Is DeviantArt broken?

[Luie]

I'm using "cyberbully" in a colloquial sense here. Of course they aren't, this is just what they've been dubbed by other members of dA. And I'm not just talking about a rude comment here or there, I'm talking about a string of accounts set up to flag art, or cause a fight in the comments section to steer content creators with controversial topics to have to disable comments. Hell, I've even seen comic creators disabling comments because if people arguing.

As for changing my attitude about dA, I feel like I am making a bigger difference supporting content I enjoy on Tapastic rather than on dA. After all, that mechanic is a feature of each site, but it is on such a huge scale in dA. I have friends I've been supporting for years on dA and it has not made a difference in their popularity, especially from my viewer base to theirs. Of course I'm still supporting them as friends, but I've given up using that site for the same purposes I once did and by the looks of it a lot of people here have too.

[AngieVX]

My journals read more people than I expected XD People rarely comment on our journals unless we ask direct questions ABOUT THEM or choose really HOT topics (art thieves, rude people, DA being a bad website... XD). The trick is to talk to people who can be interested in our artworks, not only to super popular artists.

[AnnaLandin]

I always read FAQ first before asking something XD

Me too! I do the same on every site I use - the FAQs are there for a reason. : )

I once wrote to a help desk, but I think it's not such a big problem, I just wrote it in case they don't know about the bug I've mentioned, so they could fix it when they have resources to do so. It's not that a developer will fix all the bugs immediately when they're reported.

Hey, if they had just said "Oh, thank you for reporting it, we'll put it on the list of things to fix!" or "It's a known problem, we're working on it!" I wouldn't have minded - but I have, consistently, though the ten years I've been on DeviantArt, been met with outright rudeness from the admins/mods. When I reported the payment issue, I was basically told that it was not their problem, and they didn't bother answering the other half of my questions (which were to do with the membership privileges).

I'm fine with fixes taking time - there have been lots of issues with the stats here on Tapastic for the last month, but the staff has let us know that it's because of some database issues and that they're working on it. And that's okay! There are no magical fixes for bugs! But unlike the dA admins/mods, I've never felt vaguely insulted after talking to Tapastic staff-members.

Sometimes people make weird comments but such comments say more about people who write them than about you.

It does say more about them, yes. But I also don't feel comfortable with the comment-threads below my devations filling up with sexual advances or outright hate-speech (directed at someone other than me, but still a problem). There have also been a few instances where I've stumbled across neo-nazi accounts on dA, which clearly breaks their ToS-agreement, but which haven't been dealt with either, despite being reported.

My final two cents on this is that dA has problems that go well beyond the attitude of its userbase, and that the usability of the site and the attitude of its admin/staff (and NOT just their speed in fixing issues) lie at the heart of that.

[AngieVX]

The stuff actually said that to me, I mean "Thank you for letting us know".

[AffectedMind]

The trick is to talk to people who can be interested in our artworks, not only to super popular artists.

I didn't even said that... My point was, the more popular you are the more feedback on your account, not to hang out with popular ones to get popular or recommended by them... Even if, you wouldn't gain many watchers because, like you said, they wouldn't be interested in your kind of art.

[AngieVX]

Sure, the more popular you are, the more feedback you get, it's natural. But it's not only about popularity, or about profit, it's about being happy because you've made someone happy. Find a good artwork with no favs, or only a couple of favs, write a comment... the artist will appreciate it.

[Vikiro_Hop]

Yeah I never got super into Deviant art, but posted there pretty regularly for a while. I kinda stopped when they made uploading more of a pain, (I liked uploading a lot of stuff at once and had no intention of paying for the privilege.) In retrospect that probably helped keep people randomly spam uploading so that's good i suppose. Most of the stuff I posted got a little bit of kind feedback but it never took off for me. I went back after a few years and made a new account, and the community just seemed super diluted with the same stuff.

@AngieVX I think it's awesome that Deviant art is working well for you, and that you feel strongly enough to defend it here. Like I said earlier a lot of my issues with the site are more about my tastes than the actual site itself. What I think people here are trying to say though is that the site has really gone down hill, and for that reason a lot of people are leaving it. The fact is a lot of artists only have so much energy to put into stuff outside of creating, so a site that has a deteriorating community or a staff that doesn't care is just gonna be off putting. Positive attitude is commendable, but it sounds like there are some pretty big flaws with the site that the admins/mods don't feel the need to address. I know you mentioned not having faced any cyber bullying, and that could be due your perspective, the people you attract with your work, or just plain luck. In the end though even I'm aware of that there is some creepy shit that has happened on that site. Which is why its been starting to get a bad rep.

