Introduction

Welcome to the latest issue of Yellow Alien Weekly Transmission. This is where I, the Yellow Alien, as Director of Community Development, discuss the various issues taking place here on deviantART.

Community Development

Community Development is the largest department in deviantART. We are charged with being on the front-lines of the battles that take place daily. It is our duty to communicate with the community and listen to the feedback received. The Community Help Desk Team, Policy Violation Team, News Team and Message Network @dministration all comprise this huge department and are here to help assist the masses in any way that we can. If anyone was unsure as to who runs Community Development let me answer that for you: I, $jark, run this entire department and am directly, or indirectly, the supervisor for all folks in Community Development.

From My Desk

The following issues are items of interest, possibly reoccuring, that need to be addressed with the entire community. Some of these might be repeats however they are all very pertinent for the entire community! Read and heed what comes from my desk because if you do not follow along then you might find yourself abducted by aliens and taken to an undisclosed location and probed for hours on end. Of course some folks might enjoy that but that just so happens to be beside the point!

• deviantART Dislikes. Thank you for the hundreds of comments on the deviantART Dislikes journal entry of mine. There were some great thoughts and comments that I will be addressing in this issue. Because there were so many comments I will be breaking up what I address in to 2 weeks of the YAWT. You can read some responses today and the rest in next weeks installment.


• Comment Deletion. We have opted to not allow for people to delete their own comments as doing so would be offering the ability to drastically change the tone of a conversation. Think, for a moment, if user A started a conversation where they criticized a movie. A large group of people come along and disagree and point out why user A is incorrect. User A then deletes their comment therefore invalidating all the responses to it and thoroughly confusing anyone attempting to read the conversation. This is just one example of what could happen and is the basis for our reasons for not allowing users to delete comments. I will state that the possibility of editing a comment, in such a way that the original remains intact and the edit displays underneath, is an option we might consider.


• Layout & Functionality Changes. We understand that you might be used to a particular layout or function however if you have signed up to be a beta tester then, well, you have signed up to test new features that have not yet been launched to the rest of the site. Stay abreast of these changes in the Beta Tester Forum and report your complaints or congratulations there.


• Suggestions. The staff actively pays close attention to the Suggestions Forum even though we do not respond to each and every single suggestion made. We have limited resources (and no, hiring more people is not the solution so please do not suggest that) and need to focus on what is important. Currently, responding to the suggestions forum is low on the priority list while fixing the many problems deviantART has is of the utmost urgency. Please understand that we do pay close attention to the suggestions forum. Merely because we do not respond, nor implement, said suggestions does not mean we do not care or are not interested in community feedback.


• Daily Deviations. To put it bluntly: the Daily Deviation is not an award. It is merely a staff feature. Argue with me until you are blue in the face but the fact is that this is never going to change. Daily Deviations do get a lot more exposure than the average deviation therefore it might be construed by some that this is an award but hear me when I say that there is nothing that could be farther from the truth.


• Daily Deviation Features. We receive 10000+ submissions of art to deviantART on a daily basis. On the "best" day we might feature a total of 20 deviations via the Daily Deviation featuring mechanism. We search every crack and crevice of the site in order to locate some neat things to showcase for the community. The fact that we might feature 20 deviations out of 10000+ does not degrade the "honor" that is bestowed upon one's art being selected as a Daily Deviation. After all, we end up featuring a mere 0.2% of all art submitted each day. Can you honestly say that we are featuring too much knowing that bit of information? I have no idea why people continue to question the number of Daily Deviations; it completely perplexes me but until this issue subsides you are going to see constant information flow from the staff.


• Daily Deviation Bashing. We do not tolerate offensive commentary, or remarks leading towards the disagreement with a deviation selected as a feature, as a comment on a deviation that is selected as a Daily Deviation. While we do encourage feedback regarding our selections we will take immediate administrative action on any individual that complains about a particular deviation being chosen as a Daily Deviation. After all, it is not fair to the artist to have to read such disparaging comments when they had absolutely no say in the selection of their deviation as a feature. If you want to voice your dislike for the choice then do so by sending a private note to the administrator that featured that particular Daily Deviation.


• Search. Our lifelong quest to provide a search engine for the masses while not disrupting the rest of the site is still ongoing. We completely understand the need and desire for a search engine and are actively pursuing this issue. It is near the top of our priority list so please bear with us for a little while longer. $mccann is the man with this plan and will come through in the end so hang in there! Please?


• Recent Deviations & Favorites. The issue with recent deviations and recent favorites additions not appearing on user pages has finally been resolved! Everyone rejoice and come to the party next week to celebrate.


