Talk:DeviantArt/Archive 2

Wiped discussion
Archive of previous discussion. --MWMiller 00:55, 2005 May 29 (UTC) Wiped the whole discussion because none of it is relevant anymore. If you want to restore parts of it, you can of course revert this. However the previous discussions here were all about a desperately required cleanup, which has already taken place.--alfakim 01:01, 28 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I've been avoiding this article for awhile, but recent edit comments (specifically the one regarding "hidden comments") revealed on my watchlist compelled me to look at it again.


 * I think the article is now fleshed up well, but there are a few concerns.


 * 1. It's not usual Wikipedia behaviour for a user to decide on deleting the whole discussion of a Talk page - most people archive them. Nobody on wikipedia holds the right to delete a complete page of discussion merely because someone believes that the topic is cleared (if you observe other wikipedia talk pages, resolved issues still have their discussions retained).


 * 2. I'm not too sure about the screenshot because it contains the artwork of other users on the website. Personally I think it would be silly to consider that a copyright violation, but maybe you could insert the mascot of the website instead to avoid issues.


 * 3. Wikipedia discourages advertising because it would be severely POV. There are many instances in this article that raises eyebrows - it felt like it was written by the owner themselves when promoting the website to potential advertisers. This includes revealing it's the 560th most visited site online, "prides itself in being esocretic", and so on.


 * 4. The whole Artform and Community categories seem lengthy and, uhrm, flowery. "Infinitely flexible"? "Tribute to worldwide growth"? "Thriving, ever-growing, highly integrated, supportive, and friendly"? With so much praise thrown it sounds very POV.


 * 5. The Artwork section describes the most basic functions of an art archive website. It's irrelevant.


 * 6. Unending Growth is a title that fits better in a press release than an encyclopedia article. The first, third and fifth paragraph are equally as unsuitable.


 * 8. As a sidenote, by the time I finished writing this article, the number of deviations submitted had risen to 12,441,683. Please Avoid_self-references!


 * 9. I really don't think the last updated deviant count is necessary in an encyclopedia article (Yahoo!, much larger than dA, doesn't have it either).


 * 10. Uh, as useful as it is to know the username of the owners in the Origins section, do we need a description of their icons?


 * 11. The whole deviantART Summit category is non-encylcopediac. It may be worth a sentence (maybe "dA is planning a get-together called deviantART Summit in Hollywood Paladium on June 17th and 18th"). Describing people flocking to buy tickets, its star-studded guest list, it possibly being "a historic event" and having a "hot press coverage" is, once again, both advertisement and POV.


 * 12. Well, at least this time the Criticism category isn't completely replaced with "deviantArt mods may ban members" like the last time.


 * I appreciate your work and enthusiasm in cleaning up and making this a better article, but it's with a few setbacks I mentioned here which may just stem from inexperience. Hope you would take this well. Thanks. --Grumpyhan 18:53, 28 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Right. I've tried to see to everything you've said above. Firstly I removed the silliness that said "deviantART is a PORN SIRTE or something, and the other 'UR GAY' thing. Besides that, I've tried to remove all publicity stunts, and tried to un-POV the article. I've changed expressive adjectives "eg tickets QUICKLY sold", (in fact I've removed that section), and tried to keep it factual and informative. What's irrelevent, I've removed, but a lot of what was removed last time, I do not think was in fact irrelevant. To be honest, the 560th page count, I think, is a valid piece of information.
 * The Summit is something that should definitely not be removed. It may even require a page of its own.
 * As for describing $jark and $spyed's avatars, I think this is fairly worthwhile, but that little origins section could be cleaned.
 * Sorry for deleting the whole talk page, if anyone is still upset about this, a cleanup of the talkpage to include the archive is worthwhile, but if you ask me, there hadn't been a discussion here since April, and I don't think it's that worthwhile. I'm not against it however.
 * Screenshot: I think this is fine. It's been so downsized that its basically indistinguishable. The actual 'artworks' visible on it are less than a few pixels across. If someone REALLY has to change this, changing it to the mascot is a good idea.
 * Cleanups of the more flowery sections still required. I think, 'condensing' is a better word. What is currently four paragraphs could easily be one or two.
 * Otherwise I think this article is now pretty ok.--alfakim 19:30, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Layout
Is there any particular reason for the Features and Growth sections to be listed as subsections of Artforms? They seem rather unrelated to me.

