In case you didn't know, FA is currently in the midst of having a banner contest.
For December, we're going to be rotating banners out every few days to celebrate the holidays! This will give quite a few people a chance to get noticed.
Requirements: Must be 525x125 pixels.
Must contain either of the mascots (Fender or Rednef). Please do not include admins in the banner, but a personal character is welcome so long as they're not the focus (e.g. in the background). MUST be PG-13, should be fun and expressive, and relevant to Winter (as opposed to just Christmas).
Just upload it with the keyword WinterBanner2011. While we can't use every banner submit, we'll pick those we feel are represent the spirit of the community.
And for the last few weeks, it was. Three relatively unknown artists had their banner picked, and at present count they all now average about 3,000 watchers (It's not known how many they had before their banner was featured, though).
Tonight, a new banner was put up, drawn by
Ifus. Ifus has a moderate 8,000 watchers and 86,000+ favorites spread amongst 1200 submissions. So much for giving someone the chance to "get noticed".
But wait, there's more. The
banner in question features
SecreT, who is definitely NOT "in the background" and is prominently in focus, with Fender in the background.
Popufur draws another popufur and the banner "wins" the contest. Just your usual "FA caters to popufurs" antics? Right.
Sorta. It gets better. Quite better. The banner was
never uploaded to Ifus' gallery or scraps, and thus could never properly be entered in the contest. Furthermore, Secret wrote a journal about why he's in the banner, and pretty much let slip that this has been planned for some time (emphasis mine):
Since it wasn't given by the administrators of the site: Yes, that is indeed my character Secret portraited on the latest december's FA banner, why is he there?
The reason is the charity auction that was held 3 years ago for catwolf and endenden that allowed them to marry together and granted me more than half of my gallery (and potentially, the reason why Secret is so hated XD) also granted me the oportunity of featuring my character on one of FA's banners. Patience is a virtue or so they say, so after that much time the offering to have him on one of December's banners was given and offered it to ifus
Many thanks to her and I ask everyone goes to her profile and congratulate her for such great work and kindness. And my apologizes for those who aren't to fond of Secret :p
And there you have it. Somehow, someone was promised a space on a banner that was to be picked from a selection of uploads... and it was never uploaded. Suspicious? Yes. Fixed? Probably. Will FA ever fix it's issues and let us stop asking these questions? Never.
