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Content => Art => Topic started by: SilentFyre on August 03, 2005, 01:16:38 AM

Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 03, 2005, 01:16:38 AM
(Added here because Xepher pointed me in the right direction. Thanks. :P)

If any of you are at deviantART and you haven't been following this, it is just crazy. I'll see what links I can scrape up for everyone here.

From what I understand, Scott Jaroff aka Jark (http://jark.deviantart.com), has been laid off of the deviantART staff. For those of you non DA'ers, Scott was a co-founder of DA. From comments he has made, it seems as if he had no choice in the matter. He clearly states they had cut off his dA email without his consent.

dA shows that they can and will delete commetns fi it suits their needs. They clearly state that they would never allow deletion of alteration of comments, but they have. Screenshots prove this:

Original: http://www.t52.org/deleted_but_archived_for_life.jpg
Afterwods: I can't find the screen for it, but it is now a 404 error.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/21139764/ Has been following the resignations from dA staff. I've counted over 8 and really don't want to get the real number. It is a sad thing indeed.

People all over dA are uniting together and saying, "This is bull." Many are on hiatus until August 7, dA's 5th birthday. The goal is to grind dA to a halt. Many deviants do not wish for deviantART to become more commercial than community. I honestly don't either.

dA has give so much to me no one would believe. When I started on deviantART in 2003 I believe, I sucked at art. deviantART gave me the motivation to learn how to draw correctly and try new things. If not for deviantART I might have never progressed. As soon as you know someone is actually seeing your art and can comment and help on it, then you know you've got to get to work. I wont say I am the best artist out there, because I surely am not, but I will state I have gotten better. After two years of being on dA, I have moved up from sketches in a sketchbook that follow no proportional las, to digital images, paintings and other traditional mediums.

the community of dA has offered so much to me as well. I have gained such everlasting friends as Sary, who I got to come here and apply. Aeyoqen from deviantART and I still correspond through MSN messenger and are deeply unnerved by all that is happening to dA.

If dA goes down the tubes I cannot say I will stay with them. I have my own site for a reason and can update it as much as dA if I lose dA. As of now, I am planning new features for the site because frankly, this is just getting annoying with everything that is happening on deviantART. The greatest loss will be the people, and I can't bring the people to my personal site.

I know this was a little crazy of a post. I expected it to be better but I am being rushed to clean the house. Unexpected guests. >.<
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: tickyhead on August 03, 2005, 02:57:58 AM
http://probingthetruth.blogspot.com/2005/08/subject-truth-about-deviantart.html
either this is a very, VERY sick joke, or it's worse than we thought. All I can say is HOLY CRAP this is F#$%ed up. Poor Jark, poor DA.

I figure this'll go two ways:
1) Spyed will sell his soul and become an evil demonic net dictator and Jark, after much training under waterfalls and such, will return to defeat Syped. They will fight long and hard, and spyed will eventually fall. Jark will then reinstate peace among the masses, and all will be returned to blissful paradise.
OR....
2) everyone will leave DA for one reason or another, except for the noobs who will drag DA down into the depths of net-hell with their crappy art and overuse of "omfglfmaowtfbbq liek uoy sutipd fga!!!!11". Jark will then move on to create an even better art community that all who supported him will flock to, and all will be returned to blissful paradise.

....yes, I do read a lot of fantasy stories, why?
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 03, 2005, 03:23:10 AM
Either way I am totally with Jark. If I have to move communities, so be it. I want a community not a corporation. Spyed is making too much money off of us as artists and that is just morally wrong.

I just don't want DA to fall in the hands of Spyed. I want Jark to win or dA to fail. Simple as that. :/
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: tickyhead on August 03, 2005, 03:58:54 AM
Agreed. Spyed is a lying, decietful, greedy human being, and I'd rather that great site die than see it in his hands.

What's ironic is that I'm a loner on DA....
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 03, 2005, 11:28:57 AM
Being a loner doesn't mean you don't know right from wrong. Sometimes I disappear from dA for large periods of time while I'm doing other stuff, btu it always cheers me up to come back to a few messages in my inbox. ^^
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on August 03, 2005, 05:17:47 PM
I don't know too much about the DA situation... mostly secondhand reports and such, but it seems like a clear-cut case of greed to me. Someone decided "hey, we can make money here!" and all other concerns were forgotten. The other art site I used to love was Yerf.com which has now been down for the better half of a year. This is despite Dingo (the admin there) getting around $3000 dollars in donations for a "new server" and many offers of help with acutal coding and such. He just hasn't done it.

