Hey everyone,
As you may have heard, Art Fight is currently undergoing a change in leadership. Takaia, who has been the owner of Art Fight for the last nine years, has made the decision to step down from this role and take on a support role behind the scenes. In her place, former admins Axel and classicturtle, will be stepping up as co-owners, alongside a third co-owner who will be introduced later on in the newspost.
Due to the ownership shift, Art Fight will be undergoing a series of changes in the upcoming months. Art Fight will be filed as an LLC, and will no longer be operating as a sole proprietorship. We have always been an entity that requires money to operate, but we will expand into focusing on things such as merch, sponsorships, and more site perks, to relieve the pressure for individual users to contribute financially.
Additionally, any monetary support provided to the site has been labeled as a donation up to now, and we apologize for the confusion this previous wording has caused. Art Fight is neither a charity nor is it legally classified as a non-profit entity. From this point onwards, what we previously called “donations” will instead be referred to as “contributions” to clear up and avoid any further confusion. The current donation page will be updated to reflect this in the coming weeks.
We understand this change is a considerable one, and we’d like to address a few different aspects of the changes being made below.
Why did the administrators resign from staff during the fight?
On July 22nd, former admins Turtle and Axel resigned from the Art Fight team. Their reasons for doing so are as follows:
We would also like to thank and apologize to the staff, especially those who continued to work during the end of the fight after the admins resigned, as we recognize the difficult position they were put into. Additionally, we would like to reiterate that harassment towards any involved individual is unwarranted and will not be tolerated. This includes the previous admins who stepped up to their positions after the current co-owners resigned as admins. They did so with the intent to help keep the site running, and they just did their best in a complicated situation. Please be understanding and respectful to all involved parties.
Any further harassment towards any involved individual for any reason will result in a ban.
Third Co-Owner✨
Our first big step in ensuring Art Fight’s stability is re-introducing Rainy back onto the team as the third Co-Owner. She has been an invaluable member of the Art Fight staff since 2015 and previously held the role of head admin, so we hope the community is as excited as we are to bring her back! Together we will be overseeing the site, its finances, and ensuring Art Fight’s growth safely as an equal entity.
Financials
Going forwards, we want to make an active effort to ensure there is transparency regarding Art Fight’s finances. With this in mind, we want to address some concerns regarding the past and present financial states of Art Fight as a whole. First and foremost, we do want to reiterate that Art Fight was a sole proprietorship. Takaia, as the owner, worked under this sole proprietorship for approximately $12/hr, which is far below living wage. As confirmed after review by the current co-owners, taxes (which we are unable to share publicly due to security and privacy concerns) were paid and accounted for on all of Art Fight’s income. While Art Fight will no longer be a sole proprietorship, we will still operate as an official business under an LLC.
All staff, at the time of applying and at the time of hiring, were aware of and agreed to the fact that their position was as a volunteer, and that they were not going to be receiving monetary compensation for their work. As of now, this will still be the case for all site and chat moderators, though we are open to exploring paid positions (both for moderators and for site developers, such as coders) sometime in the future.
Budget 2023 - 2024
While we begin planning for the site’s future years, we are taking into account the expected budget for 2023 and 2024.
We hope to release a news post specifically about this sometime in the coming months. This news post will include more information about Art Fight’s past and future financials, and details on our goals for the rest of 2023 and 2024. In addition to this, the financial goal bar will also return!
In the past, Art Fight has functioned entirely off of the generosity of volunteer site developers. But volunteer developers obviously cannot devote all their energy to fixing and updating the site for us. We plan to rely less on volunteer developers in the future, and allocate as much of our budget as we can to lowering server-side costs, which we can use to re-invest into additional, paid developer contracts. On that note, please give a warm welcome to stokori! Originally a volunteer developer, Stokori has rejoined the team, and will be transitioning into a paid developer role.
Here are some of the things we want to implement this year and the coming year:
*This is by no means an exhaustive list, and is subject to change.
1. Hiring a paid developer, to help us do the following:
3. Preparing for a certain surprise to be released sometime during the winter season 👀
Feedback Forms
Like in the previous years, we want your feedback! There will be a general feedback form, as well as a UX feedback form. It isn’t required to fill these out, but we would definitely appreciate your input!
