Simply put it's the way the system is set up. The suggestion was favorites, now it's a journal, which is effective?
I am assuming implicitly that you would fave everything you commission by default and use a journal to list commissions.
Right now the system is so out of date, you can't selectively unwatch journals
Which is why journals work.
Because it is not "for you."
Okay. So what?
Do you honestly think that the Medicis' (or various popes, kings, etc.) would have commissioned any art that they could not put into their own palaces?
If this were myspace, you could plaster whatever you want anywhere. But it's not. FA is for artists to show off their work. Showing off commissions is shoehorned in.
Finally, many artists do NOT keep all of the commissioned art that they have created displayed in their galleries.
Perhaps they should! For exposure.
Okay, so I tend to stalk the recent uploads. I like that people are able to upload their commissions because I can click in by a picture that catches my eye, note that it's drawn by someone else, and visit them instead.
Or you could just click it when the original artist uploads it and not have other artists' work bumped off the page by double uploads.
BEYOND that, you can also browse the commissioner's gallery and find other similar artists!
You can also browse faves to find a much more extensive list of similar artists.
I don't see either:
- Why posting a commission purely to give the artist exposure is significantly different from posting something else I like to give the artist exposure
- How this significantly detracts attention from artists when (a) a greater proportion of art and attention (faves, comments, etc) is now being given to people who are not artists and (b) there are other ways to show off your commissioned or gift art
I've seen tons of commission uploads by popular commissioners that have many times the faves and comments and views than the originals. How is it helping the original artist to let tons of people leave their appreciation elsewhere?
I don't much expect For You to be removed no matter what I say. My more immediate concern is that, rather than being treated as a stopgap measure to deal with a crappy codebase, everyone acts like this is some grand and healthy thing. It detracts attention from artists, misleads visitors, duplicates images, and sorts things incorrectly on a site that already has enough issues with organization and finding things -- now I can't even trust the name of the submitter. It is exactly the
first thing furries would use Photobucket for.
Also, consider people who both create their own art and upload commissions/gifts.
First of all,
how do I find just this person's art? That is, after all, probably why I'm looking in eir gallery. I can't; it's mixed in with art from random other artists.
How do I watch just this person's art? Again, whoops, I can't.
What if I look at this person's userpage and the most recent piece is a commission I don't like? I just absolutely hate the style. Am I going to stick around? Probably not. Now I won't see anything this person has
actually made.
Aaand further:
Twile:
Pageviews: 56000
Comments Received: 5642
Most recent commissionee,
ta-ek:
Pageviews: 2022
Comments Received: 508
Original submission has 28 faves, 13 comments, 430 views.
Twile's copy has 75 faves, 36 comments, 1606 views.
Second-most recent,
wmustang:
Pageviews: 13845
Comments Received: 406
Artist never uploaded. (?!)
Third most recent,
doe:
Pageviews: 15353
Apparently left or something ?_?
Fourth most recent,
guardianmoose:
Pageviews: 7309
Comments Received: 2034
Original submission has 100 faves, 26 comments, 1401 views.
Twile's copy has 153 faves, 44 comments, 3044 views.
Actually, the only person I can find who is more famous than Twile or who has garnered more views on the original upload is Glenn. And he's Glenn.
Crome:
Pageviews: 41539
Comments Received: 148 (cleared recently)
Most recent commissionee,
zhivagod:
Pageviews: 34810
I am not super up to date on furry popular culture, so I can't name a lot of prolific commission whores, but it strikes me as a little preposterous when the only two who come to mind are vastly more popular than the artists they commission and copies of work gets two, three,
four times as many comments and faves as the artist's original. This is a slap in the face to artists. Again,
what are they supposed to do if they don't like it? Piss off their potential clients by taking the spotlight away from them?