On the old forum, where Fyre originally posted this, I mentioned "plans." Truth is, it's not much more than an idea at this point, but for a while now, I've really wanted to run an art community site. Xepher.net gets a lot of applications from artists, but a lot of those have to be denied because the artist knows little to nothing of web design, and can't actually present their works without the website actually detracting from them.

I think that I could pretty easily code a system that would take the best features from yerf and DA. It would take a decent investment of my free time to do so. The question, as always, is would it be worth it? Would enough people be interested, especially given the number of art sites already out there. Honestly, I think I'd probably target it towards the furry market, filling the gap left by yerf, as that genre has a lot less selection. DA already has alternatives like sheezyart and such, whereas yerf's runner up is probably VCL, but... well my problem with VCL is they let anyone in, and have no standards for artwork. Thus, around half the "art" there is just very badly drawn porn. Eventually, if the furry specific one worked out, I'd want to try doing a more general site, and take on DA and such directly. I just don't think that one starting from scratch could compete in that league for a while.

I'm not looking for an elietist community, but I think there should be some minimum standards. I'm thinking about trying to work on an invite system, similar to how gmail was started up. Xepher.net isn't even a unifed site, yet the community here is pretty strong. Because of this, I think an art site that's entirely focused on the community would take of like a rocket. But there's no sure way to know but try... I'm just reluctant to spend that much free time writing such a system until I start finding some other interested people. I've already got the code for uploading, indexing, and auto thumbnailing written, and I could probably borrow a lot of code from xepher.net for things like authentication. In other words, no real challenges in the coding, just time to make it all work nicely together.

Thoughts and suggestions?
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 03, 2005, 05:39:33 PM
Honestly Xepher, I would join your community anyday. I trust you to not think of money before the people's needs. I mean, heck, you give me and so many others free hosting just because you can. I still can't thank you enough for that.

As for how it is set up. I think an invite only to begin with is a great idea. I have a few artists from dA that I would hate to lost contact with and have great art. Aeyoqen (http://aeyoqen.deviantart.com) is an awesome artist and has been thinking about hosting, especially lately because of what has happened to dA. I have pointed her in your direction and if you start up an art community, I think she would be one of the ones that would love to join. I can give you a pretty safe bet that Sary, my friend from dA that I brought over here, would join your community as well. I'm sure I could round up a few more if you wanted me to, but these are just the two I'm sure would greatly consider your offer.

However, having invite only might subtract a bit from the community. If it was open only to those who were invited, would this include comments? (This is assuming there is of course the comment feature.) What I mean by open for comments is asking would you have to be signed up to submit a comment. Elfwood doesn't require you to sign up to leave a comment, and in some ways this is a neat feature. It wouldn't overload the server with accounts for people just to comment and appreciate the art.

Another thing. When you say it is an art community, what types of art would be allowed? Are you going to allow photography, sculpture and literature in as well? I'm not saying this as if I think these aren't art forms, but some sites don't do submissions of this type.

As I come up with questions and ideas, I wil post them. At the moment I need to go find something to eat before my dentist appointment.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Lei on August 03, 2005, 09:45:32 PM
The basic problem here is the fact that Jark gave his fellow co-founders (although Angelo wasn't originally one O_o) a lot of freedom. I don't know why he would give anyone else the ability to kick him out of the staff team, but he did. And Spyed didn't even consult the most other administrators. (They were shocked too, for the most part) Matteo was the other co-founder. Everyone forgets about him a lot : :D

 Both have their sides of the story, and both have given up a lot for Deviantart. Scott worked on it behind the scenes and in the front lines. He's responded to questions and concerns quickly and efficiently, not to mention he was so stressed out he was and currently is on medication for the stressed induced the the website.

  Spyed has maxed out his credit card for deviantart. I really wish I could support both sides of the stories better, but that's about the only good thing I've heard about him lately :D

 I'm on Jark's side, personally. He's given his all for this, and they just booted him out. Spyed has said that
1) he can't say too much due to legal issues (his journal entry)
2) that jark's loss of position has almost nothing to do with the company, among other things (journal entry)
3) and as shown here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/anti_deviantart/11123.html?nc=12) that a certain "tip off" or what not has nothing to do with what happened to JArk..

