# Fur Affinity Turns 6!



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

Today, Fur Affinity turns 6

In all of those years, we've had some times and bad, and hit some incredible milestones. We've managed to see over 5.1 million submissions made to the site, 37.7 million comments,  1.25 million notes and over 2 million journals. And shouts? We don't even want to get started. 

So what's next for FA?

Things have been slack in the coding department, and we know that. It's time for a change, and we're long overdue. We're going to fix that.

Today, we're announcing the Version 3.0 of FA, which we will be launching at FA United 4 this Summer. We've got a date (May 21st), and we're going to be pulling in new coders, new talent and a wealth of resources to pull the site to modern standards. Fresh, zesty new commenting, a unique commissions and rating system and a wealth of requested features. We're hiring (yes, paying!) professional UI developer to finish, refine and tweak our new design (a live template test can be found here).

Not to mention, FA's official web hosting will be up-and-running within the next 30 days! More on that soon.

To commemorate that, we're also reducing* FA United 4* pre-registration prices by 10% for the next three days. Want to see FA v3.0 live, and be the first to see it? Now's your chance. You can save up to $15 on the cost of admission (and coupled with hotel rooms at the Marriott $10 cheaper than last year, there's no better time to do so!).

*Pre-Register for FA United 4 at:*
http://www.faunited.org/conadmin.cgi

We've got a lot of work cut out for ourselves in the next few months, but we've come off with a fresh new perspective since December, and we're not wasting that momentum.

So stick around for a while. Fur Affinity is only going go get bigger and better.

Thanks,
Dragoneer


----------



## Stargazer Bleu (Jan 16, 2011)

*FA Turns 6*

All right Happy Birthday FA, and on Dragon appreciation day too. 
Can't wait to see the changes, and here to 6 more years.


----------



## Willow (Jan 16, 2011)

Oh hey, happy birthday FA. 

Would drawing a picture of 6 year old Fender and Rednef be well received and somewhat funny, or too soon?


----------



## Shinzuu_Katame (Jan 16, 2011)

as awesome as this is, my mate and I will have to pass. we really want to go, but we're out of money as my mate has a full class schedule this semester. we hope you're run this special again in the future so that we can attend.


----------



## BRN (Jan 16, 2011)

Congratulations; FA! You're a big boy now. You can do it by yourself, see?


----------



## sd2522 (Jan 16, 2011)

A rating system? That...maybe it's the realist in me but that may not work out as well as one would hope.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

Willow said:


> Oh hey, happy birthday FA.
> 
> Would drawing a picture of 6 year old Fender and Rednef be well received and somewhat funny, or too soon?


As long as it's cute/chibi not a problem.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

sd2522 said:


> A rating system? That...maybe it's the realist in me but that may not work out as well as one would hope.


Integrating it into the commission system. Good commissioners have nothing to worry about.


----------



## Wolfenpilot687 (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy Birthday, FA! Fun furry times!


----------



## ToeClaws (Jan 16, 2011)

Wooo!  Happy Birthday FA!  Thanks for all the hard work Dragoneer and the awesome FA team.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Previous commissioners should on top of rating give feedback.


sd2522 said:


> A rating system? That...maybe it's the realist in me but that may not work out as well as one would hope.


 It's called critique, if a artist can handle that then why are they doing commissions?


----------



## Alstor (Jan 16, 2011)

Congrats on being old in website years, FA! :3


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Integrating it into the commission system. Good commissioners have nothing to worry about.


 
*smiles widely*


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> We're hiring (yes, paying!) professional UI developer to finish, refine and tweak our new design


 
I thought you said the there was no money for actually hiring coders.

Does this mean some of the more nasty security holes are going to be fixed?


----------



## sd2522 (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> Previous commissioners should on top of rating give feedback.
> 
> It's called critique, if a artist can handle that then why are they doing commissions?


 
It's the people who want to incite unnecessary drama I see causing a problem. And isn't it a bit redundant anyway? People can favor someone's submissions and they're more than able to leave a critique as is anyway. I just see it as an add on that we already technically have.


----------



## Eevee (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> We've got a date (May 21st), and we're going to be pulling in new coders, new talent and a wealth of resources to pull the site to modern standards. Fresh, zesty new commenting, a unique commissions and rating system and a wealth of requested features.


Is there any actual estimation involved in this date (unlikely having not actually found the manpower yet), or are you just aiming for the middle of your con because it'd look cool to unveil it there?


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

Eevee said:


> Is there any actual estimation involved in this date (unlikely having not actually found the manpower yet), or are you just aiming for the middle of your con because it'd look cool to unveil it there?


 Honestly, it's a bit of both. We want to have it done by Summer, and speaking to Yak, he felt that with the new manpower coming in early May would be a realistic date, so we decided to aim for FAU. Give us a definitive date to aim towards.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

sd2522 said:


> It's the people who want to incite unnecessary drama I see causing a problem. And isn't it a bit redundant anyway? People can favor someone's submissions and they're more than able to leave a critique as is anyway. I just see it as an add on that we already technically have.


 Yeah, but if someone's feedback is, "don't get a commission, they'll take forever and you mine as well flush your money down the drain", that'd be a massive red flag for possible commissioners to avoid doing business with the artist.  Me personally I want to know if the person will do the commission, because I once commissioned a artist, but he ran off with the money.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

id love to offer any help if needed if i just learned to do coding in just a few months LOL

id offer help with fixing holes in the code in the long run by helpful hacking to find said holes point them out and get out and not do damage! 

no need to damage i love the site why ruin it.


----------



## Kuraku (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy Birthday!
I can't wait for the new version of FA!


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

I really do think the commission rating thing is a good idea, it'll keep people from scamming.


----------



## Calisther (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm excited about the new design. Looks refreshing. 

So does the new design take the creation of groups into consideration like on DA or will it still be the sameold-sameold?


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> I really do think the commission rating thing is a good idea, it'll keep people from scamming.


Some more details will be posted on that the closer we get to the dates.


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 16, 2011)

sd2522 said:


> It's the people who want to incite unnecessary drama I see causing a problem. And isn't it a bit redundant anyway? People can favor someone's submissions and they're more than able to leave a critique as is anyway. I just see it as an add on that we already technically have.


 
There's a bigger advantage to prevent people from getting scammed and fucked over vs the drama one may cause. There are artists who do nothing but accept cash, do nothing, then whine how "They're out of money"/"Getting kicked out of parent's house"/ and my personal favorite... not doing commissions which they piss and whine how "life isn't fair," "80 bucks go a long ways towards groceries," all while they have "art pieces" in galleries which have a price tag of 3000USD. Example person also has a loaded family, which makes it even worse.


----------



## PenningtontheSkunk (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy Birthday FA!*throws confetti*


----------



## isthisagoodname (Jan 16, 2011)

So. Folders. I'd like to see them. Are they only going to come with the update, or earlier?


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer,

Valid question from a commenter on my journal.

"do you think  that they'll fix FA's comment system so that it's easier to read long  strings of comments made by multiple users? That always bugs me."


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

isthisagoodname said:


> So. Folders. I'd like to see them. Are they only going to come with the update, or earlier?


 Yes, we were talking about that. Folders need part of a file system revamp that will have FA offline for a few days, so trying to lump that in altogether is beneficial for the site.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> There's a bigger advantage to prevent people from getting scammed and fucked over vs the drama one may cause. There are artists who do nothing but accept cash, do nothing, then whine how "They're out of money"/"Getting kicked out of parent's house"/ and my personal favorite... not doing commissions which they piss and whine how "life isn't fair," "80 bucks go a long ways towards groceries," all while they have "art pieces" in galleries which have a price tag of 3000USD. Example person also has a loaded family, which makes it even worse.


i agree with this

and feel this is true people need to stop being screwed over by degenerate fakes!

also a little something off topic from what your talking about!
i think that those who antagonize should be booted when they do so but how wil the system determine whats what wouldn't it be very hard to tell who chose what and did what?
eg. TT's warnings how are these gonna be improved if they do improve the rules some more with the new FA 
id say new rules for abuse of the TT's system over posting , posting just cause you dislike something and whinging about it etc. wouldnt making those an offense towards your FA track record be useful.


----------



## Lobar (Jan 16, 2011)

so does this make Fender a cub?


----------



## Fenrari (Jan 16, 2011)

Whoot sauce! Even though 10% isn't all that much, the discount is much appreciated


----------



## sd2522 (Jan 16, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> There's a bigger advantage to prevent people from getting scammed and fucked over vs the drama one may cause. There are artists who do nothing but accept cash, do nothing, then whine how "They're out of money"/"Getting kicked out of parent's house"/ and my personal favorite... not doing commissions which they piss and whine how "life isn't fair," "80 bucks go a long ways towards groceries," all while they have "art pieces" in galleries which have a price tag of 3000USD. Example person also has a loaded family, which makes it even worse.


 
Hasn't word of mouth worked well in the past to avoid trouble commissioners? And guilt tripping has been a very common tactic by people who just want to make a quick buck. 

The rating system can do good but it can do just as much bad. What if someone who is just starting out get barraged and harassed by people who leave negative comments? Then those who would potentially have an interest turn around not knowing that those who left unjustified negative feedback just ruined someone's chance to make a little extra to get by.

The rating system can do good, but it can do just as much bad if given a chance.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Lobar said:


> so does this make Fender a cub?


 [sarcasm] No he's just a adult that takes hormones to stay a child [/sarcasm]


I can't wait for the new site.


sd2522 said:


> Hasn't word of mouth worked well in the past to  avoid trouble commissioners?


 Not really there's artists that charge like a hundred dollars and their art isn't even worth a third of that.


----------



## Centradragon (Jan 16, 2011)

Exciting... happy birthday, FA.  Can't wait to see the changes.


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 16, 2011)

sd2522 said:


> Hasn't word of mouth worked well in the past to avoid trouble commissioners?


 

Not for specific examples like I mentioned. Said individual scams people, gets called out for it and shouts get left. Then closes up the accounts after she receives maximum harassment. From the individual opens a new account and continues do do art all while scamming people.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm betting $50 scammers and people that generally outright steal people's money crap a brick when they see the commission rating system, cause then they'd be forced to actually do the work that they were hired to do or nobody would want to commission them after seeing the feedback.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

Oh, good, an FA overhaul. Here's to hoping for better security and a stylish, original new design.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> Oh, good, an FA overhaul. Here's to hoping for better security and a stylish, original new design.


 I hope it runs well, cause DA has been running like shit lately.
I'd hate to see FA come to being perpetually slow.


----------



## lafeel (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy birthday, and may the next six be even better than the last six.^^


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> I hope it runs well, cause DA has been running like shit lately.
> I'd hate to see FA come to being perpetually slow.


I agree. Personally, I hate dA. There's too many weeaboos who think they can draw just because they have MS Paint and know how to use the bucket too. :V I would just like to see a more original design, seeing as art sites nowadays are starting to look the same.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> I agree. Personally, I hate dA. There's too many weeaboos who think they can draw just because they have MS Paint and know how to use the bucket too. :V I would just like to see a more original design, seeing as art sites nowadays are starting to look the same.


 Which is why I left the anime fandom, anime characters have less diversity than the t-cell count of a AIDS patient.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> Which is why I left the anime fandom, anime characters have less diversity than the t-cell count of a AIDS patient.



As bad as that was, I agree. :V Most dA "artists" are the worst kind in the world. I have a dA account only to watch two of my friends (they have FA accounts but post more on dA).


----------



## LaughingDove (Jan 16, 2011)

I agree with rating systems, but it really shouldn't be anonymous, and it shouldn't be as easy as commenting or faving. You can really break someone with something like that, there needs to be a control so that people can't just fling ratings around like confetti. Also hope the site doesn't become as overcoded as DA...really, there are bits of _crap_ that you don't need that make using the site something like wrestling a green bear with four heads and a prehensile bellybutton. That and the average age of DA members is why I use furaffinity instead...

That said, the new site looks pretty so far! ^o3o^


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

LaughingDove said:


> I agree with rating systems, but it really shouldn't be anonymous, and it shouldn't be as easy as commenting or faving. You can really break someone with something like that, there needs to be a control so that people can't just fling ratings around like confetti.


 
Gotta agree. There's always a troll that will give someone a bad rating just to get their art pushed to the back even if it really is quality work.


----------



## Catilda Lily (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy birthday FA. It seems weird to say that to an interent site.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

LaughingDove said:


> I agree with rating systems, but it really shouldn't be anonymous, and it shouldn't be as easy as commenting or faving.


 Basically, it'll be like "Artist A has offered a commission to User B". Then User B gets a notification to accept/deny. It then gets added to the artist's list, they can update status, make notes, and when they close it out, the user is given the option to rate it (positive/neutral/negative).


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> Gotta agree. There's always a troll that will give someone a bad rating just to get their art pushed to the back even if it really is quality work.


 Most trolls are other furries so your argument is invalid, cause
troll would give bad rating
furries=commissioner
commissioner gives rating
However most trolls=furries
therefore
furries would give bad rating


----------



## Bittertooth (Jan 16, 2011)

Wow, lots of stuff in this announcement to get excited about.  I can't wait!
and happy b-day!


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> Most trolls are other furries so your argument is invalid, cause
> troll would give bad rating
> furries=commissioner
> commissioner gives rating
> ...


