formatela In reply to A-Good-Username [2014-03-21 15:21:55 +0000 UTC]

Ha ha - I can empathise with the audience bit.
Nice to see someone maintaining their sense of humour

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A-Good-Username In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 15:37:12 +0000 UTC]

I used to think I had a audience on my old account of 249 watchers
but it turns out it was only like 10 who cares |P
if I did have a premium this would only track me since I check like any minute it's going to walk away |D
sorry for the paragraph-ish I got excited my comment was noticed

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formatela In reply to A-Good-Username [2014-03-21 17:06:10 +0000 UTC]

It gets even sadder when you find out that the 10 who care are actually 1 person with 10 different accounts.

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A-Good-Username In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 19:28:51 +0000 UTC]

It's even sadder when you have 10 different account to talk to yourself

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formatela In reply to A-Good-Username [2014-03-21 20:07:48 +0000 UTC]

Ha ha
Have you been monitoring my activity?

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A-Good-Username In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 20:19:42 +0000 UTC]

Haha maybe |P

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JoyfullJuneBug In reply to A-Good-Username [2014-03-21 19:57:39 +0000 UTC]

ROLF   

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A-Good-Username In reply to JoyfullJuneBug [2014-03-21 20:25:40 +0000 UTC]

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MeLinFrance In reply to ??? [2014-03-21 01:47:12 +0000 UTC]

Je ne suis pas certaine d'avoir envie d'être analysée par Google.

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MeLinFrance In reply to MeLinFrance [2014-03-21 01:48:46 +0000 UTC]

Quand Google me parlera en bon français ...je verrai !

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formatela In reply to MeLinFrance [2014-03-21 15:33:32 +0000 UTC]

Peut être, un jour.

(Sorry for my bad French)

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MeLinFrance In reply to formatela [2014-03-22 18:09:59 +0000 UTC]

Pas de problème vous êtes excusé.

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formatela In reply to MeLinFrance [2014-03-23 00:23:10 +0000 UTC]

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Gnome64 In reply to ??? [2014-03-21 01:30:34 +0000 UTC]

Welp, my first and only premium access ran out yesterday...guess I won't be getting this.

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jenny-theanimator In reply to ??? [2014-03-21 01:28:55 +0000 UTC]

I bet this will help a lot! Thank you!

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Alexander-Musset In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 23:34:20 +0000 UTC]

Have DA really thought this out. Have they or even members realised that this is a HUGE step
that changes the fundamental relationship between DA and it's members irrevocably!

All the pros and cons people are discussing are missing the point.

Until now all our activities on DA were exclusively between the users and DA.
It is a relationship, a relationship of trust. I trust DA to keep the integrity of the data that describes my activity so it can return useful info/statisics for my profile. DA trusts that I will not abuse the services that they offer by anti-social or illegal activities. I can feel relaxed and at home because of this relationship of trust.

Now DA has decided to let info that describes my activity go for analasys to a third party that I have no relationship with and no knowledge of what else they may use that data for.

This means that the exclusive relationship of trust between me and DA has been broken. There are now three parties in this relationship.

They have done this just for the purpose of providing sophisticated analysing tools to Premium members many of whom will not even use it anyway.

Not only have they done this, but the third party is an organisation that has become controversial because of the scope and reach of internet information it harvests. It is a sad day indeed.

The semantics of what  info, how much, or how identifiable that info supplied to Goodle is not important. At the end of the day DA has to provide info to Google in some form from my account so that it can be analysed for Premium user's statistics.

For example, when DA gives you the info as to who has favourited one of your deviations it must have accessed that info from that persons account. Up to now DA has done that internally on it's own servers. Now it is done on Google 'Data Collection Servers' Obviously personal data that you have supplied to DA like email address, user name, real name etc, are disguised so that Google Analytics cant identify you personally. But at the end of the day DA is sending data from your account to be analysed by a third party.

One of the things that was so refreshing about DA was that it was not part of the data gobbling, user profilling, targeted advertising monsters than now prowl and dominate the internet. I felt secure, happy and at home. That is changing now.

