I wanted to write about FA's updated 2.7 rule, and put my thoughts somewhere that won't be subject to a suspension or ban off of the site in future.
I'll start with the positives. The new rule is better, and I'm very thankful for the effort that's gone into tweaking and rewriting it to get it where it is. It's reined in a lot, if not most of the worst potential for overreach with policing and moderation of content.
But there still is.
Ultimately, the revised 2.7 is still a form of "I'll know it when I see it" which is fundamentally, and if I may be a little melodramatic, rather insidiously toxic to art. It still makes me uneasy.
I'm in the midst of debating how, and whether or not to submit some kind of feedback for the parts I dislike, but frankly that's neither here nor there; people are largely hailing this to be a fix across the board, and the vibe seems to be that FA is now back to where we were before the whole debacle of suspensions and bans came to a head.
I feel like I've been put in a position where we need to prove a negative; where the only way to show that this new rule will work is for us to stick our necks out and see if we get into trouble. For as much as I appreciate the time and effort that's gone into restructuring FA, and drafting the new rule, the trust I would need to do that comfortably has not been regained.
Unfortunately though, the burden of testing and proving the rule's efficacy and the mod team's trustworthiness is placed squarely on the shoulders of artists like me. It may sound like more melodrama, but that's just the way it is. The decisions being taken do, have, and will continue to affect us directly.
The line's been moved in a very favourable way - but there's still a line.
I also can't discount the fact that this is my livelihood. I can't abandon what is currently my largest following and oldest archive of work by far on the basis of principle. It may seem shallow, but when paying my bills is on the line, I don't think that's an unreasonable consideration to have to take.
To that end I've decided to quietly resume business as usual, and continue to post as I have and will across all my platforms; just like I did when the original 2.7's problems came to light a few years back. I'm not at all inclined to start curating myself within a space that should be kind and accepting of my harmless artwork, and if they should deem it to be unacceptable then we'll figure out how to proceed from there.
This really, really sucked to have to make, but here we are.
I'm crossposting this everywhere both for visibility, and because I'm especially pleased with the art itself despite the heavy feelings it conveys. Pupbun dissociating, Chocolate taking charge, Ruby looking scared.. All the things at once made this very hard to make. I thought to add Soul looking worried about us but in the end I just couldn't do it.
I won't tell you what to do, but FA doesn't deserve our attention. It hasn't for a long time, but with Dragoneer being gone, their sheer unmitigated incompetence knows no bounds.
I don't know how I'll handle migrating off of FA, but at the bare minimum I'll be posting on there a lot less. A huge chunk of my work will immediately get me banned off of it now so, given the insane fuckwits out there who'll gladly report the entirety of my gallery again on a stupid whim with zero recourse, attracting as little attention as possible will be my safest option anyway.
I'm doing this wholly with the expectation that I'm going to lose the entirety of my 19 year archive on that site at a moment's notice, but I simply can't afford to let my now single largest audience go so completely to waste, at least not before encouraging them to find me elsewhere.
I don't know why I somehow imagined that FA would always be a home for me... watching people leave has been hard... I just hope something better can rise from the ashes of FA... I don't really want people to have to go back to maintaining their own websites and social blah blah blah... A poom I know, who odds are you do too, things we should all migrate back to a sort of RSS feed system, and maybe that would be best... but we will see...
I don't know why I somehow imagined that FA would always be a home for me... watching people leave h
I was right there with you despite knowing about my peers getting booted off of it years prior. For as much as I grandstand about standing up for each other I feel guilty for this taking as long as it did to come around for me to take direct action on it, cause I was comfortable.
As far as grandstanding, well... I was going to poke at the meat industry a little but it is more accurate to bring up plastic. As a consumer, I don't think you know how much you cannot avoid plastic. I may be wrong, but lets put it this way, almost all tooth paste contains abrasive elements to help clean, some more than others. The abrasive substance they use, and have for some time now, is plastic. "Microplastics"*. That sounds like conspiracy theory B.S. I admit, much as it pains me to say something like "do your own research", I honestly don't expect people to believe a claim like that unless they google it for themselves.
Sorry, I'm getting there. Much as we are pressured as a society to "recycle" and "avoid plastics", hard fact is that you kinda can't. So ultimately it isn't a problem that can be handled just by "not participating". It is a problem that people need to pressure big business to go back to using products such as glass, waxpaper or parchment paper, foil, aluminum, etc to package their goods.
I'm not sure if it is clear what I am saying here, but you do more by speaking out than you do by not participating.
*Microplastics are not confirmed to be of any harm to your body. *The actual scientific process of proving something is harmful is complex, so when researchers say "We haven't confirrrrmed that i is harmful..." assume they are winking and that there are things they know but can't say for legal reasons.
As far as grandstanding, well... I was going to poke at the meat industry a little but it is more ac
I wanted to write about FA's updated 2.7 rule, and put my thoughts somewhere that won't be subject to a suspension or ban off of the site in future.
I'll start with the positives. The new rule is better, and I'm very thankful for the effort that's gone into tweaking and rewriting it to get it where it is. It's reined in a lot, if not most of the worst potential for overreach with policing and moderation of content.
But there still is.
Ultimately, the revised 2.7 is still a form of "I'll know it when I see it" which is fundamentally, and if I may be a little melodramatic, rather insidiously toxic to art. It still makes me uneasy.
I'm in the midst of debating how, and whether or not to submit some kind of feedback for the parts I dislike, but frankly that's neither here nor there; people are largely hailing this to be a fix across the board, and the vibe seems to be that FA is now back to where we were before the whole debacle of suspensions and bans came to a head.
I feel like I've been put in a position where we need to prove a negative; where the only way to show that this new rule will work is for us to stick our necks out and see if we get into trouble. For as much as I appreciate the time and effort that's gone into restructuring FA, and drafting the new rule, the trust I would need to do that comfortably has not been regained.
Unfortunately though, the burden of testing and proving the rule's efficacy and the mod team's trustworthiness is placed squarely on the shoulders of artists like me. It may sound like more melodrama, but that's just the way it is. The decisions being taken do, have, and will continue to affect us directly.
The line's been moved in a very favourable way - but there's still a line.
I also can't discount the fact that this is my livelihood. I can't abandon what is currently my largest following and oldest archive of work by far on the basis of principle. It may seem shallow, but when paying my bills is on the line, I don't think that's an unreasonable consideration to have to take.
To that end I've decided to quietly resume business as usual, and continue to post as I have and will across all my platforms; just like I did when the original 2.7's problems came to light a few years back. I'm not at all inclined to start curating myself within a space that should be kind and accepting of my harmless artwork, and if they should deem it to be unacceptable then we'll figure out how to proceed from there.
*FA Rule 2.7 Amendment Update (4/1/2025)*: I wanted to write about FA's updated 2.7 rule, and put m
