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Punishing Fans? Get Real.. by SliferFox
So... One thing i've been noticing a lot of from artists lately, who have come over here from FA, or who are cross-posting, is the worry that they are some how 'punishing' their fans by making certain things exclusive to Weasyl, or where ever they decide to post their work besides FA...
If anyone is punishing anyone else, it's the majority of the FA admin team for causing people to leave in the first place..
Now.. It's the artist's business what they do, but I for one, find that thinking they are punishing anyone is a sad excuse for posting back on FA...
By all means, if you think it's a 'good' (if you can even call it that) business move to continue posting there, great... but posting there so as not to 'punish' the people who didn't even bother to follow you to greener pastures?... ridiculous :|
If they were truly fans of yours, they would simply take the time to make a new account over here, or wherever the fuck you decide to post, and let that be the end of it.
Instead, you're making up an excuse about 'punishing' your fans, by posting somewhere that they refuse to make an account at. It's not 'punishing' anyone. If anything, it's culling out the ones who don't truly care enough about your artwork to keep an eye on it regardless of where you post..
All in all, it's irritating to see, and even more irritating to think people actually feel this way.. :|
/Rant
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When i think of that 'hesitance' you mentioned, i just think of any point of re-adjustment one might experience when moving to a new city/state or whatever. It's not like you're betraying your friends/family by moving, you're doing it for your own well being and happiness.. It's not like you can't still keep in contact with those who take the time to say hello via e-mail or whatever, so there's really no loss what so ever, just a change in the way in which you interact with one another. ( Actually, that's another excuse i keep seeing touted around.. "Oh, i've made so many friends on this site, i don't want to lose them!" I call bullshit right there :|)
Moving to a new art site is no different. And sad to say, even moving to a new city/state, you're bound to lose friends (read fans) along the way, only to have new ones come along to replace them. Call me cynical in that regard, but i've lost plenty of friends over the years for far less substantial reasons...That being said, I completely understand why some people might feel discouraged due to the lack of traffic here compared to FA (particularly those who make a living off of their art). But ya know what? Weasyl is still in Beta and ACTIVELY seeking out suggestions for improvements on the site. (Just the other day, i received an e-mail concerning a suggestion thread in the forums that i posted, saying that my suggestions were added to the 'To Do' list. That's far more than i can say about FA)
Not only that, going back to FA is going to do nothing but two things. 1. Prove the people right who said 'Oh, they'll be back in a week' (i'm including the FA staff on this thought process, cause i can guarantee you, and that's exactly what they're counting on) and 2. It'll hurt Weasyl's momentum in becoming something far better than FA, Simply because it doesn't have the user base FA does since 'everyone' is just going back to FA in the first place...
I've already noticed a drop in my submissions from the people i'm watching that Specifically moved here because of what's been going on over on FA, and That more discouraging than not having my original following from FA... Not that i'm what you would call a 'popufur' to begin withThose who are or have said they're leaving need to simply stick to their guns and not back down on their decision to leave and not turn back, otherwise it's going to be for not... =\
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apologies if that came off as a bit offensive or anything >.o it wasn't meant too.... and if it Didn't, then umm.... just ignore this... lol
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*laughs~* It's all good, no offense or worries. x3 Sorry for the late reply!
The analogy to literally "moving" actually does make a lot of sense when you put it that way. People who really want to stay in touch will end up finding a way to do so no matter what. I have some friends who actually really don't like Weasyl at ALL, but have watched me on Weasyl with accounts regardless because they want to keep up with my art and activity. Or heck, they watch me on the other galleries I have aside from FA. Or you can keep in contact with friends outside of FA through emails and IMs. It's all very possible without having to rely on FA as a middleman!
But yeah, while stuff's really calmed down with submissions, since people have finished uploading GALLERIES worth of artwork with moving over and whatnot, Weasyl is still small, changing, and improving, and people need to understand the site's still in the process of finalizing itself. And that it's actually doing so really damned quickly, and it's worth sticking around for that!
For example, this latest update with the text underneath the thumbnails has made my life a HUNDRED times easier with browsing the site on my smartphone. What has FA done to make it easier to navigate their website? They've spoken of making a mobile site, but where has that gone? Sure, the site technically loads fast, but with no way to modify the site for mobile viewing, I have to zoom right in and skiff back and forth all over the place, like I'm trying to read a book with binoculars. It's made me not even bother trying to check my FA when I'm away from home, while I'll jump on Weasyl first thing whenever I have a Wifi signal to grab. x3
But yeah... While I can understand WHY people might scoot back over to FA after "quitting" it, I still wish they wouldn't. :< The last thing I want is for the FA admins to get proven right, and not because their site is "better", but simply because it's bigger than everyone else. I'm hoping I can continue slowly scootching my way off of FA, and leave that place just for smaller versions of my official commission stuff, while all my "fun" pictures will go up on Weasyl.
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Amber-Aria
Yeah... A fear of "punishing" fans is something I worry about too just a little bit, despite technically knowing better. :< I mean, I do adore this website far more than FA, and find it much easier to just interact with folks here, but there's this... hesitance regardless. I totally understand what you're getting at here though, and even though I'm guilty of that little bit of fear, I'm not gonna let it get the best of me. I've got a lot of active watchers here on Weasyl who are positively marvelous, and I hope to support those who do decide to watch me with good content they can't get elsewhere.
What annoys me more is that I see so many people immediately get discouraged to post here regularly or do things exclusively for Weasyl (or on any alternate site, really) simply because they're not getting the same sort of page views, faves, and comments as they would on FA. For people who unfortunately rely on commissions for income to survive, that's definitely an issue, but even then sometimes... It seems to not click with a lot of people that the website doesn't have nearly the same utterly massive userbase as FA. So of course, comments will be down, and page views will be down. It's not something that is immediately gratifying like posting to FA and getting like... twenty favorites in the span of an hour. In order to get attention in a budding community like this, people have to be willing to give it, and encourage activity, not just throwing work into a gallery and expecting things to fall in their lap? >//o;