Hi,

If you are wondering where I have been. I left to avoid a harassment situation involving multiple threats. I couldn't get anyone who should have addressed it to deal with it, so I ducked out in hopes they'd get bored and find someone else to bother.

Hopefully that will be the end of it, so what did I miss and what have you all been up to?

Dear folks,

Just a note, but if folks are unwatching you over your association with a suspected predator, it's not a good idea to mass denigrate survivors. That'll just lead to more unwatches.

Also if you want to associate with an individual with a high chance of being a rapist, you don't get to complain that other folks disassociate themselves from you for standing by them.

Also just because someone is good at art and seems nice, doesn't mean diddly squat when it comes to whether or not they are a rapist. Plenty of predators cultivate a pleasant demeanour because they know that people don't want to believe that people they like could do bad things.

*eyeroll*

Also if you want to convince people that you're really bugged by people unwatching you, saying so and expecting it to change your mind, then maybe don't argue that evidence that someone is likely to be a rapist counts as "drama" and don't allow folks to basically insist the argument is whether or not coercing someone into sex counts as rape if the person coerced so didn't use the term rape, or that there's an equal chance of both stories being true (more than 99% of rape accusations are true and 100% of rapists are lying when they say they're not rapists), or that rejecting contact with someone who is very likely to be a predator is somehow judgmental and meaaaaaaaaaan.

This mini rant brought to you by the Geek Social fallacies and Rape culture.

Well at least not totally, been having some major upheavals in my life lately, and thus not much time to create or post art.

For one thing, I've had my life entirely disrupted by a new pet. Poor kitteh desperately needed a new home after all she's gone through. Now she rules my home with a very small iron paw in a velvet glove.

For another my condition went south again, this time necessitating major disruption to my current home and even now they can't tell me if I'll have to move again.

For yet another, they keep cancelling my appointments due to budget cuts in the new hospital I'm under, so god alone know when I'm going to get more treatment. Everything there is up in the air.

So yeah, don't be surprised if you don't see much of me for quite a long time due to all the current chaos, I'll try to keep everyone updated, time and energy permitting.

I'm really not surprised this has happened.

Please remember, anything you submit to a site is only as secure as the least ethical/professional staffer, or the competence level of the progamming and even well programmed sites can have holes.

If someone can get into the backend of a site, all the unecrypted information you have sent to the site is available to them. accessing anything just requires knowing where to look in the data storage for someone who has access regardless of how they obtained it.

If there's a staffer who cannot be trusted, they may often leak information. In my time I've seen staff not only leak information, but falsely report supposed staff side info for their own ends, dox other staffers, or otherwise treat the privacy of users with complete disrespect for their own ends. It never happened on storm but I've dealt with several sites on both sides of the moderator/member divide where it has happened. In one case, the owner of the site leaked purported mod site information for the purpose of defaming someone he just didn't like.

Whenever you submit information to a site, even if it's supposedly something only staff can see or something that it supposed to only be seen by you and another, always remember that supposedly and actually are two different things, hope for the best, but always plan for the worst.

Yes, a site should be secure and you should be able to trust that staff will not leak info, but the truth is we have to deal with the reality that not all sites are secure and not all staff are trustworthy, especially if the screening for staff members is poor or otherwise lacking.

That's nice.

But here's the thing, nobody cares what you Johnny K random think apart from you. Are you paying me or anyone else for our art? No? Well when you do, then you get to dictate what that art looks like, but when you aren't, we don't have to give an iota of space to your ideas of what is and isn't art.

Seriously, why is it always those who don't draw or who can barely draw recognisable figures who suddenly get a bee up their ass about what is and isn't art?

The latest is apparently bases aren't art. Whatever, some people make them, some people use them, hopefully everyone has fun and art above all art should at least be fun. If it's not fun, then either you're a working artist and don't care about what others are doing, or you're doing it wrong.

It's amazing how people are willing to overlook all kinds of unethical actions, from tracing to harassment so long as they like the person. It's like people just don't want to admit that someone they like or admire perhaps isn't a perfect human being.

On the flipside once people dislike you, that's it, you're officially the worst human being on the planet even if you're never actually done anything really bad, of course that doesn't stop them from making up things you supposedly did to justify why they hate you so much.

