Publisher's Note:
Due to the changes in DeviantART, @DeityDiz93, the maker of this journal post, had his account shadowbanned for unstated reasons. He is no longer able to post any content to DeviantART, be it uploading, making journals, or posting any comments. Anything he makes is immediately deleted. Therefore, I will be contributing his post for him, and responding to comments in his stead:
Adobe's Flash has come to its end on December 31st of 2020 and will be blocked on browsers come January 12, 2021. What this will mean is that the mainstream use of Flash is coming to an end for good, and as the create.swf of Walfas uses shockwave flash, this to is coming to an end of usability. Is it the end for the creators on this group, or the Walfas Station Wagon itself?
Thankfully, no, it is not. All this will mean is the end of using Walfas within the confines of the browsers specifically. Indeed for a couple years now we've been propping up a piece of software that's featured on our front page download of create.swf and create.swf extended, the Flash Player Projector. What this had originally been was a way to have our creators get off the browsers when using create.swf, but for Walfas, it has now become an absolute requirement to run any form of Flash content post Dec. 31st.
What will you need to have the utility to run Walfas now? Well, for the cause, this is a download link to the user pack that has been compiled to allow every one of our members a chance to run Walfas in the year 2021: https://mega.nz/file/clkSnCRR#DKnW1iTWUE9hiovUb_3qSPeXVrQeI-5S0fTY3sHlfGg
This pack includes the following, create.swf extended by @rsgmaker which is our modern standard and comes with the user manual and extra dictionary function, create.swf original by @KirbyM and @ThiefKnight which also comes with the original manual. This is the bare minimum of what our creators can use together running the create.swf files in the "flashplayer_32_sa.exe". Under the transition, this pack could see and exclusively Discord updated download with a lot more free-to-use resources for video creation, comic making, and editing guides and softwares. For now, this is the bare minimum everyone can use to get started with Walfas.
Now, because of the end of Flash, and KirbyM's departure from Walfas itself which happened a while ago, it has become quite obvious to most that Walfas as a creator's medium will not only end up as niche, but outright abandoned by the forces that let it happen, but as for our camp, we most definitely think Walfas will have its place in the modern day and we would rather it be in a new avenue that lets it flourish under its new niche. The fact of the matter is the website of DeviantArt itself is also not as privy to our medium as it once was with the enforcement of DeviantArt Eclipse, a blow that has seen much of our previous user-interface friendly aspects in falter, making it more of a chore to keep up with submissions and other various levels of much-needed control.
Therefore, the Walfas Station Wagon itself is in need of adaption to make room for changes that have come with the website's changes. So, yes, it is time to not just another announce to throw out play around with the idea of a complete move to Discord and Pixiv, but an actual move is needed, so we will make good on our last Town Haul's minutes and set that as a priority for 2021 as an officially executed effort.
For this group, it will be the end, come our next announcement, we will be no longer be accepting submissions to the DeviantArt Walfas Station Wagon. What this will mean for the group is that we are NOT closing it down, simply moving to Discord and Pixiv for access to a new voting system and uploading medium that will see the admin team have much more flexible and technical control, and the new site uploaded to will have much more sound systems for our community creators than the current state of DeviantArt does for our way of doing things.
While the group will stay up, it will no longer be managed, and will exists purely for archival purposes. Keep in mind that the group will still be managed after this announcement is live as we need time to enact the plans we have prepared for the move which will include updating our roles, and adding a bot which can act as submission accepting system similar to what is needed on this site. Due to the need to customize our group for the change, submissions will still be accepted until the next DeviantArt Group announcement is made, so your creations will still have a place to go until then.
So, when can you expect our next announcement here? We will largely be showing our progress of this move on our Discord to allow these changes to come into play. You can keep up with our announcements on Discord with the link here: discord.gg/cgrR4aC
The announcements we make there will not mean the end here, it will serve as the place to go to see in the leading days what progress we have made and when to expect the end of submission accepting within this part of our group.
To everyone who has followed us for all these years on this website, we sincerely thank you as without Walfas, many people wouldn't be where they are today. And while we are here to say farewell to the legacy we have had over the years on this page of the web since our origins in 2012, it's been a blast to experience Walfas as it is and was. With this announcement, we hope everyone will be happy to join us in our future direction and exploits.
