MAJOR UPDATE ArtFight: Negligence and Worse

Axel (Admin and Lead Artist)
classicturtle (Admin)
Beefsen (Site Mod (Promoted Admin))
Airr (Site Mod (Promoted Admin))
scribedhearts (Site Mod)
Dartwind (Site Mod)
Mori (Site Mod)
Junipear (Site Mod)
Virixin (Site Mod)
Cyxxie (Site Mod)
Fangz (Site Mod)
Keo (Site Mod)
sunnyshrimp (Site Mod)
spacenerdy (Site Mod)
LobsterHotel (Chat Mod)
silk (Chat Mod)

9/22/22 UPDATE: A sister account has been made on Twitter, run by another user, but serves the same purpose as this one thread. You can still send any proof to this account on TH. 7/24/23 UPDATE: Removed due to nothing ever coming from the owners of this account.

9/24/22 UPDATE: Changes were made to the discord server, see Explicit Content section.

9/27/22 UPDATE: Added NaKrAs to the PSA for his ties to the staff.

10/4/22 UPDATE: Added screenshots and testimony from another user. Bolded the different specific sections. All images are now in spoilers.

10/15/22 UPDATE: Moved every section into its own spoiler. Removed Other Allegations. Currently trying to fix a glitch with the remaining spoiler fixed by removing the spoiler code.

10/23/2022 UPDATE: Added unread report about 300$ tier sponsor scamming.

6/1/2023 UPDATE: Added concrete proof of minors still being able to access NSFW content on site as of Spring 2023.

6/30/2023 UPDATE: Filters have officially been fixed.

Thank you to LRBKISM for doing this test!
Accounts set under the age of 18 are still able to view NSFW. Below is screenshot comparison of an +18 and an -18 account.
Left is the minor account, right the adult.

After choosing "Allow All Content"

This is the part that I feel matters most. Right off the bat, I have a screenshot from a minor's profile settings on ArtFight, showing that they are able edit the filters to view everything, including sexual content.

As well as another minor stating they've seen explicit material directly on site.

And a reminder for what ArtFight allows within that filter.

The Official ArtFight Discord server does not have an adult only channel. Unlike what you might think that means, apparently- as long as its spoiled- nudity and sexual artwork is allowed to be shared publicly in a server with a large number of minors.
Here you have a minor expressing concerns over artwork that was blatantly sexual in nature, and the mod not only giving the worst opinion on NSFW content I've ever seen, but also downright mocking the minor for reporting it.

"nudity with sexual themes" My moderator in christ, I'm pretty sure that's how children get picked up by creeps.

 How someone can try to claim that only the explicit act is NSFW is beyond me. And very infuriating.

Update: The 18+ channel being completely declined and the hilariously hypocritical reasons why as the site is not "PG-13" when it allows NSFW to be seen by minors, plus the fact that they're just allowing every minor to see NSFW content in the Discord.

September 24th Update:
All NSFW content has been banned from the ArtFight Discord server.

Update: NaKrAs
The user known as NaKrAs is a friend to mod Airr and has attempted to defend her actions regarding allowing NSFW to be shared with minors. In doing this he has revealed his own questionable mentality regarding minors and NSFW and has dragged a minor through the thread in a personal grievance. Because of his relationship to both the mod and owner of ArtFight, I'm adding this here.

Archive pages provided by WindWaken. Please see their comment here for more context. Please look at the archive links for full responses.

Initial comment:

Second comment:

Comment on a related document:

Ties to Airr and Takaia:

Reports of a variety of different reasons that were never dealt with. From very simple reports such as help regarding a redesign someone made, to underage users, to someone actively and directly profiting off of ArtFight attacks and other people's characters. The latter two having been bumped multiple times as they directly violate ArtFight TOS. If you have others to add please feel free to share- I've heard of more instances.

UPDATE: A credible but anonymous source has come forward to confirm that ArtFight is understaffed and overworked. The senior staff that is left in charge of the reports has made little effort to help in these areas nor give up some of these responsibilities in order to deal with them at a reasonable time. 

UPDATE 10/23/2022: An anon sent me yet another unfilled report, this time regarding a user that has scammed at least 150$ from other artists and has been untouched. This user also just so happens to be a high-tier AF sponsor that was featured on the 2022 banner.