Launch date?
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22-awarded%20December%201999%22%20deviantart
 * Those must be errors or it's just the date that is given to Deviousness awards wherein the original date is missing or hadn't been noted. --cheese-cube 04:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks like a mistake. Look at the awards text on http://fuzzydemon.deviantart.com/ - joined October 2001, Deviousness Award granted December 1999 - makomk 17:04, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

There's 100s of stupid things like this.

The main thing is, since the start, there hasn't been any limits on uploading, and the file size limit was a huge 10mb, although it's been increased even more. No difference from subscriber or not.

Compared to other "free" hosts,


 * Imageshack has 1mb, but has a really infamous reputation of deleting things when they reach some barrier which is beyond their "unlimited" - I heard the forum was removed since it was just overflowing in complaints.


 * Photosig - 360kb, limits dimensions to (around) 800x600 too. Also their peculiar way of limiting uploads by means of critiques, it's really the only site which doesn't brag about its "progress" by means of a number - saying how much people have uploaded, or how many accounts have been added.


 * Photobucket - 250kb per image and 25mb total.

Going back to devart, I wasn't going to reply to this at all, but I happened to see

"I'm embarassed to tell people about my gallery. When they visit, they can't even get in during 'peak hours,' which seems to be all day. TIME OUT is the operative word here. I have very fast cable connection and when it comes to DA, I might as well have an early version of dial-up connection." 

This has been going on forever and ever. They refer to errors that can be caused by nothing except all bandwidth being used up as "bugs" - "there's a bug causing small images to not show up, there's a bug causing large images to not show up, there's a bug causing thumbnails to not come up" - now the site is so broken even sending messages doesn't work as it should.

Of special note goes out to drop-shadows. People interested in that is the kind which drool at / customize their mouse cursors and screensavers all day. So? For several months - it could of been more than 1/2 a year (end of 2003, start of 2004), it took several days from when you uploaded something untill it showed up. Why you might ask? Drop-shadows added serverside.

I wish I had more references, but it happens to be with forums that there's no ability to browse older messages - eventhough they're still stored. It feels like the only thing the forum admins spend their time with, is seeing if someone replies to an old thread, to make a long clever message stating "don't resurect threads, butwipe!".

Also to not forget the genious act of removing a whole forum (although old changes have unintentionally done the same) - the "prints help" forum was removed,  since anyone could reply there, as enough people didn't use the special prints help system instead - which I tried, took 2 weeks untill getting a reply, which also apologetically stated it's "run by volounteers"...

Actually, now I was reminded of the removing of an entire category (and its associated images) - anime wallpapers. At that time in the message center, one could read on the right side at the top when something important happened to the site, a "hot topic" - this wasn't marked so, and the removal happened 2 weeks after the news item. This also kickstarted the "remove something if it's in a wrong category" - as long as you didn't like something - just check its category - and report it to get it removed.

Maybe that doesn't seem like such a big thing - if it wasn't for site changes which made (a large portion of all) images end up in the wrong categories - if you had 100 images, you had to click through for 30+ secs each for them to get into the "right" category.

Hmm. Seems I can write an entire book on this subject. Oh. I'm perma-banned there too, which can be used as excuse if wanted to ignore all this. Wikipedia isn't a truthmonger after all, the most hilarious thing I've seen is "Is it good enough for kids to write a school report on the subject?" - so the only thing this information is used for is bore-to-death "can you state as many facts as possible" writings. If you're going to write on something which can consist of a million facts spanning a billion pages, there's no way to compress it unless... brain empty.

