Rewriting deviantART history
You can't fool Archive.org
Tuesday, August 2, 2005 by Istari | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Editorial:
deviantART is possibly the most popular art community on the Internet. Its community has been friends with our community since the beginning of this site. Its adminstrators have hung out here and WC's admins have hung out there. With milliosn of visitors a month, dA seems on the precipe of huge success. But last week, the company that owns deviantART fired the popular community founder Scott Jarkoff (aka "Jark").
More troubling has been the seemingly rewriting of history. Most long time members of the skinning community remember that it was Jark and his friend Matteo who founded and nursed deviantART. That it was their site and their vision. Such communities regularly get bought out by companies but rarely are the original founders rewritten to be minor players in the tail.
The CEO of the company that owns deviantART wrote this in response to the recent uproar over the dismissal of Jark: Spyed's response:Link
Excerpt:
"jark and I have worked together on deviantART from day 1. A little bit after the first year, we were joined by $mccann who created the Sonique MP3 player back in 1998. He began providing us with technical and financial assistance to keep it going.
Before this, deviantART was quite small and the costs of operation were nominal. With it's rapid growth thereafter, it began costing an arm and a leg to operate.
I was the first person to work on deviantART full time in 2002, and am also the only co-founder who took the risk of working with no salary at all. That is how much I believe in this community. I have dedicated my life to it. The other two co-founders have never worked fulltime on deviantART. They have always had either college, or a full-time job to contend with. Without question, especially in the early to mid parts of deviantART's life, Scott (°jark) sacraficed all of his available free time. And this was a significant sacrifice.
The second fulltime employee of deviantART was $chris at around the same time I joined in 2002. He was our CTO; today he manages our architecture.
I personally hand built and "installed" deviantART's first 35 servers. Chris rebuilt and maintained all of deviantART's code-base, servers and architecture beginning in 2002. We're talking math, computer science, architecture. That kind of stuff."
But Archive.org's caching of deviantART doesn't support these claims. deviantART was founded in late 2000 and even going forward into 2001, Spyed is not listed on the contact page. Why would a founder of the site not be listed on the contact page? Even using their dates -- 2002, that's a full two years after deviantART was founded which is a long time in the Internet world. By then, deviantART was already a success. Archive.org cashes throughout 2001 and into 2002 all list Jark, Matteo and a handful of others as the ones in charge, no mention of Spyed at all. It wasn't until mid 2002 before Angelo Sotira began being mentioned as CEO of "deviantART, Inc.", two years after the site's founding.
This isn't to diminish the importance of good business, capital, and infrastructure in deviantART's successful history. But deviantART wasn't founded in mid 2002. It was founded in 2000. Had deviantART been founded in 2002, even with the investment their CEO had lined up, it is unlikely that deviantART would be where it is today. deviantART's success was was a matter of timing. It was one of the few established art-related community sites left when the dot-com crashed in 2001. Through the efforts of its original community founders, it was in a position by 2002/2003 to be taken to the next level by investors. Both the company and the community founders were crucial in the site's success. But it is unenthical to discount the critical contribution that a couple of visionaries had, back in 2000, to create deviantART in the first place.
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Reply #2 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 12:39 PM
| I suspect it'll have very very little impact on deviantART - the company but it may have significant impact on deviantART - the community. |
How true.
Reply #3 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 12:41 PM
| I suspect it'll have very very little impact on deviantART - the company but it may have significant impact on deviantART - the community. |
I couldn't have said it better...
Reply #4 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 12:54 PM
I give my 100% support to Jark as I am one of the old one and i'm also a company owner, I don't beleive that he was treated fairly, according the what I have read so far. But I,m not saying that thing will not change once we start to know the truth from both side.
The Art/Skinning/Customizing community was rather slow, let just say it's adding to the ambiance now
Reply #6 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 1:08 PM
I'm with brubbles all the way. But it would be wrong to say that it has lost touch with reality. It's more so that it is completely emerged in itself.
In the back of my mind I do feel the timing of it all is suspicious. "crae, crae", my inner voices whisper, "it could just be a publicity stunt". Hell, what do I know. I'll wait for jarkles' grand history of DevArt to be aired.
Reply #7 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 1:12 PM
Go there and punch in Deviantart.com. It gives you a little look at the past.
Reply #8 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 1:56 PM
Reply #9 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 1:58 PM
| I don't know the whole story. I don't even know what happened or why Jark was let go. |
He didn't. He was forcefully removed. Apparently, not even him knows why he has been dismissed.
Reply #10 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 2:17 PM
Reply #12 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 2:45 PM
treetog
Reply #13 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 4:27 PM
Reply #14 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 4:31 PM
Reply #15 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 5:00 PM
Wow, that link (http://probingthetruth.blogspot.com/2005/08/subject-truth-about-deviantart.html) is dynamite.
Reply #16 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 6:26 PM
However, if we all just leave now (treetog) then who will call that usurping @#$! to task?
Anyway, I certainly understand -- I have to actively resist the urge to wipe all my stuff away and leave too. I just want to wait and try to speak my mind in the community awhile longer.
Reply #17 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 7:07 PM
| And that is irregardless of the corporate (and legally actionable) malfeasance |
Not to nitpick, but in such an otherwise eloquent post I was surprised to see "irregardless".
Link
While I can understand the urge to desert dA right now, I haven't done so myself. Now, while keeping an open mind without all the facts, I do "support Jark." In that I mean I love the concept of dA, and what it is/was. And I know that is down to him. Also, from what I have read it seems he was probably unjustly terminated, but then again, all I know for certain is that he is upset. Neither jark nor spyed have given the story (un-anonymously) of what actually went down this past week. I'm sure they have their reason, but nevertheless I have no facts on which to form a final opinion.
But, I remain at dA, and just submitted one of my finest deviations yesterday. How can I do this while leaning towards jark's side? Well, for one thing I am not aware that jark desires a breakdown and abandonment of the community he created. jark's deviations remain posted, as will my meager ones until more is known.
I realize my opinion has little value. While I lurked dA for many years, I joined less than one year ago. And my wallpapers and skins are amateur in quality. I also don't know jark personally at all. But I was aware of him, and his role in creating what I very much admire. So he has my utmost respect; I just hope that some real, trustworthy explaination comes forth soon.
Reply #18 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 7:12 PM
Yes...when you look at current events...[with the benefit of hind-sight]... there's not too many ways the situation can be explained.
In fact the only LOGICAL explanation is to place veracity in 'that email'. No alternate premise fits.
The problem Spyed [and minions] have is that for the time being there are vocal supporters of the ousted jark who remember events of history differently to the current 'spin' and therefore MUST dismiss the Administration's version of the present situation.
This 'new' Administration clearly is banking on the universal ennui of it's community, or its youthful ignorance, to see them through, hence the clouding of the situation by NOT IP-banning jark from the outset....and suggesting it's business as usual instead....just the deckchairs have been re-arranged.
When I hopefully catch up to Scott one-on-one I hope to get some details filled in...but probably won't be able to communicate them.....pending further 'fun and games'....
Reply #20 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 9:17 PM
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Reply #1 Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:25 AM
I don't know the whole story. I don't even know what happened or why Jark was let go.
But it does seem we have a basic disagreement over the value of labor vs. investment. That's an over-simplification. Angelo says that when he got involved in 2002 that he dedicated his full-time life to deviantART whereas Jark, who has a full-time job in Japan, was on the site part time. But even that's not the full story. When I founded Stardock, I was 20 years old. And during those early days, I could take chances that I could never take today as a 34 year old. When I was 20, I just had myself to worry about. Now at 34, I have a wife and two children that I'm responsible for and couldn't just quit a high paying day job for that. I suspect Angelo and Jark's situations in 2002 were similar.
There is no doubt that Angelo has put an immense amount of effort into deviantART. Moreover, he seems to have a gifted-level business talent. But, as Tandis correctly points out, it was Jark and Matteo who created the site in the first-place. Timing was everything. dA took off at the beginning largely thanks to the demise of Skinz.org and a bunch of other VC funded sites. There was an established community there to work with., to build on and Jark and Matteo's contribution to that (along with others like Atilla) can't be minimized.
We don't know the whole story yet. I don't know what impact this whole thing will have on deviantART. I suspect it'll have very very little impact on deviantART - the company but it may have significant impact on deviantART - the community.