The anon reached out to a mod directly first at the beginning of June, which yielded nothing much other than suggesting they report them on the site- which correct me if I'm wrong, don't they actually encourage the opposite when it comes to such serious matters?
I'll be the first to admit that the anon may not have given me all the proper context, as I cannot tell if it was them that stopped responding like it shows in this screenshot, or if they did carry on past it and then the staff member became silent again. If it is the former, I can give them the benefit of the doubt that it was because they were actively told to report it on site.

In between the two contact attempts, the anon went to the server and asked for information regarding response times. A site mod answered, and when told what the situation was about, did not offer to help and told them to just try the original mod again.

Late Report Response:

Tickets sent in that took months to close.

Edited official game sprite use (exactly one year to resolve):

The specific rule, even though it's obvious what's wrong:

Traced base (half a year to resolve):

Proof of less important reports being dealt with instantly:

Removed as it's come forward that regular site mods are the ones handling rating reports.

I'm not sure what to really call this one, but mods not knowing details of other situations and causing them to be dragged out is another issue being seen.
In July 2021, a user spoke to a mod regarding a character someone was wrongly claiming as stolen and received the OK to post the character. An indeterminate time later, a different mod would take the character down due to reports, and would eventually tell the user it was alright to reupload.

10 days later, the user would get the character taken down again and a rather hostile strike was put on their profile implying that they were directly going against moderator instruction.

The user would reach out to the mod who told them they could reupload, who in response only said they'd bring it up to the other staff, but to "keep the character down".

The following year, the user would reach out to yet another mod, as the strike had never been lifted nor answers given, to which the new mod said that they were unfamiliar with the situation, but would bump it and speak to other mods about it.
3 separate times.

It is still unresolved.

When the Discord was raided due to a glitch changing a permission, with messages of self harm and the like being shared, the mod response was... to start roleplaying.
I don't care who you are or what kind of situation you're dealing with, responding to it with this level of childishness and unprofessionalism is disgusting and deeply concerning. Especially when you see the one mod that was probably trying to shut down the scenario that was going to make them all look like fools. I don't know anyone who would think this is an appropriate response and I genuinely cannot understand what they would be accomplishing by doing it.

Why wasn't this done in the first place?

This is to raise awareness for other artists. This is no longer about getting our designs: it's about the irresponsibility and favoritism that is being shown during this. It should go without saying do not target or harass anyone shown or mentioned.

For those of you who don't know, this year on ArtFight the popular YouTube animator UnknownSpy made a design mass attack for 52 people that was unlabeled. Said 52 people would spend the next month waiting with no word from Spy, who continued to be active on all social media, including ArtFight itself. The attack would also be uploaded to dA after AF ended, and deleted once more pressure had been placed on her to answer.

note that the original count was 54- 2 users were listed twice and at the time of this screenshot one user had removed themselves from the attack in light of the events. DeviantArt upload, August 2022.

An update wouldn't be given until nearly a month after AF came to an end, and the artists affected weren't told it from the staff or Spy, but from a bystander's Twitter post.

In this statement from one of the site admins, we were told that the decision was made for the attack to be "voided" and the artist (UnknownSpy) would be selling the designs- put a pin in that one.
I will remind you that this update wasn't given until the end of August, AFTER the points had been tallied and 2022 winner of ArtFight announced, meaning that removing the attack worth 1696 points means absolutely nothing. The attack would also remain up for roughly 2 more days, until the single user that had managed to get an answer from anyone, once again called them to action and it was unfortunately deleted. 

I say unfortunately due to the implications it brings forward.
These screenshots from within the ArtFight Discord (FULL DISCLAIMER: This could be the "New Rule" that staff has claimed to be implementing.) unintentionally show that by "voiding" and deleting the attack, they've successfully shirked all responsibility from themselves and UnknownSpy and essentially covered up the situation. It's also hid every user that had been waiting for an answer.

Back to that pin briefly, 3 days after the admin's update making that claim went public, the same admin would come forward and admit they had made an error and Spy had never claimed she would be selling the characters as adopts. Everyone makes mistakes and I don't want to put too much blame on the admin, but this is a horribly careless thing to spread, especially as you've refused to update the situation until this point. As frustrating as Spy's actions are, telling everyone that she was going to be making a profit from designs that were made as gifts only worsened the negativity that was being put her way (Spy DOES need to come forward herself though and clear things up on her own.) But its showing the level of care being put forward by the staff.

