To see a comprehensive list of the many types of groups on deviantART, be sure to check this blog currently posted at 
(reposted with permission from Astrikos, written along with JamminJo) which has been part of PE's Community Week (Project Educate)!projecteducate
Groups Galore~Written by Infinite-Heart + JamminJo:icongroup-eaze: Group-Eaze :icongroup-eaze:GROUP LISTINGS :iconfeaturesplz:
Originally Posted by :iconInfinite-Heart: Astrikos ~ Written by same along with JamminJo ~ reposted by permission!!
Group Love
deviantART is an artist dream come true and caters to artist from all artistic mediums. I know of no other
online community that is in constant contact with their members and
allows members to run their own groups with specific rules and
guidelines that you have decided for your group.
If you are not interested in becoming a founder or administrator of a group, deviantART has hundreds if not thousands
of groups for you to search and find one or more that is to your
comfort level and liking. Groups are a fantastic way to find other
artist to discuss techniques, share idea's, collaborat
Many thanks to Astrikos and JamminJo for putting this list together and sharing it with the community 
I have often looked at life as a series of opportunities that result in perhaps an even larger series of choices. Then I got to thinking how life could have an endless amount of segues. Case in Point: Due to the recent moving of stock into scraps by dA, I found yet another deviation "hotlinked", since the deviation downloads FAR outnumbered the deviation views (dead give-away that the dev is being illegally hotlinked ~ which really ticks me off considering it is stealing bandwidth that dA pays for and the thieves don't).
I wouldn't even have noticed this if my Fireworks hadn't been put into the scraps to begin with. An annoyance was beginning to look like an opportunity. Starting to edit each deviation and choosing the correct category and sub-cat (thank you PirateLotus-Stock
for the info ~ and many thanks for helping move the stocks!)I started to take a second look at the stock pictures. This is where the "segue" comes in. A realization segued into an action then to another thought, then action, etc., until I realized what was happening. I'm on the short side (5' 1/2"), so things have a propensity to go right over my head
, but while I was processing what was happening through my rather meager brain, I thought this very simple, albeit elegant (in my humble opinion 
), firework has gotten an awful lot of attention.Now, this firework already has an incredible amount of deviation views, which means there are those who are viewing it directly on
, but having few people tell me of its use (no one has to notify me of stock use but many do), it seems crazy that this stock picture would have over 9000 views. Wanting to see where it HAS been used, I right-clicked on the deviation to copy the "image location". I then went to images.google.com and clicked on the little camera in the white search bar. I pasted the link and hit search and a full five-pages of links came up. It took me some time to go through them all, but I found the firework not only used on several sites, many in languages I do not even recognize, as well as on brochures, banners and websites, but I, also, found it available on iTunes, a wallpaper for the iPhone and as part of a contest entry for a logo contest. At that point, I thought, "wait... is this stock being sold? Outside of being created into a print by a deviant on dA?" My stock is unrestricted and I admit that it is impossible to track the usage, but it isn't quite fair that there are people making money off of my work! It never occurred when I first posted on dA that people would just blatantly steal my stuff and resell it. Am I naive or what?Knowing I am NO great-shakes of an artist by any means, I have still found my wallpapers, art and manipulations on other sites, even sites that have the items for sale or cost to view or download. It is irritating but hard to counteract. I have tried to keep up with disabling downloads on hotlinked deviations, but there isn't enough spare dA-time to constantly look through submissions when there are hundreds among my three sites. Disabling the download on a manipulation that isn't stock anyway is one thing, but it makes it harder when the download is disabled on a stock deviation.
To avoid having to totally disable a download, I am going to put a point value of ten points
for anyone wanting a larger size than the 1600 pixels a stock picture will now be posted. The full-size stock on the firework in question is over 3200 pixels wide, which is incredibly large, and the likelihood of anyone needing it that large is probably negligible, but that is just one type of stock. Premades and Backgrounds may be another matter altogether. A cost of 10 points will keep the deviation from being hotlinked, allegedly, but it will make it a bit more difficult for the average stock user to access the largest size available. I just hope that there will be those potential users who won't mind paying the ten-points to get the largest size available.What I plan on doing, which will probably take me frickin' months, is packaging the older stock into zip files, changing the image size on current stocks while enabling the point value, and putting a lot of new stock in the Sta.sh in stacks. It has worked out incredibly well to have stock exclusives in the Sta.sh, and I have a stack of cloud stock in the Sta.sh at TheStockWarehouse for general use (linked on the profile page), so, hopefully, the changes will make for a cleaner, more-organized look on my stock sites. At the same time, I can redo older stocks that do not fit the current 1000-pixel limit and delete unpopular stocks. The stock will still be unrestricted and will still be allowed to be used in prints, to create
stock, CSS backgrounds, stamps, brushes and the like, but the change will cause some restriction for off-site use, which means people will just copy what IS available then repost elsewhere 
There is an amazing array of wonderful photography in my iPhoto, many photos which will make for good stock, but I have to figure out what is mine versus Tina's, so I don't inadvertently post her amazing photography as my own.
All this over a incident, which segued into a multitude of thoughts.
Journals about Stock and Many Groups
:iconwdwparksgal-stock: Fireworks, Medical and some Gore Stocks have been moved to Scraps without notification from
The Result of the Stock Move, as well as changes in my stock on all my stock/sites ~ read for details:
As part of Community Week for PE (Project Educate) a Comprehensive
from TheStockWarehouse
Original Skin
By Winyumi
