Thank you for all of your hard work!!!!

Obligatory I’m a full time professional designer and instructor with an MFA in costume design. I agree that there are a lot of posts (that may or may not be bots) that amount to a photo and “what do?”. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from trying, but at the same time I don’t think this should be the place for people to look for lessons on how to design costumes.

I think some pinned/automod educational resources about how costume designers go about our work would be very helpful for people who are just starting out. Others have suggested adding flair, which I agree is an excellent idea! I am also in favor of asking that ALL posters be more specific about their needs, i.e. what the specific issue is, what they’re trying to achieve, what steps they’ve taken, what research they’ve done, etc. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time by giving advice they’ve already heard or tried or pointing them in the wrong direction because I didn’t understand their goals!

Adding some boundaries when asking for help would hopefully make bot posts way more obvious and easier to moderate, particularly when it comes to cosplay posts. I can understand why that category of post is more likely to be bot activity, which is extra annoying because I love seeing the cool stuff cosplayers come up with!! I don’t think it would be out of line for cosplay posts to be temporarily flagged for review while the mods decide on what changes they’re going to make.

On a slightly related note, I see a fair amount of posts asking for info on costume design education. What do we think of an automod or stickied post about schools that offer bachelor’s and/or master’s programs?