6. Interact with the Community

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Deviation Actions

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At this point, you have probably realized that DeviantArt is a rather massive website with artists from all over the world. There is nearly every type of artwork imaginable to explore. You have space to define yourself as an artist with your profile, gallery, status updates, and journals. You are a professional when it comes to browsing art and discovering new artists to follow.


However, one of the most special aspects of DeviantArt is its community . As a member of this community, you have the ability to interact with the other members. You can meet people from other countries or even discover deviants who are from the same area as you! You can comment on their artwork or profiles or reply to comments that others leave you. You can have conversations with them through Status Updates and journal entries. You can have fun hanging out on the chat network or the forum page, talking in real time with people who may have joined DA for the same reasons as you. You'll come across Staff, Community Volunteers, Seniors, Core Members, and other deviants. You may want to get involved in helping to run some of your favorite groups or even start your own!

We have gathered a collection of tutorials and articles to help you immerse yourself in our colorful DeviantArt community. We hope you come to enjoy it as much as we do here at DAWelcomeWagon.

Getting Involved on DA, Vol. 1: FeaturesCommunity Week
Many of us want to be involved in our DeviantArt community beyond the act of submitting artwork to our galleries. We may want to get more deeply involved because we just love art, because we want to make friends on the website, or even to just generate more traffic to our profiles.
Many people have asked me, HOW do I get more involved? My first answer is always: JOURNAL FEATURES! Why? Because, what better way to say "your work is awesome" than to plaster their deviation in your journal for everyone to see. Even after over ten years on DA, I still get a little thrill at seeing my art in someone else's journal. Taking the time to recognize another's achievement only helps to boost community spirit. Unfortunately, when I mention a journal feature to someone, I often get one of these common responses:
"I would do journal features, but I'm not popular enough."
"I would do journal features, but I'm not good enough at my own art to feature someone else's
Getting Involved on DA, Vol. 2: Commenting!Community Week
Welcome to the next segment in my mini series of how to get involved in our beloved DeviantArt community. The first article talked about how featuring other deviants can help you meet other artists and even generate some profile traffic for yourself. As expressed there, a lot of us want to be more involved on DA than just submitting artwork and waiting for people to find it. After all, this is an art community!
This article will focus on another way to get involved, meet other artists, get some page views (maybe even watchers!), and help you feel more immersed overall:
Smart Commenting!
Yes, you're probably thinking "duh". I would too. But... Do this brief exercise for me. Think back to the last time you were browsing art on DA. How many times did you see something and say "I love this"? A few, I assume.
How many of those did
  Everything You Need To Be An Outstanding dA MemberThis journal is about acting like a senior member.
Senior members are outstanding members of the community and have been recognized by the site as such.
But you don't need a symbol next to your name to do great things for dA.

Every deviation thumb here is an article/guide except for the stamps. Each thing is separate link.

Support Other Deviants

Help With Life Forum

Be Kind To Others


Give Comments and Critiques

Find recently posted art in need of critiques here.
:iconprojectcomment::iconrising-artists:


