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Spreading the Word - Started by: Thorvald
Spreading the Word
Posted: 28 Dec 2022, 09:40 PM

As I stated in my introduction, I came to Side 7 seeking refuge from gross mismanagement on more 'popular' art sites. In the almost three months I've been here, I've liked what I've seen, and have tried to pitch it selectively to friends and colleagues whom I think could best make use of it. Unfortunately, my returns have been slim.

@SheevraSidhe0274 and I have been musing ways to boost this site's profile. An immediate answer is to consolidate individual haphazard recruitment pitches into an organized PR drive: S7's been spreading primarily by word-of-mouth, but authorizing teams to run official off-site kiosks through things like dA Groups can help advertise site features in a reassuring way. I expect after being burnt by the recent dA pretenders, people don't want to fly in blind—I know had InkBlot been upfront that it was "Twitter for Art", I wouldn't have bothered.

The longer-term, and much more complicated strategy, is to get competitive. Navigating all the different art sites is about juggling trade-offs, and as much as I love this place in the scant months I've been here, Side 7 is no different. Probably the two biggest features missing are a dedicated journal feature, and profile customization, with the latter specifically likely strung up by issues of resource overhead. But more features mean more code, which means more coding, and as I understand there are only two permanent devs for the site.

This leads to the third point: expanding staff. A lot of people have voiced interest in building their own dAlternative since Eclipse rolled out, but those with the skills typically don't actually have the time/money/organizational experience to do it whole cloth. In this respect, Side 7 is uniquely positioned to attract outside talent, having already gone gold and having years' worth of mileage. The issue, of course, is a) if it's not a self-sustaining business you're relying on volunteer work (and the volunteer work ethic), and b) time @BadKarma spends training recruits on the architecture is time not spent on maintaining the site himself.

Notwithstanding the growth dilemma, I believe Side 7 has the potential to go toe-to-toe with the big sites, if a stable development plan can be crafted. We're putting this forward for the siterunners' appraisal, and as an early gauge of interest for prospective volunteers.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 29 Dec 2022, 03:44 PM
This post has been edited 2 times. Last edit on 29 Dec 2022, 03:45 PM.
Thorvald:
As I stated in my introduction, I came to Side 7 seeking refuge from gross mismanagement on more 'popular' art sites. In the almost three months I've been here, I've liked what I've seen, and have tried to pitch it selectively to friends and colleagues whom I think could best make use of it. Unfortunately, my returns have been slim.


Thank you. I appreciate the support, regardless of the outcome.

Quote:
[@SheevraSidhe0274](/u/SheevraSidhe0274/gallery) and I have been musing ways to boost this site's profile. An immediate answer is to consolidate individual haphazard recruitment pitches into an organized PR drive: S7's been spreading primarily by word-of-mouth, but authorizing teams to run official off-site kiosks through things like dA Groups can help advertise site features in a reassuring way. I expect after being burnt by the recent dA pretenders, people don't want to fly in blind—I know had InkBlot been upfront that it was "Twitter for Art", I wouldn't have bothered.


I am open to any and all ideas. I would be more than happy to entertain the idea of a group of dedicated advocates advertising the site. You're correct in that we'd have to come up with a cohesive, consistent, and unified message. I welcome efforts to help craft that message.

Quote:
The longer-term, and much more complicated strategy, is to get competitive. Navigating all the different art sites is about juggling trade-offs, and as much as I love this place in the scant months I've been here, Side 7 is no different. Probably the two biggest features missing are a dedicated journal feature, and profile customization, with the latter specifically likely strung up by issues of resource overhead. But more features mean more code, which means more *coding*, and as I understand there are only two permanent devs for the site.


One permanent dev, and one cloud engineer. :) But, more importantly, the missing features can be developed and added to the site. Input on implementation would be welcome, of course. And, I'm curious about your definition of "customizable profile", just so that I'm on the same page as you.

Quote:
This leads to the third point: expanding staff. A **lot** of people have voiced interest in building their own dAlternative since Eclipse rolled out, but those with the skills typically don't actually have the time/money/organizational experience to do it whole cloth. In this respect, Side 7 is uniquely positioned to attract outside talent, having already gone gold *and* having years' worth of mileage. The issue, of course, is a) if it's not a self-sustaining business you're relying on volunteer work (and the volunteer work ethic), and b) time [@BadKarma](/u/BadKarma/gallery) spends training recruits on the architecture is time *not* spent on maintaining the site himself.


I have tried to attract outside talent before. I get one of two outcomes every time: a) people offer to help and profess absolute interest and enthusiasm right up to the point that I actually assign them work, and then they vanish, or b) I get no responses what-so-ever. Unfortunately, Side 7 does not make enough money to pay salaries for anyone. It's always been an almost 100% out-of-pocket expense for me and my family. Now, with additional staff, I'm absolutely sure some of that could be turned around due to faster code turnaround, some dedicated social media handling, advertising, and a larger thinktank on fundraising efforts. As far as educating recruits on the codebase, that's part of the job and a basic overview of the codebase and structure wouldn't take more than a couple of hours of time to go over and do some Q&A.

