[Talk] Looking for an alternative to Deviantart

[Amras Anárion]

Hello,

Currently, there are issues regarding the administration of Deviantart. After a big blowback because of a story of plagiarism with their new AI (DreamUp), this is yet another bot wreaking havoc! And this time around, it's an anti-NSFW bot that massively shadow bans any art it deems "no one under 18". Indeed, this freshly programmed bot is smashing all records and censoring around 20% of all existing images on their site! With nearly one image out of 5, you will guess that it is almost only false positives, including the most implausible things (OW of Pokémon characters in pixel art, worldmaps...)
Of course, members have no recourse. Worse, censorship is done under the shadow ban principle: there is no notification. From our account, everything seems visible. For registered members too, no mention of any "mature" art.
On the other hand, as soon as one puts oneself from the point of view of an unregistered user, this "Special Mature Operation" is a carnage.
This circus started 3 weeks ago and is getting worse day by day, with more and more publications falsely labeled "mature". Paying and/or former members like me are not spared.

Me who uses Deviantart as a public portfolio to showcase my fangame, here is what it looks like now for any logged out Internet user (i.e. the vast majority of my views).

Spoiler:

See our galleries strewn with "Mature content" inserts gives a very bad image of us and implying that we very often publish NSFW. Indeed, unlike other sites which explicitly mention that it is "suspected of being mature" by an artificial intelligence (and still leaves us the choice to see the image by confirming our will to see it), the blocking message de Deviantart firmly asserts that it is "mature" and suggests that this blockage is the work of human intervention.
And needless to say, there's no way around it, except by... registering on the site!
The icing on the cake: we learn that the administrators of Deviantart have set up this (catastrophic) bot to please their sponsors and to be able to put more advertisements. A hidden strategy of this censorship is also to force visitors to register on their site. (An experiment had been attempted a month ago by putting a recurring pop-up inviting guests to register it with each new image seen after a certain number had been viewed)

I, who have been a premium member of Deviantart for 4 years, feel betrayed. Especially if it's for my fangame portfolio to be banned from public visibility, because a badly programmed bot decided it unilaterally.
Finding it unacceptable that my art cannot be visible without hindrance to my target audience (the Pokémon community), I am therefore looking for an alternative where I can highlight the work done by me and my team on our Pokémon project.

 

[Yume Tsuki]

Its actually been doing that before the dreamup and i've looked into the rules of what will be mature filtered and its actually quite silly because any art provoking negative emotions is also being filtered on...

So basically that means all nuzlocke comics, including mine are to be marked as NSFW for any users without an account on DA...

I'm on the lookout for new places as well. Seems most people either move to Tumblr or Inkblot. Inkblot is pretty new and still in its bug fixing phase. So I'm giving that a try but still need to see if it sticks...

 

[Venia Silente]

You are always going to be hanging by the whims of a "please think of the children" administrator if you host your main portfolio on a third-party site. I can recommend a POSSE (Post in Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) strategy, which also is helpful in that it routes around shadowbans by design, but that requires you having a means to run your own image gallery for your portfolio (let's say in a VPS or something). It's not hard or expensive to do nowadays, but it *is* still just, in the end, extra work for yourself or work you'll have to outsource and pay someone else to do.

From what I hear, in terms of sharing art platforms, Tumblr, Dreamwidth and ArtStation are the places-to-go (yes, Tumblr still exists, and is going on a roll thanks to dA and everyone else being idiots!), but admittedly this is very far from being my area, so I I'd have to wait for someone else to confirm.

There's also the possibility of joining a Pixelfed Instance for distribution — but note Pixelfed, last I heard, is not for professional-storage, so your photos and pictures migth get compressed or flattened (removing metadata like colorspaces, licensing, etc) a lot. Think less DeviantArt more Instagram, except Good!Instagram, not Real!Instagram.

But, with a POSSE strategy as indicated above, it shouldnt be much of an issue which platform do you choose.

 

[Yume Tsuki]

Yes I can confirm as someone who stuck to Tumblr, despite the big NSFW purge when a big chunk of its users moved to twitter in protest, it's alright for art. It definitely meant a dip in terms of being a good platform for artists. Because in the end your exposure is dependent on others reblogging your stuff. There is no algorithm that will push your stuff in other people's faces when people only "like" your art. So tagging on there is pretty essential so people can find you.

That said, as of now, Tumblr is gaining a resurgence of artists, so the current balance might tip right back into more art exposure happening.

I'm not certain how traction would go regarding creation of games. I've seen a few around posting content once in a while on Tumblr. It might work. Though I will repeat myself it's all about being diligent about adding relevant tags to your posts so people can find you on the platform. And you can definitely customize your blog appropriately to your tastes and needs. So regarding that you might be able to set up a pretty neat place that showcases bits about your game.

 

[Kitty]

I can also definitely recommend Tumblr, esp with the whole Twitter shenanigans happening a bunch of the art community have started moving back (and encouraging others to move back to Tumblr) as well. Re: traction/support though, I did read about how advertising and getting posts out there would work (and it works differently). You'd be encouraged to reblog more posts rather than just liking to get your stuff out there. So it'll slightly be a bit more effort but... it's definitely an alternative!

Instagram would have been a shout if it doesn't require people to log in after a few scrolls. 😔 If you are able to stand by the shenanigans happening recently, Twitter is still reliable enough to get you that exposure. (And of course we can't forget on PC's forums since you are specifically showing off a fangame ;))

 

[Venia Silente]

Oh yeah, I've heard of PC's forums somewhere. Seem to be a nifty place with dedicated art and games sections, and my sources say they have pretty good CSS support for styling up your posts. You can even, within constraints, spice up your username.

Though, they are a forum first and not a distribution / release platform, so if you're gonna post art there you'll likely still have to link it from somewhere else. Ditto with games.

 

[Amras Anárion]

Thanks for your advice, after some thought, I've created an account on Instagram and Tumblr. I'm keeping Deviantart on the side, but will be posting much less often. I've clearly seen a drop in views on my latest posts, even on the more elaborate Fakemons that I use as a reference (like this one: https://www.deviantart.com/anarlaurendil/art/Nostra-938554519 ). Usually, I always exceed 6k views. Now, I'm only at 1k.
I also note that I already have a Twitter, but I only post in French.

Also, the shadow-ban wave has gone down on Deviantart, from 45% (at the worst time) to 9% of my gallery blocked. Their artificial intelligence has become less sensitive (before, the slightest foot / paw / piece of fur or any vague shape that resembled it would trigger the bot), but it's still 9% too much.
Fun fact: it's mostly pixel art from Fakemons that is still blocked.

I also take note of your invitation to post my images on this forum, even if the format is less optimized (scrolls and navigation between several pages). If I have to create a specific thread for fangame art, is this the place to do it?

 

[Duck]

Yup. Just make a thread here and post them (maybe on spoilers or whatever so you don't have to load all the pictures at once).

Also, regarding Tumblr, here is a post telling general tip for artists going to Tumblr!