# DA, then SA, then FA, and now AF? WTF



## Dragon (Jul 26, 2005)

Jheryn and Arc, you two are total fucking idiots. It's amazing how a handfull of administrative people who don't even have the maturity or ability to work well in a team can ruin a site for thousands of artists. I hope when you all get real jobs working in teams you get fired for the inability to handle yourselves in a mature and reasonable way. Maybe then you'll wake up and spend extra time realizing just how big of an impact you have on thousands of others who don't give a damn about your personal problems and just wanted to use FA and support it (once it was fixed up properly and arranged with common sense).

I started at DA, moved to SA because DA sucks, and then moved to FA since SA got rid of adult artwork. Now FA is fucked up because a handfull of people can't get along, can't make good common sense decisions, and want to spend more time changing the layout and appearance of the site more than fixing its problems and adressing its needs. Now I'm told I'll have to move to AF? WTF?! I'm tired of packing up and moving, and I can't even delete my artwork off the FA servers which is a violation of its own TOS agreement since I've been stripped of control over where my work goes.

It was clear during that last style change to black and grey that the appearance of the site mattered more than making money to support it (ads at the bottom of the page instead of on the left? Dumbasses, most people won't' click or see them down there; common sense). And I'm not going to pay for something that goes down every month. The administration ignored the artists too by ignoring the banner contest and placing its own Jheryn pic up there instead, plus for causing this entire debacle so now the site is down again. And some idiot put it into read only mode so a journal entry of where I and others plan to go next could not be made.

Arc expects everyone to go to AF, Jheryn expects everyone to come back to FA, and I'm fucking tired of administrators making it harder on me just to showcase my stuff and interact with others to come together as a community.

Both FA and AF are going to lose a lot of artists over this. SA is suddenly looking much more appealing to myself. But I'm really just tired of being on this whole art scene now.

Thanks a lot Jheryn and Arc. :roll: You two really need to think things through better before you use the "nuclear option" and take out the entire site.

Pardon my anger, but as a typical artist and someone who was willing to pay to support FA once it got its act together, stayed online, and addressed the common sense issues and problems I'm fumed over what happened. FA can't run itself and the lead administrator(s) need to get some sort of payment for themselves (not just the site hardware). Unfortunately, nobody did their job right, friends were selected to do stuff with disregard to qualifications, and the administration "team" can't get along and improve the site for the artists and its membership. We're supposed to work together and that worked well at first, but the past 5 months the entire thing fell apart.

Thanks for the good times at FA. Too bad they had to end because of a couple of people with power.


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## Kuma-Kun (Jul 26, 2005)

Dragon said:
			
		

> Jheryn and Arc, you two are total fucking idiots. It's amazing how a handfull of administrative people who don't even have the maturity or ability to work well in a team can ruin a site for thousands of artists. I hope when you all get real jobs working in teams you get fired for the inability to handle yourselves in a mature and reasonable way. Maybe then you'll wake up and spend extra time realizing just how big of an impact you have on thousands of others who don't give a damn about your personal problems and just wanted to use FA and support it (once it was fixed up properly and arranged with common sense).



"Fix it up properly and arrange some common sense." You mean what Arc had been trying to do? Yes, this sucks that the arguments between two people led to this, but look more closely at what led up to this and you'll see it a little differently. Arc was trying to get the site working better, and the final argument that made this all happen was over Arc de-adminning people he (and many users) felt were detrimental to the site, and Jheryn disregarding Arc's opinion because those admins were his friends.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> I started at DA, moved to SA because DA sucks, and then moved to FA since SA got rid of adult artwork. Now FA is fucked up because a handfull of people can't get along, can't make good common sense decisions, and want to spend more time changing the layout and appearance of the site more than fixing its problems and adressing its needs.



The layout and appearance changes were Jheryn's contributions to the site. So nobody say he never did anything. Apparently though, the custom layouts were a security issue, so they were removed: appearance took second-place to site functionality. If Jheryn and Arcturus had been working together instead of against each other, both appearance and function would have been dealt with. But they had differing opinions over which came first it seems. 



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> Now I'm told I'll have to move to AF? WTF?! I'm tired of packing up and moving, and I can't even delete my artwork off the FA servers which is a violation of its own TOS agreement since I've been stripped of control over where my work goes.



