I wanna know what dA is doing to help protect the writers of the community when it comes to "first rights" issues. First rights is what many publications (an increasing number of them, too, these days) ask for when you send a piece of work is sent to them for publication.

What this means is that your work cannot have been published ---anywhere-- and that means ---on the net too--- including your dA page.

Some are really anal about it, and if you're caught sending submissions that've been on the net, they'll never touch your work again. Many, however, are quite okay with workshopping sites like Gazebo or PFFA.

But dA is generally viewed as either a personal website or a vanity site (depending on who you talk to) and does not count as a workshop site. Ohnoes!

Which is baloney, because workshopping stuff is a huge deal here. All the same, for those publications who don't like work put up --anywhere-- it's all too easy to do a Google on some lines from it and check to see if it's been "published" before.

One solution is to simply stop posting your work on dA (an option a LOT of people are taking, I have noticed).

Another, perhaps more satisfying for the community, is for dA to implement an option for our work to be unsearchable.

Now, I know it's not really hard at all to set up an anti-search option for a forum or website. I can only imagine it's a much more vast operation for a big site like this.

But I truly think it will help bring back some of those great writers who aren't posting, and encourage others to join. It'll help YOU by making your workshopped material safe for publishing, without risk of it being rejected for having been posted here.

And it'll help show the world (and the people here) that deviantART isn't just a kiddly pool for writers. That successful writers don't need to leave, or stop posting. And that dA itself really does care about the future careers of its clients.

I know there's been noises made about it, and I am wondering what the status is on that. I think, too, that it's an idea that EVERY WRITER on this site should think about. You might not be ready to publish now, or might not give a crap as far as your own work goes. But please find it in yourself to give a damn about the writers in your community who DO want to be successful in the big ol' world beyond devianART.

Support the quest for an anti-search option.