From the title, it should be obvious as to what I am talking about, but for those of youi who have no idea what I'm referring to, I'll clue you in:



I have been a very loyal/active community member of *Thumbshare, mainly in Thumbsshare (the deviantART Messaging Network channel).  Ever since I discovered that channel, I have gotten a lot of exposure for my work, and I've made quite a few friends on deviantART.  Since I have the ability to do so, I've donated 1 subscription to *Thumbshare, and I also donated a 3-month subscription prize for their Halloween contest.


Recently, however, I've begun to question whether I'm just wasting my time there because of a ban that was put on me fairly recently, for something as stupid/trivial as using someone's name w/o permission.  I mean, I can understand that being a part of personal information, but if you ban me after warning me not to do it again, then I'm sorry to say that you've lost my respect.


So, as angry, used as I felt, I fired off a ban inquiry to *Thumbshare, hoping that it  would be answered real soon (within a day or two, which was a fool's hope at best). 

Sent November 27

Hi,


I am writing this in regards to my recent ban from Thumbsshare which, in my opinion, was completely un-called for. I have been a fairly active member of the community for quite some time, but because of the ban, I have begun to wonder whether I'm just wasting my time.



I know, for a fact, that it was [name with-held] who banned me (And I do not wish to disclose who told me that). My question is this:



1. Why did [name with-held] first warn me to not use [name with-held]'s real name again, then ban me just a couple of hours ago this morning?


As it stands, I really do not feel that I can ever trust Cosira, and if this is how she acts most all the time, then she really shouldn't be a moderator.


Also, how long can I expect the ban to last?


Thank you for your time


This is the reponse I got, which was 3 days later than was promised:

Received on December 1st

Hello,

Your ban ends on December 5th. Do not use the legal names or personal info of anyone in the room without their permission. Please direct further questions here.



The one problem is fairly obvious, from what I pointed out.  Essentially, the "You will get a reply, it just may take a little longer than normal _{(normal being same day or next day)}." bit means that you'd probably be waiting anywhere from 3 days to a week or more for a reply.


Second problem:  The reply I got only answered ONE of the questions (How long can I expect the ban to last?).  I literally had to ask why I was first warned, then banned in my next reply to *Thumbshare (And I STILL haven't gotten a response regarding that).


Due to all of this, I have decided these actions must be taken:


1.   I will have to start scaling back on my activity in Thumbsshare

2.  I will be ignoring  said Staff member of Thumbsshare, until she apologizes to me personally

3.  *Thumbshare will stay off of my devWATCH if she does not apologize/I don't get an explanation as to why I was banned after I was warned

4.  I will no longer be donating contest prizes, or general subscriptions to *Thumbshare

So yeah,

I'm having a good time on deviantART like I usually do (posting new art, etc), and then, I come across a very interesting journal on the Today Page, regarding art theft (Which I know has been an on-going problem), and I completely sympathized with this deviantART member over her outrage that nothing is being done to protect anyone from this.


I'm actually glad that I have been using the official dA watermark since that feature came out, but by now, I start planning  to re-size my work down so that people can't use it at all (I have re-sized one recent HDR photo submission so far).



But then, after more investigation, I find out the real truth behind this



It's not that deviantART CAN'T help protect artists, it's that they won't.


http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/22141509/ (Read it, very carefully, and then compare it to the Submission Agreement at http://www.deviantart.com/submit/agree)


Honestly, I was a little skeptical of what I had read at first, but in comparing those two links, this is what I found:


1.  deviantART can basically sub-license your work to a third-party company, and you won't get any compensation for it

2.  deviantART can claim ownership of your work if it is used somewhere on the site itself (Your rights are completely gone)




God only knows why I didn't see that sooner, but I suppose it's better late than never, right?



Effective immediately, I am going through my deviantART gallery to decided which submissions I want to keep, submit them over to my Storm-Artists.net gallery, and then de-activate the one over at deviantART.  I simply cannot trust those imbeciles with my artwork any longer, so I won't be submitting anymore work there.  Also, when the time comes that my subscription expires, I will NOT be re-newing it (I have better uses for my $25 than dA anyways)

Yeah,

So I've been really angry about the whole fact that deviantART Staff are going to close the Help forum


From a news article

For the longest time deviantART has had a General Help Forum, but was never fully staffed, it has been a place run by you the user, While the forum has had it's ups and downs, we do not believe this is a responsibility that should be dealt with by users. Long story shorter, we're thinking of closing the General Help Forum.

In order to be as clear as possible what I'll list below are some of the major reasons which are prompting this consideration;

1. Some individuals providing answers to various threads are doing so in an aggressive or mean spirited manner, and while you can expect to find rudeness on any forum we do not believe that visitors to the Help forum should be subjected to this behavior.

2. Some users offering assistance are actually providing misinformation, incorrect answers, or are actually only confusing the issues where they attempt to help.

3. Some responses actually attempt to second guess staff decisions or hypothesize about the reasons behind a problem, sometimes with wildly inaccurate results.