Nobody HAS to go to ArtFu. And the site is still there on Arc's server, and would be accessible to you if Jheryn fixes the code to direct the main url to where everything is. Once that is done, you'll have access to your posts again, though likely they'll still be locked in read-only mode.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> It was clear during that last style change to black and grey that the appearance of the site mattered more than making money to support it (ads at the bottom of the page instead of on the left? Dumbasses, most people won't' click or see them down there; common sense).



That was an admin decision forced by a very large number of the users complaining about ads. Whether a sound decision or not, that was one move made by the admins BECAUSE they were listening to the users.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> And I'm not going to pay for something that goes down every month. The administration ignored the artists too by ignoring the banner contest and placing its own Jheryn pic up there instead, plus for causing this entire debacle so now the site is down again. And some idiot put it into read only mode so a journal entry of where I and others plan to go next could not be made.



All the work of one admin, not both.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> Arc expects everyone to go to AF, Jheryn expects everyone to come back to FA, and I'm fucking tired of administrators making it harder on me just to showcase my stuff and interact with others to come together as a community.
> 
> Both FA and AF are going to lose a lot of artists over this. SA is suddenly looking much more appealing to myself. But I'm really just tired of being on this whole art scene now.



Undeniable. A large number of artists had come out of the woodwork and became visible to the public again on FA. This mess will undoubtedly send alot of them back into hiding. And now, there will be two art sites competing for artist attention. Whether one will fail or both will remain is yet to be seen, but either way, we all lose out from this. What do we learn from this? To make sure that before we put as much stock into something like this again, the administration at least makes an effort to APPEAR as if they are listening to their users.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> Thanks a lot Jheryn and Arc. :roll: You two really need to think things through better before you use the "nuclear option" and take out the entire site.



Arcturus' decision was pretty much made for him. When he told Jheryn that his continued support, both in personal effort and personal handling of all expenses, came at the price of having some say in the running of the site, Jheryn made his executive decision to tell Arcturus to withdraw his support. I ask you, if you are doing a lot of work on something, and doing all the paying for it, wouldn't you want SOME say in how things were run? And would you stick around and continue paying YOUR money if you were denied that?



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> Pardon my anger, but as a typical artist and someone who was willing to pay to support FA once it got its act together, stayed online, and addressed the common sense issues and problems I'm fumed over what happened. FA can't run itself and the lead administrator(s) need to get some sort of payment for themselves (not just the site hardware). Unfortunately, nobody did their job right, friends were selected to do stuff with disregard to qualifications, and the administration "team" can't get along and improve the site for the artists and its membership. We're supposed to work together and that worked well at first, but the past 5 months the entire thing fell apart.



One of the two people you are angry at was trying to address those very issues. The other was not. Please be sure to direct future anger to the proper recipient.



			
				Dragon said:
			
		

> Thanks for the good times at FA. Too bad they had to end because of a couple of people with power.



My sentiments exactly. It sucks that it came to this, but things as they were HAD to end.


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## Dragon (Jul 26, 2005)

Kuma-Kun said:
			
		

> One of the two people you are angry at was trying to address those very issues. The other was not. Please be sure to direct future anger to the proper recipient.


Part of the problem here is that the exact reason for whatever is going on was never disclosed to the membership of FA. All I read is that the site is going down because Arc is leaving. I see complaints that Jheryn does nothing and that Arc is a control nazi. Then read random user thoughts and complaints on this matter from DA, SA, and on IM's. My picture is formed from what other people have told me. I'm not going to go digging in some admin's LJ for FA information that needs to be on the front page. Both Arc and Jheryn appear to be at fault with users on either side. This whole issue isn't being disclosed in a straight-forward manner and I know I'm far from the only one left in the dark and angry about it. So I'm just picking the two people who appear to be involved in the hopes that this pisses them off and they realize the full implications of what they're doing and that what's going on can be reversed or lead to something good down the road.


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## uncia2000 (Jul 26, 2005)

*shrugs sadly*

Lotsa good points from y'both and from many others.

If I may take objection to the ongoing mis-representation which caused the following quote, however:


			
				Kuma-Kun said:
			
		

> Arcturus' decision was pretty much made for him. When he told Jheryn that his continued support, both in personal effort and personal handling of all expenses, came at the price of having some say in the running of the site, Jheryn made his executive decision to tell Arcturus to withdraw his support. I ask you, if you are doing a lot of work on something, and doing all the paying for it, wouldn't you want SOME say in how things were run?


