Recent announcements concerning dA's relationship with AI learning programmes have led to massive public backlash against a mealy-mouthed opt-out policy, with concerned long-time users shuttering their galleries in fear of being scraped. How much slack can Side 7 pick up?

Having been burned in the Chernobyl meltdown that was Buzzly.art and discovering InkBlot was built more in line with Twitter, finding a site with the Old dA vibe and a proven track record was the godsend I'd been awaiting since way back in 2015. However, I'd heard rumours that Side 7's financial situation is break-even, and while there are plenty of people I know who would love to join, not so many would be able to pay. Seeing what happens when a skeleton staff is swamped with a sudden influx of new users, I'm worried whether the site is able to handle a mass migration—to say nothing of how it might disrupt the small-town community feel it's cultivated for itself.

Long story short, has Staff given thought to a strategic plan for expanding operations, and are there hard numbers for what it would need in the short term?

All good questions.

I just heard about the dA decision this afternoon, so I'm still looking into what that might mean for Side 7. Of course, having more users on the site, especially if they're active, would be awesome. I'm not 100% convinced that many of the people who are choosing to leave dA will end up here. But, with that being said...

The infrastructure behind Side 7 is pretty robust. It's built on a scalable cloud platform, so it can grow or shrink to meet demand and traffic. That's not a worry at this time. Financially, with the exception of the very occasional donation, Side 7 is and always has been 100% out-of-pocket for me. That started all the way back in 1993, and has remained the case. I have vowed never to make Side 7 pay-to-play. No user will ever be required to pay to use the site. Even the perk upgrades can be earned through participation on the site rather than paying for it, although paying for the perks to get them immediately is an option.

Now, if we were to get a huge influx of users to the site, I am unsure of how that would change the community. I would hope that the community would continue to be cordial, friendly, and "small-town" as you put it. Even if that does change, though, user groups is a feature that is in the works, so that small-town feel could be maintained within a user group. But, I'm unsure how to predict the social changes that would occur from a large influx of users.

This is currently an on-going discussion behind-the-scenes. Hopefully, any new influx of users will not cause any detriment, but we're taking into consideration contingency ideas.

-- BK

Well, if you're confident you can handle the server overhead, I'll start spreading the word amongst my inner circle. My biggest fear is inadvertently snuffing out a promising dAlternative with too much too soon. ^^;

I appreciate the caution. But, feel free to let others know about the site. Make sure they know your username so you can get credit for the referrals!

-- BK

Wooooah hooohoooah!

Taxi.

So, having catastrophically fumbled "Web 3.0", dA's venture into AI-gen has provoked legal blowback.

I've been strategically pacing my mirrors to keep from swamping the front page, but if the consequences push the site to fold, I might need to pick up the pace. D:

Yeah, I saw an article that dA was included in a class action lawsuit over the AI stuff. Don't know what the outcome will be, probably just a settlement of some kind. Either way, it'll be interesting to see how things go.
-- BK

Agreed. The companies involved in the lawsuit would have to settle in order to keep their services running and probably either deactivate or restrict the AI. This certainly feels like it can go someplace, but I kind of wonder what might happen if dA is told to shut down the AI. Would anyone go back?

Good question.
-- BK

sadly I probably would not end up going back. 😔 if this was the very first outrageous misstep that dA had ever made, then I would. But it’s one thing of many in a long line of misconduct on behalf of the dA staff, and I think my faith in the integrity of the website has been irreparably dashed. I really did hold out through a ton of bad (I’ve been on dA since 2007), but I think it’s good for me to know when to move on.

That's pretty crappy that people abused you over a couple of posts.

As I see it, there are three broad possibilities:

1. The suit fails or is thrown out. Users continue to leave out of fear dA now has carte blanche for art theft. Monetization intensifies to make up for the shortfall. The site gets worse.
2. The suit succeeds or Wix settles; dA survives. Monetization intensifies to recoup the losses. The site gets worse. Users continue to leave. A vicious cycle ensues.
3. The suit succeeds or Wix settles; dA folds. Decades of art, history, and correspondence are lost.

Suffice to say, there is no way dA emerges unscathed, and no outcome truly beneficial to the userbase. As multiple people have stated, the fact a suit was even filed casts a permanent shadow over the site. I'd said back when Eclipse débuted I'd jump ship to the first viable alternative; literally the only reasons I still use it are a) preserving posterity, and b) it's served as a filehost after ImageShack went pay-to-play, though Imgur has since moved to permanent hosting so I can presumably fall back to it.

As I remarked in conversation on dA, my assumption was public sentiment was overwhelmingly against AI-gen; it was surprising enough learning there are diehard stans, but it was honestly frightening that the zealots would hit such a low profile so hard, so fast, over what weren't even provocative takes. I thought we'd left that sectarian BS back with Buzzly.

All the more ironic, in hindsight.

I think it's for the better that I joined here, just in case DA completely croaks, I'm still slowly archiving my older art here and there from my DA, since I don't want to spam it on my Newgrounds. DA is still stepping on their own feet, not like that's going to change anytime soon, the AI spam isn't helping at all either imo.

2023 Edit: I deleted my Newgrounds and I'm still planning on archiving some more of my older art on here and some other places, just privately.