Not ALL trolls are furries. Some just hate furries and have so little life that they troll furry sites to try and impress whoever they're trying to impress. Others are furries who don't get credit so open a seperate account to troll the people that don't give them attention or get more attention than them (I've met at least three, all of which were 13 year olds). But Dragoneer already said:



Dragoneer said:


> Basically, it'll be like "Artist A has offered a commission to User B". Then User B gets a notification to accept/deny. It then gets added to the artist's list, they can update status, make notes, and when they close it out, the user is given the option to rate it (positive/neutral/negative).


 
so I'm all for the idea in general of having a rating system.


----------



## Jym (Jan 16, 2011)

I don't say it often enough but FA really is my favourite site in the world, I can't wait to see what you guys have planned. <3

... Although naturally I am still disappointed by the lack of macro Fender this year.


----------



## MandertehPander (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm probably not alone here, but i'll believe it when I see it. :3


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> Not ALL trolls are furries. Some just hate furries and have so little life that they troll furry sites to try and impress whoever they're trying to impress. Others are furries who don't get credit so open a seperate account to troll the people that don't give them attention or get more attention than them (I've met at least three, all of which were 13 year olds). But Dragoneer already said:
> 
> 
> 
> so I'm all for the idea in general of having a rating system.


 However most trolls are furries.
Also using that definition would classify 'neer as a troll also, because it's been quoted several times that he enjoys furry drama.

Bitching about trolls is pointless cause it'd be the equivalent of complaining about yourself, cause furries blame trolls for alot hitting the report button even when rules haven't been broken, the furry fandom has been so compartmentalized that rather than interact on a wide scale furries will tend to interact solely within their own subgroups thus leading to the myth that furries are tolerant.  If you hang out solely with people that are similar of course you are going to think you are accepted.  Furries will complain and troll them not realizing they are doing so..  It pretty much comes down to if you think someone is a sick fuck by your standards you are going to troll them even not realizing you are doing so, if you are getting trolled you are going to probably going to report them thinking some outside troll invaded faf and will report them regardless.  It's cause we're not actually one fandom but a bunch of subgroups that we tend to generalize the entirety of the fandom as our own subgroup.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> However most trolls are furries.
> Also using that definition would classify 'neer as a troll also, because it's been quoted several times that he enjoys furry drama.


 I meant that the trolls who made alternate accounts for the purpose of trolling do it for self-fulfillment, not necessarily to start drama (though drama DOES eventually erupt anyway).



> Bitching about trolls is pointless cause it'd be the equivalent of complaining about yourself, cause furries blame trolls for alot hitting the report button even when rules haven't been broken, the furry fandom has been so compartmentalized that rather than interact on a wide scale furries will tend to interact solely within their own subgroups thus leading to the myth that furries are tolerant.


I don't complain about them; I find them HILARIOUS most of the time.



> If you hang out solely with people that are similar of course you are going to think you are accepted. Furries will complain and troll them not realizing they are doing so.. It pretty much comes down to if you think someone is sick you are going to troll them even not realizing you are doing so, if you are getting trolled you are going to probably going to report them thinking some outside troll invaded faf and will report them regardless. It's cause we're not actually one fandom but a bunch of subgroups that we tend to generalize the entirety of the fandom as our own subgroup.



Furries are stupid. That's just the bottom line. Not all of them, but most of them, especially the ones under the dilusion that because their FRIENDS say they're amazing, that when they're not getting as much attention as they would like to they blow shit out of the water.


----------



## LaughingDove (Jan 16, 2011)

Thumbs up on that rating system, looks more than fair to my unknowing eyes. <3


----------



## Kihari (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy birthday, FA.

The commission and rating system sounds pretty cool, and I'm not sure why some are getting all bent out of shape about it. The site will finally handle commission works for what they are (a transaction between an artist and a buyer) and commission-takers who are fair and prompt will be easily identifiable as such.

If a buyer acts like a turd and gives unjust negative feedback, then it's only a bad point for the artist, but that will likely come with a bad reputation for the commissioner. Once word gets around, they'll be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to do business with them again.

An artist who makes a big scene about honestly-given neutral or negative feedback probably deserves it anyway, so that works itself out.

Mostly, I'm excited for the potential to at last get the mainsite's security up to par. FA is more than an art site; it's a community all its own, a pretty unique one at that, and it deserves these improvements. Props to the staff for finally taking the initiative to make all this happen.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> I meant that the trolls who made alternate accounts for the purpose of trolling do it for self-fulfillment, not necessarily to start drama (though drama DOES eventually erupt anyway).
> I don't complain about them; I find them HILARIOUS most of the time.
> Furries are stupid. That's just the bottom line. Not all of them, but most of them, especially the ones under the dilusion that because their FRIENDS say they're amazing, that when they're not getting as much attention as they would like to they blow shit out of the water.


 I find it funny they deny that they are trolling, cause they are hypocritically trolling while complaining about trolls.
Yup, it boils down to how the fandom functions though.  As a whole the fandom compartmentalizes itself from the mainstream by the sexual aspect, however on the other hand they gain membership by assimilating others and other groups adding to the number of people.  Furry is just a name for the macro function of assimilation and compartmentalization.  There is not actually a furry fandom, but rather countless subgroups that have been stolen or given a anthro spin in order to perpetuate the growth and used as nothing more than food for the development towards growing.  Furry tolerance is a lie, it is just compartmentalization causing false ideal of what the fandom is by interacting mainly within our own subgroup we create a hivemind in which one can escape to feel accepted.  Like how the fandom is homonormative, because the fandom is majority glb they can enforce themselves onto other groups creating a hivemind.  However these groups are outright forced to undertake the function of furry to grow.  These subgroups and the people in them will go out and bring others into the fold to that end.  Anybody caught opposing the compartmentalization and assimilation is automatically labeled as a troll in order to keep them from intervening with the growth of furry.  Thus retaining the function of growth.  In time the fandom will gain so many subgroups and members that the fandom will be able to sustain it's own growth solely through it's entirety.  Eventually no longer needing the compartmentalization effect, but will rely on the assimilation effect to absorb the societal norm into itself in order to grow, at that point the so called "magic" of furry will die, because we will become who we claim to be, rather than who we are.

tl;dr assimilate, resistance is futile.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

Kihari said:


> If a buyer acts like a turd and gives unjust negative feedback, then it's only a bad point for the artist, but that will likely come with a bad reputation for the commissioner. Once word gets around, they'll be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to do business with them again.
> 
> An artist who makes a big scene about honestly-given neutral or negative feedback probably deserves it anyway, so that works itself out.


In a case like this, I think that it should work both ways. If a commissioner gives a negative rating, they get points taken from them as a commissioner. Same goes for the artist for producing something that recieved negative feedback. But if a positive rating is given, both artist and commissioner get points, and maybe there can also be a way to see just how many points each has (either as a buyer or seller). That way, an artist can see whether they should bother selling art to that buyer. (I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense)



CannonFodder said:


> I find it funny they deny that they are trolling, cause they are hypocritically trolling while complaining about trolls.


 
Exactly. I R NAWT A TROLL, NAO I AM GUNA TROLL YEW!!! RAHHHHHH!!



> resistance is futile.


 Ffff I couldn't have said it better myself. (I quoted this because that paragraph was a lot to take in.)


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> Ffff I couldn't have said it better myself. (I quoted this because that paragraph was a lot to take in.)


 Pretty much there's not actually "furries", but subgroups who as a whole have the function of bringing in more people and more subgroups and the so called "magic" and "tolerance" of furries is actually furries would rather interact within their subgroups.  The reason why the fandom is so tolerant towards glbt is cause they are the majority and whoever is the majority enforces the norm onto minorities within the group.


----------



## Sarakazi (Jan 16, 2011)

Good to hear that things are moving forward.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> Pretty much there's not actually "furries", but subgroups who as a whole have the function of bringing in more people and more subgroups and the so called "magic" and "tolerance" of furries is actually furries would rather interact within their subgroups. The reason why the fandom is so tolerant towards glbt is cause they are the majority and whoever is the majority enforces the norm onto minorities within the group.


I completely agree. As you said: Resistance is futile. :V

In all honesty, I think there needs to be some sort of essay or test that needs to be taken with registration to FA or FAF. It could at least prove that these idiots joining the fandumb are mentally stable. Wishful thinking though, no?


----------



## Kihari (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> In a case like this, I think that it should work both ways. If a commissioner gives a negative rating, they get points taken from them as a commissioner. Same goes for the artist for producing something that recieved negative feedback. But if a positive rating is given, both artist and commissioner get points, and maybe there can also be a way to see just how many points each has (either as a buyer or seller). That way, an artist can see whether they should bother selling art to that buyer. (I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense)



Sure, like an "Artist Score" and a separate "Buyer Score" that together make up a user's overall feedback rating.

Seems to work for eBay.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

Kihari said:


> Sure, like an "Artist Score" and a separate "Buyer Score" that together make up a user's overall feedback rating.
> 
> Seems to work for eBay.


Sure; I mean, it would ensure that people aren't going to get screwed over by an unloyal artist or be reported by a really picky buyer for not reaching their standards.


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Basically, it'll be like "Artist A has offered a commission to User B". Then User B gets a notification to accept/deny. It then gets added to the artist's list, they can update status, make notes, and when they close it out, the user is given the option to rate it (positive/neutral/negative).


 
In order to get people to use the system, you'll have to campaign for both sides to use the system. Obviously if people don't use the system artists won't get reviews and people will look at artists who do have feedback. Perhaps some type of search searchers like, "I'm wanting to commission" which will list rating/reviews/star status of all artists. This would influence people to use the system, one has to make it easy to find a highly rated artist for people to want to use the system.

I sure hope you're going to stick to your plan instead of letting it sit for months on end. Along with others who've stated already, I too am a little skeptical if FA will make this progress given the commission tab has been out of commission for the longest time.


----------



## Kihari (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> a really picky buyer


 
I imagine that every artist's worst peeve is spending hours and hours on some commission only for the buyer to become TEH OUTRAEGED because their fursona's tail-tuft the wrong shade of green, or whatever. Hopefully this new system can help iron that out somehow.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

Kihari said:


> I imagine that every artist's worst peeve is spending hours and hours on some commission only for the buyer to become TEH OUTRAEGED because their fursona's tail-tuft the wrong shade of green, or whatever. Hopefully this new system can help iron that out somehow.


That's what I'm saying. One of my friends suffered a really bad attack from a buyer because she wasn't happy with the "quality" of the piece and she didn't like that she could "see the pixels in the lineart and in the shading". The piece was, in fact, a well-done piece and my friend did not deserve any of what that horrible person said. Luckily, the buyer was reported because she'd done the same thing to 3 other people. Allegedly, she was buying art and then returned it for full-refund, and to troll the hell out of better artists than her and make them miserable.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> In all honesty, I think there needs to be some sort of essay or test that needs to be taken with registration to FA or FAF. It could at least prove that these idiots joining the fandumb are mentally stable. Wishful thinking though, no?


 Like that would ever happen.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> Like that would ever happen.


Precisely.


----------



## Kit H. Ruppell (Jan 16, 2011)

Well I turn 23.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 16, 2011)

Miss Haha said:


> Precisely.


 It's a fundamental problem with the fandom, we assimilate EVERYONE we can get a hold of.


----------



## Armaetus (Jan 16, 2011)

I'll see it when it comes, and I will remain skeptical on the summer release date.


----------



## Kihari (Jan 16, 2011)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Well I turn 23.


 
Clearly you're the one buying the beers to celebrate, then. =V

Happy birthday to yourself, too.


----------



## Monster. (Jan 16, 2011)

CannonFodder said:


> It's a fundamental problem with the fandom, we assimilate EVERYONE we can get a hold of.



Damn furries. :V


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

Kihari said:


> Sure, like an "Artist Score" and a separate "Buyer Score" that together make up a user's overall feedback rating.
> 
> Seems to work for eBay.


i think a reason for might be best mandatory so you can keep track of each and if someone uses the because they didnt give me this in the best quality ever then their just whining and the feedback wont count meaning certain words cant be used in certain senences so as to curb such things or needs to be afraid to get commissions.


----------



## Av Daedric (Jan 16, 2011)

Somebody cut the Cake!


----------



## DOtter (Jan 16, 2011)

*Happy Birfday, FA!*

I'm glad to hear that V3.0 is coming along. I haven't seen the new interface yet, but I'll have a look after this. Can you re-assure us that all known security exploits will be addressed and mended, too? (I'm sure we'd all really like that!)

Quick Fact: If today is FA's birfday, Dragoneer, you started it on Dragon Appreciation Day! Strange coincidence?
-- Dee


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

wait wouldnt there also have to be areas that list artists for certain art types such as lists of traditional or textural ETC.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

DOtter said:


> Quick Fact: If today is FA's birfday, Dragoneer, you started it on Dragon Appreciation Day! Strange coincidence?
> -- Dee


 coincidence i think not as its dragoneer were talking about here

lmao


----------



## arpad (Jan 16, 2011)

It might sound dull, but I really enjoy FA's easy-to-look at format right now (as opposed to Inkbunny's confusing format or DA's too-much-shit-going-on). I'm sure I'll get used to the looks, but I'm mostly worried about FA slowing down or becoming unusable (There are plenty of artists I still like on DA, but my internet just won't load it anymore because of all the crapcrapcrap). 

