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Community Relations News - January + February 2012>
Table of Contents
1. Daily Deviations
2. Bi-weekly Critique Nights
3. Volunteer Openings
4. Share Your Opinions
5. Community Projects
6. Official Contests
7 Project Educate 2011/2012
8. Art History
9. News from the Galleries
1. Daily Deviations
Recently, I announced changes to Daily Deviations in this journal and I'm happy to say that the response has been favorable. To review, we have made the following changes:
a> The "3-month rule" is now the "6-month rule" meaning an artist cannot receive another DD if they have had one in the last 6 months.
b> Daily Deviation selectors are limited to a maximum of one selection per day. This has been put in place to focus on quality vs quantity.
The hard-coding of these new guidelines is now in place (special thanks to $ZombieCoder for that

).
These changes are part of an ongoing initiative to better our Dai

The Help Desk: a year in reviewDeviantART's Community Operations department aims to foster an environment where deviants can come together and be empowered within, and by, the community. By providing an organized, motivated, accountable, and effective department, we are leading the way for deviants to participate in a manner where they feel listened to, valued, and inspired. 2011 was an amazing year for Community Operations and we wanted to share a few of the highlights!

Introductions
The Community Operations department is comprised of both the Copyright & Etiquette Administration and Help Desk teams.
Fiona ($fourteenthstar): Director of Community Operations
Copyright & Etiquette Administration
Daniel ($realitysquared): Project Manager
Aun-Juli ($aunjuli): Team Leader
Kay ($damphyr)
Jenn ($y2jenn)
Bryan ($godofodd)
Dom ($dxd)
Kassandra ($kozispoon)
Help Desk
Evanita ($ewm): Team Leader
Chris ($Ikue)
Ollie ($Thunderstatement)
dAmn & Fo

Pimps and Whoas - February 9, 2012Pimps
Official dA News

Celebrating Deviousness - February 2012

Pin Up From Objectification to Empowerment

The Great Valentine Exchange

Site Update Comment Counts on Thumbs and More

Giving Your Stacks an Introduction

Pimps and Whoas - January 28, 2012Pimps
Official dA News

Odyssey Into 2012 - In Retrospect

Introducing the deviantART Collection on Fotolia

Size Does Matter - Artisan Crafts News

For My Own Safety

Site Updates Week 2 of 2012

Popular Results for Browse

The Resource Roundup 4
:bulle

New Ways to Receive Prints Profits!At deviantART, we're all about supporting artists any way we can. We do this is by giving our members a platform for displaying their art, tools to exchange comments and critiques, and avenues for finding new friends and mentors all over the world.
We also want to help artists by providing a place to sell their art, which we've done for years through our Prints program. Because the process of receiving payments from your art sales has been less than ideal, we've worked hard on a new earnings system. We've heard your feedback and suggestions, and want to give you a preview of three ways you will be able to receive profits from the Prints that you've sold. Check out these changes coming soon!
Points, PayPal, and Checks
With our new program, we're adding ways to instantly receive payments, all of which will be found in the new and improved My Earnings page.
Points
The simplest way to receive your Prints profits will be throu

Daily Deviations UpdateHappy Monday Morning

I started this morning by signing something "Moonbam13" so either this typo means I need more coffee, or this week is going to be BAMTASTIC!
I'm rooting for the latter

I wanted to post a quick update on changes to Daily Deviations. It is important to note that these changes have not been hard-coded so my team is manually following these new guidelines. This means that errors can and likely will occur until the coding is complete, your patience and understanding is appreciated

The following guideline changes are in effect:

The 3-month rule is now the 6-month rule, meaning that it must be at least 6-months since the last time an artist received a daily deviation. (This was an overwhelmingly popular suggestion from the community and I agree, it's a good one!)

Daily deviation selectors may only select one daily deviation per day maximum. This has been put in place to focus on Quality vs Quantity.

New deviantART ThumbnailsIn the weekly Site Updates, we've been telling you all about the changes that have been launched to deviantART, getting your feedback, and reporting all the bugs that have been fixed.
This change is a little different, since it involves a feature that has been in place for a long time. We think it deserves an announcement of its own, ahead of time.
The current deviantART thumbnails (the smaller versions of deviations) have served the community well for years; however, there's always room for improvement.
Some of the problems with existing thumbnails are: they leave a lot of blank space around them, there isn't a lot of room for text for literature deviations, and the thumbnails don't present very tall/wide images well.
The New Thumbnails
Now, we've created a new style of thumbnail, which hopes to solve a lot of these problems.
We've made all thumbnails bigger!We're showing them in tidier row

Celebrating Deviousness - April 2012 Deviousness Award
Deviousness Award

Congratulations to ^shuttermonkey

All for the love of you

Pretty in White II

The Colors of Potter's Cay

What is this Awesome Achievement?

The Deviousness Award is an accolade which is traditionally handed out on the 1st of every month to one truly outstanding deviant.