Perhaps so, but Arc's contribution was largely (hugely, indeed) in terms of time commitment.
*
If I'm not mistaken, the $140 shortfall he made up on the last month's bill was most/all of his contribution in dollar terms.
(Next month was going to be even worse, I suspect, although I'm not sure if that's mentioned elsewhere).


Having personally ploughed ~$750 into getting FA going and keeping it alive, I'm just a tad aggrieved that all this has happened. :cry:
_(And I'm still trying to catch up, so apologies for the unsubtleness. Have been mostly lurking recently, for various reasons)._


It's not as though there weren't *many* people willing to commit time and finances to make FA into an even "better" community than it was shaping out to be.
Goodness knows we could all benefit from many more such havens...

The issue of trust, however, certainly did appear to be an issue which wasn't addressed until late in the day; and then only partially with the beta test team and extra tech staff, if not with more high-quality admins and other individuals with clearly defined community-building roles.
(There always have been dozens of trustworthy individuals around who are not solely interested in an ego boost and were crying out to be able to help, somehow).

Having said all of this, was Jheryn's site, and his call at the end of the day; even if the community as a whole was not.... and does need to be strongly taken into consideration when make-or-break issues are involved, IMO.

Many thanks to y'all (staff, artists and even lookers-on) for all that good stuff whilst it lasted: am still glad I backed FA wholeheartedly for what could have been, once SA screwed so many of us over poorly thought-out and even-worse-presented matters.
Maybe still can be...

*chuffles and sits down on furry haunches to see what happens next*

Best wishes,
David/uncia2000/wolfrunner


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## gokusan (Jul 27, 2005)

I find it sad that us artists have to suffer because of two people brickering. Why should we be punished for the acts of two people?


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## Goddess (Jul 27, 2005)

What is AF?  :?


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## AomiArmster (Jul 27, 2005)

okay okay okay if you dont fork over money to have these servers running
THEN just SHUSH  :roll:
oh a community gets angsty and mean so you dont tough it  out

oh my gosh rules change!! so i'm gonna spazz out and leave! 

oh and its not like we dont have a say in the matter or anything
we can bitch and rant all the HELL we want
but coming right down zu it, its not enough


big whoop, sounds like more of a self problem then whatever is running rampant on the galleries


start your own gallery and have with it =

i mean good things do come to an end, its just a universial ballance
cruel joke but SHEESH it happens, so less bitching and more plan for productive outcomes


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## Kuma-Kun (Jul 27, 2005)

Goddess said:
			
		

> What is AF?  :?



AF is ArtFu.net, the new community Arcturus is constructing. The dev team are all accomplished programmers, and yet still, nobody but Arc has been named an admin or mod or anything until they have written up solid rules and responsibilities for anyone wanting to serve in an administrative capacity.


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## Janet Merai (Jul 27, 2005)

This entire situation reminds me of babies when they do not get their passephire.

I don't care what happens, as long as the problem is pushed aside and things actually start to get solved.

As for the new site, I am not exactly a "favorite" person.
What's avaiable, is available.
So please, as I have seen SA natzi's, do not patronize me for looking into artfu.


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## Killy the Fox (Jul 27, 2005)

Janet Merai said:
			
		

> So please, as I have seen SA natzi's, do not patronize me for looking into artfu.



Who's patronizing you for even wanting to do so? By all means do so.


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## Janet Merai (Jul 27, 2005)

Excuse that, I am used to people bashing me for such things.


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## kogie (Jul 28, 2005)

i have to agree with everythign that was said here on the subject. but come to the turm of it all every one made a few mistakes in this and it all added up to a smuck up. and now we all pay for it. yes i want FA back up and running and yes i want the admen to get there act stright. but we users need to do the same thing as well simple as that


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## Velocigon (Jul 28, 2005)

Yea, but sooner or later someone will, yet again, restate the same things and want to cause another issue, and that's taking our minds away from what we need to do to tell them what did go on and such.


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## Suule (Jul 28, 2005)

Well as far it goes. People from Art_Fu are doing their best to discredit Jheryn and FA. I don't mean to be hostile but I think one side is trying to shove his version down everybody's throat. It's highly questionable which side holds more guilt. My thought at it is that Arcturus side ruined a lot of things in the site, questioning op decisions and being virtually 'untouchable' since they were part of his pet dev team. Despite numerous please and warnings they continued to troll the site trying to discredit Jheryn. 