I'm also a little bit curious about what kind of TOS the new FA will have regarding the commissions. if it has this rating system and all that, will it be dealing with the money? How will it keep track of who owes what to who if it doesn't deal with it directly? I don't know anything about law, but it seems to me that if FA becomes an active participant in the commission, doesn't that bring up a whole load of issues?

Mostly I'm just worried about being able to load FA, though. This is my favorite site, and I would really hate to have my internet cut off every time I try to log on or something. Is there any way a 'slow-connections' version could be enacted along with this new site?


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 16, 2011)

ive got an idea maybe for those taking commissions for every commission they recive you must donate a $1 or 80cents  lol might help FA keep stable money wise a bit better.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

comparing the current coding http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...utline=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator/1.1

to the new one http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...utline=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator/1.1

Not much of an improvement in coding. How many security holes will actually get fixed? or can we expect new and more damaging security holes with the new design?



DOtter said:


> Quick Fact: If today is FA's birfday, Dragoneer, you started it on Dragon Appreciation Day! Strange coincidence?
> -- Dee


 
Dragoneer did not start FA. He is only the current site owner.


----------



## Lazarian (Jan 16, 2011)

Happy Bday for FA. Thanks D!


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 16, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> comparing the current coding http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1&outline=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.1
> 
> to the new one http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...utline=1&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator/1.1
> 
> Not much of an improvement in coding. How many security holes will actually get fixed? or can we expect new and more damaging security holes with the new design?


 You're comparing live coding to a mock-up/preview as if it's some final product? That's kinda... stupid, even for FA standards.



the-pale-tailed-fox said:


> ive got an idea maybe for those  taking commissions for every commission they recive you must donate a $1  or 80cents  lol might help FA keep stable money wise a bit  better.


That is an absolutely terrible idea.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> You're comparing live coding to a mock-up/preview as if it's some final product? That's kinda... stupid, even for FA standards.


 
I'm pointing out that you're mock up has even more problems then the current site coding, a step backwards.

And you are sill dodging a question that 4 people have asked: When are all the site vulnerabilities going to be fixed.

Also, you are dodging my original question: How are you paying a pro if you have been using the fact that you don't have the money to hire help as your reason for not fixing things for 2 years now?



> That is an absolutely terrible idea.



I do agree with that, however.


----------



## Sanyi (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Today, Fur Affinity turns 6
> 
> In all of those years, we've had some times and bad, and hit some incredible milestones. We've managed to see over 5.1 million submissions made to the site, 37.7 million comments,  1.25 million notes and over 2 million journals. And shouts? We don't even want to get started.


Happy Birthday FA!



Dragoneer said:


> So what's next for FA?
> 
> Things have been slack in the coding department, and we know that. It's time for a change, and we're long overdue. We're going to fix that.
> 
> Today, we're announcing the Version 3.0 of FA, which we will be launching at FA United 4 this Summer. We've got a date (May 21st), and we're going to be pulling in new coders, new talent and a wealth of resources to pull the site to modern standards. Fresh, zesty new commenting, a unique commissions and rating system and a wealth of requested features. We're hiring (yes, paying!) professional UI developer to finish, refine and tweak our new design (a live template test can be found here).


It's good to hear that you are pulling in some additional coders. I was a little worried that it was going to continue on the same track that it has been going on for years.


A few suggestions of the new UI:

The new UI design seems a little limited in space right now. Perhaps you could ask your web designer to have it use more of the page width (especially on wide-screen monitors)? Those 2 side bars on either side of the page are a little large for my tastes, and I am only using 1280x800.

It would also be great if they could add in the User ID and Featured Submission area in as an optional feature. Some people do use those areas.

The Profile Info area is also a little small. I would suggest bumping down the page shouts area and allowing the Profile Info to use the full width of the page.

The text on the live page could be hard to read because of the fact that it's gray on gray on gray. Lightening up the text would really help.

I'm looking at that "FA" header (the same one the forums use) and I just want to smack it off the page. ^^;; I really do. I hope that isn't a permanent fixture.



Dragoneer said:


> Not to mention, FA's official web hosting will be up-and-running within the next 30 days! More on that soon.


Uhhh... what? This is new to me. Not to many comments on it though, so I'm guessing it's old news? I would definitely like some info on this, if anybody can direct me to it. Thanks.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Not to mention, FA's official web hosting will be up-and-running within the next 30 days! More on that soon.


 
Will this have the same security problems as the mainsite has had to (and continues to) contend with?


----------



## Sanyi (Jan 16, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Will this have the same security problems as the mainsite has had to (and continues to) contend with?


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Sanyi said:


>


 
It's only beating a dead horse if the issue has been resolved. Which it has not. Only ignored until something goes wrong, like Eevee hacking the comment hide feature or someone hacking through the admin account and getting access to countless PM's, which, 'Ner has admitted that he didn't think of the fact that a script kiddie could copy the entire PM database, when it wasw pointed out in the LJ page.

Security is still a big issue, a fact that 'Neer seems to want people to ignore.


----------



## Sanyi (Jan 16, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> It's only beating a dead horse if the issue has been resolved. Which it has not. Only ignored until something goes wrong, like Eevee hacking the comment hide feature or someone hacking through the admin account and getting access to countless PM's, which, 'Ner has admitted that he didn't think of the fact that a script kiddie could copy the entire PM database, when it wasw pointed out in the LJ page.
> 
> Security is still a big issue, a fact that 'Neer seems to want people to ignore.


The site has security flaws. Everyone knows that, OK? You don't need to bring it up in every single post you make, thank you very much. I would imagine that if the site had no security flaws, there would be no need to drag additional coders in. Since FA is, then I think we can safely assume that they are going to be fixed. Depending on the complexity of the actual problem it could take weeks, or it could take months to fix. It is impossible to predict when such bugs can and will be fixed, thus making it impossible for him to accurately answer your questions.

If he says "they are being worked on", or gives some other vague answer, you will whine and bitch and say "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"
If he gives an estimated date and ends up being off by a week or two, or even a month, you will whine and bitch about that too.

See the problem here?


A similar thing happened when the "new" UI (or rather, the in-progress UI) was released. I seriously doubt he will want to make that mistake twice.


@edit: and just to be clear, I am not attempting to speak on behalf of FA in this matter. These are my own personal views based on my opinion and personal experiences (and whatever information I manage to drag up through research).


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Sanyi said:


> If he says "they are being worked on", or gives some other vague answer, you will whine and bitch and say "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"


 
Wrong. I bitch because for 2 years 'Neer has told me and everyone else that there were NO security problems. NONE.

I would be happy for him to ADMIT that he needs to get them fixed, but he has also said for 2 years that he could not pay for coders to fix the site.

Now, all of a sudden he can, even after the donation collection ability he had has been removed.

There are many questions that he is dodging, or flat out lying about. I ask for answers. Nothing more, nothing less. It's all I have ever asked for.


----------



## Willow (Jan 16, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I would be happy for him to ADMIT that he needs to get them fixed


 I think he did recently. 

Also, get over yourself.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 16, 2011)

Willow said:


> I think he did recently.



But then turned around and said that he could not afford to hire coders in the same post. And that was just after the leaked notes.

If no one else is going to ask the questions, I will. I've been with FA for just as long as 'Neer has, and I've noticed a steady downward trend to the site. I'm not happy to see FA go through so much down times.

I bring these things up for the betterment of the site. If staff want to ignore or flat out LIE about serious problems until it hits the site hard, I get rather annoyed that the staff allowed it to happen.

FA's can be a wonderful place, if there is accountability.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I'm pointing out that you're mock up has even more problems then the current site coding, a step backwards.
> 
> And you are sill dodging a question that 4 people have asked: When are all the site vulnerabilities going to be fixed.
> 
> Also, you are dodging my original question: How are you paying a pro if you have been using the fact that you don't have the money to hire help as your reason for not fixing things for 2 years now?


The vulnerabilities will be fixed between now and then, and some of them require complete system re-writes which will be necessary to resolve them.

Also, as far as the UI person... some FA staff are helping donate funding. we don't have the money on hand to take care of it, or it would have been something we'd have done a long time ago. I am still working to improve that as well.



redfoxnudetoons said:


> Wrong. I bitch because for 2 years 'Neer  has told me and everyone else that there were NO security problems.  NONE.
> 
> I would be happy for him to ADMIT that he needs to get them  fixed, but he has also said for 2 years that he could not pay for  coders to fix the site.


 No I didn't.


----------



## Sanyi (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> But then turned around and said that he could not afford to hire coders in the same post. And that was just after the leaked notes.
> 
> If no one else is going to ask the questions, I will. I've been with FA for just as long as 'Neer has, and I've noticed a steady downward trend to the site. I'm not happy to see FA go through so much down times.
> 
> ...


 
Where do you see anything about hiring coders? I can read perfectly fine and I'm reading that he is hiring on a "professional UI developer" to "finish, refine and tweak our new design". I'm willing to bet that the coders are coming in on a volunteer basis, as with all the other staff.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> The vulnerabilities will be fixed between now and then, and some of them require complete system re-writes which will be necessary to resolve them.
> 
> Also, as far as the UI person... some FA staff are helping donate funding. we don't have the money on hand to take care of it, or it would have been something we'd have done a long time ago. I am still working to improve that as well.



Thank you for finally answering the questions.




> No I didn't.



Bull. It wasn't until the PM leaks issue that you even acknowledged the fact that the trouble ticket system had massive problems. Before then, you, Irreverent, and Yak all claimed that nothing was wrong with the TT system for over a year.

Having open harassment tickets for 6 months or more, like I have stated many times, is not acceptable. You, Irreverent, and Yak seemed to disagree.




Sanyi said:


> Where do you see anything about hiring coders? I can read perfectly fine and I'm reading that he is hiring on a "professional UI developer" to "finish, refine and tweak our new design". I'm willing to bet that the coders are coming in on a volunteer basis, as with all the other staff.


 
You need a website coder in order to create an UI. A "professional UI developer" IS a coder.


----------



## sawblade5 (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer. I had a very bad dealing with a FA Artist here. It was for a Fursuit commission which I had already paid for. But when I was sending notes to that artist with no response. After repeated requests (a few days to a week apart of em) for responses, the artist blocked me from sending more message.

With the new rating system what is gonna stop the artists/buyers from blocking each other to prevent bad ratings? Because there's people here that abuse the block system like in my case above.


----------



## Eevee (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> You're comparing live coding to a mock-up/preview as if it's some final product? That's kinda... stupid, even for FA standards.


No it's not.  What would be the point in mocking up a design in HTML if not to use that HTML?




Sanyi said:


> If he says "they are being worked on", or gives some other vague answer, you will whine and bitch and say "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"
> If he gives an estimated date and ends up being off by a week or two, or even a month, you will whine and bitch about that too.
> 
> See the problem here?


Yes.  The problem is that he can't do the correct thing and announce progress as it happens, because there's never any actual progress.  You've only discovered that there's no way to make stagnation sound any better.


Worth pointing out that the tweets earlier were, in fact, announcements about future announcements about more future announcements.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

Eevee said:


> No it's not.  What would be the point in mocking up a design in HTML if not to use that HTML?



Agreed. If I were to give that excuse to a graphic design client, I'd loose that client.



> Yes.  The problem is that he can't do the correct thing and announce progress as it happens, because there's never any actual progress.  You've only discovered that there's no way to make stagnation sound any better.
> 
> 
> Worth pointing out that the tweets earlier were, in fact, announcements about future announcements about more future announcements.



I've noticed that as well. And it's a disturbing trend.


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 17, 2011)

sawblade5 said:


> Dragoneer. I had a very bad dealing with a FA Artist here. It was for a Fursuit commission which I had already paid for. But when I was sending notes to that artist with no response. After repeated requests (a few days to a week apart of em) for responses, the artist blocked me from sending more message.
> 
> With the new rating system what is gonna stop the artists/buyers from blocking each other to prevent bad ratings? Because there's people here that abuse the block system like in my case above.



Did you make a post to artists_beware on livejournal?


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> Did you make a post to artists_beware on livejournal?


 
That should have a link from FA's "community" drop-down menu. I forgot about that site, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Not everyone uses LJ on a regular basis.


----------



## Kesteh (Jan 17, 2011)

Wasn't this new template announced more than once and promised for 2010?
I'm skeptical after that entire year came and went.


----------



## Sanyi (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> You need a website coder in order to create an UI. A "professional UI developer" IS a coder.


After a fashion, yes, a UI developer is a coder. Though more often than not a UI developer works on exactly that; the UI, or User Interface. They don't do all the behind the scenes coding that actually makes the site RUN. All they do is make it look good. That is their primary function. In some instances they may help to make sure that the coding works well between the design and the hard code of the site, but I imagine they wont be doing that in this case because it's likely that the design will be finished long before the actual back-end of the site is finished.


Eevee said:


> No it's not.  What would be the point in mocking up a design in HTML if not to use that HTML?


It's not even finished yet. Of course they aren't going to be using the unfinished coding. All that it is right *now* is a preview of what the site COULD look like when they actually hire on a guy, and said guy finishes it. In simpler terms it's a "this is what we have so far" site.


Kesteh said:


> Wasn't this new template announced more than once and promised for 2010?
> I'm skeptical after that entire year came and went.


Which is the problem with not actually paying someone to do something. ^^;;
This should be remedied though, considering they will actually be paying someone to do it this time.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

Sanyi said:


> After a fashion, yes, a UI developer is a coder. Though more often than not a UI developer works on exactly that; the UI, or User Interface. They don't do all the behind the scenes coding that actually makes the site RUN. All they do is make it look good. That is their primary function. In some instances they may help to make sure that the coding works well between the design and the hard code of the site, but I imagine they wont be doing that in this case because it's likely that the design will be finished long before the actual back-end of the site is finished.



And yet a good amount of security risks seem to stem from the UI. At least some very problematic exploits have stemmed from the UI. I'm sure there's problems that run all the way to the core, but, as Eevee has painfully shown, UI features can be used against the site.



> It's not even finished yet. Of course they aren't going to be using the unfinished coding. All that it is right *now* is a preview of what the site COULD look like when they actually hire on a guy, and said guy finishes it. In simpler terms it's a "this is what we have so far" site.



Again, I bring up the fact that ANY graphic designer using that excuse will more times than not loose the client in the real world. And UI coding actually does fall within graphic design.




> This should be remedied though, considering they will actually be paying someone to do it this time.


 
Unless the money somehow manages not to come through. I can understand Kesteh's skepticism.


----------



## sawblade5 (Jan 17, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> Did you make a post to artists_beware on livejournal?


 
No because I managed to get item in the end with not so satisfactory results. AB is for when the artist doesn't not even complete the task at hand as far as I know.


----------



## thedarkwolfzearoth (Jan 17, 2011)

Awesome besides for that a rating system will allow furs to give furs bad rating just to be assholes/trolls


----------



## Quiet269 (Jan 17, 2011)

Will be interesting to see how it turns out. Though, I'm still waiting for the whole cub removal to pan out.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> You're comparing live coding to a mock-up/preview as if it's some final product? That's kinda... stupid, even for FA standards.
> 
> That is an absolutely terrible idea.


well was just a suggestion after all not to be taken seriously only if it was good anyways LOL.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18564759/Furaffinity timeline.pdf

This pretty much sums up the history of FA, and why there are people who are skeptical of implementation. Still waiting on those filters to filter out the gore/vore images that don't have nice warning thumbnails....


----------



## FirestormSix (Jan 17, 2011)

Happy Birthday FA !    all the new features sounds awsome and looking forward to them


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

dragoneer are the rules gonna be revised towards submitting a TT meaning you can and will be warned for abusing them and possibly banned kinda rule.

would be great to know that whiny and destructive C***'s will be removed from the system so they stop the continuing to let many emergency based TT's become late in being answered such as art theft or even someone going outta their way to harass and even troll someone with lulzy intent for a reaction regardless of whats been done. or said between the victim.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

the-pale-tailed-fox said:


> would be great to know that whiny and destructive C***'s will be removed from the system so they stop the continuing to let many emergency based TT's become late in being answered such as art theft or even someone going outta their way to harass and even troll someone with lulzy intent for a reaction regardless of whats been done. or said between the victim.


 
Blame the fact that admins that were being given "their fare share" of TT's DIDN'T DO THEM.

That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page. ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are the real source of the TT problem. I've had art theft and harassment TTs go unanswered for over 6 months because admins didn't bother to do their job as admins. They enjoyed the privileges without taking the responsibilities that went with it.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Blame the fact that admins that were being given "their fare share" of TT's DIDN'T DO THEM.
> 
> That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page.  ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are  the real source of the TT problem. I've had art theft and harassment TTs  go unanswered for over 6 months because admins didn't bother to do  their job as admins.


 personally id love to be on staff voluntarily to do TT but sadly my writing skills are somewhat bad and some complain and i don't think neer would bother with someone who is willing to do their job just yet LOL

neer im joking >.>


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

the-pale-tailed-fox said:


> personally id love to be on staff voluntarily to do TT but sadly my writing skills are somewhat bad and some complain and i don't think neer would bother with someone who is willing to do their job just yet


 
I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin. Because, as far as I've seen, some of the mods selected by that process abused their status, and had to be removed, while others still bend the rules to the breaking point for themselves and friends.

I'd write an essay for the position, except for the fact that a bias would be placed against me because I don't take crap, don't like a few of the staff members for their abusive actions to members of FA, so I don't bother. Would be a waste of my time.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin. Because, as far as I've seen, some of the mods selected by that process abused their status, and had to be removed, while others still bend the rules to the breaking point for themselves and friends.


as much as admins may dislike me for this i have to agree though not gonna name a few but we already know which female ones are abusing them still and yet they could be removed and replaced with someone.
i could temp replace them by volunteer myself if doing the job wasn't difficult and since my hours of awake are normally from 3pm to whenever i go to sleep at sometime in the morning i could do TT all day taking an hour or so away breaks maybe three in a day and still more than likely get lots done eliminating lots of the BS and close without warning the fake TT and reply to the ones needed replying to. 

personally i find TT the most easy admin position and moderator position available atm and thats saying something about being lazy.


----------



## insane_kangaroo (Jan 17, 2011)

sawblade5 said:


> No because I managed to get item in the end with not so satisfactory results. AB is for when the artist doesn't not even complete the task at hand as far as I know.


 
AB is also for "This artist is a dick and impossible to work with" submissions. You'd be bewaring people about a particular artist.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> AB is also for "This artist is a dick and impossible to work with" submissions. You'd be bewaring people about a particular artist.


isnt there a double section one for both reasons each since some would just call that  a form of whining that they didnt get it on their own time over users time.

when things like school get in the way and limited time is available even something like an hour at a time included in im not doing so today not much to do for anyone anyways they can wait thats kinda not that bad as long as its not two whole months i say not that bad a wait art , fursuit is not like gaming something to be used to pass the time which is needed prolly just as much as art but in more cases more useful than art


----------



## Accountability (Jan 17, 2011)

Sanyi said:


> I'm looking at that "FA" header (the same one the forums use) and I just want to smack it off the page. ^^;; I really do. I hope that isn't a permanent fixture.


 
That's called a logo. Most websites, businesses, and pretty much everything has one.

Another year, another promise for the Next Great Thing. Did you know a new UI has been promised since April 2007? Now you know!


----------



## MaxRaine (Jan 17, 2011)

Congrats on the six years =)

About that commission rating system, if the commissioner is allowed to rate the artist the artist should really also be allowed to rate the commissioner. Because some people are just impossible to work with (not that I have much personal experience) and it would be good for artists as well to get an idea of what they get themselves into.

Will be interesting to see if you manage to get the new look ready for the summer, it looks snazzy in the preview =)


----------



## Athari (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Fresh, zesty new commenting, a unique commissions and rating system and a wealth of requested features. We're hiring (yes, paying!) professional UI developer to finish, refine and tweak our new design (a live template test can be found here).


<rant>

So... Basically we get some features no one cares about.

I wonder if anyone will use this â€œunique commissions systemâ€. I'm used to reading commission info somewhere (on FA journals, on LJ etc.), then contacting the artist and communicating with him/her regularly (through e-mail, FA notes, AIM, ICQ etc.). Now the artist (or the commissioner) is expected to create a transaction on FA, then communicate and update status using the system. What are benefits of this? Ability to rate someone? Ability to see current state? I'm afraid slow artists who never bother to send updates won't bother to update info on commissions in the system too. If you do a few commissions a month, not a dozen a day, it's much much easier to have a local text file than to rely on some site storing all your information in a complex way, especially considering commissioner won't like responses like, "I don't have your info, FA is down". One more advantage of my own text file is that I can put anyone into it. With online FA system, both the artist and the commissioner need to be registered on FA. So neither of them can store all their commissions in the system. Useless.

For one, if I don't get notifications about notes with their complete text to my email, I'll avoid using the system. Some artists won't like it if they wouldn't be able to search among commission messages sent in the past. A lot of users will avoid using it just because it's not the way they're used to work. So the new cool great feature will be used exclusively by trolls giving negative ratings and no one will be able to do anything about that.

There's a "commissions system" on SoFurry. Does anyone use it? I seriously doubt it. Yet they put a lot of effort into it. (They failed to provide even basic features, but this is a different matter.)

On the whole, I hope this commissions system isn't what all efforts are put into. There're much more important basic things... Like unusable, if any, pagination pretty much everywhere. Or updates full of "someone did something, then cancelled, but I won't tell you who did what exactly". Or whole galleries being wiped out by either hackers or admins misreading rules and absence of cancel buttons bringing back everything. Or absence of "gender" field in profiles (looking at new template, I notice "sexuality" is there, but "sex" is not â€” is it intended?). Or "Commission Information" being down for what looks like forever. Or [ quote ] tag not supporting nesting. Or endless "re: re: re: re" in notes headers. And so on.

Most of these problems are easy to fix, they don't need whole system overhaul, each of them is worth an hour to a few days of work. Yet we get a complete new commissions system worth months of work no one cares about. I hope at least some of the problems mentioned above are fixed. Or all we'll get are new bugs.

</rant>

Happy birthday, FA!


----------



## Sharlan (Jan 17, 2011)

How heavy on the scripts are yo planning the UI? 

I used yiffstar a lot and since the sofurry update never go there because the ui is terrible and over reliant on scripts.


----------



## CoonArt (Jan 17, 2011)

Whooo! That's a whole lotta stats! Amazing, new look looks also awesome! HAPPY BIRTHDAY FA!


----------



## Aetherfax (Jan 17, 2011)

Personally I am really looking forward to the commission system. Who says it can't be used in addition to a local, personal database of commission information. Any responsible artist would be keeping one anyway, but the introduction of a system with eBay style ratings and a search tool will, in my opinion, be extremely useful. From the point of view as a buyer, if I have money I want to spend on a commission, I have to:

a) Find all the artists I currently watch
b) Determine whether they're open for commissions
c) Determine commission prices for varying qualities/types of images
d) Choose and contact one of them

Having a system where you can search for say, art within a price range and of a certain type (eg. Clean, Linework, $10-$20) and have it return a list of artists currently providing said type of commission would be incredibly time and effort saving for the buyer. A further benefit to a commission search system would be the ability to search through -all- artists on the site, not just those that you know of, potentially leading to a lot fairer system where the less-well-known artists can be discovered.

From the point of view as an artist, I would gladly welcome this as it will provide me a place to keep all of my commission data and share it with my clients. Over the past few years when I've been offering commissions, I've communicated with clients over at least 5 different platforms. This has led to having to keep accounts in several different IM softwares, and there is no overall structure in how I deliver WIPs or final drafts. With a commission system, I would be able to upload WIPs to FA and allow clients to browse through them and (hopefully) annotate with comments on improvement. I would also hope that a chatroom/livestream feature would be included for live broadcasting of the commission. This could only lead to more satisfaction all round, as less mistakes are made and the client is happier with the final result. 

I believe tools such as these would be a great help to amateur artists, and help grow the community FA has built. Mature and professional artists should be skilled enough not to need it, or use it to supplement their own systems. 

And all this is before what I think about a ratings system. In short, I am 100% for one, so long as the ratings are restricted to people who've done business together (as Neer has said it will be), and that it works both ways. As an artist, I am at risk if other artists haven't taken the time to report a trouble-client to a group like Artist Beware - one look at a numerical rating will provide me a good idea of how trustworthy that person is likely to be, and vice versa for the buyer. 

TLDR; Yay for a commission system and its associated tools ^.^


----------



## Waccoon (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:
			
		

> And yet a good amount of security risks seem to stem from the UI. At least some very problematic exploits have stemmed from the UI.



Indeed.  There's a number of measures that can be taken to reduce the risks, but really, all coders on a project have to design with security in mind.  I've spent a lot of my time refactoring other peoples' code to patch security holes.

UI programmers are usually pretty well paid compared to UI designers and web designers.  There's a reason for that.



			
				redfoxnudetoons said:
			
		

> That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page. ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are the real source of the TT problem.



I've noticed laziness among the staff, but the whole design of the TT system could be to blame, too.  Things like support and administration are more a social problem than a technical issue.  For example, how TTs are divided among the staff, how the staff is notified, and how TTs are prioritized.  You don't make a good web site my simply having a nice looking front page.  The backend tools must also be good.  Most administrators are not tech whizzes.



			
				redfoxnudetoons said:
			
		

> I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin.



Communication skills are a better way to put it.  It's hard to find those kinds of people in any field.



			
				Athari said:
			
		

> I wonder if anyone will use this "unique commissions system".



I have my doubts.  Any artist worth his/her salt should have a hard copy of commission details on their own computer, and not rely on a social web site to keep track of everything.  What's really useful is a standard set of fields so no required details are forgotten.  Every time I commission an artist, they either don't ask for certain important details I would expect them to, or have to explain what they need from me.  People shouldn't have to rely on journals and their profile to tell people what information they need to do their job.  A commission page is probably more useful than a full-blown CMS system.



			
				Athari said:
			
		

> Most of these problems are easy to fix, they don't need whole system overhaul, each of them is worth an hour to a few days of work. Yet we get a complete new commissions system worth months of work no one cares about. I hope at least some of the problems mentioned above are fixed. Or all we'll get are new bugs.



Oh my God, yes.  If people stop to think about a problem as a social problem, rather than a technical problem, you usually end up with a more elegant solution.  It ticks me off to no end when a developer spends a lot of time working on this fancy, overblown feature that nobody wants (animated, disappearing status bars), when some feature that everyone uses and would take one day to fix goes unfinished (moving a button to a more convenient place).

