OK...

Here's the deal, I'm gonna post a few things here from now on, but I'll make it clear that I still hate this place.

However I decided to return for the sole purpose of showing people there are a lot other places that have much nicer people and don't rely on naruto doodles to work.

Also with that in mind, as well as the fact I don't agree with the amount of freedom dA claims to the submitted works, every submission here will be watermarked with a huge logo and links to other galleries where the specific work can be found, as a larger file, with better quality image and larger.


For those who just got to my page, clarifications and such here - [link]

"Royalty-free describes (typically graphics such as stock photography and icons, but also sound such as music loop samples) that may be used for profit, without paying royalties."

- Wikipedia

That's true, and it's not any sort of early April fools joke. The art is gone, the scraps are gone, even the favs are gone!!! (that doesn't mean I don't like them anymore, it's just annoying to have people like "wow you have a nice gallery (...) oh, sorry I didn't realize it was your favorites)

I wasn't going to submit but I ckecked the new submission agreement and WHAT THE HECK?

"6. Unless otherwise agreed between Artist and deviantART in a writing from deviantART, the license granted to deviantART under this Agreement is royalty-free."

what the fuck? now you must pay them otherwise they practically OWN your work?

really, even if I may have misread it, I think they say they claim Royalty-Free right at least 3 times... and none of them seems to be 100% clear. How can one rely on a submission agreement that is totally devoid of clarity and straight-forwardness?


like:
"a) Artist has the full right and power to enter into and perform this Agreement and to grant deviantART all rights to use the Artist Materials as contemplated in this Agreement, including, without limitation, the license grants in Sections 3, 4 and 5,"

???????????????????????????????????????????????

this is not me suddendly bitching about the agreement...

the 9 things I hate the most about DA (because unfortunately I coudn't find 1 more):

1 - Submission Agreement: Well I've said it alreay, and I know the administration will at a certain point try to explain what everything means in an obscure journal entry of one of the admins. If they've got nothing to hide, why don't they make the damn thing easier to understand? Regardless, the amount of times they say "Royalty free" when reffering to the site's rights doesn't make me feel comfortable at all.

2 - Daily Top Favorites: The true showdown of lack of respect. Any art community decent enough would have this crap removed or fully reformulated. There was a time it would show interesting new artists, when DA wasn't much of a fav-fest as it is today, now it's only good for showing the same overhyped artists over and over again.

3 - Prints: Something I totally fail to understand is why in hell do so many people sell prints here... Really, ripping off the printing costs plus 50% of liquid profit, and yet have a setup fee... FOR A PRINT-ON-DEMAND SERVICE? Damn, I can understand why when publishing a book or cd the artist will get around 10-15% profit because the publisher will have to go through mass-production, translation, advertisement, transportation. But the prints means you will just leave the thing there and they'll wait to be bought and THEN they'll print and sell.. It's totally not worth the money they ask for. Heck, I could easily set up a CafePress store and pay no setup fee, yet rip 100% profit above base cost (and one day I still might), why should I sell anything here?

4 - Site structure: A lot has changed since I first visited this place. At that time they would show up a lot of recent deviations, it was a good place to see different artists, but now the recent reviations went from 12 to only 5, and yet favorite prints got added. Then also there used to be favorites when browsing each category, now there's top-selling prints?

5 - Daily Deviations: This thing should be renamed to "Deviations picked by biased admins". I can count on my fingers the times I checked and there wasn't any naked or half-naked women photo in it, at the sametime I can count on my fingers there was sci-fi art, original 3d works, and many other things that are constantly overlooked in this place. Yet not mentioning they don't seem to take a look at the user they're spotlighting, as they often give DDs to popular artists over and over or give DDs to people who do not care, like "Deviation comments: 20". If they cared about making this a spotlight for a variety of artists it would be good, but it seems the concept is completely absent.

