# The By You/For You Policy



## Dragoneer (Jan 22, 2009)

In an effort to solicit feedback on the AUP changes, as well as better answer questions, we have created this forum for each individual clause of the AUP. We will modify and/or improve AUP clarity based on suggestions and feedback.
 
- - - - - - - -
*
The By You/For You Policy*  
*1) By You:*
You may post any Submission provided that the submission is an original work created by you. Joint works and collaborations must give proper credit to all contributing sources. 
*2) For You:*
Fur Affinity allows users to post Submissions created for them provided they have the original artist's permission to repost said work. Credit must be attributed to the original artist with citation that the work was not created by the submitter.


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## Danza (Jan 22, 2009)

Oh thank god, the amount of times I see people post artwork and they never give the artist credit makes me fume. Or those people who post a long description and still don't mention the artist and then reply positivity to comments where people say how good it is and think they drew it >..>

I do wonder what policy if any you might have on resubmitting a picture for example when I do a commission some of my recipients submit it also. Isn't that just an unnecessary waste of bandwith ?


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## cassandrarising (Jan 22, 2009)

Danza said:


> I do wonder what policy if any you might have on resubmitting a picture for example when I do a commission some of my recipients submit it also. Isn't that just an unnecessary waste of bandwith ?



Your commissioners should have your permission before they repost your art.  If you feel its an unnecessary waste of bandwidth, its your prerogative not to give that permission.


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## Stratelier (Jan 22, 2009)

Danza said:


> Oh thank god, the amount of times I see people post artwork and they never give the artist credit makes me fume. Or those people who post a long description and still don't mention the artist and . . . people think they drew it >..>


This has always been one of my minor complaints about FA's AUP, the "For You" clause has never sat well with me even from day one.  I thought that's what users could use Favorites for?

I wouldn't mind some way of distinguishing/filtering "For You" works from the artist's normal gallery.  I watch users based on what THEY create, but if their gallery is stuffed full of commissioned works by another artist, forget about it.


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## foxystallion (Jan 22, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> This has always been one of my minor complaints about FA's AUP, the "For You" clause has never sat well with me even from day one.  I thought that's what users could use Favorites for?
> 
> I wouldn't mind some way of distinguishing/filtering "For You" works from the artist's normal gallery.  I watch users based on what THEY create, but if their gallery is stuffed full of commissioned works by another artist, forget about it.



The "for you" part of the policy is important for providing commissioners with an incentive  for spending their money.  

Do you really believe that Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Donatello, Praxiteles, et. al., would have been commissioned to produce their works if those works could only be displayed in the artists' own galleries? The world would be bereft of most art if your preference were generally enforced.

I have nothing but contempt for those who post commissioned or gift art without both express permission from the artist and prominent top line attribution.  That is theft, and should be dealt with accordingly.


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## Eevee (Jan 22, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> This has always been one of my minor complaints about FA's AUP, the "For You" clause has never sat well with me even from day one.


I echo this sentiment.  Apparently the userbase disagrees.

Frequent counters were:
_It gives the original artist exposure._  Of course, half a dozen other people simply reposting all of Dragoneer's art also gives him more exposure, but it does not improve the quality of the site, which is what I was really concerned with.
_What if someone wants to find all the art of my character?_  I cannot fathom why anyone would be so interested in this, but make a journal and keep it updated.
_The commission description is a work of art, too._  Okay.  Post that instead.
_Non-artists' galleries would be empty otherwise._  Boo hoo.
_People would complain otherwise._  Well, got me there.



Stratadrake said:


> I wouldn't mind some way of distinguishing/filtering "For You" works from the artist's normal gallery.


Yeah, I'd like to implement this, whether by building it in specifically or having favorite folders or whatever.



foxystallion said:


> The "for you" part of the policy is important for providing commissioners with an incentive for spending their money.
> 
> Do you really believe that Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Donatello, Praxiteles, et. al., would have been commissioned to produce their works if those works could only be displayed in the artists' own galleries?


I believe those people would have been pretty pissed off if their art showed up in a personal gallery with "copyright yiffyfoxie" under it and a small disclaimer nobody reads that yiffyfoxie didn't actually make it.

Your FA is gallery is, you know, _your gallery_.  It's not your own Photobucket to show off cool stuff you found; it's for stuff you created.  The For You rule is tacked on.

Curious: why does your argument apply to art I commission but not art I merely like?


Incidentally, I know at least one artist who's expressed frustration at this practice to me, because people are _uploading crap that's not theirs_, and she makes her living off commissions.  What's she supposed to do?  Ask them not to and lose the business of people who only spend money so they can show off what they bought?


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

This is also due to legacy code, there isn't a sharing notification. No one is watching or getting notifications on what *other people favorite* (other than the person's own works). However, you are getting a notification if someone is submitting a new submission. This is why simply adding a favorite isn't the same as a submission exposure. 

Honestly, I think having a "watch a person's favorites" becomes more cumbersome. More notifications on top of what's there already. 

It does give an artist more exposure if people read the description and note it's from another person than the submitter, and I also know it was suggested long ago to color code or add a thumbnail flag that it was a commission to distinguish among other submissions.

The For you, By You policy is also a coverage for joint works. Since again there are no sharing ownerships it's likely Artist A the inker for example will post and Artist B the colorist will post the same submission.

If those conditions due to code issues can be changed, I think the policy would be less bothersome to some.


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## Kesslan (Jan 22, 2009)

cassandrarising said:


> Your commissioners should have your permission before they repost your art. If you feel its an unnecessary waste of bandwidth, its your prerogative not to give that permission.


 
Technically, yes and no.

From a legal perspective as I understand it, when you comission some one's work, you are paying to effectively own that work. Not neccessarily in it's entirety, but certainly for personal use. So that if say, some one asks you what your character looks like you can turn around and show them that image and say "This is what my character looks like." and so you can display it so that people may look at it for free.

For me this is generaly used as an enhancement to a character description in the first place. The same sort of description I give to an artist I comission (or at least an, as detailed description of what I'm wanting drawn as I can manage at the time). 

Now, I cant turn around and sell prints of it, because I've not purchased the commercial rights to that artwork. I've only effectively purchased the right to display it. But it is possible to make arrangements to completely own the artwork of another artist. To the point that if the artists starts to sell prints of the very work they created, you can infact sue them for infringmenet or something similar.  Most people however, do not purchase such a right as that is (if the artist is aware of the value of such a thing at least) a very expensive thing to do. It has however happened.

Personally I make it a habbit of allways asking if I can, and allways giving due credit. Afterall if I comission a piece from some one, it's because I like their art style, or I feel they can at least put down into a drawing a concept I have that I"m trying to express to some one else that I just cant seem to get across clearly enough. Such as the various suit layout sheets I've had done in my quest to finalize an overall look for the suit I'm having made. The first few were more complex than the builder had envisioned when I first tried to simply describe it to him, and while he could do it would cost more than I can afford. So it went through several revisions untill we both found something that was manageable, should turn out to look akin to what I want, and is also within my budget for the suit.

But in the end, the artist's permission on where I display the artwork has, in part, been sold off. They have very clear rights over the artwork still that are defined. Including in how the artwork may be presented (Such as how I cant turn around and claim that I drew/painted that particular piece).

And I'm pretty sure any time you do that ther'es some requirement to have some indicator that it's not your own work to avoid the mistaken impression that it is.

As to your wondering why anyone would ever want or care to see drawings of some one elses character, well there are people like me out there who actually roleplay with said characters. Infact the one and only fursona I ever have had, I have RPed with in one form or another going on about 14 years now. Which infact, predates me even knowing what the hell 'furry' was.

Just hoping that sheds at least a little light on the matter from the side of some one who's drawing ability is quite frankly.. terrible. At least by my own opinion. As to those who are total comission whores, I can only assume they eithe rdo it because they like seeing their character done up from differnet perspectives, or they are some how trying to make their character better known to others in some form of pesudo popularity contest.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Kesslan said:


> Technically, yes and no.
> 
> From a legal perspective as I understand it, when you comission some one's work, you are paying to effectively own that work. Not neccessarily in it's entirety, but certainly for personal use. So that if say, some one asks you what your character looks like you can turn around and show them that image and say "This is what my character looks like." and so you can display it so that people may look at it for free.
> .



See "Work For Hire" on US copyright law. 

http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/wfh.html

Since FA is a public site, it reposting it without direction from the artist that it's ok to display "as a personal use" condition, isn't correct. However, a digital print blown up and displayed on your personal property is personal use.

Think about it this way, you're not supposed to post up an mp3 of a song and just claim personal use since you bought it from a retailer.

Even if you contributed by the description, the work the artist did in question received permission from you as a derivative work. However, unless stated excplicitly what "personal use" defines, posting it in your FA gallery isn't personal use.


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## Kesslan (Jan 22, 2009)

Well, fair enough Arshes. I'll be the first to say I odnt know much about US Copywright law, becuase I'm not a citizen of the US. And there are some diffences between the US laws and the Canadian laws that I'm aware of, but at the same time I've never really dug into it. Obviously one must follow the laws of where the content is hosted generally speaking in either case.

At the same time however, looking over the documnent on the link you provided,  one could argue that comissioning an artist to draw something they specifically have in mind would count. And it would certainly hold up enough that one would likely have to actually go to court over it if you wanted to dispute it.

Afterall if I just say to an artist "I want a panther wearing armor" then their pretty much doing what they want, as they see it with pretty much zero input from myself as the comissioner. However if I tell them I want a panther with these details and with this and this and this sort of style of armor but with this sort of detail here, here and here, and these specific attributes over here and posed in this sort of manner...

Your now at the very least, boardering uppon a 'collective effort'. As I've come up with the vision of what the artwork should be along with various details and the artist has thrown in their own variation and put it to paper. The suit layout by LizardBeth for example pulled from the other work Zinou did along with abit of live feedback over her ustream account to net a look more in line with what I wanted, and what the suit builder could actually do, and what she herself thought would be appropriate touches and such. All to the point where it's now the finalized version of what Solion is going to aim for (at least in shape) when constructing the suit and making necessary changes where he must to keep it within the scope of his abilities, and my ability to pay him for his work.

Where it all slips back to the artist though, as I understand it now,  going by all of that is where there is no written agreement to what the specific rights are for the purchaser. And one could very definately argue that posting art to an account like FA counts as publishing it. 

In the end though it largely becomes a mute point I suppose, since I've certainly never heard of an artist demanding something be taken down when posted up by the comissioner with full credit given where it is due. I'm sure it has happened, but I'm not aware of such ever occuring. Well, outside of something considered highly controversial at least.

In the end it makes for another clear cut case I suppose of people assuming something is a 'right' because it's what they've seen happen everywhere, as opposed to the actual letter of the law. And in the end everyone hits walls like that.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Your description of the character, is actually a separate copyright than say the artist that drew it.

It doesn't matter how wordy or flowery your description is. The illustrated piece that comes from it, is a separate piece.

It's not a collaboration unless specifically registered as such, it is the author of each individual work.

A collaborative work under a single copyright both authors have to sign it in as intent.

Like a music piece, one person did the lyrics and vocals, the other the instrumentals. They intended to register it as a unified piece.

If that doesn't happen, each part is a separate copyright.

You post up the image on FA with your description doesn't grant it as a collaborative effort unless both parties agreed that's how the final piece was to be displayed.

There are cases where the artist has privately asked us to take down pieces per request, which I believe there was a reason for the clarification of the AUP.


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## Eevee (Jan 22, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> This is also due to legacy code, there isn't a sharing notification. No one is watching or getting notifications on what *other people favorite* (other than the person's own works). However, you are getting a notification if someone is submitting a new submission.


So write a journal.

But I still don't see why it's such a concern that people won't see what you commissioned.  Watching people is so I can be alerted *of their art*, not of whatever cool stuff they felt like shoving in my face.  The exposure argument is ridiculous.



Arshes Nei said:


> It does give an artist more exposure if people read the description and note it's from another person than the submitter


*So what?*  Uploading everything you draw and linking to you gets you exposure, too.  If exposure for the original artist is _really_ the concern here (and not just attention whoring by the buyer), then *why are commissions special?*



Arshes Nei said:


> The For you, By You policy is also a coverage for joint works. Since again there are no sharing ownerships it's likely Artist A the inker for example will post and Artist B the colorist will post the same submission.


That's a By You.  Nobody has a problem with that.



Kesslan said:


> As to your wondering why anyone would ever want or care to see drawings of some one elses character, well there are people like me out there who actually roleplay with said characters.


This is an art site, not Murry Roleplay Reference Affinity.  There's furspots (I guess?) or photobucket or whatever for hosting references.



Kesslan said:


> Just hoping that sheds at least a little light on the matter from the side of some one who's drawing ability is quite frankly.. terrible.


I am not an artist either.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:


> So write a journal.
> 
> But I still don't see why it's such a concern that people won't see what you commissioned.  Watching people is so I can be alerted *of their art*, not of whatever cool stuff they felt like shoving in my face.  The exposure argument is ridiculous.
> 
> ...



Simply put it's the way the system is set up. The suggestion was favorites, now it's a journal, which is effective? Unfortunately neither at this time. Neither is this current system of even uploading, however it's more effective at this time than the first two.

Right now the system is so out of date, you can't selectively unwatch journals, differ between mature and adult artwork in your settings, etc...

This is just another symptom of a system that needs to be more flexible. 

Even if you uploaded a lot it doesn't necessarily get an artist a view depending on the time of the day, it doesn't hurt if the commissioner did it and you happened to browse it. 

Those commissioners are also what help the site run, even if you have personal reservations as to why this is uploaded, that's one of the reasons people are more willing to donate to FA to help out.


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## foxystallion (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Curious: why does your argument apply to art I commission but not art I merely like?



Because it is not "for you."

Your preferred policy of eliminating "for you" would seriously reduce the amount of income available to commission artists - which would not be good for the artists, for FA, or for the furry community. Do you honestly think that the Medicis' (or various popes, kings, etc.) would have commissioned any art that they could not put into their own palaces? The world would be a poorer place without that art, and FA would be a poorer place without commissioned art, too.

That incorrect attribution "copyright by soandso" is an artifact of poorly thought out FA coding, not an inherent problem with "for you". I deal with this problem by putting the real artist's name in the filename, the title, and on the first line below the title which states "Original art by ..." using the :iconusername: convention to provide a link to the artist's user page.  I also provide a link to the image in the artist's gallery and request that viewers fave it there "so that the artist gets the credit that she deserves."

Finally, many artists do NOT keep all of the commissioned art that they have created displayed in their galleries.


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## Tobias Amaranth (Jan 22, 2009)

Okay, so I tend to stalk the recent uploads. I like that people are able to upload their commissions because I can click in by a picture that catches my eye, note that it's drawn by someone else, and visit them instead. I've found quite a few artists this way. BEYOND that, you can also browse the commissioner's gallery and find other similar artists! I personally would like to see the for you portion remain. At most, allow people to state whether something is a collaboration (I color other people's line-art) or a commission, similar to other filing systems. As someone else mentioned, colored borders would be nice for commissions (not drawn by the uploading artist). I don't find them appropriate for collab's though as both people put in just as much work and it shouldn't be overlooked just because of a collab tag.


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## Vantid (Jan 22, 2009)

As an artist, I like it when people post the work I do for them. I also enjoy looking at the galleries of patrons to see what else has been created for them. Some patrons have cool characters or fun ideas and I enjoy seeing everyone's interpretation of the ideas!

As long as the posters are adhering to the artist's wishes and give the credit as they should, I think it is a neat thing. :3


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## wildrider (Jan 22, 2009)

Vantid said:


> As an artist, I like it when people post the work I do for them. I also enjoy looking at the galleries of patrons to see what else has been created for them. Some patrons have cool characters or fun ideas and I enjoy seeing everyone's interpretation of the ideas!
> 
> As long as the posters are adhering to the artist's wishes and give the credit as they should, I think it is a neat thing. :3



Definitely this.  I've found numerous artists through commissions done by friends and others.  I like the style, then find their page, and then commission them myself which has then helped the artist.  This has happened a few times and to change it, as long as people are giving the full credit to the artist, would not benefit anyone then.


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## Eevee (Jan 22, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Simply put it's the way the system is set up. The suggestion was favorites, now it's a journal, which is effective?


I am assuming implicitly that you would fave everything you commission by default and use a journal to list commissions.



Arshes Nei said:


> Right now the system is so out of date, you can't selectively unwatch journals


Which is why journals work.



foxystallion said:


> Because it is not "for you."


Okay.  So what?



foxystallion said:


> Do you honestly think that the Medicis' (or various popes, kings, etc.) would have commissioned any art that they could not put into their own palaces?


If this were myspace, you could plaster whatever you want anywhere.  But it's not.  FA is for artists to show off their work.  Showing off commissions is shoehorned in.



foxystallion said:


> Finally, many artists do NOT keep all of the commissioned art that they have created displayed in their galleries.


Perhaps they should!  For exposure.



Tobias Amaranth said:


> Okay, so I tend to stalk the recent uploads. I like that people are able to upload their commissions because I can click in by a picture that catches my eye, note that it's drawn by someone else, and visit them instead.


Or you could just click it when the original artist uploads it and not have other artists' work bumped off the page by double uploads.



Tobias Amaranth said:


> BEYOND that, you can also browse the commissioner's gallery and find other similar artists!


You can also browse faves to find a much more extensive list of similar artists.





I don't see either:
- Why posting a commission purely to give the artist exposure is significantly different from posting something else I like to give the artist exposure
- How this significantly detracts attention from artists when (a) a greater proportion of art and attention (faves, comments, etc) is now being given to people who are not artists and (b) there are other ways to show off your commissioned or gift art

I've seen tons of commission uploads by popular commissioners that have many times the faves and comments and views than the originals.  How is it helping the original artist to let tons of people leave their appreciation elsewhere?

I don't much expect For You to be removed no matter what I say.  My more immediate concern is that, rather than being treated as a stopgap measure to deal with a crappy codebase, everyone acts like this is some grand and healthy thing.  It detracts attention from artists, misleads visitors, duplicates images, and sorts things incorrectly on a site that already has enough issues with organization and finding things -- now I can't even trust the name of the submitter.  It is exactly the _first_ thing furries would use Photobucket for.

Also, consider people who both create their own art and upload commissions/gifts.
First of all, _how do I find just this person's art_?  That is, after all, probably why I'm looking in eir gallery.  I can't; it's mixed in with art from random other artists.
How do I watch just this person's art?  Again, whoops, I can't.
What if I look at this person's userpage and the most recent piece is a commission I don't like?  I just absolutely hate the style.  Am I going to stick around?  Probably not.  Now I won't see anything this person has _actually_ made.


Aaand further:

*Twile*:
Pageviews: 56000
Comments Received: 5642

Most recent commissionee, *ta-ek*:
Pageviews: 2022
Comments Received: 508
Original submission has 28 faves, 13 comments, 430 views.
Twile's copy has 75 faves, 36 comments, 1606 views.

Second-most recent, *wmustang*:
Pageviews: 13845
Comments Received: 406
Artist never uploaded.  (?!)

Third most recent, *doe*:
Pageviews: 15353
Apparently left or something  ?_?

Fourth most recent, *guardianmoose*:
Pageviews: 7309
Comments Received: 2034
Original submission has 100 faves, 26 comments, 1401 views.
Twile's copy has 153 faves, 44 comments, 3044 views.

Actually, the only person I can find who is more famous than Twile or who has garnered more views on the original upload is Glenn.  And he's Glenn.



*Crome*:
Pageviews: 41539
Comments Received: 148  (cleared recently)

Most recent commissionee, *zhivagod*:
Pageviews: 34810



I am not super up to date on furry popular culture, so I can't name a lot of prolific commission whores, but it strikes me as a little preposterous when the only two who come to mind are vastly more popular than the artists they commission and copies of work gets two, three, _four times_ as many comments and faves as the artist's original.  This is a slap in the face to artists.  Again, _what are they supposed to do if they don't like it?_  Piss off their potential clients by taking the spotlight away from them?


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## Tluthal (Jan 22, 2009)

I'm just going to be blunt...

I think the For You part is a great thing.  I'm proud when someone I draw for likes my work enough to post it in their own gallery.  The more people see my art and know my name, the better.  I post the occasional request, but only with the artist's permission.  The artists who _don't want their art posted in other people's galleries_ are free to refuse the requester the right to post it.

As for the people complaining about the commissions?  They (the commissioner) paid for the art.  The art _*belongs*_ to the commissioner.  You have no right to complain when someone wants to post art they _paid for_.  You can take credit for the art, but it no longer solely belongs to you.  

The people who are suggesting a separate gallery or folder for art that was done for you - I'm all for that.  I've made an icon especially for any art that I requested.  

Again, if you don't want your art posted outside your own gallery, then tell the person who wants to 'no,' and report them if they do post it.  There's no sense in getting worked up when it specifically states that it has to be done with _the permission of the artist._


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:


> I am not super up to date on furry popular culture, so I can't name a lot of prolific commission whores, but it strikes me as a little preposterous when the only two who come to mind are vastly more popular than the artists they commission and copies of work gets two, three, _four times_ as many comments and faves as the artist's original.  This is a slap in the face to artists.  Again, _what are they supposed to do if they don't like it?_  Piss off their potential clients by taking the spotlight away from them?



To a degree your point is understandable, but at the same time as an artist that gets paid to draw other people's characters - I got bucks and that's worth more than any comments and popularity in the world. It pays the bills. Getting extra watches because the commissioner posted my work and credited me, bonus: more customers. A lot of the comments aren't really that great anyways lol. So Money > Comments.


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## Eevee (Jan 22, 2009)

Tluthal said:


> As for the people complaining about the commissions?  They (the commissioner) paid for the art.  The art _*belongs*_ to the commissioner.


*No, it does not.*  You need a written explicit contract to transfer rights like this.  The commissioner paid the artist to create it, but the artist _still created it_.


Does this imply that everyone should upload art they like that's public domain?



Arshes Nei said:


> To a degree your point is understandable, but at the same time as an artist that gets paid to draw other people's characters - I got bucks and that's worth more than any comments and popularity in the world. It pays the bills.


Popularity is what gets you more commissions and better word-of-mouth.  Doesn't work quite so well if that's all being funneled through someone else.

And this still doesn't explain why I shouldn't just upload all of your art so everyone who's watching me can see how cool it is and go commission you.


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Okay...my two cents here about the "For You"....

- I have indeed found new artists to watch, thanks to people posting up artwork they commissioned from said artists and linking to them.

- Some artists I request and commission myself have actually told me 'Hey, please submit this on your userpage too!'  Because it does indeed expand their popularity, as it lets a completely new crowd (whoever is watching the commissioner) see their works.  And since I have over 900 watches, it's definitely a high possibility an artist will get more attention after I repost something they drew for me.

- Look, really...I respect the artist who have drawn me.  I wouldn't be half as popular as I am, if it wasn't for all their kindness in drawing me.  I want to spread their names, because they're awesome and I want to let people know that.

- For those complaining about this whole thing because of how it 'floods your new submissions with the same thing repeatedly'...yeah, I can understand that, though that's really nitpicky, isn't it?  What I try to do is wait a day or two or three after the artist posts what I commissioned them, and at that point I post my own copy.  It alleviates the flooding, and also allows the artist to have the first grab at people's attention by posting first, which I think they deserve anyways.

- Lastly...this is, at its heart, an issue between commissioner and artist.  If the artist doesn't want their art reposted, then so be it.  Otherwise, I will post artwork I received on my account.  If you don't like it, then don't watch me, just watch the artists I get art from.  But for those of you complaining heavily here...just leave it alone.  It's not your decision, it's me and the artist's.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee is actually correct. You need to state that (what posting rights the commissioner has), because copyright belongs to the original artist, and again there have been cases the artist has come to the helpdesk asking a commissioner takes a piece down.

The person who created the piece would trump the person who bought it unless stated in a work for hire/or agreement otherwise. 

That might suck or you might think the artist may be a douche or whatever, but it's still his/her right. They also might have a valid reason too.


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Eevee is actually correct. You need to state that (what posting rights the commissioner has), because copyright belongs to the original artist, and again there have been cases the artist has come to the helpdesk asking a commissioner takes a piece down.
> 
> The person who created the piece would trump the person who bought it unless stated in a work for hire/or agreement otherwise.
> 
> That might suck or you might think the artist may be a douche or whatever, but it's still his/her right. They also might have a valid reason too.



*shrugs*  No complaint there.  It's the artist's work, and they have the final say over its circulation.

Commissioners get some rights, obviously because they paid for the picture, but posting/circulation rights are up to the original artist.  The commissioner is free to keep the picture privately to himself at the least.

My issue is not with the artists, the commissioners...it's with individuals here who are outside of either group, and yet still finding some reason to complain about an issue that doesn't involve them.  =/


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## Aden (Jan 22, 2009)

So, how about another gallery update?

