Dragons

obviously a deal hasn’t been made yet, but the company is very openly wanting to buy tumblr and if that happens i’m removing all my art from this website, and depending on any changes they make i’ll likely just leave the site completely. i for one was enjoying the nsfw ban and less bots…….

after the nsfw ban awhile back pornhub was encouraging artists to post their digital art to their site because it was ~welcomed~ and everyone then found out their tos/agreement is a nightmare and they basically own everything on their sites owned by mindgeek and could do what they wanted with your art/potentially profit off of it. also, again, i do not want my art associated with a porn company. at all.

https://twitter.com/JoshConstine/status/1124067515167059968

so, here’s what i meant in the original post. the ToS everyone signs is pretty standard for image and content hosting sites. most social media and art websites have similar sounding ToS that people get scared of. the ToS, as i and other people in the post have clarified, does not give the company your copyright. i meant that the company legally owns the right to host your content. every site has this. deviantart got a shitton of backlash from people misinterpreting it. it is, theoretically, harmless.the problem is even if the company does not legally own your copyright or you don’t allow them to sell your work, that’s not the only way they profit off of you. users, traffic, and advertising are how they specifically profit off your content. remember how tumblr was supposed to allow you to earn money from ads on your blog when they implemented it and then you didn’t? the more traffic a site gets the higher its net worth grows (for eventual sale) and the more advertisers will flock to it. the more activity the more revenue. this is why the spam and porn bot problem is so rampant, it earns the site money. it’s why they won’t take down nazis and pedophiles, they need users. basically, tumblr was already profiting off your traffic and following. this isn’t really news.

if pornhub buys tumblr they want to lift the nsfw ban, which, while i’m not against adult content on the platform and the nsfw ban fucked over sex workers who relied on this site, please remember the reason it was put in place was because of the rampant child pornography and pedophiles on this site. when tumblr was removed from the app store, their profits tanked. allowing nsfw content back on the site will generate more porn bots linking back to porn sites. when a bot links a site to your post it fools google’s algorithm into thinking it’s more legit.

pornhub’s parent company, mindgeek, owns a LOT of porn sites and brands. they’ve been growing a monopoly on internet porn for years, and those spam bots are going to be in the company’s best interest profitwise by linking to their sites and again, generating traffic across their platforms.

https://plaguerightsactivist.tumblr.com/post/184665403697/im-confused-why-would-pornhub-buying-tumblr-be

https://plaguerightsactivist.tumblr.com/post/184666486052/issues-with-pornhub

https://slate.com/technology/2014/10/mindgeek-porn-monopoly-its-dominance-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-other-industries.html

https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/03/the-almost-invisible-men-and-women-behind-the-worlds-largest-porn-sites/

again, monopolies and companies profiting off your content aren’t anything new. however, mindgeek and pornhub are notorious for content theft, which in order to get removed from their site involves a DMCA which, is standard, but for sex workers it is extremely dangerous because it shows the copyright holder’s personal identification, effectively doxxing the owner to the person who reposted their content. i, personally, have had serious problems with this in the past with my art on tumblr. in my time posting my art on this site a man has reuploaded and masturbated to my sfw animal art and repeatedly harassed me and other artists across multiple platforms. i was a minor at the time and his method of stalking and threatening artists was by posting their information when they filed DMCAs against his reposts. he preyed on children and it resulted in him getting away with mass art theft. this is what happened under yahoo and verizon, both before and after the nsfw ban. this is what you can expect with your work.

mindgeek has been changing sex workers’ contracts. mindgeek has been forcing sex workers into more and more dangerous work. mindgeek has a stranglehold on the porn industry, involved in over 100 sites. sex workers are being put at risk, exploited, and have had their work stolen and profited off of with very little compensation under their company. i encourage you all to look more into this and the company’s ToS yourselves.

http://fortune.com/2019/05/03/pornhub-tumblr-buying-risks/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-porn-has-gotten-so-rough

https://www.chronicsex.org/2018/03/mindgeek-terrible/

so, with mindgeek being evil, now we get into datamining. more and more restrictions on selling user data have been stripped away, getting worse and worse stateside. luckily, the EU required websites to be transparent about it, except only to EU users. tumblr has been mining and selling your data to a number of companies for years, and now we have a list of them. if mindgeek purchases tumblr they own all the data they have collected on you. mindgeek also already collects data on its users, in an attempt by the UK to stop them from allowing minors to consume adult content. what happens if the company decides to sell this extremely sensitive information they’ve already been collecting on users (if they haven’t already)? people could potentially lose their jobs. more sex workers will be fucked over.