See you next announcement, Walfasers.
_
We will host a Town Haul for a state-of-the-community address on January 18th for 2021. We have a doodle poll with the set time to get the Town Haul done, feel free to leave a comment, note, or Discord direct messages with any other suggested dates: https://doodle.com/poll/hqbc9hv9nd4wwrrd?utm_source=poll&utm_medium=link
The current date is subject to change whether or not we get enough No’s or Maybe’s to suggest not enough people can make it on the 18th; otherwise, we will hold the date of January 18thto be the date of the meeting henceforth.
Town Haul topics for the month to go over in order:
- The End of an Era for the WSW here, so what do you believe should be done?
Simply said, we have a variety of ways to make our move that we don't want to be limited to just the Discord/Pixiv route if something is better. We are open to hearing anything from ideas and suggestions; it can range from websites/resource suggestions we had yet to consider that would make a huge difference and added convenience to our members, or ideas like a repurposing of the DeviantArt group itself to kept it from being unused and useless. We want to hear your voice if you want to make a passionate argument or simply let us know your concerns with the plan, let's here it now so that none my have held their piece if they like things the way they will be now.
- Moving the Walfas Station Wagon YouTube’s channel to another video uploading medium.
Part of the reason we haven’t had as much creative minds able to congregate for last year’s Christmas sketches is that quite a few limitations are put in place to try and avoid the infamous copyright strikes coming to the channel. The lack of Fair Use protections, false flagging and report abuse, and vague YouTube polices, it is prudent consider the future moving to alternative websites to host our channel’s contents.
The current considerations are: https://www.bitchute.com | https://odysee.com/ | https://rumble.com/ | https://tv.gab.com/
We will likely be moving to BitChute as it has been discussed already, and it isn’t against Google’s Terms of Services to share accounts with another on there. For now we would simply be reuploading all our works there in the event our channel is taken down on YouTube itself, but as for the merits of whether we use it as purely our backup off YouTube, or as our new place of uploading, that is what is up in the air. Come into our Town Haul to discuss the logistics and the meaning of a switch like this. Either way it’s a topic born from the undesirable state of YouTube, and all the fundamentals of allowing the community to again use otherwise copyrighted clips, soundbites, and material to make content that falls under Fair Use and new guidelines the group makes post-full transition.
- Revamping the Rules and Channels for our Discord group.
There is a lot of necessary changes that will come with this move, one is a retooling of our channels to allow for full integration between Discord and what was originally DeviantArt’s old set of individual standards. Likewise, Pixiv usage and Discord submissions need their own set of standards apart from our original DeviantArt basic set of guidelines. Come to this topic to discuss the merits of the what this system is now versus what has to change to allow for this integration. Many ideas can be allowed and suggested, one of which is opening up more avenues for the many artists that draw within our server to have their place more prominently, as well as a revamp of community contests and if we could incentive them with community prizes or not.
- Projects Announcements and Publicity’s Future?
WE WILL NOT BE DOING PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS AND PUBLICITY THIS TOWN HAUL. Instead we will be talking about the future of this section of the Town Haul and where to best put it. In the past, we’ve had talks about making these it’s own monthly community event while leaving Town Hauls as needed, unfortunately we created a community chat, but it’s largely gone unused and is in need of reform, come to this topic to share your ideas and views.
- Anything we neglected to mentioned or ought to talk about.
If there's something you'd like to address in the Town Haul, this topic during the Town Haul is the time! Feel free to suggest a topic mention in the comments here ahead of time if you feel there's something to be addressed, whether it's a negative happening or something that can improve with the group. Please keep issues mentioned on the level in which the group as a whole is mostly aware of since in front of everyone, issues on an individual level are not as easily remedied, so bring up any individual issues in private with one of the admins before or after the meeting.
That should be that for the announcements. The we hope for a healthy, productive discussion on the future of the group as it pertains to Walfas and the Wagon. Be well, and we hope you all have a good year.
Walfas Station Wagon-Diz
It's not really an end, is it? Let us do well with the new.
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