What's in a name?

Well said Nina! And I am very concerned that your very polite comment stating your opinion was deleted from that editorial. Very unhappy! :(

Yep, that was lame! Would love to hear what Michal thinks and await his response.

Very well put Nina! ♡♡♡

Yes!! 100% behind this! Art for Arts sake! Are we seriously to believe that its in the best interests of the caking industry to only make safe cakes, that can be easily replicated?? Where’s the innovation? The creativity?? And some classes NEED to be based around styro, for cost as well as time, or are we limiting classes now only to those that can pay large sums of money they earned from being “real” cake decorators?? The more I have thought about this, the crankier I have gotten. I KNOW how hard I have worked for the things I have achieved, and for someone to tell me that I don’t “qualify” would be laughable if it wasn’t so damn insulting. I create art, I don’t sit idly back and judge the work of others, I roll up my sleeves and put my work out there to be judged, but never in a million years did I think that one of those judgements would be whether or not I used a dummy tier! I am thoroughly disgusted with this whole thing, and I’m very proud to say that the hashtag #makeartnotwar is going swimmingly on my page, proving that not everybody is as judgemental as the author of that article, and THOSE are the people I want seeing my Art.

I knew that this is little bit controversial theme, but I didn’t expect so much hard feelings. My fault is that I didn’t have time to read the editorial before it went live, I just checked the formatting – my bad.

I would like to answer to all your questions:

1. Editorial is written by the Editor – Sharon and do not necessarily reflect the views of CakesDecor.

2. We are not going to change anything on CakesDecor – no badges or labeling – CakesDecor value and respects all members who are creating cakes – no matter if they use real cakes or dummy cakes. We believe that cake decorating is more ART than food industry.

3. I’m little bit sad that you accuse CakesDecor of deleting or blocking comments, because we have NEVER block or delete anyone’s comment on CakesDecor or CakesDecor facebook. That’s why I took the time to reply you instead of deleting your blog entry. If you’ tell me where exactly did you add the comment(url link of the Facebook post) I can try to investigate why it’s not showing.

4. We are sorry for removing the watermarks, we deleted the photos already.

5. And the last one … I would like to react on your sentence “You earn money from our beautiful cakes being posted onto this fantastic monetized site.”

We (CakesDecor owners – me and Martin) spent almost 95% of the money we earned from CakesDecor back to CakesDecor(all costs that are necessary to run the site and promote it) and to give away to you, CakesDecor members(awards, challenges, give aways …). We can’t even afford to work on CakesDecor full time, because it would not pay our bills … we work on it every day in our free time – early mornings and nights.

PS: So many negative comments and no-one noticed that we added discussion into the gazette :(

Completely agree, labelling, putting people in boxes and bullying is wrong on every level. And removing your comment on the editorial? Why? Are you not allowed an opinion? Very very wrong.

well said Nina… Perfectly written xxx ♡♡♡
It was an èditorial that never need be written. It was always only ever going to cause nothing but hard feelings,controversy and conflict, and I guess the fact you commented thanks for sharing rather than removing the whole horrid editorial looked like you supported the statement.

Michal, you said “Editorial is written by the Editor – Sharon and do not necessarily reflect the views of CakesDecor.”
Then I don’t feel it should have been the editorial.
Sharon could have had her say – shared her opinion – in a blog post, on her own site or on Cakes Decor, where she could engage with people who agree or disagree.
The Cakes Decor Gazette is just that, the “Cakes Decor Gazette”. It DOES reflect Cakes Decor. I found the piece harsh and mean-spirited. Not the way Cakes Decor has always seemed to me.

Thank you for your post Michal, and I massively appreciate your honesty in revealing you had not actually read the editorial, only checked the formatting before it was released.

I was blocked, and reported to Facebook. I am on a 24 hour ban from my page that occurred directly after I posted directly under the comment. I attach here two screen captures. Of course I have contested it.

My point in the monetising is that many of these labeled “FAKER CAKERS” have posted thousands of beautiful cakes on your site – bringing you lots of views, tags, comments and shares, and profile and it seemed strangely hypocritical slamming any of these cakes that have helped grow your site and saying there is a “new breed” of decorator, when decorative dummies have been used long before I daresay your Editor started making cakes.

I appreciate your point that the Editor does not necessarily reflect the views of CakesDecor – but perhaps that needs to be explored as well. As my deleted post suggests, it might be worth looking into inviting a few more writers into the Gazette to have a fair, balanced and well rounded view on the cake industry. It is very dangerous to be represented by someone that is keen to coin offensive labels on those within our cake family.

I haven’t posted here, cakes or comments, for some time. …..with this post now I think I know why. This is an editorial which never needed to be written. We are all artists in our own rights and should be proud of where we are and how far we have come or where we aspire to be. There is no need for a badge to determine how great someone’s ability to càrve be it cake or polystyrene.
Love to everyone in he caking community ❤