I think DA must have lost site of what the community is all about. Yes, there are many professional and highly skilled artists who are using DA as part of their business program to sell their art, which is great.
But there are many more people on here who are doing as a hobby or trying to get on the ladder to being proffessional some of them are highly talented some are not. But it does not matter we are all equal and we all apreciate each other in different ways.

But even more importantly it is a place where many people are using art and poetry etc to express their own inner angst and struggles in one way or another. In particular younger people who go through all kind of difficulties and some of them are VERY serious are supporting each other  and giving encouragement.

People are often exposing very personal things which they just couldn't do in their immediate physical environment or the people around them. I have seen people express things in their journal which are clearly cries of help, and I have seen their followers and friends and others rush to support and help them through.
I do believe that lives have been saved.

To allow all this to pass through the servers of  some monsterous data gobbling, organisation that thinks it rules the world (obviously actual conversations are seen but that is not the point) shows that DA is losing its way in a serious way. Maybe their business model is in difficulty and they need to find a way forward but this is not it.

Lets stay human DA please!
Thanks

Alexander E. Musset

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formatela In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 10:04:24 +0000 UTC]

I'm not sure that I agree with everything you are saying, but personally I think DA lost sight of what this community is about years ago. It seems to have started when they introduced the concept of groups, which were a good thing in their own right, but unfortunately the whole social network thing on DA has mushroomed since then and seems to have unofficially become DA's primary focus.
I definitely don't think that there is or ever was an 'exclusive relationship of trust between DA and its members'. Personally I wouldn't trust DA any further than I could throw them.  Likewise with Google.

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Alexander-Musset In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 18:42:59 +0000 UTC]

OK, that is very interesting because I didn't know DA's beginning and original purpose.
And several people have said the thing about not trusting them since I started talking about this.

Because I have joined relatively recently, it was the social side together with the art that I experience first so I thought of that being the main purpose.
ie. I saw them as equal.

But the reality is that the social side has become a central part. And part of the value of that as I mentioned is that young people have been using art and DA to deal with the problems they experience and there is a lot of mutual support. These days they are experiencing so much alientation in their immediate environment.  Self-harming, deep pshychological problems and suicide are serioius issues for young people right now.

It may  not be the original purpose, but that what it has become. But your comments have given me real food for thought.
Maybe DA itself doesn't recognise or value that aspect. I don't know.

Thanks

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formatela In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 21:12:13 +0000 UTC]

The art was always the main purpose. I don't mind at all about the social networking aspects that DA are promoting, as long as they don't impact on what used to be DA's main purpose - a community of artists. Unfortunately I think the community of artists part has become secondary and DA is more interested in the social networking aspects - mainly because it can make more money out of them. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be updating its infrastructure to cope with the additional traffic and for many users (including me) the service we get is totally unacceptable.

I don't personally think that DA offers the type of environment that would be of benefit to people, young or otherwise, who are experiencing either social or psychological problems. I'm a systems and network manager, but my most recent job was working for a UK organisation trying to assist vulnerable people.  We considered using social networking as a means of helping them in their recovery but generally discarded it because of the risks involved (Social networking is itself highly addictive and can cause isolationist behaviour) If anything the opposite could be true - DA might make things worse, but to be honest that's probably true of any social networking site. If someone was to post a message on Facebook, or DA or any other social networking site saying that they were contemplating suicide, they would probably get lots and lots of good hearted people trying to talk them down, but they would also probably get someone being deliberately abusive and insulting. Sometimes that's all it takes.

And frankly I don't think DA really cares about very many moral or ethical issues. Why do I think this? :-
I reported an image some months ago. It was called 'Daddy's Girl' and it was a sexualised image of a young woman. The artist's comments didn't say that the subject of the image was under the age of majority, but the title of the image implied it and the model looked to be under 18. I reported the image to DA and they investigated it. Their response to me was that it would be difficult to prove that the subject was under 18. Personally I think that is an appalling response. What was even worse was that the image was accepted by one of the groups that I belonged to. When I mentioned it, the owner of the group sent me a message saying that DA is a global organisation and in some countries the age of consent is 10 years old, so basically it was okay.  In the end, the deviant took the image down voluntarily, as far as I know, but frankly the DA and group response  were both unacceptable. Clearly they don't place sexualised images of possible minors too high up their list of priorities.