 It might be the pop talking, but it seems like he's just contradicted imself with every statment.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Gwyn on August 03, 2005, 11:00:38 PM
Quote from: SilentFyreIf I have to move communities, so be it. I want a community not a corporation.
We're hosted on one ;p
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on August 04, 2005, 12:19:23 AM
Fyre... to answer your questions:


As to what is "art" or at least what would be allowed. I think that, for a web gallery, we're really talking 2d images... that is to say, jpegs, pngs, gifs. No flash animations, no movies, no writings... I don't think I'd be opposed to someone posting a photo of a sculpture they made, same way I don't have a problem with scans of paintings. But I feel DA took a wrong turn when they started letting poems and such be posted as "art." I myself am a writer, many times more than I am an artist, but I have places I go for writing, and places I go for art. Lack of focus dooms most projects. I started Xepher.net with almost no focus at all, and I've been fighting ever since to narrow it down, as I've done so, it's grown tremendously. If I were to try a project like this art site, I'd try and do it correctly from the start, applying all I've learned about building and running a community here with XN.

I feel that the hosting for actual art would be "invite only" but commenting would be allowed for visitors. Whether or not they have to register a "visitor" account to post remains undecided. Mainly this would be for security concerns, because when you don't make people log in, you very quickly garner lots of spam in your comments. Just ask anyone with an open Moveable Type install about comment spam... it actually took down the whole server here a few months ago, before I put safeties in place for such things. The safeties just protect the server resources though, they don't block the spam.

Also, please realize that when I say "invite only" that doesn't mean a direct invite from me neccessarily, but like the gmail model, users will be able to invite their friends. And while they may, in fact, prevent some talented "outsiders" from joining, there's no rule that they can't make friends with a current member and then get an invite. In a sense, it'd be kinda like applications here. If you hang out in the community and start making friends, then it's really easy to get in. This just takes the impetus away from a formalized application process, and puts it directly in the hands of the community.

I actually have a rather complex social model designed for this, one that I've been thinking through over the years that should allow for all sorts of useful stuff. Specifically, because every member would be invited by another, there is a "hiearchy" of responsibility, but also of relationships. This, in a sense, makes for virtual neighborhoods and such... not that such a concept would be a very visible part of the site. Most viewers wouldn't really notice it even... but behind the scenes it allows for some very interesting methods for quality control, dispute resolution, and general jackass prevention. Part of what's sinking DA and Yerf, is that so much responsiblity is falling onto just a few individuals. I mean, Dingo is on a whole assortment of medications for various mental issues now, and according to Lei's post, one of the DA guys is on medication for web-induced stress as well. They're trying to hold the reins to a horse that's gone wild, and they're snapping because of it. Yes, they could (and I think DA does) just appoint a bunch of "admins" to go around and try and manage things, but then you end up trying to manage all the issues between the various admins. Instead of one wild horse, now you've got a team! If, however, you let the community self-select "admins" to speak for them on issues and to keep others in line, the horses are no longer fighting the rider, but are running free... but still a strong community (a herd?) though.

There's a lot of specifics I need to work out for the social model behind it, and the more I think about it, the more I realize I just might be able to do a general site from the get-go... letting the furry and other sub-communities be part as much (or as little) as they want. That would be the real beauty of this social/neighborhood model. At one point I had though about trying to move Xepher.net over to such a model, but I realize that, while some of us really are part of a community here, the majority of sites/users here just do their own thing in their own social circles. Trying to convert this place as it is now to something new would be grossly unfair to most of the people here. A new site though... *ponders* yes, an art site would be the perfect sort of community to use this model in.

For those curious for more details on the social model, I eventually gonna write up a short essay (whitepaper?) on it. For now though, picture it as a blending of absolute democracy, representation, and responsibility. People you invite in are, to some degree, your responsibility. Therefore if someone just sells invites, or brings in a bunch of jackasses, they themselves might be kicked out. Various sub-communities (neighborhoods) will have elected leaders... but those leaders can always be replaced by vote if they're not doing a good job. Anyone will be able to petition for a vote on nearly any issue... from banning a certain member, altering rules, to kicking someone out of office or asking for a changes in features/code. Nearly everything would be run by the community. With any luck, all I'd have to do is keep the server actually running, and maybe make some code changes here and there. I would never have to deal with adding or kicking people, resolving arguments, changing rules, deleting offensive posts, etc.