Have an option to disallow faves and comments on a "for you" piece.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 22, 2009)

Charem said:


> My issue is not with the artists, the commissioners...it's with individuals here who are outside of either group, and yet still finding some reason to complain about an issue that doesn't involve them.  =/



At this point I agree, now I do understand the frustration of mistaking the commissioner for the artist. but there are people like Era-Dragon who label their commissions properly in the title and gives credit back to the original artist.

Yes some people are popular due to their character or "whoring" because of the commissions he/she buys. Oh well. I'm not forced to watch that person, and I don't need to sit on the front page all day either, that's kinda boring....and as an artist I got other things to work on.

There are people who simply don't read, which is why journals don't work. Even descriptions don't always work but that [faicon]fender[/faicon] (iconusername) works very well. 

I would like a color coded/thumbnail definition of an FYBY piece and the person can check it off when submitting a picture. It could be a forced one, like how you have to select a rating before you submit. At least then maybe that will help.


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Aden said:


> So, how about another gallery update?
> 
> Have an option to disallow faves and comments on a "for you" piece.



Well, that would also require a tagging system that allows the commissioner to tag it as a 'For You' piece.  Which would have to be entirely their prerogative anyways.  (I'd do it, if the system existed, though some people most likely wouldn't.)

But really, it would be a lot of coding to solve what's only a minor issue.  If people see a 'repeat' of a piece of art in their New Submissions, and they don't want to bother with it because they already bothered with the first submission, well, they can just delete it.  Issue solved.


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> At this point I agree, now I do understand the frustration of mistaking the commissioner for the artist. but there are people like Era-Dragon who label their commissions properly in the title and gives credit back to the original artist.
> 
> Yes some people are popular due to their character or "whoring" because of the commissions he/she buys. Oh well. I'm not forced to watch that person, and I don't need to sit on the front page all day either, that's kinda boring....and as an artist I got other things to work on.
> 
> ...



Oh, I forgot to consider the point of mistaking who the real artist is.  I can agree with you there.  It's easy enough to fix though, if commissioners would just bother to do it...  Let's take a piece of art I have, for example.  "Special Delivery" is its title, and that's what the submission is called in FairyTails's (the original artist) gallery.  I reposted it, and renamed it "Special Delivery - by FairyTails".  (I also linked to Fairytails's FA page in the description, using the most obvious method of : iconFairyTails :, like you said, Arshes.)  So imo, the best method on clearing up who's the artist, is having the commissioner put "by <artist>" right there in the submission's title.

Ahh, art whoring...well, that's another can of worms entirely.  I'll just say that if a person has the ability to commission/request a lot of artwork of their character, well...they got the artists willing to do it obviously, so there's really no real argument, except for those who are jealous of this.  (I've been guilty of this jealousy myself with a few people who seem to have practically bottomless wallets for commissions.  But heck, it's up to them and the artists who draw them.)  Sick of seeing a particular character?  Like I said before...the New Submissions has a delete button for a reason.  Ignore, delete, problem solved.

I agree very much against the use of journals for reflecting what art of your character exists.  Heck, I like to read journals, but since I get like 60+ new ones every 10 minutes, I really do skip most of them.  Plus...I'm pretty sure people watch me because they like to see artwork of me.  And by me posting the artwork I've received from numerous artists, it allows them to see all the art of me, all collected in one place, rather than all over the place and in numerous artist's galleries.

Yes, favorites could work for this purpose of collecting too, but considering how much stuff I favorite, a person would have to dig well over 100 pages back in my favorites list to find some stuff.  Plus...if somebody watches me, they aren't gonna be told about my 'new favorites', only my 'new submissions'.  Basically...if I don't post the artwork myself, a lot of people are going to find it horribly difficult to discover the artwork themselves.  And that would be a great disservice to those who watch me.

The color-coded idea is actually very appealing to me.  Occasionally, I do actually draw myself, and it would be nice to 'signify' that something is completely my own work, by using a different color.  Of course, this would likely take quite a bit of coding...but still, it's a good idea to consider sometime in the future.


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## Aden (Jan 22, 2009)

Charem said:


> Well, that would also require a tagging system that allows the commissioner to tag it as a 'For You' piece.  Which would have to be entirely their prerogative anyways.  (I'd do it, if the system existed, though some people most likely wouldn't.)



I'm not talking about a tag. I'm talking about an option on the submission options to disable comments and an option to disable favorites on this piece. Anyone would be able to use these options; just make it mandatory if the work is not by you.


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## selth (Jan 22, 2009)

Interresting discution.

what about the intent? if it is clear, from the start, that the commission is to be displayed, that fails the need of a written contract.

Now, there are other policies that can be used to protect work such as the open world's. 

Can't remember it all as is, but basically it makes it ok to make alterations of a work as long as you do not sell it and remind who the author is.

Other licences may exist and maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to make one for FA commissions since US copyright is not exactly used in all cases.

When a transaction occurs, the country of the person who sales the services applies its laws first. Therefore, if I'm in UK and I sell a picture , if the law is different, that UK law applies before the US. For the transaction to succeed, it must be legal to purchase it in the US, the us copyright law is not used at all in this case but the UK's. Variations applies when signed agreements are done between the countries, but international law is messy. In most cases, the artist NEEDS to say his art is copyrighted otherwise it stays unprotected. If the original picture is not signed you are giving your rights away!!!

I did study law a few years, most of it applied to computer science ^.+.^

I'm no expert, but I would highly recommend FA to allow people to choose for themselves or totally get out of the legal way, like ebay does. Basically that means you act upon notice and don't take initiative.

I believe that and/or setting a contract of sorts between artist and customer saying exactly what the customer may or may not be allowed to and what he could face would solve the issue for good.

I recommend FA to stay away from law courts as much as possible, it drains money.

Instead, why not just say "you can upload stuff you are allowed to, you have up to X infractions and if you keep  doing so your account will be banned from posting". that's sortof what ebay does.

LAST MINUTE ADDITION:
It may not even be legal to access FA in certain countries. or post certain kinds of pictures. be sure you say in a disclamer that the use of this website is to the user's discretion. saves lives!


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Aden said:


> I'm not talking about a tag. I'm talking about an option on the submission options to disable comments and an option to disable favorites on this piece. Anyone would be able to use these options; just make it mandatory if the work is not by you.



Yeah, that could be enforced I suppose.  People who don't mark their submission as a 'For You' could be reported for it.  But then it's just a big mess that the admin have to deal with, and...well...feels like a bit of a waste of resources.  I mean, it's not a bad idea, but is really that big of a deal?

Though, I like the slightly-more-passive suggestion of Arshes Nei...  "I would like a color coded/thumbnail definition of an FYBY piece and the person can check it off when submitting a picture. It could be a forced one, like how you have to select a rating before you submit. At least then maybe that will help."


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## Eevee (Jan 22, 2009)

I am getting the feeling here that, even if FA supported linking commissioners to the artist's copy of the work, nobody would bother using it.  Lovely.


Also, I would appreciate if people would actually answer questions I raise, rather than repeating personal anecdotes to support points already made?


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## T3HPK (Jan 22, 2009)

Honestly, as an artist who draws for other people on FA, I LOVE the FY/BY policy. I draw something for yiffynekopurrs, and s/he reposts it linking back to my gallery. Sure, yiffynekopurrs may get some, if not more, faves on the image that's in their gallery, but I'm getting exposure. I'm getting attention that I might not have gotten if that commissioner didn't repost my image. I honestly don't care if theirs gets more faves/comments than mine, because most comments are "Awesome!" or "Hot!! *murrypurry*" anyway. If a person is going to leave a truly constructive or complimenting comment, they're going to probably read the description and end up on my submission anyway. 

I also love it because I watch people who aren't artists and merely repost all commissions they buy! A great example of this would be SecreT.
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/secret/
I love his character, and he commissions great artists. It's so cool to see his character drawn by so many different and unique artists. I've found excellent artists through commissionees like SecreT, and I appreciate it. 

Also, I love the idea of a color coded box for the For You submissions. It'll easily let you distinguish between the commissioner and commissionee if you're watching both.

And I definitely love the disable comments/faves option. Even more so than the colored box. This way users would be forced to view the original submission if they really wanted to comment or whatever. 

As for the disagreement with the artists and reposting, if a work is commissioned, the commissionee should ASK the artist if they may repost, and the commissionee should be allowed. If the artist says no, then that obviously means no. If the image is uploaded anyway, have it removed. Simple. 

I really hope that a few of these things could possibly be implemented in the future. And perhaps a way to flag submissions, as we can do with forum posts, for anything that is against the AUP.


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## foxystallion (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:


> I am getting the feeling here that, even if FA supported linking commissioners to the artist's copy of the work, nobody would bother using it.  Lovely.



Wrong.  I always provide such a link and ask that viewers Fave the commissioned art in the artist's own gallery.


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## T3HPK (Jan 22, 2009)

I've yet to see a commissionee fail to link back to the original artist unless the rest of their gallery is filled with stolen works.


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## Charem (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:
			
		

> I am getting the feeling here that, even if FA supported linking commissioners to the artist's copy of the work, nobody would bother using it.  Lovely.



Whaaa?  Okay, I do agree that a lot of people don't do that specifically (I'm guilty), but it's only a minor difference from linking to the artist themselves.  Either way, you recognize the original artist.  *shrugs*  Plus, if the artist asks me to link to the original submission, I do it.  And I always make sure they're alright with me reposting the image in the first place.



			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> Also, I would appreciate if people would actually answer questions I raise, rather than repeating personal anecdotes to support points already made?



I didn't see that many questions from you, but if you're inviting people to give their two cents about your opinions, then sure.  I respect, but disagree, with your points.  The idea of using an FA journal to link to art you've received is obscure and would be guaranteed to be missed by a good deal of the people watching you.  (There's too many journals out there to read; you can't expect all your watchers to read all your journals.)  Secondly, your concept of 'your gallery should only contain artwork you yourself drew' is an opinion, not a fact.  And disagree with it entirely; after all, the fact that our policy is called "By You/For You" proves that it's okay to post art drawn for you.

I'll reiterate what I already said before.  "This is, at its heart, an issue between commissioner and artist. If the artist doesn't want their art reposted, then so be it. Otherwise, I will post artwork I received on my account. If you don't like it, then don't watch me, just watch the artists I get art from. But for those of you complaining heavily here...just leave it alone. It's not your decision, it's me and the artist's."  You seem to have an issue with this matter, of people posting art that they didn't draw themselves.  And well, everybody has the right to an opinion as long as no one is trying to push it onto others who feel differently, assuming they are not breaking any rules.



			
				LolitaPK said:
			
		

> As for the disagreement with the artists and reposting, if a work is commissioned, the commissionee should ASK the artist if they may repost, and the commissionee should be allowed. If the artist says no, then that obviously means no. If the image is uploaded anyway, have it removed. Simple.



Very simple.  :3  That's all that needs to really be said about this topic...you're spot-on.



			
				LolitaPK said:
			
		

> I've yet to see a commissionee fail to link back to the original artist unless the rest of their gallery is filled with stolen works.



Likewise for what I've seen.


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## nekollx (Jan 22, 2009)

Eevee said:


> I am assuming implicitly that you would fave everything you commission by default and use a journal to list commissions.
> 
> 
> Which is why journals work.



the main problem with this is that, frankly, the fav system of FA SUCKS, suck like a vacume in a wind tunnel, sucks like a bad Yiff picture.

If i have a character I want to keep them easily grouped to gether for reference, but FA gives no control of that which is why i think a lot of people repost it in their own gallery, to keep it all centrlized.

if FA had a decent fave system like over at DA i think youd see more stuff like this

http://nekollx.deviantart.com/favourites/#commisions


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## XerxesQados (Jan 23, 2009)

The policy requires the commissioner to attribute the artist and link back to them if they are an FA user.

If they fail to do this, then the artist may ask that they do so or report the image. And if you happen to notice, find the artist and tell them.

And no, finding an artist whose username is not the same as their pen name is not difficult.


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## VGJustice (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Also, I would appreciate if people would actually answer questions I raise, rather than repeating personal anecdotes to support points already made?



But that would require of them to read the topic before they post. We can't be having THAT now! That would make far too much sense!

On topic, I'd also like to see "For You" submissions marked as such. I hate finding art that I like, then finding out that it's someone else's work and not the submitter's, but the submitter doesn't leave a link to the artist or even a name in most cases. This doesn't help the originating artist in the slightest since the extra pageviews are meaningless, this doesn't help the browser since they won't be able to find the art they DO like and would like to see more of, and this doesn't even help the submitter since the only attention it attracts are lifeless sycophants to the character and not the art.

Granted, all the rules in the world do nothing if the majority ignores them.

(on a side note, having a working search feature would alleviate that problem for me at least, but I'm aware of the reasons for not having one currently.)

On a related point (and because playing Devil's Advocate is fun):



> Popularity is what gets you more commissions and better word-of-mouth. Doesn't work quite so well if that's all being funneled through someone else.
> 
> And this still doesn't explain why I shouldn't just upload all of your art so everyone who's watching me can see how cool it is and go commission you.



It's not the journal links that gets more views, or the favorites list. In both cases, that's limited down to a single member on a fairly large site. What gets the extra views are the views from the front page and more recent browsing. By uploading a "For You" commission, it gives the commissioned piece a more viable chance to be seen by a random browser.


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## foxystallion (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Perhaps they should!  For exposure.



Your arrogance is astounding. You have two pieces of your own art in your gallery (which i think are pretty good), and you firmly believe that you should be telling other artists who have created hundreds of pieces how to manage their galleries. Jeeze!


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## BobFranklin (Jan 23, 2009)

I think that commissioners and others should *not* be able to upload to their gallery artworks they did not draw.  But I suspect that this discussion, both sides of it, really reduces to (intuitions about) what is convenient for who, and many of the arguments posed are just fronts for this matter.  

In particular, the talk of laws, copyrights, courts, contracts, explicit agreements, rights, ownership, and so on I find to be distracting.  There is no copyright enforcer prowling FA (or any other furry site) ready to serve papers or take things to court on behalf of artists.  The only way the law could get involved is if an artist (or commissioner I suppose) goes through the considerable expense and hassle of hiring a lawyer.  Itâ€™s safe to say this is a rare occurrence, and does not represent the majority of even serious disagreements between artist and commissioner in our fandom.

In other words, there is little reason for most furry patrons or artists to care about intellectual property law, as the law relates to either the â€œfor you / by youâ€ issue or particular commissions.  The point that an artist *could* take someone to court under such-and-such a law doesnâ€™t matter, since the artist *probably wonâ€™t* find the expenses of legal council justified or necessary.  A few emails, journal posts, complaints to the admin, and the problem gets solved; no lawyer hears of it.  Site policy somehow â€œbetter matchingâ€ the law wouldnâ€™t change this much.

Next.  Though I agree with LexyEeveeâ€™s main conclusion, I find another distraction in what I suspect is his key argument: 



			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> FA is for artists to show off their work. Showing off commissions is shoehorned in.



The problem here is that Eevee hasnâ€™t (clearly) argued for why or how FA became â€œforâ€ his particular understanding of the siteâ€™s â€œpurpose.â€  And even if he did provide such an argument, he hasnâ€™t shown us why we should care if we neglect this â€œpurpose.â€  I suspect (from his journal) that this â€œpurposeâ€ comes the mental category he formed out of other sites that look a little like FA, and what is included in the upload policies of those sites.  Building a new mental category â€œjust forâ€ FA is inconvenient; â€œwhy canâ€™t FA do it like all these other sites do?â€

If this does kinda capture Eeveeâ€™s complaint about what FA is for, then a problem arises.  Why do we care about whatâ€™s convenient for Eevee, or any particular artist, commissioner, or user?  This is the sort of thing that seems best settled through democratic election.  I donâ€™t know what the majority think, but it could very well be that most artists, commissioners, and users donâ€™t find it inconvenient (anymore?) to have the â€œFY/BYâ€ rule, or might even find any other rule inconvenient in just the same way Eevee finds the FY/BY rule inconvenient .  It could be, that to most users, â€œshowing off commissionsâ€ is just as essential to FAâ€™s â€œpurposeâ€ as artists showing off their work is.

Eeveeâ€™s strongest argument, to me (distorted a little, by me), isnâ€™t about the â€œpurposeâ€ of the site understood in relation to the site being â€œfor artists to show off their work.â€  It is about the siteâ€™s â€œpurposeâ€ understood in terms of speed of navigation, ease of tracking artworks (and artists, and commissioners), and the avoidance of misinterpretation.  Note the two purposes are closely related.  But I think almost everyone agrees with the second, whereas it is still an open question how many agree with the first.  

Itâ€™s happened to me: â€œThis is good art.  I should bookmark this artist.  Oh, wait....â€  Simple, matter of undressed inconvenience.  Navigation would be a little bit faster for me without the FY/BY.  Thatâ€™s why my voice is against it.


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## Tobias Amaranth (Jan 23, 2009)

View it a different way though. Look at it from "I want to find X" and consider the typical user's browsing habits. People will favorite just about anything. So browsing a user's favorites has rarely led me to finding new artists. They'll find a new artist and fav about 30 things in a row from that one person. 

Here's a semi-hypothetical situation based on several I've already experienced:

I browse the front page at random times of the day when I'm bored. I'll hit refresh once every few minutes and look at what's new. This time, I see a neat picture that looks cool. I click it, and I find it wasn't drawn by this person. But hey, they linked to the actual artist. Awesome, I'll go check them out. I go there, and possibly watch them if they have a lot more really neat stuff.

But it doesn't stop there. I go back to that first person's gallery and I look around. If THEY liked this artist, I wonder what else they have here! I click around and find another two pictures that I really like. I go to those artists and watch atleast one of them. That's one more artist that they gave exposure to just by uploading their commissioned works.

You know what else is nice about that gallery? You know how I said browsing favs I sift through like, 30 pics in a row of an artist's stuff I don't like before getting to a new artist? Well this person's got only 1-2 pictures from each artist! That makes it really easy. Very little redundancy. Plus, it shows me how these different artists draw a particular species. Which was part of the reason I clicked the original image in the first place. Bonus!


I think that given the type of community we are trying to make, one that's strongly interconnected and supportive of eachother, the For You policy is very complimenting of this goal. Artists get a lot more exposure from this than you give credit for.

Addressing redundancy, often people don't upload both at the same time, especially if they think about it. This means that two different groups of browsers will get the opportunity to notice this image.

Addressing permission, it's already been stated that 'with permission' is included in this policy. If you really don't want your commissioner uploading your art to their gallery, then tell them not to, and if they do, report it.

Addressing sorting, often artists will have a separate gallery dedicated to "For You" works. This keeps the clutter out of their main gallery and avoids confusion.

Addressing comments, yes, the non-artist version of the picture may get more comments, but those comments are also usually more directed at the character in question than the art per-se. I mean, if they're watching the person who uploaded it, it's likely because they enjoy that character or are friends with the person uploading it. It might be nice for them to also post on the original upload, but if they don't, it's not a bad thing. After all, a person can't go comment on the original picture saying "Your character is so hawt! I like this one!" So no, a disabling comments/favorites is not a good idea when looked at from that direction.

Addressing a unique colored border, a very good idea. It would still need its own hues to represent mature/adult or whatever too, but a special border color would be something I would like. Especially since then I could actually -cause- more of the situations I described above. Add some shades of purple and blue or something. :3


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## Vandell (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee, your comments always make me wanna rage. You know as well as I do - as well as everyone does - that the For You clause benefits artists a lot. If I wasn't able to repost my own pictures, I would have never came to this website and spent upwards of $750 on artists. I don't buy from artists that don't give me permission to post their art on my page. Why? Because I like the small stint of attention I get when I do it, I like showing people that artist X has put effort into drawing my character.

I can understand your complaint about people turning their FA page into their own personal photobucket.. But, who the hell cares? It's just a repost of some art. Give the commissioners some slack and let them/the artist decide what's best, not you. If you have such a problem with that copyright text, remove it. It's not like it stands up in court or anything.

The way I see it, you can either embrace the commissioners (the ones who have most of the money) or shun them away. You're going with the latter it seems, and if your own personal opinion gets injected into FA policy I will be leaving this place permanently.


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## Stratelier (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee's gripes make a lot of sense though.

Arguments against the "For You" clause are basically:

1 - Muddles a user's gallery; creates confusion over what stuff is theirs and what isn't.  No way to separate between the two.
2 - Faves & feedback being dropped on the reposted work instead of the original.

The above two complaints do happen _despite_ the best efforts of the reposters to cite and link-back to the original artist and work.


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## Honeymane (Jan 23, 2009)

Am I the only one who thinks this should be between the artist and their patron, and no one else?

What I mean is this, no one should be posting commissioned images into their own gallery, if they don't have permission from the original artist, however, the citations provided should ultimately be up to patron and the artist who created the work.

I mean, not all artists may want to be associated with some of the art they produce, some artists have seperate galleries for just this reason.

However;
What I'd suggest is this; If I submit an image that was drawn by someone else, there should be a box that asks me for the proper citations for the image, and a link to image, if it's on FA, as well as the artist. When someone tries to favorite the image in my gallery, the 'favorite' link really favorites the original image, not the reposted image in my gallery.

But, the system needs to be flexible, sometimes people get commissions, as I have said, that the artist may not want to be connected to, so the display of the citation _should_ have the opinion of being disabled, provided that the patron provides written information from the artist (ideally in the form of a FA note, but other forms like emails should also be usable, as not all artists may use FA's note system, etc). Should the citation be disabled, it will only appear to moderators and administrators, as well as the original artist.


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## krisCrash (Jan 23, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Eevee's gripes make a lot of sense though.
> 
> Arguments against the "For You" clause are basically:
> 
> ...



You know what would be super awesome?
Gift gallery function or something like that.

You draw someone a gift or commission or the like, and as you submit it you attribute it to that person somehow, so that becomes searchable from the recipients profile.

an image will only be submitted once, but is linked to both people.

Maybe those users who primarily have gifts up rather than their own drawings can then choose to display their gift gallery as default, rather than their own gallery.


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## Vandell (Jan 23, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> You know what would be super awesome?
> Gift gallery function or something like that.
> 
> You draw someone a gift or commission or the like, and as you submit it you attribute it to that person somehow, so that becomes searchable from the recipients profile.
> ...


At the very most I'm willing to accept a "For You" or "By You" label on a picture that goes into the same gallery.

The label should not change anything about the picture, or who can / can not see it (such as how searchable it is, what tags can be applied to it, being visible on the main page, etc.; none of that should change), the only thing it should change, really, is the copyright and a small box of text that says it's a commission or something.

Alternatively, you could just make the copyright field able to be altered on submission/edit and make it link to the artist's FA page.

And as a note, there is a problem with your suggestion; what if the artist in question is too lazy to attribute the picture to the commissioner, just as some commissioners are too lazy to attribute credit to an artist? I would be mighty ticked off, personally speaking.



Eevee said:


> I am getting the feeling here that, even if FA supported linking commissioners to the artist's copy of the work, nobody would bother using it. Lovely.
> 
> 
> Also, I would appreciate if people would actually answer questions I raise, rather than repeating personal anecdotes to support points already made?


I'm speaking as my, er, "right" as a purchaser of art, and I say it should be entirely up to the individual artist/commissioner. I do not care about your ideas, Eevee, because it harms my goal of supporting artists while getting a little bit of personal benefit from it. I paid for art from the artist, many people here do, for the express reason of posting it on my FA page to gain a small spot of prestige. You may call this "greedy", or "useless", or what have you, but I paid money for my art, and I -want- to have a larger benefit than just staring at it. I like to cart it around, show it off, print them out and hang them on my wall if I feel like it, watch my pageview counter go up, have people comment on how nice the picture is on -my- page, have people IMing me telling me my character is so adorable, and etc. I like the attention it brings, so piss off trying to shut me down.

Unless "linking" to a commission has all the benefits of posting it up in my own gallery (including getting views to my FA page, showing up on the main FA page, showing up on my main gallery, and etc.), I won't use this feature and will actively argue this issue with you as much as possible, or leave the website permanently. Other "big-name" commissioners have mentioned their dislike of being shunned and not embraced as supporters of the art community, noteably Twile. This is not something I will budge on; I won't stand for being targeted as a detriment to the website.

This "shoehorned" feature is one of my favourite things about this website, and its why I chose to come here over all others; it's like they're embracing people with money. Clever idea; cater to both artists and artist commissioners, and the website gets lots of donations! But if what you're saying/proposing is reflected by 'Neer and any of the other admins and will be implimented in the future, then I've obviously made a mistake in coming here.

No, I'm not that popular; I only have 4,500 views or so, but I like to think that I represent the "average" to "above average" commissioner. I've spent $750+ CAD here so far under the pretense that I'd always be able to keep my own little gallery of Vandell, and the moment it changes I will fight over it; and if I lose I will leave. Yes, I'm repeating myself, because this is the key issue that I do not want to change, and those are my reasons for not wanting it to change.

