You need to take better pictures, no wait...

If you've sold or tried to sell anything on Etsy and tried seeking 'critiques' to see why your shop wasn't selling then you've heard the tired old line: "you need to take better pictures."

Now the marvelous circle jerk team aka Etsy 'engineering' has rolled out new quality image improvements. Tooting their horn, Etsy engineers have "built a new system for processing, resizing, and storing the image files that you upload to the site."

Well good job Etsy! The opening post shows a shop banner before the improvements, and after the improvements. There's only one problem; try as you might, you really can't discern any improvements. Some even dared to mention this to the circle jerk crew right in the middle of their mutual self-congratulatory phase. That's when Captain Obtuse, aka mgineer/Matt admits:

That sample banner is a case where there isn't much difference between the before and after. One characteristic of banners is that they are sometimes better suited to GIF or PNG format. Since our system only supports JPEG right now, we have to convert them, which can lower the quality. This change is the first step in a series of changes to make it possible to upload a PNG or GIF and have the site display it that way instead of converting it.

I'm sorry mgineer, did you just say that you guys implemented a system which will make some of our pictures look shittier? Really? Oh and while your at it, could you guys think far enough in the future to show a banner that signifigantly show your "improvements?"

The ultimate goal here is apparently to give everyone the option to upload images in .gif and .png as well as .jpeg. Yet - get this - Etsy's system still does not render any uploaded .gif or .png images well. So the engineers recommend that you convert them to .jpg yourself before uploading them "for a little while longer."

Highlighted Admin posts further dig a contradictory hole:

The feature is more a means of providing extra help to make your pictures appear just a little bit brighter or a little bit sharper.

Which is it ya geniuses? Are you helping us make our photos "better"? Or "lowering the quality?" Some post that they can see the difference, others not, to which Admin helpfully comments:

To those of you who can't see a difference, great! You see Etsy in it's most beautiful state. To those who do see a difference, great! Get ready to experience Etsy in all her glory.

Get that folks? Etsy is a girl. Write that down.

So the upshot of this? Your avatar, your shop banner, your product images will get a little "help" from Etsy. Yes, that's right folks - particularly you photographers - Etsy has changed how they tweak images.

Oh, before I close this post, let me note that:

The team working on this deserves a huge public thank you, so...thanks, guys!
You've put in a ton of effort making this rock.

Oh yeah guys..... you really rock. *eyeroll*

Etsy Is Hiring Coders!

Must have a ironic sense of whimsy and kindergarten art skills.

News Flash: Etsy is hiring! from Etsy on Vimeo.

Granted it is kinda funny, but it's maybe even fairly clever being that it's coders who did it, but it's just more of the goddamn hammocks.

from: Code as Craft Etsy Blog

And speaking of hiring, we just added a new Bitch! With a icy cold rage that the greek gods would shudder in fear of, say hello everyone to The Stubborn One.

I know I look foreward to having a new voice on here, as well as pissing off our detractors by actually growing. And in this economy no less!

The hiring of a new Etsy Bitch is a tenuous process, and don't one we often due to the cost of background testing and hiring a Privates Investigator to make sure their hand crocheted vagina brooches aren't wired. To be brief, it mostly involves chicken entrails, a nice curry sauce, a long night in the Clockwork Rusty Orange Video Room complete forced viewings of video interviews of Rokali, disloyalty gauging, and intensive sarcasm testing.

Welcome Stubborn!