For anyone that's read "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow, you know what Whuffie is... for those who haven't, think of it as karmic currency, or "quantified respect." It's very, very simple. Basically, you give a thumbs up to people you like/respect, and a thumbs down to those you don't. I haven't figured out the exact math... it may be a 1-5 thing or something in the end, but the basics principal is the same. Respect also chains... That is, being respected by someone who is themselves highly respected counts for more than the respect of a bum. Think of it in real life... If Donald Trump calls you a friend, that counts quite a bit compared to the beggar on the street calling you friend. But likewise, for trump... if he hangs out with bums, it's going to hurt is reputation and respect a bit. Not as much as it helps the bum though. In this sense, Whuffie is always being generated. It may hurt your standing a bit to give it to others, but if they're deserving, it's worth more, and once they rise in their status, it will eventually help you to be "friends" with them.


I know a lot of this sounds complicated, but almost all the complication is "optional" or behind the scenes. From the point of view of an actual user, the only real thing they're going to see is the Whuffie scores and the +/- buttons to sort of "rate" people. Just imagine how useful that would be in the average forum though... If you could just "bzzt" a jackass, and so could everyone else. A few stupid posts and by that time tomorrow, the jerk's standing is so low he's not even allowed to post anymore. And yes, I have "safeties" worked in so people can't just team up and abuse such things. Checks and balances throughout.


Okay, this is getting a bit long, so I'm gonna cut it here. Like I said, I'll try and write up a full explanation when I get time, but I am curious to hear your thoughts on what I've presented so far.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 04, 2005, 12:42:16 AM
First off, right on that you feel it shoudl be completely art. I don't think writing was highly respected on devaintART. DeviantART, to me, was a place for artwork, not literature. Also, dA never really made it easy to figure out what the writing was about. Sure, they categorized it, but precious gems are rarely found in an abandoned mine.

So far, I am really liking what you have in mind for this community. It looks as if you are taking your time and thinking through it carefully, making sure every end fits together. I respect that and can wait until you can gather all of your thoughts into a full explanation.

Honestly, when you said open invites like gmail, I was thinking open invites like gmail. I wasn't thinking applications to you, I shot straight to being invited by a current member. I have been on a Ragnarok Online server that did this, and they followed the same chain of reactions. You were responsible for who you invited. That was that. It even saved it to where you could view who you had invited. They made it to where you could only invite one person a week, and then after a certain period of time, you could invite like 3 a week. I don't remember the actual statistics. People risked being banned themselves for whom they invited. I don't know about you guys, but if I had to try so hard to get myself an invite, I would be careful about who I invited to join the community for risk of being kicked out.

Checks and Balances all the way. I hear you there. These Whuffie scores sounds like an interesting idea as well. If I were in this community, I would be glad to be able to immediately show what kind of person someone is to newcomers. Say a person visited other artists pages and left helpful comments as much as they could. I would give these people a happy thumbs up. People however who made a mistake in the community can easily be spotted by their ratings and hopefully that will make them more aware of their actions.

I'm starting to confuse myself so I believe I will end it there. To sum it up: I like what you are thinking and look forward to your future plans.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on August 04, 2005, 04:53:32 PM
Quote from: SilentFyreHonestly, when you said open invites like gmail, I was thinking open invites like gmail. I wasn't thinking applications to you, I shot straight to being invited by a current member. I have been on a Ragnarok Online server that did this, and they followed the same chain of reactions. You were responsible for who you invited. That was that. It even saved it to where you could view who you had invited. They made it to where you could only invite one person a week, and then after a certain period of time, you could invite like 3 a week. I don't remember the actual statistics. People risked being banned themselves for whom they invited. I don't know about you guys, but if I had to try so hard to get myself an invite, I would be careful about who I invited to join the community for risk of being kicked out.
Sounds just like vRO, or Valhalla Online. That's the server I was on the dev team for. Too bad I never got to get out some of my quests before the server was shut down. I had a quest in the works that was actually something other than the typical "scavenger hunt" method that other developers were making. The quest was going to add a new account global variable for alignment, then I was going to make use of it throughout many other things throughout the world.