4. Many help threads receive multiple identical answers as some users rush to answer the question while ignoring previous, near identical replies. Smaller subsets of threads actually collect contradictory answers which confuse the situation.

5. Some users confuse the Help forum as an official resource rather than an informal area to receive informal help from other users. This issue can be further confused by the presence of other users who phrase their answers in a manner which leads them to be confused for actual staff members giving official responses.

6. The forum often collects inquiries which should either be kept private or which should not be answered by other users. Ban inquiries, inquiries on staff actions and inquiries concerning payment concerns are good examples of this.

We propose that by removing the Help forum and directing people to the official Help desk those people who require assistance will receive an accurate and official response in a reasonable amount of time. Also by removing the need for Help desk and @MN personnel to moderate the forum this time can instead be devoted by the Help Desk to the creation of user resources that the community have asked for such as, visual guides and tutorials.





For #1, why should those users not be dealt with at the time?  Seems like a more logical choice to under-take than to close the Help forum entirely, to me anyways


#2 - Yes, everyone will have the tendency to give wrong answers at some point in time, but is that not how we learn to do better?


#4 - I honestly don't know what to say about this one


#5 - Well, if they confuse the Help forum as an official resource, then that's completely their problem, as I see it. 


#6 - OK. Ban inquiries, I can completely understand, but maybe people who wanted to know about why someone was banned were told to talk to the Help Desk?



Whatever happened to deviantART being a community?  The Help forum is about the only way to get useful help on deviantART.  Yeah, you can contact the Help Desk, but a lot of the time, they'll ignore your inquiry if your question is already answered in the FAQ, which doesn't say much of anything good about the Help Desk in the first place. 


IMO, if you're going to close the Help forum, you might as well close the #help channel on the deviantART Messaging Network as well.  That channel has slipped WAY down, as far as I'm concerned.  I mean, if there's going to be nobody there for a time, then lock everyone out until someone is available, or START LETTING OTHERS HELP WHEN NO HELPERS ARE AROUND.


Or, as I said, the #help channel could be closed permanently too

So what've I been up to?


Well....Basically, I've been posting some of my new art to my deviantART account at http://FlashKid105.deviantart.com.  I can still remember when i first started out there over a year ago (I didn't have very many people watching me as I do now, and I guess you could say that overall quality of my artwork has improved since then). 

I think one thing that has contributed to the fact that I have so many people watching me over at deviantART is that I've been on the deviantART Messaging Network (dAmn a lot).  There's one channel on dAmn that I really liked called #Thumbshare, where you could share your work.


These days, however, I'm beginning to feel that I'm just wasting my time there.  The #Thumbshare Staff have always said that Members should help other Guests out as much as they can, but they also don't want people modding the room when any Staff are around (which I can understand). 


But here's the thing:  What really gets me is that I was just trying to show someone the right way to show thumbnails of their work (Ex:  :thumb38790215:). 

The response from one of the Staff mods:  "I've got it, please stop modding" *rolls eyes*

#Thumbshare's no longer a community like it once was, unfortunately.  I wish things would change around there, but I doubt they will

Sheesh!


All I needed from Mandi Lennox(sodalicious) over at the deviantArt #help channel was a simple answer as to where I could upload my WAV files to since she told me that I couldn't submit them to DA.  I understand DA's a visual kind of site but why can I not post my WAV files as Miscellaneous Resources.  So anyways, after Mandi didn't answer my "where can I upload my WAV files" question the first time, I asked it again and put it in a bold font, which she incorrectly saw as harrassment and kicked me from #help for.  Now, I wasn't trying to harrass Mandi or anything like that, but her behavior leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.  She chooses to not admit that she can be rude at times and now, this has happened.  I guess that'll be the last time I EVER go to #help for any DA questions


And, get this, Mandi even told me that there were no plans to overhaul the stock photo gallery at DA as it's not a high priority.  WTF??????

A lot of deviantArt members have complained that the stock photo gallery needed to be overhauled, and I get this info from her?  I guess I'll be steering away from the DA stock photo gallery for quite some time

So,

what does a membership to deviantArt mean to me?  Well, for one thing, I have total freedom to post anything I put together in Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop, etc.  I mean, I've been an active DA member for a long time since I first joined in November of last year.  And just a while ago, I started posting phomanipulations I put together in PS to my personal gallery.  Thing is, some people think that they have the audacity to tell me that my work sucks and no "real" artist would ever do that kind of stuff.  To be honest, I get very annoyed when I get those kinds of comments left on my work because I believe that art is how the artist perceives it.  There's no right or wrong medium to use and yet, a few people like to blast my Terragen renders because they believe that the renders are fake.   Come one, there are no real renders or fake renders.  I just wish people would stop blasting others because of a certain art medium that they used for once.


If you're at all interested in seeing the kind of stuff I do, you can check out my DA gallery at - http://flashkid105.deviantart.com