FA has seen very, very little actual improvement, because the developers were banking so much on the new code taking over.  Anyone who's worked on a large project in the real world knows that recoding always takes a hell of a lot longer than refactoring.  You can't plan on leaving the existing code to rot because the new code will be here "any day now."

Plus, the new design is *very* different in function.  I have a feeling a lot of people are going to hate it.  It's going to take a long time to learn everything and get used to it.  I don't like it.  It's too drastic a change, and even if it *is* coming on schedule, there's still problems that should be fixed *now*, and if done right, they won't take that long to fix.

I'm hoping I can get on the coding staff, at least for review and verification.  I'm quite surprised to see this Ferrox v3 announcement, and I have a feeling a lot of things are going to go wrong during the transition.



			
				Sharlan said:
			
		

> I used yiffstar a lot and since the sofurry update never go there because the ui is terrible and over reliant on scripts.



As little as possible, I hope.  Most scripts break the non-modal nature of document design.  If I can't browse a site properly with JavaScript turned off, I won't go there.  I remember hearing the owner of FAP go on and on about how great his UI design was and how he had "optimized it to perfection".  The only problem was, if you turned JavaScript off, you couldn't post any comments.  On DA, you can't even see a gallery, for crying out loud.

Scripts aren't the only problem, of course.  One thing I *really* like about FA is the fact that the design is fairly resolution independent.  It might still be using tables, but at least it will fill up my widescreen monitor.  Other sites all seem to be locked to the new 960x6 format, which I find incredibly frustrating.


----------



## battle_franky (Jan 17, 2011)

the new UI looks great and all but is there a content aware larger version for people whose monitors have a larger resolution than 1024x768?
I could imagine something like where the blue menubar stretches and leaves the Submit, Browse and Forum, etc. links aligned to the left and the Search Box aligned to the right
and the message bar below with the total amount of message numbers aligned to the left and specifics to the right
the rest of the content could scale pretty easily to great widths too, keeping the shouts locked to it's current width but aligned to the right and letting such things as the journal text and submission view on a userpage be dynamically scalable, the submission thumbnails to the right would keep the same size as currently also (due to being in the same column as the shouts) and be aligned to the right also
this way it wouldn't break the design and make the website enjoyable for all resolutions

EXAMPLES:

FA in 1024 as we've already seen it
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j153/battle_franky/FA1024.jpg

FA Scalable design suggestion shown in 1440 example
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j153/battle_franky/FA1440.jpg
(If your browser scales down the image when viewing, click to view full size)

This should give a general impression of what I mean by scalable design for high resolution monitors

For those of you who don't have high resolution monitors ignore this post

it's just a suggestion tho

I'm using a 2560x1600 and I'm a little annoyed at how I'm going to be forced to view everything at 1/5th size than I could be viewing it, one of the things I loved most about FA was how no matter the resolution it always looked great.
I have a feeling if viewing submissions is also going to be crammed into these tiny boxes it's a step back since it will scale down pictures rather than let us view them in a high resolution by default, I'm sure there's plenty others out there who use monitors with high resolutions such as 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1440 (new high-res standard introduced with the latest iMacs) and 2560x1600
DeviantART seems to be doing stuff like this, keeping their page dynamically scalable, I'd hate to see FA lose one of its greatest features that made it enjoyable to anyone no matter the size of their computer monitor, only keeping one half of the userbase in mind when making a design would alienate the other half, and shouldn't the general concern be on the userbase as a whole? I know many websites today such a blogs and whatnot keep a locked width, but the sheer amount of content that must be displayed on a single page on FA doesn't make locked width a very good choice if you ask me

I'd expect professional webdesigners to keep in mind what type of website, what kind of content and how wide a userbase would be using a website before making a fancy design, it is my firm belief that functionality comes before looks, and the sheer amount of content on FA is simply too much to keep it restricted to a locked width
I would gladly donate larger sums of money if financing should suddenly become the problem with inserting a few lines of css code because of ????
it's for the greater good after all and for the concern of the userbase of FA

/2 cents


----------



## BRN (Jan 17, 2011)

I think the proposed improvements are uniformly beneficial. Sounds good, and any kinks can be worked out as they come to show themselves. 

Oh, and, Pale_Tailed? Surely, if you're joking about your ideas, you recognise that they aren't helpful to post? Making a joke suggestion is nearly equivalent to spam.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

SIX said:


> I think the proposed improvements are uniformly beneficial. Sounds good, and any kinks can be worked out as they come to show themselves.
> 
> Oh, and, Pale_Tailed? Surely, if you're joking about your ideas, you recognise that they aren't helpful to post? Making a joke suggestion is nearly equivalent to spam.


you do know that if i was joking and sarcasm was involved then my posts would have been deleted right?

 so as they arent i think yours is more considered as much derailment as this one here so i think the mods can go right ahead and delete both now!


----------



## BRN (Jan 17, 2011)

There's no need to be defensive. It just seems that in every idea you proposed, you later said you were 'joking' about them. Which seems silly to do.

But there's no need to take the thread off-topic. We can argue in PMs if you so wish.


----------



## ab2525 (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Basically, it'll be like "Artist A has offered a commission to User B". Then User B gets a notification to accept/deny. It then gets added to the artist's list, they can update status, make notes, and when they close it out, the user is given the option to rate it (positive/neutral/negative).


 

I love this, it's wonderful. Reminds me of Ebay or Amazon's seller feedback system. I'm not too worried about the trolling douchebags (are we allowed to say that in here? x3), as it's pretty easy to pick out crap ratings. "Oh, look, this artist had 607 Great ratings and 2 Poor Ratings. Let's try and figure out if they're a good commissionee (is that a word?)"

Alex


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

Waccoon said:


> Indeed.  There's a number of measures that can be taken to reduce the risks, but really, all coders on a project have to design with security in mind.  I've spent a lot of my time refactoring other peoples' code to patch security holes.



Indeed. Nice to know someone who actually does the stuff can back me up on this one.




> I've noticed laziness among the staff, but the whole design of the TT system could be to blame, too.  Things like support and administration are more a social problem than a technical issue.  For example, how TTs are divided among the staff, how the staff is notified, and how TTs are prioritized.  You don't make a good web site my simply having a nice looking front page.  The backend tools must also be good.  Most administrators are not tech whizzes.



This is something I've been taking about for 2 years now, only to be told by Dragoneer, Yak and Irrevent that I'm just being impatient, that waiting 6 months for a TT for harassment is not too long, telling me that there is NOTHING wrong with the TT system when it has been clearly broken from day one.



> Communication skills are a better way to put it.  It's hard to find those kinds of people in any field.



This is very true.



> I have my doubts.  Any artist worth his/her salt should have a hard copy of commission details on their own computer, and not rely on a social web site to keep track of everything.  What's really useful is a standard set of fields so no required details are forgotten.  Every time I commission an artist, they either don't ask for certain important details I would expect them to, or have to explain what they need from me.  People shouldn't have to rely on journals and their profile to tell people what information they need to do their job.  A commission page is probably more useful than a full-blown CMS system.



Did you know that we _did_ have a commission page? On March 3, 2009, it was taken down with no ETA because of... get this... XSS vulnerabilities. Despite it being a popular, useful FA feature, we STILL don't have it back. But we have this useless feature to hide comments, which was exploited the FIRST DAY it was released. Gotta love the lack of security minded coding.




> Oh my God, yes.  If people stop to think about a problem as a social problem, rather than a technical problem, you usually end up with a more elegant solution.  It ticks me off to no end when a developer spends a lot of time working on this fancy, overblown feature that nobody wants (animated, disappearing status bars), when some feature that everyone uses and would take one day to fix goes unfinished (moving a button to a more convenient place).
> 
> FA has seen very, very little actual improvement, because the developers were banking so much on the new code taking over.  Anyone who's worked on a large project in the real world knows that recoding always takes a hell of a lot longer than refactoring.  You can't plan on leaving the existing code to rot because the new code will be here "any day now."
> 
> ...



Ferrox is dead. Pure and simple. It's been in "closed beta" since June 3, 2006. 'Neer has been promising the new coding since he first took over as site owner, completely ignoring the current, horrible coding that is so rife with security holes. At least, until FA get's breached. Then that ONE security one get's filled, with the others being ignored.




> As little as possible, I hope.  Most scripts break the non-modal nature of document design.  If I can't browse a site properly with JavaScript turned off, I won't go there.  I remember hearing the owner of FAP go on and on about how great his UI design was and how he had "optimized it to perfection".  The only problem was, if you turned JavaScript off, you couldn't post any comments.  On DA, you can't even see a gallery, for crying out loud.



Agreed. Scripts are nice, but being too dependent on them can break the site.


----------



## Tuss (Jan 17, 2011)

Looks good.
I hope the fat bunnies won't be permanent though, not a fan of them.


----------



## FennecHelix (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Indeed. Nice to know someone who actually does the stuff can back me up on this one.


 
I know the stuff and get paid good cash to make websites professionally. I even have my own servers that I manage dozens of domains on. If you took a tiny ounce of your time to actually read the w3c markup validation errors you would realize how stupid it is of you to throw bricks at FA, a free site that you probably use quite often. Yeah, in the current site there are some nasty errors but not anything to be considered a major security breach. w3c mostly tests the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that on FA, a good chunk of it is generated on the fly on the server. Criticizing the errors on the test page for the new layout made me facepalm. Pretty much all off the errors there are just undefined alt tags which would make a great deal of sense since it is just a non-live demo.

Hell, http://www.google.com/ has more errors than the current FA site. Google has 35 errors and FA has 27

Google vs. FA

Lets not be so silly now. It's pointless to shoot arrows at someone if you don't know how to use a bow.


----------



## DanielBrown (Jan 17, 2011)

Is it at all possible for the forums to be integrated into the site itself?
Although this isn't that good of an idea, they're used for status when the site is down...


----------



## Kayla-La (Jan 17, 2011)

Will we be able to rate our commissioners as well? I don't particularly want to use a one-sided system.


----------



## Alishka (Jan 17, 2011)

happy birthday FA!!! wow, 6 years. good luck to the future!!

i'm loving all these new developments in the works, and the new site looks like it's going to be awesome. i don't like that the journals are all the way on the bottom of the page though. if people just come to your page for a glance and don't scroll down, they won't see the journal, so it would be hard to grab people's attention that way.


----------



## Athari (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Did you know that we _did_ have a commission page? On March 3, 2009, it was taken down with no ETA because of... get this... XSS vulnerabilities. Despite it being a popular, useful FA feature, we STILL don't have it back. But we have this useless feature to hide comments, which was exploited the FIRST DAY it was released. Gotta love the lack of security minded coding.


I wonder what's actually wrong with the commission page. It just outputs some text data from the profile, plain and simple. Is it a vulnerability of inserting <script>alert("")</script> into the profile? Bugs like this usually take 10 minutes to fix. That is, if you have basic web programming knowledge.



Rossyfox said:


> Nothing will change until they admit the site needs a from the ground up recoding.


No one will rewrite the site. It will require resources FA doesn't have. So either Dragoneer admits it or not, it doesn't matter.



Aetherfax said:


> Having a system where you can search for say, art within a price range and of a certain type (eg. Clean, Linework, $10-$20) and have it return a list of artists currently providing said type of commission would be incredibly time and effort saving for the buyer. A further benefit to a commission search system would be the ability to search through -all- artists on the site, not just those that you know of, potentially leading to a lot fairer system where the less-well-known artists can be discovered.


No one has said what features are included in the upcoming commissions system. There's a chance to have search, but I wouldn't count on it. Hoping for chatroom and livestream to be integrated into the system is too naive however. You'll still have to use clients over multiple platforms. By the way, you should try clients like Miranda IM, if you haven't yet. They integrate multiple IMs into one.



battle_franky said:


> I'm using a 2560x1600 and I'm a little annoyed at how I'm going to be forced to view everything at 1/5th size than I could be viewing it, one of the things I loved most about FA was how no matter the resolution it always looked great.
> I have a feeling if viewing submissions is also going to be crammed into these tiny boxes it's a step back since it will scale down pictures rather than let us view them in a high resolution by default, I'm sure there's plenty others out there who use monitors with high resolutions such as 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1440 (new high-res standard introduced with the latest iMacs) and 2560x1600


Fluid design is important on a gallery site, but it should be used with caution. Only some parts of the design should be stretchable, like gallery or images. Text should not span the whole width, it becomes unreadable. It's very hard to read notes when you have to turn your head from side to side on every line and try to stay on the right line.


----------



## Eevee (Jan 17, 2011)

Athari said:


> Fluid design is important on a gallery site, but it should be used with caution. Only some parts of the design should be stretchable, like gallery or images. Text should not span the whole width, it becomes unreadable. It's very hard to read notes when you have to turn your head from side to side on every line and try to stay on the right line.


Then make your damn window smaller!  I have my window the width it is because that's the width I _prefer_; I don't need sites to make that decision for me.


----------



## Rossyfox (Jan 17, 2011)

Athari said:


> No one will rewrite the site. It will require resources FA doesn't have.


 
Attempts have been made in the past, and it was not through lack of resources that it failed. Also, Dragoneer is now willing to pay someone to redo the UI, so that brings the question of how best to use money into play. IMO it would be best to use money, if money is on the table, to redo the entire site as it is now in Pylons. FA is not a very complex site. It would take a few months at most.

