Dygel is one of our newest staff members, but in addition to living on deviantART this reporter was shocked to find he also has a life offline.

NetGuru: So, Mr. Dygel sir: before we start prying into the inner workings of DeviantART tell us a bit about yourself please.
NetGuru: Just who IS dygel and what does he do when he's not online?

Dygel: Sure. I'm a 20 year old student of computer science and mathematics. I attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am active member of the local chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery here as the standing chair of SigMusic, an interest group in electronic music. I'll soon be starting a group called GameBuilders within ACM@UIUC, which will focus on game development and design.
Dygel: I'm blessed to be in love with a beautiful and all-around wonderful woman: Kristen Fields, perhaps better known to the DA crowd as the user "galactose."
Dygel: This summer, I'm working at a networking firm in the area, doing front-end development for various components of their software. This involves PHP, dynamic HTML, and, of course, my good friend Photoshop.

NetGuru: Sounds like you are quite busy!

Dygel: Yup. We haven't even factored in my participation with DA and DM yet, either.

NetGuru: Indeed, how do you find time for it all?

Dygel: Black magic.

NetGuru: Which reminds me...just who is this Evil-Dygel I see lerking about? A clone?

Dygel: On the surface, evildygel is my evil clone, yes. He has an apartment in Bedlam, Hell, and enjoys dragging my life down with him, one kitchen appliance at a time.
Dygel: But there's more to evildygel than that.

NetGuru: Really? Please explain...

Dygel: Well, one of the most accurate criticisms I think anyone can make of me is that I take a lot of things quite seriously.
Dygel: That's just the kind of person I am.
Dygel: Well, evildygel was created because I needed a little bit of comic relief from myself.

NetGuru: I see. But this is dygel's interview, not his.

Dygel: Yes, but I cloned evildygel of my own free will.

NetGuru: So, aside from reality and keeping your evil twin in check you also live in DeviantART...

Dygel: I do indeed.

NetGuru: For those of us not blessed(?) by seeing you everywhere we turn can you tell us what exactly you do here?

Dygel: I am the Editor in Chief of deviantMAG and, now, an active member of the deviantART administration
Dygel: More than that, I am still a member of the community, and I never want to dissociate myself from that.

NetGuru: yes, that's a great thing about the admin staff here...they are always around to answer questions.

Dygel: Well, some of us are more available than others, but we all do what we can.

NetGuru: What do your duties on the staff entail?

Dygel: I am neck deep in the facet of DA that I wish weren't as necessary as it is; I am on the Policy Violation Support Team along with BrazenSix and Euphoria. I issue warnings, delete violations, ban deviants. I help to handle messes that we wish never occurred in the first place.
Dygel: Most notably, I handle the rip reports, and this is often a very messy job.

NetGuru: Messy?

Dygel: We get a copy of every rip report that's submitted. Everything. We get the ones that are, in fact, blatant rips. We get ones that don't provide a link to an original image. We get ones that have nothing to do with ripping at all...
Dygel: On top of that, none of these are open-and-shut cases.
Dygel: There's almost always some response to the warning which requires the same attention I give to processing the reports themselves.

NetGuru: what is involved in processing a rip report?

Dygel: Well, if I can confirm that it is a rip, a policy violation warning is issued to the deviant, and the deviation is removed. Most commonly, the deviant will reply and ask why his or her deviation was removed, and then I explain in more depth how it violated DA policy.
Dygel: In the event that the rip in question displays an active, willing theft of a complete image, banning the deviant is considered.
Dygel: However, there's one thing you should remember here.
Dygel: Each of us follows the same protocol in handling these, but not all of us respond precicely the same. The way I handle these won't be identical to how BrazenSix, Euphoria, Jark, or any of the other admins does.
Dygel: We try to keep things fairly consistent, but we're not cookie-cutter cut-outs

NetGuru: But the important thing is all reports are thoroughly researched.

Dygel: Yes. Generally, if we can't find a source image, we email the person who sent in the report and notify them that if they can't find one either, we won't do anything about it. We are hunting rips, but we're not going to jump at anything that seems out of place... We have to limit ourselves to being as cautious and fair as possible, and that's all we can promise.

NetGuru: That's good. You mentioned being in love with a fellow deviant earlier...any plans of mini-dygels in the future?

Dygel: At the current point in time, not a chance in hell. Kids are cute... until you have to deal with them. I'm 20. I'd like to think I embody a certain amount of wisdom, but I'm still quite young yet. I have a lot of living to do for me before I even want to consider the possibility of smaller versions of myself running around the globe... Kristen feels the same way. There may be time for children in her life someday far away, but not today; no sir, not today.

NetGuru: Well, best of luck to the two of you and thank you for taking time out of the 72 hours a day you spend to do this interview.

Dygel: No trouble.