I agree that Side7 has a great community and that the number one thing to keep in mind is to try to preserve that culture throughout whatever changes are to come. That's the selling point of the site, it's a return to the pre-algorithm days. I'm not against suggestions, upgrades or quality of life features being added but I'd like to avoid this place being transformed into something unrecognisable in an attempt to replicate or replace other sites.

Thank you for the promotions of the site.

In what context do you mean by "technological capabilities"?
-- BK

It is my goal to work hard to maintain the community and preserve the culture of the site. Without the community, this site is nothing.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of applying an algorithm to everything. There are times and places where they work well. I'd rather keep the presentation of the art uploaded to the site simple and straight-forward. No silo-ing.
-- BK

Software-wise. I'm not big into coding but I feel like there'd be a difference between, say, someone recommending a new aesthetic design and someone recommending building a publicly usable online radio station into the site.

I'd like to think that I'm pretty capable in the coding department. I mean, aside from a few coding libraries that the site uses, mostly for front-end work, the site is 100% written by me.
-- BK

I like how inviting the site seems too, and I’m still going to use this site as an archive for my older artwork, and newer future artwork. (I’m slowly learning on coding as well tbh, but for my personal website.)

Yeah I agree. Sites using HTML to do what it's not supposed to, like over-reliance on CSS formatting tend to make the site very buggy. It's better to have a site that isn't over-responsive (solid) and under-responsive (slow). Sites like these shouldn't have to over-rely on Javascript because they are submission-oriented. To save bandwidth it's far better to cache properly at the client-side and use more lightweight streamline HTML rather than decorative SPA/AP. It's better for the website developer to code stuff themselves so they don't rely on the outdatedness of frameworks, though I think it's good practice to document code enough for future maintainers if ever are needed. There also is a difference in website development and website design, the latter refers to the UX engineering and the appearance (e.g. styling) primarily, while the development is primarily the runtime code and how the design is employed.

Like what's the point of getting the user to download heavy JS frameworks just to give a site like this game-like responsiveness for underused features? All that does is tax the server and client with larger bundles of data to cache, and if there's no cache at the client then more just gets downloaded. These older style websites always feel snappier for this reason, and the other sites just use those frameworks to make their developer's portfolios more false depth. Really only "web-apps", e.g. sites that allow the user to create documents and art for example should use complex frameworks but ideally I would argue WebAssembly should replace JS frameworks for such sites just so that those devs aren't entirely locked to the web. Overengineering is not something art sites need to do, though.

As for algorithms, all computer code involves some form of algorithm, but usually when people criticise "algorithm" usage they mean algorithmic bias and code clutter. For example it's a good idea to use databases that have speedy algorithms for lookup but its not a good idea to complexify searching by exposure penalties like DA does for "recommended images". Instead the image's creation time can add "recommended images" and if the recommended images no longer exist, only then are list-computing updates needed. It's pretty good to separate "direct lookups" in databases with "list-computing lookups" as the latter is slower. With DA you don't notice the speed hiccup but that's because they have faster servers and proprietary infrastructure. Likewise over-reliance on cloud technology is just going to introduce downtimes and work for the site developers.

Looking at how people data-scrape these days, I think that one form of "protection" art gallery sites can offer is using something like HTML Canvas (with or without WebGPU) to "protect" images from screengrab at higher resolutions. Basically what you can do is create a relative-mouse pannable canvas context that shows the whole image as-is or on-hover zooms into say 100% pixels for a part of the image (or whatever the uploader sets). Because data scrapers don't have easy access to the whole image nor in a timely fashion, it means you can show the full-res image without giving away the full-res image as-is. Similar if data scrapers tried to "capture" the whole image by automatically panning top-down left-right this is "detectable" as a non-natural behaviour and so can receive "forced" subtle offsets and varied aliasing so that the data-scraper can't easily patchwork it together. It is effective, and relatively simple to code, and HTML Canvas is widely supported on most browsers. WebGPU offers better protection eventually due to GPU-only texture ownership allowing preventing the full image from being easily "grabbed" from the runtime, but it's not quite at web-readiness yet.

Similarly it's possible to add "invisible watermarks" that hash and encode username and timestamp into an image if its permitted to be downloaded from a website, though this is potentially shreddable it does mean if a open dataset for an AI model ends up with the artwork claiming it to be "public domain" then the invisible watermark will tell you which user downloaded the image from the site. That would only be viable if a) the user had a login, and b) the author opted to only allow logged-in user downloads and didn't upload to other sites. It just allows the logging of users as a means to warn/strike them. There's many ideas on this, but such watermarks is so easy to do with free scripts and even if someone who does it is never caught, it offers some peace of mind.

Had this reply half-done in my notes file; finally following it up. Some of it is commentary, some of it is crosslinks to previous discussions for useful reference.


I do know notifications are sketchy on Firefox.

There is none, but that may change...

Aye, details are a little bit scattered and not always crosslinked. At some point I want to sit down and map out pages that should reference each other.

