Who Was That Guy? The Objectionable GD.

Let's go back to when you were an Admin... Gallery Director. Okay...an objectionable Gallery Director. You were a GD for what...forever? Two and a half years. This, in internet years, is indeed forever. What kind of GD were you? A Lit GD. No, I mean what manner of GD were you? That's a bit broad, isn't it? Sorry...um...in light of the recent accusations, does your perception of how you performed as a GD run contrary to the alleged perceptions of others? Huh? I barely followed that. Are you asking me if I agree that I was an objectionable GD? How am I supposed to answer that? I know. I'm just trying to stir the pot here. How about this...what was your philosophy as a GD? Ah, that I can answer. That's tied together with how I came to be one in the first place. Back in '02, before I was on staff, we had a fine old curmudgeon in the Lit Community called Chesterfield. Good writer, caustic wit, cantankerous, rabble-rouser. One day he posted a thread in the Poetry Forum, as it was called then, entitled How To Shave Your Nuts. It was juvenile, sure, but it was also wildly popular. The original premise of the thread was a step-by-step guide to shaving your testicles but that was quickly relegated to insignificance. It spawned...I don't know how many...tangents and side-conversations, people who didn't know each other found themselves getting acquainted. People who didn't like each other found something in common to laugh about. It was a terrific bonding moment among disparate people which, in my opinion, was of tremendous value. Regardless of the original topic, the thread was of undeniable benefit. An Admin, Kit (Euphoria), didn't realize that was what was happening so she moved in and closed the thread. Chester started another thread in complaint and was told by Kit that the nut-shaving thread was closed because it had nothing to do with art. So Chester, Lord love him, re-posted the thread with a different title: How To Shave Your Nuts As An Artist. Hahahaha. Funny, right? Uh…not according to Kit. Thread closed, fight ensued, Dygel rushed in, Keen (then the Tier Admin) got out his broken record that continuously played, “REQUEST IMMEDIATE THREAD CLOSURE!” Chester got banned. Elgato got banned. Whole bunch of them got banned. That Admin didn't think it met specification? (laughing) No. But it raised an issue that was worth exploring. Because of that the majority of active writers lobbied for a subtle shift in Administrative policy concerning the forums. We wanted it to be the Writer's Forum and we didn't want to be restricted to conversing about writing. We wanted to, as writers, be able to talk about other things - movies, trivia, whatever, without having to venture into one of the already-established categories assigned to those topics. We wanted the forums to be people-centric, not topic-centric. So the Writers Forum would be where writers hung out and talked about whatever. The Photography Forum would be where photogs hung out, and so on. I can see that. Makes sense, I think. We thought so too. And my analogy for the tussle with the Admins was this: We were hanging out in the coffeehouse shooting the shit when some cops busted in and said, "Hey you writers, you can't talk about cars and music in here...you can only discuss coffee. If you want to talk about cars, you have to go to the speedway and talk to the car freaks. And if you don’t like that, we’ll kick your asses out and bar the door.” Hmmmm...conversation cops. Who'd you say this to? I posted it in the forum. That must have generated a response. It did. We were told that such a shift would segregate the forums but I thought, and still do, that the system that was and is in place was more exclusionary than what we were proposing. Look at it this way - most people on DA aren't writers and don't have any interest in the topic thereof. Pretend you’re a pixel artist. If you know that the conversations in the Writers Forum pertain to writing and nothing else and you aren’t interested in writing, what is the likelihood you will venture in? Slim? None? But if you knew we talked about all kinds of stuff with...you know...something approaching wit... ...I'd be more inclined to stop in and check it out. Ding! That was our theory, anyway. I don't go into the 3D forum, for instance, because I don't have even a modicum of interest in it. Same with Skinning, and Software, Flash, Programming, Photography, or the OS forums. I have nothing to contribute to those topics and, on the basis of that, I am excluded from them. However, if those forums were the hangouts for deviants that share those interests and they were allowed to socialize like real people do, then I would stick my head into each one of those places regularly - just to see what they were talking about. Most likely, they would be discussing something to which I could contribute and from which I could draw inspiration. Didn't go over well? No. Some people were upset about that. I wasn't bent over it - it wasn't like there were any ethical considerations behind it. It was just an idea that turned into a desire that, ultimately, went unfulfilled. But it was quite