Art Fight 2023 Feedback Form
UX Feedback Form
* The Art Fight 2024 Theme Poll will be released at a later date.
Before we conclude our news post however, we wanted to give you all a message from Art Fight’s former owner and founder:
- classicturtle, Rainy, Axel
Edit (10/06/23): Hello! We noticed there were some questions about Takaia's future involvement with Art Fight, so we wanted to provide some clarification:
As you may have heard, Art Fight is currently undergoing a change in leadership. Takaia, who has been the owner of Art Fight for the last nine years, has made the decision to step down from this role and take on a support role behind the scenes. In her place, former admins Axel and classicturtle, will be stepping up as co-owners, alongside a third co-owner who will be introduced later on in the newspost.
Due to the ownership shift, Art Fight will be undergoing a series of changes in the upcoming months. Art Fight will be filed as an LLC, and will no longer be operating as a sole proprietorship. We have always been an entity that requires money to operate, but we will expand into focusing on things such as merch, sponsorships, and more site perks, to relieve the pressure for individual users to contribute financially.
Additionally, any monetary support provided to the site has been labeled as a donation up to now, and we apologize for the confusion this previous wording has caused. Art Fight is neither a charity nor is it legally classified as a non-profit entity. From this point onwards, what we previously called “donations” will instead be referred to as “contributions” to clear up and avoid any further confusion. The current donation page will be updated to reflect this in the coming weeks.
We understand this change is a considerable one, and we’d like to address a few different aspects of the changes being made below.
Why did the administrators resign from staff during the fight?
On July 22nd, former admins Turtle and Axel resigned from the Art Fight team. Their reasons for doing so are as follows:
The site remained stagnant for years, and we were frustrated with the lack of paid, forward development. Although some smaller changes were made, we did not feel these changes were enough.As stated at the start, Takaia will be stepping back from her role as owner and will take on a support role for the site behind the scenes. We will all continue to work together to support Art Fight and let it grow to its fullest potential.
Financial transparency had broken down over the years. The lack of communication to the staff team regarding financials attributed to this - even if it wasn’t done intentionally or maliciously.
As a result of this, we wanted to help the owner make the finances more transparent, oversee further expenses, and make sure that more of the money went into developing the site, rather than allowing the site to continue to stagnate. We weren’t given this opportunity, and this combined with the previous issues in communication led to feelings of frustration. Because of this, we no longer felt that we could continue working as volunteers with Art Fight unless there were considerable changes made, and we made the difficult decision to leave the team.
As admins, we did NOT have an issue with Takaia paying themself as the owner of Art Fight, and we sincerely believe people should be fairly compensated for the work that they do. While we understand there wasn’t ill intent behind anyone’s actions, the lack of transparency regarding financial issues and a lack of site development made us feel disjointed as a team and made it hard to perform our admin duties.
After multiple conversations about Art Fight and the future of the site, we have rejoined Art Fight staff upon reaching an agreement with Takaia to become two of the three new co-owners. We are excited for this opportunity to move forwards together and help Art Fight thrive!
We would also like to thank and apologize to the staff, especially those who continued to work during the end of the fight after the admins resigned, as we recognize the difficult position they were put into. Additionally, we would like to reiterate that harassment towards any involved individual is unwarranted and will not be tolerated. This includes the previous admins who stepped up to their positions after the current co-owners resigned as admins. They did so with the intent to help keep the site running, and they just did their best in a complicated situation. Please be understanding and respectful to all involved parties.
Any further harassment towards any involved individual for any reason will result in a ban.
Third Co-Owner✨
Our first big step in ensuring Art Fight’s stability is re-introducing Rainy back onto the team as the third Co-Owner. She has been an invaluable member of the Art Fight staff since 2015 and previously held the role of head admin, so we hope the community is as excited as we are to bring her back! Together we will be overseeing the site, its finances, and ensuring Art Fight’s growth safely as an equal entity.
