Community Outreach

Recently in an AR update ^guruubii posted "project un-named". The Plan: To start a Community Communications Web for deviantART. Recent and past events, such as The issues with the Fractals Community, made me realize that Gallery Directors do our best to create as much information as we can, we try to lead people down the right path, but sometimes our reach falls a little short. Artists Relations is constantly buzzing with activity. We are always looking for ways to better serve this massive community and sometimes we fall, sometimes we hit a home run, and sometimes - we just don't see you at all. Some of the communities within this community are small, but they are as important as the whole community. We need a connection point. That connection point is you - the community.

The goal

The Gallery Directors role is to create a link between you and the administration.

With the New Gallery Directors being part of the team for only a year at a time now, its important to create some concrete connections within the community so when new Gallery Directors join, there isn't wasted time building connections or finding those loose threads. Most every community/ sub-community on this huge and complex site have key members. These key members are really active, very educated and highly prominent artists. They are out there. We know of some of them. They are invaluable to the Gallery Directors to keep us informed of anything going on. Project: Community Outreach is meant to expand on that. make it more official, make it function and make it benefit the community.

Your Role

The short description is, Communication. To elaborate: Anyone can volunteer, and hopefully the prominent members of the community will participate. That doesn't mean lots you need a lot of page views, it means someone who knows their art, is knowledgeable, honest, and understands the categories of DA and most importantly - has the communities interests in mind! While this is not an official AR position, it will serve to be an important part of AR. You as a deviant ideally would be around to keep the Director of their particular gallery updated on any issues, complaints and praise from their sub communities. The idea being to extinguish the spark before it becomes a conflagration. These problems could be as simple as saying "Hey, GD this little subcategory is overflowing with miscats" or "Hey, we could use a contest for our type of art" or something as grand as a torrent of journals all angry about administrative action, that is threatening to get out of control. So you would be essential for 'Damage Control' Help us get to the trouble spots and make things right so no one has to deal with the stress or hurt feelings. (Please keep in mind though, Gallery Directors do not deal directly with policy, theft, copyright. GDs deal only with the cleaning and maintaining of the galleries, and the communities. Please report violations the normal way, using the Report Policy Violation link located under the favorites counter on each deviation.)

We would also like that you be talent scouts for the community. Help us by finding the really exceptional artists and bring them to our attention, especially the unknown ones.

1. Keep The AR team/ the Gallery Director informed on the issues or praise within the sub communities
2. Keep up to date with news and policies
3. Spread education not rumors.
4. Help keep the community updated to news and changes within the gallery
5. Reporting miscatagorized deviations and alerting the Gallery Directors to problem/unattended areas

Anyone can do these things of course, we encourage it, but stand out! Show us that you can be relied on for the GD's! Be someone we as Gallery Directors can go to and ask "How is everything?" and get a solid informed answer. You build up your reputation by being an active and integral part of the community. The best way to become part of this project is to build up a good reputation with your GD.
The list of GD's always has been here FAQ #18: Who selects the Daily Deviation and how is it chosen?

Promote

#commoutreach

Special thanks to ^FallenRox for the stamp, and ^PurpelBlur for creating and maintainting the chat

The team

Please visit the journals of the following galleries to find out how you can help with your favorite areas on Deviantart:

Ring Master (All Categories) - ^PurpelBlur
Digital Art - ^cosmosue
Photography - ^hellfirediva
Animals, Plants & Nature - ^KevLewis
Artistic Nudes - ^arachnid15
Aritstic Nudes - ^MissShyly
Anthro - ^skifi
Anthro - ^cooley
Comics & Cartoons - ^misskittyoooo
Fan Art - ^animator
Traditional Art - ^guruubii
Traditional Art - ^stigmatattoo
Anime/Manga - ^RockGirl1582
Fetish - ^opioid
Community Projects - ^shell4art

Please keep watching the news! There are other projects growing in Artists Relations right now that will compliment this project and help you expand what you can do for the community!

If you have any questions at all please drop a note to myself ^guruubii, Find me on Damn in the chatroom #commoutreach or send me an email to guruubii@deviantart.com. I'll be more than happy to answer your questions