/Peace 20:45, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Well hey! I wrote that. Think I'll just make a page with a collection of this stuff. {Seas 01:29, 12 August 2005 (UTC)}

Co-Founder Scott Jarkoff Forced To Resign
Read this

Link and title says it all actually. I think the article has to now incoporate this piece of information, but I don't know how or where to put it. It's stirring up more than a few feathers on deviantART. A.K.R. 03:22, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that this should be put under the crits sub-section. The situation is most definetly notable, since the dA community is in an uproar. (My deviantWatch is full of journal entries arguing about Jark's departure). But I'm not sure if it should be under it's own heading, or under "dA as a corporation", since it focuses on the termination of one of the dA community leaders. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 11:01, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm putting this page on watch, just in case. A.K.R. 13:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea. You know, you should add all the articles you make edits to to your watchlist. I think we need to explain why Jark was so important to the community as a whole, or readers won't understand why the community is so pissed off right now. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 08:54, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd love to hear someone explain his "vision for a true art community". Maybe this explains it best? {Seas 20:09, 3 August 2005 (UTC)}


 * An alleged email from Jark to Spyed and McCan, July 19th, talking about "Serious Business Matters".
 * Ok.... Who wants to cover the jark stuff?


 * I think that we should wait until more information is available. --cheese-cube 12:37, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Uh should we maybe include the number of staff resignations that have taken place since august 1st 2005, all related to the jark issue. --mtekk 3 August 2005


 * This Page has links to everything you could ever need for this section. angrysquirrel 10:43, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

This whole section plus any changes that are made should be scrutinized closely; the situation is rather tense and unscrupulous members of either faction could easily use wiki to try to force their own perspective as fact. wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news website, so perhaps it would be better to step back from the issue a little until it is better documented and less likely to change overnight.


 * I agree. Even though I'm supporting Jark, it's important to remain neutral when writing Wikipedia articles. I'm going to look through the article and look for signs of bias from both sides.A.K.R. 06:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I have done all I could to clean up the article. I have also reinstated two deleted sections, but have cleaned them up. Also, a reminder: please keep all the jark-spyed war thing to the section concerning jark's resignation; try not to spill it over to the other sections. A.K.R. 07:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I decided to correct the termination section's reference to Jark's termination as a "forced resignation". No one involved has ever stated that he resigned. Not Scott (Jark), nor Angelo (Spyed). No one. I changed the verbiage as neutrally as I could to simply reflect the widely documented fact that he was fired without stating whether it was or was not justified. I similarly changed the references to his forced resignation, since that was similarly in error. Lastly, I corrected the statement regarding no statement from the administration, since there has been more than one at this point. Though I'm a strong supporter of Scott, I believe that the changes I've made are in line with Wiki's purposes. - nsfbr

Removal of founders
To whoever is removing the four founders of deviantART from the opening paragraph, please state your reasons here. Otherwise, prepare for another revert. Signed, a fellow neutral friend of deviantART. &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 07:38, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Jark and Matteo were the actual co-founders, and Spyed claimed to be a 'third' founder in a site-wide comment on April 10th, 2003. However, Andrew McCann is not a co-founder amd has never been 'considered' one. disastrophe 11:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Jark Considers he and Matteo to be the founders, and Spyed to have joined later, and spyed claims to have been with deviant art from "day 1", and to be a founder himself. Basically there is disagreement, so the article should discuss the opposing veiws and have relevant links to sources but not make a decision if it wishes to remain neutral.

I doubt that Jark "considers" only him and Matt to be the only co-founders. I think his comments have been misconstrued that way. But regardless, Spyed did not join later. This is a fact. deviantART was an entity of the DMusic Network which Angelo started under Ovitz, who had taken interest and ownership in DMusic (Dimension Music) several years before. The DMusic Network was a 'last big push' in Angelo (Spyed), Scott (Jark), and several other people in the realm of digital music. Part of this "push" was an effort to synergize and incorporate areas of interest of DMusic's current and potential audience. DMusic had supported the FIRST skinning effort in the late 1990s - it was a natural fit. deviantART was developed alongside DMusic from April 2000 until deviantART became a seperate entity a few years later. I have chatlogs of this matter. I was on staff with the DMusic Network when it became "the DMusic Network" until Ovitz pulled funding.

