Lately there seem to have been a few myths flying around in particular with regards to how we as Community Volunteers, give Daily Deviations. Many people seem to think that we sit at our desks in dark little rooms and let out evil laughter whilst we purposefully feature stolen work. The dark rooms and laughter - well I can't say yes or no on that one! But I can promise you it's not our intent to give exposure to people who have stolen work. I recently featured a piece of work that turned out to be stolen. However I went into extensive conversations with the artist before I featured it, and with added metadata and dates, it's difficult to know where to draw the line. I've given people the benefit of the doubt before - and it's worked out nicely as their work has been legitimate. Below are some comments I have seen being thrown around the past few days - and hopefully an attempt to bust the myth.

"I thought at least that you people would check to make sure the work was theirs before giving it a DD!"
We always run the images we choose through several image checkers. If then, things are thrown up that are suspicious, I often contact the artist to try and figure out the where's and whys. I do this, because sometimes the artist deserves the benefit of the doubt. If they provide me with dates, metadata and more background information, then I like to put my trust in them.

"My faith in deviantART has been DESTROYED."
deviantART is a huge site that does a lot for many people. It's an Art Community, and just like any community, things go wrong and things get stolen. Your faith in this website could not have been very strong if it was destroyed simply by something being featured and later proven to be stolen. The Daily Deviations are not completely what deviantART exists for, so to let something like that effect you so much is incredibly sad.


"I haven't got a DD, yet a stolen picture has..."
If, and it's rare, but IF a piece of work gets featured as a DD and is later proven to be stolen, the admins of the site take it down. I appreciate that sometimes this is a long process, it doesn't always happen instantly a report goes in - these things take time. There has NEVER been a Photography piece of work left up with a Daily Deviation award, if it has been proven to be art theft.  Rest assured, the piece gets taken down. As for the actual comment complaining that a stolen picture gets a DD but the particular commenter doesn't - well that's all dependent on work and so on. You can have faith that a stolen piece of work was not DELIBERATELY featured.

"You shouldn't be a CV anymore you're rubbish."
Imagine taking on a voluntary role, making a minor mistake (especially within your first few weeks as many including me have done) and then a handful of people that you've never even come across in the role before start making noises and calling for you to stop what you're doing because you are rubbish. No matter how thick skinned a person is, it can still hurt. People stating this in conjunction with a stolen DD being featured are unreasonable. They also are very unlikely to know the extent of what the CV does. Many people see my name on the Daily Deviation page and assume that it's all I do whilst sitting on deviantART. We're actually real people for starters, we give a lot of our time to the website and Daily Deviations are often the easier task we do whilst going about volunteer duties.