Nono, not a failpost at all! Jotaku is heading up an effort called Project Community that attempts to encourage more community-type efforts in Weasyl (because, let's be honest, Weasyl's not going to have the sheer numbers of FA anytime in the foreseeable future, so it's better to focus on what I think Weasyl's strongest point, which is a more social, friendly, community-oriented platform). There's a forum thread discussing ideas with a pinned top post that describes current Weasyl contests and community efforts right here. Jotaku's posted some Journals about it as well.

I think the things that will keep people on a site is:

• Comments
• Commissions

I think the latter is a big issue for the artists that we need to keep the site alive.

I've decided to just upload a tiny trickle of commissions to my FA with a big message that people can find more on my Weasyl.
Plus my personal work is here, which also includes some pin-ups and comics, people like those?

I've seen some people watermark their uploads elsewhere and tell people the unwatermarked version is here; lot of crying manbabies there.

I have no idea honestly. I'd love to know my self, I guess just keep being active your self and hope it's infectious? That's all I can seem to do or come up with

I'm interested in more community wide projects.

Paranoia can do this to people. I like to expand my horizon with different places.

Being engaged will keep other people engaged, so just the obvious is probably the best. I'd love to see Weasyl do well, too.

I don't understand why people can't accept that others will have different reactions from them to this whole mess, either. The most nonsensical argument I've seen is that the movers have no backbone... when, uh, standing up for your convictions in the face of difficulty or opposition is the definition of having a backbone. Everyone should just deal however works best for them and let others do the same in the knowledge that what works best will differ among people, but nope, we gotta have more drama.

I think it's pretty cool you're going to be here too as I've admired your work on FA for a while now.

I'm trying really hard not to notice or care about any drama on the issue... But then I don't do commissions, so it doesn't really matter to me where/if people watch me. I've had both sites basically since Weasyl's inception, and I'll probably maintain both until or unless that gets unwieldy.

It's too bad that there even is drama. Personal choice of gallery website is personal, you know?

Even though I stated I'd upload to both here and FA, the idea of never visiting or uploading to that trash bin ever again is really appealing. I think I'm going to upload only here going forward, for furry stuff anyway.

This journal has some excellent points https://www.weasyl.com/journal/24465/the-benefits-of-starting-over-in-a-new-gallery-website-follow-these-artists

Actually it was this one I was thinking of, sorry https://www.weasyl.com/journal/24895/how-to-make-weasyl-your-main-gallery-and-encourage-others-to-follow

I'd just call it a case of sour grapes. In a lot of ways, Weasyl is years ahead of FA, which is a little depressing given the age of FA. All it's really lacking is content and business, both of which are the onus of the users. They're also things that have been steadily improving. Either by way of people coming here just to poke around or people who are fed up with FA's policies or lack of features.

I've moved almost all of my community interaction over here. I treat this site as my "home", and the other I go to for the people who don't post here yet.

That's all most people can do on a personal level, really. That and keep on keeping on with the positive attitudes and friendly atmosphere that's been pretty common here so far.

Weasyl has it all, and by all, it's the admins that actually do listen to you, and they do give a reply in a respective amount of time.

Maintain the strength of the community. Post stuff, comment on the work of others, and reply to people who comment to you. People like art and feedback. Just keep that up and you'll have the foundation of a good art community. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

I think others have already made this point, but it's not just being here, but being active here. So, open commissions here and advertise that you have commissions open only here or that you will only accept applications for commissions here or something.

I think what we should also try to do is bring in new people. Ones that don't know or have an FA or DA or various others. Invite some fresh faces and fresh artists. Invite your friends on facebook, even! It's not a pure furry site, even if it is predominately furry. They have already stated that they accept all kinds of artists...

My occasional new stuff will be uploaded here and not on FA (all my FA accounts are more or less abandoned, personal choice).
Otherwise: exchanges and contests about drawing a character? I know some are too busy with commissions for that, but maybe it's worth a try.

some people are offering "bonuses" to people who watch or whatever on weasyl.. like more free art raffles, first picks for commissions, adoptables, other free stuff, posting uncensored stuff here and censored stuff other places, posting here first.. but i dunno really..

All we really need is for FA to screw up once or twice more. And that's a question of "when", not "if".

Um what they said, also say encourage your followers to go network with other artists in journals (like pimping your fav artists- https://www.weasyl.com/journal/24672/weasyl-welcome-package ) and making some weasyl exclusive content- particularly I find flash and animations myself easier to transition over here, so they would obviously be exclusive to Weasyl.

This doesn't really apply to you because you do mostly (all?) clean stuff, but I've started posting censored versions of my adult art to FA, and the uncensored versions only on Weasyl. It does mean I do like one and a half pictures for every picture, but so far it's been a lot of fun. (And boy, the comments I get, hah...)

Additionally, I've also been posting sketches exclusively to here that I'm not posting on FA or anywhere else. I don't know if it's really driving a migration, but it does make the site more appealing to folks, as they know it'll be somewhat active and updating regularly.

I guess that'd be my biggest suggestion: start by posting exclusive content here. Eventually as it becomes more well used, post more and more content here, and less to other sites, until you just stop posting elsewhere entirely.

Pretty much what the first person said. Project Community seems like a really neat thing. Granted i'm nowhere skilled enough to be a part of it. There's also the Trading Post some people are trying to get off the ground. I can't remember who it was though x.x

Just being active should help. Journals are searchable so comment on them once in a while!

I'm way more active here than FA.