Folks, if you are caught tracing anyone's work even minimally, do not insult the work as an excuse. Copyright isn't based on how good or bad you think the work is, it's based on the fact that someone created that work and has rights to it.

Also when caught shortcutting by tracing, telling everyone what a good person you are is rather irrelevant. Nobody wants to hear it, what people want to hear is that you understand WHY people are pointing out it is a problem.

Hey everyone, Dealer's den is auctioning off some art for improvements to the software, check it out: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7066391/

You know the charity auctions, where a whole bunch of artists come together and auction off a load of art slots to support an individual.

They can be awesome to participate in, but it's really frustrating when you have to keep a slot open for years because you don't hear anything from the individual who purchased it in the auction.

And of course anything can happen during those years, the person might have an accident and be no longer able to do art... and yet still be faced with the reality that they have an obligation.

So do please plan out what you want and keep artists in the loop if you buy fundraising auction slots.

Conclusion: Fart out a silly sketch of Renamon with gigantic tits, a penis and a vagina, double your views and triple your favs compared to if you'd actually put some actual work into drawing something.

Geez folks, come on, I know people like porn, but that's kinda ridiculous. I don't mind drawing porn but I'd love to get attention for something that isn't quite as silly.

Big surprise there.

Rant time, I'm tired of giving good advice and having it ignored by the powers that be, I've been a core staff on a site for nearly ten years.

Seriously, if I were in charge of IMVU I wouldn't have touched FA with a bargepole, not without major restructuring.

Here's the thing. FA has the users, but what it needs is the management support and I don't just mean paying the bills.

Firstly, the code? Everyone tells me it's a mess and will cost a fortune to recode.

Thing is this site has had people damn near begging to fix it for FREE for years, yet nothing has happened. Even with the buying power of IMVU and the code team at IMVU available to the staff, what has been accomplished in four months? A big fat zero.

I would kill for storm-artists.net to have as many talented individuals willing to invest in it and to help improve the site, FA has them and those in charge just blatantly ignore what is FA's greatest resource.

This is not good business sense, the only reasons to refuse willing help is if you know the individual is trouble, ie the dude with a reputation for sabotage isn't a good idea, or if you're scared that letting someone else fix the mess will mean having to give up control/the limelight. Needless to say the latter is not a good reason and I seriously doubt that every single person offering to help with FA was a loose cannon so it can't be the former.

I know some offers have been accepted but almost all have quit, all citing management issues.

Secondly the staff:

Most of them aren't skilled or it seems properly trained, and I question how they're managed given the outcomes I see.

Tickets sit around for months or sometimes years including stuff like images of child abuse which should be removed within the day. So clearly there's no structure, no basic expectations of staff.

I could probably clean out FA's ticket system in a short period. That FA can't do it with nearly eight staffers who are supposed to handle helpdesk cases screams that there's a management issue.

When there's an issue with a bad staffer or bad staff behaviour, it takes FA longer to deal with than dA took to deal with it, to the point where it's common for bad staffers to retire before the management here even review the complaint, that's if they ever actually review the complaint.

Quite frankly some of the folks on staff shouldn't be, they seem to have largely been brought onto staff as a reward or to impress them. If you want to give someone a shiny to show off, you create an award, you don't give them a staff position and access to power. That's a recipe for disaster.

IT support? Very little has been done to a site in all the years it has existed, what do the staff capable of programming do all day? I suspect it isn't work on the site. If there was a manager capable of figuring out who should do what, setting deadlines, reviewing programmers for adding to the team and smoothing over personal issues, the IT department might actually be productive.



Quite frankly, I've worked under a manager who ran things in a similar way at dA, I won't say who it was, but I will be blunt, you couldn't pay me enough to work with that person again, I liked them as a person but me and other staff across multiple teams spent an awful lot of time fixing problems caused by that person and getting blamed for them because nobody wanted to accept that a well liked popular staffer couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag with both hands and a map.

If you do not have the ability to actually manage and do not have the ability to sit your rump down and actually knock out some work on a routine basis?

You shouldn't run a site.

Seriously, if you want fame while you are incapable of doing a decent job? Become a Mascot. Then all you'll need to do is to look pretty while people who can do the job get on with the actual work.