Recently I reported a deviant who is openly posting soft porn that he has stolen from the internet. He doesn't even claim to be the artist - he even says where the images are from. He describes his versions as 'retouched'. He isn't just posting them on DA, he is selling them as zip files. DA hasn't even bothered to reply to my complaint and he is still displaying his stolen porn. So they don't really seem to place theft too high up their list of priorities either.

If that isn't enough, carry on reading through the comments on this journal. I read one earlier where someone who is old enough to know better called a young person a 'Pedantic Bastard' simply because he pointed out somebody's spelling mistake. This is an official DA journal and that type of behaviour and much worse is being tolerated by DA.  Personally, based  on my experience of DA it doesn't really care enough about anything or anyone, leave alone its vulnerable members.

That's turned into a bit of a rant. I hope you don't think it's directed at you personally, because it isn't. Mainly it's because I actually love being a part of DA, but I've spent the last 3 years watching the whole thing unravel.

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Alexander-Musset In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 23:12:51 +0000 UTC]

Woah, definitely a rant but I won't take it as personally directed at me. You made so many points there. I don't think I will comment on them because these things take thought, and responding immediately on them is not conducive to thought or good communications with another person. But definitely I will consider much of what you have said.

I do kind of understand where you are coming from regarding the losing of the way, if I look at it from the perspective of it being a 'Community of Artists'
Funnily I looked at the Google issue as a 'losing of the way' from the perspective of it being a 'social community'
But that is obviously because we both joined at quite different times.

I joined initially from a 'proffessional' perspective, but when I realised it was much more than that I changed my relationship with it. I feel that there is a lot of sincerity in this particular community and respect in general. Far less nastiness than you find elsewhere, and almost no inapropriate sexual activity. You seem to have found some. Maybe it is just the circles that I am  in, I don't know.

There is just so much creativity at all levels of the spectrum all in one place in what seems to be endless volume. It is just incredible and very very enjoyable. Both art and literature at the same time and often both from the same person. I think that is very unique.

Maybe I have been a bit Naive on my perspective of DA themselves. I think it was the Llamas that did it.
When I say 'proffessional perspective' ; I started writing humorous poems and silly stories aimed at kids about 7-10 to read both with parents at bedtime and self-reading at the top end. This was about two years ago. The purpose is to (self) publish on Amazon/Kindle and independent book shops. I was hoping I  might find an illustrator on DA but the proffessional children's illustrators on here are way beyond my budget.

My standard of writing has suffered a bit since joining DA though and I started posting some of my non-humoros work which initially I wasn't going to do, because I don't really think it is at a high enough standard. The general DA age range is not really interested in my work, which is clear by the number of followers that I have, but those who are, like it a lot and are very loyal and nice people.

Yes, I do think it is time to re-evaluate my relationship with DA, but I am very much attached to my people.
Hmm conundrum.

Maybe I should hibernate for a while and come back later with a load more good quality writing to inspire people with.
I have so much work to do. I've got enough material for three books. But no illustrator and no practical steps toward publishing yet.

Anyway, now that I've bored the pants off you,
Thanks for you valuable input.

Alex

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Summitwulf In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 05:52:19 +0000 UTC]

Agreed. Bad move.

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Alexander-Musset In reply to Summitwulf [2014-03-21 06:43:38 +0000 UTC]

Thanks. I really apreciate some response to this.
If you feel strongly about this as I do, please spread this around or do something similar on your journal.
DA needs to listen to its people.

