Oddities...

[secondlina]

 Well damn.

I made this face a lot this week. And it's a face I keep for special occasions. First off, i'm annoyed with aspects of my job, mainly idiots calling. Second, I seem to be in a bit of a rut this week. I can't write a comic or an LJ post worth a damn. Third, holy flying macaroni Batman, what is the internet up to?

For starters, Namesake showed up on fandomsecrets. Of all the elements I was expecting readers to nitpick about (such as genders, Lewis Carroll's reputation as a pedophile, sexual orientations of characters, comparing to Disney, etc), someone seemed to have been bothered by the ethnicity of the Wendy character. Huh. That's... a little odd. From what I gathered, she had a very clear vision of what the Wendy of Peter Pan should be. and our version... din't really cover that. It's unfortunate for the reader that feels this way. I still think she should have given the story a bit more of a chance (since Wendy has yet to actually show up).

To continue.... Oh, Deviant art. More deviant art issues. For some, anyways. Deviant art technicians have eliminated the "Other" choice in their "gender" categories. As a person who works with software, I suspect that the technical team did it because the marketing team wishes to add gender-defined campaigns to the site (jewelry stores for isntance would be show on "girly" galleries). However, this has offended many people (including some of my friends). Basically, this has offended people who do not feel attached to a gender or another. Such as Transgendered or Queer folks. 

I admit, myself, I didn't get the issue right away. I'm pretty naive. So I still though LGBT people identified to a specific gender. My friends have explained to me that that wasn't the case. so I see more where this issue comes from. 

Also, To me, the change in itself is not insulting. As I said, it's probably marketing based. But the Deviant art tech support was very rude to many who complained. and I find that is the bad point. Not understanding there's an issue? That's an honest mistake. Being rude to people who report said issue and refusing to fix anything? That's bad public relations and just doesn't cut it.

I won't quit deviant art (since I use it for work, among other things).

However, yesterday, me and dqbunny  were considering advertising namesake on deviant art. Now? Not anymore. Not if we can avoid it.

So, if anyone knows good sites to advertise Namesake (either through project wonderful or not), please let us know! We appreciate all guidance and suggestions. 

Also, have cool namesake drawings I designed for the banners to make you feel better.



Sorry for not drawing comics this week guys. I am really void of joke ideas.

- Isa

Comments

ran long 1/2

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the FS secret was weird--almost trolly. But more traffic is good.

---
And here is where I get myself in trouble.

I've got... mixed feelings about the DA kerfluffle yesterday. I hang out in the women-and-LGBT-dominated corners of the US comics fandom, so I am uncomfortably well-informed about many things like the non-gender issue. I respect the opinions, but I think sometimes folk take it too far to extremes as well. There are mutually respectful ways to get things done, and then there is trollery, willful ignorance, screaming matches, dismissing someone's entire opinion on grounds of assuming they are racist/ablist/sexist/etc regardless of if that is true, and etc.

DA shouldn't have removed the non-gender option to begin with, but I think people deeply involved in the LGBT community forget that to people not so involved, it just didn't occur to them as an issue. It's not malice, it's ignorance, and polite discourse and information is the best way to fix things. Internet mobs is not.

As a code monkey, I get why they took out the "unspecified" that used to be there. It didn't matter to DA before. When they retooled the site for v7, they started incorporating the gender setting into how the information pages generated sentences (his/her). They also started using it to target the advertising. Sure, I'm a paid member, but the site lives based on ad revenue. Not enough of us pay to make up for the number that don't. Advertisers will pay more for targeted ads. It's worth it for DA to do that. Whomever coded the site probably honestly did not even know there are people that don't have a gender identity, and coded as they understand the world, as the marketers want and need the site to operate. For the sake of allowing customer/user privacy, they set it so that you could choose to hide your selected gender. Due diligence in their minds and level of information. Now, they overlooked that the info pages would still display he/she, but when you're re-coding a site that large things like that are not a priority. Making sure complex things like the gallery systems, layouts with various ad sizes, search options and etc are functioning properly, etc are the priority. Again, no one meant to offend, and they had a lot of problems with the galleries and image auto-resizing when v7 initially rolled out months ago. No one in the site admin even thought of this as a problem. A polite contact to the admin (I mean an email, not a public call-out on news and DA journals they may not even see) giving information and clearly explaining what the extent of the issue would have done loads more than two sentences demanding 'where is my third option'.

