What is 'Fair'?

9 min read

Deviation Actions

Thiefoworld's avatar
By
Published:
7.8K Views
:thumb296466138: :thumb296563075: Help Spread the Word by oomizuao Frontpage Curiosity by Shutter-Shooter

It caught my attention what these yellow deviations say in their copy-pasted descriptions and I wanted to give my two cents.

If you did not hear about it, let me explain it within a few lines: For about 4 months now deviantart launches a new frontpage system called "Fair Exposure". It is not only based on the count of favourites/comments/views anymore, but tries to feature deviations from different, especially underappreciated categories to have a variety of art on the frontpage.

- Well first of all, this is nothing new. The first mayor change to this algorithm for Popular browse results happened back in 2008 with exactly the same reaction from the community mccann.deviantart.com/journal/… If you thought the old system was based solely on favs/comments/views, now you know it hasn't been like that for some good 4 years by now.



While this seems like a honorable and nice goal it seems to achieve the reverse effect. It is called "Fair", but if you look at the frontpage these days it wont be hard to notice, that "Fair" looks different. Masses of people submit their deviations to obscure categories just because it increases their chance to get to the frontpage. The frontpage is full of naked women presenting rather intimate parts of their bodies, photographs of lego-figures with 20 favs, MLP-fanart submitted to totally wrong categories and art that is submitted to resources and stock images, just because you can download a custom brush that was probably made within minutes...

- Well then it isn't the system's fault don't you think? Maybe the algorithm would give better results if people actually submitted to the correct category each time, but because people wanted to play the so called "category game" the frontpage is more filled with miscats, often of low quality. BUT THEN AGAIN, it's not the system not making it's work here, it's the people trying to take advantage of it in a way it wasn't supposed to. On a side note, for as much as I'm sick of MLP as well, I can't really say I see much difference with how it used to be a few months ago, but to each their own. Oh! and if you are so sensitive about intimate parts, turn on your mature filter sweetie.



On the same time pictures with lots of favourites, even of unknown artists, who spendt hours and hours and WOULD or SHOULD HAVE been featured on the frontpage, don't get the chance to get some exposure, because they submitted their piece into the right category.

- Well, if they have "lots of favourites" I don't think they are THAT unknown then.... just saying.



... The new frontpage system favours special categories (Photography>Interior/Exterior, Wallpaper>Photmanipulation, Digital Art>Vecor Art/Typography, Resources and Stock Images just to name a few of them), while more popular categories like Manga/Anime, Fanart, Digital Art>Paintings&Airbrushings and others are handicapped. So it is not rarely seen that a picture with 100 favs gets featured on the frontpage, while a picture out of the handicapped categories with, lets say, 500 favs remains unseen by the masses.

- Unseen by the masses?  With 500 favs? This is where I think this whole argument greatly contradicts itself. So basically you're saying that art that already receives hundreds of favs WITHOUT REACHING THE FRONTPAGE it's not receiving the attention it deserves, so that... isn't... fair?


Re-read and re-think that. You're saying that a deviation with a 500 favs should be on the frontpage, where it will obviously get even more attention. Yes, that sounds fair. If a deviation gets that amount of attention already by it's own, do you really think it needs to go to the front page?

I read a comment of someone saying something among the lines of "I was surprised that *insert extremely popular deviant here*'s latest deviation didn't reach the front page, that's not fair!" - once again; REALLY??!

First off: I don't know if you do, but I still see deviations from fairly known deviants, like loish, Hellobaby, GENZOMAN just to name a few, reaching the front page each time. The system still considers favs/views/comments to determine what is popular, so your precious popular deviants are not really affected by the new algorithm.  Secondly, and ooooonce again, why does a deviation that is already receiving a lot of attention need to be on the front page? It's like giving a DD to a deviation with 10,000 favs already. Sure it's not wrong actually, there are no rules against it but... what's the point?

- The rest of the description is more about personal opinion and experience, with phrases like "for me a lot of the magic DA used to have was lost with this new system..." .... to each their own. That's true for the person who wrote it, and I can't change that. It's not true for me.

I want to make clear I'm not saying starting a movement like these yellow deviations is wrong. It's certainly catching the attention of a lot of people, and I'm pretty sure the admins already saw them. Besides, they are by far a lot more useful  than just a whining comment of "I don't like this shit, take it away", it's stating an opinion and making a suggestion for improvement and I fully support that. I'm just adding my opinion on some of the points the text above touched. People talk about fairness but by the sound of this, it seems more like complaining that the art they used to see is not there anymore, but  I don't see how that have anything to do with fairness, but more with personal taste. Besides, I don't think that's completely true. I really, sincerely, honestly don't see that much of a difference with how it used to be then to how it is now. I still see the same kind of art mixed in the front page: nudes, fanart, ponies, art from popular artists, some art not of my taste, etc. and it has been like that for the past almost 7 years I've been here.

I agree that the system could be improved though, while it aims to be fairest as possible, it isn't there yet, but I believe is at least a step ahead from how it used to be, and as mentioned earlier, if the system is not entirely giving the results it should give is in part because of some people's fault, when they submit to these "obscured categories" trying to get to the front page and thus playing the "category game". There should be a better solution for this, but going back to the old system is definitely not one of them, because the old system is not fairer than the new one... unless our concepts of what is "fair" differ, which seems to be the case.

© 2012 - 2024 Thiefoworld
Comments76
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
MAGR's avatar
I say, I wans't even aware about all this thing...