PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE UNLESS YOU ARE STAFF.

ALL FRIENDS AND OTHER INQUIRERS, PLEASE SIMPLY EMAIL ME!

Ok, so I still haven't found another suitable community. That's a shame, but for now I can live with that. For now, anyone who wishes may of course write: douglassdumas AT gmail DOT com for any discussions and trading of poetry and stories. Some day in the near future I'll probably rebuild douglassdumas.com (unless it belongs to someone else).

At the moment, it's the stage where I stop writing DA and start the long process of walking out. Hopefully something will change before this summer, but we'll see. Immediately after this journal is posted, I will not log in nor visit DA until Valentines Day! If I like what I see when I return, this protest will end, if not it'll go on according to plan.


FAREWELLS
I would like to bid a fond and partial farewell to all of my meat-world friends, who I'll see in reality hopefully soon. You won't find me here, and FaceBook has long since lost me. Those in the real world know how to call me... so you know, just do that. I've got cookies.

To :devidSupaslim:, you've been a great friend. You were always there with feedback, thoughtful comments, and entertaining quips. Beyond artwork, we commented and communicated on each others journals often and I think we've both made each other laugh, supported one another in times of need, and just generally produced a good companionship. Although I'll probably never meet you, I consider you as dear as any friend I have in the real world. It is you for whom I delayed my course of action, and you for whom I hesitate even now. Know you may always email me, that I'll gladly share my embarrassingly-bad messenger name with you. If you ever need a friend to talk to, we can come up with something.

To anyone else who has watched me or commented on my deviations, I wish you all the best. I'm sorry I can't be here to produce more for you. Perhaps I shall return when things change here, but pay heed to the schedule (look at my older journal entry) and know that once I'm gone, I'm gone. I give thanks for you from the bottom of my heart, because those who have been my meager audience have shown me that even my little skills can be appreciated.

To those who I watched, chatted with, commented on, and argued with. Know that I dealt in sincerity. If I said I liked something, I did. If I loved it, or +Fav'ed it, I really felt great about it. If I offered advice, condolences, congratulations, or whatever, it meant I really cared about how you were doing and how the future would treat you. I consider a great many of you my friends, even with such brief encounters, but the class and diginity of all of you is above reproach.

DA has done a great job of ignoring me. Not a word from the staff since I began vocalizing. My forum post has aged and disappeared, but you can find it here: [link] The news post hasn't gotten any attention either. I did get a couple of very rude notes from someone I suspect may have been a moderator's second account or someone who thinks they're a mod, but I'm simply going to treat it the same way DA has chosen to handle ME.

All and all I'd have to say that I received a little community support, some very good commentary and feedback, plus at least one total troll (who I happily used as a foil for a little while).

Schedule of events has not changed. I'll be mostly unavailable until after Christmas, but I'll try to check any messages. The farewell note should appear here on boxing day or just after.

My original plan was to slowly delete all of my deviations as sort of a countdown until the final exit.

That was the original format of my exit-in-protest in order to deny DA the revenue I generate (meagre as it is).

Since then, I realized that I could deactivate my deviations while not actually removing them. So I did that. It would be a simple process to bring them back, should I get a result.


Now my exit strategy is as follows.

Until Christmas: Maintain commentary and discourse in the news article and forum thread. Open a new thread or article if necessary to get fresh faces. Continue to try and communicate with staffers through contact form.

Post Christmas: Abandon this account until next phase. Leave a simple farewell and a note on how to find me in my journal.

Valentine's day: Revisit account, check messages, and check to see if any change has been made. Exit again if not.

May 24th Weekend: Check again, write final letter to DA staff. Post letter in forum under complaints and as a news article.

Canada Day: Check one last time. Ban myself using the tool found in the FAQ.


Obviously, I'm using familiar holidays as a timetable. It makes it super-easy to remember and also means I don't have to mark dates on a calendar I don't own yet.

To recap: "Farewell and here's how you find me," will be up for the entire stretch between Christmas and Canada Day. That's how long you have to read it and catch up with me. I'll be fighting pretty actively until Christmas pulls me away from the computer. The purpose of the exit is to provide some small leverage financially and to show others that they can do the same to protest.


Thanks for reading!

For those who care, my life other than DA goes rather well, and I expect that trend to continue. DA goes fantastic, but this issue needs attention and I have decided I care enough about it to fight.

If you're stumbling in, this is what I'm talking about:
[link]
If you haven't done so already, read the article and chime in!


In protest:
After multiple attempts to contact and a news article, I still have not gotten a response from DA staff. Just that one message from the same moderator Slim ran into.

Today I removed all my prints. I made this move for two reasons. One, they weren't selling anyway. Two, DA is becoming notorious for being difficult to deal with and I will not support them financially by selling products here.

In a couple more days, if I have not received a response I'll start removing a couple deviations each day. When I run out completely, I'll deactivate my account and be gone. If that happens, I will inform my friends how to find me in other communities sometime near the end of this.

This is not an "I'm taking my ball and going home," maneuver. I'm not a popular or even a good artist, and I understand that my absence will be no great loss to the community. No, this is again about financial support. If I am absent, I will no longer be contributing content and asking my friends to visit, taking away the small number of hits and ad impressions that I generate. If I deactivate my account, I will no longer be spending hours here myself, clicking on ads and browsing the stores of artists I like. In other words, the small amount of income for DeviantArt.com that my account generates will be gone.

Why do I care? I'm not a fan of double-standards and favoritism. We are all artists and we all contribute to the community in our own way and we should expect fairness. Instances like this show us that we are not equals and that the rules apply only to those who cannot impress the enforcers. The fact that DeviantArt has yet to chime in on my news post or respond to one of my messages just shows me how little they think of us.

[link] was supposed to be my last journal of 2009. With the holiday season coming and little or no "news" to report... I expected that it would be. Best of all, it was a rather happy and upbeat post with lots of good things to share.



Unfortunately, I must now end 2009 on a sour note. My friend Slim brought something to my attention recently. Here is her conversation with a moderator on the subject: [link]

This is the deviation in question including the statistics for the reports on it: [link] WARNING, DISTURBING PORNOGRAPHY!!!


The problem I have with this is many deviants agree that this IS pornography, and the one or two moderators and staffers that looked into it have simply disagreed. Maybe they have their heads in the sand but it seems a bit like favoritism for a popular artist. Many other pieces which might be considered much less risque have been deleted, and in some cases bans were handed out. I know, I've lurked around here A LOT. I don't communicate much, but believe me I've been paying attention. Meanwhile, this piece by a well-liked artist gets the green light despite repeated complaints.

I immediately put my $0.02 in with the staff, along with the many others who have reported the deviation as well. I got the same person as Slim got, and basically the same response. I tried taking it to the next level and asking for the immediate supervisor's opinion, but I didn't get that... I just got a note saying that my complaint was declared invalid. Amazing.

Don't get me wrong. I have no particular problems with this piece. I'm not a fan of it, but I have to admit it's well drawn and composed. In it's own way it is as beautiful as it is disturbing. I have no problems with pornography either and I am even a strong supporter of erotic artwork instead of live models for a number of reasons too many to discuss here. In fact, I openly support allowing art that can also universally be considered pornography on DeviantArt, as long as appropriate methods are used to keep it corralled and as long as it IS art.

The thing that really bothers me is the double-standard being displayed by the staff. They have every right to run things however they like, but it's still shady and sickening. If I were to upload a nearly identical picture, equally well done, only featuring a bunch of naked men in the same situation... it would NEVER pass. In fact, I challenge any artist who is talented enough to prove me wrong.