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/8m8s1c/tumblr_requiring_you_to_manually_check_off_325/

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uk-porn-block-age-id-check-card-pornhub-mindgeek-explained-a8817696.html

tumblr and mindgeek both have extensive histories of being shady as all fuck and having poor moderation. it shouldn’t be difficult to comprehend why a porn company acquiring a large userbase of minors, a porn company with teen porn categories on their site, a porn company that datamines your information, combined with a website that already had a thriving pedophile community and has already been selling your information is a very bad idea. people post pictures of themselves, of their families, of their children, minors post pictures of themselves and their information, the thought of a porn site possessing this content is terrifying.

ToS often change when companies change hands. tumblr has been passed around like a hot potato when companies realize that they have difficulty monetizing it. if tumblr is bought by pornhub/mindgeek, they could change their ToS to have a stronger hold on your content and right to profit off of it when they decide to squeeze all the money they can out of their userbase.

tumblr is not your friend. pornhub is not your friend. corporations are not your friends. any time people bring up pornhub’s shitty business all they have to do is make a viral post about them being ~woke~ and everyone’s fooled. pornhub lied about the snowplowing stunt. US companies are not required to disclose the companies they sell your data to to their US users. companies often strengthen their right to user content and add in sneaky ToS updates as quietly as possible.

https://plaguerightsactivist.tumblr.com/post/184663234762/we-joke-and-talk-about-the-youre-not-immune-to

please take a moment to protect yourself, your data, and your work if this happens. the sale is not official. there are no benefits to the userbase if mindgeek acquires tumblr. please consider that, even if best case scenario and the ToS doesn’t get worse, that your web presence and your work can still be exploited for profit, perfectly legally, without you signing away your copyright.

i did not sign up to a porn site. i did not sign up to a mindgeek company. i did not sign up to have my work associated with a porn company. if tumblr is officially bought by mindgeek i will be removing my art immediately and likely deleting my main blog afterwards. i do not want to take any chances, i do not want my content or activity to give this company revenue after all they have done and could do in the future. we as consumers have to be more careful about our data and content, and the companies we choose to support. you have to decide where you want to draw a line. i do not want my art associated with mindgeek.

It kind of looks like a bad photoshop job. It doesn’t look like a part of the dragon; it looks more like it’s floating on top of it. I’m not sure if it’s the shading, the style, or the positioning, but it sticks out.

A VOTE FOR T. TREASURE IS A VOTE FOR THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT OF THE NOCTURNE! MAKE HISTORY! VOTE MIMIC! 

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T VOTE VULPINE LAMP! IT’S WHO GETS THE MOST VOTES ACROSS BOTH POLLS FOR SOME REASON!! VOTE ONLY T. TREASURE, YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN MIMICRY

It’s time!!

I joined FR in the April 2015 registration window and made this blog the same day. I hit 1,000 months ago and have been preparing since, but it takes me an age to do anything, so in the time it took to gather the prizes and get around to making this post I’ve gained more than 300 more.

FR has been an intense stress reliever for me, especially over these past two years, and having this blog to share content with my fellow dragon nerds is a big part of it  — some of you follow me for art, some for shitposts, some for ‘???’, and some for all of the above. I wouldn’t enjoy the game half as much without such a great community, and without you lot. :V

Even though I have trouble catching up and don’t reply very often (I’m working on it!), I’ve memorized many of your usernames and recognize them when you pop up in my activity feed! The stuff that gets added to my posts (tags, replies, etc) is some of the best entertainment and fun I could hope to have. c:

Shut up, Loke, elaborate on the prizes!

There will be five winners, one for each of the prize packs above.

Rosy Gladiator  —  Rheena is a statted and stoned level 25! You can see her stones and stats in the image – she follows Culex’s guide, except I gave her a little more VIT for a total of 126/8/11/58. (if you already have a coli team, please don’t list her as your first prize preference)

Bold Colours   —  A full set of genes, featuring our two newest treasure genes!

Endangered Friends   —  A gem vista, and honestly one of the cutest ones – A · X · O · L · O · T · L

Fancy Froges   —   A whole bunch of frogs, featuring a very fancy transforming one! And a fancy hat. For one of the frogs.

Sublime Sneks   —   A whole bunch of noodles, and some noodly hair.

The first winner will receive their first preference prize, the second winner their first preference from the remaining four prizes, and so on, with the fifth winner receiving the last remaining prize from the pool.

The Rules:

Current followers only! This giveaway is intended for the current followers of this blog (@olessan-lokenosse​), as it’s for a follower milestone. Any other giveaways I do that are not follower-related will be free-for-alls.

Only reblogs count! Likes and post replies do not, because:

Please state in your reblog your FR username and ID, and if different from your FR blog, the blog you follow from!   -It’s fine to also say it in the tags, but in the reblog itself is preferred (easier to keep track). If you do not include these your entry will not be counted. This helps me ID you and make sure I have the right person without a doubt. If your FR blog is a sideblog, like mine, you’ll be following me from a different url. c:

Do NOT tag as giveaway! Apparently doing so causes tumblr to flag it as spam and hide the notes, from what googling tells me. Tumblr does not allow giveaways and will delete or otherwise nullify posts that it detects.

