Hello Art Fighters,
As a team, we’ve recently been working on alterations to our Discord server’s rules, the clarification of Art Fight’s financials, and updates/clarifications regarding the site. This post will summarize these clarifications alongside some changes still to come.
NSFW Content On and Off Site
As you may have noticed through the #changelogs channel in our Discord server, we have updated the wording of some of our rules, specifically regarding what kinds of art can be shared. The first of these changes involve Art Rule 5, which has been altered to remove “NSFW content” from the list of topics that are allowed under a spoiler. This wording implied that we allowed explicit 18+ material within the server. This was never intended, despite the rule being badly worded. Sexually themed art is allowed under a filter on site only, and must adhere to our maturity guidelines, which can be found here. The allowance of sexual themed art in the server was a miscommunication on our end, and is not allowed within the server, even with a spoiler. We apologize for our rules being worded in a way that made it seem like it was allowed, however, and apologize once again for any confusion the incorrect wording may have caused. Additionally, we have reiterated our ban on NSFW content in our new Art Rule 6.
Keep in mind that this ban on NSFW content and sexual themes extends to questions related to said themes in the #af-help and #af-help-2 channels. Any inquiries about these topics should be discussed in DMs with moderators, with any NSFW text/images sent in DMs being spoilered and given a warning for. If you see any posts that break our rules on NSFW content and sexual themes, don’t hesitate to send an online moderator a DM so that it may be removed.
Site Updates
In a similar vein, we are diligently working on fixing a bug with filters not working as intended on the site. To avoid bug exploitation, we will update everyone with details after we have ensured the fix is complete. Thank you for your patience in the meantime!
We are also working on updates for “Design a Character” attack rules and clarity regarding who to contact for issues on-site. For design attacks, we will be updating our rules to specify what is necessary for design attacks targeted towards more than one user and the rules regarding ownership of said character designs. This will be updated before the next fight and will be announced when it has been implemented.
Additionally, we have updated our Contact a Mod page to add a section about reporting users. If you are having issues with another user on Art Fight, you should speak to admins or a site lead for help, as regular site mods cannot deal with user-related reports, because of the potential of dealing with private information. We encourage users to contact moderators or admins directly when dealing with reports that could be considered emergencies (example: exploitation of minors).
Regarding the report backlog itself, we will be re-evaluating our process for dealing with reports in the coming months to hopefully relieve some of the delays in report resolution. We apologize again for any lengthy wait times, and encourage you to reach out via site messages if you require immediate help.
Lastly, we want to make a quick update about Cloudflare and some recent concerns about a website they previously supported. Luckily, Cloudflare did the right thing and has since dropped supporting the website in question, so it appears these concerns have now been resolved, but we still wanted to mention that we only use Cloudflare for DDOS / high traffic protection, and nothing else. Art Fight is not hosted on Cloudflare, nor are its images/etc.
Donation & Financial Clarifications
Recently, we’ve noticed there have been some concerns regarding donations and the way Art Fight is categorized. First, we want to clarify that we are not a non-profit organization. We are considered a sole proprietorship - in the past, Art Fight has mistakenly been referred to as a non-profit, but that is not the case, and we apologize for the confusion. We have looked into becoming a non-profit, but it’s not something that’s feasible for us right now.
Art Fight is a passion project that sustains itself via donations from its user base. The majority of these funds go towards maintaining the site. The largest site expenses include: image hosting, web servers, other web services, and commissioned art assets. This is not cheap, especially for a site of our size that approximately doubles its user base every year. After the bills are paid, the leftover money is significantly lower than a fair wage. Therefore we are unable to hire anyone, though Takaia receives a small amount of compensation for work she does as the site owner and coder.
All moderators, designers, and administrators are completely volunteer. This is something they agree to when they sign up to be a moderator, and is a standard practice for small websites. We would love to pay more of our staff, as well as hire an accountant (for proper financial breakdowns, etc.). The reality is that none of that is financially feasible for us at this time, because Art Fight does not earn enough to pay for these services.
In the past, we worked very hard to try to be transparent with Art Fight finances. However, because Art Fight does not earn enough to be able to hire an accountant or any other professionals, all estimates were being done by Takaia. Due to the fluctuating nature of Art Fight's costs and donations, many of the reports ultimately ended up being unintentionally inaccurate. Takaia tried as best as she could with the resources she had to make as close to an exact estimate as she could.
