to the nines's Profile

Hello, AT. I have been visiting this site regularly for about two years, and I can't help but observe that some version of this discussion bubbles up every time there's a contest. It seems to me that creating an option to flag abusive comments is tantamount to treating a patient with a broken leg by giving her some aspirin.

The problem with the color contest, and the other AT contests, is that the playing field isn't even remotely level to start with. There are people with huge renovation/design budgets competing with college students for whom a colored light bulb is a substantial purchase. There are professional designers, some masquerading as amateur home decorators, competing against real amateurs who come to this site only because they're interested in sharing their hobby. And sometimes, honestly, the overall content of the site strays quite far from AT's stated commitment to small space living.

Apartment Therapy cannot be all things to all people, and I wish it would stop trying. These contests always bring home the problem in an ugly way; the current discussion is just the most recent exhibit. I think AT should put some hard thought into what it is trying to achieve with these contests, and at the very least establish a framework that is nominally fair to a would-be entrant... starting with categories that allow amateurs to compete against amateurs, take budgets and square footage into consideration, etc. The current range of entries is impossible to judge fairly; the contest guidelines/criteria are opaque enough to be effectively meaningless in practice, and that leaves the AT community to judge the entries according to personal taste. Of course there's nothing wrong with judging on personal taste - indeed it's impossible NOT to - but at the moment it's a contextual free-for-all for contest entrants and commenters alike.

Even in a contest that is ostensibly about the use of color in home decor, the way the contest is currently organized, it's impossible to assess the field fairly. A room full of Saarinen and Bertoia, or even a room full of Louis XIV, will be always be at a preposterous advantage over a room full of whatever a college student or a young couple or a starving writer can afford. I see so many people striving mightily for perspective as they offer their opinions, but the contest is set up to discourage perspective, right down to the three voting categories, which are often inaccurate expressions of community sentiment. This is why it's so easy to get snarky in a hurry, especially behind a curtain of relative anonymity.

I have been on the sidelines for two consecutive color contests now, and two consecutive smallest-coolest. I live in a rental whose walls I cannot paint. I look to this site for ideas and inspiration to help me make the most of my living space, and with the help of this and many other resources, I've learned how to deploy color in my home in a way that makes all of its occupants very happy and makes a strong positive impression on visitors. But I wouldn't dream of entering the color contest here. I don't even have a favorite brand of paint - I've never purchased a can of paint in my life. There's more to color, and more to decorating, than paint, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the AT color contest. There is also more to a creating a beautiful home than spending a lot of money on a certain set of iconic designs. I see some people striving mightily to remember that in their comments, but the way the contest is organized makes it difficult.

A great many people start their comments with "Not my style, but..." - as if this disclaimer were not insulting to the entrant. Even though commenters use this phrase to be gentle in acknowledging an entry's insufficiencies, in a contest where some of the more popular entries have been previously featured in shelter magazines, the effect is the same as the snarky three-word put-down. It's not constructive. But absent any other context, it's too easy to do this; it's entirely human to assess the field in comparison to current design trends and fads, and to judge fliply, if not exactly harshly, those that do not conform.

While multiple entry categories wouldn't completely resolve these issues, it would at least allow likes to be judged against likes in terms of financial resources, renovation vs. decoration, and the design experience of the entrant. I would be very happy if AT were to devise a contest that considered color, and creativity, in these contexts. Absent categories, at the very least, full disclosure with respect to budget and design education/experience should be required of every entrant and should be at the top of every posted submission. Maybe some contests should be limited - to design amateurs, or to pros, or to those with small budgets, or to those who have not just decorated but renovated. Under these circumstances, I might be inclined to enter such a contest, or to vote, or to offer comments on other entries. As it is, the overt unpleasantness represented by some posts coupled with a vaguer sense of futility about the constructiveness of the whole exercise makes me wonder if I'll always be on the sidelines here, an occasional visitor who eventually ends up drifting away.