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FA IS AWESOME!
15 years ago
General
For the most part, anyway. If there's one thing I'd fix, it would be the antiquated layout. It's not 2004 any more, and these tables are kind of old.
Of course, as most of you probably know, the layout IS going to change, and the mock-ups look fucking awesome. No, it does not look like dA. No, it does not look like SoFurry. If anything, it looks like the Dark Side of ArtSpots. Very professional, very streamlined, and the art is positioned above the profile information, which I really like.
Old mock-up is old, but still awesome.
When it comes down to it, though, FA is pretty fucking slick even with these tables nested in tables. (Most) Other sites just don't compare.
SoFurry is tossed around quite a bit, but it's terrible. I dare you to try to post a journal for the first time over there. It will take you five minutes to figure out how. And once you do, your spellcheck won't work, so your journal will be horribly misspelt because you ragetyped once you finally figured out how to do it.
Art submission is even worse. At best, it's an exercise in extreme patience. There are three pages of information that you need to fill out, but you can accidentally forget about them and submit a very explicit picture as clean.
And forget you will, because the tag system is a fucking joke. It rejects tags that aren't already in the system (for example, try to upload a picture of a Wallaroo. It will reject your tag), and it requires a bunch of other tags that are redundant.
And don't even get me started on that disgusting "cum counter" feature it has. WTF!?
SoFurry final marks: F
Okay, so you go over to Y!Gallery, assuming they still even allow furs.
And that's their first problem. Their rules change once a month. Literally. The staff can't seem to agree on what should or shouldn't be allowed, so the only solution seems to be a bi-polar rule structure.
Hell, they recently changed their rules on literature thumbnails. If you uploaded one of your own, then your literature was in violation on the TOS. What the shit?
And not only do their rules change every time you sneeze, but there are a million of them. Yes, it's a privately-owned server and all that, but good god. If you're going to have that many rules about what you're going to allow on your server, you might as well just make accounts invite-only.
If you think I'm joking, go look at their TOS. The subsections have subsections. It looks like a bill someone's trying to pass in the Senate.
Their upload process is just as confusing, if not worse, than SoFurry's, too. You've got about seven pages of tags that you have to add -- everything from age of the character to what you used to sketch the drawing.
Y!gallery final marks: F
Then you've got the more professional sites, like deviantART. Say what you will about it, but I really like it over there.
They have a very clean layout (which, granted, it does still have a few bugs that need to be worked out) and once you take five minutes to realise that the top navigation bar is actually a bunch of drop-down menus, it's actually pretty easy to navigate. They've put the art in centre focus which sort of helps it get away from the social networking aspect on that front.
But if you want social networking, they have that as well. The forums and chatrooms are all still there, full of idiot teenagers who don't want to talk about anything aside from how much they hate everything, but that's all over the interweb these days.
However, if you're trying to make even a part-time job out of your art, dA is not the place to go. There are literally millions of people doing exactly the same thing as you, and unless you're willing to break copyright laws and draw fanart for money, you won't sell anything. Try to sell porn on dA, and you'll just get yourself banned (which, frankly, is likely the reason so many people here seem to hate it; because there's no porn allowed over there).
deviantART final marks: B
Get furry-specific again, and you get to ArtSpots. It has a very slick layout; very professional, and with a very specific target demographic. It even has a built-in commission feature, which is nice if you remember to use it.
Uploading is simple. Everything is all on one page and you don't need to click a million buttons to submit your artwork. Just fill out a few boxes, and it's done.
Back to commissions, though, the overall quality of the artwork is generally pretty awesome, because once upon a time, ArtSpots was quality controlled. It's opened up fairly recently to allow anyone to register. But because of the overall quality of the art, you've really got to make sure that yours stands out to be able to sell anything over there. Another drawback is because of the quality of a lot of the artists, you're not very likely to sell to anyone ON ArtSpots, either. Like deviantART, I've not managed to make any money from commissions through ArtSpots.
Also like deviantART, they don't allow porn, so the userbase is still fairly small compared to FA.
But if it's just UI and quality furry art you're looking for, then it's definitely worth at least occasional browsing.
ArtSpots final marks: B-
Now, my main problem with SoFurry, Y!Gallery, and ArtSpots isn't even one of UI (okay, it sort of is in some areas), but rather one of community. Specifically, there is none. SoFurry's just full of a bunch of people who want nothing but to wank to the artwork, and that's generally not someone you want to talk to.
Y!Gallery's just so goddamn stiff and rigid that it really kills any sort of community there might have been. Also, it seems to be full of teenaged girls, and that also doesn't seem to be someone you really want to talk to.