And as an additional note towards some commissioners being more popular than some artists.. seriously, piss off. It's the way the fandom has worked for ages; people fap to certain characters because they've been written and designed well, people enjoy looking at them because they are hell-a hot or really cute or what have you. Its the way its always been.


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## krisCrash (Jan 23, 2009)

Vandell: you can under no circumstances ever shield yourself from users doing it all wrong.
A gift system could be used for harrasment, making derogatory images show up in someone's profile against their will - and so forth.
That's just one example.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee: for your ferrox coding, proposing a better commission management system is fine. Right now is that we don't have Ferrox, and are dealing with what's currently running. Unless it's fixed, I'm fine with the current AUP's For You/By You policy.


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## Eevee (Jan 23, 2009)

LolitaPK said:


> As for the disagreement with the artists and reposting, if a work is commissioned, the commissionee should ASK the artist if they may repost, and the commissionee should be allowed. If the artist says no, then that obviously means no. If the image is uploaded anyway, have it removed. Simple.


This risks driving customers away.




foxystallion said:


> Wrong.  I always provide such a link and ask that viewers Fave the commissioned art in the artist's own gallery.


No, no.  I mean if _the software_ actually supported recognizing that user Y commissioned some picture in user X's gallery and have it show up for both or whatever.




Charem said:


> The idea of using an FA journal to link to art you've received is obscure and would be guaranteed to be missed by a good deal of the people watching you.  (There's too many journals out there to read; you can't expect all your watchers to read all your journals.)


They certainly would if they only watched you in the first place to keep up with art you commissioned.



Charem said:


> Secondly, your concept of 'your gallery should only contain artwork you yourself drew' is an opinion, not a fact.


See below.




VGJustice said:


> It's not the journal links that gets more views, or the favorites list. In both cases, that's limited down to a single member on a fairly large site. What gets the extra views are the views from the front page and more recent browsing. By uploading a "For You" commission, it gives the commissioned piece a more viable chance to be seen by a random browser.


The original artist reuploading it every day for a week would give it a more viable chance to be seen by a random browser, too, but I suspect people would disapprove of that.

*Getting the artist more attention artificially* is a crappy reason.  Yeah, sure, it's a _benefit_ to this system, but it's not a _reason_ to do it in the first place, because it clearly doesn't hold for a bunch of other things people could be doing to attract attention.




foxystallion said:


> Your arrogance is astounding. You have two pieces of your own art in your gallery (which i think are pretty good), and you firmly believe that you should be telling other artists who have created hundreds of pieces how to manage their galleries. Jeeze!


No; I think I should be telling other non-artists who haven't created a damn thing how to manage their galleries.  Because I am a pedantic UI/design nerd.  Also I'm the one rewriting the software.  So I like to think it's slightly relevant to me.




BobFranklin said:


> I think that commissioners and others should *not* be able to upload to their gallery artworks they did not draw.


whoa



BobFranklin said:


> In other words, there is little reason for most furry patrons or artists to care about intellectual property law


Even moreso given how frequently IP law is misunderstood.



BobFranklin said:


> The problem here is that Eevee hasnâ€™t (clearly) argued for why or how FA became â€œforâ€ his particular understanding of the siteâ€™s â€œpurpose.â€  And even if he did provide such an argument, he hasnâ€™t shown us why we should care if we neglect this â€œpurpose.â€  I suspect (from his journal) that this â€œpurposeâ€ comes the mental category he formed out of other sites that look a little like FA, and what is included in the upload policies of those sites.  Building a new mental category â€œjust forâ€ FA is inconvenient; â€œwhy canâ€™t FA do it like all these other sites do?â€


On the contrary.  I think I finally captured this well in a few comments somewhere down in that mess, but the original journal was more a frustrated rant than a real argument.

FA implies all over the place that it has been built to accommodate artists and their art.  There's a copyright notice below every image.  Gallery pages say "by <user>".  With the sole exception of the for-you rule, all of the rules are about what users can include _in their art_.  The submit page says "upload _your_ art and images".  Even Dragoneer's comment on that journal is revealing.

But you're right; there's no reason to keep original purpose just for the hell of it.

I am strongly in favor of limiting galleries to that user's art because _it is useful_.
There are people who are more popular than handfuls of the artists they commission _combined_ despite having not really done anything; this strikes me as a bad thing, especially in a community that purports to love and support artists so much.
Organization goes to hell; the usernames on art become increasingly meaningless as time goes on.  The more commissioners upload, the more any given name becomes less likely to mean "the person who made this" and more likely to mean "some random guy who paid twenty bucks for this".  Again, distracts from the artists.
The more people engage in this practice, the less likely it is that any given userpage will actually contain art by that person.  Who do you think are more populous: producers or consumers?  This is encouraging FA to trend towards people showing off whatever they want just for the sake of putting something on the Web.
There is no longer any way for me to just find art by user X.  Maybe some of it is done by that user, but anyone who uploads someone else's art muddies the waters.  There are alternative ways to list commissions; there really _is no other way_ to list art I did.  That probably bothers me more than anything: we're diluting the meaning of something that originally meant X, but there's nothing else that can specifically mean X.
"For you" is also worryingly arbitrary.  What's special about commissions?  The commissioner doesn't own the art, and could feasibly purchase copyright for any other work anyway.  The mantra of "giving the artist exposure" keeps being repeated, but then that means FA is leaning towards being one big attention whoring contest, and complaints about any proposals of ratings and listing most popular art would indicate that the community doesn't want that.



BobFranklin said:


> Why do we care about whatâ€™s convenient for Eevee, or any particular artist, commissioner, or user?  This is the sort of thing that seems best settled through democratic election.


Is it?  I can pretty much guarantee that there are more non-artists than artists on FA.  It could be entirely feasible that the majority would vote to allow _any_ uploads, short of IP issues.  A democracy works fine if you're starting with a group of people and trying to decide what sort of community and purpose to build around them, but FA has always at least tried to _imply_ that it has a specific purpose already.  (I am, incidentally, trying to get this explicitly stated somewhere.)



BobFranklin said:


> Eeveeâ€™s strongest argument, to me (distorted a little, by me), isnâ€™t about the â€œpurposeâ€ of the site understood in relation to the site being â€œfor artists to show off their work.â€  It is about the siteâ€™s â€œpurposeâ€ understood in terms of speed of navigation, ease of tracking artworks (and artists, and commissioners), and the avoidance of misinterpretation.


Of course.  There are severe UI issues here, which I think I've alluded to with mentions of disorganization.  I try to avoid outright mentioning UI, though, because (in my experience) most people don't at all realize how much it affects them and gloss over mention of it as frivolous pedantery.  But it does make a bloody mess.




Vandell said:


> You know as well as I do - as well as everyone does - that the For You clause benefits artists a lot. If I wasn't able to repost my own pictures, I would have never came to this website and spent upwards of $750 on artists. I don't buy from artists that don't give me permission to post their art on my page.


Paging LolitaPK to read this quote.  This is why artists can't merely ask that their art not be posted elsewhere.



Vandell said:


> Why? Because I like the small stint of attention I get when I do it, I like showing people that artist X has put effort into drawing my character.


I appreciate your honesty, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way, but that is partly why I think this is bogus.  You shouldn't be getting that attention in an art community; you didn't create it.  The artist should be mentioning you as an afterthought; not the other way around.



Vandell said:


> I can understand your complaint about people turning their FA page into their own personal photobucket.. But, who the hell cares? It's just a repost of some art.


Yes, and every instance of it wastes limited resources and makes life a little more difficult for people trying to find art.



Vandell said:


> Give the commissioners some slack and let them/the artist decide what's best, not you.


If the artists could decide what's best, there wouldn't be much of an AUP.



Vandell said:


> The way I see it, you can either embrace the commissioners (the ones who have most of the money) or shun them away. You're going with the latter it seems, and if your own personal opinion gets injected into FA policy I will be leaving this place permanently.


I'm sure it won't be.  But I would like people to at least understand why I hold it, rather than defending their own vanity.




Honeymane said:


> Am I the only one who thinks this should be between the artist and their patron, and no one else?


Why?  Everyone else's browsing is subjected to whatever they do.



Honeymane said:


> What I'd suggest is this


I intend to support attaching more than one user to a single submission on FA.



Honeymane said:


> But, the system needs to be flexible, sometimes people get commissions, as I have said, that the artist may not want to be connected to


Um.  Why?  And how would that even be possible, when the AUP requires crediting the artist?







And I ask, once more, *why should I not post random art my friends did*?  What makes commissions special?  One of my best friends is PurpleKecleon; why shouldn't I go repost all of her art on my account?  She would give me permission, and it would get her more exposure.  Those are the two arguments I see being made here.


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## Vandell (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee said:


> And I ask, once more, *why should I not post random art my friends did*?  What makes commissions special?  One of my best friends is PurpleKecleon; why shouldn't I go repost all of her art on my account?  She would give me permission, and it would get her more exposure.  Those are the two arguments I see being made here.


M-O-N-E-Y.

I *paid* for it. Ergo, I deserve - AT LEAST - partial ownership. I would ask for full ownership of something I paid for, but that's obviously asking too much. However, some artists have expressly told me that what I'm purchasing belongs entirely to me - who are you to take that away from me?

I spent money. MONEY. Cash I earned in some way shape or form on receiving art from Artist X. Most artists follow the usual rule of "equal ownership" on most art.. I haven't met one, really, that has outlawed me from posting their art - THAT I PAID FOR - on my own page, because it's just innately bad business to do control everything a commissioner does with any given piece of artwork.

Sorry for the anecdote, but professional woodcutters don't force me to label every piece of wood they cut, because I paid them for their time and work for a finished product that I can use for my own ends, whatever they may be. It's the same process; I pay an artist for them to give me a finished product for me to use to my own ends.. ergo, I should have at least some measure of ownership.

For some reason, you seem to think artists are "above" being paid for their work, that we are "lucky" to get them to do artwork for us "lesser" people who can't draw; maybe you don't mean to come off so elitist, but you really, really do.


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## Tobias Amaranth (Jan 23, 2009)

WTF Eevee, you didn't quote MY post, one of the more logistical ones here. Am I dirt or something? Or maybe, just maybe, I was right?

FA is a community site. Not an art site, but a community site. One that focuses on art, yes, but it's main purpose has become that of meeting new people via art forms. If it was just an art site, why have comments and journals at all?

And again, you're not an artist. And you're ignoring the artists out there that are explaining why they HAVE been enjoying the For You clause. How much money they've made from it. How much money commissioners have spent because of its existence. Some people use FA as a second job. So why would you close the tollway when it's still being heavily used? You don't have to use the tollway. They always build roads to get around it. But that's not going to make the tollway not exist just because you don't like that it's there and because you don't want to use it.

And if you reply only to this post, and not my first one, I will ignore your reply. It's only fair to reply to these posts as a whole instead of picking and choosing the ones you can directly argue against. Thanks. :3


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## Trpdwarf (Jan 23, 2009)

I've got a question. Let us say person A commissions artist B to make art for them. It's a fursona picture going by the wookie rule.

When artist B is done and sends it to A after A pays, where would the rulings be for the following situation?

Artist B goes to Artist A's account to post a random hello in the comment box, only to find that the art that they made was altered so that it is now explicitly pornographic.

1: Does A have the right as per the rules, to alter the image and then host it on their page, giving proper credit to who made the art? Source for ruling?
2: Does the answer to A change if within the text it is given that the picture was originally tame but altered to be pornographic? Source for ruling? 
3: If the original creator of the art asks the person to take the altered picture down, does the person have to take take it down? Source for ruling?


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 23, 2009)

Trpdwarf said:


> Artist B goes to Artist A's account to post a random hello in the comment box, only to find that the art that they made was altered so that it is now explicitly pornographic.



The artist who created the picture owns the copyright, and if has a case if the commission listed personal use. Using FA publicly to display artwork you altered, regardless if you purchased it, doesn't trump the copyright ownership.

So if there is no agreement stated otherwise, despite it being a commission, does have the right to request a takedown.

Even if nothing was altered and the artist wants it down, unless there was an agreement otherwise, it's still the artist's right.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 23, 2009)

Tobias Amaranth said:


> FA is a community site. Not an art site, but a community site. One that focuses on art, yes, but it's main purpose has become that of meeting new people via art forms. If it was just an art site, why have comments and journals at all?



No, in its focus it's an art site.

http://wiki.furaffinity.net/index.php/Main_Page

http://wiki.furaffinity.net/index.php/What_is_Fur_Affinity?

_Fur Affinity is an online Anthropomorphic-themed art community. Itâ€™s an open forum intended to give Anthro-minded folk an outlet to share their creative talents without over burdening rules and emphasis on artistic freedom of expression.

Fur Affinity is neither a generic image hosting service, nor a *chan-style board. There are numerous image hosting services that allow people to upload random snapshots or humorous screencaps to share with friends, just as there are countless *chan boards dedicated to sharing artwork created by others. Fur Affinity, however, is meant to specifically cater to the sharing of users' own individual creative talents, and to allow others to show their appreciation for such creative works and keep track of favored artists through a system of watches, comments, and faves.

As such, this service is only intended to allow users to upload artistic content made by them, or by someone else expressly for them, such as commissions (with permission and due credit, of course). _

FA is designed to have a community around this theme, just like DA....


Also....rules as such:

_ Why can't I...?

Because we said so.

If there is something we say you can't do here, we have a reason for it. Whether that reason is legal, social, necessity, preference, or simply because that is how We wish to run Our site; Our word is final. We will do our best to make these reasons available to you, but in the end, if we say "Just Because," then that answer is just going to have to be good enough. Fur Affinity is a privately owned and operated Entertainment website.

Among other things outlined in our tos, use of this service constitutes agreement to abide by the rules, guidelines, and directives put forth by this site's Staff. While we always have, and always will, strive to do what is best for this community, the definition of "what's best for this community" will always be up to the appointed Staff of this site. We've made it this far, we know what we're doing. Over 190,000 registered user accounts strong, and still growing faster than we can keep up, tends to suggest we're doing all right. _


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## Vandell (Jan 23, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> _Fur Affinity is an online *Anthropomorphic-themed art community*. Itâ€™s an open forum intended to give Anthro-minded folk an outlet to share their creative talents without over burdening rules and emphasis on artistic freedom of expression.
> 
> Fur Affinity is neither a generic image hosting service, nor a *chan-style board. There are numerous image hosting services that allow people to upload random snapshots or humorous screencaps to share with friends, just as there are countless *chan boards dedicated to sharing artwork created by others. Fur Affinity, however, is meant to specifically cater to the sharing of users' own individual creative talents, and to allow others to show their appreciation for such creative works and keep track of favored artists through a system of watches, comments, and faves.
> 
> As such, this service is only intended to allow users to upload artistic content made by them, or by someone else expressly for them, such as commissions (with permission and due credit, of course)._





Arshes Nei said:


> _Fur Affinity is an online *Anthropomorphic-themed art community*_





Arshes Nei said:


> _*Anthropomorphic-themed art community*._


If they're going to run an art community, there's more to that than just "the art". People need to -buy- said art so that the community thrives and artists will want to post art in the first place. You can't just shun those who want to support them financially.

FA is, essentially, at a dividing point - they can either be an art-focused anthro community, or an anthro-art website. The difference is that a community tries to make everyone happy without letting one group feel left out or shunned, while the anthro-art website is focused almost entirely on the artists. One is inclusive, one is exclusive. FurAffinity has moved beyond being simply "an art site" as originally planned; things do and can change, and I personally think a _little_ more focus should be placed onto the community part.

The only reason I say this is because the number of non-artists outnumbers artists 3:1 (totally made up on the spot, but there are a crapload of non-artists on FA) that only seek to have fun, commission artists (or just watch them), critique, chat, and etc. The website has simply evolved into a large community based around the plethora of artists that have situated here. If you purposefully try to exclude or "remove" commissioners from the picture, or make things more difficult for them, then you may as well just give them the middle finger and tell us we're not welcome.

The problem I'm seeing is that you're trying to make things easier for one group of people at the expense of the other; as-is, things are pretty "equal".. though, now that I know none of my art "belongs" to me is rather off-putting and I think I may leave anyways.


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## Trpdwarf (Jan 23, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> The artist who created the picture owns the copyright, and if has a case if the commission listed personal use. Using FA publicly to display artwork you altered, regardless if you purchased it, doesn't trump the copyright ownership.
> 
> So if there is no agreement stated otherwise, despite it being a commission, does have the right to request a takedown.
> 
> Even if nothing was altered and the artist wants it down, unless there was an agreement otherwise, it's still the artist's right.



Okay. Thanks for the clarification.


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## Eevee (Jan 23, 2009)

Vandell said:


> M-O-N-E-Y.
> 
> I *paid* for it. Ergo, I deserve - AT LEAST - partial ownership.


You paid for the artist to create it.  You did not pay for the result, and you do not own the result.  This is how US law works.  You are supporting an artist, and in return the artist diverts time to drawing whatever you want.

But do note that the For You clause says nothing about paying for the art.  Just that it was made for you.  If the real reason is exposure (by the questionable effect of dupe uploading), why does it matter who the art was created for if I have permission?



Vandell said:


> For some reason, you seem to think artists are "above" being paid for their work, that we are "lucky" to get them to do artwork for us "lesser" people who can't draw; maybe you don't mean to come off so elitist, but you really, really do.


Artists have a hard-earned skill.  You have cash.  Yeah, I value one over the other.  Especially on, you know, an art site.

Imagine: if it came down to only having artists or only having commissioners on the site, who do you think everyone would rather have around?




Tobias Amaranth said:


> WTF Eevee, you didn't quote MY post, one of the more logistical ones here. Am I dirt or something? Or maybe, just maybe, I was right?


Logistical?

I didn't respond to it because there was nothing new in it.  But okay.




Tobias Amaranth said:


> Look at it from "I want to find X" and consider the typical user's browsing habits. People will favorite just about anything. So browsing a user's favorites has rarely led me to finding new artists. They'll find a new artist and fav about 30 things in a row from that one person.


I don't know where you're seeing this; I've never seen it happen.



Tobias Amaranth said:


> That's one more artist that they gave exposure to just by uploading their commissioned works.


I'm not arguing that there aren't little perks to this arrangement.  I'm arguing that the little perks are not a particularly good reason to have it in the first place, especially when those little perks could easily be used to justify other uploading behavior most people would not like.  I'm arguing that this is _at best_ merely a stopgap measure due to crappy software, not some miracle community feature.  *We should be looking to clean it up, not celebrate it.*



Tobias Amaranth said:


> Artists get a lot more exposure from this than you give credit for.


Artists also get ignored in favor of or confused with the uploader.  Artists also risk being overlooked if they post commissions of their own.  Artists (some I know!) also end up blackmailed into letting others upload their stuff whether they want it or not for fear of losing customers.



Tobias Amaranth said:


> Addressing redundancy, often people don't upload both at the same time, especially if they think about it. This means that two different groups of browsers will get the opportunity to notice this image.


So we're bumping other art off the front page by letting certain works get uploaded twice or thrice or more?  Great, that sounds fair.




Tobias Amaranth said:


> FA is a community site. Not an art site, but a community site. One that focuses on art, yes, but it's main purpose has become that of meeting new people via art forms.


So..  why can't I post just anything I find cool, again?



Tobias Amaranth said:


> And again, you're not an artist.


I fail to see how this is at all relevant, or what gives artists any UI expertise.



Tobias Amaranth said:


> And you're ignoring the artists out there that are explaining why they HAVE been enjoying the For You clause.


You're right.  I am.  (Although everyone is ignoring the artists I speak for, so I'm not sure why this matters.)  Because my ultimate gripe is that this makes things _wrong_.  Images are no longer unique; view counters and comment counters are wrong; usernames on art are no longer trustworthy; user galleries no longer have any real connotation.  Statistics become harder to compile; it is more difficult to derive useful or interesting information from the database.  A lot of things are useless, misleading, or outright incorrect because of this rule, and that bothers the piss out of me.  Yes, I understand that you can find benefits to this system, but there are benefits to other crappy systems.

Organization is just more important to me than immediate convenience.  It's disheartening to see nobody even grasp my frustration with this chaos; what's the use in building tools to fix it if everyone is content with how things are?  I don't need the AUP to be changed, but *it would be nice to see people at least acknowledge the problem.*



Tobias Amaranth said:


> And if you reply only to this post, and not my first one, I will ignore your reply. It's only fair to reply to these posts as a whole instead of picking and choosing the ones you can directly argue against. Thanks. :3


Like how you responded to my repeated question of why For You is different from This Is Cool?  :V




Vandell said:


> If you purposefully try to exclude or "remove" commissioners from the picture, or make things more difficult for them, then you may as well just give them the middle finger and tell us we're not welcome.


You can commission all you want.  I would just rather you not slap things you didn't create in a space obviously and uniquely suited for people to show off things they created.



Vandell said:


> though, now that I know none of my art "belongs" to me is rather off-putting and I think I may leave anyways.


Why are you waving this around constantly?  What do you want, for me to profusely apologize for my opinion?  Should I threaten to leave and take Ferrox with me because the community doesn't agree with me?  Good grief, man, suck it up.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 23, 2009)

Vandell said:


> The problem I'm seeing is that you're trying to make things easier for one group of people at the expense of the other; as-is, things are pretty "equal".. though, now that I know none of my art "belongs" to me is rather off-putting and I think I may leave anyways.



I think you need to read what I posted a bit better, because you just went off the deep end here.

It's an art site however, if you actually read what I also quoted, you'll notice this:

_As such, this service is only intended to allow users to upload artistic content made by them, or by someone else expressly for them, such as commissions (with permission and due credit, of course). _

There is already an exception to commissioners with permission from the original artist.

However, you need to remember at its core it's not a "community" (in the generic sense) it's an art site still. Art Community would be more accurate.

You were busy fighting with Eevee to not recognize the error making that statement. I'm just merely clarifying what FA is, but that doesn't mean I agree with Eevee at this point in time due to FA's old system.


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## Trpdwarf (Jan 23, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> The artist who created the picture owns the copyright, and if has a case if the commission listed personal use. Using FA publicly to display artwork you altered, regardless if you purchased it, doesn't trump the copyright ownership.
> 
> So if there is no agreement stated otherwise, despite it being a commission, does have the right to request a takedown.
> 
> Even if nothing was altered and the artist wants it down, unless there was an agreement otherwise, it's still the artist's right.



Actually now I want to bring this up here now that there are two mods here who can perhaps answer my question best. I wish to get the POV of mods.

So if drawn art is treated that way, would it be the same for fur-suits? Meaning if you substituted the original questions to deal with a fur-suit commission and not drawn art, and the same thing hypothetically happens it the ruling still the same?

In that situation A commissions a tame fursuit from B. B finishes it and sends it off. When B goes to A's gallery to randomly say hello and ask if they are enjoying the suit, they find that the suit has been radically altered or turned into a yiff suit...and there are pictures of it in the account showing off the altered version.

Same three questions, are the answers the same, if not, what goes behind the different responses?


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 23, 2009)

Trpdwarf said:


> Actually now I want to bring this up here now that there are two mods here who can perhaps answer my question best. I wish to get the POV of mods.
> 
> So if drawn art is treated that way, would it be the same for fur-suits? Meaning if you substituted the original questions to deal with a fur-suit commission and not drawn art, and the same thing hypothetically happens it the ruling still the same?
> 
> ...




Theoretically I do believe this to be the same issue, if posted to FA (can't do anything if the guy is posting it elsewhere). I know it's rather costly to make a fursuit and time consuming.

I would at least hope though it's not some public spectacle if the issue does arrive. Talk in private first. If the commissioner doesn't want to take it down, report it in private, we'll review and see what we can do.

I think because people see the fursuit similar to an article of clothing, I can see how alterations to the suit aren't viewed the same way as other forms of artwork, if you understand what I'm getting at. That may be why it wouldn't be seen as the same problem as a piece of artwork.


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## Trpdwarf (Jan 23, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Theoretically I do believe this to be the same issue, if posted to FA (can't do anything if the guy is posting it elsewhere). I know it's rather costly to make a fursuit and time consuming.
> 
> I would at least hope though it's not some public spectacle if the issue does arrive. Talk in private first. If the commissioner doesn't want to take it down, report it in private, we'll review and see what we can do.
> 
> I think because people see the fursuit similar to an article of clothing, I can see how alterations to the suit aren't viewed the same way as other forms of artwork, if you understand what I'm getting at. That may be why it wouldn't be seen as the same problem as a piece of artwork.



I understand that few things can be done if it is a problem somewhere other than FA. I just want to know that the mods are thinking about this when re-writing the final version of the different rules that are being modified/created.

I understand people might not see fursuits in the same light as other art forms, because it is something they wear. However medium differences aside it is still a piece of art someone spend a lot of time and energy bringing to life and when you alter it there are issues. So even if the general public amongst the furrie community is unable to see a fur-suit as a piece of art just like drawn art and sculpture is, and cannot see an issue of altering it...that doesn't mean the mods of this site cannot be more aware and thus factor in certain safeguards so that if in the future it does become a problem, there are things set up in the rules to fall back on.

