Feature: Commissions

Mockups

Commission types

Open commissions

• User requests an image with some optional specifications, adds the initial pledge.
• If an artist does a lot of this specific kind of work, it will be shown in their "Recommended commissions" feed (or something similar?).
  • This would be matched based on the artist's past works (e.g. they've uploaded a lot of images in a specific style which is the same or very similar to the requested style), user satisfaction in past commissions (e.g. Airbnb or Uber), and proximity (assuming the commission is a photograph: A request for an image of Mount Rushmore would be most relevant to artists who have marked their location as being close to Mount Rushmore, therefore they would take priority over photographers who live farther away).

"Tag group" commission

• See "Crowdfunded commissions" below for another aspect of this type of commission.
• If a user searches for a very specific tag group (e.g. Humanoid Fluttershy wearing knee socks with Rainbow Dash while in Twilight's library) and doesn't find anything, they can choose to request a commission of the work.
• For this type of commission multiple users can help pay for the piece.
• Images created by this system would either default to Public Domain or CC-BY-SA 3.0 licenses (not sure which we should go with) in order to create a sense of "public good" in crowdfunding these works.

"Crowdfunded commissions"

• Multiple people can contribute to making an artwork happen if they want it bad enough.
• This would be more of a modifier, where the user initially requesting the commission would be able to choose whether or not to allow others to contribute.
• This would be an inherent characteristic of "tag group" commissions and cannot be changed.

Specific commissions

• Commissions that are directed at a specific creator.
• No one else is able to actually produce the work except for the artist requested.

Creator-initiated commissions

• A popular artist could say "I want to paint X or Y, but I'd like to see if people are interested in paying for such a project before beginning the work." and then, assuming people like the idea, could be given donations to pay for its creation.
• The money would likely go to the creator directly, since this is more of a donation than a payment for an end-result. Once the work is completed, users who donated would be able to give it a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to signify that the work was completed reasonably within the confines of the initial description. This rating would be compounded over time to ensure that creators aren't able to repeatedly scam users.

Creator-specific Features

Accepting a commission

• The creator can volunteer to do the piece, then the patrons would be able to accept/reject the creator if they believe they'd be capable of producing a piece of quality.
• If accepted, the commission is then locked for a set amount of time (user-set) based on how long the commission should reasonably take. If the deadline is nearing/reached, the creator can request an extension. Otherwise, the commission is opened back up and can be taken by another creator.

Artist's "Recommended Commissions" Feed

• The artist can set a "minimum price" for their work so pieces that would only pay $1 would never show up in their feed.
• In the case of locations being relevant (needing a specific picture of a specific monument, for example), the artist's location can also be taken into consideration.
  • For accuracy, we may want to have the artist (optionally) set a more specific location privately for our algorithms, while their publicly displayed location would be more generic (e.g. Denver, Colorado rather than a more specific neighborhood).
• Artists who have described themselves as specializing in "nature photography" would have relevant images shown in their recommended commissions, rather than having "portrait photography"-related images showing up in their feed, for example.

Guarantee of payment

• We would act as a middle man that takes a cut of the money and guarantees that it has been routed properly before allowing anyone to take a commission.
• All images provided before payment is confirmed (either through artist-uploaded "progress updates" or a final approval) must be distributed to the user at a highly compressed, low-res quality (with watermarks? I realize they don't completely prevent misuse, but they can at least discourage it). The user would be given a notice that this is occurring, and that image quality won't be inherently representative of the final piece.
  • This would protect the artist from having their work taken without being paid.

Aspects of a commission

• To ensure both parties are aware of the work's final requirements, the following must be included in all commissions:
  • Time to completion (can be either "A week from commission start" or "December 25, 2015")
  • License image is to be distributed under (For example if a community wanted a banner for their header, they would be able to pay for such a thing and release it into the public domain to be used and modified by anyone)
  • Money that has been guaranteed as payment to the creator
  • Description of the work
  • Size/resolution of the piece (optional)

Notes

• Our highest priority needs to be the artist. They should never be screwed over, whether that be by the user not paying them properly or by the user choosing another artist after the initial artist has begun work on the piece (thereby wasting the initial artist's time).
• In the case of time, we should make it abundantly clear that the artist is not recommended to start working on the piece until the user has agreed to working with them.
• Running past the set time limit (again, unless an extension is provided) will nullify the agreement and mean that the artist is at fault. If the work is not deemed to be of high-enough quality or is otherwise not meeting the requirements set in the original commission, the user is able to withdraw their payment following our review of the situation (assuming we don't get huge, this should hopefully be manageable, at least in the short term. In the long term, we may need to change the process so the user can reject it without our interception, and then the artist could choose to appeal the decision to us.)