Then, with a codebase that is actually sensible, it would be a much simpler task to alter the UI, or add new features.

It was fair enough before to say they were only willing to use volunteers. They burned their bridges with the people who were willing to volunteer to work on Ferrox, and so they could say they had nobody to do the job. But now that Dragoneer has announced the willingness of Ferrox Art LLC to hire a coder, it changes everything. The coder they hire doesn't even have to be a furry.


----------



## Kayze (Jan 17, 2011)

Well this is definitely going towards the right direction.

Good job, FA team.


----------



## Carenath (Jan 17, 2011)

Rossyfox said:


> Attempts have been made in the past, and it was not through lack of resources that it failed. Also, Dragoneer is now willing to pay someone to redo the UI, so that brings the question of how best to use money into play. IMO it would be best to use money, if money is on the table, to redo the entire site as it is now in Pylons. FA is not a very complex site. It would take a few months at most.
> 
> Then, with a codebase that is actually sensible, it would be a much simpler task to alter the UI, or add new features.
> 
> It was fair enough before to say they were only willing to use volunteers. They burned their bridges with the people who were willing to volunteer to work on Ferrox, and so they could say they had nobody to do the job. But now that Dragoneer has announced the willingness of Ferrox Art LLC to hire a coder, it changes everything. The coder they hire doesn't even have to be a furry.


 I suppose expecting you to post something that reflects your honest opinion, instead of jumping on the Eevee bandwagon for e-points... is a bit like expecting "Accountability" to post without going through a proxy server.

Snipes and Swipes asside, if you guys can keep the drama, out of this thread, it would be appreciated.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

FennecHelix said:


> Hell, http://www.google.com/ has more errors than the current FA site. Google has 35 errors and FA has 27




And the proposed new UI has 50. That's what I was showing. That the new look is a step backwards from the current look.

I wasn't comparing FA to google. I was comparing it to itself.

Regardless of the w3c markups, The discussion is that security holes are inside the UI and need to be addressed. a pretty band-aid over a gaping wound does not solve anything.




Athari said:


> I wonder what's actually wrong with the commission page. It just outputs some text data from the profile, plain and simple. Is it a vulnerability of inserting <script>alert("")</script> into the profile? Bugs like this usually take 10 minutes to fix. That is, if you have basic web programming knowledge.



I think that was indeed the problem.




Rossyfox said:


> They burned their bridges with the people who were willing to volunteer to work on Ferrox


 
Thank you. Blame has been placed wrongfully on Eevee for that one.



Carenath said:


> I suppose expecting you to post something that reflects your honest opinion, instead of jumping on the Eevee bandwagon for e-points... is a bit like expecting "Accountability" to post without going through a proxy server.



I don't like what Eevee did one bit, and feel that he deserved to be banned for his exploiting FA code. But the fact is that blaming Eevee for everyone leaving is not cool. Eevee didn't have to say anything. It was all FA's own doing.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

Carenath said:


> Eevee's the only name being mentioned now because of his recent actions


 
Actually, Eevee is the only name being brought up because he has remained here on FA voicing out that there are vulnerabilities that need to be fixed, only to be brushed off. Even after leaving the dev team, he has been a voice here in the forums, being generally ignored. His actions against the site I do not condone, but it is the same attitude problem from most of the senior staff. Even you, Carenath, are guilty of denying that there are problems. Like with the TT system, which 'Neer has finally admitted to being rife with problems.

It's been long known that the staff have pushed away those who would try and help.


----------



## FennecHelix (Jan 17, 2011)

______________________________________________________________







redfoxnudetoons said:


> And the proposed new UI has 50. That's what I was showing. That the new look is a step backwards from the current look.
> 
> I wasn't comparing FA to google. I was comparing it to itself.
> 
> Regardless of the w3c markups, The discussion is that security holes are inside the UI and need to be addressed. a pretty band-aid over a gaping wound does not solve anything.


 

*facepalm*
Unless you can specifically point out a security hole then don't post. (and in that case send it to Dragoneer.)
If you don't really know what you're talking about then please look it up.

32 of those 50 errors are undefined alt tags.
Please look it up XD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_attribute

All of the errors on the new mock up GUI are just from things being undefined because it is in fact a mock up.

w3c validations will not find server side errors or security holes.


----------



## Carenath (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Actually, Eevee is the only name being brought up because he has remained here on FA voicing out that there are vulnerabilities that need to be fixed, only to be brushed off. Even after leaving the dev team, he has been a voice here in the forums, being generally ignored. His actions against the site I do not condone, but it is the same attitude problem from most of the senior staff. Even you, Carenath, are guilty of denying that there are problems. Like with the TT system, which 'Neer has finally admitted to being rife with problems.
> 
> It's been long known that the staff have pushed away those who would try and help.


 Those are his recent actions, I referred to everything he's done recently involving FA. Where have I denied there are problems? Where have I said the TT system was problem free? The worst "the staff" can be accused of in this respect, is, buck passing as the only two _relevent_ staff members w.r.t. coding are known and _should be_ addressed directly.


----------



## Eevee (Jan 17, 2011)

Carenath said:


> I suppose expecting you to post something that reflects your honest opinion, instead of jumping on the Eevee bandwagon for e-points...


Fear not; I don't give out e-points.



redfoxnudetoons said:


> I wasn't comparing FA to google. I was comparing it to itself.


The former would be silly, anyway.  Google deliberately abuses how forgiving browsers are to speed up the load time of its scant front page.  I don't think FA is doing that, and I don't think FA is Google.



redfoxnudetoons said:


> Actually, Eevee is the only name being brought up because he has remained here on FA voicing out that there are vulnerabilities that need to be fixed, only to be brushed off. Even after leaving the dev team, he has been a voice here in the forums, being generally ignored. His actions against the site I do not condone, but it is the same attitude problem from most of the senior staff.


I've said before that one of my primary motivations was to draw attention to the sorry state of FA security.  Nobodyâ€”staff or usersâ€”really cares until something catastrophic happens.  Alas, it appears nobody much cares even after _two_ catastrophic things happen.  The security measures put in place last month do *nothing* to prevent the same attack from happening again.

I can't emphasize enough how bad that exploit was.  Calling it "hacking" diminishes the craft.


----------



## FennecHelix (Jan 17, 2011)

Anyways...
Happy Birthday FA!


----------



## Carenath (Jan 17, 2011)

Now, if we can stay _on_ the topic of conversation, that would be great, any more off-topic posts will just be deleted, I don't feel like giving out anymore leeway to the current trend.. it always ends the same way regardless of venue.


----------



## Eevee (Jan 17, 2011)

Carenath said:


> The worst "the staff" can be accused of in this respect, is, buck passing as the only two _relevent_ staff members w.r.t. coding are known and _should be_ addressed directly.


Dragoneer doesn't seem to understand what's going on (packet smoothing?), doesn't do anything, and doesn't trust anyone else to do anything.
yak seems to be paralyzed because of Dragoneer, and is way in over his head anyway.
I've never seen net-cat and tsawolf do anything but be passive-aggressive.

None of these people have shown interest in what Team #Hackerfurs know of FA's security, despite that one of them is in said channel.

Who are we supposed to be talking to?  I really don't know.



Carenath said:


> Now, if we can stay _on_ the topic of conversation, that would be great, any more off-topic posts will just be deleted, I don't feel like giving out anymore leeway to the current trend.. it always ends the same way regardless of venue.


A discussion of FA's technical history is irrelevant to several technical announcements?  Is this thread only intended for people to praise Dragoneer for announcing things that were announced years ago?

Perhaps if something changed, these conversations would end differently.


----------



## ab2525 (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> And the proposed new UI has 50. That's what I was showing. That the new look is a step backwards from the current look.
> 
> I wasn't comparing FA to google. I was comparing it to itself.
> 
> Regardless of the w3c markups, The discussion is that security holes are inside the UI and need to be addressed. a pretty band-aid over a gaping wound does not solve anything.



And if you actually look at most of the stuff it lists, a ton of them are just missing alt text. A bunch of the rest of them are for the JSMinislideshow (Because they're properties that aren't defined for that tag in the XHTML spec). Of the few that are actually fixable, I'm fixing them up right now.

Also, another thing, having a hole in the UI would be like pointing something to the wrong image. THERE ARE NO HOLES IN THE UI NOW. There are holes in the backend code that deal with stuff submitted by users, but that has nothing to do with the UI, or even giving it another theme. Changing the theme will not make FA any more or less susceptible to attack.


----------



## Athari (Jan 17, 2011)

Eevee said:


> Then make your damn window smaller!  I have my window the width it is because that's the width I _prefer_; I don't need sites to make that decision for me.


I want galleries to be wide, I want to text to be limited. This cannot be done with resizeing the window alone.

Sure, if I like the site, but hate its design, I'll stay and just fix the most annoying things applying my own CSS locally. I'll even write JS scripts to fix things that can be fixed without any code on the server side. But very few people can do that; I expect the site's developers and designers to care about features and usability, not its users.



redfoxnudetoons said:


> And the proposed new UI has 50. That's what I was showing. That the new look is a step backwards from the current look.
> 
> I wasn't comparing FA to google. I was comparing it to itself.


Markup errors mean nearly NOTHING. They can lead to minor problems with design and cross-browser compatibility, but it doesn't matter that much. You can have a page with literally thousands of errors which will still work perfectly. It's code behind that matters. This is where good and evil are rooted. This is where features, bugs, vulnerabilities live.


----------



## CerbrusNL (Jan 17, 2011)

Ok, guys, You've had this conversation plenty of times before, We know  you guys think FA is badly run, We know you guys think FA is poorly  coded, and we know some of you have a problem with FA's staff's attitude  towards these problems.

  Now, please, drop it.
  We don't have to see the same conversation for a Nine-thousand-and-first time.

 I kindly ask you guys to leave it at the door for this one time. "Or else" *Cough-Cough, Nudge-Nudge*

That settled,

Happy Birthday, FA! May you provide all furs with art for another 6 years to come!


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

ab2525 said:


> thinking that I was combining security problems with w3c





Athari said:


> making the same mistake



I only pointed out that the new coding has more errors than the current, which can considered to be a step back. and if you have too many errors, it will cause functionality problems.

Security problems of the UI and w2c errors are separate discussions that I brought up. The two are not connected. I never said that they were. But in coding the UI, security should be in the mind of the designer, as Waccoon has stated.



CerbrusNL said:


> I kindly ask you guys to leave the bitching at the door for this one time. "Or else" *Cough-Cough, Nudge-Nudge*


 
Actually, the conversation has been quite civil. profanity is coming from staff, not users.


----------



## CerbrusNL (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Actually, the conversation has been quite civil. profanity is coming from staff, not users.


 I'm not talking about the level of politeness in the conversation, we just don't need yet another "FA is flawed because of X, Y, Z and the admins ain't listening" Conversation. You know, like has been discussed plenty of times before.

The w3c stuff, for example, is fine, though.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jan 17, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> I'm not talking about the level of politeness in the conversation, we just don't need yet another "FA is flawed because of X, Y, Z and the admins ain't listening" Conversation. You know, like has been discussed plenty of times before.
> 
> The w3c stuff, for example, is fine, though.


 
Carenath and you don't seem to be on the same page then, because the 4 deleted posts were about w3c, as being "off topic."


----------



## Sekhmet (Jan 17, 2011)

insane_kangaroo said:


> Not for specific examples like I mentioned. Said individual scams people, gets called out for it and shouts get left. Then closes up the accounts after she receives maximum harassment. From the individual opens a new account and continues do do art all while scamming people.


 
*Cough*sounds like starfinder*Cough*


----------



## Gunge (Jan 17, 2011)

Aw hell, I've never liked change much xP I say keep an option of changing back to the old theme (the layout, not the coding if that's possible). I just think there are too many colours and too much writing all over the place on the new layout, it'd drive me nuts ;n;


----------



## Sekhmet (Jan 17, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> Ok, guys, You've had this conversation plenty of times before, We know  you guys think FA is badly run, We know you guys think FA is poorly  coded, and we know some of you have a problem with FA's staff's attitude  towards these problems.
> 
> Now, please, drop it.
> We don't have to see the same conversation for a Nine-thousand-and-first time.
> ...


 


THANKS


----------



## Sekhmet (Jan 17, 2011)

Happy Birthday FA 
Cant wait to have the new UI. Especially if there is a folder option of sorts. Really want to organize my artworks 9.9


----------



## King_Kangaroo (Jan 17, 2011)

This is Awesome!!!


----------



## FennecHelix (Jan 17, 2011)

I would really love to have the option in the new GUI to be able to select Dark, Normal, or Bright. People have various preferences of how they like to view artwork. Actually, a lightbox/lights feature would be very nice.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 17, 2011)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Bull. It wasn't until the PM leaks issue that you even acknowledged the fact that the trouble ticket system had massive problems. Before then, you, Irreverent, and Yak all claimed that nothing was wrong with the TT system for over a year.


 Look, dumbass, I didn't know about the issue it in the ticketing system. It was a simple line on Eevee's post that was not something A) that I even read or B) specific about any issue. If we had known about any sort of issue like this we would have made it our only priority, and we'd have tackled it head on. Now, please, you continue to dredge up the same old shit. If you want to remain on these forums drop it, and move on. We didn't know that particular hole was there, and we weren't sitting around denying problems left and right like the Iraqi war minister.

