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)
Vallien_Fulki
on the 1st spoiler of this post is her practically admitting that she embezzled money, this post also helps the claim ironically "As admins, we did NOT have an issue with Takaia paying themself as the owner of Art Fight"
also to mention that is Likely a CRIME she committed and yet she gets ZERO consequences for her dishonesty
lunarhallow
server costs were 7000.Edit: I missed part of it, it was the image hosting that was 7000 and server costs themselves were 6k, totalling 13k. It's still almost doubled the server costs themselves, which isn't a small amount of money.If the screenshot is real, and I have yet to see anyone claim it isn't, there was enough money to put into the site to improve it and there were no improvements. There's no reason for the site to be crashing so badly on event day when you still have at least 2x the total server cost in funding, if not more.
I have no issue with part of my money going towards the site admin, and the staff itself. That helps run the site, that's fine. But Taka has been skirtting around this issue for a long time and hasn't been fully honest about it. I would love to keep contributing as I want to see this site flourish, but I would need to see where my money is going and actually see the site improve.
One more edit: There should be no plans to do a second artfight until the site is in a position to hold up during the entirety of ONE event.
EdenParadise
the site said (& still currently says) that donation money is used to fund "the domain name, server hosting, and other website expenses of Art Fight," with any extra remaining money going towards site development / new features. both the donation section of the FAQ as well as the actual donation page say this (or a variation of it), & at no point is a salary mentioned
alot of users probably wouldnt have minded her having a salary if she was just honest in the first place
myiuse
AnamayCat
imo, if i attack someone and i see that they don't do any attacks at all, i just consider it a win on my end anyway because my team gets free points, basically - that's just how i look at it personally.
but at the end of the day, you can just not attack that person anymore! there's ratio stats, attack counts, etc - you can clearly see if someone's been active during the event, so if you feel you want to avoid people like that, it's fine! it's no good attempting to say that it needs to be "fixed", as that person mentioned
i understand that stuff might be frustrating, but it's really not in the spirit of art fight to complain about that stuff either, as the rule states! ^^; no one should be made to feel bad just because they weren't able to have the motivation to draw as much as they had intended for the event. ( and no one should be doubted and assumed that they were just doing it with ill intent, either! )
Highlanderro
hello new staff!! I'm excited for what new artfight might bring:D
beautifuldestroyer
I hope the bookmarks feature the survey was talking about DOES get implemented soon though that would be iconic (and I can put off learning Toyhouse even more)
AnamayCat
please understand that art fight is more about the idea of gifting people art, rather than expecting that you receive something back.
while i do agree that having a second art fight in the same year might be a bit too much to handle for staff, please do not blame it on not getting revenges.
It's in the rules that no one is obligated to revenge you:
- https://artfight.net/info/rules
Scroll to the bottom, under "Spirit of Art Fight" - #4.
" 4. No user is obliged to attack back. Do not beg or otherwise manipulate others to attack you, this includes comments, attacks, and messages."
WormCoffin
Keeping Takaia on the team after she embezzled donations is such a shit move.
Lackluster
Vallien_Fulki
https://toyhou.se/~forums/11.general-off-topic/329219.major-update-artfight-negligence-and-worse
Don't trust them so easily with their words "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", the admins literally ADMITTED that she pocketed money too In This Post "As admins, we did NOT have an issue with Takaia paying themself as the owner of Art Fight"
PessimisticArts
AUBEARGINE
From the rumors I've heard, people were saying the owner stole money from Artfights donations without telling anyone and used the funds for personal profit. Not just to pay herself for her work, and that while she was making profit, all other volunteers were not seeing a penny, as they were volunteers.
I AM NOT saying this is the truth, just what I've heard. This post does seem to say that's not true, but also acknowledged that some funds went to the owner and not admins and other volunteers, so I have to admit that I'm just confused at this point.
The end notes say "More information regarding Art Fight's budget/financial situation will be provided" In the upcoming budget newspost, but will there be any evidence to fund allocations or just more "trust me" type statements?
I understand wanting to keep the old owner on, but I worry what the community will think as just a few months ago it seemed the general consensus was wanting legal ramifications & full removal, not just an apology & demotion.
Overall, I'm kinda just...confused. I can't tell if I trust this change or not, all I know is that I don't want artfight to end and I HOPE y'all are making the right choices. I'd love to see artfight continue forever 💜
WarriorcatKitty
Batler