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tri-x400 In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 16:32:08 +0000 UTC]

I also thing it is certainly NOT a good move.
I did never really trust DA, but I don't trust any website… and I really am thinking about stopping being active on DA, because I don't need google to track me here also.
and I feel very sorry about that, because here are wonderful people making great art… but I want my data to be a safe (only a little^^)… and google is not the way to go, ihmo.

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Alexander-Musset In reply to tri-x400 [2014-03-21 18:17:33 +0000 UTC]

When I read about it I got so angry that I went straight away to the 'close account page'
But I couldn't do it because of my friends on here. I don't have many followers but I value them and like them a lot.

Then there is the richness of the content on here. So much, so varied. Endless. There is no site like it.
It would be a huge loss. The groups the competitions etc.

I am completely torn.

What do you think about a campaign?
Why should we lose something so good. Why can't we stand up and say no we don't want it.

We could say ok I will just leave, but why should we have to do that?
DA is a community not just a web site.

Maybe they are struggling to make money. We can't expect something for nothing. I always liked DAs business model because it is simple and not too commercial. I think part of the problem is that there are so many people who never  buy premium even for years, if there are more of those than people who have premium then they will lose money. It is simple mathematics.

How about a campaign?
1) To stop Google
2) Encourage people to get premium

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tri-x400 In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 19:04:14 +0000 UTC]

that's why I did not left right now
There are many people, I really do like, and I'd like to stay in contact with….
I'm not sure, what to do, so I'll first stay ^^

I don't have any Idea how you could start a campaign like that
I think stopping google would be the better Idea, in my opinion….

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Alexander-Musset In reply to tri-x400 [2014-03-21 23:36:23 +0000 UTC]

Yeah,
It's almost impossible to leave your people.
To stop Google is like lifting an elephant on your back!

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tri-x400 In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-22 09:46:00 +0000 UTC]

I am afraid you're right….
may I ask, hat you are going to do?
ohh… my tracking blocker's telling me, google analytics has tried to track me -.-

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Alexander-Musset In reply to tri-x400 [2014-03-22 14:35:33 +0000 UTC]

You write another book that you hope survives, for someone to find in a dusty old antique shop, somewhere in the Proletarian district.
Then you order another glass of 'Victory Gin' whilst you  look at the screen anxiously to see how the war with Euroasia is going,  and the latest terrorist outrage perpretated by supporers of the evil 'Goldstein'

And of course you read a humorous poem written by the well known early 21st Century writer - Alexander E. Musset
Who Watches Who: alexander-musset.deviantart.co…

Good luck dude, hope all goes well for you

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tri-x400 In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-22 14:41:50 +0000 UTC]

thank you
I wish you the best too O.O

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Queenbluemoon In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 03:43:52 +0000 UTC]

I agree

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Alexander-Musset In reply to Queenbluemoon [2014-03-21 07:06:31 +0000 UTC]

Thanks.

I put a copy of this post on my journal entitled 'Feeling upset and Disappointed'
If you feel strongly enough about this:

 Please copy this to your journal (or do your own vesion) 'Favourite' 'mention' or whatever, so it spreads. We can moan and bleat on this thread but that is exactly where it is going to stay unless we spread it around.

DA needs to listen to it's people!

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Alexander-Musset In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-20 23:58:31 +0000 UTC]

Sorry correction:
.... (obviously actual conversations are seen but that is not the point).....

Should read: (obviously actual conversations are not seen but that is not the point)......

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realbondage In reply to Alexander-Musset [2014-03-21 04:10:51 +0000 UTC]

I agree. All users should have the option as to whether statistics on who views their art/writing/etc. are passed to google in the first place. My switch would immediately be set to "off." I spent a year getting my life and works the hell off google's services ... and then DA go and do something stupid like this.

