Favorite abuse... are you a victim?

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Deviation Actions

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The Story


Yesterday, during my time on deviantART, I received a favorite on a deviation I had just submitted.  It was not a piece I was particularly proud of, so I smiled when I saw a new activity message saying that someone had added it to their collection.  Since I wasn't very busy at the time, I decided that I should personally thank the deviant for their favorite, as many artists do.  When I clicked on the link to their page, everything seemed to be in order... until I scrolled down to leave a comment.

This deviant had hundreds of comments, all within 30 seconds of each other, saying "Thanks for the fave!" or "Thanks for adding my stuff to your collection!"  I refreshed the page, and to no surprise, the deviants pageviews had increased by 20 in just a few seconds.  Then it hit me: I was a victim of favorite abuse.

What exactly is it?


While I do not think that favorite abuse is a term I created, I was amazed to see that there were no other recent news articles.  To me, favorite abuse is adding massive amounts of deviations to your collection for the sole purpose of gaining pageviews.  And the sad truth? It works!

Big deal... extra favorites are a good thing, right?


To a new or unknown deviant, (as we all have been) getting a favorite on the piece that they worked so hard on is a real treat.  Ideally, a favorite is someone's way of saying "Hey, I like your work!"  But when a person is adding favorites blindly, all they are really saying is "Hey you, come look at my page!"  Perhaps you view this as no more than a minor annoyance, and if that is the case, then you are a more tolerant person than I am.  Think of it this way, though:

Pretend, for a moment, that you are a rookie artist with very few watchers and plenty of room for improvement.  You have just spent three hours in MSPaint working on a drawing that you are not completely confident in, and you upload it onto our beloved dA.  After being posted for a total of five seconds, you already have a favorite from a deviant called ~CaptainJerkwad!  You smile to yourself, and think "Maybe I'm not so bad at this after all!"

In your excitement, you rush to the favoriter's page, scroll right to the bottom without taking note of the other comments, and post, "Thanks so much for the fave!  Will you look through my gallery and tell me what else you like?"  Then you wait for a reply... and get nothing.  And over the course of the day, the only other favorite you get is from your best friend, leaving you a meager "this is cool. =)"  So you wonder... "am I any good?"

The point is, this extra favorite is completely useless to you.

Yeah, but I'm already better and more popular than that.


Maybe so.  Maybe favorites really mean nothing to you, because you already know that you are a great artist (in which case you may not belong to this community.)  Or maybe you already get so many favorites that an extra one to skew the results doesn't matter.  Maybe you don't care because you never have time to thank the favoriters anyways.

Let's make-believe again (it's fun, isn't it?)  You are the same struggling artist as you were before, with two favorites on your mediocre paint sketch.  You've been a deviant for six months, but you only have 500 pageviews.  A few hours have passed since you left ~CaptainJerkwad a thank-you comment for his empty favorite.  You go back to his page to send him another message, and realize that he has well over 50,000 pageviews, and he's only been a deviant for four months!  You think, "Wow, he must be really good!"  So you open his gallery, browse through, and realize that he's actually worse than you are!  How can this be?

Well, my mediocre friend, ~CaptainJerkwad has many pageviews, and many comments.  He also has 65,000 favorites.  Chances are, you've never even seen that many deviations.  That's because you are dealing with a favorite abuser.  Is it fair that he is ten times more popular than you will ever be, when he has cheated to get noticed, and is a terrible artist?  Of course not!

Tell me again why I should care...?


As a member of this large, nurturing community, you are responsible for helping to keep it a fair and helpful place for everyone.

Well, what can I do to help?


It's always cool to thank someone for your favorite.  It makes them feel good about favoriting, and helps build a warm sense of caring in the community.  If you don't usually thank people because you are toobusy, then this part does not apply to you.  But if you happen to get a favorite from someone like ~CaptainJerkwad, and you go to thank them, don't bother commenting on their page, or you will simply be justifying their cause.  Also, it should go without saying that you should not go through their gallery, because once again, you'd be giving them a reason to continue favorite abusing.  And chances are, their gallery is not that interesting anyways, or else they wouldn't need all those extra pageviews.  However, you should not go flaming them, for two reasons.  Number one, it's just not necessary, and will only create drama.  They know that what they're doing is wrong.  And secondly, their inbox is so full of "thank you" comments that your flame will only get swallowed anyways.

You can report them to the help desk, and I would encourage you to.  But if it's on the weekend, like this case, the culprit will already have their extra 0k views before dA even receives word about it!

Oh noes!


YA RLY!  That's why I think it would be a good idea for deviantART to put in place some sort of favorite-limiter.  Something that, for example, limits you to, say, 100 favorites per hour.  Or else, have it automated so that if you exceed that limit, a report will automatically be sent for the help desk to review.  That way, people who are doing large features and such would not get in any trouble.

In conclusion...


Favorite abuse can be a serious issue that creates unrule, and is unfair for the honest deviants.  If you agree with me, and think that changes should be made, share this article or give it a favorite.  Thanks for your time.

Peace always,
~ Neil :peace:
© 2009 - 2024 NeilRawson
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Cyntilla's avatar
My problem is that I don't know if I too I'm there or if it's just true admiration... How could I guess?