When sites get this way it's really hard (dare I say impossible.) to bring them back, and it doesn't look like the people in charge or the community are taking the steps needed to. Reminds me of a certain website where a lot of youtube animators got their start.

In the end I think the site is just over grown, which happens to the best of sites. I was definitely looking for something a bit more tight nit, and I feel like if I found it a bit earlier I would have loved Deviant. Now it seems like a hulking mess of a site with bad UI and a lot of weird shit.

[Luie]

a lot of weird shit.

I remember when I discovered just how weird the shit got. The babies, the sanic balloons, the...

tied up children will ballgags

[AngieVX]

I understand what they say, and I understand that they are leaving. I really do... I understand their feelings. Don't you think I felt the same? But then I realized that instead of putting efforts into improving and communicating I only waited for people to like my art. Blaming DA stuff, or the algorithm, or other people doesn't help, it doesn't make you a better artist. It makes your angry. It's counterproductive. And it's not about bringing back people, it's about trying to bring back the atmosphere, the support that I felt from DA community. Besides I think it's unfair to say that DA stuff doesn't do anything, because they actually try to fix some issues. And if you ask me, the first issue is groups. I would put a global limit so a user could submit in groups let's say up to five deviations per week. It might be five different deviations in the same group, or one deviation in five groups. They would get rid of spam.

[Vikiro_Hop]

Fair enough, I'll admit I'm not terribly good about going out of my way to communicate and with that site it seemed overwhelming. I am glad you were able to see past the problems with the site and get something out of it. I wish you all the best with it.

[fanyart]

I've been on DA since high school and it really used to be a much better place. I never really participated in the community apart from comments and likes but overall talking to others was fun.

I was gone for a few years and when I came back it was as all of you said - in no way one could discover new art because it was all flooded with porn, fanarts and mobile photos... At least the porn could be blocked but then you had a wall of censored images XD So I gave up discovering new art there

I wish they divided the whole website into parts for fanart, selfies AND original art - this way we could be happy in our little "original art" section

Except being stalked one time (one of the reasons I left for all those years), I've only read about people getting hate, but I admit it still scared me - one of my picture some years ago became featured and got hundreds of comments and being a shy person I'm just too scared to read through them >.<;;;

I want to share a funny thing: recently I've been moving my old stuff there into scraps so that my gallery would be more representative of what I do now, and I've noticed that the images in my scraps have much more favs than my recently uploaded pictures! It's because the scraps are from my first years there, where the community was nicer and getting noticed was easier.

Now I'm just using it to post random stuff when I remember to, and quickly leave again.

but it just feels like it's a popularity contest that I don't have the energy for trying to get a substantial amount of subscribers.

Exactly. I hate it when people focus only on popularity

there have been lots of issues with the stats here on Tapastic for the last month, but the staff has let us know that it's because of some database issues and that they're working on it.

Actually, I found that quite hilarious, it would be cool if it happened on April 1st XD
And yeah, I've never heard of staff being so devoted to their website as Tapastic. So let's enjoy being here - we don't have to worry about DA when we have Tap, right?

[mattcleaver]

Deviantart is, in my opinion, kind of a relic of a bygone age (despite them trying to make it more like newer sites) in that it requires people to have patience and actually care about a lot of other people and what they do. Not as many people are willing to invest time like that anymore.

Without being too cynical, I think the advent of Facebook and that sort of thing has increased the 'instant gratification' trend in Internet peeps and it means you're going to get less feedback on places like Deviantart unless you do some super popular, topical or comedic thing that everybody loves.

I am on Deviantart and actually do okay there with over a million views, but yeah, it's definitely not the creature it used to be, or rather, the internet isn't what it used to be. I came onto this site just today to try something different and I love it so far!

Oh just in case anyone was was interested, here's my comic ^__^

[Chopythes]

I wish they divided the whole website into parts for fanart, selfies AND original art - this way we could be happy in our little "original art" section

Omg, that'd be so great if they could implement something like that.
Wherever I go to deviantART these days, it's a lot of fan art and popular artists. I don't think I've discovered any new artists in a while that creates original stuff.
I'm not saying fan art is bad, I'm really not, but I love seeing peoples creative ideas. And since I, myself, don't create that whole lot of fan art, it'd be nice with a corner to hang around.
The groups can only do so much.

But like a friend said to me: "The only way to get feedback is to create tutorials, fan art or porn".

[Luie]

Blaming DA stuff, or the algorithm, or other people doesn't help, it doesn't make you a better artist. It makes your angry. It's counterproductive.

Oh please don't. Please don't use that kind of argument. We are upset about what has happened to dA. We want to discuss why. The problems we are discussing are not the result of not making enough of an effort. Please don't make it sound like that. The problem stems from multiple factors. As for counter-productiveness and "bettering ourselves as artists", I find it really ironic that we're discussing dA on Tapastic.