Quote:
Notwithstanding the growth dilemma, I believe Side 7 has the potential to go toe-to-toe with the big sites, if a stable development plan can be crafted. We're putting this forward for the siterunners' appraisal, and as an early gauge of interest for prospective volunteers.


Again, I'm open to additional help. My experience in the past for getting that help has been dismal. But, I'm not going to say "no" to offers of help. If we can put together a reliable team who is interested in helping the site to grow and compete, let's do it.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 30 Dec 2022, 03:28 AM

Uh, in regards to Side 7's income, I did happen to notice that the upgrade options for user accounts disappeared with the revamped site. Were you planning on bringing those back, or are they gone for good?

At the same time, I had an idea about customization. With the S7 Credits Store, you could entice users to spend the credits they gain for their artwork on purchasing customizations for their profile and gallery, things like alternate color schemes (which would help pages stand out from one another) or allowing them to paste their own artwork as the background image of their pages. Perhaps borders or color or shade effects for their avatars and maybe an additional box in the gallery that allows a user to place their favorite piece from their gallery at the top of the gallery. At the same time, some of the items in the store probably ought to be converted to money purchases so that artists can support the site and get the perks without the long wait of trying to build up credits.

I also second the idea of a journal feature. Something that can be posted to the profile page or maybe even its own, separate page. As I recall, there was a guestbook feature in the old site that might be nice to bring back, if possible.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 30 Dec 2022, 02:15 PM
fragmented_imagination:
Uh, in regards to Side 7's income, I did happen to notice that the upgrade options for user accounts disappeared with the revamped site. Were you planning on bringing those back, or are they gone for good?


They are coming back. Paypal just changed the way things work, and so I'm having to revamp all of that, and their documentation isn't the greatest.

Quote:
At the same time, I had an idea about customization. With the S7 Credits Store, you could entice users to spend the credits they gain for their artwork on purchasing customizations for their profile and gallery, things like alternate color schemes (which would help pages stand out from one another) or allowing them to paste their own artwork as the background image of their pages. Perhaps borders or color or shade effects for their avatars and maybe an additional box in the gallery that allows a user to place their favorite piece from their gallery at the top of the gallery.


I had thought of some of those ideas, but wasn't sure if they were things people really wanted.

Quote:
At the same time, some of the items in the store probably ought to be converted to money purchases so that artists can support the site and get the perks without the long wait of trying to build up credits.


The idea behind the credits system is acquiring them either through time and participation, or through buying them outright. And then credits was the currency through which all perks and such were gained. I just don't have the "buying them outright" part in place, yet.

Quote:
I also second the idea of a journal feature. Something that can be posted to the profile page or maybe even its own, separate page. As I recall, there was a guestbook feature in the old site that might be nice to bring back, if possible.


I'll have to see about bringing it back, then, and think about how to implement it in a manner that fits. For example, should people's journal posts show up in the Friends Feed, or only in someone's profile page? In other words, do you have to go to a specific user's profile to read their journal, or are entries curated in one or more of the feeds?

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 30 Dec 2022, 03:51 PM
BadKarma:
I had thought of some of those ideas, but wasn't sure if they were things people really wanted.


Your userbase is a bunch of artists. We wanna graffiti the whole page.

Quote:
The idea behind the credits system is acquiring them either through time and participation, or through buying them outright. And then credits was the currency through which all perks and such were gained. I just don't have the "buying them outright" part in place, yet.


Aaah, okay. Cool.

Quote:
I'll have to see about bringing it back, then, and think about how to implement it in a manner that fits. For example, should people's journal posts show up in the Friends Feed, or only in someone's profile page? In other words, do you have to go to a specific user's profile to read their journal, or are entries curated in one or more of the feeds?


Yes, by all means, have it pop up in the Friends Feed. Maybe a truncated message at least.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 30 Dec 2022, 10:30 PM
This post has been edited 6 times. Last edit on 30 Dec 2022, 10:38 PM.
BadKarma:
And, I'm curious about your definition of "customizable profile", just so that I'm on the same page as you.


If you're familiar with dA (old or new), users' profile pages are filled with customizable 'widgets' to show off most recent works, highlights of their personal best, snapshots of favourited works, etc. S7 has a bit of this already (friends list, commission details; dynamic links are a huge boon I haven't seen anywhere else), but profile pages currently come across more like an 'About' section divorced from the main gallery, rather than a front page that draws you in. As @fragmented_imagination says:

fragmented_imagination:
Your userbase is a bunch of artists. We wanna graffiti the whole page.


Customizable user-end HTML/CSS is probably a bridge too far at the moment, but things like the recent submissions box visible on the /user page can probably be mirrored on public profiles. Before Eclipse broke everything, the biggest incentive to shill for Premium on dA was being able to beautify the front page; on S7, profile customization would be a lucrative credits sink.

