The Big Spring Clean

In many cultures, Spring is traditionally a time which brings a period of time where you take time out to give your house a good cleaning, get rid of any unwanted items which have been gathering dust for a while, and generally put everything back in it's right place.

I always hear that people consider deviantART to be their home -- I know I do -- so why not apply this thought to our devious home too?

The Big Spring Clean project is aimed at doing just that very thing. Making sure that our galleries are spick and span, and that everything is in it's right place. Miscategorised (miscats) deviations are about to feel a sweeping of brushes from all sides, and we'd like you get your sleeves rolled up to help out.



How can I get involved?

Simple, really.

Take a look at your gallery. Make sure that everything in there is in it's right place. Have you checked that you are submitting your artwork to the most appropriate gallery? If you have any traditional art uploaded into digital art this will mean that you may miss out on valuable print sales when people browse the traditional art gallery within our store, for example.

You may find the following FAQs useful in your personal Spring cleaning.


FAQ #867: Is it possible to move deviations from one page to another in my gallery?
FAQ #163: Where can I find the description to a Gallery that I want to submit to?
FAQ #208: I want to submit a piece, but it doesn't fit any of the Galleries. Can new categories be added to deviantART? If so how?
FAQ #307: What is the Deviation Storage Tool, and how do I access it? Can I temporarily hide deviations?


If you browse a particular gallery and discover any miscats, use our reporting tool in order to bring it to the attention of Community Operations Staff who deal with these reports. Although the CEA & Help Desk Staff clear a large number of current reports on a weekly basis, there is still an outstanding backlog of reports from the middle of 2008 which are in backlog. This means that you may get an acklowledgement regarding a report you sent in last year alongside one you sent in 2 weeks ago. We are striving to bring this up to date as much as we can!

You may find this useful:
FAQ #155: How do I report a submission which I think breaks the rules?

But shouldn't the Gallery Moderators be dealing with this sort of thing?

Volunteer Gallery Moderators have access to a tool which allows them to move any miscats that they may find whilst browsing, should they wish to. Contrary to any myths which may have circulated in the past, there is absolutely no rule in place which states that volunteers must move miscats. We don't think that this is fair, as we have full time staff already in place who handle reports sent in by deviants. We like to encourage our volunteers to spend their time volunteering from within the community, making sure that they are at the heart of where you can reach out to them easily, not buried in 1000s of reports.

As part of the Spring Clean project, $Moonbeam13 and I have put up some incentives for the Gallery Moderators who chose to spend time moving miscats. There's a bunch of goodies up for grabs to the top 5 Gallery Moderators who go the extra mile in order to spring clean. You may very well find some of the Gallery Moderators asking for hints as to where the main bulk of backdated miscat reports are, so be a good deviant and help them out!

Please note, there is absolutely no need for you to send in an additional reports of something you have reported in the past, this will only add to the backlog.

What about me? I always send in accurate reports, I want a prize, pick me pick me!

Don't worry, way ahead of you there!

If you are someone who has consistently sent in a high number of accurate miscat reports, you may find that you notice your reports are handled quicker than usual. This is because we have set a temporary priv against your account to automate your reports. We monitor this very closely and each week we add and remove people accordingly.

If you have been someone who has contributed to this positively, and continue to send in reports of high quality and accuracy, you may find that you receive some goodies in the post as a thank you for your dedication to keeping our galleries in order.



So there you have it -- now you are hopefully armed with all the tools you need in order to help make this Spring Clean the best one yet! Now all that's left for you to do is spread the word. Tell your friends, your watchers and use the following stamps to let everyone know about the Big Spring Clean project.



Thank you for your participation and co-operation. Let's get to Spring Cleaning!!