(LXXXVIII). Eclipsed

    1.      Want to read my lamenting about the May 20^th change to Eclipse?  Keep reading.  Be aware, these are JUST my feelings and not something to take as me saying they are FACT…

    2.      Want nothing to do with me?  Close this notification out.  No hard feelings. 

    3.      Don’t want the rant, but want to give suggestions and/or keep in contact?  Fast forward to the end section, The Future.  Though, you do get a teeny taste of my lamentation to explain why I’ve written what I’ve written in this section.

As I am pointed toward (developing) art website alternatives by others, I will continue to list them at the bottom of this journal in The Future section.  I am by no means endorsing any of them, especially the presently unfinished ones, HOWEVER, I want to spread word for options to those that will seek to leave DA, or to at least provide those developing sites the feedback they're seeking while they site build. 

Disclaimer: In these being my feelings, there is no NEED to argue with me.  Everyone has their opinion and can express it tactfully, but since I am leaving commenting open on this journal entry, anyone can feel free to rant about their own grumblings regarding the upcoming forced conversation to a half-finished Eclipse.  People can even say they love it and why if they want.  But PLEASE, this is a “safe zone” to talk about the issue, so no attacking anyone else for their opinion or feelings.  This includes calling the Eclipse creators names, etc.  If I feel you are being a jerk, I will hide your comments.  Everyone is entitled to a tactfully stated opinion that is void of calling others names or insulting others for their viewpoints.

The Lament Cometh

It has come to this; a long, probably TL;DR for many, journal because I am literally that anxious about DA’s announcement of Eclipse being fully launched and the classic site having the plug pulled on around May 20^th, 2020.  It is NOT the good kind of anxious.

Most of my watchers will know I dabble in both drawing and writing.  Writing really has taken over as my primary focus.  I have even touched on painting and just started uploading some photography to my account.  I have, through my seven years here, found some AMAZING groups and WONDERFUL people.

I feel like that’s all been gutted out of my heart with DA’s decision.  That my home, my haven, has been stripped away from me.  And this is coming amidst a pandemic and my rejuvenated desire to breathe life into some of the groups I adore that are struggling actively at present; I find it very brutally ironic…

It’s not that the end of classic, community-focused DA is coming; this was inevitable.  It’s that when social-media, numbers-boosting, half-finished Eclipse comes out, so much has been NEGLECTED or REMOVED.  And at this rate, if anything is done about the neglect, it will be last-minute, rushed, and agonizingly poor quality.

I have personally filed multiple forms of things to improve, glitches found, and questions asked.  Not once did I get responses.  I am more than inclined to think that myself and all others that did file these and tried to be as civil as possible, we were essentially ignored.

I am SICK and TIRED of being told to give Eclipse a chance and to use it.  I have tried.  I even have things I like about it.  (Seriously, I do!)  I dabble in it at work during my breaks routinely.  But the truth of the matter is, it is awful and there is no sign to change any of the egregious issues.

One.  The “death” of the literature community

The literature community is small compared to the visual work community, but the lit community is still large.  And it was tight-knit in many, many ways.  From day one, it was obvious that Eclipse was being catered toward visual works.  Elements that have been crucial for literature deviants are void and missing in Eclipse.  The sta.sh writer was essential for maintaining formatting—I’m not even talking about anything fancy, but those BASIC things like indenting a paragraph in a piece of prose for easier reading purposes so it looked more like a finished work than a super long Tweet.  What is out there now, it does not maintain any formatting.  If one has viewed thumbnails for many literature works now uploaded through Eclipse, the lines all just ramble on into one string of words and if you click on the work, you might see the individual lines.  There is no customization of “literature tags” anymore to identify a writer, there’s not even a good preview image for the literature work.