Short answer is, profile pages have only very recently (read: since May) emerged from a barebones design. Revamping user pages has been in the works since November at least; Journals are filling what was literally empty space.

I've been meaning to compile a suggestion list of Credits-specific perks to help incentivize paid subscriptions, and at the forefront is a second storage tier.

Adblock's been built into Firefox for several years so I don't know how dA's ads work now, but I recall B*zzly was looking into in-house ads. Keeping it a dedicated track so it doesn't interfere with general browsing (cough cough dA) is an excellent idea; it's when the pay-to-play crowd starts tilting the algorithm that the problems start.

Counterpoint: I am slow and terrible and I will tilt the mean like you wouldn't believe.

It can be a little confusing, but "Portfolios" are dA-style gallery folders. "Unbranded Portfolios" are a Credits perk that strips the site UI for just-the-art-ma'am presentation, which is presumably what you mean for the latter—@Camazotz demonstrates it here.

The fact that between S7, dA and Inkblot, S7 is the only one that doesn't soak up my CPU within the first five seconds of loading the page, speaks volumes about "Web3.0" architecture.

The joke flopped, though, because I guess kids these days don't remember Zim. They'll have GIR and piggy pins on their hoodies, but not know who those characters were.

I am trying, though. I want to see my art friends break away from the algo Hell of social media apps that's making them feel so sad. I tell them that I feel so much less stress since moving away from the noise and focusing on Side7, but they seem to be afraid of reaching out and trying something new.

If it's not a sponsored, trending reel on Ig, it's “too much work” for them to discover it. Maybe someone with a talent for such things could whip up one of those catchy, drawing/coloring vids and we could comment bomb the heck out of it to bump it up into the Trending zone. I'd be down to help out in whatever ways I could.

Adding to this, I know a lot of people are turned off by joining sites that don't have apps. I've seen this a lot regarding places like Pillowfort, and -- while there are ways to turn sites into apps -- that's still too much work for some people. Maybe it's a convenience thing? Idk

People are also discouraged by sites that don't maintain 1:1ness with the desktop version. I think it's viable to make the web version work mobile-ready with a few tweaks. Then you can just put an electron app on Android store or some such. Considering the lack of resources a new site tends to have especially.

Quick question before I say anything else, does this website have any mobile apps?

I don’t trust apps, since Da’s app is pure garbage to use, can people at least make side7 into an app and added it on their home screen. I do that with some websites I login to. (Apps, or at least some of them are very very guilty of chucking in a boatload of ads in them.) (I also use newer phones and stuff.)

Not even a Smart TV app, the kind that when people need to unwind at night they grab some chips or ice cream, sit in front of their TV, and turn on the app?

Side note, I'm famous on DA for talking about suggesting one of these for them, making it like an automatic slideshow thing like the media station apps.

In development product there's something called MVP (minimum viable product). So it's best to focus on getting the site out there via the easiest engineered means rather than just adding smart features. Though it'd totally be worthwhile to have fancy features in time. Reminds me of spoon theory. I'm just not sure the devs here have time to make full separate apps on top of the site, though it's up to them of course :3

Tell a friend.

Read that Big BK is paying $500 a month for this joint.

Maybe we should take it upon ourselves to plug the site?

I've already brought someone over from Wysp. I'm thinking of hitting more people up, not even people I'm friendly with; just regular uploaders and send them the link.

We're all here name dropping sites like DA, Fur Affinity, Weasyl, Tumblr, Pixiv, Art station, etc.

If you were there and came over here, why wouldn't other people find Side7 appealing?

[slides in here] soooo :] about that oekaki feature...

I have been a near-daily active user of a site that has the oekaki embed - called "chicken smoothie" (it's '08 humor babey) - and it is a ~thriving~ community. this is largely due to a feature of their oekaki where once you create a drawing, you can either post it standalone to your gallery, or choose to make it accessible to other users/artists. this is the BACKBONE of sooo much community participation. when you create an oekaki and make it accessible to other artists, anyone can come and click a "color in" button below your drawing. then, when the new canvas opens, it has an exact copy of what you did, layers and everything included, and I probably can't even list all the different ways people use this to enage with each other.

people make free bases, paid bases, adoptables, closed species, open species, oc games, room builders, character-makers, competitions, editable memes, art challenges, free and paid background packs, free coloring sheets, gift lines, group "pictures' (everyone draws an oc), guessing games.... there are more xD I'm stopping there though because the rest are so complex and often unique to CS that I'd have to spend paragraphs explaining their concepts. and beyond just being able to create different versions of 'editable" oekaki, once someone clicks "color in" on a drawing, it always links back to the original canvas. You can do this even if you're posting standalone to your personal gallery, so you essentially can create your own auto-linked 'series' and people use this for comics or 'ask my oc' games, all kinds of purposes.

I genuinely really love and enjoy chicken smoothie but it does have a weakness and that's that it's a website primarily built for kids/young teens, and everything on it has to be kept to 'PG' content or below. lots of people do a lot of stuff within that family-friendly rating and its great, but like, if you so much draw an oc with a bloody nose... eh. you get warned and/or your drawing is locked/removed. I honestly think a website with a similar functionality to chicken smoothie's oekaki plus a more adult-friendly rules system would be super attractive to a lot of artists. people get so creative and build so much with each other when they're enabled to interact with each other's drawings.