Why Wacom? Why you no make stable drivers for Tablet? You make me sad. >: My new bigger intuos creative pen and touch is taking a bit of getting used to especially since I always have to reboot the ruddy driver since it always glitches out.

My Gallery has been cleaned up significantly.

I've also finally organised and backed up all of my artwork, still not sure on the IMVU thing so if you want to see new work, you'll need to watch my weasyl here: https://www.weasyl.com/~subversiveimaginati

I'm not sure what to make of the IMVU sale, apart from to note that Dragoneer is once again making a pig's ear of not worrying everyone.

So I've decided to get around to finally uploading my work to weasyl https://www.weasyl.com/~subversiveimaginati I'll also be submitting the new series of works coming up to there first as I wait to see if Neer is actually being honest with us or if IMVU is going to do any of the things people are predicting.

Nuff said...

When people use trademarked character to push their ideas, especially repressive ideas. It's your shit, own it, don't draw Tom from Tom and Jerry agreeing with your racist bullshit. You don't believe a group of individuals is fully human due to their race, gender, sexuality or anything else? Fine, but stop turning characters who aren't narrow minded bigots into howling bigots to deflect from the fact that it's your beliefs that are coming out of their mouths.

There has been no new art from me because I have lost most of my ability to draw with my main hand and have no idea if the ability to do so will return in that hand with time.

For the last 13 years, I have quietly suffered periodically with a mystery condition that afflicts the hand I use primarily to draw. It strikes from out of the blue and can mean days, weeks, months, and at one point years of difficulty gripping objects and moving them. It impacts on both my ability to write and to draw. It frustrates me because my hand does not do what I want it to do.

Shortly after I submitted my last submission? It struck again worse than ever along with vision issues. Two of my fingers are near useless, I have lost all feeling in them and proprioception of them. I am incapable of fully straightening them without much effort and keeping them straightened is beyond me, the other three digits have also become prone to buckling. Being as they are necessary to my ability to hold and move a pencil? Well the results of me trying to draw are both exhausting and downright awful. (You should see me trying to butter bread as well, it's very ham fisted since my ability to grip is severely compromised as well through out my hand which the condition has massively weakened)

I have also suffered a lose of vision, I am afflicted by a black spot in both eyes that comes and goes, and as luck would have it? It's right in the middle of my vision. I am awaiting seeing yet another specialist in the hopes that this one will have an answer as to what is causing this.

Fortunately I still have my other hand and have begun training to draw and write right handed given the severity of this problem. I fully intend to fight this illness and keep my art.

There just won't be any new art for a while as I work to come back from whatever the hell is going wrong with my hand.

If you were expecting a free giveaway, I'm sorry to disappoint but this is about how to ask for free work from artists. First the don'ts.

1. Don't message an artist cold when they don't know you from Adam and aren't offering freebies already. It's spammy, at least say something nice about their work rather than just asking for free stuff.

2. Don't message an artist asking for the moon on a stick, it's not going to happen. Generally when artists do free artwork? It isn't for the guy who says "I want free art" and then launches into detailed description of what he wants as if he's expecting the same service for free work as their paying customers get. Remember you're asking them for a favour, for their time, they don't have to give you either.

3. Don't message an artists without looking at their gallery first, if you send someone a request for some oddly specific fetish that they have nothing anywhere close to in their gallery, it just feels like you're spamming artists blindly, and that doesn't make artists want to draw things for you, especially not stuff they're not that interested in.

4. Don't send artists what is clearly a form letter. Again, this will get you pegged as a spammer.


Do:

5. Be prepared to take no for an answer, they may be busy, they may be uninterested in your idea or they may not be taking freebies at that time. Whining about a no? Will land you on most artists "I wouldn't draw for them if they paid me" list.

6. Thank the artist for their time if the answer is no, they took time out of their day to respond to you, the least you can do is acknowledge that. When you don't say thank you? It simply looks like you're spamming many artists.

7. Tell the artist what you like about their artwork and why you're asking them for a free piece. It's always nice to be flattered and it makes it clear that you aren't just one of the spammers who spams every artist they see begging for work.

8. Keep in touch even if the answer is no, if you liked their art enough to ask for free work, then you clearly like it enough to stick around even without freebies.

9. Do be polite, again, you're asking for a favour, for their time, do remember that, abrupt or rude communications are not the best way to do that.

