Here at deviantART we try to provide as much artistic freedom as possible and we strive for this by providing galleries to showcase a wide range of Art and by not forcing any strict quality standards or minimum level of skill or talent.

However while we do not moderate for “Quality” (keep your opinions to yourself) we do have certain restrictions and rules in place for a variety of legal and ethical reasons. But this article is not going to deal directly with official submission policy but about how you can utilize the tools available to bring things which you think are violations to the attention of the staff.

For submission violations we have provided a handy link on each deviation page to quickly and easily send a report of any deviation which you think breaks the rules or which you think the staff should seriously review.

Beneath every Deviation or Scrapbook submission you will find the Artist's description area. At the very bottom right of this boxed area you will find the Report Policy Violation link.

Upon clicking the Report Violation link you will be offered a standard form where you should enter your information and your explanations.

Your report will be kept completely anonymous. Only a small number of staff with the proper set of privileges will have access to the report and the person that you report will not receive your name or any information with which to identify you. We never give out this information to anyone so you do not need to fear any reprisals from those people who you report.

Before I continue I’d like to simply mention one thing;

Despite this easy to use anonymous system which is designed to protect you from the possible drama resulting from reporting something many of you choose to make yourself targets by trying to educate rule-breaking artists while others quote FAQs at them advising them to remove the unacceptable submission and a small minority run around creating drama by writing journals, screaming “THIEF” or “PORN” or something else entirely different but no less dramatic.

What tends to happen is that by drawing attention to yourself by doing these things you can wind up catching “The Blame” when the unacceptable submission is removed by staff. I have personally seen dozens and dozens of fights, personal dramas, abuse, harassment and even flat out threats of physical violence erupt because a kind soul wanted to help educate a rule breaker instead of just using the anonymous reporting system to get the attention of the staff.

Please just use the official system and help yourself to avoid a potentially abusive situation

Now to continue;

When the Report page appears your first task will be to classify what type of violation you are reporting. This is important because the different categories which you see will send the report to different areas. We’ve simplified the selections recently so please try to put a little effort into getting the category as close as possible to your issue.

I’ll now give a brief explanation of the various options;

• Other:
This is the default selection which is supposed to be used for those oddball situations which are not covered by the other categories. Please try to pick one of the other selections since this will help the appropriate staff receive your report in a shorter period of time.

• Hate Propaganda:
Use this category to report racist or bigoted artworks or writings or any submission which you believe needs to come to the attention of the staff. The official definition of 'Hate propaganda' is provided in the FAQ and please bear in mind that just because you personally find it offensive doesn’t mean it’s automatically Hate Propaganda.

• Nudity Violation or Pornography:
Use this category to report a submission which features gratuitous displays of nudity, children (or fictional characters) under the age of 18 being shown nude or in inappropriate ways or things which are pornographic or overly sexual. Please remember that not every naked person is automatically “porn” and we do allow a certain level of erotica to be posted.

• Misplacement:
Use this category to report a submission which has been placed into an incorrect or inappropriate section or gallery or which otherwise doesn’t belong where you found it

• Copyright Infringement:
Use this category to report any Deviation or Scrapbook submission which makes use of someone else's artwork, photography, screenshot, music, etc without the proper permission or license to do so. Also use this category if the submitter misrepresents the work of another author or artist as their own work ("art theft" or "ripping"). The FAQ deals with the official definitions of what is and is not allowed so I won’t go into this here.



The next field is for a URL. This is not for the URL of the thing you are reporting. The report will automatically tell us this information. This field is there so that if the deviation you are reporting contains artwork or photography which was directly stolen or which was otherwise used without permission you can provide a link to an original example for comparison.. Please paste in the URL from your browser address bar (the http line at the top) and link directly to the page containing the example of the original artists work for comparison with the infringing ("stolen" or "ripped") work.

So many people mess this step up and leave out the crucial evidence we need to confirm that something was stolen or used without permission. While I’ve personally been doing this for about 5 years now and I can recognize many things on sight I don’t carry around a catalog of every artwork ever made in my head, so please help me and my department out by providing evidence, otherwise we can’t do much of anything.

The comment field is so that you can tell us a little bit about why you are reporting the deviation. Clearly state why you are reporting the submission and please don’t write an entire novel about it- in the case of stolen or misused works just take the time to identify the source of the work whether by naming the original artist, professional supermodel, celebrity, or by providing additional links and information in order to assist in the identification process.
The more information you can provide the more helpful it will be to us during the review process.

All reported deviations are logged in a special administrative area where they will be reviewed typically within a maximum of 48 hours from the time of submission by a member of staff. Gallery Directors typically screen reports of misplaced items while CEA handle all other reports.
If the submission remains after the passing of 48 hours then we may have had a very high instances of reported violations which caused a longer delay period or you have either failed to provide sufficient evidence for us to make an accurate judgment or the deviation was judged not to be a violation of official deviantART policy.