$500 bucks a month to keep the site up and running? That's a lot... I agree about telling friends about it, This site is cool, it deserves more engagement and activity.

You can probably cut the serving costs. The site isn't serving to a large amount of people atm. I don't know the memory size but the whole site can't all be in RAM right now. I wonder how big the hard disk space is but it might be advisable to put older stuff on slower, larger drives after a private backup, since old images aren't going to be accessed as often, are they? Many sites do this. Self, dedicated, scaled cloud and shared hosting are all alternatives for the cost of the runtime and serving.

And oh hey (since @Fihyn mentioned) I remember ChickenSmoothie. I remember it being around the same time as MapleStory and Neopets. Think Neopets was already around a while, though. I always felt that Adopts deserved their own tabs on sites though. They need a different format to others due to its base-oriented repetitive nature. Also I feel like a system for claiming characters as your own for roleplay and a exchange system was inexistent on sites that allow adopts. All that would really be needed is a "My Adopts" feature on profiles, an Adopts tab and the ability to create user-friendly Groups (not just for adopts), that could usher the freedom to roleplay and share images within a certain context. May be like DA groups but more customisable? That way the group feature can be expanded to harbour either art posting, RP or both with the addition of a Adopt-and-owner enlisting/exchanging widget. You could have a feature where you select certain "adopts" to draw in your art which is like a permission system for open/owned/closed species or open/owned/closed characters. That should need minimal coding and would be something you can quickly populate. Putting adopts too core to the site itself would probably push others away though so I definitely think it should be a profile/group addition as well as its own browsable tab.

Certainly Oekaki is a nice idea, though a modern Oekaki software would be fancy as new kids have moved on to fancier tools. For now you could just import some simple Oekaki software but having the best available is a plus.

I wanna mention that my suggestion is more about allowing or implementing interactive oekaki than it is about creating an adopts tab. :0c ‘adoptables’ as a genre of art is only one activity out of a dozen or more that CS uses interactive oekaki for.

@Fihyn Yeah and don't think there's a need to couple adopts to oekaki exclusively especially since adopts aren't inherently oekaki. Though I don't think interactive oekaki needs separation do you? I imagine at most you can have Oekaki groups or Oekaki widget for groups and may be profile tab to separate oekaki from a user's main gallery (mostly for personal quality control I guess?). But it's not a unique implementation. Ideally it helps to have very few features that cover the range needed, e.g. like by having groups instead of too many dedicated functions. Or the site would get messy to explore pretty fast

I was just giving a comprehensive list of examples of how one community elsewhere on the web uses the interactive oekaki feature 😅 I don’t think it’s necessary for Side7 itself as a site to have a built-in adoptables tab like deviant art does or anything. if the interactive oekaki were to be implemented here and people started making adoptables with it, and it was necessary to address that organization-wise then I’m sure that would be an administration thing. but idk if you noticed but there are about 12 other examples on the list I gave that have nothing to do with bases or adoptables.

edit: okay correct me if I’m wrong but I guess you were also trying to say that interactive oekaki just doesn’t need to be a separate feature on the site and it might make navigation confusing. xD so I have to say I disagree! my suggestion is basically the premise of “I think interactive oekaki as a major feature would increase site participation.”

I think artists tend to prefer their own art software. Spamming the site with oekaki might not give a sense of fairness for art that isn't oekaki. Ideally art sites should be balanced (which DA doesn't do). And well DA only does Adopt as a feature for NFT people really, they never cared for adopts before.

I feel my point might be going unheard. 😅 I’m doing my best to respond to “Your Opinion Wanted: Ideas for increasing site participation” - and I don’t think that the idea of people being able to interact with each other’s art in the creative ways that oekaki would allow would be “spam.” It is so, so much fun. It’s so inspiring to be able to engage with other artists in the ways I listed above.

And I really disagree that it would somehow create a sense of unfairness in favor of oekaki because oekaki is a very, very limited program. It doesn’t even have things like a freehand select tool or a rotate tool. People would still create their best personal art on their own programs, but being able to put together games, challenges, and artistic lore through a localized program would give side7 a unique draw that lots of other places just don’t have.

I don’t think side7 would succeed if it tried to outpace modern art hubs like deviantart (and I don’t think it should, of course), so really the best way to gain site traction would be to make its niche something that’s special and would be attractive to small communities. and sure maybe that special something is another thing entirely, and maybe trying to implement such a feature in oekaki would be too much trouble anyways. But I just wanted to respond to the premise of the thread y’know.

Oh I'm not protesting your recommendation, I'm just thinking to spare the developer's energy is helps to develop the site in ways that tick multiple boxes at once. Also Sheezy kind of died due to oekaki because it encouraged high rate of posting, discouraging people posting longer term works. That's what concerns me. Not saying oekaki is bad but it would be good to filter it.