Yes, I'm around. I'll never leave deviantART.
And - before you ask - yes, I have deleted my older journals. Time for a summer-cleanup and a fresh start - not only in my journals.

After watching the stuff happening on dA for a few days, I thought it's time to write a new journal.
This journal is for everybody on dA - from ! to $. go, read it.

Why did I resign from staff? - There are a few reasons for that. The first one is a leak in staff. Somebody who has signed a NDA is bringing staff internal things to publicity - like screenshots from the staff forums (although they're removed now from [link] - I think most of you have seen them). Such things SUCK. That's like betraying your best friend and f***king with his girlfriend. Next reason is the missing faith in the heads of dA - I've seen and heard a lot of stories and opinions, together with journals and forum-posts speaking only the half truth or just beeing wrong. But who do you trust? Angelo? Scott? No idea. I can live with a boss - or two - beeing an ass. If the rest of the staff rocks. Most people I've met on staff definitely do, but there's still one ***hole leaking informations, which results in wrong speculations and whispering behind your ears. That sucks even more. Finally there's a lack of information about the things going on on dA, because there's a big fight going on in the background, which takes all the time. And if you get some pieces of informations you don't know if you can trust them, because your faith into dA's heads is gone. Killing the yellow alien was only the final dot on the long i that made me leave. Trust me - as soon as the community spirit is back on dA, together with a happy, not leaking staff, I'll apply for the next open position on staff, whatever it is. At the moment I prefer to support the community as a normal (senior-) member of the community.


This goes to all of you: STOP insulting people. NO death threats. NO spam. If you want to discuss something, do it nicely. If you send notes or comments to $spyed or anybody else - be nice. Spreading hate neither makes the world better nor deviantART. Don't bitch at $lolly - he is neither yellow nor an alien, but he's an awesome clown and he is and he will be doing his job very well.

This goes to all of you, but I hope $spyed will read it, too: Speak the truth. No half-truths, no lies. The community deserves the truth - nothign else. There're no secrets in a good community. Spread love, not hate. Always.if your photo is a manipulation, put it into Digital Art instead of Photography. If you write about something in forums, journals or news - speak the truth. No secrets. People will find out - and they'll be pissed with you.

This goes to all of you, but I hope °jark will read it, too: Stop whining, stop bitching. Neither abusing people's emotions nor bitching and flaming about wrong or not working things is the right way. For some people the right way is to go to court, for other people the right way is to send a bugreport instead of flaming at the HD. There're so many whiney journals on deviantART, not onyl about the recent issue, but also about missing buttons on dA or a missing paycheck from prints. People - don't behave like little kids. Be serious, and talk with the right people. Talk like somebody who is mature, not like a little kid.


Sometimes I think deviantART is a big sandbox with little kids destorying castles made of sand. One kid starts, the other one reacts, and in a few minutes all are fighting. Why? If the two who started the fight would have any respect of the community, they would leave it as long as they're fighting. Yes, I'm asking $spyed and °jark to leave deviantART alone. Completely. Go and fight your fight, but not on deviantART. You won't have time to do you job on deviantART while having stress at court - let other people do your job - it'll be better for deviantART. deviantART needs 100% of your time, there's no free time to fight a fight. Let court decide who is right, and then choose a board of directors without you - without $spyed and °jark. I'm not asking you to leave deviantART completely - but deviantART needs people on top everybody can look up to, without thinking about the shit going on at the moment. I have my own opinion about the whole case, and I'm not going to share it here. I think I know who will win, but I'd still prefer to have the alien and the ninja back as mascots, supporting the community instead of leading the community. $lolly and $Moonbeam13 would be imho the best people to lead deviantART. I think most deviants - including me - trust them, especially in the way that they're not going to decide alone - but together with the community - and only the best for the community. They both rock .


Let's all build up this community again. Like it was when I've joined in 2003. Let's start on deviantART's birthday v5. There're several ideas going around what to do on this day - my short version is: Come online, be active, give good comments. Let's be a community again - one community. I'll put my deviations up again, and try to get some new ones scanned and up asap. Let us all meet on dAmn! In case you're worried about the 'Scaling the Deviants' idea, mentioned in $spyed's journals - have a look at $mccann's journal - somehow I think the idea is grown in our IT guru's head - and it's awesome. I'm all for it, it'll be a new deviantART with a much stronger community. Unfortunately $spyed's journal was misunderstood by a lot of people - including me.

If you like my idea - support it - put my webcam image in your journals and webcams, you're allowed to link it from my webspace.

There have allready a few people recognized that I've chosen the same artist for a DD for today as I did for yesterday. I'm sorry for this mistake - I put this two DDs up in the last two minutes before I've resigned. I was allready talking to $lolly. This line here: Although it's breaking my heart - i'm not going ot stay. Unfortunately I know too much of the shit goign on behind the scenes, please don't ask why and how and what. At the moment i'd prefer not to know it, since it makes my decision 100%..... was allready typed in my MSN window when I got the suggestion from =iamkatia. I sent it to Richard a second after submitting today's DD in the hope to do something good.


Finally - do me a favour.
Go to $Moonbeam13 - give her your and , she deserves it and she needs it. She's awesome.
Go to $lolly - he prefers , go, give Richard some good . He'll rock the community, he's awesome.
Go to $mccann - I know he's workign hard to give the community a present soon. -killing spray is the thing he needs. And some for his sweet son.
And last but not least - forget my spelling and grammer mistakes

Thanks for reading my rant. Somehow I think I'll get some thousand flaming comments now, but that's ok. I'll be on a nice festival this weekend, which will be much fun and distracting from the shit going on at the moment, and I'll jump in here fully on deviantART's 5th birthday. Not early in the morning - I'll still be on the festival on that time... getting sober.... But as soon as I'm at home again. Let's all rock the house!


Much love




Bernd