Scaling the Deviants part Deux

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So you liked Scaling the Deviants eh? Well that works, because it's my favorite topic. Now to talk about it until people get bored. I'll judge by the comments vs. previous journals how interesting this topic remains. So if you want more, shout out!


Recap: Scaling the Deviants

In Scaling the Deviants we discussed building virtual environments, like deviantART, that are able to scale. And by scale, we mean scaling the community, not the technical ability for the software to handle growth. This social science is a major focal point here at deviantART, because it allows us to build extremely productive social environments for millions of artists worldwide.

The main objectives are:

• Connect people who should be connected. There are many ways to connect people; the more natural the better. The good news is, we do this fairly well today. If you see work you like, you add it to your favorites. If you like a deviant, you add them to your deviantWATCH. Doing it better mostly depends on the second objective. The two feed one another.
  
  
  • Provide flexible environments that enable community leaders to provide value. Let's talk a lot more about that. Because through this your experience on deviantART will benefit from the efforts of other people browsing the site to help you find deviants that could change your life.
    
    
    We the People..
    
    In addition to being a technology company, deviantART also serves as what is effectively the land of a pure capitalist democracy. We provide the platform (the land) and we allow the people to purely elect who rises and who falls. Instead of money (resources) as a focal point for deviants, our focal point is the most loved art and artists. Every day that passes art rises to the top and/or falls to the bottom entirely based on either skill or entertainment value as it relates to a massive community of people who "vote" in the system. Some deviants receive more love than other deviants. And everyone works towards receiving the most love. Usually in the form of comments, favorites and +devwatches. Uh, and some deviants join the print program. hehe.
    
    In other words; the citizens of America working in American corporations produce trillions of dollars; more than any other country. And in this context the deviants of deviantART produce millions of pieces of artwork, more than any other art community.
    
    But the problem isn't quantity, it's quality. And here's how deviantART can improve it's system to encourage quality and self-improvement among it's members.
    
    
    Community Leaders are  Entrepreneurs
    
    Perhaps the most valued contributor to a capitalist society is the entrepreneur. These leaders exercise available resources and convert those resources in to a value proposition. Thus jump starting the "economy."
    
    In the deviantART setting an empowered Community Leader would inspire the fragmented community to produce and bring to light higher quality art work. Here's how:
    
    
    A Flat Community
    
    Today deviantART is what we call a flat community. It's theoretically as raw and fair as any social system can possibly be. How the system rewards one member over another is directly proportionate to the amount of time spent (X) times quality of submission (Y), times unique participation (Z).
    
    As an example suzi9mm has a high value of X, a high value of Y and a high value of Z. Therefore she is very well known. The fact is, anybody with high X, Y and Z values rises to the top of deviantART. We're very proud of this because we bring to light well rounded artists. But there's much to be improved.
    
    When an artist lacks any of those three elements we often fail to bring a proportionate response level to that artist. And artists as a stereotype often fall short of a little (X) and a little (Z) even when they have lots of high quality submissions (Y).
    
    This is where I personally completely and totally geek out.
    
    suzi9mm may not be your stereotypical entrepreneur. Being one myself I could tell you we have a hard time with existing systems, we want our own environments, and we genuinely enjoy risk that has high potential on the other side. Suzi may be an entrepreneur in real life in the way that she utilizes deviantART, but in the social system of deviantART she goes by the books and is a rather impressive member of the system. (Sorry I'm pickin' on ya suzi but you're an awesome example.)
    
    In order to have true deviants of the system, we must enhance deviantART with a system to empower the leaders.
    
    
    Where ART meets CORPORATION
    
    In the American democratic system we have CORPORATIONS. Led by a chain of command, checked by the board of directors. These systems empower leaders/entrepreneurs in the largest free market economy on earth to reward and maintain the people they lead in their pursuit of innovation and success.
    
    And that's exactly what we need. No not corporations! We need ART GROUPS with a hierarchy structure permitting the leaders of "groups" to control who has access to publish, represent and maintain the group. We need anyone in the community with leadership skill to start a group and begin building what could be a massively popular destination for millions of visitors.
    
    I referenced Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as "the only (community) that scales well on a social level" along with "projects that embrace its basic concepts." Why?
    
    In a word; hierarchy. A founder group controls the operators group which controls the groups below it. These controls enable leaders to manage the members of the group and structure that group in a way which makes it most effective for the members. The ease of hierarchy in a virtual social system is the key to empowering the entrepreneurs in your community, so that the society has the tools it needs to scale it's productivity.
    
    
    Applied to deviantART this means;
    
    
    • A significant increase in the submission of high quality art, and a much stronger focus over time on quality and improvement as every artists reputation within a peer group becomes intimately tied to their value proposition to that peer group.
      
      
      • A major step forward in a productive learning environment for younger artists.
        
        
        • Groups could attract multiples of traffic in comparison to user pages or any other destinations on deviantART today including our front page or gallery pages. So exposure levels for artists participating in this system would be dramatically increased.
          
          
          • Greater motivation and support. deviantART would no longer feel so big and cumbersome; the "population density" of deviantART would thin out, even as the overall participating audience grew by millions. If you were to look at this in a different light; GROUPS essentially enables cities to form where before there was currently one massive country.
            
            Chew on that! And while you're chewing on it, can you think of any other benefits? Or for that matter, draw backs! I have a whole discussion on draw backs vs. today that I could save for my next journal.
            
            I also have to write about that other 1/3 of the social scaling solution.
            
            
            blings:
            
            
            • deviantMOBILE launched in full today. A press release goes out tomorrow; what that means to the average member is not much. It's mostly for users who aren't logged in who couldn't see deviantMOBILE before.
              
              
              • Artist Checks went out today. I'll post a pic in my scraps later as I try to do every quarter.
                
                
                • Wonder what the original kids from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory look like today? Scary!
                  
                  
                  • deviantART  Googlified.
                    
                    -- A