Then you won't have people getting butt-hurt because when and if the problem occurs, it was already thought about and there are rules already exitant that backing up the decisions made.


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## Tobias Amaranth (Jan 23, 2009)

Eevee, I understand completely how for a coder, who is entirely focused on reaching the best organization possible and least amount of duplicated data, etc, how frustrating it seems. I love organization. So it makes sense.

But sometimes there are things that just need to be imperfect in order for everything to work. I hate grassy medians. I would prefer everything to just be a middle lane. But not everyone else feels that way. They like their scenery on the roads, and at times, the medians can prevent a worse accident vs just a blank middle lane that stops nothing... (First example I could really come up with, sorry if it's lame)

As for the "For You" vs "I Like This" bit, well, there's gotta be -some- reason why the latter just isn't right. Even if they have permission. It's hard to explain though, I'm having trouble myself. It's mostly an issue of control. It's far easier to moderate commissioned items (especially when the original artist links to the commissioner, and the commissioner links to the original artist) than it would EVER be for an "I Like This" system, even given permission. You'd get a link back to the original artist perhaps, but I doubt the original artist would get much respect by icon-linking to 30 different artists saying they gave permission for that person to upload it. In addition, you run into far more duplicates that way. Is it really -that- painful to see the same image twice, especially when it's not listed back to back? NO ONE sees ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the uploaded art on FA. There is no direct and decidedly negative consequence to having the For You policy, assuming that people follow the cross-linking rules.

Also, comments? Page views? Favorites? What are you guys, little kids? Why the f*ck does that stuff even matter in terms of getting the numbers as high as possible. If someone likes your art enough for them to want to actually influence you, they're going to seek you out from that original piece. And when they do, and you offer commissions, they'll pay. That's the real world at work. In addition, the smart people are the same ones who are going to locate the original artist. Those are the people who are going to leave the intelligent comments. Which are the only comments that matter. And if you REALLY want to see all of the comments, go look at the commissioner's upload and see what they're saying there.

*Sigh* I lost what I was saying, but anyway, thanks for the reply. Your points aren't bad, but they're misplaced. The people who matter on the site are the artists themselves, and the For You policy strongly benefits them. It could use its own border, as said, but it does not truly negatively impact the site, so there's no reason to do away with it.


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## CHW (Jan 23, 2009)

Charem said:


> *shrugs*  No complaint there.  It's the artist's work, and they have the final say over its circulation.
> 
> Commissioners get some rights, obviously because they paid for the picture, but posting/circulation rights are up to the original artist.  The commissioner is free to keep the picture privately to himself at the least.
> 
> My issue is not with the artists, the commissioners...it's with individuals here who are outside of either group, and yet still finding some reason to complain about an issue that doesn't involve them.  =/



No, it depends on the purchase agreement.  Copyright is transferrable.  If the creator of the work sells the rights to it, they no longer own those rights.  If the agreement says the purchaser only receives limited rights, then those rights are limited as described.


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## Nidonocu (Jan 23, 2009)

Yay, total nobody in terms of FA at least here, but someone who has an idea and well, see what you think.

The fundamental argument and problem here is that FA (the software) was designed with a specific primary purpose: Artists use it upload their artwork, others follow them and list their favourites.

The trouble in this specification is the word *others*. On FA, all accounts are considered equal, everyone has a Gallery page. The fact that a large portion of users (insert official stats of how many people have less than ten pieces of artwork uploaded here) might be only occasional casual artists if that, was never really taken in to account.

The result of this is that these non-artists, commissioners and just plain fans were left with empty galleries. Not happy with this, someone somewhere would of gone _'oh, I suppose I -bought- this artwork, I can upload it to my gallery so people can see my character better than just my icon._' That was just one person, someone else might of seen it, done the same thing and now its become just part of how FA is used. Its the reason this clause exists because if it didn't, there would be riots in the streets. '_I've_ _always done this and I'm not changing it now! Its my god given right as someone who paid money! I asked and have permission for this!_'

All understandable arguments, but with one problem. FA as an entity can't confirm it, they could potentially have to deal with disputes, _drama_, and just plain art theft. Not only that, it breaks the stats, 'art whores'  not artists get the watches, the favs. FA becomes a less friendly place for the creators of the stuff we love. *This is not a good thing*.

The cause then of all this, is _not policy_. The policy only exists because users were doing this already and it had to be made 'legal' in some way. Its also _not the users_, you can't argue with the fact that a user owns a character design or that they paid money for a piece of work. This gives them some right to display it as it would with artwork in the real life.

The problem exists in the* original design* of FA. As Eevee stated, the system tags pictures as 'Piece by Artist'. This design no longer matches how the system is actually being used. As such there are no ways around this, if you want to make everyone happy, you will have to change the system its self to match the way its users actually use it. After all, software is flexible, people less so and furs? Don't get me started.. 

As such, here is an *idea*:

We need a new tab. Call it Commissions, Co-works, *Shared Works*. Whatever. The point is, artwork on this tab is special. It is not the soul property of the uploader. Its ownership is shared. As such it has special properties.

Firstly, it would be used for both art purchased, art gifted (there is a lot of that after all in this friendly community) and art shared. The first uploader of the piece would be asked to provide details of who did what. And it wouldn't just be two people, after all, you could potentionally have _a number of people_ involved in one piece of art.

Possible roles that a person could take in a piece I would list as: Concept, Character Design, Sketch, Ink, Color, Artist (all artwork), Background, World Design, Commissioner, Other.

You could have as many of these as you wanted on a piece. Entering a display name, you would then be asked for either an FA user account or e-mail address.

Once the first poster hits Submit, the piece would appear right away, however then the FA hamster wheel would start spinning and messages will be sent. All others involved with the piece would be asked to Confirm that they are cool with the piece being uploaded. FA users would get a big alert when they logged in, e-mails would be sent to non FA users with magic encoded URL's to be clicked.

*Accepting* would do the following:


Make the piece show up in the co-authors Shared Works tab. It would be duplicated exactly including all comments, and stats. Visiting the piece would let you get back to any of its author's profile pages through a set of links to each of them.

Co-authors could ammend the description and add extra meta-data. So that they can provide their own feelings on the piece.

All stats on the piece would be shared. It would count as a submission on their submission total, a pageview and a favourite of them.

Non-FA users obviously wouldn't get these bits, but their display name would still be displayed as a co-author. (But not the entered e-mail address.)
*Declining* on the other hand would be equally powerful:


This would instantly veto the piece and delete it from the system. The original poster would be notified of this and they would then be able to contact that artist seperately to sort out the problem.

It would lock out the original poster from uploading another Shared Work for 24 hours (or maybe longer) to help ensure the disputed piece is resolved.
Two other states also exist, *Ignoring*, which would be the same as declining. After say, a week of being up. A piece would be deleted and the uploader informed of why. This ensures the uploading parties don't just stick in dead usernames or phoney e-mail addresses in to the system.

The other state would be *Accept but remain unlisted*. This would allow people to contribute in secret or remain uncredited if they so wish. Co-authors could also change to this state later if they no longer want the piece in their Shared Works Gallery but don't mind the other co-authors continuing to display it.

Oh, and the key bit for the 'Art Whore' users, these pieces would count as submissions and show up on their Watcher's Control Panels. And for the watcher's themselves, there would *only ever be one copy uploaded*, no matter how many people took part. One click of +fav would be enough to give love to all those involved.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, the solutions for these things are rarely short or simple, but they do exist. Let me know what you think!


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## fivecrazyfurries (Jan 24, 2009)

I'm frankly disgusted an artist with the talent to attract commissions would be destroying their integrity by turning commissions into porn...

I think Mr. Nidonocu has a strong proposition there.


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## Tachyon (Jan 24, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Organization is just more important to me than immediate convenience.  It's disheartening to see nobody even grasp my frustration with this chaos; what's the use in building tools to fix it if everyone is content with how things are?  I don't need the AUP to be changed, but *it would be nice to see people at least acknowledge the problem.*



I'm completely behind you on this one, Eevee. A user gallery is for things the user created. Commissioners need some other mechanism to point people to the original works. Apparently the current suggested means are too cumbersome, thus I'm looking forward to what you may have up your sleeve for Ferrox.

(Wonders if there could be a system similar to Facebook, where user "uploads" art _into the artist's gallery_, with the artist confirmation before it shows up, or something... Add it to the half-bakery. Nidonocu has some good ideas, there.)


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## TakeWalker (Jan 24, 2009)

Nidonocu said:


> We need a new tab. Call it Commissions, Co-works, *Shared Works*. Whatever. The point is, artwork on this tab is special. It is not the soul property of the uploader. Its ownership is shared. As such it has special properties.



Curse you for having a better idea than the one I didn't even get a chance to post.


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## foxystallion (Jan 26, 2009)

Eevee said:


> No, no.  I mean if _the software_ actually supported recognizing that user Y commissioned some picture in user X's gallery and have it show up for both or whatever.



Thank you for your clarification. If the single image file appeared in both the artist's and the commissioner's galleries and either party could remove it from their own gallery without affecting the presence of the image in the other gallery that would be fine.  I would hope, however, that a different title could be used in each gallery. Why? When I commission a piece as a gift for my partner BeastInShow the artist frequently titles it Best In Show, and there is no way (so far as I know) of changing a title once it it submitted.  Your single image file concept should be possible with a relational database, though the cost of the duplicate image file is so small (a fraction of a cent), it may not be worth implementing a RDB approach to eliminate the duplicate image files.



> No; I think I should be telling other non-artists who haven't created a damn thing how to manage their galleries.  Because I am a pedantic UI/design nerd.  Also I'm the one rewriting the software.  So I like to think it's slightly relevant to me.



Please check your facts.  My gallery currently has over 100 of my own submissions, a couple dozen collaborations, and over 100 gifts, commissions, and trades. When you rewrite the software, please verify your assumptions or you are likely write software that fits your erroneous  preconceptions rather than serving the artists on this site. I know darn well that I'm not the only artist who creates their own art, engages in collaborations, receives gift art, and purchases commissions. FA members are a remarkably heterogeneous collection of critters.


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## Bladespark (Jan 26, 2009)

Nidonocu said:


> All understandable arguments, but with one problem. FA as an entity can't confirm it, they could potentially have to deal with disputes, _drama_, and just plain art theft. Not only that, it breaks the stats, 'art whores'  not artists get the watches, the favs. FA becomes a less friendly place for the creators of the stuff we love. *This is not a good thing*.



In *your opinion *this is not a good thing.  And is *entirely* your opinion that FA is less friendly for the creators of the stuff you love because of it.  Because *as an artist* I am 100% behind commissioners being able to upload work they commissioned.

Frankly I was REALLY amazed to see this argument even happening.  I am utterly floored by the fact that there are artists who are actually against getting additional publicity.

Now artists against art theft I am very familiar with.  But there's nothing I like more than having somebody upload something I made for them.  They're reaching people who would never see my art otherwise.  As an artist, I am 100% behind that.  

If we were talking about commissioners uploading the art they commissioned and claiming THEY had made said art, it would be a different story entirely, because that is art theft.  But... seriously, WTF?  Uploading something you commissioned and giving the artist additional chances for publicity is automatically a bad thing?  There are actually artists who dislike seeing their own work uploaded by their customers?  My mind, it is blown.  I've never before met an artist who hated publicity.  This is new and strange to me.

Or wait.  Are the people against this actually artists at all?  Because honestly, if you're not an artist, what business do you have saying whether a particular rule is good for artists or not?


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## Stratelier (Jan 26, 2009)

Bladespark said:
			
		

> Or wait. Are the people against this actually artists at all?


*raises hand*

Bladespark, what about Eevee's concerns?  E.g., if a user's gallery is primarily full of "For You"s, but I'm looking for "By You"s, *I can't*.



foxystallion said:


> Thank you for your clarification. If the single image file appeared in both the artist's and the commissioner's galleries and either party could remove it from their own gallery without affecting the presence of the image in the other gallery that would be fine.


Although that's pretty simple from a coding perspective, it brings up some potential issues with enforcement/management/oversight of a system.


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## Tak (Jan 26, 2009)

I'm going to jump in here with what may seem like a few unpopular opinions.

It all boils down to contracts.  Both sides need know exactly what's going to happen after they part ways. Copyright law is a tricky thing. It's easy to say "an artist automatically has the copyright" but when the artist is told what to draw, recieves money for it, and hands it over, it becomes a lot trickier. It is very easy to get into the argument of 'work for hire'.(Someone earlier argued that you couldn't do what you want with an MP3, just because you bought the CD. The difference is you didn't commission the song from the artist.)

Contracts should be used, whenever possible. Is that unpopular?  Yes. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Is it the best thing to do? Yes. Contracts make intent, and end result clear.

Is it common courtesy to credit an artist?  Yes. Should it be done? Yes. I think it costs a commisioner nothing to say who worked hard on their work for them. Should they be told they can't show it off? That depends on the contract. (if the artist says no, that is their right. That becomes part of the contract. It's up to the commissioner then to decide whether or not they want to pay for the limited rights they're being offered/granted)

Is the by/for thing a good idea? My opinion is yes. There have been plenty of times I have been browsing, found a neat picture and been led back to the artist thanks to a courteous link from the commissioner.

Now, when it comes to POLICY that is an entirely different matter. Moral viewpoints is one thing. Policy is another. My -opinion- is that it should be a matter between the artist, and the commissioner. The -FACT- is, that FA determines what -THEY- want to do because -THEY- are the ones spending the time, effort, and resources on providing a FREE service to everyone. I think that's something a lot of people here are prone to forgetting. This is not a right. It is a priviledge. It is not a democracy. It is a favor. You are not going to agree with every decision they make, but it's theirs to make. It doesn't even have to be a fair one. If you don't like it, go start your own art/community/fun site.

But to recap: I think people need to think about contracts, much much more even if it is inconvenient. I think the by/for thing is a courtesy that should be extended, and does in fact help artists. If you don't like it, let them know before you hand over that piece of paper, or unwatermarked digital file. FA has to make the decision that causes them the least expense, headache, and trouble. It might not always make you happy.


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## Bladespark (Jan 26, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> *raises hand*
> 
> Bladespark, what about Eevee's concerns?  E.g., if a user's gallery is primarily full of "For You"s, but I'm looking for "By You"s, *I can't*.



You can't what?  

And what concern?  Having people who aren't artists and who commission a lot of art is inherently a problem?  Why?  Because they're somehow inferior beings because they can't draw themselves?  And they're "stealing" watches from artists?  If there were some limited number of favs and watches, maybe, but there are not.  So what if somebody is watching a person who just re-posts things he's commissioned?  How is that hurting the number of watches that I get?  Said person can watch both the original artist and the commissioner, after all.

I find Evee's concerns to be exclusionary and paranoid.  If I wanted to be in a super-exclusive, artists only gallery, I'd go join Artspots.


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## foxystallion (Jan 26, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> You can't what?
> 
> And what concern?  Having people who aren't artists and who commission a lot of art is inherently a problem?  Why?  Because they're somehow inferior beings because they can't draw themselves?  And they're "stealing" watches from artists?  If there were some limited number of favs and watches, maybe, but there are not.  So what if somebody is watching a person who just re-posts things he's commissioned?  How is that hurting the number of watches that I get?  Said person can watch both the original artist and the commissioner, after all.
> 
> I find Evee's concerns to be exclusionary and paranoid.  If I wanted to be in a super-exclusive, artists only gallery, I'd go join Artspots.



You have hit the nail right on the head.  I have commissioned many pieces of art, and every artist has given me permission to post it in my FA gallery, which I do with full credit, a link to the same piece in the artist's own gallery, and a request that viewers fave it there.  For example:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1657661/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1833437/

One artist requests a two week delay before I post, which I gladly do for him and generally do without being asked, unless the artist requests ASAP posting. (Sometimes an artist needs more commission money quickly, and my 500 watchers include other commissioners).

"for you" posting has been responsible for the creation of a lot of delightful art - and has given many artists the opportunity of being paid for creating art instead of stocking Walmart shelves. As an artist, a commissioner, and a viewer, "for you" posting is win win win.  The only significant downside that I see is that some people turn green with envy - and that is not a pretty sight.


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## Firehazard (Jan 26, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> You can't what?



Can't just get a list of the art the user actually created, rather than those plus the commissions all in one big pile.  This is actually a perfectly valid practical reason why this broken system makes no sense.


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## Vandell (Jan 26, 2009)

Alright, incoming point clarification in an attempt to focus myself and makes others understand~

_*In regards to the organization issue:*_

I totally agree with Eevee in this regard, that a system needs to be in place where only one copy of any given picture is uploaded; it makes things messy for the search engine, to say the least, and takes up ass-loads of spaces.

_*In regards to the copyright:*_

This is where I have to disagree with Eevee and others who think the artist deserve all control over their artwork. My problem is that "FA Logic" says that an artist has control over their artwork 100% of the time, no matter what; FA dictates what's best for an artist and their sales, and not the artist, by always giving the artist total control.

Many artists sell the copyright to a certain image along with the image itself; as an example, many come up to me after finishing it and ask for _my_ permission to post it in _their_ gallery. Some artists co-share the copyright, so that one can't do something without the other's permission. (_Admittedly I'm not aware if this is legally feasible or not to share a copyright equally._)

If Eevee's system is coming in the future, it essentially means that commissioners can never own a copyright to a picture on FA's website. Hell, that's what it _currently_ means, but at the very least we can "share the wealth" (_so to speak_) by being able to post a picture in our own galleries. As I've stated before, this may be 'greedy' or 'vain' to want to gain views/watchers/etc., but this is as much a community/social website as it is an art website; people just want more friends and to get some attention.

_*Suggestions & Tips*_

- Nidonocu's suggestion is probably the neatest idea I've seen, and I would be totally cool with a system like that - in fact, you could make it -the- way to upload pictures, as optional fields when placing them on FurAffinity. Really, it would solve all of my issues, and (_I think_) Eevee's issues as well.
- Paying for something is an important step in the creative process, because it gives many artists the drive to.. well.. make more art.  You can't just plug your ears and say we don't deserve any attention at all (_which is a good reason why many of us come to this website_.)


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## foxystallion (Jan 26, 2009)

Vandell said:


> _*In regards to the copyright:*_
> Some artists co-share the copyright, so that one can't do something without the other's permission. (_Admittedly I'm not aware if this is legally feasible or not to share a copyright equally._)



Equal sharing of copyrights happens literally every day.  The most common example is with co-authors of a book.


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## Stratelier (Jan 26, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> You can't what?


Tell FA that I only want to see "By-You"s in that artist's gallery, without any "For-You"s getting in the way.  (Apparently I forgot to insert an "if" in that post...)

Imagine what it would be like if you clicked "Gallery" on a user and FA automatically displayed both their gallery _and_ their Favorites in a combined listing.

Yes, that analogy is on the ridiculous side....

When I go surfing for maybe a new artist to watch, and I stumble upon an awesome gallery, if that gallery turns out to belong to a (for lack of a better term) "commission whore", then forget it.  I am not going to sit down and try to figure out _for myself_ which of their gallery pieces are By-Yous and which are For-Yous.

FA does not currently provide any functional distinction between those two clauses of the AUP.  We can discuss artists' rights until the Ferrox comes home, but if I could click a button on a user's gallery to split the By-Yous from the For-Yous, I'd be happy with that.


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## foxystallion (Jan 27, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Tell FA that I only want to see "By-You"s in that artist's gallery, without any "For-You"s getting in the way.\
> 
> FA does not currently provide any functional distinction between those two clauses of the AUP.  We can discuss artists' rights until the Ferrox comes home, but if I could click a button on a user's gallery to split the By-Yous from the For-Yous, I'd be happy with that.



If FA used a properly coded relational database system that should be no problem.

I have a rather different approach: First I look at a piece of art and decide whether I like it, then, if so, I find out who did it so I can see more from them. A decent RDB system could readily accommodate either preference. You would only see the "by yous" and I would see the "by yous and for yous". 

At this point, an already overworked Eevee may explode...


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## Nidonocu (Jan 27, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> In *your opinion *this is not a good thing. And is *entirely* your opinion that FA is less friendly for the creators of the stuff you love because of it. Because *as an artist* I am 100% behind commissioners being able to upload work they commissioned.


 
Indeed, it is only an opinion, but you say on your next line you mention that..



> Frankly I was REALLY amazed to see this argument even happening. I am utterly floored by the fact that there are artists who are actually against getting additional publicity.


 
So clearly some are feeling threatened by it, otherwise sites such as FChan (okay, maybe a bit of a poor example there) wouldn't have such huge 'Do Not Post' lists.

We should not argue thusly over this as both points of view are equally valid, it is entirely a personal preference and neither a FA or anyone else should try to tell another artist what to do with their work.

As suggested by Vandell, surely the artist should decide if they either want to want to push their work to as many as possible or keep it semi-private and under their control.

The system I've suggested would allow both kinds of artist to not feel as though they are giving up some kind of control over their work by posting it on FA, as well as appease some of the technical issues and the needs of non-artist users.


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## Tachyon (Jan 28, 2009)

The submission page needs a checkbox: "Did you create this work?" ...and maybe an additional textbox for the original artists name...

...both of which most people will ignore.

Then a little notice on the page for the work comes up saying "Not an original work" or something equivalent but less controversial, and the copyright notice would be changed/removed. In an ideal world, this flag would help with searching, and should encourage people to, you know, mention the original artist.

I dunno. Another one for the half-bakery.


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## Stratelier (Jan 28, 2009)

Tachyon said:


> The submission page needs a checkbox: "Did you create this work?" ...and maybe an additional textbox for the original artists name...



No, a checkbox is too easy.  It should be a pair of radio buttons labelled "By You" and "For You" (the latter having a username box you need to fill in).


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## foxystallion (Jan 28, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> No, a checkbox is too easy.  It should be a pair of radio buttons labelled "By You" and "For You" (the latter having a username box you need to fill in).



That makes a lot of sense and should be easy to implement.  It could be a mandatory selection like the Adult/Mature/General buttons so that the picture couldn't be displayed until a selection was made and, if appropriate, the name of the "for you" artist entered.

Things get a bit more complicated with collaborations; a third "collaboration" button and data entry field will be needed, but that shouldn't be hard to implement, either.

Even more complex is how to index an image where some element(s) of it has(have) been provided by another artist, and used and displayed as part of a larger image with their permission.  For example, CanisLupusFrax and Kurst have allowed me to use their photos of fox, kalak, and coyote heads on my photomorphs. Calling this arrangement a collaboration would be a misnomer. Perhaps a fourth button is needed: "other credits" This button would open two data entry boxes: "item" and "artist".


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## NightfallGemini (Jan 28, 2009)

what I'm wondering is, what's the point of this post


you already have your minds made up. why bother posting a thread


e: especially a thread for input on this new rule when you really aren't going to do anything but reaffirm to everyone listening that you're right and everyone else is wrong. B)

e2: ps this means this thread is white noise, hth


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## Stratelier (Jan 28, 2009)

NightfallGemini said:


> what I'm wondering is, what's the point of this post


"This" post as in "yours"?  :roll:  I'm . . . kinda wondering that too.


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## Eevee (Jan 29, 2009)

Okay I don't feel like doing some huge point-counterpoint thing again, so to summarize thoughts:

- Duplicate uploading *is cheating the system* for more attention to the detriment of people who do not do commissions/gifts/whatever.
If a single artist uploading some pic and then uploaded it again the next day, I'm sure people would object, and nobody would have a problem with the objection.  Yet if someone else does it, it's okay.

- I have never heard a satisfactory explanation for why it's okay to double-upload gift/commissioned art _purely_ for exposure and artist hopping, but it's not okay for me to *reupload an artist friend's entire gallery* for exactly the same reasons.

- Copyright *is completely and utterly irrelevant* to my grievance.  Please stop invoking it as though ownership rights were a magic wand that makes everything okay.  I don't care if it's freaking _public domain_; if you didn't create it, it doesn't belong in your main gallery.
Incidentally, if it were entirely an ownership issue, there would be no reason I couldn't upload public domain works.
But those saying you _automatically_ own art you commission are *still wrong*.  By US law.  Which trumps both common furry practice and intuition.

- People complaining that they would have empty galleries..  bewilder me.  I got a lot more of this on the journal I wrote.  I'm not an artist either; who cares?  Are you seriously complaining it's _not fair_ that other people get to look like they have a talent they worked on for years?  Do you go on SourceForge and insist it's not fair that all these people have code on display, because you're not a programmer?
No, you're not a lesser person, but you are a _lesser artist_.  You can probably find some other site to celebrate how much disposable income you have, but I don't think this should be it.  If that's so much of a problem, go *learn how to draw* like all those artists did.

- Nidonocu's proposition is more or less what I had planned albeit with more detail.  I'm not sure entering emails for non-FA users is worth the effort, though; I could just enter my own email or the email of a buddy or whatever and "permit" the upload.  No reason we can't just allow commissioned art with no artist attached; it wouldn't be any more or less of a moderation burden than what we have now.

