Rumor Control

So the general purpose of this journal is twofold; for one I really need to get the old journal from September put away since it's truly out of date now that it is nearly April and the second reason is that there is a lot of misinformation floating about and being spread about what you can or can't do and this misinformation is sometimes causing tickets to be sent into our customer support center which amounts to a waste of staff time and resources.

Some of the information is old and based on the way things used to work and what we used to advise or allow and some of it is just downright wrong and based on stuff people that people want to be true but which isn't.

Because people love to quote from staff journals, staff news articles as well as the FAQ and any other official source they can I'm leading off with the disclaimer that what I am writing here today applies to policy as it is currently written- if you are reading this and it's six months, a year, or 5 years later what you read below may no longer be accurate or reflect how things currently work.

People still toss around links to articles which are years out of date and some people quote old versions of FAQs which were rewritten and changed years ago so always check the most current source of information.

The first and most important thing to say about the Blocking Tool is that it exists so that you, the members of deviantART, can use it however you want.

This means that deviants can put whomever they want on their own list for whatever reason they want regardless how how stupid or unfair you might think that reason is- it is impossible for someone to "abuse" their own Blocking Tool.

Do not come to our support center to complain that you've been blocked "unfairly" because our staff will not force anyone to unblock you and we will not punish anyone for blocking you.

Do not report that someone has blocked you, then unblocked you just long enough to reply to your comment where you were badmouthing them before blocking you again- frankly we don't care about this behavior and if that sort of behavior annoys you because you can't get in the last word then you should probably stick that individual on your own block list- that's why its there.

Lastly, if someone has blocked you consider that to be a notice that if you contact them again for any reason on any account you are inviting a ban for deliberate harassment.

At one time when blocking was limited to just profile pages you could get away with repeated contact after blocking if the person blocking you wasn't able to shut their mouth and stop replying but now that blocking works site-wide that exception is gone and if you make any effort to continue contacting someone who has blocked you then you should be prepared to get yourself banned or suspended.

Now we do all understand that some of you guys cling to your pageview statistic as if it was the most important thing anyone ever gave to you, but the truth of the matter is that it simply counts how many times your profile page has been looked at. It doesn't mean that you are popular, it doesn't mean that your art is necessarily good, and overall it has no real affect on your deviantART experience at all.

Like it or not as far as we are concerned pageviews cannot be "abused".

We know all about the pageview bots which are in existence which can add tens of thousands of pageviews to your profile in a day and frankly it just isn't a primary concern for us- you don't need to report it to our support center because ultimately we won't stop them from being used.

Likewise, we know that some members have set up shop "selling" pageviews for Points and we do not consider this to be a "scam"- if someone is so wrapped up and obsessed over a pretty useless statistic which doesn't directly benefit them in any way that they want to trade away Points in order artificially increase it rather than wait for it to increase naturally for free then let them waste their Points.

Favorites occupy a special place in the hearts of many members- getting one usually represents that someone thought highly enough of your work to collect it on their list.

The fact of the matter though is that people add Favorites for a variety of reasons- some people are very discerning and hand out very few and only to what they consider quality work but there are many others who treat them with as much value as sand in the Sahara.

Some people hand out a handful a week and others employ the fire hose approach.

Ultimately though each individual passes out their Favorites as often as they see fit and as staff we do not care how fast or how rarely this occurs.

As far as policy is concerned you cannot "abuse" Favorites by handing out too many too quickly.

You cannot "abuse" Favorites by indiscriminately Favoriting everything you see or by Favoriting hundreds or thousands of works or by Favoriting "too fast".

It is also not considered to be a problem if someone Favorites your work and then immediately removes it. Yes- that sort of thing is a cheap ploy for attention but ultimately it is not something which is severe enough to justify any sort of administrative involvement.

Please don't report these types of behaviors to us.

We've gotten an unusual number of complaints about members who simply visit one's profile daily without commenting or interacting in any fashion- essentially someone who just passes through silently.

Now I understand that occasionally someone is going to get "creeped out" by this sort of thing but to be completely honest your deviantART profile is completely open to the public and there is absolutely nothing which can prevent anyone, logged in or anonymously logged out, from looking at your profile, your gallery and everything else which you have posted publicly.

Please do not report people who simply look at you without interacting- there is nothing which we can do to stop it and nothing which justifies any action at all.