Серьёзные вопросы.

[deviations]

Возможно я напишу не по теме\удалят\забанят, но я напишу, т.к. мне нужна помощь опытных пользователей девианта.
Не так давно (несколько месяцев назад) я на какой-то форуме увидела ссылку на этот сайт. там было написано, что что бы качать нужно зарегистрироваться. Я вобщем-то так и сделала, и в итоге, когда мне нужна была графика, кисти и т.д. я обращалась к этому сайту. Сегодня я в очередной раз туда заглянула пересмотреть "обновки", и заметила, что у меня откуда-то натикало уже семь сообщений. Последнее вызвало шок.:
The dynamic between core staff, volunteer staff, and the community can at times be pure quality dArama.
It's
worth noting that for years I've worked pretty hard to remain neutral
on community politics. Today, I'm going to shatter that concept.
Needless
to say, I am extremely politically aware of the inner workings of the
deviantART community. I read *a lot* of journals, comments, forums,
chat rooms. I have fake accounts. I spy.
But I don't spend my
time talking politics, instead I focus internally at deviantART
designing technologies and implementing understandings with core staff
to address the issues I see pop up.
It's time to take a moment to be a bit more petty.
The Structure
In
the inner workings of our politics exists the soul of deviantART. What
is this place? What was it meant to do? What does it do? What could we
do better? And it's the politics that give insight into how well the
greater plan is running.
There's $core staff who are employees
or contractors and work 8+ hours per day. And there are teams of
volunteers in artist relations and community development doing various
fun to tedious things to support specific sections of the site - like
galleries or chat rooms. Honestly I have far fewer direct interactions
with the volunteer staff than I should. I have guilt over that, but my
time is insanely structured so I do my best. I spend a lot of time with
much of the core staff, that has recently reached 60 people and
growing. Did you know that core deviantART staff was made up of 60
people? You're already learning things. Keep reading.
EKUD.
And then there are some fascinating people who fit outside this "box." $MikeyLove and +ekud
come to mind. Note that both have staff-like symbols, and aren't really
core staff or volunteer staff. They're just old school staff and they
have privs that they can use to do stuff when they feel like it just
like volunteers can except without real oversight. Volunteers have
volunteer leads that they talk to, and if volunteers want to help out
with things that require some extra access they get the extra access.
They use features that all community members have (like journals or
news) to post contests that are officially supported by deviantART with
prizes and things. But +ekud doesn't do any of this. He simply posts daily deviations.
This
capability is a dream held by many deviants. Posting a Daily Deviation
has the ability to direct a solid surge of traffic to a deviation, and
therefore it is a very powerful privilege that many deviants seek to
have, or influence.
I've heard it all.
Now, issues arise with staff all the time. If you think you're having a unique issue with a staff member, you're wrong. I've heard it all. Examples?

One guy left staff, a bit later we got a note that he died of cancer.
We had no idea he had cancer. It was one of the saddest days I can
recall at deviantART. I sent out a hot topic to the community (to
millions of people!) celebrating his life and who he was to us - a
person we deeply cared about - it was a miserable day at deviantART. A
year later? He informed us it was a joke.

Some people have built up profiles at deviantART and have gathered a
bit of fame and good faith with the community. They have then turned
around and blackmailed me for stock or money, citing that they'll go
tell the world I'm a terrible person just like some people have
described in the past. My response? Enjoy hell.

There was a guy that tried to kill me for a while. This turned out to
be a good experience. I now have relationships with multiple members of
the F.B.I. in various states, along with numerous relationships with
various police agencies. Not to mention really great private detectives
and a whole rolodex of lawyers. I own guns, I realize this is
controversial. But when your life is in danger, the police tell you to
buy guns. And lawyers tell you what to do in a situation where you have
to use guns. I'm not kidding.