Because of the inaccuracy, Art Fight's estimations received backlash, some of which was personally directed at Takaia. After considering the sheer amount of time and effort needed to make these, the resulting backlash, the private nature of the amount people get paid, and looking at similarly run websites who don’t publish this information, we decided it was best to simply stop making estimates/breakdowns. However, to give an idea of how much things can cost, here are some examples of recent bills we’ve paid. Please note that this is a fraction of the total we pay per year, these are individual examples:
Image-hosting alone for the month of July 2022 cost around $7,200 USD. The web server for hosting the site itself costs around $500 USD a month. For 2022, Art Fight needs approximately ($500 x 12 months) $6,000 USD to pay for the web server. Again, these numbers do not take into account future site growth, art/image assets, the rest of the image hosting costs, and other miscellaneous costs, both planned and unplanned, during the year.
---
We would like to extend our gratitude to our users for your understanding and continued patience, alongside your willingness to help in our shared goal of improving the site. As always, we encourage you to come to us with any questions you may have and to share any concerns you feel need addressing. You are welcome to either comment below, DM a moderator, post in our Discord server’s help channels, or send us an email at [email protected]. We appreciate any questions or concerns being brought to us, and thank you in advance for your patience, as potential replies may be slow due to moderators being busy with life commitments outside of Art Fight.
We greatly appreciate your continued support as we all move forward together.
Sincerely,
The Art Fight Team
As a team, we’ve recently been working on alterations to our Discord server’s rules, the clarification of Art Fight’s financials, and updates/clarifications regarding the site. This post will summarize these clarifications alongside some changes still to come.
NSFW Content On and Off Site
As you may have noticed through the #changelogs channel in our Discord server, we have updated the wording of some of our rules, specifically regarding what kinds of art can be shared. The first of these changes involve Art Rule 5, which has been altered to remove “NSFW content” from the list of topics that are allowed under a spoiler. This wording implied that we allowed explicit 18+ material within the server. This was never intended, despite the rule being badly worded. Sexually themed art is allowed under a filter on site only, and must adhere to our maturity guidelines, which can be found here. The allowance of sexual themed art in the server was a miscommunication on our end, and is not allowed within the server, even with a spoiler. We apologize for our rules being worded in a way that made it seem like it was allowed, however, and apologize once again for any confusion the incorrect wording may have caused. Additionally, we have reiterated our ban on NSFW content in our new Art Rule 6.
Keep in mind that this ban on NSFW content and sexual themes extends to questions related to said themes in the #af-help and #af-help-2 channels. Any inquiries about these topics should be discussed in DMs with moderators, with any NSFW text/images sent in DMs being spoilered and given a warning for. If you see any posts that break our rules on NSFW content and sexual themes, don’t hesitate to send an online moderator a DM so that it may be removed.
Site Updates
In a similar vein, we are diligently working on fixing a bug with filters not working as intended on the site. To avoid bug exploitation, we will update everyone with details after we have ensured the fix is complete. Thank you for your patience in the meantime!
We are also working on updates for “Design a Character” attack rules and clarity regarding who to contact for issues on-site. For design attacks, we will be updating our rules to specify what is necessary for design attacks targeted towards more than one user and the rules regarding ownership of said character designs. This will be updated before the next fight and will be announced when it has been implemented.
Additionally, we have updated our Contact a Mod page to add a section about reporting users. If you are having issues with another user on Art Fight, you should speak to admins or a site lead for help, as regular site mods cannot deal with user-related reports, because of the potential of dealing with private information. We encourage users to contact moderators or admins directly when dealing with reports that could be considered emergencies (example: exploitation of minors).
Regarding the report backlog itself, we will be re-evaluating our process for dealing with reports in the coming months to hopefully relieve some of the delays in report resolution. We apologize again for any lengthy wait times, and encourage you to reach out via site messages if you require immediate help.
Lastly, we want to make a quick update about Cloudflare and some recent concerns about a website they previously supported. Luckily, Cloudflare did the right thing and has since dropped supporting the website in question, so it appears these concerns have now been resolved, but we still wanted to mention that we only use Cloudflare for DDOS / high traffic protection, and nothing else. Art Fight is not hosted on Cloudflare, nor are its images/etc.