Related but separate is whether it's possible to configure client-side customizable UI, akin to site skins; Sheevra says the current scheme causes her headaches after prolonged use. I know from my experience with VPNs and Linux that it's technically possible to override/bypass a site's defined font(s). (Side note, what does S7 use?)

BadKarma:
I have tried to attract outside talent before. I get one of two outcomes every time: a) people offer to help and profess absolute interest and enthusiasm right up to the point that I actually assign them work, and then they vanish, or b) I get no responses what-so-ever. Unfortunately, Side 7 does not make enough money to pay salaries for anyone. It's always been an almost 100% out-of-pocket expense for me and my family. Now, with additional staff, I'm absolutely sure some of that could be turned around due to faster code turnaround, some dedicated social media handling, advertising, and a larger thinktank on fundraising efforts. As far as educating recruits on the codebase, that's part of the job and a basic overview of the codebase and structure wouldn't take more than a couple of hours of time to go over and do some Q&A.


Aye, I know that feel. There's one person I know who seemed pretty determined to set up his own site but was waylaid by Real Life™; I'll see if he can chip in.

BadKarma:
I'll have to see about bringing it back, then, and think about how to implement it in a manner that fits. For example, should people's journal posts show up in the Friends Feed, or only in someone's profile page? In other words, do you have to go to a specific user's profile to read their journal, or are entries curated in one or more of the feeds?


I'd put it in feeds. Several of my literature submissions were originally submitted as journals, representing more stream-of-consciousness op-eds v. thought-out long-form; more professional artists typically use them for news announcements, so they're assuming people want to be notified. ;) If-and-when the Museum is overhauled to be more customizable, there could be a user-end option to flag 'priority' posts versus the opt-in tagging games and other petty diversions.


Veering back to the managerial theme, many of Sheevra and my concerns are focused on, for lack of a better term, "Buzzly-proofing" this site. For those spared the nightmare, Buzzly.art was a fork of the ArtRise project by its remaining functional developer, allegedly with embezzled funds. Run by a group of starry-eyed young adults with no corporate experience, its management was a travesty almost from the word go, with a rough but functional site devolving into one of the most toxic communities I've personally witnessed. A complete chronology involves forum drama irrelevant to the topic at hand,* but one of BA's enduring legacies is polarizing the debate around artistic freedom to a hypermilitant extent, and I've held off promoting Side 7 on more high-traffic channels precisely to avoid attracting the "Buzzly shills" until this site is in a firm position to weather the storm.

To wit, we want to make sure administrative procedure and content guidelines are airtight before this site starts getting heavy traffic, so bad actors can be weeded out quickly and cleanly. The following aren't criticisms of how the site is running now, but provided to help in planning for the future.

Rules of Engagement

BA's enduring Achilles' heel, both before and after the March coup, was rogue moderation. There was no publicly-accessible code of staff conduct and no real appeals procedure—the designated administrator was herself the chief culprit, and the official contact form went to the PR head's personal E-mail (and yet declassified documents revealed she was increasingly cut out of information on site operations). After March 15 when the devs kicked out all lower staff, people were banned without rhyme or reason, and the devs' official response effectively confirmed they were now ruling by decree. There was zero accountability, before or after.

As Side 7 expands beyond a close-knit group of regulars, it will need more mods to adequately handle the userbase. It's vital that those mods are all reading from the same playbook, and that the public knows how these decisions are made.

Mind the Gap

BA's overzealous moderation combined with frequent policy rollbacks polarized two warring blocs within the userbase: the so-called "antis" who railed against mature content (and were all but officially endorsed by the site mods), and the "proshippers" who became fanatical evangelists for transgressive themes, including rape, incest, bestiality, and graphic violence (tacitly supported by the devs and canonized following the coup). Buzzly's downfall stemmed from its waffling on content policy and/or a vested interest in exploiting this factionalism for conflicting goals within Staff itself. S7 is much clearer where it stands in regard to what content is acceptable; but there are a few items that should be clarified:

* Neither the ratings guide nor Site FAQ address incest directly; bestiality is cited in the general prohibition against shock content, but it's unclear whether 'feral porn' falls within this scope.
* Likewise, it is currently unclear what the stance is on 'dubcon'/noncon/sexual assault beyond the prohibition against glorifying harm. 'Adult Only' sexual examples specify consent, but noncon could be classified as violence.

How you want to handle these is entirely up to you; the important thing is to draw your line and stick to it. I guarantee, if the evangelists smell even a whiff of uncertainty, they will try to pry these doors open full-force.

Your Call is Important

Related to the section on management, though a much lesser priority, is how support tickets are handled. BA became notorious for complaints to staff going unanswered (whether they were purposely ignored, or a consequence of insufficient staff was never made clear before the coup), with my own grievance concerning malicious application of the TOS languishing for a month (before, like so much else, the Ides of March quashed all lingering faith in the site).

