The fall of Deepsinking.org

[Duncan Edwards]

... It is the justification for these same people to look at DS as some kind of hotbed of criminal perversion.

Yeah, let's be honest. Deserved or not some people have that view of DS. It might be easier to deal with if DS had not had such an adult legacy to begin with. It's easier to convince people that you're squeaky clean if you were never dirty.

[marshmouse]

I agree that some people will have that view. Dividing DS content into 4 categories was well intentioned, but the porno should have been kicked out then rather than to pretend a paper towel was a brick wall. In 2004, Foster thought it was going to be a continuation of his Yahoo Group when Yahoo was deleting groups without warning. I don't think he would ever have signed up with Dave and Jiminy if he knew it was going lead to his having to moderate smut. He would have at least had them change the name to something other than his Yahoo group's name before politely excusing himself from where he had no financial vested interest, unlike the other two moderators. He stayed to support the community that had gathered first at his Yahoo group, and for no other reason.

Foster Blake does not deserve any of the foul things said about him on this thread.

[Duncan Edwards]

Foster Blake does not deserve any of the foul things said about him on this thread.

Foster was never anything but a gentleman in my mind. His only failure was permitting JT to run roughshod over the group and dominate the flawed transition away from adult material. Many of us had the impression that he was tied up somewhere in JT's basement.

[Antares]

As much shit as you saw on the screen at DS you didn't see half of what was being managed and moderated to keep things relatively sane there. When I was tasked to be moderator at QSF I was warned like I was entering Hell itself that moderation was going to be a nightmarish job.

But getting back to my point I feel certain it would have saved some grief if JT and Foz could have just said something like this. Maybe there is more but this would have been enough. Nobody would have been any happier about it but it would have cut down on more conspiracy theories than Sept. 11. and JFK put together.

Yes - my point exactly! There was obviously some kind of shitstorm going on in the background and folk filled in the blanks when there was inadequate/ incomplete information for them to do otherwise.

A mod's task can certainly be thankless sometimes

[Billie Bonce]

Considering that the motto for Quicksandfans is The Home for Quicksand Fetishism on the Internet, the 'No Kids' thing speaks for itself. The fact that there are other paths you can take starting with an interest in quicksand does not justify faulting the adult attitude here. We were set up to have No Kids from the beginning.

Yes, and while I was registering here I approved that I accept this policy and agree to follow it, even if I don't like it. Virtually any place in the Internet has restrictions which we don't like but have to follow; the same is true for real life, too.

marshmouse perfectly explained what I was trying to say. It wasn't about the site policy, it was about the wrong logic that leads to faulty conclusions.

[dk_angel7]

http://quicksand-group.deviantart.com/

Yeah, that's more of a dumping ground for images... Which is fine, because that's all I look for in a "group" on there, anyway.

I would agree that "deviantart.com" is nothing like we had ever encountered (at least not a major forum). Yes, there is more overlap in there in fetish interests than we ever encountered. In addition, it is a very poor format if you want to exchange messages.

However, actually it is similar to what we encountered from "passifier.com" in the late 1990's to "deep_sinking@yahoogroups.com". These forums were heavy in text communication and poor of picture and video posting.

The site "deviantart.com" is the reverse with its strength being the posting of pictures, drawings, and other images then weak on text messages.

I believe in the saying that "a picture is worth one-thousand words" and thus in a way quite similar to the above listed forums.

DS and QSF are both built on the rules and traditions (my pet peeve is how minors are handled and DS and QSF do it well) of the forums before it. I believe that the QS forums on "deviantart.com" and has the potential to grow tremendously. However in some ways, it is lack of policies that leave it outside of many of the practices we have enforced in the past.

Like I said before, DArt has heavy overlap. Therefore, there are so many people from other "persuasions" that I wish that more of our traditions (like how minors are handled in DS and QSF) were enforced in these other forums.

I am worried that in the "fall" of DS many of these traditions are going to fall by the wayside as we expand into other forums in the future.

That is what I am afraid of losing as our community expands beyond DS and QSF into other platforms.

[Viridian]

dA does not have quicksand forums. Yes, there a couple of groups, but groups in general are places where artists can list their current artwork, or can suggest favourites from other artists. Sometimes members from groups will request specific art to be added to their group. Primarily, groups are a way for artists to network with each other. However, the artwork is already on dA and the artwork is not specifically sent to that group nor does the group host or have any ownership of the artwork.

You say dA has a lack of policies. Their policies are very clear and specific. This is their policy page:
http://help.deviantart.com/249/

Their specific policy on the depiction of minors states:

Any person under the age of eighteen (18) may not legally be depicted nude, partially nude, or in any sexually provocative manner.
Specifically you cannot show the penis or vaginal area of any child of any age below the legal limit of eighteen (18); there will be no exceptions to this prohibition. Female children may be shown topless only if they appear to have not yet passed their second birthday.

Minors may not be depicted either explicitly or non-explicitly nude. This includes any angle of shot or possible viewpoint regardless of whether breasts or genitalia are visible or not. Infants under the age of two with a bare bottom showing may be granted an exception providing that the genital region is not visible but exceptions are not guaranteed.

In addition minors may not be photographed in lingerie or undergarments, in any bondage or sadomasochistic scene or manner of dress, in any clear sexually provocative pose or theme and may not be shown in possession of sexual toys, condoms, or any related “adult” materials.

A minor who is depicted in quicksand would not be in violation of the policy unless they are clearly portrayed in a sexual manner.

Many groups have their own set of policies, but they mostly relate to the scope of content the group looks for. It is not the role of the group to police standards and expectations. I honestly don't know who or what you are targeting. As far as I know, there is no QS "community" on deviantART. Most QS artists are members of this community who use dA as a storage and gallery for their work. I personally do not see how the community would grow on dA when most of the community is centralised on QSF and it's usually the same five or so QS regulars that comment on QS-themed artwork.

In your other thread, you related your experience in confronting a user who commented on an image depicting a minor in a non-sexual context. I was outraged at the way you tried to force your perception of the QS community's standards onto someone who did not belong to the community, who commented on an item that was not created by someone from the community, on a site that has no relation to the community; and now you have this vilification of deviantART, its users and a small group that you claim was made by inexperienced members with no policies. To me, this whole campaign to document the history of the QS community to pass down old values and attitudes is your personal crusade against something you saw on deviantART, which either implies that you don't know how deviantART works, or your intense anger at the portrayal of minors has made you blindly lash out at people who see the non-sexual, melodramatic child-friendly side of QS.

I'm sorry, but this notion of a dramatic "fall" of DeepSinking is not leading to a loss of "values". You speak of "encounters" with sites like dA as if they were barbarians. You talk of holding onto DS's "traditions". You mention expanding the community to other platforms with other "persuasions". You refer to "this site, deviantart.com" in a way that personifies it as a foreigner, an unknown item on this...internet thing that you apparently can only refer to it by its address and not its name. What image are you trying to draw? Colonisation and conversion? You know, there's this site called YouTube. Are you going to call an invasion of that too?

The QS community is not going through a lapse in morals of biblical proportions. If anything, the community is stronger and more cohesive than ever before, and I don't recall any major issues in the community in the recent past. If the closure of DS to adult content was like the fall of Rome to you, then we are in the Renaissance. I, for one, do not believe there to be this horrific outlook that this apparent "second generation" will go through.

[Ted]

What he just said.

This thread is now locked.