deviantART comments on Jark's dismissal

http://spyed.deviantart.com/journal/6378620/
from WinCustomize Forums

About a month ago, deviantART, Inc. let go founder, Scott Jarkoff (Jark) which came as a shock to the deviantART community.  This has created quite a rift in their community and in the skinning community in general.

This week, the CEO of deviantART, Inc. made a statement that, I think, gives hope that an amicable settlement will be found between Jark and the company that runs deviantART.com. 

The statement includes a great deal of recognition of Jark's contributions to the formation of deviantART and provides him with a new access class called "Founder". Whether the other outstanding issues (such as stock and other financially related items) can be settled remains to be seen. 

For those of you not familiar with deviantART, it is, in many respects, WinCustomize's sibbling. We have been friends with their staff and their community since the very beginning and so this whole thing has been quite upsetting to those of us in really live and breath this stuff.  Here's hoping they can resolve the other issues without too much legal issues. !FROGCARE!

5,594 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I'm sure it took him 4 weeks to compose the wording....

It still feels a bit of the 'too little, too late' variety of conflict resolution.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I agree with Jafo. I get spyed's point about not talking about dismissals in public being standard practice, but I feel he should have said more about what happened. Jark's journals suggest legal action is nearly inevitable. In such a case are the proceedings open to the public? That would be the wall to be a fly on...
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have the slight feeling that now 4 weeks after nobody really cares anymore. I even see new submissions by people...
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have the slight feeling that now 4 weeks after nobody really cares anymore.


I never got a sense that people at DA really cared to begin with. The majority of the people that frequent DA just didn't seem to really care. All attempts at any sort of community uprising eroded away.

I am just wondering what people might think around here if Frogboy lost everything in a divorce and his wife were to try to run things around here (she probably does anyways, ) Would people care? At first but after a healing block of time, things would be back to normal. Sorry if this is considered a hijack.



Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am just wondering what people might think around here if Frogboy lost everything in a divorce and his wife were to try to run things around here (she probably does anyways, )



Are you married?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I removed all my submissions from deviantart when it first happened. I really want nothing to do with that site in its current incarnation.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
without Jark's contribution to the statement, it reads like a bank-handed attempt at premptive appeasement.

There's a smarminess and smugness between the lines as if the emperor thinks he is throwing the peons a bone...a leg bone from a man named Jark.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

never got a sense that people at DA really cared to begin with. The majority of the people that frequent DA just didn't seem to really care. All attempts at any sort of community uprising eroded away.

I am just wondering what people might think around here if Frogboy lost everything in a divorce and his wife were to try to run things around here (she probably does anyways, ) Would people care? At first but after a healing block of time, things would be back to normal. Sorry if this is considered a hijack.

They wouldn't care.  Not in any broad sense.  There would be a core group that would care, just like there's a core group at deviantART.  One should never delude themselves into believing that any site has any large, specific "community".  No matter the size of the site, the size of the group of people who really "care" about things is probably a square root factor of the daily participants. 

What makes WC different from dA in that respect is that we never housed any illusions on this and I think many people at deviantART in that "core group" did.  I think they really believed that they could make a difference.  If they really want to make a difference, they should look to themselves specifically and not try to rally some insubstantial "community" around them.