- NightfallGemini was referring to the OP.


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## Valerion (Jan 29, 2009)

Something I often do is to look at various pictures of a specific character, regardless of who it's drawn by.  If the commissioner could not upload this, it's VERY hard to find.  And no, trolling his 1000+ favorites is not the way to do this either.  However, having multiple galleries (one for your art and one for art you received) will easily accommodate this, and allow people to see what the artist created himself as well.

There is however, a problem with shared comments and that is that some comments may target the user who is being commissioned, and not the piece.  The artist may very well not want that kind of comments on his/her piece.  Should they then be banned from being posted, or arbitrarily removed by the artist?  Or should they be allowed from both galleries?

Also, how should gallery clean-outs be handled?  Artist decides to clean out his entire gallery.  Does this automatically remove the image from both galleries?  The artist may not have a problem with it being on display, just with it being in his/her gallery.


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## Nidonocu (Jan 29, 2009)

valerion said:


> Also, how should gallery clean-outs be handled? Artist decides to clean out his entire gallery. Does this automatically remove the image from both galleries? The artist may not have a problem with it being on display, just with it being in his/her gallery.


 
In the case of the system idea I had, an artist could choose to no longer be listed as a contributor to the item (just as an annoymous entry on the list of contributors), at which point it would no longer appear in their user facing gallery.

(Personally, gallery clean outs is something _I_ don't understand, it frustrates me no end having pictures disappear from my favourites.)

I'm glad to hear I managed to second guess some of the ideas you were considering Eevee. Hopefully if nothing else this thread should help provide a good cross section of FA user's and opinions so you can draw up specifications for what ever you impliment. Good luck with that!


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## Stratelier (Jan 29, 2009)

Eevee said:


> - NightfallGemini was referring to the OP.


Wow, even worse.



valerion said:


> Something I often do is to look at various pictures of a specific character, regardless of who it's drawn by....


...Which would be reasonably easy to do if FA had a working search engine


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## Eevee (Jan 30, 2009)

valerion said:


> Something I often do is to look at various pictures of a specific character, regardless of who it's drawn by.  If the commissioner could not upload this, it's VERY hard to find.


Sometimes I want to find all pictures of eagles.  Clearly there should be an "eagles" account where everyone reuploads all pictures of eagles.



valerion said:


> However, having multiple galleries


augh!



valerion said:


> There is however, a problem with shared comments and that is that some comments may target the user who is being commissioned, and not the piece.  The artist may very well not want that kind of comments on his/her piece.  Should they then be banned from being posted, or arbitrarily removed by the artist?  Or should they be allowed from both galleries?


Frankly, most comments on submissions are already worthless as far as actual critique is concerned, and nobody seems to mind, so I don't foresee this being a huge problem.  But my first inclination is to say that the artist wins.



valerion said:


> Also, how should gallery clean-outs be handled?  Artist decides to clean out his entire gallery.  Does this automatically remove the image from both galleries?  The artist may not have a problem with it being on display, just with it being in his/her gallery.


Most likely "deleting" would just break the artist's link to the image, and only actually delete it if nobody else was linked to it.

To be fair, though, this is _already_ a problem nobody seems to care about solving: gallery wipes both delete lots of other users' comments and erase the image from potentially thousands of users' favorites.  We should probably be considering how to discourage it in the first place, not just how to mitigate the damage.


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## Nylak (Jan 30, 2009)

I know my opinion doesn't really matter here, and I don't really have a long, thought-out argument, but I feel the need to throw in my two cents regardless, because I'm silly and annoying like that.

Personally, I rather like the For You part of the policy.  When my commissioner reposts my work and links back to my page, I feel flattered that they liked the product enough to show it off.  And I've actually gotten quite a few commissions from people who were directed to my page after seeing a repost of one of my products; they were impressed by the work and wanted some of their own.  It's like free advertising.  ^^;

In defense of the policy, commissions are sort of a collaboration; a large majority of commissions include a detailed scenario description, and are of original characters designed by the commissioner.  So the concept and the character design should be credited to the purchaser, and they in their own way have had a hand in this piece's creation--after all, it wouldn't exist without their input.

Yes, weak argument is weak.  But that's how I feel about it, and why I don't mind if my work is reposted by the commissioners.  No, perhaps legally the product doesn't belong solely to them, but I feel that it does: it's their character, their vision, and all I did was function as a mechanism via which it was brought to life.  It's as much theirs as it is mine.


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## Vantid (Jan 30, 2009)

Nylak, I was thinking the same thing about the idea collaboration.

Also, not every piece uploaded by a commissioner is also in the original artist's gallery.


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## Stratelier (Jan 30, 2009)

Eevee said:


> ...a problem nobody seems to care about solving: gallery wipes both delete lots of other users' comments and erase the image from potentially thousands of users' favorites.


I know, and worse on the current FA it actually leaves those "Submission Deleted" placeholders publically visible to anyone.  Eliminating those lingering reminders would help mitigate the 'damage' already.


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## foxystallion (Jan 30, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by valerion:
> There is however, a problem with shared comments and that is that some comments may target the user who is being commissioned, and not the piece. The artist may very well not want that kind of comments on his/her piece. Should they then be banned from being posted, or arbitrarily removed by the artist? Or should they be allowed from both galleries?
> 
> ...



A little less arrogance and a lot more consideration for the wishes of both the artists and their customers on your part would help assure that Ferrox will be an upgrade rather than a downgrade. Your own opinions as to whether comments are worthwhile are completely beside the point.

Valerion is right about this issue. Specific non-hypothetical example: 
I commissioned a piece which involved a stallion, and I specified that there should be about a half liter pool of semen on the floor. The artist, on his own Gallery page, welcomed comments about how well he had handled light reflections off the spooge and how his shading the edges of the pool provided the illusion of translucency.  He was quite irate, however, when someone asked whether a stallion could really produce that much cum, and he would have been even more annoyed if I had responded that as a rancher, I had first hand knowledge that a stallion could in fact do so.  The artist welcomed comments in his Gallery on his artistic techniques and skills, but did not want any comments about the characters per se. The artist had no problem with that question being asked and answered on the page for the piece in my Gallery.  Your opinion as to the value of those comments is completely worthless and irrelevant to anyone other than yourself. You seem to not understand that FA is both an art gallery and a community, and that artists, commissioners, and viewers do care about comments - sometimes quite passionately. The interests of the artist and the commissioner are not identical, and each having their own comment page accommodates those differences.

I have no problem with each image appearing only once in the database and on the front Browse page.  I, both as an artist and as a commissioner, have a very big problem if you do not allow for it to appear both in the artist's Gallery and the commissioner's Gallery with a separate comment page in each Gallery.  

I also request that you provide three Fave counters rather than one on the Member's Home Page: Faves of works done entirely by the Member, Faves of collaborations, and Faves of commissions and gift art.  This would be nice for those who like to collect statistical data like myself, but it is certainly not important. 

Having separate comment pages for the artist and for the commissioner is important to both. I realize that it is not important to you, but you are not the reason for FA's existence. As both an artist and as a commissioner, I would much rather that FA continue with it's current software implementation than switch to a Ferrox that does not have separate Gallery and comment pages for the artists and the commissioners for the same piece.

Thank you for your consideration.


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## Eevee (Jan 30, 2009)

You know, the accusations are true: I don't think commissioners are as important as artists.  I don't think most commission descriptions stand on their own nearly as much as the final product does.  I would rather have just people with the ability to create than just people with disposable income.  Sorry!  Being offended isn't going to magically make me feel different.  But I am trying to pander this group regardless, because you have a real concern somewhere at the heart of this and I believe it can be solved at least somewhat reasonably without trouncing what _I_ think is important.

Meanwhile, you are insulting me for having the audacity to state an observation of FA that I have very rarely seen be wrong, and insulting the project I devote free time to for reasons I can no longer fathom.  I don't understand why my observation is worthless and arrogant while your anecdote is direly important.

It is impractical to have entirely separate comment pages and would make it nearly pointless to implement this system in the first place.  I am reasonably sure that cases like yours are not common, and you may have to either work it out with the artist or have other users send their important horse semen comments to you privately.


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## foxystallion (Jan 30, 2009)

Eevee said:


> You know, the accusations are true: I don't think commissioners are as important as artists...
> 
> Meanwhile, you are insulting me for having the audacity to state an observation of FA that I have very rarely seen be wrong, and insulting the project I devote free time to for reasons I can no longer fathom...
> 
> It is impractical to have entirely separate comment pages and would make it nearly pointless to implement this system in the first place.  I am reasonably sure that cases like yours are not common, and you may have to either work it out with the artist or have other users send their important horse semen comments to you privately.



Both artists and the commission payments that they receive are important because those commission payments make it possible for the artists to spend more of their time creating art.  Artists have to eat, too.  All of the artists on FA who do commissions value that additional income.  It is a very important motive for producing substantial amounts of the art that resides on FA.

I apologize for insulting your opinions and thank you for the unpaid work that you are doing for FA.  

Your opinion is factually incorrect, however, that cases like my example are not common. 

Please ask Dragoneer to conduct a poll in his Journal of both artists and commissioners as to whether they would like separate comment pages. Those who design a website should know what the users want.  If Ferrox does not allow separate comment pages, I and (I believe) thousands of FA members will consider Ferrox to be an undesirable downgrade from the functionality that we now have.

Why are separate comment pages, one for the artist and one for the commissioner, for the same piece impractical? If FA has a fully relational database, a second comment page for a piece is simply another column with a pointer to the second comment file. When one is viewing the artist's gallery, the column with the pointer to the artist's Gallery comment file for that piece is read. When one is viewing the commissioner's Gallery, the other column with the pointer to the commissioner's Gallery comment file for that piece is read. What is impractical about having one more column in the database?

Thank you for your consideration.


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## Stratelier (Jan 31, 2009)

I must have missed why we would even _need_ separate 'pages' of comments which appear on the _same_ submission.  Mind you, that comments are linked to the submission by its ID number, so if you have two comments posted on the same submission, they are by default on the same 'page'.


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## WishingStar (Jan 31, 2009)

*Ok - with the uploading of an image done FOR you, here is my suggestion:*

There should be an option where the _commissioner _can enter the URL of the original image.  That way, the image is not a duplicate upload.  Instead, two images are *sharing* the same download URL.

The fave image link on both would add favourites to the original image. This can be done with simple coding.

Therefore, both artist and commissioner can have _separate_ comment pages, but the artist gets all the favourites.  I personally would *not* like sharing a comment page, especially if somebody begins to roleplay with a commissioner, or makes a lewd comment under the image.  What if the commissioner does not want it removed, but *I* do?


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## Stratelier (Jan 31, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> *Ok - with the uploading of an image done FOR you, here is my suggestion:*
> 
> There should be an option where the _commissioner _can enter the URL of the original image.  That way, the image is not a duplicate upload.  Instead, two images are *sharing* the same download URL.


Which means that they are sharing the same submission ID, too, and that's not how URL-to-database parsing works.

You're basically suggesting that to submit a "For you" piece the user simply provides the URL to the original submission _and nothing else_?  Yes, FA can take care of the rest internally -- BUT: what makes this suggestion _any_ different from the existing Faving system?


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## Valerion (Jan 31, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> You're basically suggesting that to submit a "For you" piece the user simply provides the URL to the original submission _and nothing else_?  Yes, FA can take care of the rest internally -- BUT: what makes this suggestion _any_ different from the existing Faving system?



I think the reason here is that it would be a separate list from favs, and therefore easier to search/browse through.  A handful of submissions instead of hundreds/thousands of favs, listing all the art the user has seen and likes.  This could potentially be solved with folders/tags or similar, though.

Also, the suggestion is for separate comments pages, which the current fav system does not allow for.  I agree with this, because of the drama potential for shared comments.

The other problem I have with using the fav system is this:  Artist give me permission to upload a commission.  I add it to my favs.  The artist decides a year later to clean his entire gallery for spring cleaning.  Even though permission was not explicitly revoked, the image is still gone from my list of commissions.  Now you can argue that was an implicit revoking of permission, but the artist may just have wanted it gone from his own gallery.  Or do it accidentally.


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## WishingStar (Jan 31, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Which means that they are sharing the same submission ID, too, and that's not how URL-to-database parsing works.
> 
> You're basically suggesting that to submit a "For you" piece the user simply provides the URL to the original submission _and nothing else_?  Yes, FA can take care of the rest internally -- BUT: what makes this suggestion _any_ different from the existing Faving system?


First - *not* the same submission ID.  The commissioners provide the original* download *URL, and a new submission ID for that image is made for the picture.  Two different pages, same download source.  [For example, download 9000_artist_title.jpg shares its original page and page of /view/9000b.]  That takes care of duplicate images on the server.  I am sure there's a way which can make that work, but I would not know since I do not know coding.

I don't know what you're trying to say about the existing faving system.  What I'm trying to say, however, is that if a commissioner uploads an image, sometimes people fave on the commissioner's page and not that of the *artist.*  Somehow, it might be nice to give an option to link the fave button to the* original submission* so the artist gets the fave credit.  

Once more, I think there should be *two separate comment pages*.  Again, I (as well as other artists) would hate to see comments not relating to the art.  What if the commissioner and a friend begin to RP or fight on the artist's page?  The commissioner might o.k. that on their page, but I would not want it on my page...

*Or...*

Just leave it as is and stop worrying about duplicated files.


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## Stratelier (Jan 31, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> First - *not* the same submission ID.  The commissioners provide the original* download *URL, and a new submission ID for that image is made for the picture.


That's not what it sounded like first when you said "share the same download URL".  You mean two submissions sharing the same *image file* -- the submissions themselves would still have separate URLs.




> I don't know what you're trying to say about the existing faving system.  What I'm trying to say, however, is that if a commissioner uploads an image, sometimes people fave on the commissioner's page and not that of the *artist.*  Somehow, it might be nice to give an option to link the fave button to the* original submission* so the artist gets the fave credit.


If the "For you" copy is internally linked to the original piece, then certainly FA server can detect, intercept and redirect comments/faves on that submission to the original as well.



> Once more, I think there should be *two separate comment pages*.


Why, again?


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## Valerion (Feb 1, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Why, again?



1) Either the commissioner or the commissionee has banned a user from posting, but the other and he are friends.  Is he allowed to comment on the piece?  Does both's rules apply?  Just one of them?

2) A user decides to post a comment about the character and not the piece.  The commissioner likes it, but he commissionee does not.  He hides it (as discussed in another thread) or post a rant about it.  Hurt feelings all around.  The same would happen if the two roles are reversed.

3) Same as 2) above, but it's a completely off-topic post (commentator starts to RP with the character, for example.)

4) Either the commissioner or the commissionee are an ass, and dislikes a user for whatever reason.  Hides / rants about the user.  The other is now stuck with mean and spiteful comments in his comments.   Hurt feelings all around.

In short, furry drama.


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

valerion said:


> In short, furry drama.


Thank you~!


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> That's not what it sounded like first when you said "share the same download URL".  You mean two submissions sharing the same *image file* -- the submissions themselves would still have separate URLs.


Yea!  ... Something like that. XD





			
				Stratadrake said:
			
		

> If the "For you" copy is internally linked to the original piece, then certainly FA server can detect, intercept and redirect comments/faves on that submission to the original as well.


Ok!



			
				Stratadrake said:
			
		

> Why, [separate comment pages] again?


See reasons listed by Valerion.


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## Valerion (Feb 1, 2009)

I know this will stir the pot some more, but I couldn't see this mentioned earlier in the thread.  Please note that the arguments below always refer to me so I won't tread on any toes.  I do not condone all the actions listed (especially copyright infringement), it's just possibilities that popped into my head.  The figures below was pulled from my ass.  If you have reliable stats to replace what I put down, feel free to correct me.

I have a vanity gallery.  It's sole purpose on FA is to stroke my ego.  I suck badly at drawing, so I won't soon (ever?) put up any of my own stuff.  I could, however, live with an empty gallery, it's not that much of an issue for me.

Originally my plan was to commission 4 pieces of art during the course of 2008.  This didn't quite work out, but I do plan to rectify this during 2009, and get 4 or so more.  Still thinking about the particulars.  The way I read copyright law, I can't actually upload a commission somewhere else unless I get explicit permission from the artist.  So no showing off my commissions.  If I were not allowed to upload them to FA either, it means they are gathering dust on my PC.  In that case I may very well simply not get the commissions, as they serve no purpose other than me looking at them.  I have a very active imagination, so I don't need a picture purely for myself.  And it would be hard to prosecute me if I download another fursona, modify it myself, and look at it without distributing it.

So the question is - why would I need commissions, if I am the only one that's going to see them?  Or at least need more than one or two?

I have often seen the following: "What are you?" "I am a wolf" "Cool.  What do you look like?" "<insert FA URL>".  Whether this is casual OL chatting, roleplaying, or whatever, doesn't really matter.  Let's assume FA does not allow me to upload.  I am not allowed to show them my picture (copyright law, see above).  So I can either send a description, send the commission anyway, or download something close off FA, do some minor edits in MS Paint and send that.  If I am going to violate copyright law no matter what picture I send, does it really matter how far I break it?  If I do it right I may even be able to claim fair use.

Again, why commission a work to show off a fursona/roleplaying character?  There's easier and cheaper ways to get the same result.

Now let's say 12.5% of the 80.000 accounts here feels like me (10,000 users).  Each of them gets 4 commissions during the course of the year, at an average of $10 per commission.  This represents $400,000 worth of income for various artists, purely for stroking egos.  How much of that money will still be spent on commissions if the commissioner could not show them off, especially in a recession/depression?


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## Dancougar (Feb 1, 2009)

valerion said:


> I know this will stir the pot some more, but I couldn't see this mentioned earlier in the thread.  Please note that the arguments below always refer to me so I won't tread on any toes.  I do not condone all the actions listed (especially copyright infringement), it's just possibilities that popped into my head.  The figures below was pulled from my ass.  If you have reliable stats to replace what I put down, feel free to correct me.
> 
> I have a vanity gallery.  It's sole purpose on FA is to stroke my ego.  I suck badly at drawing, so I won't soon (ever?) put up any of my own stuff.  I could, however, live with an empty gallery, it's not that much of an issue for me.
> 
> ...



You can try all you want but in the end, no matter how hard you try, you are going to wind up stepping on somebody's toes, and somebody is going to get offended. Unfortunately its the nature of the beast. The most you can do is to be civil, and stick to your guns. A licensing agreement would typically fix everything betwixt you and the comissionee, but thats right... This place doesn't acknowledge licesences. Oh well.. *Shrug*
--Dancougar


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## Stratelier (Feb 1, 2009)

valerion said:


> 1) Either the commissioner or the commissionee has banned a user from posting, but the other and he are friends.  Is he allowed to comment on the piece?  Does both's rules apply?  Just one of them?


Okay, blocklist issues would be a bit of a snag....
As for the other arguments (#2 thru #4), I fail to see how this is _any different_ from the existing system, or how it would be affected in any way by some kind of ability to selectively hide (soft delete) OT comments from one's pages.


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

I do not know how to make the problem with shared comment pages any more clear:

To start from the top, some artists do not want to be further associated with their customers past a customer-businessman relationship.
Some people might not have any friendship to their commissioners, and sharing a comment page might make the commissioner feel or believe they and the artist are buddy-buddy.  

Also, artists may not want the commissioner and their friends making roleplay comments all over the page.  What if somebody comments on how sexy the character is and people begin to exchange IM names or argue?  If the artist goes to delete / hide a post, the commissioner might complain and whine.  Then, what if the commissioner decides to get back at the artist and hides all the critiquing comments?  What if the commissioner is offended if somebody comments about the genre?  The artist could appreciate these comments.

The different opinions, different use of the comments, and deleting / hiding wars are going to be a big problem.  

As for blocked users - it will definitely cause a snag.  There will be more blocked users if these pages get shared, because a lot of us have different opinions of how they want to use their page.  This will result in erupting arguments.  

What if the image was done as an illustration to a story?  How is the commissioner going to appropriately put their description and story of the image up without cluttering the artist's page?

It's just not a bad idea... * It's a horrible idea.*

Please just keep the separate comment pages to save from horrible furry drama in the future.


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## foxystallion (Feb 1, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> I must have missed why we would even _need_ separate 'pages' of comments which appear on the _same_ submission.  Mind you, that comments are linked to the submission by its ID number, so if you have two comments posted on the same submission, they are by default on the same 'page'.



Here are two specific examples of why separate comment pages for the artist and for the commissioner - a service that FA now provides - are desired by both the artist and the commissioner:

I wrote a non-fiction slice of life story that I thought might be of interest to a very small sector of FA members, the gunfurrys. I commissioned a piece of art to illustrate it; the artist did not want the story on her comment page but permitted me to repost the image with the story on my comments page:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/452123/

If you use the link that I provided to the same image in the artist's gallery (along with my request that viewers fave it there) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/446653/
you will note that the image is no longer in the artist's gallery. The artist and I are friends; she would tell me if she wanted me to remove the image from my gallery. (Indeed, she now puts all her work into another gallery under a different name and has abandoned her old gallery.)

*Artists and commissioners have different values and interests, hence the use of a separate comment page for each party eliminates what would otherwise be preventable conflicts.* Wishingstar has it exactly right.

Here is another specific example.  I wrote a furry science fiction fragment and commissioned a specific piece to illustrate it:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/406346/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/406350/

The artist quite understandably did not want my story on his comment page (it was neither by him or for him), but gave me permission to repost in my gallery with my story under it. *Two different parties, two different interests, two different comment pages:*
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/503937/

Much to my surprise and delight, an artist friend, Mericius, gave me a piece of gift art which implied a continuation of the story that I had not planned on continuing:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/438363/
Mericus invited me to color his sketch (something I had never done before) and to write a second part to the Pole Dance Story:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/444535/

To my utter astonishment, another artist friend, GibbousWolf, gave me another piece of gift art which implied a further, Part III, continuation of the story that I had not planned on continuing:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/443819/
GibbousWolf invited me to color his sketch and to write a third part to the Pole Dance Story:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/463497/

Then Mericus totally blew my mind by giving me another piece of gift art which implied a further, Part IV, continuation of the story that I had not planned on continuing:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/458247/
He very thoughtfully drew it in two colors to help me understand how the dragon's wings worked; he knew that I was more than a bit intimidated by the complexity of dragons' wings. Of course, his picture implied a Part IV to the story which I enjoyed writing immensely - including a bit about why Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity implies travel backward in time for anything going faster than the speed of light (I'm an aerospace physicist):
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/484346/

*None of this art would exist if FA didn't provide a comment page for the artist and another separate comment page for the commissioner. Wishingstar knows what he is talking about. He has done a great many commissions - and they have helped to pay his way through art school. Please do NOT make Ferrox a downgrade from the viewpoint of both commissioned artists and their commissioners.*


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## foxystallion (Feb 1, 2009)

Eevee said:


> It is impractical to have entirely separate comment pages and would make it nearly pointless to implement this system in the first place.  I am reasonably sure that cases like yours are not common, and you may have to either work it out with the artist or have other users send their important horse semen comments to you privately.



Eevee, you know perfectly well that it isn't impractical to have both an artist's comment page and a separate commissioner's comment page linked to the same image file. You don't want to do it because you don't think that it would serve any useful purpose. 

It isn't at all hard to implement this with a relational database; two comment pages (one for the artist and one for the commissioner) are linked to a particular image file rather than just one.

Which comment page does a viewer see?

If they are browsing the artist's gallery. they see the artist's comment page.

If they are browsing the commissioner's gallery, they see the commissioner's comment page as well as an automatic link to the artist's comment page.

If they are browsing a Browse page rather than a gallery, the viewer is automatically shown the artist's comment page and is offered a choice of seeing the commissioner's as well, if they so wish.

I also recommend that all faves for a piece in a commissioner's gallery automatically flow through to the fave counter for that piece in the artist's gallery.

Please read what WishingStar, an artist who has done many commissions, has to say about the importance of having two separate comment pages for the artist and the commissioner on the page or two above.

Please also read my response to Stratadrake:
http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?p=842196#post842196


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## Firehazard (Feb 1, 2009)

OK, I see a specific new issue being touched on here and I think I know how to solve it.  Valerion's line about linking to a public profile was the key.

What people want is their own little corner of the internet that's like a personal home page, with information about them and some pictures of their character, where other users can show up and comment and chat and stuff.  Basically, something like MySpace or Friendster.  Well, not too long ago a couple of websites popped up called Furiends and MyFursona, that were designed to exactly that.  Users' image galleries are specifically set up to be used for uploading photos or pictures by other people.

I've noticed this being the case more and more often â€” people are wanting their FurAffinity page to be their "home base", their furry "Web portal", their "place where I go to do everything I want to do."  It's not just commissioned art; we're seeing Artist Profiles filled with literally page-length descriptions, galleries with page after page of photos of the users and their friends and their _pets_.  Want more proof?  Look at our motherloving suggestion forum.  One person wants attachments in Notes; another recently wants a "games corner", whatever the bloody smeg that is.