Re: ran long 2/2

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Regarding the asshat/uninformed behavior by the staff. For one, the reaction to RS's uninformed and impolite reply was not well articulated to explain to an uniformed person why what they said was being rude and inconsiderate. It was rudeness right back, immediately calling RS a bigot rather than linking him to informative sites. I get that you're angry, but it won't help matters to immediately sink to slinging insults; it also just put RS on the defensive. For two, as a long-time DA member, I know RealitySquared is notorious on DA for being an asshat to the members, paid and not, so when he acts as an asshat, your best bet is to go further up the chain of command, not through the regular support ticket means unless you can articulate what was wrong extremely well. Because the support people usually answer to RS, and you might as well just be asking him the same question a second time.

As much as DA staff like RS frequently cheese me off, I will give a ton of credit to Spyed (devArt's CEO) for calmly listening, asking questions, and trying to find the right solution when he woke up to find an internet mob at his virtual door yesterday. He read a bit, talked to staff, and within hours, had "gender" changed to "sex" hoping that was an acceptable solution that still allowed catering to the advertisers that pay for the site to run. That didn't work for people. He listened gain, engaged in discourse, got informed, and at 4:15pm had his coders working to put "Other" back into the options--as he had been informed that "Unspecified" could be insulting. He also said that further mods would be done as he became aware of the need. That is an extremely quick turn around and reaction. [link]

Of course, people are still pissed because RS is still an asshat and has been for ages. What baffles me is the people that are pissed and screaming that DA has no business knowing at all. Because hey, DA is a business giving you unlimited space for a gallery and a community setup with tons of bells and whistles for free. The site is paid for by advertisers. If they can do better ads and make more money in order to pay for the equipment and staff that keep DA running and free, yes it is their "business" to know. They allow you to hide your choice from everyone else, they're cooperating and trying to fix the system once you get the concern far enough up the chain of command to someone that gives a shit about the user base as individuals. So I'm not leaving DA. Not over this. I'll keep ignoring admin like Hex and RS, and keep listening to Spyed, because he's reasonable and willing to compromise when stuff goes bad.

[End my $0.02]

Re: ran long 2/2

[dqbunny.livejournal.com]

This is the best reaction to this entire kerfuffle I've read. Nice job!

I'm surprised no one has brought up the safety aspects of such things. A lot of folks don't declare gender or will pretend to be a different gender to prevent being stalked/harassed.

Re: ran long 2/2

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (I still like saying "kerFLUFFle" better than "kerfuffle", even though I know it's wrong. ;D )

I think a lot of people missed the point that DA has (and never stopped) allowing you to hide your chosen gender on your profile regardless of what you picked. There were still gender-specific-pronouns on your stats pages as a part of the v7 upgrade (an overlooked aspect of the upgrades) which has since been rectified.

Re: ran long 2/2

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your 2 cents. Thanks a ton, hon!

Re: ran long 2/2

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Sorry for going off here. I'm so freaking opinionated about these things.

Mostly I agree until a fix is made and then the reaction isn't thanks, but OMG NOT GOOD ENOUGH, YOU AREN'T CATERING TO MY EXACT VIEW OF HOW THINGS SHOULD WORK. At which I facepalm and get angry at the unpleasable wanker.

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

P.S. Stop making me want to cosplay Alice. Or make that sword. Pretty art renders this NOT FAIR.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

....if you cosplay Alice, I WANT PHOTOS!

Honestly, once she appears and speaks lines, i'm fairly certain she's going to be you're absolute favorite, knowing you... so I apologize in advance.

[elfgrove.livejournal.com]

It won't be soon, maybe late next year, because I have to wait to see all the costume details and so much on my plate, GAH. But yes, if it happens, photos. I've been kind of silently fangirling her since the first sketches you posted. And it may not mean much, but me lovinga sword design is kind of a big deal in my universe. I grew up around swords (my Dad collected 'em) and I am thusly very picky about them.

...So blaming you for me earning my queen of the obscure cosplay award again. ;)

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

WOO-HOO!

Re: ran long 1/2

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the problem came from both sides. Both sides didn't explain much, both probably had some rude and some non-rude people. There's definitely a big communication gap there.