annieoakley

Hi Rob,There are dozens of people on the site who have the power to feature things, including regular users aside from admins. If none of these people have felt inclined to feature your projects, it's unfair to conclude the system is flawed and should be done away with (as you said: feature all, or get rid of it).What that means is your projects did not strike a chord with people and hit that "wow factor" that is mentioned in the featuring guidelines: https://www.instructables.com/topics/Featuring-Che...To me, you've got one good project separated into two Instructables which limits the appeal of both. I think these two projects could reasonably be combined into one, perhaps with a more generally enticing title that helps people know the usefulness of the full project. Maybe &qu…

Hi Rob,There are dozens of people on the site who have the power to feature things, including regular users aside from admins. If none of these people have felt inclined to feature your projects, it's unfair to conclude the system is flawed and should be done away with (as you said: feature all, or get rid of it).What that means is your projects did not strike a chord with people and hit that "wow factor" that is mentioned in the featuring guidelines: https://www.instructables.com/topics/Featuring-Che...To me, you've got one good project separated into two Instructables which limits the appeal of both. I think these two projects could reasonably be combined into one, perhaps with a more generally enticing title that helps people know the usefulness of the full project. Maybe "Complete Wireless Doorbell System" or something similar.If you did that, I think it would push it over to the level where it would be featured. Just 2 cents :)

The introduction feels like I'm reading an ad, and people around here are turned off that kind of approach. It's a bit hard to get past that alone, but once I do, the rest of the info looks very good. Maybe stick a mention of your company in the very last step and remove it from the intro so it's not so "in your face".

Just out of curiosity, what is an "Autodesk Student Expert"?I ask because the way you're sporting the Autodesk logo on your profile page suggests an affiliation of some kind. This makes your participation in a contest sponsored by the company somewhat dubious - unless you're like other staff that add their Instructables to contests, but technically cannot/will not ever win prizes. If you're affiliated with Autodesk even in some informal or unpaid way, I'm guessing your team will be ruled ineligible to win any prizes anyway. It's just something to consider. ;)Annie

I can't speak for the staff that do the featuring, but from the perspective of a longtime member of the community, here are my honest thoughts:Your content is repetitive and (sorry) pretty boring. You're making digital designs of things, and through your cover images and titles you're presenting them as legitimate tangible things you've made. For a community that was built primarily on sharing how to make physical objects, this is kind of off-brand and almost deceiving in a way. For example, I opened the first few because they looked interesting but have not opened any since because I knew what to expect . . a bunch of info on how to use Fusion. This is not what I come to the site to see, and I'm guessing likewise for the majority of visitors.I can see why the staff would feature a few we…

I can't speak for the staff that do the featuring, but from the perspective of a longtime member of the community, here are my honest thoughts:Your content is repetitive and (sorry) pretty boring. You're making digital designs of things, and through your cover images and titles you're presenting them as legitimate tangible things you've made. For a community that was built primarily on sharing how to make physical objects, this is kind of off-brand and almost deceiving in a way. For example, I opened the first few because they looked interesting but have not opened any since because I knew what to expect . . a bunch of info on how to use Fusion. This is not what I come to the site to see, and I'm guessing likewise for the majority of visitors.I can see why the staff would feature a few well-done Fusion-based tutorials, but they have to monitor the flow and variety of content so other users are not bombarded with things that feel excessive or obnoxious. To me, it feels like you're spamming the site with promotion for Fusion, and likewise trying to pump out content to boost your team's numbers for the Makerspace contest. The quality of documentation you have been presenting is excellent. However aside from the things I've noted above, there's that "wow, awesome!" factor that (to me at least) is completely missing from all of your content. From everything I've seen over the years, that is an integral aspect to continually being featured. Oftentimes, the most telling indicator of how your content is being received is the engagement you get from visitors in the comments. If you have relatively low views even after getting featured and you're not getting a lot of comments, that says a lot.Just be proud of the features you have received, and share what you're passionate about. I Hope this was insightful. Cheers,Annie

OrigamiAirEnforcer,I'm a bit of a long-time lurker around these parts. I love the site and community and have watched it evolve over the years, but I'm rarely inclined to say much. But I've been watching you complain off and on for months, and somebody needs finally just lay things out for. This is shared in the spirit of honest and direct helpfulness, but take it however you please.The premise of your commentary above is that there is some notion existing on the site that all Instructables are considered equal.That's a strange and illogical premise, and all the pseudo-intellectual commentary that follows to support it is nonsensical BS.Obviously, Instructables are not equal. Likewise obviously, the staff that run the site and manage the contests understand this perfectly. They have to de…

OrigamiAirEnforcer,I'm a bit of a long-time lurker around these parts. I love the site and community and have watched it evolve over the years, but I'm rarely inclined to say much. But I've been watching you complain off and on for months, and somebody needs finally just lay things out for. This is shared in the spirit of honest and direct helpfulness, but take it however you please.The premise of your commentary above is that there is some notion existing on the site that all Instructables are considered equal.That's a strange and illogical premise, and all the pseudo-intellectual commentary that follows to support it is nonsensical BS.Obviously, Instructables are not equal. Likewise obviously, the staff that run the site and manage the contests understand this perfectly. They have to decide what to feature, what to promote on social media, what to put into the newsletters, etc. There is a huge range in the quality of content that is published on the site every day; projects are judged on their merit and interest to the audience, and it is easily understood that Instructables are not all equal. Your commentary reveals that you're suffering from blindness caused by your own self-focus. You can childishly pout and spout all you like, but it doesn't change the reality of what you’re really complaining about: you’re mad that nobody appreciates the time and effort you put into your airplanes as much as you think they should.If the point of your post was to make it clear (to anyone that may think otherwise) that Instructables are not all equal to one another, then at least have the self-awareness to apply this to yourself. Your paper airplane Instructables are absolutely not equal to many other projects on the site, and are in fact inferior and uninteresting (generally speaking), regardless of how many hours you put into improving performance and making improvements to your designs. That’s it. You can accept that or not, but please stop conjuring up nonsense to blame anything but yourself for your inability to produce contest-winning Instructables.Best to you going forward,Annie