The deviations themselves, the literature lines literally bleed into the author’s description and the comments made in response to the deviation.  There is no separation of the literature from anything else on the screen and this is just atrocious for reading purposes.  This site used to look semi professional, now it looks like a glorified Tumblr page.  I left Tumblr for reasons…

DA’s adherence to their lack of love for literature is noticeable in the little things.  When you go to submit a work, literature submissions were placed BELOW journal/status updates.  Essentially making literature not the same as submitting a “deviation,” they also became ranked lower than social media moanings.  It’s great to have the personal life capability on DA, but now it seems for it and the mass-watching of numbers are the priority.  That hurts, a lot.

Two.  The death of customization

And I don’t just mean the HTML coding to spruce up a very bland and plain basic account.  I honestly don’t know squat about HTML, but I totally respect and appreciate everyone that does.  Customization was a lifeforce for deviants, from skins to pagedolls, to personalized buttons to advertise commissions and other forms of art being open/closed/not available, etc.

The majority of this has efficiently been ripped out in supposed favor for making display easier on mobile devices.  This begs the question of WHY DOES A MOBILE APP EXIST THEN???  If you have a mobile app, why is the primary site being geared toward mobile devices as well when poll after poll between artists in the community have shown that many of us still use full-functional computers to create and upload our works?  This catering to mobile devices in both restricting functionality on computers while simultaneously adding features to improve mobile device use just boggles my mind.  Hey, great to make mobile devices use the site better, but destroy functionality of computer users by the ones that generate the products that are put up for sale?  It just does NOT make sense from a business standpoint, which this is all that the creation of Eclipse has seemed to be about quite honestly.  And somewhat understandably, but NOT this crippling of computer creators facet.  Something about this part just never added up to me in my head…

Anyone that has not had the privilege to work with classic DA will never understand what I am talking about, but I will show you some screencaps of Classic DA versus Eclipse DA.  A deviant’s gallery can further be subdivided into sub-galleries for Core members (I live by this feature to organize and not have a billion folders at the onset).  In classic DA, all galleries AND sub-galleries have the ability to have a special ICON uploaded as the folder image as well as the ability to write a description for them.  Eclipse has taken this away.  It is toted proudly that a cover image can be displayed on the gallery folders.  This HAS to be a deviation IN that gallery.  You presently have NO ability to shift or alter what part of the deviation is displayed.  You do also have a description for your gallery folders, HOWEVER, it is now shown in a minimal amount and you have to click to see more, rather than having it all displayed.

Three.  The death of PNG-based GIFs.

With the change to Eclipse, there was some change to the PNG images.  I don’t quite understand it all, but something to do with reducing the file sizes, so these lovely PNG images made in cell-fashion to not have backgrounds, particularly with animated GIFs, now have these ghastly white pixilated surroundings on many of them and the overall quality compared to the original work is lost.  Maybe there’s a work-around, but if there is, I haven’t discovered it…

But these precious PNG-based GIFs were important to many deviants, whether they be pagedolls to sell for others to use, to making little animations, or even as gallery icons.  They were a very big element that is now seemingly crippled.

Four.  The "phasing out" of journals.

Something else I had brought up in one of my form-filled suggestions was returning journals to their proper, self-isolated element on the profile pages.  In Classic, there's a nice widget that you can have for journals.  A separate one for polls.  I am personally frustrated they don't have it for status updates.  Now with Eclipse, all three are lumped in together as a minimally viewable object until you click on it.  The best option you have for any of these to highlight one is to pin it so it's at the top of the new Eclipse Posts widget.

Five.  Endless Scrolling Fails Epicly

So, Eclipse boasts endless scrolling and I know people asked for pagination.  Did we get it?  I feel like the creators said yes?  Anyway, endless scrolling is so broken with Eclipse, I can’t help but laugh.  Doesn’t matter the device—my iPod, my iPad, my computer, my work computer—all cannot handle the endless scrolling and it keeps freezing, skipping, reloading…  Web browser seems to be an equal-opportunity-freezer/skipper as well—Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, AND Safari.  Yep, I’ve reported it.  And heard nothing.  I AM LITERALLY TRYING TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE, ECLIPSE…and still, it freezes on all devices, all platforms.