Countless instances of scuffles between members. The lit community on
fire over a gallery director, or political maneuvering to get someone
on staff. The stories are countless. If you catch me at a devmeet
sometime I'm happy to dish out all the exciting details if you ask,
they're usually fun tales that are healing for me to tell as they were
quite stressful to go through.
Never the less, there are lessons you learn over the years, like the fact that giving some people privs and different symbols sometimes
completely demotivates the good behavior that "earned" them the new
status. That's right. Sometimes giving someone staff privs creates an
irreversible negative effect in that person, or worse sometimes they
literally become ego maniacal crazies. You wouldn't believe.
There's
some really bizarre stuff that happens in the inner political society
of deviantART that has dumbfounded me from time to time.
But I'm here to tell you, I've heard it all.
Yet it's virtually impossible to track everything that happens every
day here at deviantART. There are well over 1.5 million comments of all
kinds posted per day. Within that there are thousands upon thousands of
comments that (believe it or not) are full of insightful, deeply
political thoughts on our little society and those comments
(specifically) represent a reflection of the status of the culture of
deviantART.
I worry about this culture every day of my life.
Back to Ekud.
I haven't spoken to +ekud for a while, so it may surprise him to find his mention here. HI +ekud!
+ekud recently wrote a journal about daily deviations and his frustrations with them.
About
three weeks later he had an altercation with an individual via notes
where a work of art was suggested for a daily deviation feature and +ekud nothing short of freaking puked
on this person. Having reviewed this message, which was escalated to
staff by the recipient; it was a pretty sharp, rude response. Of course
the reaction by the recipient was crystal clear; they immediately
escalated the matter to the help desk, complaining they were being
harassed by a staff member. And since +ekud doesn't have oversight from another staff member, it was escalated to me since I'm ultimately accountable.
It bothered me for days how +ekud
reacted to this person. I was convinced it must have been a n00b acting
like a fool suggesting a masterpiece created in Microsoft Paint. So I
went and I looked, and the person suggesting the DD feature has been
active since 2004. Even has some pretty solid design skill if you look
closely at her deviations.
It strikes me that this is either a complex matter, or an open shut case of a staff member being rude.
Now
for a greater perspective, if you magnify the volume of issues like
this by 10,000 you get some insight in to the massive challenge of
operating this community in a fashion where everyone can say great
things about interactions with staff all the time. Keeping in mind that
we don't just do customer service here... we are the customers, and we
talk to everyone inside staff or outside pretty candidly. This is an
*awesome* differentiation between deviantART and virtually all other
companies I can think of.
And just right there, that's where it all came together.
SAY WHAT?!
You
see, deviantART isn't just an art community service for sharing and
interacting with artists. deviantART is actually primarily focused on
celebrating, empowering, nurturing and fostering the creative genius.
Lets
talk about the side of the story that this person didn't bother to look
in to before escalating the matter to staff. A mistake I *know* many of
our members make.
+ekud
is a creative genius. He always has been. Like many of our naturally
devious leaders from a variety of genres and all corners of the globe;
in the inner mind of a creative genius sometimes lives a "moody little
bitch" (to put it crudely) full of emotion and sensitivity. That's
often times some of the juice that makes up a good artist!
+ekud has stood out in this community since joining in June 2001. Having Co-Founded depthCORE (one of the most awesome art groups I've seen) +ekud
has exemplified walking the walk, talking the talk, living the joy and
hardship of being a digital artist for life. His work is unquestionably
top notch in his field.
Having the capacity to feature work is not a privilege that he has at deviantART. No no, see, the privilege is ours that he chooses to do this for us.
And
along comes this person, with her bland suggestion for a daily
deviation. Citing that it's a "must feature." Using a tool that's been
created to virtually spam all people who have daily deviation posting
capabilities and target those (in this instance) who feature Digital
Art - cramming this suggestion down throats with a sense of entitlement
as to the result. Completely not acknowledging WHOM the suggestion is
being lunged at and certainly not taking in to account the integrity of
the people with access to this very important and powerful function.