It's no April Fools prank, today we are delighted to announce
^shuttermonkey as the Deviousness Award recipient for April 2012.

Funny Face ID.

Landing Lake 2

Playful Reminder II

Who is ^shuttermonkey?

Cory's dedication to the community is astounding. Not only is he what we would call

Emoticon Gallery ChangesGreetings!
There are some changes to the Emoticon Gallery structure that I'm excited to announce. Months ago `Synfull suggested this layout:

and the response from the community has been entirely in favor of this structural change!
While I have made most of the changes the category currently looks like this:

Emoticons

Chat Friendly

Animated

Large - up to 150x150

Medium - up to 50x50

Seniority Announcement - December 2011This article marks the latest announcements detailing the latest additions to the dizzy height of Senior members in our community. With just over 800 deviants holding the highly saught after ` -- it's clearly a moment that deserves recognition.
:faq29:
So what does it take to become a Senior? That's a question many have asked and have never really been able to get a straight answer on. Some have gained Seniority as a thank you for their time spent as a Volunteer, or to recognise their contribution to a particular project or collaborative action. Some have gained Seniority because of their community spirit, providing help and assistance to many other deviants and taking time out to promote the work of others in the community.
Some people have received Seniority because of their artistic endevours, having a positive influence on their peers by sharing resources, providing constructive criticism and by being a voice that stands out above the many others who deviate to be recognised

Improved DMCA Reporting System

Hello, deviants! In an effort to keep the community informed and to provide the best possible experience for our members, we wanted to inform you of changes to our reporting system.
DeviantART is dedicated to protecting our artists, and in an effort to be able to more quickly handle complaints by deviants who have had their rights infringed on, we have changed the way we receive complaints from the artist or the copyright holder.
In the past, we took reports by the copyright holder in two different ways: An informal report via the Report Violation tool and a formal complaint via contacting the Help Desk. While both of these methods were effective, they presented many setbacks.

The informal report did not gather all the necessary information for a formal copyright complaint and was prone to misuse by well-meaning deviants who would attempt to report images they did not own the copyright to

Site Update: April 20, 2012In our continuous effort to improve the deviantART experience, we're publishing Site Updates to keep members informed and to gather feedback. Below is a list of recent changes to the site, bug fixes, and feedback that was brought up by members in the last Site Update.
What's New
More Updates to the New Thumbnails Preview

Several weeks ago, we released a sneak peek of deviantART's new thumbnails. We've been making changes based on community responses, and today we've implemented a few more. In this updated version, the font, spacing, and colors of the text under the thumbs have been adjusted. Also, several members had concerns about the "frames" that were put around thumbs that were either extra tall, extra wide, or small images (such as emoticons and avatars). We've adjusted the visual display of these frames to make them less distracti

CEA Blog: How to communicate with the CEADuring the course of our daily activities we receive a lot of communication from members, in the interests of helping you get the right help in the quickest possible manner we have put together this guide on how to communicate efficiently with the CEA team.
Before contacting the CEA we ask that you do the following:
Check for a relevant +faq entry to make sure your question isn't already addressed there. This can save you a lot of time waiting for a response that you can easily access.
Check recent #communityops blogs to make sure that your issue hasn't been addressed there.
If reporting harassment, have you blocked the deviant and hidden their comments already?
Collect any relevant information about the issue, links to comments, journals or deviations
If the issue has upset you, take a few minutes to make sure you're calm before contacting us. This will help your tickets

All deviants can now write Critiques

Be a giver!
Sometimes you come across a deviation that deserves special attention. It catches your eye in such a way that you're compelled to craft a response that goes above and beyond a normal comment. Or perhaps a fellow deviant is having a tough time with a particular aspect of their work, and you know just what they need to take their art to the next level. As a good Internet citizen and art enthusiast, you want to help them out, but a normal comment doesn't quite suit your purpose.
For these situations and more, we've given everyone the ability to write a Critique.

What is Critique?
DeviantART's Critique system is designed to help artists get in-depth, critical feedback and commentary on their work. Valued feedback through Critique promotes creative growth as an artist and draws special attention to work. Critiques are also a way for committed art enthusiasts, connoisseurs, and fans to publish real criticism,

Celebrating Deviousness August 2012Deviousness Award
Congratulations to `Thiefoworld
Call the Police
Summary of Art
Little Felicia 2012
What is this Awesome Achievement?
The Deviousness Award is an accolade which is traditionally handed out on the 1st of every month to one truly outstanding deviant.

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Update: Fair Exposure and Popular Browse

Tue Apr 17, 2012, 4:58 PM

Fair Exposure and miscategorization

On January 24th, 2012, we released an #hq journal regarding Popular results for Browse. In this journal, we described Fair Exposure -- deviantART's algorithm for Popular browse results. Fair Exposure's goal is to showcase the most popular deviations in a variety of styles, genres, and art forms, without bias towards a particular topic.