Six.  Eclipse isn’t Finished

Admittedly, I kinda saw this, but never really put two and two together until some others were pointing it out.  Eclipse isn’t finished on all regions of DA!  Groups and the forums (I think) haven’t had Eclipse options available up until this point?  Unfinished products never make sense to me, so this begs me to believe it’s a financial/business issue, one or more reasons.  It makes me feel this is just being thrown out there at this point to say, “Here, it’s done, but we promise there will be updates to fix all the problems you keep providing in feedback.”  I doubt the issues I need resolved will get any attention at this point since they have been ignored up until now, especially if it IS a financial issue.

The Future

So why am I lamenting finally in a seemingly permanent journal entry, as opposed to one of those temporary sputterings I have done in the past?  Well, because my future here on DA is very questionable.  DA admins have acknowledged that the lit deviation presentation in Eclipse needs a major overhaul.  They also promised it would happen.  It has not.  Nor is it likely to anytime soon, IF AT ALL, with the projected switch date to Eclipse in exactly one month.  Anything that IS put out to cater to writers or the literature community is going to be something thrown together last minute to “appease” us and likely NOT be properly done or properly fixed.  Classic DA has needed some things and they have never come, so I don’t see it starting now with Eclipse.

There is no point for me to remain on DA if this is the way it is going to go.  I NEED that literature focus to consider this website worth what precious little free time I have to devote to it.  Core membership is useless if I don’t have the customization I have personally asked for repeatedly to be maintained in the sub-gallery folders.  I doubt reinstating the ability to place icons on the sub-gallery folders and reinstating the descriptions in the sub-gallery folders will happen.  They have not addressed that concern and it doesn’t seem to be on their radar as an afterthought.

Being an artist that creates literature AND visual works, I need a community website that fosters BOTH.  Eclipse does NOT and likely NEVER will.  So, what I am asking if for my DA friends to help me find another site to transition toward.  I should say, THIS IS NOT SET IN STONE.  DA could have a miracle and fix all I need fixed to make Eclipse worth my energy.  I doubt it, but it’s a possibility, I admit.  And honestly, I DON’T want to leave DA.  But, I feel like it is likely inevitable and in a way that I am forced into the decision, rather than purely of my own choosing.

So, my question is to everyone else out there, does anyone have a great recommendation for a community-based website that fosters both literature and visual works?  I don’t want a social media platform (they are for side promotions in my eyes to the main website due to their sore lack of community spirit).  I want the community aspect; it is why I have kept on DA for so long, even with the imperfections of Classic (yes, Classic isn’t close to perfect either).  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave comments, as I am already aware other deviants are looking for options in case they make the difficult decision to leave DA if elements vitally in need of fixing on Eclipse aren’t addressed.

My other question is to my DA friends; you have all been very important in my finding a little niche where I could feel a part of myself that is hidden from most in the “real world” could be expressed, even liked by the few of you out there kind enough to follow and interact with me.  I don’t want to lose touch with these precious people, so if anyone is staying put or moving to another platform, please let me know.  We can even share e-mails or some other kind of communication so that we have a way to reach the other if the inevitable departure from DA happens to one or both of us.  Who knows?  Maybe even if we all move on for a while, Eclipse will be changed in the future and we’ll all be drawn back to the home we had once found here.  Point is, you’ve all been important to me and I don’t want to lose touch, whatever decisions I or any of you make.  (For more personal communications, you can feel free to note me instead of commenting). 

No, this is not my “goodbye to DA” journal…but in my heart, it feels like it could very well likely be on the road to that.  I will say it again: I don’t want it to be.  But, I need DA to give me something in return and it’s not.  The things I value essentially have been spit on and deemed unnecessary.  At this stage, I just want to begin preparing myself and make sure I reach out to those I don’t wish to lose contact with because if people leave, some will jump sooner than others…

Even if I do migrate away, I’ll likely keep the account around, at least for a little while, to keep crossing paths with others and set up alternate methods of reacquainting, whether it be here, other platforms, or more direct means.

DA Accounts for Upcoming Art Website Alternatives