2023 5/16 Edit: Still planning in posting all of my older art in a storage repo I make from scratch with html, alongside a website/blog from scratch as well.

In my interpretation of the issue, the AI situation isn't really the most important situation one can look at when analyzing the backlash it has gotten in the preceding years. If any chapter of its life was, that prize would go to the upgrade to Eclipse. The whole AI thing comes off as exaggerated... at least after realizing it's an inevitable two-sided dilemma wrought on every website that only affects one of the three art mediums (digital art, the other two being traditional art and photography). It's a lobbyist versus lobbyist fight not unlike the one that occurred when the printing press was invented. If people don't resort to slander, DeviantArt will be fine.

I left DeviantArt on the first of July, once half of 2022 was over, and the very first website I began using full-time was Reddit. I would use that as a sort of hub to bring attention to other websites I'm on, but I would later realize how good it is for art, so good that the only reason I use other websites is because I was so plentiful with it. The DeviantArt subreddit itself, technically, could count as a candidate to take DeviantArt's spot. The Inkblot subreddit, r/InkblotArt, at only a few weeks old, was seen as a challenge by Jay, the founder of Inkblot (although his reputation doesn't help him as replies at https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1516990 show). On the one hand, one response is to say "don't underestimate the power of a website to hand on", though on the other hand, equally, one might say "don't underestimate the power of others to take the lead".

In any case, I give my best wishes to Side7. If Side7 is trying to get by economically, one word of advice I'd give it is to not fall into the cliche merch mindset. A lot of websites... DeviantArt, Buzzly, Inkblot, etc... think "we need money, time to roll out the t-shirts and coffee mugs". Don't do this. In the grand scheme of things, clothing, coffee mugs, and so on with your name printed on them is not going to help. Do you realize how many companies and websites do this? Have you ever heard anyone say "I got suggested to this website by the shirt of someone I saw in Wegman's"? Anyone? Ever? Maybe once in a very, very great while. It's not that it's not worth a try (and I've made it a habit to "collect" website shirts), but that it's worth anticipating failure if Side7 does that. Crowdfunding (Patreon, GoFundMe, etc.) isn't spectacular but it's "better". Ads work well, although nobody wants them for some reason. A strong suggestion I'd have is maybe Side7 could have premium contests, with the winner getting a good (real) prize. People absolutely LOVED those on DeviantArt, and yet there was always room for even more creativity on what the contests could be about.

Back in the late '90s we did t-shirts and some other merch. We did alright with them at the time, but then again, things like that were pretty novel. No, we're not considering merch again. We used to have site-wide contests with real prizes (Prismacolor pencil sets, marker sets, etc.), but that was all handled out-of-pocket like everything else (and before I had kids, LOL). It didn't increase our income, either.

A long time ago I swore I would never put ads on the site. Ad providers like to collect as much personal information as they can, and then sell that data. I don't want Side 7 (or myself, for that matter) involved in that. I hate that practice.

I'd love to hear more about how the premium contests were handled over on dA. Might be something to emulate.

-- BK

Whuddaya gonna sue the artificiallies?

Gewd luck!

Maaaaan, I want a shirt now...

Yeah, in all fairness, some people on DA did take the AI spam out of proportion, and that's why I became neutral and apathetic about the whole situation, the AI spammers acting nasty and smug aren't helping either, but whatever, I still believe DeviantART will end up destroying themselves one day anyways, I wouldn't even hold my breath for the site's future. Sorry for the dumb rambling. I also want to add that DeviantART should've made the customization of user profiles free, I was once gifted core a year ago, and I just gave my profile page a skull background, but it's not new that DeviantART is greedy about core membership tbh.

It's sad witnessing a site like deviantArt go down this way. Apparently things weren't so hot behind the scenes either, based off the comments from staff members that were posted on the retirement journal of the CEO Spyed. I know there's ups-and-downs to everything, but that Wix purchase seems like it was the beginning of the end. :/

Luckily this site exists, though. I've only just made my account, but I'm already enjoying how Side 7 looks and feels.

chromatic_mortality:

It's sad witnessing a site like deviantArt go down this way. Apparently things weren't so hot behind the scenes either, based off the comments from staff members that were posted on the retirement journal of the CEO Spyed. I know there's ups-and-downs to everything, but that Wix purchase seems like it was the beginning of the end. :/ Luckily this site exists, though. I've only just made my account, but I'm already enjoying how Side 7 looks and feels.

Got plans do yas?

chromatic_mortality:

Luckily this site exists, though. I've only just made my account, but I'm already enjoying how Side 7 looks and feels.

Aw! Thank you! Welcome to the site! I'm glad that you're here!
-- BK

I'm interested in contests too

No problem! And thank you, I'm excited to be here. ^_^ I can't even imagine how difficult it is to run a website with a three-person team (I briefly attempted website development while pursuing software engineering in college, and totally failed at both XD) , so thank you guys for staying dedicated and preserving Side7 all this time. Super excited to post more and be apart of what happens here

And now they're locking ad-free interface to that cOrE membership that nobody wants. Ho hum. https://www.deviantart.com/team/journal/An-Update-About-Ads-954638854

That's annoying as hell.
-- BK