FurAffinity's staff and userbase are rapidly losing sight of its intended purpose: a site like deviantART for furry artists to display their work, in a furry- and yiff-friendly atmosphere, and for furry non-artists to browse and enjoy it.  The "by you" policy is just the tip of the iceburg.


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## artdecaderoo (Feb 1, 2009)

i think it's a great idea, i think it'll spread names around more and help community grow.

it feels like the arguments against the idea are very tenuous and fickle, even cliquey to a degree.  they seem to boil down to 'i might get comments i don't want', which is just downright naive if you're putting work out there in any context.


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

artdecaderoo said:


> they seem to boil down to 'i might get comments i don't want', which is just downright naive if you're putting work out there in any context.


I might get comments which I personally don't want to see.  I can put up with 'murr, he's sexy' or 'will you ever draw porn of that?,' but when it comes down to people RPing with each other or getting into an argument...  I want to hold the right to say 'no' and not have another person controlling that same page.

My commissioner might say: That's ok, go on.
I might say:  No, I would rather not this kind of thing happening here.

My little corner on FA is* my *little corner (within administration reason), and if I wish to censor it through hiding comments within my likes and dislikes, I should be able to do so.  If I have to share comment pages with my future commissioners, I might lose the ability to control my online environment.

TL;DR: 
Shared pages will result in drama because two people will be trying to control the content which occurs on that page.


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## Stratelier (Feb 1, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> I might get comments which I personally don't want to see.  I can put up with 'murr, he's sexy' or 'will you ever draw porn of that?,' but when it comes down to people RPing with each other or getting into an argument...  I want to hold the right to say 'no' and not have another person controlling that same page.


Even so, I don't see what makes this any different from the current system.  Comment RP'ing as an example, since that's not a good behavior to engage in _in the first place_, but without some kind of 'hide' or soft-delete of posted comments available, neither party can take much action on it outside of the blocking system.

By the way . . . this may seem totally random, but does FA have any stated policy/guidelines on the subject of "club" accounts (like those on  dA)?


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## Eevee (Feb 1, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> Shared pages will result in drama because two people will be trying to control the content which occurs on that page.


Artist wins; commissioner has no power over comments.

Firehazard has summed up the bigger issue rather well.  This is an _art site_.  It is not Murr Yiffy Roleplay Affinity.  It's for *artists* to show off the *art they created*, not for everyone with a spare ten bucks to show off that they have a spare ten bucks.

You want support for a description and imagery of your twelve RP characters?  Cool; tell me what you need and maybe we can build it in.

I have no problem expanding FA to be more interesting and useful for non-artists, within reason (e.g. I don't think we can really afford to host thirty grainy photos of a cat per user, and there are better services for that sort of clutter).  But we need to stop co-opting a feature meant for artists.

You want to expand FA's direction?  I'm all ears.  Right now the target is "an art site that does at least everything FA does".  If we want a general furry community hub, then that is what I should eventually build, and suggestions (and patches) are welcome.


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## krisCrash (Feb 1, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> By the way . . . this may seem totally random, but does FA have any stated policy/guidelines on the subject of "club" accounts (like those on  dA)?



dA originally were agaisnt them, but then allowed them along the way, meaning to make a system for it but it was never introduced. If you want clubs I suggest looking into how yaoi.y-gallery.net handles it as an account type seperate from normal artist account, I think it works fairly well though I would here only allow a submission to be in one club. Aforementioned site also has collab and gift art systems that might be interesting to look at, and see how people feel it pan out there. However I will stress already now, that if FA makes clubs, a club approval panel should be made where new clubs are evaluated, an unfortunate consequence of clubs on other sites seem to be that several identical, very similar or very obscure clubs come along.

Not really an aswer to your question but maybe it will eventually prove useful for decision making.


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Artist wins; commissioner has no power over comments.


This, however, might cause hurt feelings.

Commissioner:  "Why did you hide such and such comment?  I want it to be unhidden! *extended furry drama*

But I am thankful the artist would get the say.  I still suggest that two pages share the same file from the database - that way both artist and commissioner can have their own pages.  Once more, blocked users - how will one get around that?

X and Y are friends, really good friends.  X wants to comment on my page because Y commissioned a picture of their characters.  X was earlier blocked from my page because he made a crude comment against _insert religion.

_I think Y should have their own comment page so their own friends can comment, flock, talk and do whatever they wish.


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## poco (Feb 1, 2009)

Firehazard said:


> I've noticed this being the case more and more often â€” people are wanting their FurAffinity page to be their "home base", their furry "Web portal", their "place where I go to do everything I want to do."  It's not just commissioned art; we're seeing Artist Profiles filled with literally page-length descriptions, galleries with page after page of photos of the users and their friends and their _pets_.



If that's what people want why shouldn't FA oblige?  At the end of the day FA is supported by it's users.  Many, if not most, of the artists are supported by their commissioners.  Whatever FA was intended to be it's an always evolving site and should reflect it's users desires.

If I commission a character sketch and want to share it with my friends and watchers I should be able to post it independently if the artist has given me permission to do so.


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## Vandell (Feb 1, 2009)

Would tabbed comments / descriptions be feasible? One for shared comments, then one for all contributors (artist, commissioner, co-artist, gift recipient, etc.). It doesn't sound -too- difficult to accomplish this, on first glance.

So far, I am intensely against Eevee's bias against commissioners, since he seems to be designing the system with his bias in mind.

If it happens it happens. I just hope the admins will be prepared for any potential consequences if they all share mutual feelings with Eevee.


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## foxystallion (Feb 1, 2009)

Vandell said:


> Would tabbed comments / descriptions be feasible? One for shared comments, then one for all contributors (artist, commissioner, co-artist, gift recipient, etc.). It doesn't sound -too- difficult to accomplish this, on first glance.
> 
> So far, I am intensely against Eevee's bias against commissioners, since he seems to be designing the system with his bias in mind.
> 
> If it happens it happens. I just hope the admins will be prepared for any potential consequences if they all share mutual feelings with Eevee.



Thank you. I like your tabbed comments concept.

Artists need money, sometimes for very important purposes such as eating, paying doctors' bills,  or finishing art school.  Without artists, FA couldn't exist. I think that FA should be doing everything possible to encourage commissioning. The current system (By you or for you, reposting in the commissioners' galleries with the artists' permissions) works well and encourages commissioning which benefits the artists.

The proposed Ferrox system of a single comment page will harm every artist that offers commissions and every viewer who would enjoy seeing more rather than less art.  

When I write a story, no-one disputes that it is original art and that FA should allow me to post it in my gallery. Under the current "By you or for you" system, I can commission an illustration for my story, and post it in my gallery above the story (with the artist's permission and proper credit, of course.)  That story does not belong in the artist's gallery; the story is neither by him or for him.

With the proposed Ferrox downgrade, that would no longer be possible. Is there anyone who honestly thinks that this would be good for the artists?


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## WishingStar (Feb 1, 2009)

Vandell said:


> Would tabbed comments / descriptions be feasible? One for shared comments, then one for all contributors (artist, commissioner, co-artist, gift recipient, etc.). It doesn't sound -too- difficult to accomplish this, on first glance


That's a good compromise!  Kind of like two tabs - one for comments to artist, one for comments to commissioner.  Maybe the artist could also have options to move comments to the commissioner's page if need be.  This could be a wonderful compromise.
One page, two tabs of comments.


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## Stratelier (Feb 2, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> Not really an aswer to your question but maybe it will eventually prove useful for decision making.


That's okay, it was a random thought and not all that relevant to the By You / For You subject under discussion.



WishingStar said:


> X and Y are friends, really good friends.  X wants to comment on my page because Y commissioned [me for] a picture of their characters.  X was earlier blocked from my page because he made a crude comment against [insert religion].
> 
> I think Y should have their own comment page so their own friends can comment, flock, talk and do whatever they wish.


I'm still not understanding how this is relevant to needing multiple comment pages for what is, essentially, a single submission.  If you blocked X because of comments they made and they can't comment on _your_ submission, how is that even a problem?  Besides, if X and Y are really such good friends, X will certainly get ahold of Y by other means.


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## foxystallion (Feb 2, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> That's a good compromise!  Kind of like two tabs - one for comments to artist, one for comments to commissioner.  Maybe the artist could also have options to move comments to the commissioner's page if need be.  This could be a wonderful compromise.
> One page, two tabs of comments.



I love your idea of the artist being able to move comments from the artist's comment page to the commissioner's comment page. Perfect win/win website systems design. Thank you very much!


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## foxystallion (Feb 2, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> That's okay, it was a random thought and not all that relevant to the By You / For You subject under discussion.
> 
> 
> I'm still not understanding how this is relevant to needing multiple comment pages for what is, essentially, a single submission.  If you blocked X because of comments they made and they can't comment on _your_ submission, how is that even a problem?  Besides, if X and Y are really such good friends, X will certainly get ahold of Y by other means.



Please read and respond to http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?p=842196#post842196
and perhaps you will understand what we are both trying to communicate to you.


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## WishingStar (Feb 2, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> I'm still not understanding how this is relevant to needing multiple comment pages for what is...


Ok, then let me give another reason:

How about, I simply do not want to share my comments page with another person?  It's like allowing my big brother to come into my room at home and use my computer.  I always ask him *not *to download things on my computer, but he does _anyway_.  The repeated situation becomes very irritating to constantly clean up after him.  Then I have to remind him and confront him.  He reacts like an over-dramatic furry would(sadly, because he's autistic).
*
Likewise*, I already get agitated having to ask mods to clean up comments, RP, and arguments.  This plus excess activity left by the commissioner and their friends would just be cause for more inconvenience on my side.  I do not want to keep confronting people, saying 'please don't' because my commissioner and I may have different opinions, different thought processes, and different reasons to use a comment box.

*TL;DR (including all my other posts):*
It's downright *inconvenient* to share one page.  People use comments for different things.  People want to have *their own page*.  Some of us *don't *want to share a space like we're in a bloody dormitory. 

*Please - for the last time, I ask of the coders: * Take this to the public, a sticky in every forum if you have to, and take a poll on this.  Let the public decide on what's best!  Include both pros and cons stated in this very thread.  Direct back to this thread.  Explain to people without a biased post with what exactly this means.

*Options discussed in this thread:*
One post, one page, one comment box for all...
or
One file, separate pages, separate comment boxes...
or
One post, one page, tabbed comment boxes for commisisoner and artist...
or
Keep it the way as is...


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## Eevee (Feb 2, 2009)

This is ridiculous.

What if it's a gift for someone?  Should the recipient get his own page of comments?

What if it's a collaboration?  Do both artists need their own set of comments?

A collaboration paid for by two people now has, what, four entirely distinct sets of comments?

What if it's a group pic?  Does everyone in it need a separate page of comments?

What about people who fave it?  Do they all need separate comments?  Their friends might come in and comment..

These things _actually happen_.  Until this thread I had not seen a single artist concerned about getting comments.

You're not sharing space with the commissioner.  You are just *posting your art as usual*, and _letting_ the commissioner claim some relevance to it.  If people post things you don't like on _your art_, that's still just as rude as if it weren't a commission.  Being friends with someone who gave you some money doesn't excuse that.  If the commissioner needs a place to yiffy roleplay, s/he is free to post some art, post a journal, or _propose a better place for it_.  But the gallery system as a whole is *for artists and their art*.  There is _no replacement for this_ on FA if it's taken over by something else.


And no, the public shouldn't vote on what's best.  Features should exist or not based on their own merits, not the current whim of the populace.  Design by committee is awful, and this is kinda why.  Everyone wants to propose a million specific features exactly tailored to his/her own interests, but people don't really care about any potential problems they themselves don't experience or expect to experience.  What about the maintenance burden of keeping the comments in the "right" place depending on who they're "more" targeted towards?  Why complicate just reading the comments, or make people potentially miss half (2/3, 3/4..) of them?  What about all the artists and commissioners alike who just don't care?




addendum:


Vandell said:


> So far, I am intensely against Eevee's bias against commissioners, since he seems to be designing the system with his bias in mind.


Yes.  I am designing an *art site*, and I do not want to dilute that merely because non-artists want attention too.  If you want to expand the scope of FA, cool; figure out exactly what you want and propose it.  But the For You rule is painfully arbitrary and is rapidly turning a clearly-defined feature into myspacey "well just upload whatever you want" that happens to be used by artists sometimes.


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## Valerion (Feb 2, 2009)

Eevee said:


> What about people who fave it? Do they all need separate comments? Their friends might come in and comment..


Favs does not have comments today, nor do they need them, IMO.



Eevee said:


> Yes.  I am designing an *art site*, and I do not want to dilute that merely because non-artists want attention too.  If you want to expand the scope of FA, cool; figure out exactly what you want and propose it.  But the For You rule is painfully arbitrary and is rapidly turning a clearly-defined feature into myspacey "well just upload whatever you want" that happens to be used by artists sometimes.


I use the word gallery below, because that's all FA has today (other than scraps).

"Whatever you want" is clearly not the case here.  According to the AUP it must be created For You.  Not "random stuff I found".  If it's not created for you specifically, or you do not have permission, then it should not be posted / should be deleted.   

I suggested multiple galleries earlier, with the idea of doing a For you and By you gallery.  Or if you hate the word gallery, call it something else, folders, whatever.  However, it didn't seem you liked that idea at all.  So how about this - in your existing gallery, create hard-coded folders, so the art can be properly organised and out of the way of people that have no interest in seeing it.  If you hate the word gallery for this because of the connotations, call it something else, like "My Sketchbook" or "My Pictures Corner."

For You means it is not your art, yes.  And while it stays an art site (displaying art), it means this is no longer a art site where only your own works are displayed.  Very few real life galleries actually display art only by a single creator.  This is more like a gallery with multiple rooms, where you can look at each room on its own.

For You creates a need in the mind of people using the site.  If you have nothing to display that you consider worthy, then your gallery will stay empty.  However, if there's a possibility that you can post stuff in your gallery, then you create a need to fill this gallery.  This need can be fulfilled by getting a commission, so people do that.  This, in turn, gives the artist a monetary reason to create a piece of art that would not have existed otherwise, increasing the amount of original art in the artist's gallery (if they post such).  If you drop the "For You" rule, these pieces would not have been created, because there's no need for them.


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## Stratelier (Feb 3, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Yes.  I am designing an *art site*...



And I help enforce rules on a site that doesn't even have a "For You" clause in its submission policy, that is part of my personal bias.


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## foxystallion (Feb 3, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> And I help enforce rules on a site that doesn't even have a "For You" clause in its submission policy, that is part of my personal bias.



FA does have a "for you" clause in its submission policies. If you don't like it, go somewhere else instead of attempting to impose your own bias contrary to the rules.


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## Vandell (Feb 3, 2009)

Eevee said:


> This is ridiculous.
> 
> What if it's a gift for someone?  Should the recipient get his own page of comments?
> 
> ...


The issue at hand is that many others think this is the wrong way to go; you want to "refocus" the website back to its "roots" of being a furry art dump for artists.. at its core it'll become VCL with comments and a few other flashy features. What made FA unique and more popular than many (_all?_) other furry-related art sites was the "For You" clause; the people that gathered for it to fill their galleries with art made for them that they received from a purchase or as a gift, and it fueled other artists to drop by and try their hand at getting some decent scratch. As Dragoneer himself said, "most [artists] agreed that they didn't mind and found it was better advertising and garnered them more commissions", meaning the clause resulted in more sales, and more people with money come to this website over many others.

The problem [with what little I know of your Ferrox design] is that there is no room for the commissioner, because *you* don't see them as a valuable asset; commissioners need and want a way to comment on and describe artwork they purchase, but your design is just "this is an artist's website only" rather than "a community that revolves around art". Yes, people posting purchased art is "MySpace"-y, or "Facebook"-y, or what have you.. but that's what makes this website so attractive to lots of people - the need to make friends, connect and.. well.. be popular through art. The end result is that they're still posting legally obtained art that they had a hand in influencing/designing/inspiring, and they deserve more than just an inflated +fav. At the very least, they should be able to make their own comment about the darn thing and receive feedback like the artist.

A tab system seems so deceptively easy to impliment: a tab for the artist(s), and a tab for whomever is important/relevant to the picture. The original uploader can specify other FA users with their own tab. The "owner" of that tab can then enter their own information on the picture, and each tab will have its own set of separate comments, all on one single shared page. Tab owners could shuffle comments from one page to another, or delete them from their tab. If this is beyond your abilities as a programmer, I can understand that, but don't just shoo the idea away without giving it any thought at all.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42944
An example of a great tab system; the item (_or "image"_) is above, and below are separate tabs for various descriptions pertaining to the item. [Sorry in advance for using WoW as an example.] Replace the item with a piece of art/story/music/etc., and replace the tabs with the names of contributors, and each tab has its own description/comments, and hey-presto there's your

And yes, design by the majority is bullocks, but this forum is for feedback; if all you're going to do is shoot back and ignore most of it without even considering it, then what the heck is this for?


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## Hanazawa (Feb 3, 2009)

tl;dr

Eevee, if you're just designing an _art_ site, let me ask: will Ferrox have a journal system?
If so, why? Journals are not necessary or directly relevant to art. If an artist has something to say or advertise, clearly they can do in in their submission comments.

I'm neutral on this separate comment pages thing, but the "IT IS AN ART SITE" argument is pretty thin.


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## Stratelier (Feb 3, 2009)

foxystallion said:


> FA does have a "for you" clause in its submission policies. If you don't like it, go somewhere else instead of attempting to impose your own bias contrary to the rules.


So exactly *what* was (and still is) my original, one complaint about the "For you" clause of FA's submission policy?  Simple.  "For you" submissions get displayed and lumped into the same place _intended_ to hold what the given artist actually _creates_, there is no way to filter between the two.  If I'm looking for one and I stumble across a user's gallery that contains a good mix of both . . . I can't.


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## WishingStar (Feb 3, 2009)

Hanazawa said:


> tl;dr
> 
> Eevee, if you're just designing an _art_ site, let me ask: will Ferrox have a journal system?
> ...
> I'm neutral on this separate comment pages thing, but the "IT IS AN ART SITE" argument is pretty thin.


Thank you for pointing both of these out.  Foxy and I both are concerned that some of the _humanity _will be taken out of the site.  I did not like VCL because of the sterile nature, because you had to be *accepted *to that site through screenings, you *had *to put *all *sketches in a sketch folder away from your main gallery.  There was no way to talk back and forward to the other artists.

Eevee brought up some good points about why people may need share comment pages, but I still like the idea for poster (artist) and commissioner (participant) tabs under the images to keep questions and comments directed at the right person without having to search.

I guess another one of my huffs is organization and being able to see comments just left for me and not swimming through all sorts of other comments...



Stratadrake said:


> So exactly *what* was (and still is) my original, one complaint about ...


Point is, the "For you" clause *exists *where you claimed it did not.  Whether or not you like people showcasing their commissioned works is your personal opinion and bias.  This does not mean, however, you can act and proclaim it is non-existent.



Vandell said:


> The problem [with what little I know of your Ferrox design] is that there is no room for the commissioner, because *you* don't see them as a valuable asset; commissioners need and want a way to comment on and describe artwork they purchase, but your design is just "this is an artist's website only" rather than "a community that revolves around art".


And may I emphasize on this, that commissioners and artists are important to FA?  We do have a forum on the board just for that kind of transaction.  Thanks for bringing up this point!


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## Valerion (Feb 4, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> So exactly *what* was (and still is) my original, one complaint about the "For you" clause of FA's submission policy?  Simple.  "For you" submissions get displayed and lumped into the same place _intended_ to hold what the given artist actually _creates_, there is no way to filter between the two.  If I'm looking for one and I stumble across a user's gallery that contains a good mix of both . . . I can't.



So the answer is to get rid of the "For You?"  Right now FA offers two galleries, the main gallery and scraps.  There is no mechanism for differentiating.   If you use it as "intended" then you end up with legal artwork under the AUP, but nowhere to put it.

The alternative is still valid.  Add a new type of gallery.  Call it what you want - make clear it's for "For You" works.  Then people that don't want to see this kind of thing can simply not open the gallery in question.

It's like what I see in some western countries - Person A shoots person B.  The answer?  Ban all guns.  Person C stabs person D.  Answer?  Ban all knives in public.  Person E kills person F with a katana.  Answer?  Make all swords illegal.  You end up with a very restrictive atmosphere.



WishingStar said:


> Thank you for pointing both of these out.  Foxy and I both are concerned that some of the _humanity _will be taken out of the site.  I did not like VCL because of the sterile nature, because you had to be *accepted *to that site through screenings, you *had *to put *all *sketches in a sketch folder away from your main gallery.  There was no way to talk back and forward to the other artists.



I dislike VCL.  It's a place where me as non-artist are not welcomed at all.  "We are nice enough to allow you see our artwork.  Feel privileged" is the feeling I get from it.  So I go spend my time elsewhere.  Here on FA I feel welcomed and appreciated, even if I am just a person browsing the site.  I rarely comment on artwork (personal failing on my side), but I will sometimes say "This piece made me cry" or "This piece made me laugh" or "This piece made me horny".  Sometimes I go and take a piece I particularly enjoyed and paste the URL for some of my friends on IM's/IRC.  I do not have the ability to judge a piece on its artistic merits, and I won't even try.  A site "for artists and by artists" doesn't encourage this sort of behaviour.

I have spend some money on commissions on FA.  Not a lot, but I did a little.  On a site like VCL I won't spend anything, since there's no motivation for me.  After all, what's the purpose of getting a commission if I can't actually show it to anyone?  Just to keep on my PC and watch all alone?  I've got better things to spend my money on than to look at pictures of my fursona.


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## foxystallion (Feb 4, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> So exactly *what* was (and still is) my original, one complaint about the "For you" clause of FA's submission policy?  Simple.  "For you" submissions get displayed and lumped into the same place _intended_ to hold what the given artist actually _creates_, there is no way to filter between the two.  If I'm looking for one and I stumble across a user's gallery that contains a good mix of both . . . I can't.



That is certainly a legitimate concern! Fortunately, it is easy to solve: When someone uploads a submission (or a request for a comment page from an artist, collaborator, or commissioner), they must be required check one of three boxes: 'By you", "Collaboration", or "For you". It is not difficult to provide you, the viewer,  with a viewing filter for any one, two, or three of these options.  Checking one of the options boxes can be made a precondition for uploading an image or for creating a comments page for an existing image file, just as the G, M, and A boxes are now necessary preconditions.  

Win/win; better living through technology. There is really no need for conflict on this issue. Both you and I can have the gallery view that we prefer without either of us imposing our personal preferences on the other. This is simple HTML and relational database coding, not rocket science. Ain't technology great? We won't be making love, but each party getting what they want sure beats protracted furry drama - and an impairment of commission income to artists.


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## Stratelier (Feb 4, 2009)

valerion said:


> So the answer is to get rid of the "For You?"


Since when is this an either-or discussion?


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## WishingStar (Feb 4, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Since when is this an either-or discussion?


Not to be snarky, but I think that was simply an honest question and an actual answer was wanted...

This thread is getting way too tense - and I know I'm one of the people at fault. Thing is, people don't want too much change to the site because it has become an art *community.*

People can have their own page, there's tags for "art whore" and "watcher" right in the profile drop down menu. These tags aren't specific for artists, but everybody in general who enjoys / views/ draws the work which is on FA.

If FA were specifcially an art site, and just that - why would we need forums outside of critique and site notices? Why would we need journals? Why would we need comments at all? It's because people use this site not just for the submission of art, but also the enjoyment, collection, and discussion of it.

I think everybody should have the ability to sign up for an FA account if they truly want to be involved in the site somehow (watcher, artist, collector, etc). So long as they're not here just to spam and troll, I think FA should welcome people from all corners of the art community.

The rules have been written to help keep FA from becoming another MySpace or FurrySpace (whatever that is actually called). That's what the AUP is for! "For you" is definitely a part of that, and I think the commissioner and artist should have ways to receive comments and messages directed *just *for them if they wish so. I also think the "For you" policy should stay in place and not shunned upon because it gives people a chance to showcase works of other artists, especially ones thay may *not *be on FA.


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## artdecaderoo (Feb 5, 2009)

"It might cause drama and I might get comments I might not prefer," these arguments are so extremely flimsy.  

Anything might cause drama.  The potential for a thing to cause drama is not in itself a reason to not do a thing.  The upsides to the proposed system (networking, less redundancy, advertising) easily outweigh any drama that may come of it, which will be comparatively small and fleeting (as all drama is).

If getting comments you may not prefer is a point of issue... then get ready for a life of perpetual indignation.  Your corner of FA is NOT yours alone.  That's what personal sites are for.  FA, DA, etc, are for the purpose of posting creative works in a free form COMMUNITY of people with similar interests.  You can't expect to get the benefits of a community setting and be free of the more annoying aspects.  I get bizarre and absurd (and even QUITE rude) comments on a fairly regular basis, and it's as easy as a shrug or a laugh (or a block) to utterly forget about them for the rest of my life.


