Like there are private ones, public ones, ones in CW shops, ones that aren't released in CW shops, there are ones with batches (can the batch numbers be changed later)?

What does a private one mean? What does a public one mean? How do I find if one is in a CW shop or not? How to batches work? What do people mean by slots?

Is there like a place where I can look up who made what and if it is public or private or how many in a batch?

Thanks so much.

I think you answered the question as for the batch numbers I think they cant be changed

Maybe you can help since you release CWs

If you do a shop search for any CW, it'll show you if it's currently in a CW shop You can ask about the releaser, status (public/private), and other information about CWs on this thread: [topic not found]

Private CWs are ones released only to specific groups of people (for example, the releaser's friends) and they're typically not sold outside those groups. Sometimes they'll get sold anyway against the releaser's request or they'll trade or auction public copies (ones you have permission to sell in the future if you want), but as a general rule, private items are often hard to find later. Public CWs are just ones that anyone can slot on (generally) and have no selling restrictions on them requested by the releaser.

CWs are submitted either directly to a CW shop or via slotting in batches of 5 items. So a batch is just the group of 5 copies of an item being released, and a slot is when you claim a copy of the item from that batch. So I could slot myself, the artist, user1, user2, and user3 into the first batch of a new item. I'd just fill in those usernames on the submission page, and those people would all get a link to pay the given slot price for the item When you submit an item, you can decide how many batches you want to release, or you can set it to unlimited. You cannot change the number of batches you submit as, and if you post an item and mention a batch limit at the time, you can't change that either, no matter what you set the limit to during submission

Wow thank you! So basically if an item is not unlimited it is limited in some way or form. Awesome! I wish there was a directory!

you can look up all CWs on subetalodge but there is no status shown on there

I release CWs - but usually just in small batches (10 copies) and I do not slot (so ping openly) most of the time, since I always have the feeling that the things I like ar enot very looked after in the community I decide what I want my HA to look like, then request a comission - becase I want that item. And I do not really care if people like/do not like it, So I just put the on site. Slotting (in my eyes) is no fun...

so I get the first five copies approved and usually throw the other 5 copies in my CW shop

I always do a luminaier CW for my friends and that one is never slotted or openly released BUT I would not call them private, since the peopel can do whatever they wish with them (that led to the idea a foreground of mine was a very rare private - it is not, it oly had 10 copies and nobody wnated to letgo of theirs XD)

Ah awesome thank you so much for this!

If you still have some questions about the CW process, there are some really helpful threads you might be interested in reading. I'm also happy to answer specific questions, too! ^_^

Buyer's Guide to CWs

CW Introduction and where to start (mostly for creating new CWs, but has an explanation of how CWs get submitted to the site and how the process works!)

So if you're on a board and say "4 batches of [x]", but then want to submit one more, you just...can't change it, even if yo haven't reached the max you set initially?

Right. It's against the rules, though it is technically possible to do on the submission page. It's just not allowed [edit] That's why you get a lot of people saying things like "Two batches for now," or "batches TBD," so they don't end up with 50 people trying to claim slots on something they already said would be 20 copies. It gives them a little bit of wiggle room without having an item be completely unlimited

Thank you :)

ahhh interesting!

The rules were changed a few years ago to prevent scamming (for example, saying you would only sell 20 copies, but then selling 30 copies when your item was more popular than you thought it would be). Like said, some releasers get around this by not setting a firm batch amount up front. If you have extra stated batches available that don't immediately sell, you can always sell more copies later if you get renewed interest, either via the slotting system, or by moving the remaining copies to your CW shop to sell that way.

Huh, the explanation makes sense. Thank you both :D