But yeah, what you suggested for the groups might help. I really think they need to re-design the browse features and disable the ability to submit x amount of selfies and c/p memes. And maybe make the favorite button a part of the comment box so that this whole favnrun thing can end. Or the fav button could come with a feature that allows creators to know why the deviation was favorited with some simple easy multiple choice answers (and other, of course).

[keii4ii]

I wish they divided the whole website into parts for fanart, selfies AND original art - this way we could be happy in our little "original art" section

This already exists in the form of original art groups, but it's not working for multiple reasons. In a nutshell, though, I think @Vikiro_Hop nailed it:

In the end I think the site is just over grown, which happens to the best of sites.

It's not a bad thing that dA has changed. There are clearly people who like what it has become. The problem is that many of us who don't have not yet found a good alternative. The search is still ongoing. A lot of people like tumblr... good for them! I don't. I use it just because a lot of others do, but I'd like a platform that makes communication easier. NOT just 1:1 private communication, but an open, public conversation like the comments system.

There are a few art platforms out there with comments system, which I have listed in an earlier post. I'm in the process of testing the waters in each of them. Time will tell how that works out!

[AffectedMind]

And maybe make the favorite button a part of the comment box so that this whole favnrun thing can end. Or the fav button could come with a feature that allows creators to know why the deviation was favorited with some simple easy multiple choice answers (and other, of course).

And of course get rid off drag and drop thing, because now u can add others art to favourite and don't even click on it... I guess they wanted to make it faster and easier, but why? It was just one click away...

I find it really ironic that we're discussing dA on Tapastic.

Haha yea... but like I said before I'm really scared people on DA will flame me for this kind of topic... Here, I know I can DISCUSS things.

[fanyart]

I don't think I've discovered any new artists in a while that creates original stuff.

That's it - I used to love browsing DA and exploring original art or finding reference photos (even my mom learned to use computer and a little bit of English by browsing DA) but now there's just impossible to find anything interesting there - and I doubt it's because of my not-very-well developed abilities navigating social websites. Even when you search Photography for "clouds sunset" all you get are some selfies or poor quality mobile photos and even stuff that has nothing to do with the tags. Only less than 10% is what you actually search for so I have to say I always give up pretty quickly. I wonder if it's because people spam tags, because the same happens when you search for things like "Manga Studio brushes"

Or the fav button could come with a feature that allows creators to know why the deviation was favorited with some simple easy multiple choice answers (and other, of course).

I would love this with many other occasions but I don't think it would work because people get irritated by multiple clicks quickly, even if it was optional.

This already exists in the form of original art groups, but it's not working for multiple reasons.

I admit I never really understood groups... who makes them, searching for groups, how they work, who can submit and comment... Occasionally I get a notice that someone wants to add something into their group I accept it because I don't mind (actually I would love if we had an option to automatically approve of these, since I don't go on DA very often), but that's all I've figured out despite putting some effort into understanding how it works. So far I've mostly seen groups that seemed more like a collection of favorite images, without any activity.

@keii4ii I also wanted to ask about Tsu, since it seems safe with invite-only. Can uninvited people also view artists galleries there? Also, it seems mostly photography to me...

[AffectedMind]

Can uninvited people also view artists galleries there? Also, it seems mostly photography to me...

Not really. Once I clicked the link to someone's Tsu account and I had to be registered. Everything is blurred. And as far as I noticed it's more like facebook? Not necessary art focus. But I dunno, I haven't use it yet.

EDIT: what the... I googled "Tsu opinions" and first site is spammed with "is Tsu a social media scum"
Tsu is pretty contoversial topic... wow o-0

[fanyart]

Aha, thanks for telling me. Tsu is now out of the list. I hoped it would be something for artists only.

From all sites I've ever tried, I've been by far most comfortable here on Tap. It's just the best. Let's hope we get a gallery feature some day so that everything would be in one nice place

[blastryoku]

Actually, Tsu is like a combination of Facebook, instagram and tumblr and encourages you to create and post original content so yes it could be for artists of all kinds but like with every social media site, there's the usual mix of trolls and such. It's invite-only because it uses a family tree for your network so everyone who signed through your short code becomes the children of your network and people who signs up through their short code becomes your grandchildren.

Also about the controversy it's because Tsu uses a different business model in which it gives you 90% of the ad revenue to the users who post original content, that's why it was blocked by Facebook, instagram and Reddit because they are afraid tsu might change the market(Facebook is most afraid it seems so far)XD

I like the community on tsu so far, pretty nice and friendly and i always get to know new artists and see new art.