S7 has an entire forum for bug reports so we know what's going on with maintenance; I'm confident you strive to do your best because by God you have to try to be as bad as Buzzly, but as the site grows and the users mount, it's important to ensure people aren't feeling like they're ghosted. :P


* I'd intended to write a proper book analyzing Buzzly.art's dramatic implosion precisely to help inform up-and-comers, but my primary correspondent prior to the March Coup has all but vanished from the Earth before I got explicit permission to cite our exchanges.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 30 Dec 2022, 10:37 PM

A preview function for forum posts would also be handy. :^)

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 31 Dec 2022, 04:39 PM

So much to address... :P

RE: Customizable Profiles & Widgets

Making the profile page more of a welcome page to the gallery is a nice way of phrasing it. Reimplementing the profile page to act more like that than simply a biography is a good idea. I also like the idea of widgets. I just need to figure out how to implement it. It's not just backend code, but UI development, too, for something like that, and admittedly UI isn't my strongest suit. I also worry about looking like a copy-cat of other sites. What specifically do you mean by "dynamic links"?

RE: HTML/CSS Customization

This one concerns me because of security reasons. Although, I can see having settings where one can enter in colors they wanted to create their own themes, but that would require a bit of an overhaul to some of the back-end code, too. And there's some technical debt with regards to building the current UI which is in the way, and has been putting a delay in another update I want to roll out: dark mode.

The recent submissions box idea I could easily do, yeah.

With regards to fonts, Side 7 makes use of Google's font libraries. The fonts used are: Athiti, Jockey One, Share Tech, Squada One, Teka. Keep in mind, some of those fonts are fall-back fonts in case the primary one isn't available.

RE: Coding Help

Anyone who is going to help with development needs to be a Perl Developer. Perl is the primary language used in the back-end of the site. The front-end is jQuery, Javascript, and Foundation 6.

RE: Customizable Museums

What kinds of customizations are you thinking of? Notifications of updated content from followed users is on my to-do list.

RE: Managerial Topics

FWIW, I take reports of misconduct very seriously. To that end, I keep track of the problem reports that come in. If and when I ever get moderators, they also have access to those problem reports, and have the ability to implement appropriate actions. All actions are logged, too, so I can see at any time who did what.

As far as bad actors are concerned, I've been dealing with them since the site's inception in 1993 (back when it was a BBS). And, I maintain transparency on actions and administrative decisions; rules development isn't done in a vacuum and I consult with a number of people to help me take into consideration angles and aspects I hadn't thought about on my own.

A publicly-accessible statement of staff behavior rules is a good idea, and I should post that ASAP. Having the membership of the site be able to check my behavior, and the behavior of any potential staff is good policy and can only make the site better.

RE: Side 7 Policies

A) I take careful consideration into Side 7's rules and policies, and do not implement knee-jerk reactions as site rules. B) That being said, Side 7's rules do and have evolved over time. Major rules changes are announced to the site at large, along with reasoning behind a change. But, these do not occur frequently.

* Incest is not directly called out, no. It's not my kink, but it might be others'. And it would be listed under the Adult Only rating, which is less restrictive and opt-in. I went back and forth on this particular type of sexual content a lot. Even PornHub has an incest category, so there's precedent for not banning it because of my own personal distaste.
* Feral porn isn't banned. As I understand it, it involves furry characters drawn in more animal form. As long as they are non-minors and consenting, I don't see an issue.
* Non-con as violence: it's nonconsensual, and therefore not welcome on the site regardless of what other aspects can be assigned to it.

RE: Preview

You are correct. There are still a number of updates to the forums that need to happen.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 31 Dec 2022, 08:29 PM
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edit on 31 Dec 2022, 10:20 PM.

Post removed

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 06:14 PM
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edit on 01 Jan 2023, 06:16 PM.
BadKarma:
So much to address... :P


You asked... B)

BadKarma:
What specifically do you mean by "dynamic links"?


The Links section near the bottom-left of the profile page. Lots of sites have fields for crosslinking popular platforms, i.e. YouTube, Patreon, &c., but this is the first I've seen where we can define multiple custom links. It's little things like this that really sell a place. :D

BadKarma:
What kinds of customizations are you thinking of? Notifications of updated content from followed users is on my to-do list.


Since the Museum basically acts as a subscription feed, being able to hide/remove individual thumbnails could be useful—for one artist on dA, I spend a couple days combing the comments on comic pages for windows to witty replies, and purge the notifications to keep track of what's 'current'.

Something worth considering for all galleries is the ability to reorder the display. I was a meticulous curator on dA and tried to group favourites such that every four thumbnails on the profile page had a coherent theme, and browsing the gallery in full had a logical transition between topics. Currently, Favourites, Portfolios, and Serials are ordered by original upload date (which for Favourites is actually rather neat), and as with Buzzly and InkBlot it's forced me to plan upfront what I'm rehosting when to keep things tidy.