My thoughs are, looking at it now... Arcturus wanted to take over the site, but he needed to discredit Jheryn enough for people to stop beliving him, well Jheryn stood him up and both parted thier ways. It was a hellish contract with Arcturus, and I'm glad we have this shit behind us.


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## Shiuk (Jul 29, 2005)

I actually have seen very litte talk or mention of Jheryn over at the AF forums/LJ (except when some users ask). And talks from both FA and AF sound as if no one really cares which website you take (I really wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years the two sites perform junc functions). 

I'm not worried about which admins did bad or whatever, I'm worried that as soon as either one of the websites shows a bug(s) in their coding (or something wrong happens), many people will probably go to the other site.

Anyways, what's the estimated time or release of the new FA? I wanna get my drawings back up.


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## Kuma-Kun (Jul 29, 2005)

*Take off the rose-colored glasses.*



			
				Suule said:
			
		

> My thoughs are, looking at it now... Arcturus wanted to take over the site, but he needed to discredit Jheryn enough for people to stop beliving him, well Jheryn stood him up and both parted thier ways. It was a hellish contract with Arcturus, and I'm glad we have this shit behind us.



Dude, just look at the log YOU posted to FA's lj from Jheryn. Even ignoring all other evidence, that log alone discredits what you are trying to say and does far more to make Jheryn look bad than anything anyone from "Arc's side" has said before or since.

Before you posted that, all the random user had to go on was what they saw happening on the site. Jheryn rarely if ever responded to any user himself. Arcturus responded and acted. Arcturus often made news posts of what was being done to fix the site's functionality. Jheryn's much rarer posts were mainly focused on the looks of the site. Most people, myself included, just assumed this meant the two of them had split the work that way. Then we see more crap going up about people being admins when many many users felt they weren't suited for the job. Users were voicing their opinions, and Jheryn silenced commenting on news posts. 

That was the first thing that made Jheryn look bad to the users that weren't already talking him down. The first thing to make anybody think bad of Jheryn who weren't already sided against him was Jheryn's own action.

When Arcturus made his post of withdrawing from the site, I was with many other users who were angry and did in fact feel that somehow Arcturus was to blame for this. We hadn't known how big this conflict was between Arc and Jheryn. I was all for sticking it out with FA, until you showed us concrete proof of Jheryn's attitude. That log turned more people away from FA and Jheryn than anything the "other side" could possibly have come up with. Jheryn's "My site my rules!" attitude in the face of someone who had put so much personal effort into helping him, and the fact that he was complaining about actions Arc was taking that USERS WANTED, sent a clear message to alot of people that hadn't known what to think; Jheryn was more concerned about his own status and that of his friends as the people behind FA than he was about the site actually WORKING right, or making any of its 12000 users happy. Arc left because Jheryn told him to. Arc wanted the authority to do something the users wanted done. Jheryn told him to shove off. 

I don't wish ill on Jheryn or the future of FA, and neither do the people building ArtFu, regardless of what you want to say Suule. I just want to make sure that what happened, and the mistakes made by both sides leading up to it, are not merely ignored or glossed over. What happened happened, and if the facts behind it are sugar-coated or ignored, its only going to happen again. Nobody wants that.

Here's to hoping and trusting that Jheryn has learned from his mistakes, and the new FA will be more stable, more secure, more fair and professional in its administration, more grateful to the work and effort put forth by its users and admins, and above all, more open to LISTENING to what  people are saying. Ignoring problems won't make them go away. Fixing them will.


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## Suule (Jul 29, 2005)

Wow wow... easy there. If you take this log alone, yeah it may be against Jheryn, but I talked with other people who were as concerned for the site as me before this issue arose, I was informed of the war that was going behind everyone's backs.Since the parties involved parted their ways there is no use in brining it up again. If you still want to discuss it... my AIM is open :3.

Jheryn may not be seen as a good admin, but my dealings with him proved otherwise. Apparently few admins were accused of doing nothing. But those few helped me when there was trouble. Arcturus wasn't one of them, ignoring my requests for assistance on matters that apparently required them, shielding himself with "It'll die out", "It'll pass" or giving no answer or actions at all. It's from my own dealings with the admins. 