ArtSpots... well, I'm not sure why there's no sense of community over there. Maybe because it's just so small, and the people that are there only show up for a few minutes every month to upload their art. I may be wrong, but somehow, I don't think so.
I do hang out on dA a lot. I've had the same account for six years, and have made loads of friends over there. The fact that I can't upload porn doesn't bother me, because I'm over there mostly for my friends anyway.
FA does seem to have that slight edge, though. It has the community that I love in an art-come-social networking site (face it. It's social networking, whether you want it to be or not), it's a good size without being enormous, the rules are pretty lax without being an utter free-for-all, and there's porn for the perverts.
Now, if the rest of you punks could stop complaining about trivial shit like a stylesheet change that's due to come out in August, and actually let the site evolve a little bit, it would be great.
Of course, as most of you probably know, the layout IS going to change, and the mock-ups look fucking awesome. No, it does not look like dA. No, it does not look like SoFurry. If anything, it looks like the Dark Side of ArtSpots. Very professional, very streamlined, and the art is positioned above the profile information, which I really like.
Old mock-up is old, but still awesome.
When it comes down to it, though, FA is pretty fucking slick even with these tables nested in tables. (Most) Other sites just don't compare.
SoFurry is tossed around quite a bit, but it's terrible. I dare you to try to post a journal for the first time over there. It will take you five minutes to figure out how. And once you do, your spellcheck won't work, so your journal will be horribly misspelt because you ragetyped once you finally figured out how to do it.
Art submission is even worse. At best, it's an exercise in extreme patience. There are three pages of information that you need to fill out, but you can accidentally forget about them and submit a very explicit picture as clean.
And forget you will, because the tag system is a fucking joke. It rejects tags that aren't already in the system (for example, try to upload a picture of a Wallaroo. It will reject your tag), and it requires a bunch of other tags that are redundant.
And don't even get me started on that disgusting "cum counter" feature it has. WTF!?
SoFurry final marks: F
Okay, so you go over to Y!Gallery, assuming they still even allow furs.
And that's their first problem. Their rules change once a month. Literally. The staff can't seem to agree on what should or shouldn't be allowed, so the only solution seems to be a bi-polar rule structure.
Hell, they recently changed their rules on literature thumbnails. If you uploaded one of your own, then your literature was in violation on the TOS. What the shit?
And not only do their rules change every time you sneeze, but there are a million of them. Yes, it's a privately-owned server and all that, but good god. If you're going to have that many rules about what you're going to allow on your server, you might as well just make accounts invite-only.
If you think I'm joking, go look at their TOS. The subsections have subsections. It looks like a bill someone's trying to pass in the Senate.
Their upload process is just as confusing, if not worse, than SoFurry's, too. You've got about seven pages of tags that you have to add -- everything from age of the character to what you used to sketch the drawing.
Y!gallery final marks: F
Then you've got the more professional sites, like deviantART. Say what you will about it, but I really like it over there.
They have a very clean layout (which, granted, it does still have a few bugs that need to be worked out) and once you take five minutes to realise that the top navigation bar is actually a bunch of drop-down menus, it's actually pretty easy to navigate. They've put the art in centre focus which sort of helps it get away from the social networking aspect on that front.
But if you want social networking, they have that as well. The forums and chatrooms are all still there, full of idiot teenagers who don't want to talk about anything aside from how much they hate everything, but that's all over the interweb these days.
However, if you're trying to make even a part-time job out of your art, dA is not the place to go. There are literally millions of people doing exactly the same thing as you, and unless you're willing to break copyright laws and draw fanart for money, you won't sell anything. Try to sell porn on dA, and you'll just get yourself banned (which, frankly, is likely the reason so many people here seem to hate it; because there's no porn allowed over there).
deviantART final marks: B
Get furry-specific again, and you get to ArtSpots. It has a very slick layout; very professional, and with a very specific target demographic. It even has a built-in commission feature, which is nice if you remember to use it.
Uploading is simple. Everything is all on one page and you don't need to click a million buttons to submit your artwork. Just fill out a few boxes, and it's done.
Back to commissions, though, the overall quality of the artwork is generally pretty awesome, because once upon a time, ArtSpots was quality controlled. It's opened up fairly recently to allow anyone to register. But because of the overall quality of the art, you've really got to make sure that yours stands out to be able to sell anything over there. Another drawback is because of the quality of a lot of the artists, you're not very likely to sell to anyone ON ArtSpots, either. Like deviantART, I've not managed to make any money from commissions through ArtSpots.
Also like deviantART, they don't allow porn, so the userbase is still fairly small compared to FA.
But if it's just UI and quality furry art you're looking for, then it's definitely worth at least occasional browsing.
