Deviants Requesting Reform of the FairExposure frontpage favourites system

To:  DeviantArt Administration

Dear DeviantArt Administrators,

We, the DeviantArtsts would like you to:
1. Bring back to the old democratic and simple “number of favorites=amount of fame” system (at least for the browsing, as an option!).
2. Give users an option of a CHOICE between the new “FairExposure” and old “Popular”. Perhaps make them as separate categories on the frontpage.
3. Update/fix the new “FairExposure” algorithm so that it addresses all the problems in the following list:

1. Promotion of obscure categories or miscategorization:
While this might be good and we can see things like poetry on the front page, this is also bad as it nominates art that shouldn’t be on the front-page, such as poorly drawn art that only jumps there since its nominated by the “lottery”
Examples of this are:
Digital Art > Pixel Art > Text > Non-Isometric
This promotion goes so far that TWO artworks from the same category are now on the front page (example Photography > Still Life > Dolls and Figures)
Promotion of odd categories such as “desktop screenshot”

As observed by a deviant, this is how the system works so far:
There is some kind of multiplication in values between various categories. The 'leave' category in a structure tree, or, to make it simple - last in a row is counted in normal way. Normal algorithm, like before. But when we go for upper class, there is some change. First place in 'leave' category gives you some kind of multiplication in points, so if you have some, you can easily win with BETTER second-place artist in other category. Is it really fair?
For person, who gets promoted that way (and keeps collecting multiplication in every another "upper-class") it can be. But for anyone other - not. You see, in that way, "lame" art is far above any other if it is in some "long-lost" category, so it can very easily collect points for... being unpopular.

People will undoubtedly now “miscategorize” their work to increase chances of appearing on the front page.

2. Harder/different browsing
It’s now a lot harder to find all of the well-executed, high-quality art when browsing “popular: 1 month” for example.

3. Bad for professional, established artists:
The new “Fair-art” popular page has less art showcased by established, high-quality artists who’s jobs it is actually to do art. This means less exposure for them, and less money for DA’s print sales. With the new system it’s more difficult to find and watch these professionals.

4. Lower quality of art on the front-page.
New, not so well known users are given exposure, however a lot of these users have lower quality of art, thus bringing down the quality of the front page’s looks.

5. The “popular” section can’t be defined as “popular” anymore, as it features a lot of randomness in it, such as badly drawn art with only 50 favs. It is now more of “random-popular” or “popular under systematic category control” or literally “FairExposure”.
The old system was called popular for a reason and the artwork getting up there lately is not THE most popular... so it feels like a contradiction.

6. This new system makes a tougher life for artists who were getting close to the front page but didn’t quite get there.

7. With the old favorites system people could “build up” and work hard on getting popularity and not rely on an algorithm to nominate them.
People need to work hard to EARN their spot on the Popular page. Not be “algorithmically” selected. The old system clearly inspired people to work harder for their popularity, as stated by many deviants.

8. The old system worked like via majority of votes, could be clearly understood by anyone, functioned simply and clearly like a democratic election. The new system is complex and confusing to many, without a clear explanation of how it functions and what exact values it’s based on.

9. It's cool to have fair exposure, but you just took the fun out of the game for a lot of people. What good does it do to be fair when you're not producing a real-world situation? The art world isn't fair. It's competitive and people have to work their way up to the top just like any other industry.

10. The old system ranked everybody while browsing, in lineup, if you kept hitting next page, you'd eventually get to images with zero favorites, incredibly useful for understanding how pop-art and high-quality art functions in the world, what people feel is all-time popular, who and what everyone considers awesome, and what they feel isn’t.
It had an understandable order. Example: (artworks with number of favs)
100-99-98-etc
New system has a feeling of disorganization. Example:
12-44-95-57-etc.




To clarify:
We’re not totally opposing the new system. It has a lot of positive things about it, such as featuring unknown deviants and showing previously unpopular categories.
However, we’re just having issues with its downsides and contradictions and would like to have at least some of its problems fixed.
This petition was written by alexiuss.deviantart.com an established DA artist, with the help, support and approval of many deviants like you and me.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Deviants Requesting Reform of the FairExposure frontpage favourites system Petition to DeviantArt Administration was created by DeviantArt and written by Vitaly S Alexius (doctor_vit@hotmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.