Since the release of our Fair Exposure announcement, especially in the last handful of weeks, we've noticed a concerted, dedicated effort made by deviants, or groups of deviants, to specifically beat (or "game") the system. Deviations have been intentionally miscategorized in hopes of having them appear "higher" in Popular results. This has, rightfully so, resulted in complaints from deviants who submit to deviantART in a fair and honest manner.

What we're doing

The engineers who make up deviantART's Search team are well aware of the current issues and concerns regarding Fair Exposure. They're already hard at work on Fair Exposure algorithm enhancements that will be significantly more robust when it comes to miscategorization (in addition to a number of other upgrades). Please know that we're constantly working to maintain Fair Exposure's inherently impartial nature.

In the meantime, while those enhancements are still being refined, swift action will be taken against any deviant who is found to be purposely and/or flagrantly manipulating Fair Exposure. Such action might include a site suspension or ban.

Better browsing, on the way

Fair Exposure is important in order to truly bring to light the depth and breadth of the work submitted to deviantART daily, with an aim to appeal to a broad spectrum of tastes and interests. It's equally as important that we keep Fair Exposure healthy and functioning appropriately, as to ensure that deviations on display are truly deserving.

Thank you for your feedback and continued patience as we work to build an optimal browsing experience.

~$Heidi

826 Comments

Update: Fair Exposure and Popular Browseby $Heidi

Journals / deviantART, Inc. / deviantART Blog

=battlebrothertherix Jul 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I don't see much actual description of the Fair Exposure algorithm.

You've told us that there is one, but I'm afraid I don't see much actual description.

I'm afraid it isn't even cleverly concealed.
How does the Fair Exposure algorithm work, exactly?

*The-UglyTruth Jul 18, 2012

Do you do web development? Do you understand mySQL/PHP, queries and limits?

Even if you did, why would they tell you 'how' its done? What would be the point? Do you see google telling people how it gathers it's search results?

=battlebrothertherix Jul 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Pretty much, yes.

We know how google gathers its results.
Closest word match-up.
Nearest relevance.
Most popular result selected based on previous two parameters.

*The-UglyTruth Jul 18, 2012

'Nearest relevance'.

And how is that defined, exactly? You obviously don't understand the complexity behind it if you think it's that simple. Cut the developers some slack, what they're doing isn't exactly easy.

=battlebrothertherix Jul 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Closest relevance: Defined by keywords and definitions written into website coding.

It's closest match-up of words, as in the first parameter, only in greater detail.

*The-UglyTruth Jul 18, 2012

How do they sort it? Decide what is more relevant? It goes way beyond metadata. You've got spiders, filters, analytics, an endless length of parameters. You could go ask google but, oh wait, they don't hand out their algorithms. Why? Because it's their secret to success. I still think you don't grasp exactly what you're trying to talk about here.

=battlebrothertherix Jul 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Even so, I'm not asking for an in-depth analysis. The journal said it would explain Fair Exposure but didn't at all.

*The-UglyTruth Jul 18, 2012

"Fair Exposure's goal is to showcase the most popular deviations in a variety of styles, genres, and art forms, without bias towards a particular topic."

(1 Reply)

=TheRecreation Jun 27, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Lets start an art riot
Journal: [link]
Group: [link] front page
Image: [link]

-- For the people who deserve --

~snicholes0000 Jun 23, 2012 Student Digital Artist

I know im very late to the punch on this one, but fair exposure was brought to my attention only about a week ago, by a site moderator, actually. It's a shame the way all this works. The thing is, group mods and other painters, website owners seem to really like my stuff. Ive been recently asked to do art for several websites and people, and (until i quit yesterday) i was a working concept artist. I get very little views, but from all the right people. I ve never been on front page, and im sure i never will. This should be a showing place for mid level artists, not people whos stuff is so bad and theyre just fishing for a compliment, and not for the famous pros either. Do you think Stanley Lau needs you to make him more popular? Who doesnt know Artgerm? He has so much work he can barely finish it(his paintings sometimes take up to 100 hours) I am not just some guy having fun. This is my career and i take it more seriously than you could know. I think its ENTIRELY unfair that i have to compete with naked women. If you hand a man a picture of an alex ross painting and one of a beautiful nude woman, what do you think hes going to look at? I have no respect for people who make their living by taking off their clothes. NO algorithm will fix this, and of course there are far too many images to personally look through. The only thing i can think of that will fix this? Deviantphoto. It should be an entirely diff site. Not bc i don't consider it art, but i don't at all care about a frontpage full of kittens and nude women, lip gloss designs and 5,000 views for a photo of a pencil. Its so sad. Im shocked we even have to report gamers, bc they are right on the frontpage every day, where you can see it. It's so ridiculous the way they attempt to defend themselves. Now that i know how to report them, ill just do that instead. Thanks for your time.

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