I've learnt that the 'disabling news comments' were requested by the users. 

Mistakes have been acknowledged by one side. But does the other learnt from them, we'll never know. And people here are working hard to start FA  anew. Give them time. Right now I'm VERY pleased how the things are progressing and I keep my hand on the pulse.


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## uncia2000 (Jul 29, 2005)

> Arcturus wasn't one of them, ignoring my requests for assistance on
> matters that apparently required them, shielding himself with "It'll die out",
> "It'll pass" or giving no answer or actions at all.

Or else was too busy fire-fighting other stuff?
Or getting frustrated that a "way forward" couldn't be seen?

Dunno... Is difficult to tell when communications ain't all they might be; both
behind-the-scenes and in terms of what is presented to the community at-large.
(And most of us can be *trusted* to listen, understand and act appropriately,
I'd've hoped).

> Suule wrote:
> Mistakes have been acknowledged by one side. But does the other learnt
> from them, we'll never know.

Not sure how many mistakes have actually been "acknowledged" by either side?
But I ain't crying out for blood, just some more openness to better understand
the factors, hope for those "learning points" to be taken and possibility that
we might actually end up with two community sites, both even "better" than
the positives FA undoubtedly brought, before (despite the sometimes rough ride).


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## Pico (Jul 29, 2005)

>I've learnt that the 'disabling news comments' were requested by the users. 

Well, if "the users" wanted comments completely disabled, they certainly weren't saying so openly in any of the news posts, and I know this because I was reading the comments on the latest post right before comments were removed.  I guess Jheryn could have gotten a few notes from concerned users, but they surely would not have been a valid representation of the userbase as a whole.  Indeed, most users enjoyed being able to voice their opinions.


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## uncia2000 (Jul 29, 2005)

> Indeed, most users enjoyed being able to voice their opinions.

Agreed here.
Any other comments/feedback were pretty much (even more?) "lost" if posted in the rarely-frequented fora.


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2005)

>.> I'm going to be with AF because Arc is a bit more friendly than Jheryn. I am keeping my stuff on FA, but since I kept getting shit from them, I'm just keeping my latest on AF. And by the way, you people forgot two more...

S7 (Side 7) and AW (Artwanted)

Artwanted is freestyle, but no adult.

S7 is... well... big... that's all.


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## DLNorton (Jul 30, 2005)

You made some good points there Dragon..I'll have to rethink my position as well..


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## Dragoneer (Jul 30, 2005)

>> I've learnt that the 'disabling news comments' were requested by the
>> users. 
>
> Well, if "the users" wanted comments completely disabled, they certainly
> weren't saying so openly in any of the news posts, and I know this because
> I was reading the comments on the latest post right before comments were
> removed.

The news topics were removed because they were degrading into flames and general trolling behavior. Each news post was ending up the same way (and by the same group of people, at that). Now, they should have gotten a moderation smackdown, but as a temporary solution until a better method could come up created comments were removed from the posts.

I'm all for people speaking their opinion and being honest about what they like or dislike, but there comes a point when that message and complaint is no longer fueled by reason, but by hate and malice. That's the point when things get out of hand.


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## Pico (Jul 30, 2005)

Preyfar said:
>The news topics were removed because they were degrading into flames 
>and general trolling behavior. Each news post was ending up the same 
>way (and by the same group of people, at that). Now, they should have gotten a moderation smackdown, but as a temporary solution until a 
>better method could come up created comments were removed from the 
>posts.

Actually, the latest post by Arcturus, where he asked for people to report bugs, was full of many helpful posts, even after a few days.  I don't recall it "degrading into flames" (aside from a small number of subthreads, which could have easily been removed if necessary) and Arc himself was quite frustrated when comments weren't left open for at least that particular thread.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 30, 2005)

> Actually, the latest post by Arcturus, where he asked for people to report
> bugs, was full of many helpful posts, even after a few days.  I don't recall it
> "degrading into flames" (aside from a small number of subthreads, which
> could have easily been removed if necessary) and Arc himself was quite
> frustrated when comments weren't left open for at least that particular
> thread.

It was starting to degrade like every other post. All the bug reports were kept in the DB, just that nobody but those who needed to could see them anymore.  I think that the timing of that post and the removal of messages had an unfortunate timing though, but I also think a vast majority of the  more troublesome bugs were brought to light before it was closed.


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