In this screenshot from the same conversation in the server, you may notice a specific line- and a trend in this entire scenario and the reason I'm finally making a proper public post about this: "both parties".
AF should not be the other party in this, but the staff doesn't consider the 52 artists attacked to be "involved". We are not a factor in this to them and it's been obvious from the beginning. Reports were sent to the staff seeking help with the attack days prior to the winner announcement in hopes it'd be resolved that were never answered.
But the only response given up until the one in the twitter post was "We are working on it. :)".
No effort has been made to actually help us- which is why them stating that we cannot bring it up in the public discord anymore feels more like damage control than trying to keep things tidy.

They claim that the situation is still being dealt with, but how can we possibly believe that now? They not once communicated with the artists that were part of the attack- in fact it was by sheer luck that someone still had the attack open and was able to message the recipients after it was deleted, many of whom were upset and confused because they had no idea what was going on.
Reaching out to mods like is being suggested previously has lead to only vague answers and claims they can't give that information so what does it matter? Hell, they deleted the attack so there's nothing holding UnknownSpy accountable to give up the designs.
They say if Spy is punished for this, it won't be shared- which is a professional way to say she likely won't receive any repercussions. In no way am I calling for a public execution, but the people who were hurt by this situation at least deserve to know that what happened isn't just getting thrown out- but instead we've known virtually nothing from the start.

The bottom line is, because of ArtFight's actions in favor of Spy, there's virtually no scenario that we get the designs that were made based on our wishlists, save for a potential change of UnknownSpy's heart. Spy has since announced adopts, but we're begrudgingly hopeful that they are not the designs used in the attack and she may still decide to let us have them.
But at the start of this I said it wasn't about our characters. So lets get to that.

ArtFight is a massive and beautiful community- a community that's largely made up of young, small artists like those that were attacked by UnknownSpy. And that community deserves to know how this situation was handled without a single glance towards them. You can try to claim that it wasn't their intent, but all signs show exactly what they were doing, whether out of negligence, laziness, or the very obvious answer: favoritism.
UnknownSpy has a following of 700k on YouTube and 100k on Twitter.
For as important as the "Spirit of ArtFight" proclaims to be, how could you choose the popular artist that's a sponsor for your site vs the 52 small artists that represent the majority of your userbase and claim you have no bias and everything is done fairly? Especially when the solution could've been as simple as allowing us to work out the designs on our own if Spy were not cooperating with the spirit of the game?

In this spoiler is an explanation addendum to better explain the act of Spy uploading the attack (if that makes sense).

"The Spirit of ArtFight" is the fundamental rule/principal of ArtFight meant to protect that integrity of giving, and is the reason for rules against things like drawing attacks prior to the game starting and farming attacks for easy points. It's supposed to promote fairness.

UnknownSpy did draw character designs for people. By the very nature of AF, these were gifts and as seen in the screenshot from a mod above and many artists looking in, their rights to the designs should've been forfeit the second the attack was uploaded and not something they could later take back.

The fact that their attack (which could easily be called unfinished due to the lack of labels) was allowed to count for AF and they have been allowed to keep the designs after, despite the fact their end of the bargain (the points) were kept until it didn't matter, is a direct assassination of the Spirit of ArtFight. 

These weren't just random designs, they were designs made to participate in a game that has rules and balances- or at least was supposed to until the staff showed bias towards Spy, whether for being a sponsor or a popular artist.

You can look at their actions from many angles and the answer is still the same:
- They didn't label because they were attached: which means they knowingly uploaded the attack as nothing more than a means to get a bunch of points and cheat the system.
- They didn't label because they wanted to sell them later: same as above, but now they're also making profit off of something meant to be given out of generosity.
- They forgot to label them: which means instead of coming forward and giving any solution, they waited a month just to decide they didn't want to deal with it at all, once again meaning their attack was nothing but a scam for points.

I don't know what myself and the other 51 people expect to come out of this, but we refuse to be forgotten. We're confused, we're hurt, we're frustrated- and most of all we're scared. This is being uploaded on an alt because we're afraid of being attacked for standing up for ourselves against one of the biggest art sites and a popular artist. But we can't sit by and let this just be excused like it has been, not when the same unjust decisions could easily be made again. Were it one of us, I don't think this would matter, but this is 52 people affected and it shouldn't be ignored.

And to any ArtFight staff that come across this: We are supporting each other and we will not let you brush us under the rug. We want to believe you're actually still working behind the scenes, but until we can actually see that you want to help the small artists, this needed to be made. And the longer we wait, the easier its going to be for you to never address this- which is a chance we're not taking anymore. If you want to finally include us in what started with us, feel free to message this account.