• Journal CSS. Unfortunately because of the power of CSS we are not able to offer the average deviant the ability to use CSS in their journals. We are, however, working on some personalization options that will satisfy most folks who like to tweak to their hearts content. No specifics on when this will launch but realize that it is on the TODO list.


• Server Slowness. Uh, like you, we, too, despise when the servers freak out and the site gets slow. It is not like we have our own special server that lets us continue to "play" while everyone else is in deviant hell. If a problem arises that causes issues for the entire site then we act accordingly and rapidly.


• Bulk Storage. It has just been learned that $mccann, $chris and crew launched our new "bulk storage" solution. This system will help store the scaling of the millions upon millions of small bits of data that deviantART has to deal with. Because of this our IT team is able to relax a little and revel in the knowledge that they have created a means to handle growth of deviants commenting more and more.

Community Help Desk Team (HDT)

The Community Help Desk Team is probably the busiest group of individuals in Community Development. The number of Community Help Desk Tickets that comes across the desk is unbelievable and our dedicated, volunteer, staff works wonders with the help they provide the community. This division of Community Development is currently being run by me as `phae has recently resigned. With that said, here are some of the more popular issues running across the Help Desk Team during the past week:

• The Desk. Our Community Help Desk has been on top of the tickets and response times are fabulous. Special thanks to %hexentanz for her wonderful help as well as that of the PVT and MN@ crew. We are working to make the experience from the administrative side much smoother which will ultimately provide faster response times and better service. Hang in there!

Policy Violation Team (PVT)

The Policy Violation Team is, by far, the most underappreciated group of dedicated administrators within Community Development. Their main mission in life is, bluntly, to remove deviations and handle deviants who are not abiding by our policies. Because of this they are a prime target for attacks even though they are merely following the rules set forth by the upper echelon of the deviantART administration. Please do not ever think that barking back at a Policy Violation Team Member will serve you any good. While in the short term you might feel better it will ultimately, in the long run, be the worst thing you can do. This division of Community Development is run by $realitysquared. With that said, here are the top issues handled by the Policy Violation Team lately:

• Porn, for the umpteenth time! Although we have announced this issue very often over the last two months we are forced once again to declare that pornographic or explicitly sexual images are not allowed to be submitted to deviantART - get these images out of your galleries and spread the word so that you and your friends do not get banned for submitting this highly inappropriate material.



• Ripping and Mob-like Mentality. We certainly can understand some of you being very outraged when you discover somebody who is blatantly stealing an artist’s work and presenting it as their own but you all really need to let the policy enforcement staff handle these fakes.
  
  Freaking out on their page by swearing, insulting, spamming, and otherwise acting like a total troll is only going to get you banned so save yourself some bother and keep your mouth shut. Your intentions might be good but your methods stink and we won't just ignore such poor behavior.



• Spam Comments. We are continuing to see large amounts of spam; whether this is a large ASCII image, a “Look At My Stuff” statement or some sort of ALL CAPS “Pass This To 25 Others Or A Spooky Ghost Girl Will Knife You In Your Bed” chain mail message.


Do not repeat spam messages which you find on your page or which you might see on other pages. We are acting to discourage certain forms of spam and ‘chain mail’ comments so even if you pass along a smaller number of these annoying messages you may still wind up on he receiving end of administrative action.

Message Network @dministration (MN@)

The mission of the Message Network @dministration is to make the deviantART Message Network a friendly place to chat for deviants while offering up exciting chat opportunities for the community by way of the various Signature Chats and other similar events. This division of Community Development is run by $euphoria. Here are some things happening around the MN@ world:

• Streamline-ization. This week the MN@ has been working to streamline some of the ways we deal with issues for dAmn users. Most of this work is obviously done behind the scenes, but you’ll definitely notice a difference in the speed and efficiency that we handle problems in the channel. Our new system allows for greater consistency and continuity among the MN@, who are constantly working to provide a good experience for all.


• Policy Abuse. Please be aware that from now on, those users who find it necessary to abuse the policy or flaunt the rules simply because there is not a member of the MN@ in the official rooms will receive a one-week ban, no questions asked. All activity in official rooms is logged, and we do monitor the logs. Just remember: If you abide by the policies in place, it will help you and all users have a better experience chatting in dAmn.


• Events. We’re still working to bring you events in the next week or so, and we’ll keep you posted. Stay tuned!

In Closing

Hopefully someone, maybe one or two people, found this information interesting and informative. I will be releasing an article of this nature on a weekly basis, every Friday afternoon or evening. Stay tuned until next week where we will discuss even more exciting issues that have come up around the community. If you have any suggestions for issues you would like discussed then please let me know via a private note with the subject "YA Transmission Suggestion." I might not respond back to you immediately but I promise that I will consider your suggestions.