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## OxfordTweed (Feb 5, 2009)

I like that you're able to repost stuff drawn for you on this site. As several people have pointed out, there are some galleries out there that are nothing but commissioned artwork.

While, yes, I think that there should be some sort of credit given to the artist, there are some folks out there (ArtDecade, Blotch, Moody Ferret, Moonstalker, Zaush, to name a few), that most people will instantly recognise as being the original artist, and not the person who's posting it.

Really, it's the little guys that suffer from not being properly credited. I think the real trick is coming up with a uniform way of ensuring credit to the original artist that wouldn't result in abuse. What immediately comes to mind is an optional field in the submission process, for the original artist, but (and this could just be me being jaded and bitter) right away, I can see people using that to post stuff that they neither drew, nor was drawn for them.


Possibly, like how we currently have a gallery and a scraps section, maybe there could be an extra section for reposted/for you art. Again, though, I foresee abuse, and a lot of coding.


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## WishingStar (Feb 5, 2009)

artdecaderoo said:


> If getting comments you may not prefer is a point of issue...


I'm actually over that thought - I still just am 'meh...' about it.  I'm kind of at the point to where whatever happens, happens.  No use arguing about it anymore because I didn't want to cause drama in the first place - rather, have my voice heard.

It was heard, some people agree, some people don't - you and I just seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum and see this working different ways.

So let it be, ya? :3


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## Eevee (Feb 6, 2009)

artdecaderoo said:


> "It might cause drama and I might get comments I might not prefer," these arguments are so extremely flimsy.
> 
> *Anything might cause drama.*  The potential for a thing to cause drama is not in itself a reason to not do a thing.  The upsides to the proposed system (networking, less redundancy, advertising) *easily outweigh any drama that may come of it*, which will be comparatively small and fleeting (as all drama is).
> 
> If getting comments you may not prefer is a point of issue... then get ready for a life of perpetual indignation.  *Your corner of FA is NOT yours alone.*  That's what personal sites are for.  FA, DA, etc, are for the purpose of posting creative works in a free form COMMUNITY of people with similar interests.  You can't expect to get the benefits of a community setting and be free of the more annoying aspects.  I get bizarre and absurd (and even QUITE rude) comments on a fairly regular basis, and it's as easy as a shrug or a laugh (or a block) to utterly forget about them for the rest of my life.


emphasis mine; thank you sir

I do find it odd that, as soon as I say that comments will be merged, all the "community" stuff goes out the window and suddenly people are insular and defensive of what's theirs.

Obviously I am never going to make everyone happy, but I cannot in good conscience add features that make the site crappy for almost everyone in the name of solving a non-problem a few people emphatically insist they might have later.  Anyone is free to try to convince me of the merits of anything, of course (which is a far better course than trolling unrelated threads with accusations that I want EeveeAffinity), but I refuse to be a code monkey for whoever happens to be loudest.


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> emphasis mine; thank you sir
> 
> I do find it odd that, as soon as I say that comments will be merged, all the "community" stuff goes out the window and suddenly people are insular and defensive of what's theirs.
> 
> Obviously I am never going to make everyone happy, but I cannot in good conscience add features that make the site crappy for almost everyone in the name of solving a non-problem a few people emphatically insist they might have later.  Anyone is free to try to convince me of the merits of anything, of course (which is a far better course than trolling unrelated threads with accusations that I want EeveeAffinity), but I refuse to be a code monkey for whoever happens to be loudest.


Except now the problem is you're -downgrading- from "commissioners/artists have their own corner of the website" to "artists have their own corner of the website". If I hypothetically commission a piece of artwork for a story I'm writing, under the new system I hypothetically won't be able to post it/get my own section for it and describe how it works in relation to said story. Currently, I'm able to. This is a clear downgrade all in the name of 'refocusing'. Everyone here is trying to convince you that commissioners need -some- section of space to put in their own comments and descriptions - that's really all I (and others) are asking for, if you boil it down to bare-bones, more than just an over-inflated link.

I agree that the By You / For You clause is outdated with the upcoming new system, but the website would be doing a disservice to its users by just cutting half of it off without thinking about people use it in it's current context, or by making the upcoming system fit, somehow, with how people post art and making sure things don't change too much.


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## Eevee (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> If I hypothetically commission a piece of artwork for a story I'm writing, under the new system I hypothetically won't be able to post it/get my own section for it and describe how it works in relation to said story.


post the story



Vandell said:


> Everyone here is trying to convince you that commissioners need -some- section of space to put in their own comments and descriptions


where did I say commissioners wouldn't get a description?


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> post the story
> 
> 
> where did I say commissioners wouldn't get a description?


.. yes, but will we get our own comment section to receive feedback, praise, and etc.?

I'm now terribly confused as to what's going to be situated on a submission.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> .. yes, but will we get our own comment section to receive feedback, praise, and etc.?
> 
> I'm now terribly confused as to what's going to be situated on a submission.



Why do you need your *own* comments and praise for a commission you received? Just out of curiosity?


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## foxystallion (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> post the story



Without the story being on the same page as the illustration? Illustrated story books have the illustrations and the story placed together. It works better that way. Have you ever seen an illustrated story book where the illustrations and the story were in separate sections?



Eevee said:


> where did I say commissioners wouldn't get a description?



Please tell us where commissioners will be allowed to put their story or description. Will it be on the same page as the illustration? Only on a joint comment page? Does a story that is neither by or for an artist belong on an artist's comment page?


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Why do you need your *own* comments and praise for a commission you received? Just out of curiosity?


Because I like to talk? Socialize? I'm greedy? Vanity? The same reasons as everyone else for wanting a comment section.

Is there something wrong with that? If this is the case, why do artists need comments, since the majority of them are non-critical? A section of FA is being axed off like a severed limb simply because they're supposedly not important to the community.

Without our own section to comment on our own commissioned pictures, a person will have to abide by the artist's rules of discussion, the artists rules of conduct; they don't always match with mine, or vice versa.. if I want to talk about the characters and how they relate to a story, or relate to a roleplay, or relate to etc., or just be happy-as-all-hell with people who want to froth over a character/piece of art, I should be allowed to.

The main thing I'm driving at, though, is that Ferrox is a downgrade if there aren't separate places for comments implemented in -some- fashion. It may be an upgrade in efficiency and server storage and what have you, but a large part of the people who appreciate art in lieu of drawing it like to talk amongst one another over art they've received, buzz about X and Y, discuss over Z and N, just as an artist does.

In short: I probably should have made this post shorter.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> The main thing I'm driving at, though, is that Ferrox is a downgrade if there aren't separate places for comments implemented in -some- fashion. It may be an upgrade in efficiency and server storage and what have you, but a large part of the people who appreciate art in lieu of drawing it like to talk amongst one another over art they've received, buzz about X and Y, discuss over Z and N, just as an artist does.
> 
> In short: I probably should have made this post shorter.



Right, but remember you commissioned it, while as I am an artist, am happy you enjoyed the commission or gift art enough to post it. The fact that I think Eevee is coming up with a collaborative solution, where you can at least have it displayed in your gallery is still good faith between commissioners and the commissioned (the artist).

I think the fact that you're demanding separate comments for something you didn't create and want your *own praise*, is a bit ...well silly?

It's either a "group" effort in drawing your character with your input or it's solely the artist. I'm happy with the medium since it means both people will receive the comment for one submission instead of jumping everywhere to see what someone said about a piece of work you only hired someone to do, but didn't create.

I think that is what Eevee was trying to solve. I just said at this point I do not mind FA's current system since it wasn't tooled very well.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 6, 2009)

Hanazawa said:


> tl;dr
> 
> Eevee, if you're just designing an _art_ site, let me ask: will Ferrox have a journal system?
> If so, why? Journals are not necessary or directly relevant to art. If an artist has something to say or advertise, clearly they can do in in their submission comments.
> ...



I still don't see how that is? It's an art community, but that's just it, it's more of a perk that was intended to the benefit of the artist. Of course it also created a snag of people who wanted to see artwork of adult or mature works, or comment needed an account, but just because a journal is there doesn't discredit the focus of it being an art site, versus just a plain old Myspace.

Do I like journals? Not really...and yeah most comments are garbage due to the social networking aspect being "more important" than the drawing but that's the way it is nowadays.


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Right, but remember you commissioned it, while as I am an artist, am happy you enjoyed the commission or gift art enough to post it. The fact that I think Eevee is coming up with a collaborative solution, where you can at least have it displayed in your gallery is still good faith between commissioners and the commissioned (the artist).
> 
> I think the fact that you're demanding separate comments for something you didn't create and want your *own praise*, is a bit ...well silly?
> 
> ...


That's the point. With the current system, I CAN comment about commissions/gifts away from the artist/for my own purposes. With the new system, I won't be able to.

As I've said over and over again already, it's a downgrade. This feature is obviously not being removed over storage space or efficiency of design; rather, it's being removed over moral issues/a bias against the commissioners, which I think is entirely wrong and deserves a more thorough discussion. This is a larger issue than the admins/devs want to admit (or fail to see).

Eevee is inadvertantly turning this into a community -for artists-, while non-artists will have to be content to meander about on journals, away from the art. My simple suggestion places comments all on the same page, so the only _real_ barrier is this stupid moral dilemma (and the dev's time, of course).

Regardless of the reasons 'why' I and others like myself want our own comment system for purchased/gifted art, the fact of the matter is that MANY users want to keep things the same, or at least -very similar-, because it's useful to them.

The thing is, as a developer, it's Eevee's.. 'job' (so to speak) to streamline and remove redundancy from the system, make a website easier for its users to.. use. This 'feature' of separate commenting is something that many of us enjoy using, or else there wouldn't be such a backlash against its removal. One doesn't remove a liked and oft-used feature unless it's causing serious problems.

Is having our own place for comments a serious problem on the server that I can't see?


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## Arcturus (Feb 6, 2009)

You know what? Ferrox already exists.

It's called the VCL and it sucks ass.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> The thing is, as a developer, it's Eevee's.. 'job' (so to speak) to streamline and remove redundancy from the system, make a website easier for its users to.. use. This 'feature' of separate commenting is something that many of us enjoy using, or else there wouldn't be such a backlash against its removal. One doesn't remove a liked and oft-used feature unless it's causing serious problems.



You're incorrect. Eevee is doing it on the basis of what the focus of the site is. It's pretty much agreed that FA has lost focus, of it being an art site that is enjoyed by the community. Does this mean it will be a perfect system in place? Not at all, I'm certainly not some fool that thinks FA runs great, however, if Eevee doesn't have what the site's intended purpose, it makes no sense to just code for it. Purpose is what helps with the features.

FA introduced a unique clause for the community, but at the same time, people who aren't artists should also respect that when a better system is in place times will change since it couldn't do what it was originally able to do due to poor planning and poor coding. 

I do mean better, FA at this point is horribly outdated with its code.


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> You're incorrect. Eevee is doing it on the basis of what the focus of the site is. It's pretty much agreed that FA has lost focus, of it being an art site that is enjoyed by the community. Does this mean it will be a perfect system in place? Not at all, I'm certainly not some fool that thinks FA runs great, however, if Eevee doesn't have what the site's intended purpose, it makes no sense to just code for it. Purpose is what helps with the features.
> 
> FA introduced a unique clause for the community, but at the same time, people who aren't artists should also respect that when a better system is in place times will change since it couldn't do what it was originally able to do due to poor planning and poor coding.
> 
> I do mean better, FA at this point is horribly outdated with its code.


Yeah, I mis-spoke a little there. The code is horribly dated, yes, but still, this new system will be removing the 'For You' clause altogether, and will be removing the unique nature of Fur Affinity (in that it inadvertently supported commissioners and makes them want to spend moe money), or at the very least knocking it down a good deal.

I mean, if I get art, I want to talk about it. Why should I have to go outside of FurAffinity to do so? Yes, I can comment on the picture, but it has to be within the bounds of the artist - what if they decide to only allow other artists to discuss the picture? What if they decide to only allow criticism? Sometimes you can never tell with any given artist on what they want, so I'd like to at least have my own small, out-of-the-way section for people that want to direct comments towards me (who _is_ involved in the picture, tyvm. Money is a great motivator for artists. x;..)


> You know what? Ferrox already exists.
> 
> It's called the VCL and it sucks ass.


Also, oh snap. <<;


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## Undying Song (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> I mean, if I get art, I want to talk about it. Why should I have to go outside of FurAffinity to do so? Yes, I can comment on the picture, but it has to be within the bounds of the artist - what if they decide to only allow other artists to discuss the picture? What if they decide to only allow criticism? Sometimes you can never tell with any given artist on what they want, so I'd like to at least have my own small, out-of-the-way section for people that want to direct comments towards me (who _is_ involved in the picture, tyvm. Money is a great motivator for artists. x;..)



I couldn't agree more, really, and this is coming from an artist.


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## Eevee (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> My simple suggestion places comments all on the same page, so the only _real_ barrier is this stupid moral dilemma (and the dev's time, of course).


And it makes reading comments twice as hard, complicates the UI, potentially places extra unnecessary moderation burden on the both parties, etc.



Vandell said:


> this new system will be removing the 'For You' clause altogether, and will be removing the unique nature of Fur Affinity (in that it inadvertently supported commissioners and makes them want to spend moe money)


You seem to have technology confused with rules.



Vandell said:


> I mean, if I get art, I want to talk about it. Why should I have to go outside of FurAffinity to do so?


How did we get from separate pages of comments (which are for _other people_) to this?


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> And it makes reading comments twice as hard, complicates the UI, potentially places extra unnecessary moderation burden on the both parties, etc.


I'm not a programmar, so I can't really comment on how difficult this is to accomplish; but with other websites that present information in this way (_read again: wowhead.com_), it's quite convenient and easy to browse, simple and clean.



> You seem to have technology confused with rules.


That's how FA currently works; I'm able to post art I receive, as per the AUP, and get my own little circle of attention for it, and that makes buying art that little hint more attractive to me.

The new system doesn't allow that. I have to post on the artist's board, that _they_ moderate, and that _they_ get all the attention for, and that _they_ can do whatever they want with the comments. If I purchase some art for a story I write, I will have to tell people to circumnavigate towards another place specially dedicated to said story/art, or to a journal, and to me that seems clunky.



> How did we get from separate pages of comments (which are for _other people_) to this?


Because, as you say, if I want attention/to talk to people outside of journals, I'll have to make my own art. The only place I can talk to furs about art I've purchased (without the artist's interference), then, is to go outside of FA/away from the art, rather than potentially having all comments directed towards me removed by an overbearing artist.


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## Eevee (Feb 6, 2009)

Vandell said:


> I'm not a programmar, so I can't really comment on how difficult this is to accomplish


Implementation difficulty has never factored in here.



Vandell said:


> but with other websites that present information in this way (_read again: wowhead.com_), it's quite convenient and easy to browse, simple and clean.


That site shows different information on different tabs.  You are proposing splitting more or less the same information across different tabs.



Vandell said:


> The new system doesn't allow that. I have to post on the artist's board, that _they_ moderate, and that _they_ get all the attention for, and that _they_ can do whatever they want with the comments.


It is *impossible* for me to prevent you from uploading art you did not do.  There is no code I could possibly write to check for that.  I am providing an alternative to doing so, and I would prefer to throttle people who do so, but I cannot possibly _enforce_ anything.  As my sig says, *I am not an admin*.  The staff could quite easily tell me to fuck off.



Vandell said:


> If I purchase some art for a story I write, I will have to tell people to circumnavigate towards another place specially dedicated to said story/art, or to a journal, and to me that seems clunky.


Umm.  You'd have to do that anyway.  A story and a picture are separate submissions.  Unless you've been pasting entire stories as submission descriptions, which is terrible.



Vandell said:


> The only place I can talk to furs about art I've purchased (without the artist's interference), then, is to go outside of FA/away from the art, rather than potentially having all comments directed towards me removed by an overbearing artist.


Don't commission overbearing artists?  Capitalism is a glorious thing.


Man.  I thought this would be a cool *community* thing.  The artist gets to know when your friends like your picture, and you get to know when the artist's watchers like your character.  Both of you can respond if you want, and we can all celebrate this cool art.

Instead, I get several people telling me that, well, the artists they give their money to are apparently _total dicks_ who would hate to see comments from people who enjoy their art.  How dare those plebeians!  And you guys are holding your commission money over my head so I'll do what _might be_ more convenient for you to the detriment of everyone else, before I have much fleshed out this idea or even begun to implement it.

Is this _really_ the grand community we are all so proud of?  We seem to be celebrating ourselves more than, um, art.


You're right: the artist _could be_ a giant asshole and delete all your comments or disable them or whatever ends up being possible to do.  But the artist also _could be_ a giant douchebag *today* and demand you take the picture down entirely.  And you would have to, because those are the rules.  Yet nobody cares about this "problem", and many people in this thread have said they would be more than happy to comply if it happened.  Hell, one of my complaints about the current system is that artists uncomfortable with double-posting _can't_ say anything about it for fear of losing business.  Why is this so monumentally different?


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## Vandell (Feb 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> Implementation difficulty has never factored in here.


Okay..



> That site shows different information on different tabs.  You are proposing splitting more or less the same information across different tabs.


Comments aimed at entirely separate people != the same information, especially if both tabs have their own owner. However, we hold two entirely different opinions, and I don't think either of us are going to budge.

Additionally, with how many comments some artists/characters get, I don't see this is a bad thing. As-is the comment system can be a total pain to navigate when there's about 50 different people talking to one-another, imagine having a popular artist + a popular character owner and combining all their comments together on a single megapage.



> It is *impossible* for me to prevent you from uploading art you did not do.  There is no code I could possibly write to check for that.  I am providing an alternative to doing so, and I would prefer to throttle people who do so, but I cannot possibly _enforce_ anything.  As my sig says, *I am not an admin*.  The staff could quite easily tell me to fuck off.


If that's the case, I'll continue to upload as per normal, unless having an artist link to me (or however it works..) provides the same benefits, separate comment sections included. Sometimes, I just don't want to get in the way of the artist and his/her friends and want to keep it to my own circle of people.



> Umm.  You'd have to do that anyway.  A story and a picture are separate submissions.  Unless you've been pasting entire stories as submission descriptions, which is terrible.


Hard to explain, really, since I don't do this - but I know people who do such a thing. Plenty of people, really, whether it be a short description or a long multi-para story.



> Don't commission overbearing artists?  Capitalism is a glorious thing.


The problem is that there -are- artists who want nothing to do with the customer after the art is gone and done, and don't want any of their followers commenting on their art or etc. Some people -do- RP and other weird crap in the comments section (myself not included, minus a few cute emotes). You can't just say "I don't want those people in my community"; well, you can, but that's still bad form.



> Man.  I thought this would be a cool *community* thing.  The artist gets to know when your friends like your picture, and you get to know when the artist's watchers like your character.  Both of you can respond if you want, and we can all celebrate this cool art.


The problem arises when an artist decides he/she doesn't care what others think about "the character", and only what people think of "his/her art". Since it's not shared ownership of the picture in terms of FA logic, they control all the comments, and that's quite annoying to me - I'd like a say in what I want to hear from a commenter, seeing as I paid for the darn thing, -just in case- I don't have an artist sniping away my friends. I imagine such a thing will be rare, but I'd rather it not happen in the first place.



> Instead, I get several people telling me that, well, the artists they give their money to are apparently _total dicks_ who would hate to see comments from people who enjoy their art.  How dare those plebeians!  And you guys are holding your commission money over my head so I'll do what _might be_ more convenient for you to the detriment of everyone else, before I have much fleshed out this idea or even begun to implement it.


I remember you mentioning that you don't commission items very often (if at all), so it is hard to explain to you. I do not, for one, call all artists total dicks, much in the same way that you don't call all commissioners total dicks for wanting to do more with their purchased art. Personally, this entire situation means little to me - I commission art and just post it on my page, and only give a few lines of text and a shoutout to the artist and other affiliated people. However, I know lots of people who (as I mentioned earlier) would get quite upset at losing their comments; 'cause the voices of your friends tend to get lost amongst the crowd if you commission a popular artist.



> Is this _really_ the grand community we are all so proud of?  We seem to be celebrating ourselves more than, um, art.


The community is what it is. You can either try to include only specific people and exclude others, or just let things fall as they do. I prefer the latter, personally, since it's much easier to manage.



> You're right: the artist _could be_ a giant asshole and delete all your comments or disable them or whatever ends up being possible to do.  But the artist also _could be_ a giant douchebag *today* and demand you take the picture down entirely.  And you would have to, because those are the rules.  Yet nobody cares about this "problem", and many people in this thread have said they would be more than happy to comply if it happened.  Hell, one of my complaints about the current system is that artists uncomfortable with double-posting _can't_ say anything about it for fear of losing business.  Why is this so monumentally different?


An artist should always feel at risk of losing customers if they force a customer to remove their picture, because it's a very dicky and greedy move to not allow someone who paid for their art to get some attention from it, and they know it. YOU should know that. That's why nobody cares about it, because it never (or very rarely) happens; most artists don't care about double-posts from commissioners, most artists are content with the way things are and to let their customers do as they please with their art (within the confines of copyright law usually), and most wouldn't even consider ripping away someone's posting rights just so they can shore up their art collection (or what have you).


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## kalu (Feb 7, 2009)

Having multiple comment pages for the same submission is stupid.  It's exactly the problem we were trying to solve by unifying the submissions in the first place.  The artists I know (myself included) hate to see the comments on their work split up across different pages.  If you want RP threads, well, maybe the comments should just be better at threading/collapsing.  Reddit.com has pun threads all the time that don't detract from the serious business discussions.

Secondly, if an artist creates a work, they are god of it.  They should be able to admin away your comments, or even have the work removed from the site if they want to.  If they are the sort who like to hand over rights to their commissioners, they can just not delete your comments and you are hunky dory.  I sort of see your point though, but only in very very edge cases like your examples.  Therefore, this behavior should not be the default even if we do implement it as an option eventually.

Blah blah blah.  Yes artists care about double posts.  They want to be able to count their comments and faves and feel special, and not get their stats diluted by double-posters.  The system is jank, so we need to fix it!


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## Stratelier (Feb 7, 2009)

I won't get involved in any posting-parties, but...


Arshes Nei said:


> Why do *you* need your *own* comments and praise for a commission you *received?*


I personally side with Arshes on this matter.



			
				Vandell said:
			
		

> ...the fact of the matter is that MANY users...


How many?



			
				WishingStar said:
			
		

> If FA were specifcially an art site, and just that - why would we need forums outside of critique and site notices? Why would we need journals? Why would we need comments at all?


FA is not FurFiction.net ?  Focus is a good thing, but you also need a venue for the userbase to take a break from said focus and allow them to digress a little.

(Which, coincidentally enough, is one of the reasons I left FF.net .)


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## foxystallion (Feb 7, 2009)

Eevee said:


> It is *impossible* for me to prevent you from uploading art you did not do.  There is no code I could possibly write to check for that.  I am providing an alternative to doing so, and I would prefer to throttle people who do so, but I cannot possibly _enforce_ anything.  As my sig says, *I am not an admin*.  The staff could quite easily tell me to fuck off.



_*Excellent!*_ The end game is proceeding precisely as I predicted. Then that is exactly what I shall continue doing, with the prior consent of the artist, of course. My problem is solved. I'm honestly sorry that you feel enraged by this practice, but your anger is your problem and not mine so long as the AUP contains "for you", which I very much doubt Dragoneer will change. I'm believe that he understands the role that "for you" has played in the tremendous success of FA, and I'm certain that he does not want FA to become a furry mausoleum like VCL.



Eevee said:


> Umm.  You'd have to do that anyway.  A story and a picture are separate submissions.  Unless you've been pasting entire stories as submission descriptions, which is terrible.



I am frequently a _terrible_ furry. _*Really, really terrible!*_



Eevee said:


> Don't commission overbearing artists?  Capitalism is a glorious thing.



Capitalism is certainly a glorious thing, which is probably one of the reasons why I have never encountered an overbearing artist. I do _NOT_ consider an artist to be overbearing who doesn't want a story that is neither by them or for them to appear on _their_ comments page. The current "for you" party reposting practice is one solution to this problem, but it isn't the only one:

It takes one line of HTML to embed an image that has already been posted somewhere into a web page. I certainly understand why you won't allow posters to write their own HTML web page code. But why not provide a person uploading a story an upload process box in which they can enter the URL of an image that they want embedded at the head of their story upload?  One image file, two different pages. One more line of HTML. If you won't do it, you will inevitably get exactly what you would deserve - a continuation of duplicate uploads and stories as .TXT comments.

I am an artist (as well as a commissioner) and often create my own art for a story. When I joined FA, I asked if a submission could be both art and a story, and was told that the web site software allowed only either/or but not both. That is how I became a terrible furry over two years ago, and why I have continued to be a terrible furry ever since. Please consider providing an art+story option as a service to FA users in Ferrox.  There are a huge number of illustrated story books on the market, and I have never seen one where the story and the pictures are in separate sections. Am I doomed to be forever terrible? Its your move.


