Well put E.H.
I am kinda glad that i am not at this site to much

Me too Paxx...I go here, I go there, I go over there...and there too. I take and I give. WTF is wrong with some people?

Oh, did I mention, I go there also?



[Message Edited]

China: Exactly

In fact, I wrote just today on this issue on my dA journal:

http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal

People who are relatively new to this sort of thing mistakenly think that the community is one site. It's not. It's many sites. I visit dA, Deskmod, Skinbase, Neowin, amongst others on a daily basis. Some of the people here are moderators on those other sites as well.

You can always recognize a "newbie" (so to speak) when they take the attitude of "I'm goign to remove all my stuff and go to site X". As if these sites are competitors like Coke vs. Pepsi.

I like pepsi better...Cant stand coke.

#51 by Scribe Frogboy - 7/27/2003 3:24:47 PM As for AP67, for someone who's downloaded so much from the site, I'd think you would feel some sort of...well responsibility to give something back. Just because you've bought software from Stardock doesn't even begin to cover the costs of running this site.

I just did a total count of the designs I have downloaded from WC, they add up to 68 (wb,walls and icons) My contribution to this site were 70 something designs (walls, logons and wb) If you never saw them, well, you missed them. But the 300.000+ people that downloaded them, know my contribution. So I guess is fair to say that I contributed just as much as I downloaded. Now I never said that the money I paid to purchase products from Stardock is going to cover any expenses. So that comment is way out line. You also mentioned how we would feel when you limit the downloads and we have to purchase a subscription to continue to download. Well I never had a problem with paying for what I like, and If I’m limited to download and I have to pay to get a design I like, I will gladly pay. Just as I paid for all the software I use to create my designs.

I personally resent the attitude that you and Ap67 and lady A have taken that we are somehow basically your servants to provide you with a "service".

Whooa! let m pull the emergency brake and stop your train of words that are totally made up. Please show me where in any of my post I have said that I think of WC as a servant for providing any type of "service". Never have I refer to this site as such nor have I mention anything about thinking that with the removal of my work I’m intending some harm to WC. I took my work from WC just as I would take my belongings from anyplace after I move out. It’s that simple.

But those are people who have provided real contributions to the community. Not some relatively newcomers who popped in over the last several months thinking they are god's gift to the world.

Every permanent contributor to this or any site starts out as a newcomer that one day popped in out of nowhere. The reasons for they remaining in a site for yrs to come are only known to each one of them.
So please don’t come saying that A_67 thinks of himself God's gift to the art world. Or that A_67 cleared his work because he thinks he can cause any damage to WC. Because that will not only be a lie but also a way to try and pin the blame on something when in fact most of the blame lies within the site's administration.
Take for instance these 2 threads. 1 started out with a harmless comment about how the work accepted has in fact diminished in quality. And look at the extent that it has been dragged. The other started as another harmless comment from an artist that wanted to know where all my work went. And look at all the mess it evolved to. And in the amid of all the posts, we read all kind of stuff from bandwidth, wallpapers been useless and unnecessary, artist been ten a penny, assumptions that a hand full of artist want to harm WC by removing their work, etc, etc.
Now go on and make your own conclusions about what the issues are really about. Is really of no consequence to me.
Oh, and I just noticed my level user went down. Hahaha. I guess I should have suck up to the bosses instead of disagreeing with them

Yes, theres been some unnecessary 'flaming' in these recent posts...Tho, Id still like to know WHY your stuff is gone...It seems very petty IMHO. *Would also like to know who put his user lvl down*

[...] in fact most of the blame lies within the site's administration.

Can you be more specific, instead of coming up with another unfunded accusation?

You do see that 'suck up to the bosses' is what is so inflammatory....the suggestion of a need to 'brown nose', when all that is required is common sense understanding and appreciation of the efforts expended, whether 100% favourable to one particular individual, or not.

The admins and moderators at least 'try' to serve the common good, where what is ideal for a site's success is not always in harmony with an individual's perception of what he might want the site to be, or do.

6 and a half hours, now...[though I did manage a shower and a coffee]...and we're still here debating smoke, and seeking the fire....

.

Ap67, the system tracks bytes downloaded:

Nick: Apocalypse_67
UserID: 513520
User Level: 3
Bytes Downloaded: 675671 k

That's 675 MEGABYTES.

As for your contributions, since they are not here, we only have your word which, given how off yoru download estimates were, make me inclined not to believe how popular your submissions were.

Which is, of course, the problem. Once you delete your stuff, you lose any clout or any moral high ground you might have had. Now you're just a user who has used up 675 megabytes of bandwidth.

I have a lot more submissions here with more downloads you had I'm sure and I've only downloaded around 300 megabytes of stuff and I've been here (obviously) from day 1.

There's nothing wrong with downloading lots of stuff. But at some point, one thinks that youwoudl feel some sort of obligation to give something back. You claim you had a lot of stuff here.  But it's not here now so it's hard to say what you have given back to the community.

As for your access level - yes, access levels are determined by one's contribution to the community. Only 0.1% of users get promoted to elite access (apprentice or higher).  I certainly don't see how someone with nearly 700 megs of downloads and no submissions should have elite access.

 

So it all comes out "in the wash" so to speak .... im off to fetch another hot pocket this is great.

Grab one for me please.