Suggest Daily Deviations

How to Suggest a Daily Deviation by ItsaBumbleDeeTheMaidenInBlack's DD Suggestion Guidelines by TheMaidenInBlack
Run Contests and Groups
Offering Prizes is a
  Contest hosting hints + tips by Synfull  PE: Organizing Projects and ContestsProjects and Contests are amazing ways to get more involved in the community and branch out to the community, be it that you are running the project or contest or that you are simply taking part in it or even helping out with it in any way. Below will detail some of the ways to better get involved with Projects and Contests.
Interview with Aeirmid
Aeirmid is well known within our community for running fun and out of the box Projects and Contests. Jade heads up Arts-and-Health, ran the Halloween-HQ contest this past Halloween, did a month long projecteducate on Photomanipulation, and has ran several other successful contests and projects just within the past year. As such I felt she was the perfect person to interview in this article.
How can members get their projects/contest seen so that more people will get involved with them?
OK my first piece of advice would be to partner with the
   PE: Breaking Into ChatroomsI realize the title of this article may sound a bit strange so let me clarify that I will not be teaching you how to hack chatrooms or the like.  No, no, we won't be burglarizing them either (is that even possible? :O). Today I'd like to talk about how to have a positive first experience when joining the chats here on deviantART.  While we have many users who chat on dAmn daily with great experiences, sometimes it can be difficult to find your own place in the chats and make your experiences there positive.  I will go over what I feel are main topics/points which every new chatter can benefit from knowing about as well as include a few tips on how to make your chat experience positive.  
:#devart:
:#devart: is deviantARTs official general chatroom and is moderated by Community Volunteers.  This chatroom is a great place to go if you are looking for a chatroom that is active on a regular basis.  This is frequently the firs
   Gaining Exposure To ArtGaining Exposure For Your Own Art:
Being active on the site is probably the best and most effective way to get yourself and your art seen.  Leaving thoughtful comments on others art will often result in them coming to your page to find out more about you and see your art.  Being involved and making friends will promt people to focus on you and your art giving you a bit more exposure.  Leaving critiques, helping to moderate groups, posting in the forums, or simply chatting it up in the chatrooms.  These can all be beneficial in getting you more exposure.  Below I'd like to outline some of the wonderful ways, I believe, you can gain extra exposure to your art.  
Groups:
Joining groups which are relevant to your interests and the art which you make can be very helpful in getting your art out there and seen by like minded individuals.  The introduction of groups by dA has made it very e
   Fun chatrooms to start out with!Chats and Forums Week
So, we realize that some of you might have no idea where to start when it comes to chats on DA. Some of you might be fearful of devart because of all the stories you've heard, and others might just have no idea where they're supposed to go! Well, here is a brief list of where some of you might want to venture first, and why!
In general, when joining a new chatroom, look at the top for links to any rules/guidelines they might have, so that you know how you can or cannot behave. They might also have links further explaining the purpose of the chatroom, or a link to a group for the chatroom, both can provide helpful info on whether the chatroom is a place where you feel you should hang out or not.
devart
Of course, devart is the first room most people think to join. It's the official DA chatroom after all! And while I want everyone to be clear on how things can sometimes be tough in there, it is generally a
   PE: Introduction to the ForumChat & Forum Week
Many people are not aware the forum exists on DeviantART, so this article aims to introduce those who are new and are not as familiar with the forum as others.
Within the forum, there are many forums that you can post in, either by creating your own threads for discussion or by posting in other people's threads. In this sense, one of the best things about the forum is the ease of communication between your fellow deviant comrades! The forum presents an opportunity for you to meet more people, get seen more and participate a variety of discussions that you find interesting. By creating a thread in the forum, you encourage other people to make posts in response to your original post. Likewise, other people who post threads encourage you to post your own thoughts, creating an awesome environment full of sharing opinions.
If you scroll down the forum page, there are many Forums that focus on a specific topic so that all
  Using the Forums to your BenefitChat and Forums Week
The DeviantArt forum houses several forums where deviants can create threads for discussion. In this article, I will be showing you some ways that you can utilize the forum to your benefit. Essentially, you will learn how to make the DeviantArt forum work for you in ways you may not have previously known were possible. I am a dummy! 
The Basics
Before you can use the forum to your benefit you must first learn the basics of the forums, which comes down to the guidelines and FAQs. The forum page consists of several forum categories that each focus on a specific topic. Each forum category comes with its own set of guidelines in the form of "sticky threads," which you should read before posting or responding to threads. It is strongly recommended you review the sticky threads at the top of every forum.
Know your FAQs
Also, it is highly recommended that you review t
   PE: Useful Links for the Chat and Forum:bulletblue: Useful Links
Here is a compilation of useful links that you may want to refer back to every now and then.

:blahblah: General Chat and Forum
Chat, Forum and the FAQ by 3wylQ&A with your Chat and Forum CVs by the communityrelations TeamGetting the most out of dA: Chat and Forums by namenotrequired
:damphyr: Chat
The Chat Network :: Lesson 1 by Tachy-on
   How to earn ,buy or WIN DA Points !Community Week
Hi my name is GeorgeXVII and in this article i want to help you with some advice and suggestions for earning, buying, or WINNING DeviantArt points. But first i want to familiarize you with what points are!
What are DeviantArt Points?
Points (sometimes seen as Points) were created by DeviantArt as another way to buy Core Memberships, commissions, give as gifts, or donate to other deviants.
How to Buy DA Points.
If you want to buy Points, do this:
1.Click on SHOP option in the top menu bar.
2.You will see the Points section at the top along with your current Points balance. If you don't have points the Balance will show 0 points.
3. Click on Points