10. If the answer is yes, for a love of god, do remember to say thank you, it's a really sour note when an artist works their ass off on something, produces a lovely piece, send it off and hears only silence.

Really, I shouldn't have to write this, but amazingly I do get notes from people who do it all wrong.

One of the things about running a site is you have to care about it. I don't mean just caring about how you look or how popular it makes you, but caring about it. Caring about the community, caring that justice is done, that problem are removed from the populace, that bugs are fixed, caring that it thrives, even if people hate your guts for that caring.

You can't afford to slip into apathy when you run a site, you end up in that, you'll spend the rest of your time playing catch up as problem after problem drowns you. You need to be pro-active and dynamic, you need to care.

Some of us can afford to slack off for a couple of months, we're supported by excellent teams who can pick up for us when we're burned out by too much caring, but a site that isn't built on a strong team united by someone who cares? It's a mess quite frankly.

Furaffinity is one of those sites, a mess.

Quite frankly, I don't think Dragoneer care that much about the site currently, perhaps because he's inexperienced in what it takes to make a great site leader and disillusioned because of it, perhaps because he hasn't surrounded himself with reliable strong staffers who will ease his workload rather than add to it and so is overwhelmed by all the potential work and instead hides from it, perhaps because FA is a vanity project to him? Only he knows which one of them it is if not all three.

He stumbles in place like someone whose forgotten there's a wide world out there beyond the tiny treadmill that measures FA's sad and slow plod of existence. There's no heights of wonder or grandeur in that plod, it never goes anywhere beyond keeping a very dim bulb on.

The site is poorly run, it's finances are a mess, I am not even a programmer but I know that FA burns through new hardware faster than it should and requires more cash injections from it's members than it should. I could think of a dozen or more ways to make FA turn a profit, currently I doubt it does.

It's staff team are a confusing mishmash of people some of whom are not suitable for the jobs they're tasked with, others who are simply poorly trained and others who are simply struggling to do a good job given the organisation issues. It's headed by someone who is inconstant and frequently distracted by the next new shiny thing, who really really needs someone to provide stability, and who doesn't have that person.

It has no clear mission really, beyond "be a site" and "make dragoneer popular", hardly definitive objectives. It has no decent programming team, largely because I suspect that dragoneer doesn't play well with others and requires someone who could smooth over those fractures and get the teams working in the same direction without the bickering, infighting and confusion that has reigned to date.

It doesn't have a competent marketing team to tackle things like advertising and it really really needs one from what I've heard. Dragoneer tries to do it, which then further takes away from his time to do the things a site owner should be doing.

I could go on but to be frank Neer really isn't good at what he does. What he needs is a reliable team to take on the work and to free him up to be the 'face' of FA without him having to step into waters where he doesn't have the experience to navigate and is reluctant to do so because of how often he screws up and how hard the community comes down on him for it.

He needs a general manager who is a people person and who can manage people working on things without Neer having to say more than "do this".

He needs a head of programming who can manage a team. Which is not easy because managing programmers is sometimes a little like herding cats.

He needs everyone to have a specific task, currently everyone ends up doing a little of everything, the result is a wild mishmash of admining and inconsistent responses, that only infuriates the site members.

He needs team leaders who will train new staff and watch for trouble in the ranks so the site isn't constantly tackling months old problems that exploded when they could have been nipped in the bub months ago.

He needs a consistent long term plan, I don't think blind flailing counts as one.

He needs a face team who can handle advertising, appealing to members and damage control when things mess up.

In short, if this place was a business, it would be fucking bankrupt already. The only thing keeping FA going is the fact that it was the first and largest furry dedicated site of it's kind. It won't die overnight but as more and more viable rivals rise, it'll be bled away a cut at a time unless Dragoneer drastically and massively changes the structure.

https://www.sofurry.com/view/585692

It doesn't work like that, for a client to have the right to do anything they want to a work, it needs to explicitly marked as work for hire. It's a case of you have to give them explicit ownership for them to do that, otherwise they can't edit and repost the work.

Very few clients ever get that right from me, and I don't need to spell it out for the copyright to be retained by me, it's the fugging default.

Wait what?

https://www.sofurry.com/view/585874

Er, no, joint copyright means both people created something, and no, a client does not have the right to repost unless explicitly agreed upon, artists may allow it casually, but they don't have to. *facepalm* Don't post legal shit unless you know legal shit.

