Sometimes someone would even re-write a whole crit for a new member to show how it's done. If someone posted something that was harsh or to the point, you could generally expect an experienced community member to reply with a suggestion to start with a compliment or something similar. We also made a pretty deliberate effort to instill a culture of positive critique and criticism. We worked pro-actively to resolve conflicts out in the open. Rehabilitation was something we actively promoted. The cool thing about banning from the admin side is it was build in a "time out" manner, when you banned someone you would generally set a period of time the ban was for, and it was pretty difficult to ban someone for life. Everyone on the community team had a lot of lee way to ban, and we banned liberally and often for anything that was even remotely off tone or out of culture. Scott Jarkoff (co-founder) and especially Eric Kolb (dir of community) are really great people, they encouraged and in fact mandated a general idea of no assholes. We talked about loving each other and loving the community very often and publicly and loudly. Kindness was something built-in from day one, it was core to everyone who was responsible for steering a community. I don't know if I'm replying well I feel like this ultimately just sounds like "you had to be there" - but when it comes down to it, I believe the amazingly positive culture is the answer to "what was amazing?" Read the comments on any popular piece - it's usually positive and constructive. It's bigger now, so it's hard to bump into the right people when you're new, but that same DNA is still there. )Īnyway, as far as I could see, that welcome-to-the-community experience was happening to everyone who joined, if they were participating at least. I eventually became a programmer there for a while too, so maybe I wouldn't have become either of those. Programmer/writer, but writer nonetheless, and I don't think that would have happened without DA. I joined in 2001 as a person-who-liked-drawing but had no scanner, so I tried out writing, since that was a category on there that other people were doing, and I got terrific feedback from a handful of strangers, who quickly became friends. DA has always had a culture of being a safe place online to post something you've made without fear of ridicule.