Hello there,
I've noticed that there are some inconsistencies with post sources. Many sources link to the artists page on a given art website. Some link to the artists gallery or a page in that gallery. I also see a lot of direct links to the art.

I think the sources should only point to a webpage with that artwork. Direct links are essentially unnecessary because any page with the art on it can be used to get to the direct URL. The artist page can be easily linked from the artist tag, that even allows for multiple links. Due to the limitations of the source field I think that would be the best solution.

Ideally it would be nice to have more than one URL for for multiple sites where the art resides and perhaps have separate URLs for post and direct URL links. It would be even cooler to use URL templates like Wikipedia so URL syntax can be changed if needed (FurAffinity has changed a bunch of times).

Another aspect to consider is normalizing URLs like:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4757244/ vs
http://furaffinity.net/view/4757244/
or (more interesting)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5299454/ vs
http://www.furaffinity.net/full/5299454/
or (more problematic)
http://dawkz.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d1kd0jy vs
http://dawkz.deviantart.com/art/Tanya-94665742

Anyway, what do you think?

I always use the following formats:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4757244/

http://dawkz.deviantart.com/art/Tanya-94665742

> Many sources link to the artists page on a given art website
That's because some uploaders are just plain lazy.
They know (or believe) that the pic is in the artist's gallery somewhere, but they don't want to go looking for it.

> I also see a lot of direct links to the art.
Again, laziness on the uploader's part.
When you upload an image, you need to specify its location. There are two ways of doing this:
a) Put the location of a local file in the "file" field
b) Put a direct image URL in the "source" field...

The suggestion in forum #22458 might solve problem (b), at least for FA.

The problem with generating a link automatically from an artist tag is that you don't know what site that artist is actually on (does RandomArtist have an FA page? a dA page? VCL?)

People generally prefer direct page links because they don't have to spend 10 minutes browsing through a gallery to find that specific image, and conversely, getting to their gallery is usually only one or two clicks away from the image's page.

Unfortunately, the batch uploader I use has no way to generate an automatic source link to the image's page (on FA), the best I can do is a link to the artist's gallery (on FA). And I'm not about to start manually typing in submission page links for every image I upload.

Normalizing links would be fairly easy to do, but it's nothing more than a minor cosmetic change.

Sometimes artists take down pieces, and the source link goes dead if it's directly linked. Just sayin. Lots of older submissions here are like that.

Sourcing is one of those things that really is never going to be perfect.

as a random thought...

it would be awesome to be able to type something like...

devart jenetikitty

and have the server automatically generate http://jenetikitty.deviantart.com/

or DA:255752697 to get to http://jenetikitty.deviantart.com/art/Ivy-Crystal-for-EvyCrystal-255752697

though I'm not sure how you'd go from the number to the full address there from the deviation number.. that might be something that only the deviant art servers could do.

Still... being able to...

DA:jenetikitty
devart Jenetikitty
FA Jenetikitty
IB Jenetikitty
and so forth would be pretty awesome./

I've reacently been movinng away from *MY * theory that you should always link to the submission page, but I do so hate digging though a gallery for an image that might have been any one of an artist's 300 images, ESPECIALLY if that artist likes doing custom thumbnails

oh and http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/241/a/6/a6f7dca93df8b7eba976c963c0210b30-d489o1l.gif should NEVER be seen as a source except for the brief period of time around uploading D:

I will not generate links automatically. there is too much of a disconnect between "tags should be by source" and "sources should be by tag".. so no.. Absolutely not.

However if you put the image url in the source it transcribes the artist's page instead :3

SnowWolf said:
oh and http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/241/a/6/a6f7dca93df8b7eba976c963c0210b30-d489o1l.gif should NEVER be seen as a source except for the brief period of time around uploading D:

The system automatically changes this into an appropriate DA link. :3 (well not that one cause it's an "avatar" but it does submissions)

I just wrote up a feature on my local copy so if you use any of the following as a source, it converts it to a link (not case sensitive):

artistname on furaffinity
artistname on fa
fa:artistname
fa: artistname
fa artistname
furaffinity:artistname
furaffinity: artistname
furaffinity artistname

Works for inkbunny/ib and deviantart/da, too.

I also would like to note that I'd be the only one who is able to talk about software limitations.. the source field is totally something I can change on the fly.

Also Tony I still need you to send me all your changes.. I'm like 20 edits behind on your work and I'd like to splice it in eventually

JustFrame said:
Sometimes artists take down pieces, and the source link goes dead if it's directly linked. Just sayin. Lots of older submissions here are like that.

Sourcing is one of those things that really is never going to be perfect.

There's even a name for this phenomenon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot

I've recently gone out of my way to link to the artist's page instead of a direct link just to avoid a dead source in case the artist decides to do a purge. Also because that way you don't have to log in to view the page like with most mature submissions.

Only when the image isn't found on the artist's usual gallery but somewhere else like on a commissioner's page, then I use a direct link.

queue said:
I've recently gone out of my way to link to the artist's page instead of a direct link just to avoid a dead source in case the artist decides to do a purge. Also because that way you don't have to log in to view the page like with most mature submissions.

When you click on the question mark next to the artist tag, you'll go to a page with information about the artist. This information usually includes link(s) to their gallery/galleries. That's why I never put the artist's gallery in the source (it's redundant).

Munkelzahn said:
When you click on the question mark next to the artist tag, you'll go to a page with information about the artist.

Never even noticed that question mark, pretty useful. But with lesser-known or new artists from pixiv that page tends to be empty. So if the information page only consists of direct links it would be hard to track down the artists gallery if the links don't lead anywhere.

Guess it comes down to preference.

Munkelzahn said:
When you click on the question mark next to the artist tag, you'll go to a page with information about the artist. This information usually includes link(s) to their gallery/galleries. That's why I never put the artist's gallery in the source (it's redundant).

Except the overwhelming majority of artists don't have wiki pages. There wouldn't be a source field if it wasn't meant to be utilized.