6 - People: There are, and it seems da cares none, heckbucketloads of people like "oooh I'm popular so I'm gonna stomp my fans". I'm sick of people who receive a lot of praise yet treat all their fans like bitches, and make a load of personal rules like they own this place. And it seems that there is a bunch of IQ-lacking people around as well. Basically they simply submit to that, because they want to be friends with "P0puL4hr 4rt157" and when someone shows up who's actually interested in this person's work the guy in question does not care, because he wants to be "P0puL4hr" and he can't mix with such "lowlings"...

7 - Numbers: To begin with, there shoudn't be any AT ALL. Even though I think it's fun to be random at times to say "aahh ____ pageviews" I really hate to see things like "Wow ___ pageviews! you must be a great artist!". Damn I've seen a lot of people with 100k+ who cant draw anything besides cheap anime chibis or sonic characters and also people with 20k- you'd look and say "I wish I was that skilled". Like the DTFs, a DECENT art site would have this shoved off a long time ago.

8 - Search function: "Due to overwhelming demand, the search function is disabled for the time being" Was that some sort of retarded joke? The thing got down for like, over an year and a half!!! And you know why? Because it helps to see overlooked artists. And that's not what they want. All they want is to spotlight popular artists so they can make money from their prints. If they actually cared about it they would have it back in 1,2 month tops, AND they would at least have the decency to allow filter by category.

9 - Spotlight programs: Really, where are they? Many sites around hold the equalyzing of users as a major concern, while DA does only a few programs that are very shy and hardly even supported by the admins. IT could have been fixed with Daily Deviations, but the only admin that seems concerned with the subject is ^neoikeia, the rest being pervs who like to DD nude girls.

----------------------------

Seriously, if you're reading this because this journal popped up in your message center, I have nothing against you. Actually you guys were the only reason I didn't leave at least 1 year ago. I feel bad to let you down but I really can't take it anymore.

When I joined this place I saw lots of artists becoming friends with each other, interaction and such... now all that I see is a capitalist cesspool of ass-kissing... I'm still around but not here anymore. All my stuff got transferred to my sheezyart account if you want to look (except stuff so ugly I really didn't want to keep).

What I see in DeviantArt today is an loathsome arrogant giant destined to its self-destruction, just like ICQ... It all starts when other similar services get better in all aspects except userbase. and SheezyArt is CERTAINLY better thant DA in both speed and features. Heck, they even allow music while DA hardly allows flash animations!

I bet some day there will be sites that will see no problem with huge movies and downloadable games, and also cheaper print services. That day Deviantart will die and I'll be having a nice grin on my face. And I'll help to speed up the process with most pleasure.....

It sads me also to be leaving elfwood... I think that place is an awesome art site, specially in the community aspect... I just don't have the patience to keep up with it...

I'll still hang around for a while and keep checking what some of you are doing, don't know how long, but simply abandoning you all of sudden is somethind I woudn't do.

For now I need to browse around SA and see how many of you are there... if you are, please tell me!

All in all, any of you who have stopped by and payed attention, you have been awesome. But's it's time to move on. Art is to be shown in art galleries. Leave the capitalist communities to the mercenaries.

now, good bye guys!!!
and BURN IN HELL Deviantart!!!

Well.. trying to vent off my anger toward all these stupid people... here's an analisys to each thing they usually do:

Someone clicks the devwatch button
Bad: *mark as read*
- Likely result: the person will take you for another of those artists who do not care for their fans, or think their fans should bow down at all times

Good: "Thankyou for the watch "
- Likely result: the person will like your modesty to and will enjoy keeping up with your art

Someone critiqued on something you clicked "Critique discouraged"
Bad: "Why the heck are critiquing on this? It says critique discouraged dammit!"
- Likely result: whoever critiques is likely open-minded people who appreciates artists who are modest enough to embrace them and intelligent enough to keep answers polite. You probably lost a critic

Good: "Lol... I wasn't really expecting critiques, since I cliqued critique discouraged, but thanks"
- Likely result: the person will apologize and will start paying more attention to the critique notice.

