woohoo...50 million. And about 10 million of those are rips. meh....

Several million will be of a dog called 'Fido'....

  

50 million submissions does not detract from the fact that a lot are just plain rubbish and junk. It does not detract from the fact that Angelo and co trashed its good reputation when they backstabbed Jark. Nor does it hide the fact that it is jammed full of petty little ego squabbles,rippers and people of questionable sanity. Some of the self harming images they allow are exremely disturbing and it makes me wonder about the mentality of those needing to create such images,let alone download them. I guess it could easily win the award for the sickest site on the internet. That is why I no longer go there. Why support pirates!  

If that is what a person is looking for, they will find it. If you are looking for good art, it is there, lots of it. There are a lot of good people on DA, just as there are a lot of good people here and when it comes to rippers, egoists, argumentative types and so on, you have them here also, not just at DA. Actually if you think about it, every site has all those kinds of people...they just may not be as visible.
....Oh and about flickr , there are a lot of rippers there also...and at photobucket...and I'm sure many other sites.
Anyway,just my 2 cents worth.

It is now in the top 50 most visited websites in the world.

deviantART is more popular than MSNBC.com, CNET.COM, MTV.com, Gamespot, IGN, and many other extremely well known sites.

Well that's what i'm reading & understanding especially the 2nd paragraph, either that or it's time: *scorp walks to cupboard & readies straight jacket*

ps: i did'nt miss this either
deviantART will hit their 50 MILLIONTH submission (deviation).

I would assume there would be content moderation when submitting,that makes me wonder how a virus would get into any catagory,hell it's an automated virus scan on anything i download or upload so one would assume their servers would do the same as my lowley desktop,as for rips & even items i would consider junk,they get put up here & when one is found to be a copy or rip it's taken down, i'd assume once the dev team get advised it happens there too eventually,my undstanding it's not a commercially operated site like WC but done by peoples spare time ???,my main point is i'm still not gett'n it & what the corralation is between rips & what this topic is about unless there is a humungus amount of uploaded rips which would make the count far off 50mill,however the topic is'nt just about uploads & to be bigger than cnet alone is unbelievable,jeez don't cnet have their own tv channel ?? as well as a huge website which also includes subsidiaries zdnet & techrepublic . *straight jacket is on & men in white coats have pulled into driveway*

DA is a commercial site. It just isn't too vocal about it. The print section generates a lot of money as does the mobile phone images. It has been an issue ever since Angelo pirated the site from Jark et al. At one point if you uploaded a wallpaper it automatically was duplicated in the mobile phone image section and sold without knowledge of the author and the author recieved no royalties. It was stopped and made a visible choice upon uploading thereafter. Since Angelo took over there have been several heated debates regarding exploitation of members works and protection of members copyright ownership. Sure there are rippers etc here but they do not last as long as they do over there. Look how long it took Jafo to get a response from them a little while back. Then the fact that Angelo did what he did to gain ownership...for me that was the biggest most blatant rip that the community netwide has ever seen and he has never fully explained himself instead he spreads distorted facts about DevArt history. I have been a member there since 2001 and in those days he was unheard of and unseen. He made his entrance when he spammed everyones pages with the blue pill red pill speil and got his butt kicked for spamming. He has never been tactful or diplomatic and his treachery muddied DA's respected standing. This site is one of the few if not only stable,consistent,well run and tasteful sites left.Renderosity is well run too and art wise would challenge DA in size and quality. Renderosity has no skins or scraps or sketches. The resource section though would leave DA for dead.  

I know people like to bag on DA a lot, but 50 million submissions is an impressive feat that can't be scoffed at, I don't care who you are. 

Like others have said, DA has its roots in skinning, still has a fairly active skinning section and has been generally supportive of community events in the past.  They were a key sponsor and contributor to the 2006 GUI Champs for example.  For all of that, they should be celebrated.  Sure there are some ugly elements in their community, but with one so large you're bound to have some bad apples.  For every ripper you see, there are literally hundreds of artists who do quality, original work.

And remember, when one skinning/customization site does well, we all benefit.  So I tip my hat to the folks over at DA for turning a small site that grew from the ashes of Skinz.org into something massive and truely special.

A rising tide lifts all ships. 
dA's success is good for the community.

gets his 59,000 (exactly the same except one icon moved all over) screen shots ready.. we can catch them...

2 min ago
I wonder who the lucky Deviant is