Greetings...
As the Director of Community Development I am the person who represents your voice to the rest of the deviantART administration. I'm ultimately in charge of the Help Desk, the Copyright & Ettiquete Team and our Chat network. Every Wednesday I will be releasing a report; updating you on the internal progress of the team and the projects that interest you most.

Community Development

We Are Back!

After a brief hiatus the WCDU is back in action!


Major Issues

The Major Issues we are currently looking into are missing or partially missing galleries, browse errors, missing submission categories and browsing on user pages/forums causing things to appear “missing”. These are the top priority items and we are working diligently to resolve them as soon as humanly possible.

Other Issues

We are currently working up a new message center system that will allow you to sort messages by type much easier. If you want to see only your forum replies you would be able to do that, want only comment replies? Same thing. This should not take too long to implement, and if for some reason it does we will separate forum from comments again in the message center.

Full view counts. Full view counts will most likely be removed entirely in place of a statistic on your main page that gives a total viewing of your gallery as opposed to just your main page.

Page reloading bumping up the view count on your deviation. This is being looked into, but has actually been happening in this manner since v3. And for those of you out there who think boosting your own stats or doing it for someone else will help get it into the popular section…it won’t That statistic literally extends no further than the line you see on the page and influences nada in terms of making a deviation more viewable.

For a list of other bugs and resolved issues see this Journal

Copyright & Etiquette Administration (C&E)
Status Reports;

Just over two weeks ago, on Wednesday, the Report Desk where all submission violation reports are collected stood at exactly 6900 reports. Since that day the community has added approximately 1400 new violation reports which is about average for this time frame.

During the same period of time CEA has reviewed and cleared approximately 4750 of these reports. Currently the backlog stands at about 3550 reports with the oldest report dating from about 3 weeks ago.
So far the new CEA format has provided for a far superior level of activity as we’ve settled into the new format and we anticipate having the backlog completely eliminated in just another couple of weeks or less.

Clarification;

As we have cleared the backlog of reports we’ve noticed many reports of ‘tracing’ or ‘copying’, so of which were legitimate concerns and some which were not.

I’d like to take the opportunity to try to slightly clarify the situation.

First, it is important for everyone to realize that we intend for deviantART to be a place for artists of all skill levels and interests and to that extent we are very tolerant of various types of fan art.

This means that if a beginning artist is taking the time to copy or otherwise reproduce a scene from a television program, movie, or piece of associated artwork, we will show a bit more leniency if the submission is properly categorized in one of the fan art categories.

Copying a piece of original artwork is treated a bit differently. Large corporations producing popular series often have a lenient stance towards legitimate pieces of fan art, while independent artists tend to be more intolerant of copying and reproduction.

Please bear in mind that we judge each piece based on direct comparisons and no removal is ‘guaranteed’ just because it resembles something else. Coincidental similarities, referencing and simple inspiration can all lead to artworks or photographs which resemble other materials and we allow for this in our application of policy.

Help Desk

FAQ Sodium PTII:

The FAQ will get fatter this weekend so keep tuned in to the FAQ for some greasy goodness!

R&R:

$hexentanz has been on R&R this week, she will return this Sunday.


MN@


Team Changes

This week we had a bit of a revolving door wishing ^Ghouldaddy all the best as he takes up his new position as photojournalism gallery director with Artist Relations, and @ninjabrick receiving a very warm and enthusiastic welcome back to the MN@ Team.

Getting Help on dAmn

We've all been there. A question or a problem comes up, and we want (or need) a fast answer. The good news is that you can usually find it on deviantART's messaging network. Here's how:

Your first stop should be the +faq. This expansive library of information about deviantART can be searched through, and can answer most questions about deviantART's features and services. If you can't find your answers there, however, there are more resources you can use.

Official Channels

#help

Provided by volunteer helpers from the community, #help is a good place if you need assistance with something deviantART related. Keep in mind, however, since they are volunteers from the community, helpers can not assist you with Prints related matters, subscriptions, Adcast, software or anything non deviantART related.

Prints related matters should be directed to the Prints Help Desk, and subscription related or Adcast related matters should be directed to the Community Help Desk. If someone is harassing you or otherwise causing an issue on site, but not on the messaging network, please contact the Community Help Desk.


#MNAdmin

This channel is the place to find anyone from the Messaging Network Administration. If you have a chat related question, come here for answers. Also, if there are issues that need to be resolved within an official channel (think #devart), this is the place to go.

As with #help, we cannot assist you with subscription, Adcast, print or non deviantART related matters. Also, messaging network staff do not micromanage private channels; If you have an issue with someone in a private channel, contact the channel's founder or operators, or seek out a more friendly channel.

Unofficial Channels and Non deviantART-Related Help

Occasionally you'll run into questions that need answers that aren't deviantART related. There are a few unofficial channels that may be of assistance to you as well. Keep in mind that messaging network staff do not endorse or manage these support channels.


#h3lp

This is one of the ways you may find community-based support for hardware and software related troubles. Firefox not working the way it should? Have a question about PHP/CSS/Javascript? Is your scanner playing Ode to Joy and otherwise acting possessed? Try here.

There are also software, hardware and operating system forums located in the main forum section, for more community-based support.

#dalit

This channel, run by ^imperfect, is a great place for those who write to hang out and perhaps find help. Regular poetry and prose workshops, critique events and games are run here.


#flashers

^Age2003 heads this channel, a home for flash artists. Animators, Cartoonists, Designers, Scriptors and Voice Actors (Actresses), and Musicians of all levels welcome in this channel.


#ArtisanCrafts

Ran by ^dedredhed #ArtisanCrafts is the channel for any artist interested in or specializing in tangible craft work, ranging anywhere from leatherworking and glass-blowing to quilting and textiles.

...and Beyond!

This is obviously not a complete list of all the helpful channels the deviantART Messaging Network has to offer, but hopefully should give anyone in need of assistance a head start.

A huge thank you to @sapphiretiger for putting together this very worthwhile guide!