http://mikeylove.deviantart.com/ was also present at this time, and for an excerpt of chatlog, in the #DM (DMusic) staff channel, I present this:

(@jark):so, does ANYONE have anything to offer (@jark):towards deviantart in the way of ideas? (@jark): it is going to be the DMN's official skin/art site (@Gagarin): : Has this been meantioned before? I don't remember reading any kind of mail about it (@aahz): hmmm interesting (@jark): it has been mentioned here before, no mail sent out on it because the domains were just bought yesterday (@Gagarin): ah, probably during the week I was away from a computer terminal (@jark): quite possibly
 * SNIP, some staff in channel express confusion**
 * SNIP

This is from April, 24, 2000.


 * Nice. I wish there was another way to cite this though. If you can find one, please add this info to the article. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 03:01, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I understand it Matteo and Jark founded the idea of deviantArt and Spyed Invested £15,000 and it was hosted on D-Music servers, as mentioned above. And Investor classed as a Founder is debatable. This infomation is based one source http://arc.deviantart.com/journal/6103648/ can it be posted?


 * We'll have to lighten the restrictions of No original research a little for cases like this: I believe that a single webpage from the appropriate source should be good enough. It's not like we're going to be able to get peer reviewed articles.... so add it, but make sure you include the link, and the date of retrieval. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 14:24, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Sponsors
"The second way are sponsors: that's why a deviation about documented abuses made by another corporation that one day might become a sponsor of deviantART should be seen as undesirable."

I remember seeing a news post[1] for foldershare ,and it happens to be I see ads for this site all the time - been going on for months. I think it's really disrespectful to artist, which should be above the mere mortals, in having FREE in ads, but then, it might just be hard to find any ads but those. Something a little disturbing is viagra ads, as the average age is 15-16. Also seen in the screenshot is intimate dating and hot local single - for a site which censores (male) sexual imagery so much... Then we have poker and roulette - what kind of morals are these?

1 - there used to be "browse old news", and going to news.deviantart.com just redirects to front page - gotta love those feature additions. {Seas 17:26, 14 August 2005 (UTC)}

jark got screwed out of his money. period.

Please, No More Assumptions And Conclusion-Jumping
I had had enough of the edits made by someone (who isn't a registered user). Not only is it poorly written, but it makes many assumptions and jumps to conclusions, and is heavily biased. I have resorted to adding a comment on top of the page, at the top of all affected sections, as well as sections that may become the target of such edits. Do not remove them. To whoever is making such edits: I urge you to either stop, or gain a better understanding of the situation before making any future edits. The situation is extremely complex, and is also easy to write things supporting your own side of view, but Wikipedia is not for that. Remain neutral and state all points of view if necessary. If you want to state only your own point of view, go somewhere else to do that. A.K.R. 18:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm getting really pi••ed off. As I said, NO MORE CONCLUSION-JUMPING. Any direct accusations of anything to Scott Jarkoff or any other person, and any more bad prose, will be removed instantly on the spot, and will not be tolerated. This is my last warning; one more time, and I will get some higher power to protect this article. A.K.R. 05:24, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, enough is enough. If any of you see any more edits made by someone coming from the 151.44.*.* IP range, just revert to the last edit prior to the edits made by him. Ignore all the edits made by him; whoever this person is is really determined to add his own points of view (including false accusations) into this article. A.K.R. 12:08, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * This is it. Third revert in 24 hours. Request for article protection and vandalism alert over this article is now up. I can now safely assume whoever is behind 151.44.*.* is a vandal; he has been warned here. Revert all edits made by him if you see him. A.K.R. 15:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

The answer:

All we have written is DOCUMENTED. You are a support of Jarkoff, as you admit here. We are here to establish the only important thing: truth. Truth is truth, is documents and evidences. We are not supporter of anything but truth. This is the difference between us and you. Sorry if truth scars you. Do you have different evidences? Well, PRODUCE them then, and stop your threats and your insults. We will be extremely happy to read and examine your different evidences .... if you have them, of course.


