Once their "devs" broke noscript/basic (x)html browers for good, I did ask them to reconsider, I got a "no", and it was over.
Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
41–50 of 55 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#42I used to troll it a lot. At one point, when I first signed up, it was an incredible source of undiscovered great art, but at some point it devolved into narcissistic selfies. I created folders name "fat women" and "uglies" and put all selfies in it
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#43I used to have an account with a bunch of art there. Not anymore. Some time after the redesign I deleted everything and now I only rarely visit the site. The only thing I miss is contact with a few artists I got to know through the site. Off the top of my head, some of the reasons: After the redesign the site was practically unusable on my computer. Viewing a single artwork froze my browser and took a minute or two o…
It looks like the site lost a large part of its community and visitors with the redesign. It makes me curious about how this process proceeded from the viewpoint of the site's owners. Any redesign will upset people who invest a lot of time in a website, but there must come a point where metrics show that the new website caused a drop in visits and uploads with no sign of improving. What I wonder is if despite the gen…
> What I wonder is if despite the general impression that the site has failed it is still meeting the goals set by its owners, and what does goals might be.
I can't imagine that it's meeting any goals at this point. It appears to be mostly on life support.
The site sold for an incredibly small sum of money. I believe it was less than $1 million. Considering what it once was, the sale price was astonishingly low. I think the founders chose the only apparent option that would keep the site alive and save at least a few of the core staff from losing their jobs. I will give them credit, the management team really did care about the site and the users when I worked there, which was from early 2009 to early 2013.
It was the best job I ever had and I loved every minute of the nearly 5 years I spend there. I learned more from that job than any other time in my career and it was really formative for me as an engineer. They had an amazing engineering culture which I haven't found elsewhere. At least sometime in the past they had a really strong drive to create the best place for artists and an incredible team working on making that happen, despite some missteps and controversial decisions. I think what they achieved is remarkable, especially given the small amount of outside investment they took. It was once among the very top sites on the internet, running on a tiny budget with a small team executing really well.
I credit much of the engineering culture to $randomduck and $mccann but there were a lot of brilliant engineers and inspired people working there. I'm happy the site survives in some form but it's sad to see how far it's fallen.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#44I used to have an account with a bunch of art there. Not anymore. Some time after the redesign I deleted everything and now I only rarely visit the site. The only thing I miss is contact with a few artists I got to know through the site. Off the top of my head, some of the reasons: After the redesign the site was practically unusable on my computer. Viewing a single artwork froze my browser and took a minute or two o…
> They broke RSS feeds. > ... dark patterns to make people create an account. Those two where the reason I left the site, I frequently bought posters/prints there and also sold some myself. At the time, the site where the go-to-place for art and I think it was also the biggest? Looks like they overestimated how much their crap their members where willing to deal with and how hard it is to draw in new ones..
Sounds like they tried milk it for more than it was worth. Not every site can screw users like facebook and get away with it.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#45My 14 year old daughter managed to find it by herself through her friends. I've only really ever used it to find nice wallpapers but my daughter is a pretty talented artist and she loves the site.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#46I used to spend a lot of time at DA with Linux customisation. There used to be it's own category which was useful. Now I have to filter through screeds of nudes and shit to find anything. It's not worth the effort.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#47[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#48Former gallery admin/volunteer staff here (2004-2008): The site got bought by Wix a few years back and is a mixed bag at this point. It's had a long history of junior management/hubris making avoidable errors and missing opportunities to lead (I also attribute this to being led from LA, by very inexperienced management, where media/content properties see things through a very Big Content distorted prism in and of its…
Wix are true experts at terrible UX ;) DeviantArt was the first place where I shared photography, a very, very long time ago. My account still works, funnily enough. It was a great place that reminds me of the MySpace / wild west days of the earlier internet. Good memories.
the product managers botched it, it's a shame it could have been so much better than this.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#49Most people use Artstation now. https://www.artstation.com
I feel like ArtStation is more geared towards professionals artists and illustrators. It's a blast if you're browsing but lack the community side of Deviantart.
Re: Ask HN: Do people still use DeviantArt?
#50I got tired of looking at drawings of fantasy females with wings and pointy ears and perfect tits. Perhaps I would have found this more compelling if I wasn't gay, but I doubt it.