I realised today something that's been creeping up on me for a long while: I am totally disillusioned with dA Not that I ever had too many illusions once I'd been here for more than a month anyway!

The site is growing exponentially and while there is still a lot of great work submitted, the noise-to-signal ratio is worsening every day. One of the reasons I started my own website was because I found myself constantly having to answer the question (from people I'd given my gallery url to) "Why are you on that site?" When I sat back and took a look at dA from their point of view, I can understand why they asked. The Today pages often showcase the worst of dA, the News section is a joke and browsing - if you haven't spent enough time here to find your way around and work out how to avoid a lot of the shite - can look like taking a random trawl through Photobucket or MySpace.

The larger the site gets, the more difficult it becomes to moderate it in any way, shape or form and while rapid, uncontrolled growth may be great for the dA business model it doesn't, as far as I'm concerned, do a lot to improve the user experience.

Various people have said, in effect, "we're here for our friends, ignore the rest" and that's great if you can do that. But I can't.* I like to be aware of the site as a whole, not just my weeny corner of it and I don't much care for what I see right now. I get the impression that dA just panders to the lowest common denominator all the time. Great for the business, the more the merrier. Not so great for people - whatever their level of artistic ability - who also have a reasonable helping of common sense.

If I see one more misuse of the word 'rape' (and spelling it 'raep' doesn't make it OK or you cooler) I'm going to hit something. Or someone, which may be somewhat more satisfying

Anyone who knows me also knows that I detest hypocrisy (about as much as I hate wilful stupidity) and when I'm given a hypocritical answer to a perfectly rational & reasonable policy enquiry and my subsequent response (also rational and reasonable) is ignored, then I'm approaching last straw territory.

So before I get there, I'm taking a step back and reducing the amount of time and attention I give to the site (which has been happening anyway). The weather's getting better, my camera has been gathering dust, I have gawd-knows how many started animation projects in UF which need a lot of time and attention and am busy evaluating the potential purchase of a photoediting program (LightZone check it out!)

I'll be around: just not as much and probably do more fave'n'running than commenting.

_{* Yes, I really am that nosey inquisitive!}