And no, a UI developer is not a coder. It's a graphic designer. If you're going to point fingers and create drama get it right.


----------



## ConnerLHemming (Jan 17, 2011)

*thumbs up* : D


----------



## sharpshark28 (Jan 17, 2011)

(I did not sort through the thread, just throwing this out there)

If I can offer any help my school semester will be finishing up early May. I have a decent bit of web dev experience and feel most comfortable with XHTML, CSS, and have no trouble navigating PHP although I can't write it from scratch. My portfolio and resume can be found at http://sharpshark28.com/portfolio. If I can be of any assistance when the deadline gets tight give me a shout on skype or by email and I'll be glad to help.


----------



## Firehazard (Jan 17, 2011)

My thoughts on the design so far: I assume your plans are to just get this functional for now and add/replace features later? Because I see a distinct lack of a Report button on those shouts, one feature I feel we need more than anything else. Also, one planned feature from Ferrox that I really liked and was hoping to see was the new submissions/journals inbox being replaced with a "watchstream" similar to Facebook's feed or LiveJournal's friends page. From the "12345 submissions ... 2345 journals" line, it looks like you're planning to stick to the current system? Or is it more like how Facebook tells you how many new items are in the feed?


----------



## Waccoon (Jan 17, 2011)

Fennechelix said:
			
		

> I know the stuff and get paid good cash to make websites professionally. I even have my own servers that I manage dozens of domains on. If you took a tiny ounce of your time to actually read the w3c markup validation errors you would realize how stupid it is of you to throw bricks at FA, a free site that you probably use quite often. Yeah, in the current site there are some nasty errors but not anything to be considered a major security breach. w3c mostly tests the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that on FA, a good chunk of it is generated on the fly on the server. Criticizing the errors on the test page for the new layout made me facepalm. Pretty much all off the errors there are just undefined alt tags which would make a great deal of sense since it is just a non-live demo.



This comment was aimed at redfoxnudetoons, but I really need to answer this.

First, security problems are related to how the server processes information received from the client.  You can't tell this from markup at all, so saying you can't see anything that constitutes insecure code is pretty dumb.  Even a simple XSS attack requires input from a client machine at some point, and the markup itself is not responsible.

Second, there are major parsing errors in the code, both on FA, and the "new" mock-up interface.  Design flaws and accessability issues (like missing alt attributes) I can understand, but there's NO reason at all to have syntax errors.  Seeing so many syntax errors tells me a lot about how the code *behind* the markup is structured, and I can guess what kind of security problems there are.  That's why I back up redfoxnudetoons about his comments.  Just because you can do markup doesn't mean you understand how a server generates it and processes user input.  Calling yourself a "web developer" doesn't tell me if you write HTML or if you write back-ends, but I presume it's just the former.

Third, I heard Google intentionally slacks off with compliance because they try to keep their page size limited to a specific size, so the entire page request will fit within a specific HTTP request spec or something.  Google is run by smart people, and they at *least* have reasons for doing things the way they do.  Sometimes, even I feel the W3C is managed by eggheads that have no idea how things work in the real world, and their unforgiving "recommendations" are often pedantic and sometimes totally useless.

FA, on the other hand, has fundamental syntax and formatting problems that really should be fixed, and they can be fixed easily.  These problems just slow down browsers and lead to compatibility issues.



			
				Rossyfox said:
			
		

> Nothing will change until they admit the site needs a from the ground up recoding.



Which in most cases is is entirely impractical.  All programmers talk about redoing something "eventually" instead of fixing what they have.  The sad truth is that to meet deadlines, it's often necessary to patch up what you have, rewrite the spec, move the old code to the new spec, and replace it in chunks.  Also, it's always more expensive to fix broken code later than to fix it now, which is why many real programmers try to fix bugs before adding new features.  It's cheaper and takes less time in the long run.  When you plan to move to an entirely new codebase "really soon", you end up with the current situation: the old site continues to rot, and the new code never shows up... even after years.

This is not an FA thing.  It's how things work in the realm of software.  Business go out of business trying to fix all the problems in v2.0 or v3.0 or whatever.  Granted, I'm only talking about extreme cases.  Given how little work has been done to the site over the years given how easy the issues are to fix (commissions page, anyone?), I'm guessing FA is betting the farm on the new code.  That's a recipe for disaster.

I've done more than my share of refactoring other people's code.  The end result is that I keep releasing software, while the [many attempts at] recodes never get done.



			
				Rossyfox said:
			
		

> If you were to go back to the drawing board, you could build it on libraries that make security much easier and UI changes much easier too, and down the line also makes adding new features easier to boot.



Easier said than done, given that most scripting languages have a pretty sub-par selection of built-in libraries.  PHP is notoriously bad in this respect, and front-end libraries (for generation of HTML) are pretty pathetic.  In fact, template engines are often a solution looking for a problem, and I prefer not to use them (edit: or use a simple one.  Even TBS is a bit too heavy for my tastes).

There are frameworks out there that have a whole bunch of tools bundled together for "rapid development."  The trouble is, most of these frameworks are so huge and tightly integrated that you have little flexibility to customize your toolset.  For example, if you don't like the database layer for a framework, you'll be hard pressed to replace it, because the template engine (ugh) may require that specific database layer, and if limitations of the template engine makes writing the markup difficult, you can't just switch to a new engine.

There is no silver bullet for making software.  It takes a while to figure out a toolset that work, and more importantly, a toolset that works for everyone on the dev team.  You can't manage a project without a spec, a coding standard, documentation, compromise, and good teamwork.



			
				DanielBrown said:
			
		

> Is it at all possible for the forums to be integrated into the site itself?



Hopefully just the login authorization.  Integration usually doesn't pan out well in practice because the usability requirements for a gallery/journal are way different than a forum.  Sharing code is risky.  Might as well use a dedicated forum system, like vBulletin.


----------



## BarefootStallion (Jan 17, 2011)

A rating system for commissioners...?

That is actually a... _*fabulous*_ idea!

With a system like this in place (if I am getting right what this is going to be about), it will allow artists to see how well other artists have rated their customers' reliability in paying, and other factors, before they agree to take commissions.  It will also help artist avoid the all-too-often deadbeats in the fandom - those people who promise to pay for artwork, but then have to be hounded by the artist, reported to FA and so on, before the deadbeats up with the promised money.

Excellent idea, guys.  Artists often work very hard for their clients.  When they can know at a glance that they will be working for quality people, it will help give them a lot less to have to worry about.  Bravo on this idea, definitely! :grin:

Loving the new GUI, too!  It looks slick, sleek and bad to the bone!

Definitely liking the changes, guys.  Please keep up the great work!


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

I absolutely approve of commission ratings. I really hope it's double sided. I am a big seller on ebay and I have to say that shit sucks now that sellers can't rate a buyer anything but positive. So now buyers can make mistakes, act like an ass, and treat sellers like shit with no fear of punishment. 
If someone leaves a negative feedback to the transaction, it would be great if there could be an additional option to upload screenshots as proof. Obviously there will be trolls trying to ruin people, but with screenshots, it's more believable. 

I'm really looking forward to this update and I hope these things were taken into consideration for the commission review system.


----------



## Firehazard (Jan 17, 2011)

Rossyfox said:


> It would not take long to recode FA using a proper web application framework (doesn't have to be Pylons or Ruby on Rails, you could use Zend's if you really don't want to switch from PHP).


And it would take even less time to get someone to finish Ferrox, which _is_ on a framework and is maybe about half-done from what I hear. I'm not sure if Search was working or not; if not, that would be the biggest challenge either way.

If it's about believing you can't trust something Eevee helped make after he hacked the site, remember that the guy who coded FA's current system hacked it too.



Rossyfox said:


> The decision to use the development model FA currently uses wasn't yours, anyway. You inherited that decision. But the site is yours and you can be bold enough to change it. For the good of the site, you should.


This. I really don't understand why Dragoneer is so defensive about this stuff as if it were his fault.


----------



## PaulShepherd (Jan 17, 2011)

The new version of the website looks very modern and clean. I look forward to seeing and using it!


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 17, 2011)

Eevee said:


> A discussion of FA's technical history is irrelevant to several technical announcements?  Is this thread only intended for people to praise Dragoneer for announcing things that were announced years ago?
> 
> Perhaps if something changed, these conversations would end differently.


Ferrox was abandoned when you left, and we're picking up the torch again. Also, the template will undergo revisions for WC3 fixes and whatnot before release. I want to do this right. After what happened in December I /want/ this done right.


----------



## MandertehPander (Jan 17, 2011)

I spy with my little eye


a Conner Hemming.


----------



## MandertehPander (Jan 17, 2011)

Wait.


Wait a minute.

It took FA getting hacked to that extent to make you wanna do things, /right/?

:/ 

I don't even know what to say to that.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

MandertehPander said:


> I spy with my little eye
> 
> 
> a Conner Hemming.


wouldnt doubt it 
 ive been contacted by him before.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

hey 

neer!

again i say if you need someone who is willing to voluntarily help with the trouble ticket system i raise my hand for such a place to help out.


----------



## Draconas (Jan 17, 2011)

aww was my post nuked because it hit the nail on the head? oddly enough i dont even see a "this message deleted" its just gone :3 lawl


----------



## CerbrusNL (Jan 17, 2011)

Draconas said:


> aww was my post nuked because it hit the nail on the head? oddly enough i dont even see a "this message deleted" its just gone :3 lawl


 
It was about something I politely requested not to be discussed here. As were 5 other posts. I decided to move those posts out of the thread, instead of wasting space here (6x "post deleted" message.)


----------



## MandertehPander (Jan 17, 2011)

Uh.. Draconas? I didn't see a post by you either. I woulda shown up if you posted and it was deleted it woulda said so.

Edit: My bad, FA staff can move posts. How inconvenient.


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

Staff can move irrelevant comments, such as almost everything on this page so far. Boo hoo, can't spam.


----------



## MandertehPander (Jan 17, 2011)

Nor can they express their opinions. XD


----------



## Eevee (Jan 17, 2011)

Waccoon said:


> Easier said than done, given that most scripting languages have a pretty sub-par selection of built-in libraries.  PHP is notoriously bad in this respect, and front-end libraries (for generation of HTML) are pretty pathetic.  In fact, template engines are often a solution looking for a problem, and I prefer not to use them (edit: or use a simple one.  Even TBS is a bit too heavy for my tastes).


Whoa, languages don't need templating built in.  I'm all for batteries included, but that's more of a kitchen sink.

FWIW, I adore Mako like nothing else.



Waccoon said:


> There are frameworks out there that have a whole bunch of tools bundled together for "rapid development."  The trouble is, most of these frameworks are so huge and tightly integrated that you have little flexibility to customize your toolset.


Most of the people who use the big integrated frameworks won't have strong opinions about the components in the first place.  Those who do will be burned once, grumble, and never make that mistake again.




Dragoneer said:


> Ferrox was abandoned when you left, and we're picking up the torch again. Also, the template will undergo revisions for WC3 fixes and whatnot before release. I want to do this right. After what happened in December I /want/ this done right.


Picking up which torch?  Ferrox, or the RPC abomination I hear Ice-Wolf is creating?

What does "right" actually mean?


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

Oh hey, hopefully this gets answered but I just remembered something I've been wanting for a long time. With this new update, will we have the option to follow specific news feeds from a user, depending on what we like about them? For example, on deviantart, you can select from four check boxes, "friend", "submissions", "scraps", and "journals".

Friend is useless and retarded, but the other two/three I would very much like to have. I am only interested in reading journals from a select few people, so filtering them out would be awesome. 

Not necessary, but really curious if that's in the plans.


----------



## Accountability (Jan 17, 2011)

> *  				This message has been deleted by CerbrusNL. 			 *
> 
> ReasonI requested this subject not to be discussed here, again.


Oh I forgot, only asspats and congratulating Dragoneer on making an announcement is allowed in this thread.

If Dragoneer doesn't want those kinds of comments in his thread, maybe Dragoneer should be the person that says not to post them. Just sayin'. It looks kind of bad when random moderators start deleting posts because they don't like them.


----------



## CannonFodder (Jan 17, 2011)

Eevee said:


> Picking up which torch?  Ferrox, or the RPC abomination I hear Ice-Wolf is creating?
> 
> What does "right" actually mean?


 Oh please let it be Ferrox, there's no point in completely building something from the ground up from scratch when you could just fix the things wrong with something you already have.


----------



## Rico-dawg (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Integrating it into the commission system. Good commissioners have nothing to worry about.


 
This doesn't sound too good to me... I obviously don't know what the system would be like, but I get the feeling it could alienate the less popular artists who might want to take commissions like myself. It's hard enough as it is.

As for the layout... I just think it feels less personal, less like a tight knit community and more like... well, more like DA. Looks pretty though :3


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> Oh I forgot, only asspats and congratulating Dragoneer on making an announcement is allowed in this thread.
> 
> If Dragoneer doesn't want those kinds of comments in his thread, maybe Dragoneer should be the person that says not to post them. Just sayin'. It looks kind of bad when random moderators start deleting posts because they don't like them.


i totaly agree maybe someone who can do their part of their job may be required.

btw ive offered myself up as possible help and no answer maybe they only want people they like or does what they like or want!

but enough of that 

i wonder if the code will even be tons better or the holes just shifted aside and changed around.