 * If all you have written is DOCUMENTED, then I would suggest that you provide citations and retrieval dates, and discuss it here before making a controversial edit. By the way, A.K.R., don't you think you're overdoing the comments a bit? One at the top, one at Critisms, and one at the actual subsection should be enough. There's no reason why anyone should be trying to talk about Jarkoff in, say, the deviantMOBILE section. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 21:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * I admit it's rather overdone. It was getting really irritating seeing somebody putting up false accusations again and again, so I did it to discourage anybody who wants to do it. You are right, maybe it should be toned down. A.K.R. 04:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

We DID put a link for everything we said. We do not say: things are this way, you have to trust us. We say, for example: deviantART spot-lights as daily deviations artworks that ridicules pacifism, and HERE it is the link to SEE a daily deviation that ridicules pacifism. A.K.R. continuously repeats that what we wrote is FALSE. Perfect: what is he waiting for to say which ones had to be those FALSE things he says we had written, then? Best of all: where are his EVIDENCES to demonstrate that what we say is false?
 * If you can, then why not list all of the links supporting your claims here? A.K.R. 12:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, wait a second.  We say, for example: deviantART spot-lights as daily deviations artworks that ridicules pacifism, and HERE it is the link to SEE a daily deviation that ridicules pacifism. OK. Here is my humble opinion. The main problem is you don't have a reputable person outright claiming that deviantART spotlights daily deviation artworks, so this is a bit of interpretation. So, let's assume that this particular daily deviation ridicules pacifism. Sometimes it's really obvious. That doesn't necessarily equal deviantART is biased towards spotlighting daily deviation artworks that ridicule pacifism (I'm assuming that's what you meant, otherwise there'd be nothing surprising about your statement). So, once again, we have to make that interpretive leap, and go from one to a general trend. That's why this doesn't count as a source. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 12:55, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. One spot-lighted deviation is not everything, and it makes for an extremely biased interpretion. In fact, looking through the daily deviations, I have found an anti-Bush artistic creation that as been spotlighted ; I can just cite this when saying that deviantART is biased against George W. Bush. So really, it's all a matter of interpretion. We can't dispute the fact that there are some administrators inside deviantART that may be biased on one side or the other (humans are humans, after all), but this should not be taken as the opinion of deviantART as a whole. A.K.R. 21:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Further, there's an optional disclaimer that subscribers / admins can place on their page which says pretty much that: "The views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of deviantART or my employers."

Changes to the Criticism section
I've removed the leading text for the Criticism section because it appeared very Scott Jarkoff based (which is not what we want: not all of the criticism is about Scott Jarkoff). I've also made some other edits, so please discuss them here. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 21:32, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Finally. That's exactly what we thought about that leading text. Thanks immensely for your comprehension.

Changing the comment
I believe that we should do several things. First, we should stop the shouting caps. Second, we should reword it. Third, I think the call for you to TRULY UNDERSTAND THE ENTIRE SITUATION is foolhardy and should be changed.

My proposed rewrite is thus:

PLEASE READ THIS before editing information about SCOTT JARKOFF

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but it also has rules that contributors must follow. As many who are knowledgable about the events surrounding the termination of Scott Jarkoff are also emotionally involved in the situation, we beseech you to read this.

1. Wikipedia enforces a Neutral Point of View policy.

Stated by Jimbo Wales as "non-negotiable", this is one of the core tenets of Wikipedia. You can read the whole NPOV statement here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view, but in it's essence, we fairly represent all sides of a dispute without implying one is correct. Therefore, be careful when you make statements about the situation: are you implying that your point of view is correct?

To wrap it all up, here is a comment by Karada on the NPOV page (if you have time, please read it thoroughly).

"You won't even need to say he was evil. That's why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" — we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources."

2. Wikipedia enforces No Original Research.

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_original_research. Therefore, if you have your own personal theory about certain events, please don't add it in. If you know of some well known contributor to deviantART who has a theory, and many people have commented on it, and it is a major factor in the debate, cite your sources (link to that page) and add it into the article.

In fact, we shouldn't even be allowing deviantART journals to constitute as evidence, because they are generally not reputable, self-published, etc. For an academic article, links to random weblog comments would not be permissible. However, recognizing the nature of a phenomenon taking place in an online community, some relaxations of these rules should take place. For this very reason, keep your citations to prominent members of the community who are influential (i.e. magnets) for the debate.

&mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 22:13, August 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * It's OK with me. It is more in-depth than the one I did. Use it ;) . A.K.R. 04:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Removing sections
I'm not really a deletionist, but there are certain parts of the About section that have to go. The first to go was the prices section. Not even Slashdot has information about subscription prices, so why should deviantART? Other questionable sections:


 * Artforms - It's basically a listing of almost every artform imaginable. It's really easy to access via the site itself. I'd say it's nonencyclopedic.
 * Features - What are we, trying to preach the joys of deviantART to the world? Maybe condense this section into a few sentences. If a certain feature is notable (the same way Slashdot's karma system is notable), keep it.
 * Growth - merge with Origins
 * Subscription - Zap it. We're not advertising deviantART.

I'm all for content, but only when it doesn't interfere with better content. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 23:02, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Why does everyone use this article to whine?
The 'Criticism' section is the biggest and most boring. No one gives a damn about half the stuff in there, it's just dA users getting pissy. I recommend a serious cutting and cleaning which I'd do myself were it not so late.
 * Could you be a bit more... specific? For instance, I know the Termination of Scott Jarkoff was a large issue. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 22:18, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * the termination of jark required about 3 sentences. maximum 10. what's all these massive sections on "concerns over deviantMOBILE"? and such. i couldnt even bear to read most of it, it was so dull and almost laughably pedantic.--alfakim 18:53, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * You can't deny how Jark's firing was very important. Most companies don't fire their founders. For an event which sparked such outrage and exodus all over dA, as well as an template on its sub-section, it most definetly deserves more than 3 sentences. But I think parts of it needed to be cited. I don't see how "Critics claim that the campaign was created by Scott Jarkoff himself to garner support for him." The copyright issues are still looming, even now. That's why the admins are rewriting the "simple version" of their TOS. Besides, this is an encyclopedia article. It isn't supposed to read like an ad for dA. But I think you are right about the deviantMOBILE section. I've haven't seen much concern over it, and most of what it says fits more in the corporation sub-section. "Concerns over Free Speech and Expression" needs to be mentioned. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 19:13, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
 * "For an event which sparked such outrage and exodus all over dA". Well, let's not blow it out of proportion. There was a trend among some of the older members to close their galleries or withdraw from the site, but the number of users is still increasing daily and the outrage has subsided comparitively quickly. There is rumination about the "good old days" among the older users but the majority of the site is back to normal.
 * I agree partially. Jark can have his nice paragraph. but the corporate info and devMOB sections? THEY need only be less than 9 sentences. Most importantly, these concerns are not representative. most members of DA couldnt give half a doodaa about this kind of stuff, and dont even notice it. the massive paragraphs for these 'concerns' is misrepresentative; it's a tiny minority of dA users who want to factualise they're petty, insubstantiable concerns over what no one cares about.--alfakim 11:19, September 5, 2005 (UTC)


 * I am not a deletionist, but I think the best thing to do is be bold. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 02:48, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Angelo and Matthew, Original Founders?
OK, I just went back to deviantART to check on my account (and to warn people of my procrastination, but that's another story), and while looking through my "new messages", I came across this deviation: http://www.deviantart.com/view/24197646/.

OK, while it may be biased (it's from Jark a.k.a. Scott after all), however, I can't help but notice that, whoever edited that piece of information (whether it's Angelo or not) is trying to make Angelo look like one of the original founders. Yes, Angelo did join deviantART not long after it was founded, but he only became more well known from 2002 onwards. If you do not believe me, you may take a look at http://spyed.deviantart.com/friends/ (scroll all the way down). Notice the huge gap in the time between his first and second watcher?

It is widely accepted that deviantART was originally founded by Scott and Matthew, while Angelo joined only later and gave a hand in governing the deviantART community. However, whoever made the edit shown in that deviation is clearly trying to change it to look as if Angelo and Matthew founded the community, with Scott joining only later. And with the I.P. address traced to a "Angelo Sotiracapoulos" (which may be Angelo himself, or just someone who (unfortunately) happens to have a similar name - I have not factored out this possibility), one just can't help but to be suspicious.