Financials
Going forwards, we want to make an active effort to ensure there is transparency regarding Art Fight’s finances. With this in mind, we want to address some concerns regarding the past and present financial states of Art Fight as a whole. First and foremost, we do want to reiterate that Art Fight was a sole proprietorship. Takaia, as the owner, worked under this sole proprietorship for approximately $12/hr, which is far below living wage. As confirmed after review by the current co-owners, taxes (which we are unable to share publicly due to security and privacy concerns) were paid and accounted for on all of Art Fight’s income. While Art Fight will no longer be a sole proprietorship, we will still operate as an official business under an LLC.
All staff, at the time of applying and at the time of hiring, were aware of and agreed to the fact that their position was as a volunteer, and that they were not going to be receiving monetary compensation for their work. As of now, this will still be the case for all site and chat moderators, though we are open to exploring paid positions (both for moderators and for site developers, such as coders) sometime in the future.
Budget 2023 - 2024
While we begin planning for the site’s future years, we are taking into account the expected budget for 2023 and 2024.
We hope to release a news post specifically about this sometime in the coming months. This news post will include more information about Art Fight’s past and future financials, and details on our goals for the rest of 2023 and 2024. In addition to this, the financial goal bar will also return!
In the past, Art Fight has functioned entirely off of the generosity of volunteer site developers. But volunteer developers obviously cannot devote all their energy to fixing and updating the site for us. We plan to rely less on volunteer developers in the future, and allocate as much of our budget as we can to lowering server-side costs, which we can use to re-invest into additional, paid developer contracts. On that note, please give a warm welcome to stokori! Originally a volunteer developer, Stokori has rejoined the team, and will be transitioning into a paid developer role.
Here are some of the things we want to implement this year and the coming year:
*This is by no means an exhaustive list, and is subject to change.
1. Hiring a paid developer, to help us do the following:
- Improving overall site performance
- Overhaul/improve current moderation tools
- Implement new features for users and staff alike
3. Preparing for a certain surprise to be released sometime during the winter season 👀
Feedback Forms
Like in the previous years, we want your feedback! There will be a general feedback form, as well as a UX feedback form. It isn’t required to fill these out, but we would definitely appreciate your input!
Art Fight 2023 Feedback Form
UX Feedback Form
* The Art Fight 2024 Theme Poll will be released at a later date.
Before we conclude our news post however, we wanted to give you all a message from Art Fight’s former owner and founder:
I wanted to take a quick moment to apologize for communication deteriorating within the team towards the end of my time as owner of Art Fight. I never intended to let it break down like that, but good intentions don’t really excuse the fact that I let the team down. I also wanted to sincerely thank the staff who stayed behind to hold down the fort while things were sorted out at the end of the 2023 fight. You kept Art Fight alive, and I’m very grateful for that. I am, however, deeply sorry I put you in that position because I know how hard it was and I wish I hadn't put you through that.With that, we also wanted to thank you all for being patient with us as big changes happen behind the scenes. We’re confident that Art Fight will continue to grow and we’re excited to see where things will go!
As I’m stepping back and passing the helm to Rainy, Axel, and Turtle, I’m glad to be here to support them as they carry Art Fight into the future. I am endlessly grateful to ALL of the staff and users who supported myself and Art Fight through my time here. Thank you, everyone, for going on this adventure with me these past 9 years!
- classicturtle, Rainy, Axel
Edit (10/06/23): Hello! We noticed there were some questions about Takaia's future involvement with Art Fight, so we wanted to provide some clarification:
- Takaia's role as a staff member will exclusively be as a developer/coder for site features.
- She is no longer involved in financials, staff decisions, or moderator actions.
- As mentioned in the original newspost, we as now co-owners have access to Artfight's funds and can verify that the money from Art Fight's donations were not embezzled. More information regarding Art Fight's budget/financial situation will be provided in our upcoming budget newspost.
Comments (369)
TROPiCOLA
airballoons
v
MAJESTEA
As a fellow poor and disabled person I can only imagine the stress it must've caused. I'm glad Takaia took the help and resigned, but I do wish people would understand that Takaia was living well below poverty wage and there would have been no Art Fight if the owner was literally homeless.
