Jark is my friend

Jark is my friend.  He's been my friend for a long time.  I'm unhappy about the situation with deviantART.  Jark (Scott Jarkoff) and his friend Matteo (Matt Stephens) founded deviantART back in 2000.  The site was started with the help of Angelo Sotira (Spyed) as well but I don't think it's accurate to say Spyed is a co-founder of deviantART any more than it is accurate to give the CEO of say Ziff-Davis the co-founding credit of every magazine they publish.

deviantART, especially when it was launched, was a truly unique experience and its uniqueness put it on the path that has led to where it is today.  And about a week ago, the company that owns deviantART fired Jark without giving any sort of public explanation.  I don't think that's acceptable.  Jark deserves better than that.

Let me tell you the kind of friend Scott Jarkoff is.  Let me tell you about the man he really is.  He's a man of principle. A man of strong moral character.  He is not the kind of person who becomes paralyzed by shades of gray.  He doesn't worry about "appearances".  He worries about what is right and what is wrong. And he takes stands on things based on what he believes in.

Jark is a man who doesn't just say things that sound ethical and moral. He does things that are ethical and moral. He is a man of action.  Let me give you two examples where, at risk to himself, took a strong stand to help his friend (me in these cases) because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Example 1: The GUI Olympics

The first example took place in 2002.  We had put together this inter-website contest called the GUI Olympics.  And I fully admit that we at Stardock were incredibly naive in the way we had set it up. I say that because to help create a sense of equality and paternity, each member site was allowed elect a judge to represent their site without those sites having to have put in any real effort into the contest. As a result, they didn't really have a vested interest in hoping the contest was successful.  Stardock, in its naivete, had basically created a giant-give away to "the community" skin sites without really getting anything substantial in return. 

Stardock, which had come up with the contest, organized it, was paying for the contest and running it would have 3 judges. Each participating site would have one judge.  The rules for the contest were posted from the onset.

Over the course of weeks, Stardock burned the midnight oil to build an independent skin site (the GUI Olympics website) to host the contest and provide a place for judging.  Once it was done and as it was about to begin, a number of the sites started objecting that Stardock (gasp, a commercial company) should have so many judges. They insisted that Stardock be given 1 vote (so it would have 1 vote in 9).  Nevermind that the prize money given out was split between the skinners and the sites and therefore their demand would, in effect, create the potential for collusion -- a couple of sites could get together and potentially rig the judging so that skinners representing their sites would win. And nevermind that Stardock was the one paying for the whole thing.  And ignore that Stardock was the one running the contest (coding the sites, doing the database work, moderating, etc.).  They also demanded a host of other changes including changes to the rules, changes to how the skins would be displayed, etc.  Mind you, they made these demands right before the contest was about to start.  And bear in mind, they demanded this despite their only contributions to the contest being judging the skins -- not exactly a sacrifice. And for that they'd be receiving part of the $10k in cash and prizes being handed out by us along with links back to their sites.  And on top of all the other demands, they also insisted that skin authors not have their names publicly displayed until after the contest -- which would have essentially killed the contest since public recognition is a major factor for skinners. 

For those of us who were working 70 hour weeks trying to get this thing going, the idea of going back and making these changes along with what we thought were obvious conflict of interest issues in allowing the sites who would be receiving money having so much say over how the prize money would be handed out was appalling.  During the course of it, I was called all kinds of names and made to look like I (personally) was out to "Screw over" skinners (how having a contest with cash and prizes can be turned into a "Screw skinners" thing is beyond me but that's what got spread).

But Jark alone of the major skin sites rejected their demands.  Jark took the position that it was our contest to run as we see fit and if they didn't like the way we were running our contest they should get off their asses and run their own contest (which, incidentally, none of these sites ever did).  And in fact, only Skinbase and deviantART via Jark stood up to the other sites.  As a result, the "committee of rule changes" fell apart since as a practical matter, by 2002 WinCustomize and deviantART represented the lion's share of the skinning community and as long as we had Jark's support, the contest could go forward.

The easy path would have been to ride the bandwagon. After all, the "committee" had made themselves out to be the saviors of poor exploited skinners and Stardock was the big bad corporate overlord.  But he took the harder path even though he had to disagree with other on-line friends and do what he thought was right.

Example 2: The TGT Soft incident

The second example came two years later.  It was a week before Christmas 2003 and software developer TGT Soft had demanded that it have the right to use the IconPackager .iptheme format we had created without having to license it from us so that their program Style XP could compete against IconPackager without having to go through the trouble of getting people to create icon packages in any format they came out with or having to pay to host such icon packages.  When we refused to simply give them permission without some type of compensation, they filed a lawsuit against us demanding a court force us to hand over rights to the .iptheme format without any sort of licensing agreement.

A "company" site would probably go and play neutral.  But Jark took a stand.  He condemned TGT Soft and refused to post any more news on them (Betanews.com and Neowin.net have done likewise).  But Jark was the first to do so and deviantART -- run by Jark -- was the only website to publicly condemn what many felt was the corporate equivalent of ripping. 

And I've been thinking of these incidents and countless like them in which Scott Jarkoff displayed a level of integrity and nobility that goes beyond anything one could ever expect in a single human being.  And while I cannot hope to match Jark's integrity, I can try to match his loyalty.  And therefore, I will publicly state this -- on behalf of Stardock Corporation, its shareholders, and Stardock's affiliated websites and partner websites (which are more than most people are probably aware of), we urge the company deviantART, Inc. to settle with Scott Jarkoff in a fair and reasonable manner.  We urge the company deviantART, Inc. to put together a fair and accurate history of deviantART that is created as a collaborative effort between Angelo, Scott, and Matt.  We urge deviantART, Inc. to reinstate Jark with a new "Founder" access class (or better) pending a formal settlement.   We urge deviantART to acknowledge the importance that Jark played in the creation of deviantART.  There would be no deviantART without Jark and to strip someone of their creation in such a way is not right. If both parties can't work together, it should be handled with delicacy and sensitivity.

By doing these things, we believe that deviantART can avert permanent damage to the community we care so much about and to the very valuable good-will that it has built over the past 5 years.  We care very much about deviantART and its success and we hope that the company that owns it and Jark can find a way to settle things amicably.