you don’t wish to credit something in particular, exclude it from the template. If you credit much more about the decor, you might add Furnishings, Art, House and other more specific categories for interiors. It’s just a suggestion for an easy way to be consistent with your credits. 
I use this in the Description window in Flickr when I upload my pictures to Flickr so the credits are there as well as here. I just copy the credits into my post from Flickr. Of course, I could increase my traffic by excluding the credits, only providing a link to my blog posts, but I have never worried to much about that lost traffic. 

Photography by YOUR NAME HERE
for <a href=”http://YOURBLOGURL” rel=”nofollow”>YOUR BLOG NAME</a>

Store info at <a href=”http://bloggingsecondlife.wordpress.com” rel=”nofollow”>Blogging Second Life</a>

****SHOPPING LIST******

  • Poses:
  • Skin:
  • Makeup Tattoos:
  • Eyes:
  • Lashes:
  • Mani/Pedi:
  • Hair:
  • Clothing:
  • Shoes:
  • Jewelry:
  • Accessories:
  • Misc:
  • Location:

Miscellaneous would include things like houses, furnishings and other things that provide a setting to the picture. You may see I don’t include shape. If my shape were a commercially purchased one, I would include it.

Anyway, I hope this is useful in helping you to make a thoughtful decision about how you credit the items in your pictures. Whatever your opinion on what is and is not necessary to credit, consistency is the best option.

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2 thoughts on “Giving Credit Where It Is Due”

  1. Sasy Scarborough

    I saw a link to it, and at first thought the same thing, that it was that time of the year and the return of the challenge. I did read through it, and it is a great thing, but I personally don’t agree with the crediting poses as the only way, as I always credit stores. Crediting a pose can add a lot more confusion to the mix.
    The pose could have been part of a gift, a promotion, an event. It may have been retired, may be in a discount area, may be one half of a couples pose set or a group combination or even a prop set.
    Poses are pulled apart and added to posestands over many years and the VR Studio which I use allows me to set them up by store in seconds, and does give me every single name etc…but again, if I put down pose 13 tickle, and that pose is one of thousands in a store, without the information of which pack/item it came from, it is not going to add benefit to the post at all.
    I think sending a person to a store to say hey, this store has amazing poses, lets try them ALL is more fun, and can lead to finding dozens more poses than planned for.

    Great post again Cajsa, and yeah my template is not only in Html but I purchased a macro keyboard so with one click the whole thing spills forth for me 🙂 and I just fill in the gaps.

    xoxSasyxox

  2. Starr Ghost

    I know this is very dated from original post but again someone took time to create something my feelings are you should give credit ~ I work for a posemaker and most have the feelings that without any use of poses ~ bloggers and models would look like stiff stick pencils standing there ~ I have several different studio’s and they all have the poses that you use ~ it is a matter of laziness that you forget the name of the pose ~ but someone can credit a chair or a tree in the blog yet not a pose ~ posemakers feel they are at the bottom of the barrel never getting credit ~

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