Donation & Financial Clarifications
Recently, we’ve noticed there have been some concerns regarding donations and the way Art Fight is categorized. First, we want to clarify that we are not a non-profit organization. We are considered a sole proprietorship - in the past, Art Fight has mistakenly been referred to as a non-profit, but that is not the case, and we apologize for the confusion. We have looked into becoming a non-profit, but it’s not something that’s feasible for us right now.
Art Fight is a passion project that sustains itself via donations from its user base. The majority of these funds go towards maintaining the site. The largest site expenses include: image hosting, web servers, other web services, and commissioned art assets. This is not cheap, especially for a site of our size that approximately doubles its user base every year. After the bills are paid, the leftover money is significantly lower than a fair wage. Therefore we are unable to hire anyone, though Takaia receives a small amount of compensation for work she does as the site owner and coder.
All moderators, designers, and administrators are completely volunteer. This is something they agree to when they sign up to be a moderator, and is a standard practice for small websites. We would love to pay more of our staff, as well as hire an accountant (for proper financial breakdowns, etc.). The reality is that none of that is financially feasible for us at this time, because Art Fight does not earn enough to pay for these services.
In the past, we worked very hard to try to be transparent with Art Fight finances. However, because Art Fight does not earn enough to be able to hire an accountant or any other professionals, all estimates were being done by Takaia. Due to the fluctuating nature of Art Fight's costs and donations, many of the reports ultimately ended up being unintentionally inaccurate. Takaia tried as best as she could with the resources she had to make as close to an exact estimate as she could.
Because of the inaccuracy, Art Fight's estimations received backlash, some of which was personally directed at Takaia. After considering the sheer amount of time and effort needed to make these, the resulting backlash, the private nature of the amount people get paid, and looking at similarly run websites who don’t publish this information, we decided it was best to simply stop making estimates/breakdowns. However, to give an idea of how much things can cost, here are some examples of recent bills we’ve paid. Please note that this is a fraction of the total we pay per year, these are individual examples:
Image-hosting alone for the month of July 2022 cost around $7,200 USD. The web server for hosting the site itself costs around $500 USD a month. For 2022, Art Fight needs approximately ($500 x 12 months) $6,000 USD to pay for the web server. Again, these numbers do not take into account future site growth, art/image assets, the rest of the image hosting costs, and other miscellaneous costs, both planned and unplanned, during the year.
---
We would like to extend our gratitude to our users for your understanding and continued patience, alongside your willingness to help in our shared goal of improving the site. As always, we encourage you to come to us with any questions you may have and to share any concerns you feel need addressing. You are welcome to either comment below, DM a moderator, post in our Discord server’s help channels, or send us an email at [email protected]. We appreciate any questions or concerns being brought to us, and thank you in advance for your patience, as potential replies may be slow due to moderators being busy with life commitments outside of Art Fight.
We greatly appreciate your continued support as we all move forward together.
Sincerely,
The Art Fight Team
Comments (383)
Dartwind
blankstorefront Hello! We are actively looking into ways to alleviate mod strain (i.e. ways to streamline reports, what should/shouldn’t be reported, etc.) and how to reduce the report count quicker. Halting member registration is also a possibility, though the logistics of that are a little tough - still possible, though, if necessary. I 100% agree issues with the filtering system should have been solved sooner and if there is no way to lock it from being changed, it will have to be removed as a filtering option/disallowed on site. I have spoken to Takaia several times as this has been worked on, as she speaks with our main coder/knows some coding herself, and it is indeed in the process of being fixed.
On the financial side, I definitely think merch could be a good way for us to get more income! I haven’t looked into it all that much, but there are print-on-demand services that make and ship clothing which could be a great way for us to sell wearable merchandise. Takaia previously sent out the Art Fight stickers and magnets, but temporarily stopped due to her being injured and not physically being able to process orders - she does plan to continue it in the future! We’ve also discussed ads in passing before, and I do think taking a closer look at those could also potentially help with costs.