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## selth (Feb 7, 2009)

folks, any interested in a feature to get better handling on commission, feel free to read http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=36553


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## foxystallion (Feb 7, 2009)

selth said:


> folks, any interested in a feature to get better handling on commission, feel free to read http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=36553
> _(which says in part):_
> here is what I suggest :
> In the upload form, propose for an option saying 'upload commission'
> Then, use a form to place input of the name of the artist and, in order to evade updating too much code and database, why not edit the title so that it looks like this: "picture by artist, commissioned by ..."



Excellant idea, and very simple to implement - just a couple new lines of HTML to ask for and collect the commissioner_id data and a small change in the code line that now sometimes inaccurately displays "...by soandso" when soandso is the commissioner rather than the artist.

I always place the following comment on the line right under the title:
"Original art by :iconfoxystallion: " if I did it, or
"Original art by : icon artists_id : and displayed here with his/her permission." for commissioned art.

Unfortunately, many people don't do this, even though it is in the May 2007 AUP. Moreover, even if they do, the data base still has the wrong name for the artist of commissioner posted commissioned art. Your suggestion takes care of these problems. Thank you - your suggestion would be a useful feature and could be implemented within the current FA upload code.


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## QT Melon (Feb 7, 2009)

Hmm, may I offer a suggestion if I may?

Since the problem with collaborations may be a permissions issue from what I'm gathering. Would it be possible to have an over ride in the code? 

I see that it may cause a problem for the following:

An artist hiding or disabling comments on a commission.
A person who is blocked on one or the other person's account.

Let's say someone posts a commission piece and it is the artist.

The artist would use the collaboration option, checking off this is a shared work. This would then enable a permissions where the artist and commisisoner can see all comments, regardless if they're hidden. In addition, I would devise an option to disable an option for not allowing comments unless both parties put in the checkbox option.

Would that be fair to all involved?


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## uncia (Feb 8, 2009)

QT Melon said:


> Let's say someone posts a commission piece and it is the artist.
> 
> The artist would use the collaboration option, checking off this is a shared work. This would then enable a permissions where the artist and commisisoner can see all comments, regardless if they're hidden. In addition, I would devise an option to disable an option for not allowing comments unless both parties put in the checkbox option.
> 
> Would that be fair to all involved?


Mhmm... Various possibilities for handling collabs or commissioned work, but need also to consider cases where the artist (or artists) is not on FA, has gafiated or worse. 
Add to that the concern that the underlying data structures required need to be decided upon before the code and if we're still having such "debates" now, what's actually happened in the past year or more?

Collaborations are somewhat more "equitable" but I'm sure there are a good number of cases where a commissioned artist does not wish personal comments regarding the commissioner on the comments in their gallery and/or is more than happy to let those "belong" to the commissioner.



Eevee said:


> Is this _really_ the grand community we are all so proud of?  We seem to be celebrating ourselves more than, um, art.


So, not only can you not show off your sketchbook to friends at a con, you have to tear out all the pages and tell your friends that if they wish to comment they have to go to the original artists to see them first then whisper what they think in the artists' ears.

In what way is this a step "forward" towards a "grand community"?

(Implementing "groups" is a half-way solution to totally tearing up the "for you" clause since that would permit collation of a personal album for commissions or whatever, but does not solve the commenting "issue").



			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> You're not sharing space with the commissioner. You are just *posting your art as usual*, and _letting_ the commissioner claim some relevance to it.





			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> And no, the public shouldn't vote on what's best. Features should exist or not based on their own merits, not the current whim of the populace. Design by committee is awful, and this is kinda why.





			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> Yes. I am designing an *art site*, and I do not want to dilute that merely because non-artists want attention too.





			
				Eevee said:
			
		

> Artist wins; commissioner has no power over comments.


You make no claim to be an admin in any way, but I'd suggest that controlling the entire future direction of FA somewhat trumps that.

Your own position is perfectly clear and that is that supplying the original ideas for and making suggestions for changes to a work of art plays precisely ZERO part in the overall creative/artistic process. Excuse me for saying that p.o.v. is fundamentally wrong. Just ask George Lucas...



Arcturus said:


> You know what? Ferrox already exists.
> 
> It's called the VCL and it sucks ass.


Heading that way on this score if not careful, IMHO...
Not that many people really _care_ much so long as things don't impact them personally, albeit rather sad in terms of lost opportunities, but people do have a habit of narrowing down scope to what is familiar to themselves or a small group of peers without consideration for the larger community to the maximum degree possible.

If the present, albeit flawed, system which results in a double post every few hundred submissions or less were the BIGGEST ISSUE facing FA then we're home and dry, I guess.
Doesn't mean it can't be improved upon, but turning FA into an artist dump was /avoided/ at the start for good reason and the community has benefited considerably as a result.

(Nice tagging btw Arc).

02c/ymmv
d.


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## Stratelier (Feb 8, 2009)

uncia said:


> So, not only can you not show off your sketchbook to friends at a con, you have to tear out all the pages and tell your friends that if they wish to comment they have to go to the original artists to see them first then whisper what they think in the artists' ears.


Pardon me but the analogy as stated doesn't work.  It's _your_ sketchbook, *you* are the one drawing on its pages.

...right?


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## fallimar (Feb 8, 2009)

I've been following this discussion from the beginnig and it's gone a bit... strange. I'm commenting more to get it straight in my head than actually input a hot steaming spoonful of opinion so...

The 'for you' clause in the AUP is being called redundant by some parties, and this is pissing people off, because removing the clause would be taking away some of the social networking SLASH arse-patting/ego-stroking whatever bollocks you like.

The first impression I got from the thread was "Muh? Why would you take AWAY features?" but then when I got thinking, I realised that I've never ever posted any artwork that was done FOR me on my FA account, because I think that'd be a shitty thing to do to the artists who did the pics. That's my brain working there, I'd not considered any of the by you/for you thing before.
All I've ever done is post my own stuff, and if I get a commission done or whatever, I fav it, post a comment and save a copy for myself. Might also write a journal linking to their submission if it's amazing or whatever, but never reupload as it seems... well, redundant. Not to mention smacks of taking credit. Eh.

What it leads me to, however, is that if the for you clause IS going to be still around, that there needs to be some way of differentiating between artwork done by you or other people. It'd be pretty much impossible to make it retroactive unless people were incredibly diligent (HAHAHA) but even future implementation would work satisfactorily, I reckon.

A system similar to one that's been suggested vaguely before - when you're uploading a piece, you check a radio button thing with options for 'by you' (default), 'for you' or 'collab/other' or something like that. When anything byt the first is checked, a box should appear asking for the name of the artist. Rest of submission goes ahead as usual. I'm sure using some form of Magical Codery, that info could be used to create a tab in the user's gallery splitting it into the by you/for you portions, which seem to be the major annoyance factor for people against the clause.
Sure, you'd still double up on submissions, but that's going to happen whether it's allowed or not, because people are silly.

Personally, I'd be happy to see the back of the 'for you' clause as it really does seem redundant, but if it's there, then hey - compromise?


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## uncia (Feb 8, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> uncia said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Erm, no, otherwise I wouldn't have said other "original artists", but thanks for checking to clarify. Definition of "sketchbook" is varying depending on context, I guess. 

k; just to make perfectly clear, rather than have your sketchbook wherein other artists have drawn your own character/s (for example) to show around to friends, you have to tear out all the pages and tell your friends that if they wish to comment they have to go to the original artists to see them first then whisper what they think in the artists' ears.
Happier now?


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## foxystallion (Feb 8, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> Pardon me but the analogy as stated doesn't work.  It's _your_ sketchbook, *you* are the one drawing on its pages.
> 
> ...right?



Wrong.


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## uncia (Feb 8, 2009)

fallimar said:


> A system similar to one that's been suggested vaguely before - when you're uploading a piece, you check a radio button thing with options for 'by you' (default), 'for you' or 'collab/other' or something like that. When anything byt the first is checked, a box should appear asking for the name of the artist.


... or link/s, if they're on the site. Is one approach, yes.



fallimar said:


> Personally, I'd be happy to see the back of the 'for you' clause as it really does seem redundant, but if it's there, then hey - compromise?


Well, redundant if heading back towards a "VCL+" model with none too subtle overtones of non-artists as second rank citizens despite four years of heading somewhat in the opposite direction in a reasonably flexible manner.
If it was a ever a "big deal" (which I doubt really for the vast majority of community members), an artist can simply refuse a commission from anyone who might wish to display that in their own gallery, for lack of any "group" functionality to keep their commissioned works together within FA or ability to have personal comments on these which the original artist might not wish.


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## fallimar (Feb 8, 2009)

I've got no idea why you'd compare VCL to FA without submission double-ups. Just means you post stuff that you do, and use favs and comments to show your appreciation rather than posting other people's work in your own space. VCL is a little snobby, I agree. I joined years ago but never use it because there's no community layout. FA has the community aspect regardless of the art restrictions - everyone's allowed a page, journals and comment priveleges to give and receive, and the community's hugely active because of that. Taking away the ability to post other people's art in your gallery does absolutely nothing to take any of that away. Really.

Additionally, _"an artist can simply refuse a commission from anyone who might wish to display that in their own gallery_"

... sorry, but that's complete and utter bollocks. Mind-reading commissioners or asking them not to post things and appearing like an overbearing ogre just to protect one's own property rights. Sure, the onus is on the artist to provide a clear cut set of terms of service, but the commissioner has to act with tact and decency too, and that means respecting the intellectual property rights of people they commission art from.

Sorry, I don't mean to come off as rude, but that comment was really, really reaching.


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## Stratelier (Feb 8, 2009)

uncia said:


> ... or link/s, if they're on the site. Is one approach, yes.
> Well, redundant if heading back towards a "VCL+" model with none too subtle overtones of non-artists as second rank citizens despite four years of heading somewhat in the opposite direction in a reasonably flexible manner.


This is no place to play the SCC card.  As Eevee already stated, a user whose gallery consists of commissions rather than created works is no lesser _person_, but they do have a lesser _gallery_.  It is by definition not the same kind of gallery as one who uploads their own creations.



			
				fallimar said:
			
		

> Taking away the ability to post other people's art in your gallery does absolutely nothing to take any of that away. Really.


Even without a 'For You' clause FA would still have userpages, journals, faving and commenting systems, PMs, and not to mention the _forums_.

Compare NaNoWriMo.  Sure, the whole focus of that site is simply to write 50,000 words in your own time and merely log on to update your word count, but that's not even half the fun.



			
				fallimar said:
			
		

> Sure, the onus is on the artist to provide a clear cut set of terms of service, but the commissioner has to act with tact and decency too, and that means respecting the intellectual property rights of people they commission art from.


I agree.  FA has the "For you" clause, but if an artist specifically prohibits another person from reposting such a work without permission, then reposting it to FA as a "For You" is still in violation of the artist's own set terms.


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## uncia (Feb 8, 2009)

fallimar said:


> Additionally, _"an artist can simply refuse a commission from anyone who might wish to display that in their own gallery_"
> 
> ... sorry, but that's complete and utter bollocks. Mind-reading commissioners or asking them not to post things and appearing like an overbearing ogre just to protect one's own property rights.


Would you rather FA was that "overbearing ogre" with no flexibility whatsoever?
It's a simple matter to put "finished works will be displayed in my gallery unless permission is requested beforehand" on one's standard commission terms & conditions along with the rest of the spiel. Deliberately /not/ doing so, if that is a genuine matter of concern, and then getting "upset" when the commissioner wishes to post in their own gallery is rather pointless to say the least.



fallimar said:


> Sure, the onus is on the artist to provide a clear cut set of terms of service, but the commissioner has to act with tact and decency too, and that means respecting the intellectual property rights of people they commission art from.


Are things not already, by default, heavily enough biased towards securing "artists' rights" as it is when someone pays for a commission, supplies the ideas for content, possibly even giving feedback/critique as part of the creative process and yet the artist has total say on whether that work may be deleted at any time. 
In addition, you wish that the commissioner can never display the commissioned work in their own personal space or receive any personal comments on that?

Not that collaborations don't present similar issues that the majority of the community have worked around without too much friction.


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## uncia (Feb 8, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> This is no place to play the SCC card.  As Eevee already stated, a user whose gallery consists of commissions rather than created works is no lesser _person_, but they do have a lesser _gallery_.  It is by definition not the same kind of gallery as one who uploads their own creations.


SCC? 
Well, the current proposition as I understand removes the "for you" clause entirely and appears to have no intention of building in additional functionality (_"And it makes reading comments twice as hard, complicates the UI, potentially places extra unnecessary moderation burden on the both parties, etc."_, etc.) to retain or build upon those particular aspects above-and-beyond the vertically-structured artist gallery approach.
Sure, there would be extra coding and the underlying data structures require to be a bit more flexible, but that this is being brought to the fore now rather than a year or more ago when the design was meant to be taking place speaks volumes.


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## fallimar (Feb 8, 2009)

I'm not here to argue really, so I'll be brief and then go off to bed!

I said before I'm not too heavily biased either way - I have commissioners that post my artworks up in their galleries and that's fine with me at the moment, but my -personal- preference is that only one copy be on the site. I did the work, the art's there for people to see and I don't delete stuff unless it's my own work. I've been in the position that an artist I did a trade with deleted their submission after I'd favourited it - I'd saved a copy and it's now sitting on my hard drive where it belongs, and I can look at it any time.

On rights - the harsh reality is that no matter whose character is in a piece, the artist behind that piece retains all legal rights and distribution privileges - but to be honest that's not the point here. It's about showcasing your own work that you can be proud of, not just having a gallery full of things you like, whether or not it's character of yours. Art gallery site Vs. Photobucket, kind of thing.

That's my take on it, it's how I've always viewed the site and it's fine if you don't agree - it's just my two cents!


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## Stratelier (Feb 8, 2009)

uncia said:


> SCC?


"Second-class citizen".  But if there's a smiley on it maybe you figured that out already.


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## Eevee (Feb 9, 2009)

This isn't fun any more.  One of my few reasons for building this damn thing in the first place is personal enjoyment.  Thus I resign from this thread.

I'm going to go build whatever I think is best, unless otherwise instructed, and even then I will probably let net-cat do it instead.

If you have constructive suggestions, please feel free to discuss them in the Ferrox forum.  If you have snark or spite, go direct it towards some other free project that's not pandering to you quite how you want.


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## Vandell (Feb 12, 2009)

fallimar said:


> I'm not here to argue really, so I'll be brief and then go off to bed!
> 
> I said before I'm not too heavily biased either way - I have commissioners that post my artworks up in their galleries and that's fine with me at the moment, but my -personal- preference is that only one copy be on the site. I did the work, the art's there for people to see and I don't delete stuff unless it's my own work. I've been in the position that an artist I did a trade with deleted their submission after I'd favourited it - I'd saved a copy and it's now sitting on my hard drive where it belongs, and I can look at it any time.
> 
> ...


Just an FYI, one of my main points is that _*purchasing*_ or being *given* art should be valued a little more than just "posting things you like", as some (read: many) artists get more purchases when the commissioner has more freedom to do what they please with said art.


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## Stratelier (Feb 12, 2009)

Vandell said:


> Just an FYI, one of my main points is that _*purchasing*_ or being *given* art should be valued a little more than just "posting things you like", as some (read: many) artists get more purchases when the commissioner has more freedom to do what they please with said art.


I could make a few analogies to things such as DVD or MP3 purchases... if I wasn't tripping over my own words....


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## foxystallion (Feb 13, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> I could make a few analogies to things such as DVD or MP3 purchases... if I wasn't tripping over my own words....



Not a good analogy. Did _you_ design any of the characters on the DVD? Did you write the story? I think not. I have never heard of a commissioner who commissioned an artist to draw any random thing. In some cases the input from the commissioner is very detailed.


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## RailRide (Feb 13, 2009)

A variation on stuff suggested above...

I was reminded of this thread when I saw a commission last night where the commissioner had _double_ the pageviews of the original artist, despite linking back to the original. This was a difference of some 300+ pageviews, so I can see where the original artist would want to keep all the traffic. With that in mind:

-Allow posting of commissions under the current "For You" clause, but tweak the existing FA code so an uploader can assign attribution of a commissioned piece to the originating artist instead of it automatically being assigned to the account name. Thus, anytime the pic or its thumbnail is seen, the submission title would always be followed with "*By *(original artist)". Such entries could also be preceded with *"Commission:*".

--A subsequent enhancement to the above would allow the submitter to associate the pic with a corresponding entry on the originating artist's gallery (if it exists there) so that pageviews count toward both commissioner and artist (it is the same image, after all--a hash could be employed to ensure both images are the same).

This would give the originating artist credit for all pageviews the commission generates on FA, without the potential drama of shared comments, and "protect" the commissioner from having entries vanish due to artists clearing their galleries without warning.

---PCJ


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## foxystallion (Feb 13, 2009)

RailRide said:


> A variation on stuff suggested above...
> -Allow posting of commissions under the current "For You" clause, but tweak the existing FA code so an uploader can assign attribution of a commissioned piece to the originating artist instead of it automatically being assigned to the account name. Thus, anytime the pic or its thumbnail is seen, the submission title would always be followed with "*By *(original artist)". Such entries could also be preceded with *"Commission:*".
> --A subsequent enhancement to the above would allow the submitter to associate the pic with a corresponding entry on the originating artist's gallery (if it exists there) ...
> This would give the originating artist credit for all pageviews the commission generates on FA, without the potential drama of shared comments, and "protect" the commissioner from having entries vanish due to artists clearing their galleries without warning.
> ---PCJ



I think that this is a fine idea, and it should not be difficult to implement. A Fave for commissioned art in the commissioner's Gallery should be automatically added to the artist's total Fave count on both their User Page and to the Fave count for that particular piece of art in the artist's Gallery, if it is still there.

When a piece of art is uploaded, one of the questions that should be asked is "Is this commissioned or gift art?" If the "yes" box is checked, the uploader will be asked to provide the artist's Username and the Submission # of the piece in the artist's gallery, if it is there. Artists deserve to receive the Fave credit wherever the art is seen.


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## artdecaderoo (Feb 14, 2009)

here's another idea: don't like a free service?  don't use it.

still want to use the free service, but it has a few features you don't prefer?  deal with it.  it's called being an adult.

there's around 10 people or so making an issue about this, while the rest of the forum and FA don't care/are for the concept.  so what you guys propose is that the entire concept be scrapped or totally rewritten (and made horrendously confusing and counter-intuitive, if i'm reading these suggestions right) becuase 10 or so people didn't prefer it.  no matter that no one else cares either way, or that many people think it's a very good idea and do want it implemented.  

it's selfish and self-imposing.  god damn grow up, stop complaining when free water gets you a little wet.


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## Stratelier (Feb 14, 2009)

artdecaderoo said:


> here's another idea: don't like a free service?  don't use it.


Just . . . go away.  And take that worthless argument with you.


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## krisCrash (Feb 15, 2009)

Okay, if it matters then, I'd like to add myself to the numbers requesting a function joining commissions to both artist and client (same with gifts and collabs), though I may not wish to use it every time depending on the situation, I think it's a splendid, practical and sensible idea for many reasons.

Whether recipients have it show up in their main gallery or a specific gifts tab, I don't know, though a sorting will surely be implemented one way or the other.

If it helps the debate any we/I can sketch up a tree of possibilities.


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## WishingStar (Feb 15, 2009)

*I'm just letting you guys know my current views on this:*

Whatever happens, happens, and I'm sorry for having an, albeit selfish, opinion on the whole thing.  

Eevee has already said he doesn't care about the public opinion and will end up coding the site however he wants it.  So any side of it doesn't matter.  Just let Eevee do his thing and the rest of us can adapt.  We're human beings.  We can shape _most of_ our environment to our liking.

Now, could the rest of you guys just stop arguing and hurting each others' feelings with curse words and childish insults, please?  Thank you.


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## Stratelier (Feb 15, 2009)

WishingStar said:


> Eevee has already said he doesn't care about the public opinion and will end up coding the site however he wants it.  So any side of it doesn't matter.  Just let Eevee do his thing and the rest of us can adapt.  We're human beings.  We can shape _most of_ our environment to our liking.


True, but for the record I don't think the statements in this thread are a reliable meter for public opinion.  Weasel words and whatnot.


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## WishingStar (Feb 15, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> True, but for the record I don't think the statements in this thread are a reliable meter for public opinions.  Weasel words and whatnot.


You're right, it isn't.  It's just a handful of public opinion.  We don't know what *all *of FA thinks, and we never will.  What we have is an example of the possible opinion we can find throughout the site.

Anyway, yes, I've stepped back from this and would just like to see people be nice. ._.'


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## oniontrain (Feb 20, 2009)

OK, I have an acutal question: Say I do a piece of art for somebody that I don't mind if he posts, but I also don't want to be credited for it. As in, I specifically asked him not to. 

He's not gonna get in trouble if he doesn't credit me is he?


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## Stratelier (Feb 20, 2009)

oniontrain said:


> He's not gonna get in trouble if he doesn't credit me is he?


As required by current FA policy "for you" submissions *must cite* the original artist in Title and Description.  This is mandatory for a reason.

If they didn't cite the original artist, would people not assume that it's a work created by them (rather than for them)?


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## TakeWalker (Feb 20, 2009)

I would think he would be able to say, "This piece wasn't done by me, but by an artist who wishes to remain anonymous."

Of course, that might not satisfy the requirement either. :| An interesting question indeed.


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## Stratelier (Feb 20, 2009)

TakeWalker said:


> Of course, that might not satisfy the requirement either. :| An interesting question indeed.



Yes, it is....

Official AUP simply states "original artist", and -- to put it bluntly -- _anyone_ could simply say "someone who wishes to remain anonymous" whether it be truthful or not.  By actually naming the original artist, staff can at least search them out and ask "is that true?" if there is doubt about the submission.

I could imagine a formatting tag such as "by [anon]Artist[/anon]" which would only render to moderators/staff (so it could be verified), but that's more work than it's worth.


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## Armaetus (Feb 25, 2009)

Naming the artist who did a commission for another should be *mandatory*....none of this anonmyous BS.


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## PixiesKitty (Mar 2, 2009)

Hi!

If I trace a free picture and post it on FA, is it legal?


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## WishingStar (Mar 2, 2009)

PixiesKitty said:


> If I trace a free picture and post it on FA, is it legal?


That's something you'd have to ask Dragoneer --but probably the answer is 'no.'


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## Freehaven (Mar 2, 2009)

PixiesKitty said:


> If I trace a free picture and post it on FA, is it legal?



I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no.  Not only would it be a form of copyright infringement, it's also not what the "By You, For You" policy is about -- the way I understand the AUP, unless the picture was created by you personally (not *redrawn* or *traced* or *heavily referenced* using someone else's work as your base) or it was created for you as a gift/commission, you aren't allowed to post the image.

And I wouldn't suggest posting it even if it wasn't against the AUP.  If you must trace/redraw/heavily reference other people's art to learn how to draw, that's fine (I've done it before myself), but keep that reference work off of FA, as you're likely to get called an art thief (or worse) if people find out that it's reference work and not your own original work.


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## Vandell (Mar 25, 2009)

artdecaderoo said:


> here's another idea: don't like a free service?  don't use it.
> 
> still want to use the free service, but it has a few features you don't prefer?  deal with it.  it's called being an adult.
> 
> ...


Derp-derp. We're given a chance to discuss this topic. And you're telling us to shut up and not discuss it? Logic broken.

For what it's worth, the suggestions sound pretty clear and easy to me.


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## Kesteh (Mar 25, 2009)

Eh. Stupid is as stupid dies.


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## foxystallion (Mar 26, 2009)

"Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard; be evil."

Finally! Hurrah for a sense of humor!


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## Xaerun (Mar 26, 2009)

PixiesKitty said:


> Hi!
> 
> If I trace a free picture and post it on FA, is it legal?


That's a definite NO.
Not a chance.
The work is not by you. Tracing it does not change this any more than copy-pasting a writer's work into a document and uploading it makes that yours.


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## Kesteh (Mar 26, 2009)

Plagiarism is the word.


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## Gavrill (Apr 26, 2009)

Quick question. Can you post a picture of your desktop? It says no screenshots in the AUP and it's technically not by you, but there's a "desktop" selection in the art list.


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## Stratelier (Apr 26, 2009)

SHENZEBO said:


> Quick question. Can you post a picture of your desktop? It says no screenshots in the AUP and it's technically not by you, but there's a "desktop" selection in the art list.



The "Desktops" category is primarily for historical interest, i.e. FA staff do not actively maintain what categories do or do not appear in the dropdown boxes.

Unless it displays a wallpaper artwork made by you, desktop screenshots generally do not constitute enough _user-created_ content to satisfy the "By You" clause and therefore are not allowed.

It's easier to avoid the subject altogether than define the acceptability of edge-cases.


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