BonzaiRob

dA has kind of been going downhill for a while, but this might be the final straw. The admins have replied. Here's the problem:

• dA no longer allows you to pick "unspecified" or anything other than Male or Female for your gender.
• Trans/intersex people complain, rightly, that deviantART needs to stop putting people in boxes.
• Complaints are largely ignored by the staff but spread through the community.
• Admins respond: 'We'll change the dropdown box's title to "sex" instead of "gender".'

The admins have completely missed the point. "Marketing" at dA decided that the pronouns he and she should be used on profiles, so that's what people get to choose from. A much better solution? Third option. Gender unspecified, and "they" pronouns. Not perfect, but very easy to code in.
But no, apparently they're too lazy to do this, and instead change on piece of text and expect it to be problem solved, while lecturing the trans/intersex complainers on what "gender" means.

Unfortunately, this is just the biggest in a long list of dA giving us what they think we want, not what we ask for. Stacks, for example; I'm all for new features, but they didn't make it optional at first, and that was a big problem. Forcing change never makes people happy.

Something else that's irked me for a few years now is how, when you submit a piece of art, you sometimes get an "error": the piece of art isn't the right size to make prints of!
Look, dA, I'm all for you supporting yourselves, but making people think it's an error not to have a print is just bad UI design. Or not bad, but certainly evil.

This whole thing isn't an issue that affects me directly, but it's certainly been mishandled, and I'm getting fed up with it. I don't post much here, but now I'll be posting even less.