BadKarma:
**RE: Managerial Topics**


where have you been these past seven years :')

BadKarma:
* Incest is not directly called out, no. It's not my kink, but it might be others'. And it would be listed under the Adult Only rating, which is less restrictive and opt-in. I went back and forth on this particular type of sexual content a lot. Even PornHub has an incest category, so there's precedent for not banning it because of my own personal distaste.
* Feral porn isn't banned. As I understand it, it involves furry characters drawn in more animal form. As long as they are non-minors and consenting, I don't see an issue.


Essentially, tolerated but not advertised? I inferred as much, but wanted to clarify so as to advise prospective users appropriately.

With an eye to the transformation community, what's the precise redline on bestiality? Anything veering close to reality is presumably non grata, but if it otherwise abides by AO rules of consent and is a clearly fictional scenario, is it permissible? (One of Buzzly's earliest flashpoints involved mod-abetted trolling of a veteran artist to the brink of suicide for human–dragon romance pieces that weren't even explicit.)

BadKarma:
Non-con as violence: it's nonconsensual, and therefore not welcome on the site regardless of what other aspects can be assigned to it.


It's probably worth tweaking the text to state this plain, and head off the rules-lawyers.


BadKarma:
You're correct in that we'd have to come up with a cohesive, consistent, and unified message. I welcome efforts to help craft that message.


I figure the three key goals are: Promoting the site vision, Advertising features, and Engaging the public. The mission statement is basically laid out in the FAQ, and everything else will stem from that: what we'll want to sell is S7's community aspect, which is everything dA was supposed to have been way back when it was founded, and what most of its discontents are hunting for in competitors. Public engagement: self-explanatory; start a dialogue with interested parties, get input from outside the immediate site.

I have some experience with dA Groups, which are basically accounts managed by multiple users. Side 7's chief advantage over similar embassies is that this site has been live for years, so we can show off what's actually available with confidence. Screenshots of the site layout and/or text briefs of features/policies can be submitted as art pieces available for public comment, and journals can duly note site news, i.e. updates. Since we'd be representing Side 7 in an official capacity, you'll probably want to draft a code of conduct and guidelines for handling disruptive behaviour; group admins ("Contributor" rank and higher) can hide individual posts and block users from interactions entirely.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 07:54 PM
  • Incest is not directly called out, no. It's not my kink, but it might be others'. And it would be listed under the Adult Only rating, which is less restrictive and opt-in. I went back and forth on this particular type of sexual content a lot. Even PornHub has an incest category, so there's precedent for not banning it because of my own personal distaste.
  • Feral porn isn't banned. As I understand it, it involves furry characters drawn in more animal form. As long as they are non-minors and consenting, I don't see an issue.

    Not liking where this is going...
RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 08:04 PM
Warehouse_Rabbit:
* Incest is not directly called out, no. It's not my kink, but it might be others'. And it would be listed under the Adult Only rating, which is less restrictive and opt-in. I went back and forth on this particular type of sexual content a lot. Even PornHub has an incest category, so there's precedent for not banning it because of my own personal distaste.
* Feral porn isn't banned. As I understand it, it involves furry characters drawn in more animal form. As long as they are non-minors and consenting, I don't see an issue.

Not liking where this is going...



None of this currently exists on Side 7. And if it ever exists on Side 7, it'll be in the Adult Only section, which is hidden by default and is opt-in. I'm open to listening to arguments for a different stand on this. If you think it's a bad idea, tell me why; I want to hear it.

I try not to make up rules based solely on my personal preferences. I try to be fair with the rules, and ensure they have sound reasoning behind them. But, I'm not perfect, and I have my blind spots. If you think I'm going in the wrong direction, speak up. Tell me why I'm making a potentially bad choice. I will listen to what you have to say and give it a fair shake.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 09:13 PM

Okay, well, instead of a conversation, they deleted all their art and left the site. This is not productive nor does it help the site evolve well. And it's upsetting, to boot.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 09:43 PM
Thorvald:
The Links section near the bottom-left of the profile page. Lots of sites have fields for crosslinking popular platforms, i.e. YouTube, Patreon, &c., but this is the first I've seen where we can define *multiple* custom links. It's little things like this that really sell a place. :D
<br>

Yeah, I didn't like the idea of restricting what links people could list. Why limit it?

Thorvald:
Since the Museum basically acts as a subscription feed, being able to hide/remove individual thumbnails could be useful—for one artist on dA, I spend a couple days combing the comments on comic pages for windows to witty replies, and purge the notifications to keep track of what's 'current'.


I can see that being useful. I'll add it to my to-do list.

Thorvald:
Something worth considering for all galleries is the ability to reorder the display. I was a meticulous curator on dA and tried to group favourites such that every four thumbnails on the profile page had a coherent theme, and browsing the gallery in full had a logical transition between topics. Currently, Favourites, Portfolios, and Serials are ordered by original upload date (which for Favourites is actually rather neat), and as with Buzzly and InkBlot it's forced me to plan upfront what I'm rehosting when to keep things tidy.