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

Rico-dawg said:


> This doesn't sound too good to me... I obviously don't know what the system would be like, but I get the feeling it could alienate the less popular artists who might want to take commissions like myself. It's hard enough as it is.


 How exactly would it alienate you? You would just proceed with life as normal until you get a commission. Do well and you get positive feedback. Do badly and you get negative feedback.
Not having any feedback at all, I would assume, should have no effect on how people view you compared to how they view you right now.


----------



## CerbrusNL (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> Oh I forgot, only asspats and congratulating Dragoneer on making an announcement is allowed in this thread.
> 
> If Dragoneer doesn't want those kinds of comments in his thread, maybe Dragoneer should be the person that says not to post them. Just sayin'. It looks kind of bad when random moderators start deleting posts because they don't like them.


 
This is something I did not come up with myself. I discussed it with other mods.
And why would 'neer have to be the one stating do's and dont's in a thread? That's exactly what we forum mods are for.

That said;
If you have a problem with how -any- mod on these forums moderates, contact him trough PM. If you can't come to a agreement, contact someone higher up.


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

the-pale-tailed-fox said:


> btw ive offered myself up as possible help and no answer maybe they only want people they like or does what they like or want!


 I think we already get that you're ready and willing. From what I've been told, they're going to be opening applications, not just grabbing any random person waving their hands, yelling "Pick me, your current admins suck!".


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Terrah. said:


> I think we already get that you're ready and willing. From what I've been told, they're going to be opening applications, not just grabbing any random person waving their hands, yelling "Pick me, your current admins suck!".


 
i get that i just don't see applications as working atm.

since what has qualified even been on these so called applications last ive noticed is the same old BS! 
i would definitely do what im supposed to do, and if i didn't want to do it id say im done and up and walk away! not continue and avoid the job at hand thats for people are lazy and unqualified for the job.


----------



## Fay V (Jan 17, 2011)

I can see how a commission rating thing would be nice, but at the same time I can see how it would be a terrible idea. 
This fandom is full of drama. Perhaps someone is asked to do a commission, shows the first sketch...then is asked to redo that 7 times, then gets a bad rating because the person didn't properly say what they wanted. 
Good commissioners have plenty to worry about in my opinion. there was far too many people that give incredibly vague descriptions, then expect a full picture the next day.


----------



## CerbrusNL (Jan 17, 2011)

Pale, I'm having trouble reading that. Could you edit in some punctuation, please?


----------



## Terrah. (Jan 17, 2011)

the-pale-tailed-fox said:


> i get that i just don't see applications as working atm, since what has qualified even been on these so called applications last ive noticed is the same old BS!
> i would definately do what im suposed to do and if i didn't want to id say im done and up and walk away not continue and avoid the job at hand thats for people who need to stop being lazy.


 I'd be more than happy to help out with TT as well, but that's not how they're doing it. They'll be opening applications when they're ready. They're not ready yet, so if you want them to consider you, you should be patient.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> Pale, I'm having trouble reading that. Could you edit in some punctuation, please?


 sure already edited once  i can do so again LOL


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Terrah. said:


> I'd be more than happy to help out with TT as well, but that's not how they're doing it. They'll be opening applications when they're ready. They're not ready yet, so if you want them to consider you, you should be patient.


 well from what ive seen your one of the people id see as qualified, but i also see anyone "even myself" as likely to be lazy at some point just an unavoidable human aspect.

but if you get the position (if you apply that is) im rooting for ya to do a good job.


----------



## Smelge (Jan 17, 2011)

Can I make a suggestion for the Commission Feedback thing?

Allow the recipient to be able to respond to feedback left. For example:



> PenisNosedFox said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Or



> PenisNosedFox said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That way could be confrontational and open to drama though, so possibly allowing set responses to feedback would be a better option. A set for commissioner and a set for the artist. The feedback is left as user-input, but the reponses are from a list like:

* Thanks for the feedback, hope to do business again
* A pleasure.
* I feel this feedback is unfair
* Commissioner caused trouble throughout process

I guess there isn't really one set way to avoid drama, but it is probably important to allow people to respond to unfair feedback.


----------



## Accountability (Jan 17, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> This is something I did not come up with myself. I discussed it with other mods.
> And why would 'neer have to be the one stating do's and dont's in a thread? That's exactly what we forum mods are for.



There's a problem in the fact that posts (for the most part, directed towards Dragoneer) that are deemed "too critical" are being deleted and the deletion notices moved out of the thread, before he even has a chance to reply. It reflects poorly on the site when valid concerns are being deleted before the people that can answer them properly can even read them. It reflects poorly on him that his staff are out to "clean up" a thread of anything "critical".

I could see the reason behind deleting something like "LOL dragoneer is so stoopid and dumb!!11!one!", but there was no reason to delete my post which was asking why they threw out Ferrox and started over instead of just finding a few people to finish Ferrox and paying them instead of paying for developers to finish the UI.


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> There's a problem in the fact that posts (for the most part, directed towards Dragoneer) that are deemed "too critical" are being deleted and the deletion notices moved out of the thread, before he even has a chance to reply. It reflects poorly on the site when valid concerns are being deleted before the people that can answer them properly can even read them. It reflects poorly on him that his staff are out to "clean up" a thread of anything "critical".
> 
> I could see the reason behind deleting something like "LOL dragoneer is so stoopid and dumb!!11!one!", but there was no reason to delete my post which was asking why they threw out Ferrox and started over instead of just finding a few people to finish Ferrox and paying them instead of paying for developers to finish the UI.


i agree with this entirely 

@cerberus  i know this may be deleted for derailment but i feel i need to say this.

not to bad mouth you but i see that as not abusing the position but as neglecting duties, its not giving you good ratings. as a fellow person who hates seeing people make asses outta themselves id like to say please lets just be nice with the deletions "stuff like shut up and such go ahead and deal with stuff like that" but i don't see his comments as being wholeheartedly bad.
maybe some people need reassuring so as to stop bringing the dead horse back just to beat it again.
you can do whatever with this post just please take what i said in at least before you do so!


----------



## Smelge (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> There's a problem in the fact that posts (for the most part, directed towards Dragoneer) that are deemed "too critical" are being deleted and the deletion notices moved out of the thread, before he even has a chance to reply. It reflects poorly on the site when valid concerns are being deleted before the people that can answer them properly can even read them. It reflects poorly on him that his staff are out to "clean up" a thread of anything "critical".
> 
> I could see the reason behind deleting something like "LOL dragoneer is so stoopid and dumb!!11!one!", but there was no reason to delete my post which was asking why they threw out Ferrox and started over instead of just finding a few people to finish Ferrox and paying them instead of paying for developers to finish the UI.


 
Do you actually give a shit? Or is this just a case of niggling at stuff to piss people off? If you have a genuine issue with Dragoneer or FA, then PM him or something. Just mindlessly going on and on is only making you look like a dick. I can accept people having actual real problems, but it seems to be the in thing to slag off this place because you can.

This kind of shit gets right on my tits. LOOK AT ME, FA SUX OMG DRAGONEER IS RUBBISH AM I COOL YET


----------



## Athari (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> There's a problem in the fact that posts (for the most part, directed towards Dragoneer) that are deemed "too critical" are being deleted and the deletion notices moved out of the thread, before he even has a chance to reply. It reflects poorly on the site when valid concerns are being deleted before the people that can answer them properly can even read them. It reflects poorly on him that his staff are out to "clean up" a thread of anything "critical".
> 
> I could see the reason behind deleting something like "LOL dragoneer is so stoopid and dumb!!11!one!", but there was no reason to delete my post which was asking why they threw out Ferrox and started over instead of just finding a few people to finish Ferrox and paying them instead of paying for developers to finish the UI.


While I agree with you that deletions should be careful, I see no point in asking Dragoneer this kind of questions. He'll just ignore them, because there's nothing positive he can say about it.

Paying someone to finish UI sounds kinda strange to me too, by the way. FA's UI isn't very nice, but it's the smallest FA problem. I'm afraid FA administration can afford only this, that's why it was picked...

I just hope that some effort is put into fixing existing bugs (I've listed some of them in my first post here), not just new features and "new" design.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> Oh I forgot, only asspats and congratulating Dragoneer on making an announcement is allowed in this thread.
> 
> If Dragoneer doesn't want those kinds of comments in his thread, maybe Dragoneer should be the person that says not to post them. Just sayin'. It looks kind of bad when random moderators start deleting posts because they don't like them.


Sorry, I need to say "stop beating a dead horse" before we learn to move? People have asked that I stand up and start taking action and responsibility, and I have, and any time I speak on an issue the only thing that people dredge up are past mistakes. Nobody seems to give a shit that we want to focus on fixing the site (and surprise, we did well before the hacks!).

We need to move on. Learn from the past, but not keep sitting around with our thumbs up our ass constantly reminded of "Yeah, but that one time!" because that doesn't help progress. We know "that one time.." happened. And that other time. And that other time than that. It's time we step forward and handle things, and do so responsibly.

But if people are only going to continue dragging past issues through the ground and not be able to move on without them or focus on moving forward we are going to move on without them.



MandertehPander said:


> Nor can they express their opinions. XD


People can express their opinions. They just can't be assholes about it.

Some people lack that distinction, and dragging the same tired topic out half a dozen times when we're trying to announce we're working towards a fix is both unnecessary, but wastes our time.



Smelge said:


> Do you actually give a shit? Or is this just a case of niggling at stuff to piss people off? If you have a genuine issue with Dragoneer or FA, then PM him or something. Just mindlessly going on and on is only making you look like a dick. I can accept people having actual real problems, but it seems to be the in thing to slag off this place because you can.
> 
> This kind of shit gets right on my tits. LOOK AT ME, FA SUX OMG DRAGONEER IS RUBBISH AM I COOL YET


 And that's the problem I'm having. I'm working to move forward, fix the site and handle things professionally and responsibility. And even when I'm working towards that, the same people over and over are only coming out with "Yeah, but... you fucked up before!" Yes. We did. Let's learned from it, fix it, move forward. "Yeah, but..."

I'm tired of it. I want to move the site forward. You can't forget the past, but you can learn from it. That's something we got rudely awakened to. And we're still awake, and it's time we take the knowledge and apply it to the site.


----------



## Accountability (Jan 17, 2011)

Smelge said:


> Do you actually give a shit? Or is this just a case of niggling at stuff to piss people off? If you have a genuine issue with Dragoneer or FA, then PM him or something. Just mindlessly going on and on is only making you look like a dick. I can accept people having actual real problems, but it seems to be the in thing to slag off this place because you can.
> 
> This kind of shit gets right on my tits. LOOK AT ME, FA SUX OMG DRAGONEER IS RUBBISH AM I COOL YET


 
If I didn't give a shit, I wouldn't be here pointing out their problems and offering my advice. If I didn't give a shit, I would have been banned long ago.


----------



## Smelge (Jan 17, 2011)

Accountability said:


> If I didn't give a shit, I wouldn't be here pointing out their problems and offering my advice. If I didn't give a shit, I would have been banned long ago.


 
Sorry? Advice? Where was that? I must have missed it. Was it buried somewhere in your raft of accusations and claims? Did you hide useful advice in amongst dross and repeated shite, just so you could later turn around and go "Ha! I gave you advice right there. It's not my fault you didn't read it."?


----------



## the-pale-tailed-fox (Jan 17, 2011)

Dragoneer said:


> Sorry, I need to say "stop beating a dead horse" before we learn to move? People have asked that I stand up and start taking action and responsibility, and I have, and any time I speak on an issue the only thing that people dredge up are past mistakes. Nobody seems to give a shit that we want to focus on fixing the site (and surprise, we did well before the hacks!).
> 
> We need to move on. Learn from the past, but not keep sitting around with our thumbs up our ass constantly reminded of "Yeah, but that one time!" because that doesn't help progress. We know "that one time.." happened. And that other time. And that other time than that. It's time we step forward and handle things, and do so responsibly.
> 
> But if people are only going to continue dragging past issues through the ground and not be able to move on without them or focus on moving forward we are going to move on without them.


 i think that lots of peoples issues neer!

i see that you want to get it done. they dont see this because they want the issues gone now not when its years or months later and they are sick and tired of the issues. 
i say if they cant handle the issues move along don't whine about whats gonna be done when its done.

i have faith in your decision neer, i just see funding is your primary concern, such as needing funding to make the site better, and at least its better than searching for someone who is willing to do it all for free which is very rare. 

this is what i see your decision as! your not some slacker just someone who is building up what he can to get it done properly.


----------



## Smelge (Jan 17, 2011)

Oh, and for the record, I am not White-Knighting. This site has problems, it has had problems, it needs fixed and I'm sorry Dragoneer, but there's a difference between saying this stuff will get done and it actually getting done. You need to back this up with actions now. I like using FA, it has a good community, even if the site itself is lacking, but I do not feel the need to shout about the flaws every 10 minutes. If someone isn't listening, then repeatedly being a hooting dickhole isn't going to help matters.

You have a problem, post about it then shut the fuck up until it becomes an issue again or it gets replied to, because all you're doing is digging away at stuff and being an annoying shit. I know that if I was in Dragoneers place, I'd be deliberately not fixing shit just to piss you off.


----------



## Nylak (Jan 17, 2011)

It would be so nice if we could stay on topic every once in awhile.


----------