ArtSpots final marks: B-
Now, my main problem with SoFurry, Y!Gallery, and ArtSpots isn't even one of UI (okay, it sort of is in some areas), but rather one of community. Specifically, there is none. SoFurry's just full of a bunch of people who want nothing but to wank to the artwork, and that's generally not someone you want to talk to.
Y!Gallery's just so goddamn stiff and rigid that it really kills any sort of community there might have been. Also, it seems to be full of teenaged girls, and that also doesn't seem to be someone you really want to talk to.
ArtSpots... well, I'm not sure why there's no sense of community over there. Maybe because it's just so small, and the people that are there only show up for a few minutes every month to upload their art. I may be wrong, but somehow, I don't think so.
I do hang out on dA a lot. I've had the same account for six years, and have made loads of friends over there. The fact that I can't upload porn doesn't bother me, because I'm over there mostly for my friends anyway.
FA does seem to have that slight edge, though. It has the community that I love in an art-come-social networking site (face it. It's social networking, whether you want it to be or not), it's a good size without being enormous, the rules are pretty lax without being an utter free-for-all, and there's porn for the perverts.
Now, if the rest of you punks could stop complaining about trivial shit like a stylesheet change that's due to come out in August, and actually let the site evolve a little bit, it would be great.
I gotta say, I'm impressed! :3 Now I can't wait for it to be implemented. x3
I'm really hoping that FA will continue to please when it changes its layout. :3
And then I try to upload something, and I remember why.
I guess the point of this is...
FurAffinity > SoFurry. 'Nuff said. x3
The same thing happens with every UI overhaul, though. I've been through five of them, and people are never happy.
Which for me at least is a dealbreaker, because I like to be able to draw full tasteful nudes. But ah well, I like it here on FA. I'm also looking forward to the new layout that's coming here. It looks very nice and clean.
My two issues with DA? I love v7 EXCEPT I don't like the "don't forget to comment!" popup that comes when you fave, whether or not you've already commented. The other is that it's a huge drama factory. I know FA is too, but I've managed to dodge it, possibly because I was in a popular club on DA, and I've stayed away from clubs here pretty much.
The only reason that pop-exists is a sort of middle-ground between the people like me, who just don't care, and the people who want to disable the fave feature until after a comment is left.
Transparent PNG support would be nice, too. That's the one thing that's bothering me right now, because it killed half my gallery.
Aw man really? That stinks. Yeah a good solid transparent PNG support would be great. I remember when a friend of mine's gallery was full of red x's because they barely *had* png support at all. This was back between 2003 and 2006 I think. (I know, huge gap right?)
at least it's not much that really needs tweaking.
"So-and-so likes this image."
and,
"So-and-so really, REALLY likes this image."
XFD
I won't go into details, but my main issue with the new FA is that it looks exactly like the new Steam of all things. Steam. Really.
Steam fucked itself when it got a new layout anyway, and to have FA follow it would just be suicide.
Meh, I'll keep this link though, if only to see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_.....nt_delivery%29
Crappy screenshots though, I might make one of my own later.
Seriously, this is why i stopped using DA a long time ago, aside from all the DevianTARTS who use that site that are incredibly convoluted and annoying.
I'm really disappointed in a redesign that just follows the "streamlined" look of so many sites today. All I see in this design are steps away from anything that makes sense organizationally and steps towards something that is showy but so much less functional.
In an art site, I hate to see the site interface be the focus. The art should be the focus, which it already is here. The site isn't showy, it's not flashy, it doesn't deduct from the experience. It's also not clunky, it's a great design. As long as there is an option to use the OLD design (which I've heard) I will never switch, there is no problem with this design at all.
http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/14311628987
I'll bet many of these girls are under 18, as well.
If it is going to be complicated, I wish they would have a feature where you can continue to use the old layout if your computer is as old as mine is.l
1.) Forcing lesser items per page than used to be able to be displayed, or even worse forcing paging when in the past all items used to be able to be shown at once (FA doesn't allow this anyway though).
2.) The infernal "show more" button. I hate it. This is especially horrible on websites with comments. You scroll to the bottom and hit "Show More" and a ridiculous Javascript thingy shows more, and you have to click it over... and over... and over... and over again to show yet more.
3.) Let's "make the layout take up less screen space" by removing the text describing what things do, instead making everything pretty colorful icons so people need to memorize what each of them do. I HATE the "ribbon" in new Microsoft products. With the File Menu I could easily find what I want to do, even if I'd never seen the program before. Ugh!
All I'm saying is I don't like it when "innovation" means throwing out old clear conventions in the name of "progress." I'm not artist, so I try to be grateful no matter what, but those are some major pet peeves of mine. I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting, such as overuse of Javascript to the point of the page hogging system resources, but those were the big ones.