Yeah, reordering is an update task that's already on my list. But, I had planned on doing preset ordering, e.g., By Submission Date, By Title, By Artist (username). You're asking also to manually be able to reorder individual items into a custom ordering?

Thorvald:
Essentially, tolerated but not advertised? I inferred as much, but wanted to clarify so as to advise prospective users appropriately.


Yeah, more or less that. Plus, it seems cumbersome, impractical, and difficult to manage listing every kind of sexual conduct/kink and whether it's allowed or not. That seems to open the door to rules-lawyering tedium and nuance, and I don't have the time to argue that stuff.

Thorvald:
With an eye to the transformation community, what's the precise redline on bestiality? Anything veering close to reality is presumably non grata, but if it otherwise abides by AO rules of consent and is a clearly fictional scenario, is it permissible? (One of Buzzly's earliest flashpoints involved mod-abetted trolling of a veteran artist to the brink of suicide for human–dragon romance pieces that weren't even explicit.)


I think the line here is is the "animal" sentient and consenting? If it is, then in my estimation it is more of a fantasy relationship. If not, then it's bestiality as the animal cannot consent and has no say.

Thorvald:
It's probably worth tweaking the text to state this plain, and head off the rules-lawyers.


You're probably correct about that. I'll see how I can reword it.

Thorvald:
I figure the three key goals are: Promoting the site vision, Advertising features, and Engaging the public. The mission statement is basically laid out in the FAQ, and everything else will stem from that: what we'll want to sell is S7's community aspect, which is everything dA was *supposed* to have been way back when it was founded, and what most of its discontents are hunting for in competitors. Public engagement: self-explanatory; start a dialogue with interested parties, get input from outside the immediate site.

I have some experience with dA Groups, which are basically accounts managed by multiple users. Side 7's chief advantage over similar embassies is that this site has been live for years, so we can show off what's actually available with confidence. Screenshots of the site layout and/or text briefs of features/policies can be submitted as art pieces available for public comment, and journals can duly note site news, i.e. updates. Since we'd be representing Side 7 in an official capacity, you'll probably want to draft a code of conduct and guidelines for handling disruptive behaviour; group admins ("Contributor" rank and higher) can hide individual posts and block users from interactions entirely.


This sounds like a great step forward. I will work on a draft code of conduct and submit it for comment here.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 01 Jan 2023, 10:55 PM
BadKarma:
I try not to make up rules based solely on my personal preferences. I try to be fair with the rules, and ensure they have sound reasoning behind them. But, I'm not perfect, and I have my blind spots. If you think I'm going in the wrong direction, speak up. Tell me why I'm making a potentially bad choice. I *will* listen to what you have to say and give it a fair shake.


I don't have a horse in the NSFW race so I won't presume to advise you on should/shouldn't; setting aside private dispositions, I always begin with "What's the legal base line?" and go from there: once you know what you can do, you can choose what you want to do, and as the site runner, that's entirely your prerogative. (I know some artsite aspirants who don't want to touch mature content because they don't feel psychologically capable of handling it, and you certainly can't argue with that.) You'll never please everyone, but you shouldn't have to: if the policy's clear and the rationale's adequately explained, you've done your job setting the table; it's the user's choice to take a seat.

As it is now, AO is age-gated and explicitly opt-in, so if users are finding the heavy stuff, it's because they're looking for it. Buzzly's bungle was announcing tag blocking but failing to implement it for four months; in the mean time, the moral outrage crowd seized control of the discourse and drove a series of pogroms against an ever-growing hit list of 'taboo' topics without any real public debate. (Rumours of a complete revocation of NSFW were entirely plausible.) What would have provided a user-end tool to spare people from content they didn't want to see without compromising artistic expression, only came into effect after that content had been burned to the ground. My previous comment about drawing the line and sticking to it isn't that policy should be set in stone (name me a single website that hasn't tweaked the TOS), but that you're prepared to resist an intransigent minority attempting to exert outsize influence.

(Side note: S7 has general options for displaying mature thumbnails, but something that could be added is a tags list in the thumbnail tooltip—this would be especially useful for browsing literature.)

BadKarma:
I had planned on doing preset ordering, e.g., By Submission Date, By Title, By Artist (username).




BadKarma:
You're asking also to manually be able to reorder individual items into a custom ordering?


Yes. A lot of the comics I'm currently rehosting were originally posted to dA haphazardly and only later sorted into chronological order (and even before Eclipse, that was a pain). Given how slick the content management screen is already, I can only imagine how much smoother it'd be here. :3

BadKarma:
That seems to open the door to rules-lawyering tedium and nuance, and I don't have the time to argue that stuff.


