Time to complain about EVERYTHING HAHAHAHAHAHA

Ok so I may have neglected my dA account. My last journal update was 16 months ago. What does that mean to you guys, exactly? It means I'm going to now rant about everything I don't currently like about this site which has changed in the last year because I fear disruption in my life and Meg assures me they've all been bitched to death in Complaints already so I'm not going there to do it.

First and foremost, I'd like to say that the current forum system of hitting Tab after a post and having it jump you to the top of the page rather than the next item in line (e.g., the Preview button) is the single most retarded thing I've seen in website design since I built that joke site advertizing a zombie-killing and disposal service called Zom-B-Gone. Congratulations dA, you successfully managed to take something used by everyone with nearly universal site compatibility and which the vast majority of your community has turned into a reflex and then made it do something else. Not only does it not do what it should do, but the new item it jumps you to is useful to no one. Seriously, I have never been browsing the forums and thought to myself, "Gee, I sure wish I could use a handy keyboard shortcut that redirects me from my currently-viewed topic to the root forum index." I've sure as hell never followed up on that thought with, "I'd even trade my most commonly used keyboard shortcut on every website for that utility which I will never remember or take advantage of, ever." Seriously.

Now, to salvage some sort of good out of this utterly half-baked and illogical idea, we're going to play a fun game. I'm currently imagining the number of high-proof alcoholic drinks that a website developer would have to consume in the space of three hours to think that changing the Tab button to do the exact opposite of what it does on every other website is a legitimately good idea. I want you to do the same. Got it? Good. Next, you're going to reply to tell me what your guess is. The first person to correctly guess the amount of alcohol required to justify this decision wins a wonderful prize¹. Then we can at least say that somewhere, something good came from this monumentally stupid decision.

¹_{The "prize" may in fact be something intangible such as "a feeling of satisfaction" or general pleasure at having won the contest.}

Next up on the list is the decision to make the Premium and Senior forums visible, but ghosted, to all of the common rabble who don't meet the criteria to actually post in the forums themselves. This strikes me as a decision which can only be described as "bad for the world." Not because I think the uncultured swine that populate the Deviants and Music forums are going to be all jealous at seeing things take place which they can't post in, oh no. Not that at all. I think this is a bad decision because now, speaking as someone who spent several years subscribed on this website, the peasantry can see exactly how useless and retarded shit like the Premium Members forum really is after all. You know how many posts I made in the Premium forum over like six years of having a subscription? One. One post. I know it's exactly one post because I actually remember the specific time that I saw a topic in the Premium forum that was worth reading and replying to. I'm pretty sure it was in 2004. The really hilarious part is they've actually added a Premium Thumbshare forum which serves the exact same purpose as the normal Thumbshare forum, except it's visible to a smaller audience. Given the whole point of Thumbshare is to advertise to as many people as possible, I'm led to two conclusions. First, Premium Thumbshare was only added as a gimmick to make it look like the subscription forums are actually worth paying for ("Look guys, there's TWO of them now!"). Second, the guys who come up with this stuff have a liquor cabinet in the company headquarters. Don't try to tell me the senior forum is dramatically better; for those who've forgotten, I'm married to one. SHE'S TOLD ME YOUR SECRETS.

Furthermore, spambots are fucking everywhere now. They used to be an occasional nuisance. I've seen three of them in the last two hours, and I haven't exactly been browsing a whole lot. I really hope this is an uncommon exception rather than the rule. If dA adopts a Captcha post verification system like 4chan did in its (failed) effort to beat spambots, I'll seriously just leave again for another year and a half. I'm not dealing with that crap on yet another forum. If I want to try and decipher someone's mangled attempts at the English language I'll go back to my job as a writing tutor.

Now excuse me briefly while I go shower before continuing with this. Then my hair can dry while I finish my rambling.

BACK, AND I HAVE CEREAL. Now where was I...

Oh, right. I was bitching about everything. That's not fair, though. As much as I enjoy complaining, some things have also become better around here in the time I've been gone (I've been quietly lurking for a week or so just to observe). It'd be biased of me to spend an entire journal entry whining about change while not giving the good stuff its due. You want to know one thing that was immediately and obvious better than it was before? The Music forum. Seriously, that place used to be like the Mos Eisley of deviantART. Half the community was 14 or younger and listened to MCR or hip-hop, the other half was 35 or older and swore that no good music had been made since 1974, and there were like six guys in between who only ever listened to Morrissey and quite loudly insisted everything else was utter bullshit and needed to die. Since I started browsing again, the place seems to have dropped significantly in overt hostility and I haven't seen a single post about Morrissey. When I looked at it an hour ago, I had to actually read eight threads before I found one that pissed me off, and that wasn't because of the content but rather because it looked like it was typed by a chimpanzee on a whiskey-and-Adderall bender. A year ago I couldn't even have got through the pinned threads without feeling an intense desire for murder.

Lastly, I just want to say that I'm pleased at at least one thing that remains unchanged on dA, even after a break of a year and a half away from the place: the overwhelming sense of angst and despair in the Complaints forum. When I first popped back onto dA a few days ago, I naturally went straight to Complaints like I always used to and skimmed the topics. Of course I have forgotten what it looked like by now but I'll look again right now and use that as a comparison instead. What do we have? A complaint about Twilight, a personal attack on another member's gallery, someone bitching about stupid children, a hilarious rant about people living in piles of garbage, and an entire fucking topic that no one will read because the stupid author put it all in subscript. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Complaints forum that I know and love. Thank you for never changing, ever.