What is with this sense of entitlement?
You
know damn well that this place isn't like all the rest. It isn't here
to be another dumping ground. It's an asylum from the insanity out
there, where for once, somewhere, some people decided to actually build
a place with values and a direction towards a common goal of bettering
one another no matter how big the place got to be. I know there's lots
of people who put that in to question here, but that's part of the
evolution of the place. And it's posts like this, and the very
significant and truly important people who have the dedication to
actually read a post this long that truly matter if we intend to change
this. That's right, YOU. The reader of this highly political in depth
post about the deviantART community. If you've made it this far, you
are a very important person at deviantART. You have the capacity and
the time to make a difference. And I very much would like for you to do
so.
I want you to combat THIS:
Never mind who you are, +ekud
or what your history here is. Never mind the journal you just wrote
addressing just this matter. Never mind what your values are, or the
integrity with which you choose daily deviations and the pride that you
put in to your career as an artist. Just cram this deviation in your
queue and deal with me, deal with this, deal with it. Because here I
am, another deviant with the capacity to send you a note and ask you
for favors and aimlessly try to get my way.
Here's what +ekud actually said in response to this sense of entitlement:
"Thats
not a must feature, thats a second rate piece of amateur art, and your
poor taste in conjunction with your ignorance in noting several admins
will accomplish nothing more than having me ignore you henceforth."
Pissy?
Sure. Right? From my perspective, in this greater context I bring to
you?Absolutely. Absolutely. Say it again. Say it louder. Just as
rudely, maybe even more so if that's what it takes to strikingly
correct this dynamic.
I am right behind you, right there to
echo this sentiment of frustration with the contradiction to what this
place was designed to be, and the cultural misalignment that's
occurring that infuriates those of us who know and believe in what
being a deviant really means. So I suppose, +ekud's response resonates with me, and I understand where he's coming from.
Look, +ekud
doesn't work for deviantART - he's an artist, he's a deviant, he's just
like you. In fact the entirety of the community development teams and
the majority of deviantART core staff are also from the community
directly. Do you think we hire people from craigslist or something for
these positions? These are people from the community, by the community.
We are of the same cloth and we come together as equals. You aren't
speaking to some corporate empire when you write to suggest deviations,
or when you ask questions in the help desk. 100% of those contact
points are represented by people who were not only members of the
community but in fact long time members before they became staff!
You
may take deviantART lightly, but we do not. Daily Deviation privileges,
volunteer privileges, staff privileges, etc. are absolutely sacred.
They come from a long line of what are now generations of different
deviants who hold deviantART itself in the highest of regards and their
fellow deviants as well. Each of us aims to improve and enhance our
gifts as deviants by bettering our craft and our environment. We all
aim. And we hold in high regard those who have aimed high and achieved.
Love.
To be truly effective here - in this place - you have to learn to Love.
If you Love, if you truly seek depth of thought and depth of
interaction with people who themselves are capable of such things you
will find great empowerment here. Meeting people is a strategy for
popularity that is effective at facebook or myspace. deviantART is a
place where the most effective strategy for success is getting to know people. Getting to know someone is an act of Love.
"Love" is the most searched for word on deviantART. A lot of people don't know that.
We're very emotional people here. Quite expressive, too, if you've not noticed.
Know your audience.
Know how to make friends.
Know how to influence people.
Be devious.
Strive to achieve creative genius.
Respect those who have.

-- A
Angelo Sotira
CEO & Co-Founder
deviantART

--
I have added this post as a Deviation for those who would like to Collect it:
Click the llama.
Поскольку в английском языке разбираюсь не самым лучшим образом, обратилась к он-лайн переводчику. Конечно большая часть слов оказалась полной чушью (ну все таки онлайн переводчик как ни как), но вот суть я улавила. Про нечто шпионское, про какое-то сообщество. Короче вобще не ясно что, куда, зачем и откуда. Подскажите мне пожалуйста, что ЭТО. Может кому из зарегистрированных пользователей уже приходило нечто подобное или кто может мне толково объяснить что это такое. Вобщем очень надеюсь на вашу помощь. Заранее большое спасибо.