As Sangtanic said (pinging you because you both had similar concerns/suggestions!), with the userbase consistently doubling every year, we’ve had a difficult time scaling moderation alongside with it while still having a thorough hiring process to ensure we find the right fits for our team. To me, someone who has used Artfight since 2015 and been a mod since 2018, I’ve seen first-hand the way Artfight has ballooned in member count. I don’t have a solid schedule of what’s getting looked at when, but we are working on backend stuff (like grouping reports and making it easier to search for specific topics) and I’ve personally been organizing a lot of suggestions/ways we can improve things.
We really appreciate your feedback, too!
roblox
rawberra
Cattya
Looking at every single piece of art in the server for NSFW as someone suggested sounds like a moderation nightmare, I think that if it's that much of a safety issue just have no NSFW in the server? Which I think is one of the rule changes mentioned anyway? Though again, it might not be able to be perfectly moderated since we all know some things slip through on any site. Though then I could see where reports being got to on time would be more vital...
Like legit this seems like a ton of stuff was taken out of context or just overreacted to and it's getting out of hand? I get some stuff is legit concerns like even worrying about minors seeing NSFW, I totally get the reasoning there! But I'm not sure what ArtFight and its staff can do other than ban NSFW or ban minors? Especially given that a site this big seems to be getting trickier to run, as shown by the reports taking a long time to be addressed- I do agree that if possible more staff should be brought on and paid if that's what is needed, since this site seems horribly understaffed judging by the issues brought up and how they would likely be handled if there were actually enough staff to cover it all- but I may be assuming too much here, idk.
The issue with UnknownSpy was handled badly, that I can agree on and I don't condone how it was apparently brushed under the rug.
TL;DR though, a lot of these issues brought up seem like moderation issues due to the site getting too big to handle, or people just jumping on the bandwagon because someone misinterpreted tone in a text based message. There's really no need for so much vitriol.
Please don't witch hunt me over this, I don't want to be involved I just wanted to share my perspective.
MAJESTEA
However I DO think having an official AF discord is an AWFUL idea. At least during the off-seasons. I think it will be best if the focus is turned to site moderation & upkeep. It ease a huge workload and I think reduce the amount of huge miscommunications. I've never had an issue myself, but I'm sure lots of people would rather wait a few extra days to hear back from mods about something if it's consistent then get inconsistent answers because they went into a moderator's personal DMs.
Bless yalls hearts for the hard work nonetheless, yall put up with so much. I hope things improve and you can come to a good solution to avoid future issues.
PrickliKikwi
This post just raises more questions. If takaia is getting paid, how much (and will excess donations go towards site optimisations or into her pocket)? Why has nothing been done about the suggestive filters being able to be turned off for minors despite it being a problem that's been mentioned for years now? How is the report backlog going to improve if the site traffic doubles every year?
Hopefully there's a follow up announcement because this doesn't answer anything
blankstorefront
From the outside, it not only feels like moderators seem to have different interpretations of the rules, but also... it's kinda questionable what rules are being prioritized? Like... even as far as law goes (again: disclaimer that I am no expert), having such a blatant issue with the filter that actively endangers the minors on site is far more legally and ethically pressing than someone drawing a brand logo in a picture? Yes, I'm glad fixing the filter is being prioritized, but I frankly just can't fathom why this known issue went virtually unaddressed for six years?! It's disheartening to see it took a lot of backlash to get it prioritized. Sorry if I'm being harsh, but this just wasn't excusable.
And in general... the issues being brought up by everyone are fixable in theory, but years of mostly empty promises have stacked up, and it's just kinda hard to watch. But in short, I hope the suggestions in this thread are taken seriously. I mean this all in good faith and I genuinely do want to see artfight succeed, but that will require action, not just words.
There's... one other question that I'm frankly nervous to even raise, but think is probably helpful food for thought. Given the size and nature of artfight + it's young skewing userbase... is having NSFW (even with the rules as they are) even worth the moderation strain of being on artfight in the first place? I know it might not be an easy answer, but it's a sentiment I've seen shared enough that I think it's worth raising.
boba-deer
Loaflie
goats-teeth
This is related to a Toyhouse thread.
https://toyhou.se/~forums/11.general-off-topic/329219.artfight-negligence-and-worse-
memo_stardust
AboutRainbow
Thanks for reading.
frillious
PETRIGROF
https://sta.sh/2fo4ircno4w
https://sta.sh/2o0h4elq9ny
Lioness
(done via multiple comments)