You've received a comment "W007"
Bad: "What? that's not a comment"
- Likely result: people who writes these like do not care whatever the reply is, but others reading it won't appreciate the view

Good: say a plain "Thanks" or just leave it be
- Likely result: people reading the comments will take you for someone who doesn't get touched by useless comments and will keep the nice comments

You've just received giftart
Bad: "Nice... thanks"
- Likely result: the person will take you for another of those dicks who takes a giftart and stash it, and will remember how "thankful" you were everytime something from you pops you in the person's devwatch

Good: "Wow you did something for me!! It looks so nice, I like how you did (...) thanks a lot! "
- Likely result: you'll make the person feel happy and accomplished, for seeing how much you liked receiving the gift, and could likely consider doing something for you again

Someone wrote an e-mail/note that reads "Z0MG! UR ART 1SH 1337!!!ONE11!! (...)"
Bad: "What the heck? What kind of language is that?"
- Likely result: the person will feel stupid and will leave it be. it's a possibility you'll never hear from the person again

Good: "Sorry, but I'm not keen to this kind of language, I'd appreciate if you could write it in plain english"
- Likely result: the person will still feel kinda stupid but will likely apologize and rewrite that

You're writing a journal
Bad: "I've been picking all this people who keep annoying me, all they do is (...)

Personal rules:
- Don't (...)
- Don't (...)
- Don't (...)
- etc..."
- Likely result: many will say they agree in order to make them look cool toward you, but the truth is a lot of people will feel embarassed for once having done something that's not all wrong. And since you keep making up these rules, many won't know what the heck they should or should not do. (REMEMBER: YOUR RULES ARE NOT DEVIANTAR'S RULES!!! you agreed to the rules once you joined and therefore you have NO POWER TO CREATE REAL RULES! so, if you make up rules and people do not obey, DEAL WITH IT!)

Good: "I'd like to say thanks to all of you who keep giving me such nice support. There's these nice people (...) I'd like to ask you if (...)"
- Likely result: whoever reading it will feel happy to know you appreciate the attention the person gives to you, and will likely comment something nice on your journal as well and keep the nice support

The person asks you for a trade but you won't accept
Bad 1: *ignore*
- Likely result: the person won't know what happened, if you don't want or just lost the note, so he will keep asking
Bad 2: "no"
- Likely result: you'll really make the person feel down since apparently you're to good good for him/her, and will remember that when something with your name pops up in the message centre

Good: "Sorry to let you down, nothing against you but I'm not interested in the trade..." (insert another reason to refuse here)
- Likely result: it's quite impossible not to let someone down for refusing a trade but if you say something nice the person will go on and maybe ask for it another day

Someone is with you on IM
Bad 1:
Fan: "hi"
You: "who the heck are you?"
- Likely result: yeah what a way to greet a fan
Bad 2:
Fan: "hi"
You: "hi"
*skips "i like your art etc blablabla*
Fan: *says something cool*
You: "nice"
Fan: *says another thing cool*
You: "cool"
- Likely result: he will stop talking to you because he'll take you for an idiot

Good:
Fan: "hi"
You: "heyia"
*skips "i like your art etc blablabla*
Fan: *says something cool*
You: "yeah I have seen that, did you see (...)"
Fan: *continue the conversadion*
- Likely result: you started making a new friend

what did you think this note towards fanboys who do stupid comments? really, I've been a forum person for years and after seeing so many of them I'm not really bothered by them anymore, but artists who think a 6-digit pageview count allows them to push anybody around deserve a big maul on the head

Damn this place boils my blood each day harder... you see, I'm often using the "browse" function in here to find good artists who deserve more attention in this place, and they've changed the right bar containing the Daily Deviation in these with something else, take a look - [link]

I'm each day more convinced that the purpose of DA is for the owners to make money off other people's work, not making a place for any artists to post their work

Alll right... A good while ago, I remember sending a suggestion to DA saying they should allow to organize the deviantwatch by deviants and not simply by date, but also separate by member. Well, at first I thought they just ignored, but then I get a second trial subscription and surprise!!! Look, the deviantwatch is organized by members!!!

What a wonderful place this is