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formatela In reply to realbondage [2014-03-21 10:12:18 +0000 UTC]

I think that's one of the misunderstandings that has come to light in this journal. DA aren't actually passing any stats to Google - the stats, I believe, are being collected by Google as a matter of course. What DA is doing is providing a method whereby selected (Premium) members can, if they wish, analyse their DA related Google statistics in summary form from within their DA user account.
Switching something off from within DA doesn't prevent statistics from being collected by Google about you or anyone else - it merely flags up that you aren't interested in seeing the statistics re other peoples' visits to your DA pages.
If you don't want Google to collect stats about you, you have to switch that off elsewhere. There is some information in this journal telling you how to do it, but realistically, if you are using the internet, at some level you are being tracked.

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realbondage In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 11:36:43 +0000 UTC]

thost stats shouldnt be passed to google as a matter of course. they dont act as a default route for all network traffic. as a qualified networking and telephony engineer i would be stunned.beyond belief if google were collecring da stats without being explicitally given that informatiön by da.

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formatela In reply to realbondage [2014-03-21 12:31:11 +0000 UTC]

Sorry, I think I've probably made things worse. Which is pretty unforgiveable because I'm also a qualified network and systems manager.

What was explained to me somewhere in the journal is that DA sends a script to Google requesting a user specified summary of  stats which are already being collected by Google. The Google servers then execute the script, which returns the summary back to the DA server and passes it to the appropriate user. The reason Google is collecting the data in the first place is because, apparently, DA have been using Google Analytics to collect their own management stats for a number of years.

My reason for asking for an explanation of what happens was to find out if there was any potential new overhead on the DA servers which would cause a performance drop for their primary services. From what I can gather there won't be any performance degradation on DA's server due to this functionality, because the processing doesn't take place on the DA servers. This was my only concern, because frankly, the performance of this site is already pretty appalling for many users. I'm not really too bothered about Google collecting the data in the first place, although it would have been nice if they'd told us they were doing this when they started doing it. If they did tell us, I don't recall it and I've been here for 7 years.

Again, apologies if I made things worse.

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realbondage In reply to formatela [2014-03-21 13:03:25 +0000 UTC]

no problem. i understand where you are coming from now. given the nature of the site, i am concerned that da are empkoying google stats. this will call in to question my continued use of da as i dont want any of my data and practices recorded by that horrific leach of a company. i will have to think about running only on fetlife from now on.

apologies, typing on a mobile.

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formatela In reply to realbondage [2014-03-21 15:18:38 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the reply. I understand your misgivings with this and I'm sure many people will feel the same and quite probably leave the community.  Unfortunately DA doesn't seem to think through the consequences of its own actions or if it does, it just doesn't care. At the end of January, I ran through the list of 400 people that I was watching at the time. Of the 400 a total of around 150 had either left DA or hadn't been online in over 26 weeks. That speaks volumes about what's happening to this community. The artist part of the community is declining and the generic non artist social networking part of the community is probably increasing. Great for people's page views but not much else.

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Alexander-Musset In reply to realbondage [2014-03-21 07:02:30 +0000 UTC]

Thanks.

I put a copy of this post on my journal entitled 'Feeling upset and Disappointed'
If you feel strongly enough about this:

 Please copy this to your journal (or do your own vesion) 'Favourite' 'mention' or whatever, so it spreads. We can moan and bleat on this thread but that is exactly where it is going to stay unless we spread it around.

DA needs to listen to it's people!

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ABrickman In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 23:18:39 +0000 UTC]

Umm, no, thanks. I don't really care about my pageviews as I'm not even a professional artist.
But the idea is cool... maybe.

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FairyDragoon In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 23:03:34 +0000 UTC]

You introduce this when My PM is close to ending. Thanks Deviantart. Thanks. Lol.

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Docta-J112 In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 22:29:23 +0000 UTC]

Cool.

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Iskander1989 In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 22:04:49 +0000 UTC]

Amazing!

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OrneryJen In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 22:01:00 +0000 UTC]

Good thing we have Ghostery!

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Korozya In reply to ??? [2014-03-20 21:30:12 +0000 UTC]

And yet we still can't even send notes on Android. lol

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Eyenoom In reply to Korozya [2014-03-21 06:32:12 +0000 UTC]

Are you just using the website, or the mobile-version of the website?

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