No new art, because somehow my F'ing tablet managed to entirely disappear, I've torn my bedroom apart looking for it and still can't find it. It's like it literally vanished into thin air.

I've been sick yet again, but good news is I see the doctor yet again soon. Yay!

I am not a vegan. However, dear Vegans? The following behaviours can and will rub non-vegan people up the wrong way.

1. Generalising from self.

So your food bills have dropped since going Vegan? Good for you.
So you aren't having any issues? Good for you.

You are not everyone though. The ability to go Vegan safely requires that several conditions be met. It requires not living in a food desert. It requires having the money to eat healthily, Ramen for example, well one brand is Vegan, if that is all you can afford then eating just that is going to result in one very sick Vegan. It requires having the time to cook from scratch given that many ready meals contain animal derived products.

It also requires a level of already being fairly healthy. Not everyone can healthily consume a vegan diet, especially if they have poor absorption of vital minerals or an already restricted diet.

2. misinformation.

Seriously, don't spout complete bollocks you got off some PETA video and expect to be taken seriously. Yes, soy goes into cattle feed, but only as a by-product of soy for humans and only in certain countries. The whole world is not the US kay?

Don't assume that anyone who isn't a vegan doesn't know anything about food production or the problematic elements of it.

3. Using judgmental language.

Seriously, don't tell anyone that it's okay for them to use animal products because they can't choose not to. People do not need your approval to be "exempt". Whether it's personal choice or just can't do veganism, their choices are theirs at the end of the day, they do not require your approval.

And don't talk about people being "morally blameworthy" for their choice to eat meat. Your personal morals are just that, your morals. They don't apply to other people. There's a difference between feeling it is not moral for you to eat meat and saying that other folks are immoral for doing so. The latter is offensively judgmental and again, people do not need your approval to live their lives the way they want to live them.

3A. Especially don't use language like that and then deny doing so.

If you think someone's decision is immoral and say so, have the guts to damn well own what you said.

4. When someone explains to you that they cannot go vegan or have decided not to, that is not your cue to try and find a hole in their inability/decision.

One of the reasons I explain that I cannot be a vegan is to get vegans to understand that their lifestyle isn't a one size fits all works for everyone like many do assume. But without exception every single vegan I explain this to, starts explaining the benefits of veganism to me like I'm stupid or asking obvious as hell questions about my dietary needs as if someone like me who has to think about her diet constantly simply hasn't considered it.

The problem with such questioning is the underlying assumption that everyone who eats meat is an idiot who only does it because they're too lazy/don't know any better/haven't been enlightened. It's insulting to be frank, plenty of omnivores, pescatarians and flexitarians have considered their diets and researched thoroughly before selecting the diet that they think is best for them.

When I or anyone else says we can't go Vegan, respect it as you would expect us to respect yours. Ask for more information if you're curious but don't treat it like it's simply a hurdle to get over to make us Vegan.

5. Being self-righteous.

I'm sure you think your diet is simply the best. But don't act like you're Jesus Christ himself okay?

No type of food production is without it's issues and we all have to weigh the ethical considerations of our diets. Just because your food doesn't contain visible animal parts doesn't mean it's cruelty free or impact less.

Remember this and don't act like you're the world's personal savior.

6. Take criticism of the above behaviours in veganism as a personal attack on you.

Discussing the fact that Veganism has a long history of ablism, and classism in it's makeup is not a personal attack on you. To take it as such is to deflect from the problem and to avoid addressing it.

Especially when you're dealing with petty behaviour from a peer.

Once again a popular individual who basically defamed, and abused many people including me has screwed around with the wrong person and everyone has woken up to the reality of what they're like. It only took six years.

This is pretty much why I've given up swearing back at bullies and unprofessional artists, because if they're that bad, they usually hang themselves on their own petard. It doesn't always work and sometimes it just takes forever but the best thing you can do when dealing with someone who is poorly behaved is to step to the side and watch them blunder onwards getting more and more obvious.

Largely becausee I managed to slice my drawing hand open on a tin can I was delabelling. Not serious but painful to draw with.

Plus I've been cleaning out and organising my studio. I can find things now. :B

Still got a lot of work to go but it's nearly done.