I post FA commissioned only pieces there...as in, if said commissioner is found THERE and nowhere else, period, then I'll post. If I can find them on Weasyl as well as FA then automatically it goes to Weasyl. Plus no personal art goes there either! With that said, my FA gallery has become very boring, and I plaster on everything MORE ART ON WEASYL because... well... if you wanna see more art, you know what to do. Also making my profile private unless a member is signed in prevents FA folks from lurking and still viewing said "exclusive art". /sneaky_sneaker

I love it here and I hope it sticks! It's up to us to make that happen :3

Not a failpost. :)
As other more or less summed before, I assume the best way to get this place to succeed will be twofolds.
Namely, activity and business.
People not just posting images to the site, but actively commenting the images others have posted but also showing oneself as using the site as more than just an art dump. I've seen tons of people who crossposted all of their galleries here.... and then never bothered to write even just a single journal to present the kind of person they were.

Which is a shame, because this place even has a browsing category for journals to discover new people not just based on how well they can draw but also what they have to say.

I think most people have already said it, keep posting art and comments here, if you frequent other sites and you see double posts, comment here instead of there, offer exclusive commissions and discounts here but no where else, and if you can, leave the sites that are broken. The people who actually care will follow, everyone else will have to deal with it.

"I am still reading snide comments over there wishing for the people jumping here to fail. Which really bums me out. Why wish failure on someone just for having different personal convictions than you do?"

I have not read the comments myself, but I feel like stating a theory or perhaps two. I think it might be a kind of "proud of where I come from and no one or place is better then my group/place" Kind of like school football rivalry or team rivalry of any sort. Perhaps a bit of competitive nature that is in us, but turns into something ugly. Much like Europians, Spanish, and whoever else with their soccer. People start riots over their team. I don't completely understand it, cause I don't put the effort into studying people and their mentality.

Another theory is that I think some of the people on FA feel that some of the artiest moved because, "It was the cool thing to do." or "Everyone else is doing it." Things like this bother people. Those are just my guess though and it doesn't really help us understand their actions completely, but it gives at least a bit of an understanding to why they are acting the way they are.

There is a LOT of bitterness and negativity on FA. I've been noticing it for years. Maybe it's just a byproduct of how huge the userbase is, but I'm not surprised that there are people who want Weasyl and its users to fail. It seems such a stupid thing to me, though, to get angry at someone for preferring to use a different website...

I am trying to post anything I post to Weasyl first - then wait a few days, maybe a week - and then go over to FA and post a thumbnail only or the journal title only, with a link to the older thread here on Weasyl. I'm not an artist so my stuff isn't viewed that much anyway, so I don't know how effective it really is. I wish there was a way to disable journal replies on FA though...I wouldn't try to delete them because that would probably be taken as aggressive.

I mentioned on my FA just before I left that I'd be lurking about commenting and favoriting and such, but to be honest, I haven't even really wanted to that... so I haven't. The last time I actually visited the site was two weeks ago... and I think I don't plan on going back unless it's to delete what's left of my commission account and deactivating both of them. If people want to give me grief about leaving a site that makes me uncomfortable, then I don't want them patronizing me.

I know comments keep people here, I've already had friends really happy with the fact that the crowd on Weasyl seems to really respond and interact with each other. I'm really happy that this seems to be a place, to me, that cares a little bit more about the creators themselves and their work. As long as the community remains active as a community itself, I think it'll do well. (now that it's shown it will last longer and update faster than a lot of other places that have sprung up in the past)

I like to make people snazzy banners so their page looks all welcoming and happy.

Hopefully not a fail-post. I think the way to keep this place active is simply... to participate in it. For all the users on FA, only a small number participate. All people need to do to keep Weasyl active is just to participate more than they do on FA, which isn't hard as there are SO many who don't participate at all. My $0.02...

I actually pulled down most of my gallery over there because I don't want to be responsible for generating traffic for the site. And after the last administration debacle of favoritism some time back I started running adblock.

I think just a consistent posting here, people commenting and following and +Faving, in addition to some of the really good artists like yourself posting at least occasional things here that are Weasyl "exclusives" whether you advertise it or not, will go a long way.

I learned something lovely about the site today. If you fill out your filters, it works on Journals too! Love that.

I wish it was easier to mass transfer files from other sites that aren't pictures (specifically for me I need flash and writing files). If I could, I'd upload my stuff and my partner's, but as it is, there's just so much I'd have to upload, or files that I couldn't upload at all, as they only exist on the site it's uploaded to.

I know it's something they're working on, but until then it'll be difficult to impossible for me to use this site like the others. I'm optimistic though.

I made an account here to branch out. my biggest thing here is that the site just feels really...dead.
That, and i feel the management of submissions is rather poor (compared to say...DA)

::rolls across page:: I have no extra valuable input but I am hereeeeeee.

Not a failpost!

I too closed down my DA a couple nights back due to reasons that were physically causing me unneeded grief. Heard some good things about Weasyl, and followed you here =3

Must say I definitely appreciate the search engine NOT FAILING LIKE A BITCH after two pages of artworks -glares at DA- That and the folders, and the filters, and the commission info set-up. This and Tumblr offered me better things, and it was time for a change anyway.

That and I rather like the spirited manner of this place - it's much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye to me. Because I'm simple like that, haha!

-leaves cookies at your doorstep-

Writing code to add features to this site. Two things I can think of that are badly needed:

• Email notification of new replies and PMs (useful for people who don't visit every day, and will drive in more traffic by building mindshare)
• Social media sharing widgets.

I know that Weasyl has a bug tracking system and I'm sure that each of these are in the queue. It's just a question of when they'll happen. I can think of other features that would be nice to have, but these are two of the bigger ones that come to my mind.