a stink for a while. A couple of months afterwards, when the topic had flat-lined, I sent Jark a note regarding my observations of the then-senior-Tier-Admin, Keen. He was an "Admin first" kind of guy and he thought his job was to baby-sit the writers...perch like a gargoyle and wait for the writers to get "out of line," then skip off and bring in the law. That's not to Keen's discredit, though. He was a good guy, helpful, fairly attentive, good writer. But the way he operated as TA...that was just the way it was, really. But I didn't like it because I thought there was a potential for that position that could be maximized, but not with a baby-sitter attitude. I believed such an attitude was detrimental to the Lit Community. To any community, really. I thought the position of Tier Admin should be manned by someone who was an advocate for the Lit Community. Someone they trusted to look after their interests, to interface with them, to know them, to be accessible and proactive. Otherwise, what's the point? People don't like to live under constant, villainous scrutiny. It's a tainted atmosphere. What was Jark's reaction? Surprisingly, he agreed. And offered me the job. I only say 'surprisingly' because, at the time, it was. Once I got to know Jark, I realized I had misjudged him. That's when you took the job? No, I did tell him I would like to be considered in the future if a slot opened up, but the offer came back immediately and I didn't know if I really wanted it right then and there. I sent a note to twenty…thirty of the most active members of Lit and asked them if I should take it. They were unanimous in their responses - "Take it, but don't forget to be a writer/deviant first, and an Admin second." It was like the U.S. House of Representatives. You don't elect someone from your district to go to Washington and look after the interests of Congress; you elect them to look after your interests. And Jark went for that? Absolutely. Who could argue? So you took the gig and transformed it from being a baby-sitter type of position to more of a representative position. Yes, I think that's accurate. Was your concept of what a GD should be sanctified as official DA policy? I mean, did it become the norm? Yeah. I don't know how each individual GD on the site went about his or her business, but that's the way we did it in Lit. Me, inennui, nonculture, astrophel, minorkey, imperfect. Around the time minorkey was brought on Dygel was sending out a "Welcome" email to new GD's that outlined our duties. After he left, Angelo continued that attitude and made it an official edict for all new GD hires, regardless of which gallery they directed. Do you remember any specifics? Sure. The one from Dygel said something like, run your gallery as you would your own website. You are directly responsible for moderating your gallery forum...umm...providing features, fostering the submission of news articles, and...uh...something about ensuring the health of your community. [link] That seems pretty clear-cut. But he resigned and was replaced...when? Spring, '05. What were the ones from the other guy like? Angelo? He sent out an email to all GD's that stated something very similar:

You should be the most hardcore deviant on deviantART. You should promote and inspire your sub-community. Something to that effect. The most pertinent part said Every other division is here to support you. [link]

He sent out another email at the same time, entitled “The Artist Relations Mantra” that offered more of the same type of direction. [link] That seemed like a re-affirmation to me that we were going to proceed as we had been. That's from the top of AR and from the CEO of deviantART himself. What more can I say? I'm not making that shit up. All right, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Gallery Directors are responsible for moderating their forum – so say the AR Directors. And the CEO. Yes. And that's why it gets on your nerves when some CommDev person decides it's their job? No, because they...the CommDev people...are capable of doing it right. What gets on my nerves is when they do it wrong - say...dropping into a locked thread and insulting someone. One, it's locked which means it's already been dealt with. Two, what the fuck is an Admin doing insulting a user? Is that ever called for? So it gets on my nerves because it never ends well. It's also disrespectful, unnecessary, and redundant. There are 32 other public, non-gallery forums. There isn't enough work in those to keep CommDev occupied? Hell, the Politics Forum alone is a full-time mod job. Angelo made it clear to us that all other divisions are here to support us, right? That doesn’t mean they don’t have their own jobs to do, but it certainly implies that they aren’t required or even bidden to muck around on a GD’s turf unless requested. I know that sounds territorial, but it's more a matter of understanding cause and effect. In any event, what does “support” mean to you? It means to lend a hand when needed, unless I’ve suddenly lost the ability to comprehend a simple sentence. Trust me, you haven't. Well, I noticed DA moving away from having GD's function in that capacity. What's your take on that? I'd say you are right. They appear to be devaluing the position to such an extent that the only thing a GD will be responsible for is posting DD's. Quite a turnaround from how it used to be. A year term-limit? Geez, how many initiatives did I get pushed through development in a year? One? And GD's aren't responsible for moderating their own forum? MN@ Admins are? Fan-fucking-tastic. See, that's the shit he was saying to me in that forum thread that led to my banning. It has taken him a few months but he's altered the site procedures to fit into the crap he was bleating about. Do you think these changes are because of you? I'd hate to think so, but I do find the timing to be very curious. It is, isn't it? Lit isn't an easy gallery to direct is it? Or I guess I should say, "was it?" since they appear to have removed the "directing" from the equation. Well, it wasn't difficult. It got a bad rap back in '02 and, regardless of long stretches without any turmoil - years without turmoil - that bad rap persists. Some of the upper Admins think it's a problem area. Some of them have made that point publicly, erroneously, and repeatedly. Do you think it's a misunderstood gallery? I don't think it was when Jark and Dygel were running the show. Wait, let me revise that. I think it was but they were smart enough to realize they didn't understand it and wise enough to let the people who did understand it operate it. With those two driven off, it's nothing more than a rhetorical question. Of course it's misunderstood. Literature is a completely different artform than the others on DA. Every other artform on the site requires you to look. Poetry and prose you read. You have to approach them and engage them differently. And since the medium is words, the art can be practiced anywhere you can put words. Deviations, journals, comments, forums, chatrooms. A place like the Poetry & Prose Forum is fertile ground and fair game for the practice of literary arts. It's the only gallery that has three forums. Three? Yeah, the Poetry & Prose Forum, the Lit Workshop, and the Fantasy Writer's forum. Not many people know about that last one. There was a time when the P&P Forum was by far the most active gallery forum on the site. It may still be, but it is a pale imitation of what it used to be. I had no clue about that Fantasy one. Not that I'd have any interest in it. But anyway, I know what you're saying. The Forum always had activities going on. Seems kind of like Deadsville, now. Why do you suppose that is? I think you can look to a few things for that. One is the existence of the "chat room." Abominable things. The way people hang out in chat rooms now? They used to hang out like that in the forum. And you didn't actually have to be there in the moment to participate in the banter, you could show up tomorrow and participate, or next week. You can't revive a "classic" chat room discussion but you can revive a classic forum thread from three, four years ago if you want. That could be a blessing and a curse. (laughing) That is an excellent point. Yo, I have my moments. You said a few things. Chat room is one, what's another? The PVA. Ah, right. A lot of old-timers are sporting exclamation points these days. Present company included. Yeah. Well, you know, usually those who complain the loudest are the ones who care the most. And I haven't seen too many other people care as much about Lit as guys like Matt, Alex, and Jim did. I guess that was the real challenge in being a Lit GD. How to keep people passionate and...um...not banned. Sure. Especially when you have people like that who are...what...hotheaded, to put it politely? (laughing) Yeah. Some writers are like that. Their writing is largely driven by attitude and edge. Take a guy like Hemingway. He got blasted out of the ambulance he was driving in WWI by a mortar shell and some machine gun slugs, plugged his wounds with cigarette butts, and crawled back to Italy. He participated in the Spanish Civil War, chased subs and lobbed grenades at the SS in WWII, ran with the bulls, went on safari, got into protracted drunken brawls. And, oh yeah...won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel and profoundly impacted the direction of 20th century American literature. How long would he last on deviantART? A week? Two? (laughing) Yeah! Toss the bum! He said something blunt to little Johnny Sonic-Fan! Same with guys like Bukowski, William Burroughs, Lester Bangs, Hunter Thompson, Jack Kerouac. They'd all get chucked out on their asses for, you know, saying something snide to some douchebag Admin. Aw, man. Too true. You know what I used to like about the Forum? I used to like the "Creatively Insult the Person Above You" threads. Yeah, those were a lot of fun. Those had to be closely monitored, though, to make sure things didn't get out of hand. Did they sometimes get out of hand? No. The writers understood the point. But when the PVA became obsessed with Lit those threads had to be discontinued. It was a shame too. Creative insults are a part of writing. Shakespeare's work is rife with them. He was, and still is, the Master of that. Better than Don Rickles. Insults from Billy S? Oh, hell yes. Are you kidding me? Macbeth is loaded with them. Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Anthony and Cleopatra, all the Henry plays. Know any good ones? All's Well That End's Well has some great ones in it. Strangely applicable considering...uh...recent circumstances. Let's see...I want to get this one right. "He’s a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy of your lordship’s entertainment." (laughing) That's close enough! I'll fact-check you later. Wait...I've got one more from All's Well. This one's my all-time fave. "Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine drunk, and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about him." (laughing) Ah, that's fucking great! Yeah, well. Can't do that on DA. Can't have those damned writers getting special treatment. That's a pity. That seems to be the ultimate bottom line for the upper Admins whenever an issue comes up with Lit. Yes, it's mostly the CommDev side that doesn't get it. The PVA-side, specifically. "Special" treatment is when they banned writers a full week before publicly introducing the policy for which they were banned. You know, banning them for a policy that isn't a policy until a week later. That's neither appropriate nor fair, but it sure is special. Then again, you have to give credit to the Development side of CommDev because, to a great extent, they do understand. We have three forums, which no other gallery has. We have our own browsing system. I love those guys. Yeah. There seems to be instances where the upper Admins do admit that Lit is different and needs to be treated differently, and then there are plenty of times when they try to slap some blanket policy across all galleries without taking that difference into account. Sure. In many ways the blanket site policies are applied to Lit very successfully. Plagiarism, for example. No death threats or over-the-top insults. No discussion of warez or pirating. No exploits. No hotlinking. No porno preview pix. No anti-Semitism or overt racism in commentary. No problem. But with the artform there is a big difference between disallowing something in photography and disallowing it in literature. Don't upload photos of a sexually explicit nature. Simple. But with literature, you can be metaphorical. Or allegorical. You can express things using analogy. Where is the line there? There's a big difference between Penthouse Letters and Lolita. Certainly not as clear-cut, is it? No. No it isn't. This was an actual situation that occurred in one of the Community Updates [link] and it started a legitimate discussion in the Lit Forum [link]. In that thread a core Admin dropped in to "clarify" policy. People asked him repeatedly, "Where is the line?" and he just wasn't getting it at all. It was clearly evident that he had a preconceived idea that the writers were just bitching about a policy simply because writers bitch about everything for no reason. He dropped the old "lit just wants special treatment" chestnut a few times. But slowly, like a lightbulb on a dimmer switch, it dawned on him that there was a legitimate question being asked and he didn't have an answer for it. Ultimately he conceded that, hey, you know what? These people might have a point. He had to work with the Lit GD's to revise and clarify the policy for literature. Golly! PVA and GD's working together? What a novel concept. Well there's a tip-off, right? Hey, Lit is different. Yeah, but you know, if someone...say Mark Twain joined up and started uploading Huckleberry Finn a chapter at a time. He would have his work deleted for containing the word "nigger." And there would be a forum thread about it and a big discussion about how Twain isn't glorifing racism or promoting it, and that Jim is the personification of human dignity and the capacity for grace and all that jazz. And the whole forum thing would play out just like the "no sex in writing" thing did. Slowly. Torturously. With some ridiculous preconceptions to overcome. And a half-dozen people would be banned and it would just reinforce their ridiculous preconceptions. Sad. Anything else responsible for killing the Forum? Jark getting fired. Uh...you're going to have to explain that one. Well, any time you take someone with five years' experience in running not just CommDev but the entire site, and you replace him with a guy who has zero experience, there are going to be repercussions that ripple throughout the site. This relates back to the PVA issue. Jark had a lot of experience in looking at a problem, understanding the scope of it, and addressing it, independent of whatever claptrap realitysquared was saying. Lolly didn't have any experience with that. He had more experience causing trouble than he did resolving trouble, the old forum troll. (laughing) He certainly was a rascal. And I think that when he was elevated to Jark's position he deferred to realitysquared in matters concerning policy. So...you think he was getting bad advice? I think he was getting the worst advice ever given in the history of deviantART. And taking it. Yeah. Yeah. That would explain why he didn't comprehend the scope of the PVA problem. We'll get to all that later, right now let's get back to your GDing. Things changed quite a bit from when you first took the job, didn't they? Oh yeah, a lot. When I first started we were "Tier Admins." We all had access to the ban button. We were all responsible for maintaining discipline. There was no helpdesk staff so we all were asked to pitch in as much as we could. We were asked to tend to the report desk and deal with miscats and rips. And you did all that? You even banned people? Oh yeah, I took it seriously. I didn't ban many people, but I did ban a few. I banned a guy for ten minutes once. Ten minutes? I didn't know that was one of the duration options. It wasn't. He wandered into the Lit Forum and started telling everyone to suck his dick. I told him to stop it. He wouldn't. His attitude was, "What're you gonna do about it?" I simply couldn't get his non-defensive attention so I banned him and then went over to the helpdesk and waited for his ticket. He was on line when I banned him so it didn't take long for him to figure out that he was suspended. After ten minutes the helpdesk ticket came in and I responded to it. I said, "I trust I have your attention now?" (laughing) And then we had a nice, productive conversation at the helpdesk and I convinced him he had more to contribute than "suck my dick" and more to gain than an exclamation point in front of his name. He agreed. I unbanned him and he's still around. Still contributing. Never had another problem. Amazing. I mean it's amazing to think that DA went from that to having the PVA stomping on people. Yeah. It morphed into something counter-intuitive. PVA's weren't responsible for knowing these people's real names, where they live, what their motivations are, or what they might be cheesed off about at the moment. I did. GD's know that stuff. Or at least they are supposed to know that stuff. At the very least I could always take someone who was arguing aside and say, "Hey man...you're making my job more difficult. I'd really appreciate it, and would consider it a personal favor, if you would just drop that issue and find something else to do." I never had a problem with that approach. It certainly was more palatable for the arguers to have someone they knew talk them down off the ledge, rather than have some faceless dolt just slap a ban on them. Or worse - have some faceless dolt who enjoys banning people arrive on the scene. That's why the system worked best when PVA worked in support of GD's. Like Angelo intended. Or at least he paid lip service to it. I don't really believe he ever wanted GD's to have any pull like that. That must have been a real teeth-grinder, watching them take a system that worked and turn it into a pile of crap. To remove authority in certain jurisdictions from the people who should have it and give it people who shouldn't. Jurisdictions. I like that. I don't know if changing the system was really the problem. The system changed and the PVA's who were already there didn't seem to have any issues. They certainly continued to work with me rather than against me. Mooboy, B-six, Suzi...those folks. I think the problem was more about who they brought on board when the system changed. These people had the wrong idea about it all. For instance? Okay, for the sake of an attempt to be unbiased, I'll give you an example that has nothing to do with Lit. I recall an episode back in '05 - one of the new PVA's came flouncing into the Staff chatroom and said, "I finally nailed that little twit to the wall. It was enjoyable. And I found cast iron evidence." Think about that for a second. What's wrong with that? I wouldn't even know where to begin... If the "little twit" had already violated policy he would already be banned, right? So what you had there was a PVA with a personal agenda. The PVA didn’t like this guy, for whatever reason, so his activity log was rooted through until something was found. How sick is that? It's perverted. And this person was gloating about it in the chatroom? There's more. You wanna know what the kicker was? What the PVA finally "got on him" so he could be banned? He decided to stop uploading artwork to deviantART and he went around to his watchers and told them - you know, as a courtesy so they could take him off their watch lists. [link] What?!? Exactly. He was “only” banned for 24 hours for it...for "spamming"...but when his ban expired he packed up and left the site. In business terms, DA had a pointless and unnecessary loss of revenue. Wouldn't you leave, too, with that kind of shit happening to you? No doubt. Wait, there's more. He made his "you can stop watching me" comments on September 2. He was banned for it on October 8. It's all still there in his journal. Un-fucking-believable. Can I guess who that PVA was? (laughing) Do I have to say her name? (laughing) Ah, shit. Not any more. The PVA, now C&E, had an extremely important function - they were tasked with keeping the site legal. Any time someone uploads a rip, or some porn, or warez links, or underage nudity, the site is in jeapordy of a lawsuit. deviantART takes precautions to mitigate such an event with the Submission Agreement, TOS, and Etiquette Policy, and they have a department tasked with actively seeking out and removing such potentially damaging content. That's what their focus should be on. If an artist says "eat shit" to another artist, let Artist Relations handle it. If the situation is unmanageable and someone needs to be banned to restore order, GD's are smart enough to recognize that and responsible enough to fetch a PVA to take over. I can't understand why this isn't obvious to people like RS and Lolly. So when they hired someone who made a very public point about how much she enjoyed "waving the ban stick at morons," that department headed off in the wrong fucking direction. Damn right. But we've veered back to the PVA problem again. I still want to talk about your GD work. I don't suppose a lot of people know what, exactly, goes into it. Excuse me, I meant what went into it. What were some of the things you did? Aside from what I've already said, I monitored the News queue and proofed any lit-related news articles that came in. I monitored and participated in the forums, remained as public and as accessible as possible, kept up with the various groups and clubs that cropped up. I bought dozens of subscriptions, both for clubs - you know, to encourage them - and for individuals. I came up with the Critique Preferences. Inennui and I came up with the literature thumbnail concept. We started Suture. I pestered Dygel about having DA provide prizes for poetry contests and prose competitions. Um...I don't know what else. Reviewing DD recommendations. Tweaking the categories. I was constantly busy. This is in addition to already having a full-time job, a wife, kids, bands, and all that real-life stuff. I don't know how you found the time. It seemed like every minute was occupied, that's for sure. My random critiquing slowed down and then died out altogether, which I always regretted. I did critique by request, though. So, I was busy but it wasn't difficult work. I guess I was just passionate enough to be able to get done what I needed to get done. Or stupid enough. (laughing) The jury's still out on that. Did you leave anything on the table? I mean, did you have some things you wanted to accomplish but never did? Yeah, a couple of things. One afternoon a few years ago I was puttering around in a bookstore during lunch and picked up an art book. It was soft-cover, perfect-bound, somewhere in the neighborhood of 235 x 255 mm, maybe 150 pages. I flipped through it and in my mind's eye I saw it as "The Best of deviantART, Vol. 1." So I started tinkering with the idea of establishing a series, perhaps one book per year. Take all the DD's for the year, pick out the best 100, and put them in the book. Each one getting a full page with a little "artist's bio." The cover, spine and back would be in DA grey with the logo prominent. Yeah, yeah...start pushing the deviantART branding. Right. Spread it out from the computer screen onto bookshelves. Something people could hold in their hand. Subscribe to. Look forward to picking up annually. Put on their coffee table. That kind of thing. And at the same time promoting artists. Right. Pay them a small royalty, or a one-time usage fee. I don't think it would need to be anything more than an honorarium, really. Talk about a great marketing opportunity for the artist...there you are in print. Hell, have an annual contest to design the cover. Have an annual contest to pick the interior layout. Make it a true DA-wide effort. I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah, me too. But that was kind of the "point of the spear" for me. I wanted to get that going so DA could establish a good working relationship with a publisher and printer, and then use that groundwork, product reputation, and reader-relationship to do the same thing for the Lit Community. Start publishing an annual anthology. Hell yeah! Now you're talking. Why didn't that ever get going? I don't know. I pitched it but perhaps it was too early in DA's life to have a chance. I don't know what the financials are like for DA at the moment, but I hope the idea is still on a back-burner somewhere. I think the bottom line from a marketing and branding standpoint is enough to have the idea merit some serious thought. The community benefits would be gravy. And a major event to get everyone excited about DA again. Anything else? Yeah, I wanted to do a "Real Writers" series after they introduced the chat rooms. Put those damned things to some good use for a change. Seriously, I know some professional writers. And I thought it would be cool to have them participate in a chat where the Community would ask them questions for an hour or so. Real nice. Like who? Who do I know? I could have gotten Bensko to do it. I know Edward Allen, Gordon Osing, Richard Adams, Tim Cahill...um... Richard Lyons, Barry Hannah. Guys like that. Could you imagine how exciting it would have been to have the author of Watership Down hang out and answer questions for an hour? That would have been inspiring, I believe. As the kids say, "Off da hook."

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