Now I may not be a trained lawyer, but I'll work pro bono. ;)


BadKarma:
Okay, well, instead of a conversation, they deleted all their art and left the site. This is not productive nor does it help the site evolve well. And it's upsetting, to boot.


As a fellow Buzzly vet (we met through the site), I can only say that long did the flames burn, and longer has the shadow of the ash cloud lingered. :(

P.S.: MY CREDIIIIIIITS

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 02 Jan 2023, 12:23 AM
BadKarma:
Warehouse_Rabbit:
* Incest is not directly called out, no. It's not my kink, but it might be others'. And it would be listed under the Adult Only rating, which is less restrictive and opt-in. I went back and forth on this particular type of sexual content a lot. Even PornHub has an incest category, so there's precedent for not banning it because of my own personal distaste.
* Feral porn isn't banned. As I understand it, it involves furry characters drawn in more animal form. As long as they are non-minors and consenting, I don't see an issue.

Not liking where this is going...


None of this currently exists on Side 7. And if it ever exists on Side 7, it'll be in the Adult Only section, which is hidden by default and is opt-in. I'm open to listening to arguments for a different stand on this. If you think it's a bad idea, tell me why; I want to hear it.

I try not to make up rules based solely on my personal preferences. I try to be fair with the rules, and ensure they have sound reasoning behind them. But, I'm not perfect, and I have my blind spots. If you think I'm going in the wrong direction, speak up. Tell me why I'm making a potentially bad choice. I *will* listen to what you have to say and give it a fair shake.

-- BK



I know that this may be opening up a few more issues, but it may also address a few things. With regards to certain questionable subjects, perhaps something more democratic would be in order. With certain subjects, it seems that adherence to an already established guideline is the preferable way to address it. For others which are hard to decide on, it might be prudent to poll the users as to whether they desire such content. This takes away the impression that rules are being based solely on your preferences and allows the users to decide for themselves if certain content should be allowed or not.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 02 Jan 2023, 03:03 PM
fragmented_imagination:
I know that this may be opening up a few more issues, but it may also address a few things. With regards to certain questionable subjects, perhaps something more democratic would be in order. With certain subjects, it seems that adherence to an already established guideline is the preferable way to address it. For others which are hard to decide on, it might be prudent to poll the users as to whether they desire such content. This takes away the impression that rules are being based solely on your preferences and allows the users to decide for themselves if certain content should be allowed or not.


The problem with doing that at this time is the very low number of active users on the site, mixed with the even lower number of users who participate in the forums in any capacity. So, a vote would get a very small turn-out for a larger community.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 03 Jan 2023, 02:13 AM
BadKarma:
The problem with doing that at this time is the very low number of active users on the site, mixed with the even lower number of users who participate in the forums in any capacity. So, a vote would get a very small turn-out for a larger community.



I know. I just felt that, should participation increase, doing a site-wide poll might prevent other users from simply jumping ship just because the discussion happens to come up.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 04 Jan 2023, 06:32 AM
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edit on 04 Jan 2023, 06:33 AM.
Thorvald:
BadKarma:
Okay, well, instead of a conversation, they deleted all their art and left the site. This is not productive nor does it help the site evolve well. And it's upsetting, to boot.

As a fellow Buzzly vet (we met through the site), I can only say that long did the flames burn, and longer has the shadow of the ash cloud lingered. :(



I don't feel I have much of value to offer to this conversation but wanted to mention this is very relatable ;_; i still feel burned from that fiasco myself.

I'm really sorry it was upsetting though, BadKarma. I think your approach sounded reasonable. I also dislike those topics personally but feel that the need-to-opt-in approach to that kind of stuff would be a significant improvement to popular art platforms out there, and I also understand being cautious about censorship.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 04 Jan 2023, 02:44 PM
Fihyn:
I don't feel I have much of value to offer to this conversation but wanted to mention this is very relatable ;_; i still feel burned from that fiasco myself.

I'm really sorry it was upsetting though, BadKarma. I think your approach sounded reasonable. I also dislike those topics personally but feel that the need-to-opt-in approach to that kind of stuff would be a significant improvement to popular art platforms out there, and I also understand being cautious about censorship.


Oh, but I think everyone has value to add to this conversation. There are arguments for and against allowing certain subject matter on the site. I voiced why I thought it wasn't a problem to allow certain subjects on, but apparently this is divisive. So, I'd love to hear the arguments against allowing it on if anyone has them.

As I stated earlier, none of this material is currently on Side 7, so reaching a solid decision on this now is important. That way, the rules are there from the beginning if such content is ever uploaded.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 05 Jan 2023, 12:47 AM

I guess my thing would be in regards to the 'certain subjects' issue is that there are clear stated guidelines as to what is and is not acceptable, and what ends up in the 'adults only' opt-in feature. Personally I draw the line at bestiality, incest and the rape portrayals; to me that should not be on any art site and I will admit that I cannot look at such subjects with a neutral/unbiased opinion due to being a victim of abuse and knowing those who've been subjected to abuse. In regards to the bestiality - that's flat out wrong and I make no apologies for being against such being on any art site. In regards to the furries issue - I don't know enough about that to offer an opinion either way.

But in regards to the bestiality, incest and rape 'art' - I would have to draw a line and say no to such.
In regards to child sexualization - again, no to such.
Women portraying themselves with a strip of tape across their breasts/'barely qualifies as a thong' bits or men hiding their manhood in what might barely classify as a a thong/loincloth - slap a 'mature' rating on it and put it in an 'adults only' gallery.

That would be my input on such. But the site does need clear stated guidelines on that and what is and is not acceptable in terms of being considered 'art'.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 05 Jan 2023, 05:01 AM
This post has been edited 2 times. Last edit on 06 Jan 2023, 08:30 AM.

I really like where the conversation ended up going from here! <3 that sounds like a good plan to me

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 05 Jan 2023, 06:13 AM
This post has been edited 4 times. Last edit on 05 Jan 2023, 06:20 AM.

If you are looking for input on the adult-oriented media, I would like to put something on the table.

I ran a search on the site using some keywords. As much as you've been okay with some adult-oriented media, BK, I have noticed that, almost through to the beginning of Side 7, there does not seem to have been anyone interested in producing anything beyond simple nudity or provocative poses. Certainly, a couple of innuendo-laden pieces here and there, but Side 7's users don't appear to have developed a premise for media depicting sex. Unless there were some pieces I missed (and I cannot be sure, as the advanced search does not seem to filter per my request), I would put forward that, from the beginning, no one has really been interested in depicting the physical act of sex as art.

I would hardly go as far as to say that, if there is no sex on it now, there should be no sex at all. But this at least seems to give us an idea of what users have been interested in for some time, even if they have long abandoned their accounts. Erotica as art seems to have been favored by depictions of attraction or passion between two characters or simply the provocation of sex by a revealing outfit. I cannot even tell if the adult-only rating has ever been used (again, I don't know if I was using the advanced search correctly). Of course, I cannot account for pieces that you might have removed because they were adult-oriented without the proper rating, though I would imagine you would say something if you had removed depictions of sex in the past.

Now, I have found works with incest undertones. None of the works are particularly explicit and are easily open to interpretation as family moments rather than sexual arousal. For as much as incest may have slid by, it hardly seems to be a popular category anyway. The current body of examples feature the artist specifically stating that the characters in question are in an incestuous relationship (two, perhaps three, among others who emphasize that their characters are NOT in an incestuous relationship with one another), but there is such a lack of sexual content to these works that it seems to devalue the claim. It is simply a subject that does not come up as popular, and I doubt that anyone would be bothered if explicitly incestuous works (mainly anything depicting kissing, groping, or sex) were banned.

I would put forward that certain categories, certainly those depicting incest, non-consensual sex, bestiality, and any other questionable content, are fine as banned works. No one really seems to have thought of Side 7 as hub for producing erotica to begin with, and there is not much reason to call them into question since not even your current collection of active users do not seem to be interested in producing such media. I agree with @SheevraSidhe0274 that these should be listed somewhere in the rules for adult-oriented content. Side 7 is an artists' archive, not PornHub. Anyone wishing to explore their morally-questionable fetishes would be disappointed in the lack of erotic content, and there is not much reason to cater to it when hardly anyone has been interested in making it to begin with.

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 05 Jan 2023, 02:00 PM

Well, right now, bestiality and rape are content that are not welcome on Side 7. I have no intentions of changing that.

And, the reason you won't find any AO content on the site is because the AO rating was only added with v5 of the site. It was added at the very frequent requests I received over the years for allowing adult artwork on the site. I've always wanted Side 7 to be primarily family friendly, so the current setup was my compromise: age-gated, hidden, and opt-in.

I will make more explicit statements in the rules regarding various sexual content types. I just need to figure out the best place to put it, and how to phrase it. :) And, the more I think about it, the more I think incest porn will be disallowed. It's such a divisive and contentious topic that I don't think I want it on Side 7. If someone is going to leave Side 7, or not join at all, just because that kind of content isn't allowed, then their artwork probably wouldn't find a good home here.

-- BK

RE: Spreading the Word
Posted: 05 Jan 2023, 07:13 PM
BadKarma:
I will make more explicit statements in the rules regarding various sexual content types. I just need to figure out the best place to put it, and how to phrase it. :) And, the more I think about it, the more I think incest porn will be disallowed. It's such a divisive and contentious topic that I don't think I want it on Side 7.



Maybe a page linked to the relevant sections of the Site Rules and Ratings Guide; those would be the likeliest places for the curious to look for the rules on adult-oriented work. I suggest a separate page because, along with the adult-only material, it should probably be age-gated so the kiddies aren't asking questions their parents don't wanna answer. Or worse, YOU start getting asked questions, BK. :)

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