Know that I appreciate all of you (yes, even those of you that see this who aren’t following me, we have a great community) (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Edit:I forgot the end time!! The giveaway runs until December 4th (1 week from now) and if you follow me within an hour of OP (check post time in the corner) you count as a current follower, as I realise some people may have been considering it and hadn’t yet lol

ID: #48855

Prize choices: 2, 4, 5, 1, 3

Choices: 4, 2, 1, 3, 5

Y’all this is a super convenient way to preview accents over scrys (and presumably outfits and multiple accents as well) that gives you a transparent image. Just download both images and you’re good to go

Flameforger’s Festival 2018 begins August 26th at 06:00 server time

Recommended venue is Scorched Forest, followed by Volcanic Vents, Redrock Cove, and Crystal Pools. Data from here. Thread about holiday chests, their contents, and their locations/mob drops is over here once the holiday starts.

Listed below is your % chance to encounter a currency-dropping monster in a venue, then a list of fire and neutral creatures in each venue. Non-italicised are fire, italicised are neutral.

For those of you that can’t grind, here’s a handy-dandy link to the lowest treasure price by unit for Glowing Embers.

Every online game, if it goes on long enough, suffers from Inflation. 

Inflation is defined as a sustained increase in the general level of prices for goods and services in a county, and is measured as an annual percentage change. Under conditions of inflation, the prices of things rise over time. Put differently, as inflation rises, every dollar you own buys a smaller percentage of a good or service. When prices rise, and alternatively when the value of money falls you have inflation.

The value of a dollar (or any unit of money) is expressed in terms of its purchasing power, which is the amount of real, tangible goods or actual services that money can buy at a moment in time. When inflation goes up, there is a decline in the purchasing power of money. For example, if the inflation rate is 2% annually, then theoretically a $1 pack of gum will cost $1.02 in a year. After inflation, your dollar does not go as far as it did in the past. This why a pack of gum cost just $0.05 in the 1940’s – the price has risen, or from a different perspective, the value of the dollar has declined. In recent years, most developed countries have attempted to sustain an inflation rate of 2-3% by using monetary policy tools put to use by central banks. This general form of monetary policy is known as inflation targeting.

Specifically, Monetary Inflation.

Monetary Inflation – Inflation is caused by an oversupply of money in the economy. Just like any other commodity, the prices of things are determined by their supply and demand. If there is too much supply, the price of that thing goes down. If that thing is money, and too much supply of money makes its value go down, the result is that the prices of everything else priced in dollars must go up! This theory is often promoted by the “Monetarist” school of economics.

The reason for this oversupply of money is that online games, unlike the real world, essentially allow users to print their own money. When you play games and get currency from those games, you are creating new wealth out of nothing. There’s a reason the US doesn’t just print a bunch of money to pay of its national debts - adding more money wouldn’t fix the problem, it would just make the value of the dollar tank. But game sites allow you to do just that - and in the case of Gaia Online, that can go extremely badly. 

It doesn’t help if you save up your money. The inflation will still hit you.

Inflation hurts savers since a dollar saved will be worth less in the future. Unless the money is saved in an account that pays an interest rate at or above the rate of inflation, the purchasing power of savings will erode. This phenomenon is sometimes called “cash-drag.”

Flight Rising already had a system put in place to help deal with inflation: Lucky Streak. With a cap on fairgrounds treasure, they could ensure that no player adds more than 75,000 treasure in a single day. 

But that’s still 75,000 treasure. And that doesn’t account for the other way of generating money out of nothing - exalting. 

So each and every day, people are pumping more and more money into the economy. The marketplace is an existing treasure sink, as you can buy goods from the marketplace and take the amount of treasure you paid for it out of circulation. But it isn’t nearly enough. 

Inflation is the reason that the gem:treasure ratio has steadily gone up. It’s the reason that the prices for retired items keeps going up. With more treasure in the system, treasure is worth less. 

To that end, Roundsey is a new attempt at removing some treasure from the economy. More than 500 million treasure has been permanently removed from the economy in about 12 hours. That’s huge. That’s a tone of cash. 

But I doubt it’ll even make a dent in the overall amount of treasure on the site. 

That is why we need Roundsey, and why we cannot put a cap on tickets. If you put a cap on tickets, it’s no longer an effective treasure sink, and we go back to the problem of having too much money in the economy. 

Roundsey won’t take care of everything, nothing will solve the problem except for suddenly halting treasure rewards for fairgrounds and coli, but the hope is that the raffle can at least slow inflation down. 

Reblog this with how many tickets you’ve bought from Roundsey (in total). I’m very curious about how much people will spend on the prizes thus far. 

What if the halos look like primal (pls dear gods click on them to see better)

plague (hopefully) under cut: