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BANNED

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This deviation is dedicated to !!VegasVagrant who dared to ask “Why?”, and was indefinitely banned for protesting my banishment. Wish he could be here with us today… he had a lot to offer. Thanks bro, this one’s for you.

Ok, warning: I’ve been accused of being long winded (I really don’t see it though, I think of myself as just having a lot to say. I really shouldn’t be blamed for that, right? I mean, other people have said more than me…).

If you’re aware of the problem, feel free to skip to my proposed solution towards the end (but if you do and then decide to comment, don’t bring up arguments that I deal with in the body).

Ever wondered what it’s like to be banned from DeviantArt? No? I hadn’t either. I had my little gallery and some great friends. We were sharing and growing together as artists. In my little land of not-so-deviant artists, life was pretty good.

Then out of the blue I received a Daily Deviation (DD). Up until then it had just been that random picture on the side of my screen that I rarely paid attention to, but I was pretty stoked. “Woot woot”, look at all the pageviews, favorites, new friends… yada yada yada. My photograph highlighted the issue of female inequality in terms of access to education in developing countries, so I was pretty happy that the message was seen by a much larger audience than it would have been without the DD.

When I went to go thank the guy that had made the final selection and “awarded” me the DD, I noticed that his comment section was a forum on censorship. Turned out that he had just selected some “gratuitous” naked women art/porn as a DD and several people were crying and complaining about being offended by it.

My first reaction was disgust at the people and their delicate sensibilities. I mean, it doesn’t bother me…why should it bother them? I’ve since discovered a large percentage of deviants also have that same narrow minded mentality. But unlike those deviants, I took a second to step outside myself and step in the shoes of the offended people. I thought back to the last time I was offended by seeing something I didn’t choose to see.

One day while walking through campus I noticed several 10 foot posters of dead fetuses. I wasn’t so much offended by the pictures as I was by the fact that the activists felt it was their place to show me those pictures. I was almost so offended I thought that maybe it was my place to drop my pants and start masturbating in front of the activists. Unlike them, I respected their freedom to not see something they probably didn’t want to see.

This shook me out of my narrow minded mentality and I realized that sensibilities are relative, and just because somebody doesn’t have the same sensibilities as me is no reason that I should not respect their sensibilities.

Yet….yet, how could we respect their freedom to see what they want to see and at the same time respect other artist’s freedom to express themselves as they choose? After some serious consideration I decided the only way to do that was to discontinue DDs while at the same discontinuing censorship. It basically boils down to choices. The core structure of DeviantArt consists of doors you can choose or choose not to open. Let artists have freedom of expression within the confines of their space and let other artists have the choice of visiting or not visiting their space. You choose to see every piece of visual art on DeviantArt EXCEPT Daily Deviations. Browsing through recent submissions is a choice, visiting the home page is a choice, etc…. everywhere there exists a choice except for your daily “presents” lurking on the side of your screen -- even when you are just in the relative safety of your own space. Unlike most presents, these are opened for you and for some people they’re opium and for other people they’re anthrax.

So I took my thoughts to the forum and made the suggestion that DA discontinue DDs while stopping censorship. While in the midst of some intelligent--along with some not so intelligent discussion on the matter, the thread was locked with no reason given. Nobody bothered sending me a message to say, “Hey, this thread is out of line because… so we’re locking it”. Just a lock out of the blue. With one locked thread, 10 lines of communication between myself and other artists had been severed, which means I had 10 forum responses that I had to delete because I couldn’t respond to them.

I was a bit incensed and not a little amused at the irony of having a discussion on censorship censored, so I opened another thread to continue the discussion where it had been cut off and before I could respond to the posts that had quickly appeared, it too was locked. One of the messages from the staff was “Do not open a new thread to complain about the previous one being locked since chances are it was locked for a good reason.” What the hell? Are we betting on horses here or something? If it was such a good reason why didn’t anybody bother telling me about it? In my third post I wrote that this thread was not opened to complain about my previous thread being locked and that it was opened to discuss a serious issue and to suggest a solution to that issue.

And that’s when I found out what it’s like to be banned. My first response was to laugh at the bitter irony of being censored for speaking out against censorship. Well duh, people in China can’t get away with it so why should I be able to get away with it on DeviantArt? I visited my page and found a cute little countdown timer that had 6 days and 23 hours and some change left on it and a note that said that I had been banned for “opening a thread to complain about a thread.”

Of course the first thing I did, after laughing even more, was to see what I could and couldn’t do. Everything and everyone was there but I couldn’t interact. I couldn’t send notes, I couldn’t add favorites, I couldn’t say, “thank you for your comments”, I couldn’t critique my friend’s new submissions… everywhere I turned, “banned”, “restricted”, “banned”. It was just like being a ghost. But weirdly enough, when I visited artists with that little box at the bottom that shows recent visitors, my name magically appeared there. Poor them! I bet they were fearfully frightened at seeing a ghost. Or maybe they conducted some type of séance to summon me. How disconcerting to be able to visit people as well as a place you’d grown to love but not be able to interact with anyone or anything. I tried to capture this feeling in my submission but I don’t think it will adequately convey the feeling.

After exploring the bounds of my new eerie prison I visited the policy and procedures area. This is all I found regarding closed threads…

"Why do my threads keep getting closed?
There could be a few reasons for this, either you have posted the thread in the incorrect forum, the thread has gone off topic so much that it is closed, or in some cases, depending on which forum you are using, the question could have been answered. This is most likely to happen in the help forum, if an answer is given which is deemed to be correct, then the thread will be closed to avoid the possibilty (sic) of incorrect answers being added. This is to ensure that the original poster, or other parties reading the thread are not getting conflicting or incorrect information. If your thread was closed in the Deviants forum, it could be because the thread belonged in another forum; the Deviants forum is ONLY for threads that could not be a part of any other forum."

Noticing that they spelled “possibility” wrong didn’t add to my now very low estimation of the staff, and not finding a single mention of the possibility of banishment for “opening a thread to complain about a locked thread” put the staff’s competence and objectivity at all time lows, in my albeit slightly biased opinion.

Willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the policy was just misplaced, I sent the help desk a cordial inquiry regarding where this policy might be found and their response was………………..

Well, I’m sure they’ll respond eventually. Maybe they’re still looking for it themselves.

But in the likely case the decision to ban me was arbitrary, then screw that. Arbitrary sucks and that’s why policies and procedures are created to avoid the subjective ambiguity of arbitrarily taken actions. If you’re going to ban people “without notice” for things that aren’t in your policy and procedures how about giving them a little warning first? Perhaps? Or am I expecting an undue amount of courtesy? The staff should be accountable to the users and the customer is always right.

As of right now I have 3d 17h 28m 12s left of banishment. Sigh. It sucks. Especially since I have this idea that just might increase everybody’s freedom a little bit. Well, I might as well add some other points to my argument.

Here are some additional reasons why I think DDs should be discontinued:
• They are a combination of spam and propaganda. Aside from the lousy banners, they are the only things that I don’t have a choice whether or not I see.
• Both are there primarily because they make money for DA. It would be interesting to see just how much of the staff’s page views are a direct result of links from DDs. And because controversial pieces generate more page views than non-controversial pieces, the staff is more inclined to feature whatever work will generate the most page views which logically results in more sales of their prints or whatever. This results in more money for the staff and for DA. Don’t kid yourself, they’re in it for the money first and the art second. That’s really the only devious thing about DeviantArt.

My proposed solution:

I think DDs are wrong and that gallery directors should not have that much power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But I realize that there are many artists on this site that like being spoon fed what other people think is “good”. One artist told me that the hope of receiving a DD was the primary drive behind his artistic expression. I think that’s pretty lame but I’ve been inspired by a paper clip so who am I to judge? Therefore, here’s a compromise…

Make DDs text hyperlinks instead of thumb hyperlinks. If you don’t think that anybody will click on them because there are no pictures then why do they select poetry DDs? The people who love being injected will continue to get high off their Daily Dose while others will continue to look at them and complain about the poorly selected DDs and the rest of us who could care less will go about our lives with just a little bit more freedom. It’s not an ideal solution but it’s better than the present situation.

But that’s not all folks. Try this on for size. You know that “Hot or Not” website? Eh, well…. neither do I but I have a “buddy” who told me that people can submit their photos and other people can rate the photos by how “hot” they think a person is. He mentioned that it’s on a scale from 0, not hot to 10, way hot. Now imagine that some people only wanted to see not so hot people (for whatever reasons). What if they could select a filter criteria of say, <=6 that would let them browse for pictures that had already been rated a 6 or less on the hotness scale? And if they saw a few people that they felt were hotter than a 6 then they could rate these people according to how hot they saw them and if they consistently saw people they felt were too hot then they could increase the strength of their filter to <=5.

I hope you see where I’m going with this. Instead of hotness why can’t DA allow its users to rate deviations according to the submission’s level of mature content? Each artist would get one vote per photo and they could optimize their filter level to best reflect their sensibilities. If they find a deviation that offends them then they can rate the offending deviation according to their sensibilities and/or select the next strongest filter level. Each deviation would in a sense be an MCL (Mature Content Level) poll.

Regarding submissions, artists would be able to set their default MCL setting according to the usual amount of mature content in their submissions and individually rate submissions that do not fall within standard deviations (heh, that was cool). A standard default setting can also be set for all deviations, say of 5, if artists don’t want to bother with choosing a default setting. I’m sure with all the categorizations of submissions that already take place a choice such as this would fit in quite easily. If there was a fear that some people would mistake the mature level rating of 0 through 10 as a quality rating then perhaps the standard movie rating would work, G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17. I personally prefer the 0-10 rating method because there are more choices and I’m sure some type of symbols could be used to help clear up ambiguity.

While I’m at it let me deal with the common argument that DA will turn into a porn site if “pornographic” material is allowed. First off, “pornographic” material is already on DA so does that make DA a porn site? No. It doesn’t. Besides, if I want to take pictures of people in Kama Sutra positions who the hell are you to tell me that it isn’t art? If the ancient Sumerians created male statues with giant erect penises and fertility statues with giant breasts and hips, who the hell are you to tell them that their creative expression isn’t art? Sexuality is a fundamental drive of humanity. Without it our species would cease to exist. If artists want to explore the concept of sexuality in their art then who the hell are you to keep them from sharing their creativity with others? Well, you’d be the staff and policy makers of DA, that’s who.

But, with the possible solution I mentioned, your freedom to not see what you didn’t want to see wouldn’t be violated because the strength of your filter would be at your discretion. If you see something you consider pornographic then rate it an MCL 10 and if you keep seeing things that you consider pornographic then increase the strength of your filter until you don’t see anything you consider pornographic. Simple as that.

Currently non members cannot see mature content deviations so perhaps a poll could be given to decide which MCL to select for general public browsing. To protect kids maybe there would have to be some type of age verification system if you wanted to select an MCL higher than 7.

The amount of stored information associated with this proposed filtration system wouldn’t, relatively speaking, be that much. Basically just 3 numbers and 1 set of numbers. First number would be the MCL rating of all deviations, second number would be how many users rated that deviation and the third number would be the filter strength of all the users. The set of numbers would be which deviants had already rated which deviations. This info would most likely be stored with the deviation and for most deviations it would only be one or two users. Only a small percentage of all deviations would be contested and most likely their MCL would level out at the “correct” MCL after 5 or so ratings. If some genius submits something at MCL 5 when it should have been an MCL 10 and everybody who rates it gives it an MCL of 10 then it jump from MCL 5 to MCL 7.5 to MCL 8.3 to an MCL 8.75 to MCL 9 to MCL 9.2 (MCL 10 is MCL 9.0001 to MCL 10). Probably only people who thought something was rated too low on the MCL scale would take the time to rate a deviation. So that deviation would have 6 user’s ID numbers stored with it and 5 if you don’t count the deviant who submitted it. Eh, don’t quote me on the math.

Implementing the system would be easy as well. Give all non mature deviations an MCL 5 and give deviants who use the current filter system a filter strength of 6 (MCL 7-10 deviations not seen) and give all the mature content deviations an MCL 8 and deviants who don’t use the current filter a filter strength of 9 (MCL 10 deviations not seen). Everybody will see what they currently see now but unlike now they’ll have the option to rate deviations by MCL and customize their filters to match their sensibilities. Admittedly it might wobble a bit before equilibrium is reached but that’s a small price to pay for giving people the freedom to choose.

I would have submitted this proposed solution 7 days ago, but I was banned. Allan Jenkins captures the situation perfectly with these words… "Censorship in any form is the enemy of creativity, since it cuts off the life blood of creativity: ideas."

As a plant guy, an analogy that works for me can be found with Bonsais. When I prune a tree seedling, cut its roots and put it in a small pot… it will only grow as much as I allow it to grow. That’s censorship. Getting rid of those restrictions will allow the seedling to grow to its full potential as a tree.

Therefore if this idea is implemented then the DA policy to “Ensure that members are free to express themselves without restriction or undue censorship, and nurturing an environment of creativity, learning, and talent.” won’t be the big fat lie that it currently is.

The question might come up about where the censorship line should be drawn. Here’s my answer. The censorship line should be drawn at the point where the art process infringes on somebody else’s freedom. If somebody wants to douse themselves in lighter fluid and light themselves on fire and take pictures then their representative should be allowed to share those photos with whoever wants to see them on DA. If that same person wants to light somebody else on fire and share those photos on DA then they would have to submit the model’s release form with the photos. If Sally Mann wants to photograph “the beauty of youth” and share those photos on DA then she too would have to submit the model’s release before doing so. If Frederick Sommer were alive and wanted to upload dead chicken photos, he should be allowed to do so (I have no idea about the distinction between “pets” and “food” animals…of course animal cruelty violates the animal’s freedom and shouldn’t be allowed, unless we eat them?). If Leon Golub were alive and wanted to submit his work on DA then he should be allowed to share his work which documented hate crimes and violence. Likewise if an artist wanted to share art with a message of hate then that artist should be allowed to do so. Just because I don’t agree with your message is not a valid reason that your work should be censored. Voltaire, who figured this out centuries ago, said “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I’m not asking for DA’s policies to be more progressive than ideas of the renaissance, just that they don’t remain in the dark ages.

Ok, nice and lofty ideas but what does DA really care about ideas? I might be cynical in thinking that DA can’t see past its pocket book (maybe it’s the neon yellow “Be Generous” buttons or the gratuitous banner ads or the message you get to when you receive more than a 1000 views for a single deviation that encourages you to sell your prints via DA or the staff who make more money selling prints when they select controversial deviations as DDs) but if that’s the case then perhaps the idea of making a user customized filter a subscription only feature might appeal to the owner’s bottom line (yes, I’m a subscriber… after trying nearly every feature of DA and running into “not allowed”, “banned”, “restricted” I thought I’d try to subscribe and see if I’d run into those same blocks. Nope. Nooooo problems subscribing…funny that).

Obviously I wouldn’t have put so much time and thought into this matter if DA was just some crappy ole site. But it’s not. It’s worth this much time and thought…and more if need be.

Feel free to share your perspective in this matter. As you can see I’ve put some thought into these concepts so please show me the courtesy of putting some thought into your comments. I wish I could promise that I’ll be around to answer your comments but unfortunately, as I discovered the hard way, it’s not up to me whether or not I’ll still be here and whether or not this submission will survive. In the probable event that I am indefinitely banned please feel free to continue the discussion at MySpace.com in the DA group forum, which seems a veritable freedom of expression oasis after enduring DA’s desert of censorship.

Thank you.

!epiphyte78

*notes on the submission

While banned I took some screen shots of DA, pasted them into Powerpoint, cropped them and saved them as pictures which I opened in Photoshop. I then layered and copy and pasted them all over a new document. It’s got a ludicrous amount of layers and it took the whole 4th of July weekend and then some to compile (including this essay). As usual I wasn’t sure how to categorize this deviation. I initially wanted to submit it in the poetry section but I wasn’t sure if that was possible. I know there’s a better classification for this type of poetry other than “ransom note style”. If you know it please remind me what the term is. I’m also inclined to call it “found artwork” because I find phrases like “you do not have permission to shout” very poetically resonant. As you can see the phrase “without notice” figures very prominently in my poem almost as much as it figures into DA policy (which is where I got it from). Repetition is obviously a key feature of this deviation as well as spacing between the items. Heh, if you look hard enough you can see patterns and rhythms. I think I’m most proud of that little emoticon I modified. Starts with a question, has an idea, and then is censored.

I still much prefer photography but photography wouldn’t have managed to convey my thoughts and feelings as effectively as this format… so don’t worry that this is my new preferred mode of expression.

As usual, honest feedback is greatly welcomed regarding how my method might have been improved.


I HAVE PERMISSION TO SHOUT!!!
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Mature
© 2005 - 2024 epiphyte78
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sketchartis's avatar
looks like what i have in my email address
shitload of spam :no: