How could Forums be improved?


danlev's avatar
Let's hear your suggestions.

  • What bothers you most about Forums?
  • What features would you like to see added?
  • Would comment ratings revolutionize Forums?
  • If not, what would?
Comments549
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Karren-san's avatar

Go back to the previous version of the forum, the new one that was added today is terrible

seasidehill's avatar
Add signatures back!
QueenPhantom11's avatar
Couple suggestions

1. Add comic page integration.
2. Make collapsible gallery folders that have their respectable subfolders in them when uploading art.
3. bring back categories.
4. Make fetish art mandatory to be uploaded under a mature filter or it gets removed.
5. Add music file uploading for musicians. They're artists too.
6. Two factor authentication. That'll stop a lot of the spam.
7. More artist titles. We need beginner, intermediate, experienced, and more.
8. A way to be able to combine side account's. Lots of social media page's have this option, why not DeviantArt?

That's all I have for now.

Badge Awards

electricjonny's avatar
Hi danlev.  This is a comment on your suggestions thread asking for forum revision ideas.  Yes, it's still open, and still available to people ;)

I have a lot of ideas for the forums, and other people have made ideas for the forums in this thread comment (www.deviantart.com/comments/18…) but really what I'm doing with this comment here is making a point that this site has a real problem with its leadership and direction.  There's a lot of splintering and half-finished branches to this site.  For example, the various ways that comments work here.  Can you even see the acronym I added at the start here?  This site has lost its cohesion and solidarity.  It's lost its direction, and the staff are creeping back behind a veil of "just keep promoting things" and promises of what's to come.

I don't know.  That's what it feels like to me.  I don't even want a change in the forums.  What I want is a change in the way the staff are leading this site and the way they talk to us.  Can you reply to me and speak about any of that?  I would appreciate that a lot :)
Aleen-KanaGo's avatar
Hello! Don't you think about making a separate forum for commission offers and demands in POINTS? I mean it's still paid job even if in local currency, besides, points can be converted into real money. For now, one has to go through all possible and impossible kinds of things and often spam in Projects to try and find something about point commissions. In addition, as only 3 pages are visible, all commission related posts disappear VERY quickly under tons of other projects. Finally, some people don't even look at point commissions seriously bc they're among requests and other stuff. They would be much more visible in a separate forum.  
Thank you for reading!  
CYSYS8993's avatar
Can you make it so that if one user blocked another, they can't reply to other people commenting in their posts?
Because I feel this could potentially be exploited to bypass blocks and still send harassing messages, just not directly.
Sabretooth's avatar
I'm sure it's been said, but a " sorting " feature in the search results would be lovely.  Or at the very least, sort the results by date by default.
Ecanusiofiel's avatar
Perhaps have the option to lock certain ones? 
I've found that certain forums can cause fights very rapidly and it might be nice to be able to "lock" it from yourself in order to simply stay out of the forum or to allow parents to lock certain ones to keep their kids out of them until they are older?
Was just a thought. Sometimes a topic is interesting in those forums but it's not worth the hassle of entering them, so being able to lock yourself out would simply prevent the problem/temptation to enter them.
IllBuyYourOCs's avatar
Perhaps a bug forum. For errors!
danlev's avatar
Just FYI, bugs should be reported to the Help Desk: help.deviantart.com/contact/?c…
bolsterstone's avatar
A Suggestions Forum improvement:
A couple of times when I have made suggestions I have been shunted to one of these out-of-the-way forums (the latest being Gallery Suggestions) and they are not really designed for keeping track of topics, what suggestions have been made, etc.  And, they are frustrating to use.  Sometimes they go on for pages -- and you just cannot find out if you suggestion has been made before.  One step in the right direction would be to make these special topic suggestion forums have their own sub-categories -- so at least we can get a sense of the topics that have been discussed.
lethe-gray's avatar
Forums are no longer visible to non-paying members?


What the hell is up with that? When was this "Feature" announced?
phoenixleo's avatar
Where did you get this info?
lethe-gray's avatar
By having a non-subscription account in addition to my currently subbed one.

It's painfully obvious at the top of the screen as *notably missing*. There is NO WAY to click to the forums on my other accounts, there is NO TOP BAR above the locations where the ads and other part of the page shows up. You know, that thing that says "prints show, groups, ... channels, stash, etc" - that is COMPLETELY MISSING from both my non-sub accounts. It is VISIBLE on this one. The only difference: guess what, this account has a sub.

If it's because "something else went wrong" when someone pressed the "add the ads back in to the top bar" area again, isn't it time to freaking beta test properly? I *can* see that this might be an error - but it is a CONSISTENT error. That reeks of moneygrubbing, frankly.

People who have just started and don't have access to the forums easily, won't even KNOW they exist, because that bar is gone - so... if it's an error, *get it fixed*.

I wanted to find out where it'd gone, on that account (world-of-zekira was where I noticed it happening first) but I could simply NOT FIND THE FORUMS in any way on that non-sub.

So... yeah. "Where" did I get it? I knew there were forums. I found serious discrepancies visually in the pages. It's an unannounced 'feature' at best, and a seriously broken fault at worst.
phoenixleo's avatar
Do you mean the drop down? Could you show a screenshot of that top bar and what you are seeing?

There has been no announcements regarding the fact that forums not being invisible to unsubscribed members, and more so being the proof of 'Forum' button missing in a particular place. So, could you show a screenshot of it being not present?
lethe-gray's avatar
lethe-gray.deviantart.com/art/…

Both accounts show the "upgrade" that indicates they're unpaid. Main account on top is the only one with that bar. Bar had been there as recently as yesterday which is why I notice it today.
phoenixleo's avatar
AAah! I get it now. :D
No, it's not that dA is making unsubscribed users not see the +forum page in the top menu. It's because you have a different setting altogether for showing your top bar. For your *lethe-gray account (top one), you have it set to 'Stick Mode', while in your other account, it's in 'unstick mode'.

This is what your own account has:

So when you click the 'More' option on the right, it will show the ~forums' and other things, while the other important ones you want are shown in the menu being stickied (you can drag them in that 'more' section to make them appear there.

What your alternate account has is, when you click the 'Unstick Menu' in there, then it shows this way:



So, you have to just click the arrow beside the deviantART logo at the top left, and it will show this menu. This is what I have set in my account. You can set it any way you want. :) Just click on the arrow on the top left and it will show the menu, and you can go to help, or forums. Or you can click 'stick menu' and it will look like the one you have (your main one).
lethe-gray's avatar
.... but this thing was there yesterday... either way! I mean, - THANK YOU - for that, because at least now I know it can be changed back, but it WAS there, so... I'm still wondering why it wasn't consistent anyway. O.o

thanks though!
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lethe-gray's avatar
Absolutely, got screenie with your comment here, and going to do two more with my other alt accounts. :D
I don't know if there is but I couldn't find tag part in the website. If it doesn't exist, it would be good to add tags to photos.
phoenixleo's avatar
While you are uploading deviations, there is a keywords section there during submitting of the works.