I have "corrected" the information to something that is more widely to be believed, and until someone can show me concrete proof that points one way or the other, I think that that part should remain as it is.

- A.K.R. 12:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No, "Angelo Sotiracapoulous" is actually Angelo Sotira's full name. He was born in Greece, and immigrated with his parents when he was 4. Hoovers.com displays his full name in its database; unfortunately, to access their information on deviantART, Inc., you need a subscription. Or a screenshot. http://www.silent-breeze.net/da/funds.JPG - Amolerouth


 * You are wrong here: "However, whoever made the edit shown in that deviation is clearly trying to change it to look as if Angelo and Matthew founded the community, with Scott joining only later." The deviation shows someone trying to downplay Matthew aka Matteo.


 * Do you know how likely it is for someone unrelated to Angelo Sotira edited that and happens to be nammed Angelo Sotiracapoulos? Plus, it seems that Sotiracapoulos is Angelo Sotira's actual real name. My opinion on this : Angelo Sotira edited it to make it sound like he was one of the two co-founders and matteo only came later, as he already did when he wrote the history of deviantART, or it's someone vicious who gave his IP this name, and made it sound like Angelo Sotira did this modification, and counted on Scott Jarkoff to find out his IP name. Which is the most likely? lol, enough said, sometimes it just sounds like spyed wants to be matteo --SuperBleda 01:23, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, it looks like Angelo was trying to move both of them "down" one notch each and himself "up" two notches. GreenReaper 06:03, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, this is getting sickening.
I noticed an older edit, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DeviantART&diff=26347317&oldid=26345122 was reverted to its original form, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DeviantART&diff=26424499&oldid=26417144 additionally saying that there needs to stop being bias in the issue. Well the phrase is back again. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DeviantART&diff=26427041&oldid=26424499

Personally I'm getting sick of this. It ALMOST borders on vandalism, if not just being a sick edit for the sake of adding things that don't need to be there. Is there a way to temporarily lock a section of the page, instead of the whole page?


 * No, there's not. But there is a way to split an article, where the contoversy takes up too much space in the main article. But that's how some people who edit WP are like, we call it POV pushing, and it usually results in a NPOV Dispute. As I can definetly see a few things wrong with it. The first is the complete ommision of the matteo day paragraph. It is taboo in WP to delete full paragraphs of articles, and is sometimes viewed as blanking vandalism. The sentence "Anyway, it is important to notice that Scott Jarkoff, aka jark, wrote in his staff bio this:". The first word "Anyway" not something you'd write in an enyclopedia. It makes it look as if it's a conversation, more than an article of information. It is not the article's role to tell what is and what is not important. WP isn't a soapbox. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 06:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This article is need of harmony. Alas, the problems with dealing with anonymous users! Your comments (and those of the other guy whose edits you dispute) would be far better appreciated if you got an account. I'll take a look at the edits in question, but it's a large chunk of edits, so it probably won't get reverted. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 01:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I suppose you're right, I am historically negligent to signing up for things, but this site keeps coming back to me so I suppose it wouldn't hurt. :) For the record I'm Toastypk

I've had enough of this. The next time I find the edit in question restored in its unencyclopediac form, I will have this article (and possibly the the user who restored it) RFC'd! --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 23:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I'm lucky...
... but IMHO, as of this minute this article gives a remarkably balanced outlook on a controversial subject. I'm gonna watch it, and unless it oscillates too much this way and that away from the Golden Middle of NPOV I'm gonna someday propose it as a Featured article. (And for the record, I have my own POV on some of the issues but I'm not trying to force it on anybody. I might even be misinformed so I'm not speaking up further here.) - Tonymec 05:01, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I've been avoiding this article for a long time, since leaving dA in the midst of it's controversy, and having read through all of the talk back and all of the article, I agree. It's a very balanced picture now. I think worth the wikipedia. Good work everyone. TomTomBomb 17:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)