Also while i just opened Sta.sh to get started with this, i realized that nearly 1/3 of my time as a CV is already up again, time flies for sure!
The year will start with the awesome "Journal Skin January" run by bradleysays. That means we will start with a blast of great free skins to hopefully get the skinning community active again - or new people interested in doing nice skins.
Additionally - which is why i made my poll - i want to do a "How to:" series for UserStyles. Starting with basic things and giving you step by step guidance of what to do how. This will not be a regular thing, but also depend on my time and motivation. Of course i can always quickly throw something together, but if it should make sense it also needs time.
I will also go on with random dArp articles and you are all welcome to suggest ideas for themes.
Those things are set, that means it will happen for sure. Now let's talk about things i have in mind, but am not sure about yet.
- doing interviews with dAr groups
- running a big contest that would be dA in general, so not limited to our beloved gallery
- doing critique events
- having themed DD weeks (like one week only stamps, next only IDs, next skins etc)
Now it's up to you to tell me, what would you like to see happen of the things listed above? Or maybe you have other ideas of what can be done. Whatever is on your mind, share it with me so that we can talk about it and see how we can make 2014 an interesting and great dAr year!
That DD thing again
As there recently has been some displeasure with a DD i currently gave, let's quickly talk about this again. Yes i will try to keep myself short! (:p)
It is totally fine for me if you don't agree with all the DDs i set. Art is a difficult topic and everyone has a different opinion about it. I don't have a problem with it when you state that you don't like a DD at that deviation page, but whenever you do that to blame me for bad decisions or 'mistakes' ALWAYS keep in mind that this will affect the artist in a bad way. It's their artwork that gets flooded with discussions about 'white knighting' or 'freedom of speech' (oh how much i loathe these arguments) and all those other random things people suddenly feel the need to talk about. Not often these kind of discussions end in a way that aren't even related to the art anymore.
More and more people will jump in and suddenly it's just about wrong or right / good or bad and the artwork you think didn't even 'deserve' the DD suddenly gets way more attention.
I know that many don't want to talk to CVs because they think it doesn't change anything, their opinion is set or any other reason, but you are always welcome to ask me why i did gave a DD. Via note, mail, skype or at my profile in case you want it to be public.
No matter your reasons for not liking a DD, even if you stay polite with your comment, it can quickly backfire at you. So this is not only to avoid pointless drama on a deviation page, but also to protect you.
My personal opinion about DDs:
If you are talking/arguing that an artwork or artist doesn't deserve something you already lost that conversation for me. Same when you mention that someone is working hard on getting a DD. No matter how much you see a DD as a reward someone needs to earn, that will change your entire life, will make you famous and rich... it is and always will be just a feature for 24hrs to highlight one artwork/person.
For me it is more a pleasure to give a new aspiring artist a DD who will see it as a great motivation boost, rather than giving it to artists who get suggested a billion times because they do perfect works that already attract a lot of people and who maybe won't even notice the DD.
dA is full of artists and usually one thing deviants complain about the most is, that always the same persons get DDs or those that are already popular. It's up to you to change that. I can tell you that it is pretty boring to see the same names in suggestions again and again.
Also you might want to check this:
<da:thumb id="331439533"/> <da:thumb id="320327409"/>
'dA Related shouldn't get DDs'Over my term as the deviantART Related volunteer (and even way before that) I've noticed that dA Related Daily Deviations tend to get some hate.Past dA Related volunteers have always included what category each Daily Deviation they feature is in hoping it would reduce the amount of "wtf is this?" comments.Here are some topics that I know have been addressed endlessly by various people, past and present, from the Community Relations team: What is a Daily Deviation? :faq61:A daily deviation is a feature of a submission. Please note that 'masterpiece', 'artwork' and other words are not mentioned in that particular FAQ. :)Another thing that is...
And yes that was longer than planned again, but we all know that i can get pretty talkative when it comes to this topic
