It's just that post-outage frustration spilling out. People are feeling slighted and want to punish FA by abandoning it. Me? I really don't feel like going to the effort of rebuilding things all over again on another site. I've migrated to so many places over the years and I'm just tired of doing it. I'm not going anywhere unless I'm strongly convinced to do so by factors out of my control. And honestly, there's really nothing FA can't do that I need.

I can understand people wanting a place that's more stable than FA to host their art sales. But this whole thing is silly. There's no rule in place that says, "If you join another, possibly better art site, you have to abandon the previous one, since as soon as YOU leave, everyone else is OBVIOUSLY going to leave too!"

I've sat through so many of these so called "exodus"es. Each time, a HUGE chunk of people get their panties in a knot and run off to the flavor of the week website where they'll NEVER return from... only to peek in a few days, weeks or months later, and quietly try to settle back in as if they hadn't run off in a fit of rage for no reason, or never said they were never coming back.

I'm just curious as to why people feel they even need to leave here. Just set up shop in other places, which is just good business in the first place... diversifying your sales base and increasing your presence online... and continue being here too. Quitting FA as an artist who sells their work for a living is the equivalent of being in a large mall selling your things, only to move to a smaller, less frequented mall because the management had a problem with the lighting for a while.

People act with passion sometimes and like to make big, dramatic spectacles without really thinking stuff through. They get a rush off it, and feel they've gotten justice for how they've been wronged. Then they start to give it some thought, realize that maybe they were a bit hasty, and slink back and try to pretend nothing ever happened. But that's not special to the FA downtime situation. People pretty much always do that for any site they start having difficulties with for any reason. It's rebellion. It's sticking it to the man. It's "take this job and shove it." People love that kinda stuff. XD

Why people seem to think that they need to, or really are going to, abandon FA is beyond me.
The administration is often suspect, and the site has gained a reputation for downtime.

Goes down more times a year than any other site I think I've ever frequented. x3

*shrugs*

Does it ruin things for you in some way, or make your life harder?

If it does interfere, say with your art business, do you have to quit the site completely in order to be happy again?

It just feels like what I'll call "Furry Spite" driving the whole "migration" thing. If FA was less dominant as far as the number of furries who view it and buy art here, then sure, maybe quit the site. But then again... why bother? If you remain here, you'll keep the people who don't care enough or have a beef with Dragoneer enough to leave as viewers. And you can be on other sites, or own a site of your own.

See what I'm getting at?

In a way, it's a free market. Why stay on FA when other websites have more advanced interfaces and less problem with uptime? I'll agree with MilkJunkie, I don't know of any other website, free or not, that has had the sort of downtime FA has the last few years.

That said, I don't want to move to another website, I actually think FA has the best interface. :P And it annoys the hell out of me when art is cross-posted across multiple sites. Filtering through my FA submissions take long enough!

And this is a reason to abandon the site why?

If you are not paying anything into the site, and can still come here when it's working to see the artists who still post here, and aren't breaking any rules to have to deal with the admins... why leave? Just to show you don't like someone?

I don't understand why it's required to *leave*. Fine, state your preference, and go to some other site more often. But there's really no need to quit this site unless it closes down or becomes inactive. And for all the people raging about downtime and talking about being elsewhere... it's pretty busy right now.

I'm not exactly LEAVING FA, nor do I think most people are up and leaving the site. Though if people wanted to justify leaving (assuming you need to justify it, which makes no sense) then those would be reasons.

FA is still top dog but this recent downtime has clued people into expanding their reach beyond it, especially those who don't want their business to shut down just cuz the website they primarily work through is down. Which, honestly, is the sensible choice. I'm not saying anybody should leave FA.