My only large criticism is I hope further issues like this can be resolved behind closed doors. Unfortunately people cannot seem to look at the situation with a critical and nuanced eye, and again, I am so sorry for everything the staff has had to deal with and how disrespectful the userbase has been.
I'm not the biggest fan of AF going forward with being an LLC but I understand the decision and hope it helps the site in the future. I'm excited for merch and the surprise in the winter, and I hope the staff will get to have a lot of fun themselves. Best of luck to you all going forward!
PETRIGROF
Elzebub
Sir_Loin_of_Beef
IF you really, REALLY cannot sever her from the team for whatever reason, then the least you could do is give us precise information as to what kind of support role she has and what she's permitted to do. We need to know she's on a tight leash if she's still going to be pulling strings after what she's done to hurt the site.
EDIT: Someone brought up she may only be along for legal purposes, i hope that is the case.
maryon
It's not a good look for them to keep her involved but after everything that's happened, all the headache, all the legal proceedings about transitioning to being a LLC, they know this.
They are fully aware that it's not a good look on them and I'm pretty positive that if they could, they'd keep her as distant as possible to avoid the obvious backlash that keeping her in the team would cause. But for whatever legal reason they can't keep her away. Not that they don't want to, they most likely can't and can't speak more on this for now, probably also for legal reasons and why her new role is worded so vaguely.
I'm not saying that this exempt them from the consequences of this action. You have a right to be suspicious and upset and consider never coming back, especially if you've donated in the past. Your concerns are valid and I'm upset too. What I'm saying is to give the new direction a chance to show the changes they're promising. I don't know the other two mods, but I saw how Rainy works during AF 2022 and I believe in her work ethics. Let's give it time.
Atomic_Artronic
Surely y'all can't expect people to still want to give the site money in any form if she's still on the team no matter what her role is.
Hopefully you listen to everyone's criticisms and rethink involving takaia in the site's future but if not then I hope you're prepared for people to not feel comfortable financially supporting artfight.
ELGURITCH
I know I for one, personally, will not be planning on joining any future Art Fight events unless I see Takaia being removed from any position of power in the event's structure. I'm tired, I'm done, I don't want excuses, I don't want promises she'll do better, I want the old and corrupt cut out and for things to start anew. I don't care if she has a really minor supporting role with offering advice, she should not be there anymore, stop covering for her.
Edit: Even if Takaia is being kept on for legal reasons, DISCLOSE THAT. You do not need to say what they are, as simple as "Takaia will remain on staff as a support role to assist with the legal transition to an LLC, and we will review our working relationship with her once the legal matters are sorted." would do WONDERS for transparency and explain why she is still here. You don't need to say the specifics, just say why she's here, what her role is, and if there are long term plans to retain her, which is where I think most people's concerns are.
airballoons
CuratingBliss
I think I can tentatively say that there's a light at the end of the tunnel for this event and site. We'll just have to wait and see what power Takaia has, not knowing anything about what future in the ArtFight landscape awaits them. Apart from knowing just 'supporting role' isn't very reassuring for the people she stole their donation (no, contribution) money from.
beta__
the coding changes sound cool and all, but if your goal is to get people to trust the site with their money, you're not really getting anywhere near it chief-
therainyszn
httpkirby
I'm definitely more comfortable with new people taking the helm but I think there's a lot of missing information for the people who had donated a not-insignificant amount of money. I had been considering donating for a few years (not being very financially stable myself) but I need to see more evidence that things are going to be run sufficiently. The information that more transparency will be present in the future is good.
Very, very happy to hear that another coder is being brought on on a paid basis. It was very much needed with how much Pika had to handle on her own. (You did amazing Pika!)
I think providing more clarity on what's happening with Takaia in a support position wouldn't be undue especially with the trust they have lost. If it has to do with interacting with members directly in any way, I can say that more than a few people will not be comfortable with them.
I really do love this event, otherwise I wouldn't have looked forward and participated in it for five years. However, with the sheer amount of mismanagement issues that have piled up for even longer than I've been playing, I'm uncertain.
Hoping for more communication between head staff and members, and really am hoping for better things for Artfight.
shrimp-senpai