It's been so long since I last wrote a journal. I wouldn't have, but for something I noticed a couple days ago. After a very long time I went to the "today" main page of deviantart, where you can view the most popular articles of the day, newest comments, deviants, most popular deviants... and that's where I stopped. Most popular deviants of the day are those that have most pageviews in a day. Something in their names didn't sound right. I clicked and clicked and clicked... and it was all the same. People that are selling pageviews for real money or dA points.

Currently the list is:

!Rubbing                       1,478,263 pageviews in a day  -----> Sells pageviews for points.
~PageviewLaboratory      157,152 pageviews in a day  -----> Sells pageviews for money through paypal or for points.
~get-more-pageviews        34,090 pageviews in a day  -----> Sells pageviews for points.




And here I stop. Something even more interesting caught my eye in ~get-more-pageviews' journal:


Is it legal? Can I or you be banned for that? What DA staff have to say about it?

It is legal. You can't be banned for receiving big amount of pageviews. And I can't be banned for giving it. We also can't be banned for doing it for points.

Here is quote from $realitysquared (part of DA staff):

Like it or not as far as we are concerned pageviews cannot be "abused".

We know all about the pageview bots which are in existence which can add tens of thousands of pageviews to your profile in a day and frankly it just isn't a primary concern for us- you don't need to report it to our support center because ultimately we won't stop them from being used.

Likewise, we know that some members have set up shop "selling" pageviews for Points and we do not consider this to be a "scam"- if someone is so wrapped up and obsessed over a pretty useless statistic which doesn't directly benefit them in any way that they want to trade away Points in order artificially increase it rather than wait for it to increase naturally for free then let them waste their Points.

Here you can read $realitysquared's journal: [link]




And that got me thinking. Yes, of course Daniel - realitysquared is right. It's stupid if anyone buys pageviews as there is no point in them. Or is there? There would be no point if there wasn't a list such as "Popular Deviants" in deviantArt's main page. But since there is, people that buy pageviews automatically have more chances of being seen and spotted by entering this list.

Isn't that unfair? It really made me think: is dA itself making a profit by selling pageviews?



I've never been so close to closing my account. I decided against it only because I've given my page to too many people. So I'm just storing away. I know many will say that "oooh forget about it, quit your whining, it's just pageviews" etc, but to me being fair is a big deal, both in real life and in any site I'm in.


If they remove the "Popular Deviants" list it's fine by me. Until then though, this site is as unfair as it could get. Everything is for money.