That's the biggest peeve of mine. To me, this type of "hip and trendy" feel the staff constantly mentions in their site updates these past couple months is getting annoying, and they aren't really doing too much update wise that helps the site. I see soooooo many good offers to help the site productivity wise for the community or people pointing out specific site bugs, and those are rarely looked upon or mentioned in site updates. I personally believe that these type of "trendy" updates are attracting MORE social media addicts and LESS artists, writers, etc. that is the life and blood of this website. Remember a long time ago where they first really started to put on more social media references, as well as suddenly take a TON more profit from artists then before?
I saw a lot of really good artists leave the site during that shop update, and many haven't returned much to my dismay. I'm a little worried another mass migration of great artists, writers, and people will leave DA now that it really has become more of a social media site then an actual art-art site, if that makes any sense. Personally I'm not going to leave this site, as I've met too many good people here and I like to show my art in more then one place, and this was the site that actually got me into doing art.
I mean, the sad thing to say, because the staff just really refuses to actually unclog their ears of high horse ear wax, we're all going to have to deal with it. I kind of like how we can see the tags, but I REALLY want the option to disable them and put some freakin' spaces in. That would be WONDERFUL.
However there is ONE THING I would like to point out!! The staff added in some pretty dumb features, and one of them is to track people on what they favorite and such else. I found out from someone else that you can actually DISABLE people from following your favorites folders (aka collection folders). I'mma add images below for an easier explanation. It's a long process, but you go to your favorites, go into every favorites folder you have, and then click "Collection Options" then check off the box that says "disable". This'll prevent people from following your folders. Sadly, I don't know if you can do this for the main favorite folder. I dunno but this kind of stuff on a site like this is a huge invasion of privacy, and is overall annoying.
Many years ago there was a Daily Deviation that was about "yo we should totally have some kind of follower feed so we can see all the favorites and comments they make, as well as what they edited!" and holy crap the community went nuts with NONONONONONONO. Yet, somewhere in the bottom of the blackest abyss of my heart and mind, I somehow knew that someday, they would incorporate that annoying feature into the site. LOOKS LIKE IT CAME TRUE UGH.
But yeah, I'm not a super hater of the new layout, but I really don't like this social media route this site is taking. They already have a FB account, so you'd think they'd be happier. Eh.