4. It will take you to this page:

5. On this page you can see there are many ways to buy or g
   How To Enjoy Life On DeviantArtCommunity Week
There have been many articles written about this subject, but my article today touches on something a bit different: communication and its difficulties, and how to overcome them.
DA is like a class full of foreign people
It's as simple as that: DeviantArt is a mixture of cultures (which is a beautiful thing). However, we always tend to fall in the habit of considering everyone similar to us, or coming from our same background and culture: that's because in real life, most of the people around us and most of our friends are exactly that. We share with them a hometown, school courses, workplace, a "history" - and we can see them: just their facial features can tell us about their heritage and about things that maybe we could or should avoid saying or joking about. But on DA, very often, the only thing we share with people who become our watchers, or deviants that we interact with in the forums or groups, is
  How To Enjoy Life On DeviantArtCommunity Week
There have been many articles written about this subject, but my article today touches on something a bit different: communication and its difficulties, and how to overcome them.
DA is like a class full of foreign people
It's as simple as that: DeviantArt is a mixture of cultures (which is a beautiful thing). However, we always tend to fall in the habit of considering everyone similar to us, or coming from our same background and culture: that's because in real life, most of the people around us and most of our friends are exactly that. We share with them a hometown, school courses, workplace, a "history" - and we can see them: just their facial features can tell us about their heritage and about things that maybe we could or should avoid saying or joking about. But on DA, very often, the only thing we share with people who become our watchers, or deviants that we interact with in the forums or groups, is
  The Art of Critiquing
Community Week

You are probably (hopefully!) already aware that DeviantArt allows users to comment on each other's deviations. What you may or may not have noticed is that DA also has a handy feature called Critiques. Critiques are a Core Member feature that allows users to leave in-depth observations of your work in addition to a ratings system. A critique allows the artist to receive specific comments about their work.
Before we begin, let’s take a look at what DeviantArt designed the critique system to be:
“Critique is designed to be a thorough evaluation of a Deviation on a number of different qualities. It is intentionally designed to inspire thoughtful and constructive feedback from committed Artists and Enthusiasts to fellow Artists requesting meaningful responses to their artwork.” ( :faq95: )
Generally speaking, a critique is not intended t
   Be An Active Watchee    We all want active watchers; people that comment on our deviations and add them to their favorites. That get involved in whatever projects we have going on, polls we post or anything else. Active watchers are awesome and we're lucky to have them. But are you an active watchee?
    Some people return watches, some people don't. However you do it, a big key to have active watchers for most of us is to be active in return! But what is an active watchee?
    Being an active watchee isn't really that hard, it's just boils down to being involved with your watchers and being part of their deviantART experience too. They watched you for whatever reasons they did. Let it be your artwork, your community involvement, your bribery... whatever it is, they watched you for a reason, reasons we shall appreciate because we are respectable people after all! So without further babbling or .gifs,
5 Steps to Being an Active Watchee

1. Stay regular
  Tricks to save you time on DeviantArtCommunity Week
Hey guys,
This is just a very quick tutorial of sorts on some quick "shortcuts" or other types of "tricks" for some things on DeviantArt you might not know about. They're things that saved me a lot of time once I discovered them, so I figured I may as well share them for those who might find them useful.
Moving, Copying or Removing Favorites or Gallery items in mass or all at once
There's a somewhat glitchy but still useful way for you to select multiple of your gallery items or favorites in order to then either move/copy them to other folders or simply remove them altogether.
1. First go to your Favourites or Gallery page. They both operate exactly the same with regards to this "trick" so for the sake of this tutorial, I'll only be showing the Favourites folder as an example. Once you're on the page, click the "Edit Page" button.

2. Note that from this page you could also drag and drop thumbna
  How to organize contestsCommunity Week
In this article, you will find tips on how to organize your contests. By following this advice, I cannot guarantee you that everything will run perfectly or that you will have many entries for your contest, but I can definitely tell you that your contest will have more exposure and that it will help you be more organized and prepared!
I. Before the contest goes live
:bulletgreen: Make sure you REALLY want to run a contest.
Considering how frustrating organizing them can be at times, it is very important that, whether you will be a judge for the contest or the organizer, it is from your own will. 
:bulletgreen: Don't rush it
Unless you know exactly what kind of contest you want, or that you have all the means to run a contest right away, it's necessary that you take the time to organize it. Give yourself some time to gather plenty of prizes, think about the process, how you want it promoted, etc.
:bulletgreen: Define the theme or the concept of your



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Skin by Dan Leveille
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Titanium-Aura-Quartz's avatar
How would I go about starting to try to take commissions on the website?