Terraria Spriters Guild

Terraria Spriters Guild, often abbreviated to TSG, refers to the identity change of TPA from a negative, unruly community to something more newcomer-friendly and more organized. These changes happened on the latter half of 2019, ending later that same year. Although the name and organization were reverted when the plan was dropped, many changes would not be reverted until months after, and some were either compromised or remain completely unchanged since the period.

Because of the extreme changes applied, along with the objective behind them, lead most of the active community to dislike the new identity, which caused infighting and several key members to leave. Due to permanent negative effects for the active community, the period of time where the server was under those changes was nominated by the community as the Dark Age of TPA.

Summary
During the second half of 2019, eggshells, a prominent member at the time, was promoted to moderator. At the same time, there was also discussions running about the state of the server. Compared to 2017 to 2018, TPA's activity had slowly diminished, with many popular members leaving to greener pastures or larger servers. This brought a concern about the future of the server, with discussions over whether or not something should be done about it or not.

Eggshells, recently promoted to an administration role, decided something had to be done. In her mind, the name 'Terraria Pixel Art' was tainted with cases of severe toxcity towards people willing to learn pixel art, and a very edgy community. While this had already changed, the reputation was already there, so many people, eggshells included, thought that something was needed to change things and attract new members to the diminishing server.

A plan was made to change TPA's identity, changing it's name and it's rules to create a more accepting environment without the bad rep of the past. After speaking with the server ownever, Blitz, she was essentially allowed to do most changes without much question, and do changes she did: In a few days, there was already small changes being applied, such as a server name change, added restrictions to what could be said, and the complete removal of voting in #showcase.

These changes rapidly created discussions over the identity change. Whether so much change was necessary - let alone effective - to attract new people was heavily contested between the divided TPA, and the more extreme members who disagreed to the change quickly left in the insuing disorder. Most members, however, were rather complacent to the changes. While they didn't agree with it, the idea of bringing in new people to the server and revitalizing it was appealing. That was, until the removal of voting happened.


 * 1) showcase is widely believed to be the heart of TPA, being the main attractor for people who just want to showcase their art for clout, or to get feedback if needed. Voting was a critical part of the process, as an upvoted/downvote ratio would be clear indicators of something being wrong with the pixel piece, usually convincing people to use the #feedback channel to get more specific criticism. This could, and often was, a massive shock to beginners who weren't used to receiving harsh criticism, which often scared plenty of artists away. Eggshells, along with other people such as Bear Police, believed that the voting was scaring people away from the server, so #showcase's voting was simply removed. Coincidentally, the #hall-of-fame channel was changed to #curated-highlights, and the previous 70-upvote requirement was changed to be curated by a team of spriters.

This change, while seemingly small, was considered by a handful of more extreme protesters (such as Shady Glasses and Crimson) as a massive shot in the foot to the server's longevity. Considering that showcase was an important attractor for people looking for feedback, the removal of voting took away the clout-chasing aspect of the upvotes, aswell as the sign that criticism could be made with the downvotes.

After most of those changes were made, and a bit of time passed, the server managed to partner with several terraria servers, including the official community server. These partnerships gave a bad taste to the already bitter mouths of the people unhappy with the changes, as it gave the idea that all the changes were made specifically for a terraria partnership, an obviously fruitless venture. After the partnership, the server surpassed 2k members, which was seen as a victory, although none of the new members managed to stay, so server activity was actually lower than before due to the infighting and lack of reason for new members to stay (as well as the infighting itself scaring away new members.)

The TSG-era lasted a couple months more, and while it was widely considered to be a massive failure, it did achieve a few things. While the infighting happened over changes to the edgy attitude of the server, most of the people who left were considered to be very toxic, rather than just edgy. The other main step forward was a bit back-handed. The negative repercussion from the changes started several discussions over what was best for the health of the server, and what was and wasn't a good change. It was considered to be officially over when the server's name was reverted to Terraria Pixel Art, during the early months of 2020. Shortly after most of the controversies ended, eggshells quietly left the server, demoting herself and immediatly becoming a lurker character, very rarely speaking anything after everything was over.