As for this art site. It sounds good! I wouldn't be part of the production part of the commnuity (because my art skills have gone down the toilet since I haven't used them in over 5 years), but I'd sure register as a member to browse and make comments.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 04, 2005, 10:02:48 PM
Quote from: DatabitsSounds just like vRO, or Valhalla Online. That's the server I was on the dev team for. Too bad I never got to get out some of my quests before the server was shut down. I had a quest in the works that was actually something other than the typical "scavenger hunt" method that other developers were making. The quest was going to add a new account global variable for alignment, then I was going to make use of it throughout many other things throughout the world..
Yes, It was indeed vRO. I was having a blank moment and totally forgot the name of the server.

Quote from: Gywn
Quote from: SilentFyreIf I have to move communities, so be it. I want a community not a corporation.
We're hosted on one ;p
I know and am very proud fo that fact. That's why I would join up with Xepher any day.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Lei on August 05, 2005, 04:17:25 PM
Quote from: SilentFyre
Quote from: Gywn
Quote from: SilentFyreIf I have to move communities, so be it. I want a community not a corporation.
We're hosted on one ;p
I know and am very proud fo that fact. That's why I would join up with Xepher any day.
Amen! :D

 Sounds like a great idea. I think visitors should sign up to comment, just to keep some of the spammers away, and so we could apply the whuffie system to them too; it's always good to know if you can respect this person's judgement. Also, although this might get (more) complicated, but what if you had to sign up for a visitor account first, and then the invitation would be sent to the account which, when activated, unlocked certain features if you agreed.

 Or that might be a little over the top. I don't know. I'm shying away from the majority of this coding stuff ^^
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on August 05, 2005, 09:27:50 PM
Quote from: LeiAlso, although this might get (more) complicated, but what if you had to sign up for a visitor account first, and then the invitation would be sent to the account which, when activated, unlocked certain features if you agreed.

 Or that might be a little over the top. I don't know. I'm shying away from the majority of this coding stuff ^^
Actually, that's how I figured it would work. You definitely don't want to just give artist accounts to someone who's never even taken the time to give comments to other people. I don't do that with X.N because here I'm granting actual machine accounts. For an art site, everything would be web only, and so I can manage user accounts in any way I design the system to do. I won't have to try and integrate all sorts of stuff behind the scenes like I do now, so "upgrading" an account to artist would be easy as pie.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Lei on August 08, 2005, 09:32:21 PM
a little tidbit on the jark situation.

 I hid all of Yellow day. I didn't feel like being blinded. But Today, out of curiosity, I clicked on the yellow pictures to see how many were dedicated to the alien. The yellow favourites wasn't, but there were two yellow prints dedicated to Yellow day.

 Somehow, I think they missed the concept.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 08, 2005, 11:38:12 PM
I didn't do anything but log on and tell people I was back. Right now I am spreading the love through commenting on my watchers and friends pages. I personally think this is the best way to get the sense of community back. So far I've gotten one comment on my page and let me tell you, it brightened my day considerably. ^^
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: RoxorFuxor on August 09, 2005, 04:54:59 AM
Wow, big response.  I posted about it on Spyed's (http://spyed.deviantart.com/) account, I honestly don't care.  Business is business, as they say.  DA IS a business, and I don't think many people realize that.  While I don't like the idea of firing someone for money, that is the way the world works.  If Jark really cared about DA, he would be saying that he supports the decision of his exco-workers and not to make a big fuss about it.  It seems he only cares about the money.  I am really sorry for him and I hope it doesn't hurt him THAT much financially, but life must go on.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Lei on August 09, 2005, 04:21:18 PM
Well, from what I see, Jark's just mad because something he worked hard on, since the beginning, was taken without a word. I'd fight for it if it were me, even if I was losing more money than I was making. Also, I can't help but Support Jark simply for the fact that he's working so much harder at this to get supporters. I see information in his journals and his friends and supporters, and although I've seen some of spyed's supporters reason, usually they just rant about the stupidity of the jark supporters or something.

 But yeah... I like and support jark, but that doesn't mean I have anything in common with his other supporters :)
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on August 10, 2005, 12:30:41 PM
Considering I don't know much about DA I can't really say a whole lot about it's community. However, I have looked at both sides, since people were so kind as to link the particular DA pages for me. From what I've read, I get the impression that the people who support this Spyed character just don't seem to have a grip (all seem like they are throwing an empty note).

Considering I've seen good free services with large communities go down the toilet as soon as it went paid, I wouldn't expect anything less in this situation. Esspecially if this Jark fellow build up another community site which could easily be done better than DA was.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on August 13, 2005, 02:31:26 PM
Updates: dA has changed their submission policy without setting up a formal notice.

http://justthorne.deviantart.com/journal/6182638/

Justthorn (http://justthorn.deviantart.com) explains this in their journal, bolding text they found important. I find this extremely disturbing. They are getting far too much power over my own personal artwork. I am one step away from completely pulling out of DeviantART. I'm giving this a week to get fixed, if even that, and then I am leaving. I'm tired of this crap happening.

Anyone have comments on this or feel I shoudl pull out immediately? I know I'm not great in the legal scene so I was hoping someone of you older and/or smarter people might understand the situation better than I currently can.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on August 13, 2005, 03:38:41 PM
Actually no, no matter what, the art is your intellactual property. You own the copyright to it. DA cannot pull such rights from any user. The worst thing they could is make an agreement policy that grants them a non-revokable license to the work that you posted up. Which is what it looks like they did.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on August 13, 2005, 07:01:22 PM
Quote from: DatabitsActually no, no matter what, the art is your intellactual property.
That's not always true. While there are several protections in place to ensure that entry-level artists (and other creators) have copyright in their favor, it is legally possible to give up, sell, or transfer copyright ownership to another person or entity. This is pretty common practice in the music industry, where the record label owns a copyright, not the individual creator. Also it goes for most movies as well, which is why Disney pushed so hard to have copyright extended for another 70 years. There are several writers I know who got burned by this. They got taken in by scam "publishers." They thought they were just selling publication rights, but because they didn't read the contract, they were actually selling the copyright itself.

Now, I skimmed over the new DA agreement, and it doesn't seem like they're doing quite that. They've got a clause specfically saying the artist retains full copyright, but as noted above, they are setting it up so that they can do whatever they want, with anything you post, with no compensation. Most likely this just means they're going to offer to sell on-demand prints of the art there to make money... without paying the artist of course. Worst case scenario is that they resell the whole archive to an art and photo stock company who in turn sells it to something like microsoft, and suddenly your art is packaged with MS publisher's clip art, and a copy is on millions and millions of computers around the world, and you haven't made a cent. Or if they were really evil, they could take your art, draw scribbles on it, and post it in some show somewhere about "The Stupidity of Teenagers and Wannabe Artists" with all sorts of nasty comments about how stupid you are and then give everyone your personal information.

Don't expect that to actually happen though.

The rest of the agreement looks like a pretty standard CYA agreement. All those other "evil" clauses that were bolded... well, most of them are there to protect them from lawsuits. A lot of it was devoted to absolving themselves of responsibility for damages if other people "steal" your artwork and such. That's pretty much a neccessity, as they can't actually prevent other people from taking it and using it.

The only other bits of note are basically saying they can advertise the site, do interviews, let your page show up in screenshots, etc. Basic advertising CYA. If CNN interviewed them, and someone at the office had your page open in the background, you could possibly sue them if that wasn't in there.

In my opinion, it's a lot less evil then people seem to think it is. It just looks evil because lawyers are involved, and they always have a bad smell about them. I also think that too many amature artists get way too uppity about their art. My favorite examples are the completely awful artists who draw like 5-year-olds yet put watermarks the size of Rhode Island over their pictures, and have copyright warnings that take several paragraphs at the bottom of each page. Imagine the number of complaints a place like DA must deal with everyday. I'd want a lawyer and his big words watching my tail too. I honestly should have a similar agreement for the services here, but frankly, I still hold out hope for humanity, and by refusing to put in a bunch of legalese, I like to think I'm doing some small part to keep the world a friendlier place.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: griever on August 21, 2005, 12:55:22 AM
I've been part of DeviantArt for a few years (my current account only says one though, cause I switched it) and to be honest, I've never felt the community that everyone's talking about.  Comments and friending others are nice, but as for the DeviantArt forums...well...they're just a disaster in the works.  

Though my roommate, I've heard bits and pieces about what's been going on at DeviantArt.  I dislike what they did because I don't think they're large enough for that kind of corporate backstabbery (who do they think they are - Walmart?) and I also dislike their money-grabbing mindset.  However, I realize that they need to make money, as image hosting eats up a lot of bandwidth.  Those kinds of policies are required, if paid memberships cannot sustain it.  I kind of wish I could poke them and tell them that their own site probably eat up a lot of  bandwidth as well and they should think about reforming that too.  >.>

And Xepher, I think your plan sounds great.  I really like the invite system (although I feel that gmail has been abused and that LiveJournal never should have gotten rid of theirs).  I realize that my idea is perhaps not so democratic, but maybe people with higher community standings could get more invites?  I don't aspire to this ability, but I'd much rather have someone with high standing (and a better eye for art, hopefully) having more opportunities to invite talent.  

Anyway, if you're wondering about support - I know two of my artists friends were excited to hear about your Phase 3 concept when I told them about it, because they're fed up with megasites like DA, Yerf, and Elfwood.  I realize it's only two people, but still...better some than none. ^_^
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on August 21, 2005, 05:11:05 AM
Good to hear! As for "higher standing members" getting more invites... that's kind of the idea. Respect (whuffie) lets you do more things. Of course, inviting a bunch of people, means of bunch of people you're somewhat responsible for. To quote, "With great power comes great responsibility." :-)

On the overall social concepts, I hope to model a lot of it on true democracy, and some of the founding american ideals. For example, we have a congress and a senate. In the congress, big states get more votes. The senate balances that by giving every state the same number of votes. Since bills have to go through both, it maintains the ideals of majority rules with minority rights. Of course it won't be "states" in the case of an online community, but rather members and subcommunities. While "big players" will get more power, there will be plenty of safeguards to make sure they can't abuse it, the most important of which is that such power is actually given to them by the community. You can't remain popular and respected if you do a lot of unpopular and disrespectable things. The currency for the community will be respect, and that's something people have to earn.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: ChaosArchivist on September 13, 2005, 12:48:15 AM
That is amazing... I may not be a member of dA, but I often go out there to find new, interesting ideas... At least Xepher.net is still good, so I have somewhere to find good art (and inspiration) online.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Nat-chan on September 30, 2005, 12:24:37 PM
was/ is there so much fuss about? I never knew... okay i have been a member for a few years ... but what i did notice a little is dthat they changed  a little about the licence policy. Major of my fav artists were thinking of leaving DA, so that is when i know. The DA forum ... it's a bit hostail, in my opinion. But the rest okay, i guess, when you pretend not to see the crap what some people are posting...

oh xepher, i think that your are idea is great! However, it might be unnessary to mention, there is one thing I am kinda worring about. You told about 'high leveled" art and the inviting system, which are really great. Still I am worried about some later 'invited generations'. I am sure that the 1 st generation is doing well, as for their friends, but what about their friend and their friends? I know you dont have the control over the matter. Then you can use the rating system. O_O nonono... not like gaia online, that system is totally crap. I was thinking outloud....
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on September 30, 2005, 03:40:27 PM
Well, the idea is that later generations don't have the power to invite until they earn enough respect in the community. Also, things can be "fixed" retroactively. It is possible to bring a petition and get people removed if they become a problem. Also, I'm thinking that invites are going to need approval from more than just the inviter. That is, other people "near" them have to approve new members. Think of respect as an aggregate. Enough people with enough respect have to agree to the new member. Thus, people low-down the totem poll, as it were, need to invite GOOD people that will easily be approved by many others. People higher up in terms of respect... well idealy they've already proven themselves good judges, but the important bit is they have more respect, as such, they have more "weight" when it comes to new members, and don't have to convince as many other people. This keeps things moving at those levels.

It's like real life in many ways. Say I want to go bomb iraq. I can't. I have no respect in the circles of congress and such, so nothing gets done. Now, if on the other hand, iraq really NEEDS to be bombed, and I suggest it... well, maybe I can get more people to agree and they get even more. I can't convince the army to go attack, but me and 10 million of my closest friends sure could have a pretty good shot at it. On the other hand, there are people like the president. He wants to go to war, and he's really only gotta convince a few people close to him. Things (ideally) get done a lot faster at the high levels because (theoretically) the people that were placed there have earned our respect and trust.

Now, seeing how my example seems blatently a bad thing to most people, here's how Artica would differ from the government. Imagine that, if you didn't like Bush and how he was handleing things, you personally could start the impeachment process. :-)

The other thing is that, unlike america as a whole, an art site would be composed of much more like-minded people. There wouldn't be 10,000 unique interests to balance, but only a few dozen. As such, there wouldn't be the need for the radical compromises that tend to undermind the effectiveness of large government.
Title: dA in ruins?
Post by: MPSinclair on September 30, 2005, 03:55:52 PM
This sounds like a very sound system, Xepher. I look forward to your "Artica" thread. :)

[EDIT:] Apparently you already made the thread, my bad. *scampers off to read* :P
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Thu on July 10, 2007, 12:54:35 AM
Ouch. I think a new community started by you, Xepher, would be a great idea. But then again, there are people out there who love to spam and cause a lot of drama. And even if you give them guidelines, those people probably wouldn't read it or understand it.  :-\
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on July 10, 2007, 03:33:05 PM
Holy dear god this post is from way back in 2005.  :D
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Thu on July 10, 2007, 07:59:06 PM
LOL.  :D
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: TheTwinNex on November 13, 2007, 06:34:40 AM
Scary to come back here and find my old old topic was bumped. Eeek.
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: jekkal on November 17, 2007, 12:56:20 PM
Ironically, all these years after the thread gets necro'd, I would still argue that I consider dA to be a hellhole.

The rift in features between paid/unpaid now is ridiculous; at least at LiveJournal you still have lots of functionality for basic stuff, and if you don't want to pay you can put up with ads. And quite frankly, I see no reason to pay for dA subscriptions when my page basically remains ignored either way; at least on Gaia I get something for wasting my money. ;)
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Xepher on November 17, 2007, 06:14:28 PM
DA has PAID account/subscription options now? That sounds like a scam in the making. I mean, what do they give you that's worth real world money? It was one thing to advertise, or even to take profit perentages off prints/shirts/stuff, but to limit features of a website so they can charge for more. Hmm... maybe the market/need for another art site IS there.
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: pigeon-wing on November 17, 2007, 11:06:55 PM
These are the features listed on the subscriptions page:

"   * Get up to 120 Deviations per page when browsing
    * Browse with No Ads
    * Browse Way Back all the way to 2000
    * Customize 20 slots on your front page
    * Download art to your Mobile Phone with deviantMOBILE(1)
    * Make journals with Polls, Forum, Shoutbox, and even CSS"

$4.95 for a month, $7.95 for three months, or $29.95 for a year... I certainly wouldn't shell out money for such features when I have my very own website to customize ;)
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: John on November 18, 2007, 08:30:40 PM
Quote from: pigeon-wing on November 17, 2007, 11:06:55 PM
These are the features listed on the subscriptions page:

"   * Get up to 120 Deviations per page when browsing
    * Browse with No Ads
    * Browse Way Back all the way to 2000
    * Customize 20 slots on your front page
    * Download art to your Mobile Phone with deviantMOBILE(1)
    * Make journals with Polls, Forum, Shoutbox, and even CSS"

$4.95 for a month, $7.95 for three months, or $29.95 for a year... I certainly wouldn't shell out money for such features when I have my very own website to customize ;)


Sheezyart has those features for free, anyways. :P
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: jekkal on November 21, 2007, 10:01:36 PM
SheezyArt lets you browse and post in peace, eh?

*necro's her account there* Might be worth it to post some pages over there. Not like my dA and FA pages are doing much now anyways.
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: amuletts on January 19, 2009, 12:43:31 AM
SheezyArt is the place to be, eh?  Well, I definately dislike dA's profiteering.  What is FA?
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on January 19, 2009, 01:56:46 AM
Just for the record, it's not cheap to host mass amounts of image content. I don't entirely blame DA for starting to charge for some things if they've been doing it for free for a long time if they are losing out on shit. However, it's one of them things that should probably be implemented into *new* users and just grandfather in old users.
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: SilentFyre on February 21, 2009, 02:52:33 AM
People keep necromancing my thread. Holy cow.
Title: Re: dA in ruins?
Post by: Databits on February 22, 2009, 06:46:12 PM
HAHA, zombie threads FTW.