I'll take a beer with mine...this thread is making me feel dizzy so I might as well be dizzy

Hmmmm... Point taken Brad.
No body of evidence, no crime commited. Right?
I guess I should have save that screeshot when I reached 300.000 d/ls but then again, someone might have jumped in and say I added some extra zeros.
Oh well, I guess I should return all my downloads since I remove all my work?

This is NOT great... It's NOT great when "people are genuinely hurting" and it's not great when these same people try to "genuinely" hurt this website...

There are people who have some hard lives and come to this forum to relax and take a load off and enjoy...

The "community" is ultimately the people posting and responding to said posts and *GURGLE* it HURT REAL people to see it turn into bad voojoo.

We feel extremely GUILTY that our one wall submission got IN...rated 5 was probably WAY too high...yeah...we feel guilty now after seeing so much crap the admins hafta go thru.

Dang...

No body of evidence, no crime commited. Right?

And the show goes on...

May I correct you FB, that there are 1024 kb in one mb. So his download total is 659.83mb. (Minor detail but...) Ok, I will vouch for A_67...I have taken numerous peeks at his skins in the past and can confirm that the total download WAS around 300,000. (I dont remember the exact number but...) And...if you figure that the avg skin is about 250k (Which is probably a very low estimate...) the amount of data that ppl downloaded from his skins/walls was...75000000kb OR 73242mb. (Remember, this is using 250k as an avg skin size...many are over 2000kb so, the real number could be MUCH higher) So, Id say that he has contributed to the community MUCH more than he has taken away.

A67....the reality is that, were a person to reconsider their 'stance' or 'approach', and desire their works to be restored, they can, and along with any existing comments and dl counts, etc....[just ask shmoopy [and others]....life goes on....opinions change, but unlike death and taxes, nothing need really be chiselled in stone....

Ap67, I'm sure you'll be happy on dA. Some of your wallpapers are nearing he 100 download mark I saw.

But seriously, you can't have it both ways. You can make whatever claim you want for yoru contributions. You removed the evidence of that contribution, not us.

Look, Ap, we've been around for a long time. Before WC many of us were around years before then.  People like you and Lady A and such have come and gone the whole time. It's an established pattern.

Do you wonder why so many long timers here dont' take it very seriously? Because it's the same post, different person, different website. These same posts have shown up on Skinz.org, WinCustomize, deviantART, Deskmod, etc. 

And they always end up going the same route. But let me save you some time.

For the next few weeks you'll submit everything you possibly can do site X (where X could be deviantART, Deskmod, or whatever sit eyou choose). YOu'll do your best to promote it. You'll then discover that things aren't quite as happy as you had thought. Downloads aren't nearly as high as you would like. Few comments. A loss of recognition.

At some point, you might complain on a message board about this. At that point, you'll discover that site X's denziens are not any more tolerant of complaints as this site or any other site.

You'll discover that the grass is not so green on the other side of the fence. But at the same time, you'll be too proud to admit you made a mistake and in fact deny such a thing if asked when the time comes.

We've seen this a lot for many years on many sites. It always goes roughly the same way.

I can name two dozen high profile authors who, over the years, have gotten mad at WinCustomize for some reason (subscirptions, commercial software, ratings, flame in comments, lack of promotion, etc.). They proudly announce they're going somewhere else. But discover that they don't get nearly the recognition they thought they'd get. And they fade away.

I'll use one example of this - Carlitus. I use him because he was one author whose contributions were truly significant. I'm not talking a bunch of standard glassy swirl wallpaper stuff (no offense). But icons, themes, and other significant artwork that was used by hundreds  of thousands of real people.

An artist who really made a big difference.  He left because he disagrees with the site having a download limit for non-subscribers. I don't think he recognizes the costs in running a site of this magnitude but it was his right. And with him went literally thousands of icons and themes and objects. Irreplaceable stuff. And there was nothing we could do to placate him.

And so throughout the winter he submitted work to dA. But submitting work is tedious. Especially most of it gets relatively few downloads. He had individual things here that over a 100,000 downloads. It's hard to go from that to a fraction of that.

And so one of the most active contributors of 2002 has not submitted anything to a major skin site since last Winter (that I can find anyway and I do look).

And so I ask you, in the end, who suffers? WinCustomize? Sure, to some extent but it doesn't affect traffic because people don't know what they're missing. Once a website reaches critical mass, individual content doesn't have that kind of effect.

The ones who suffer are the community.

And so the same pattern plays out year after year. Your post could have appeared on dA's message boards. There have been plenty of them over the years just like yours saying that they're going to go to WinCustomize or Skinbase or Deskmod. Same reasons.

But at the end of the day, you have to decide why you even make this stuff.

I'm not afraid to say that I like to share my stuff but I even more like to see lots of people using it. Lots of people commenting on it. And that's what WinCustomize has going for it. That's because WC treats artists extremely well. It may not be some imagined ideal, but in the real world of intellectual property handling and distribution, WC is pretty good at it. And that's why it's the #1 skinning site by a mile.

And believe me, WC did everything it coudl to try not to be #1. It limited the # of sections to being a select few. It moderates wallpapers. It has actively promoted other websites. When I was on TechTV, it wasn't WinCustomize I mentioend first as a place to go, it was dA and Deskmod. 

To make a long story short, you may find that the grass isn't as green on the other side as you thought.

e-bros....I'm the Aussie here, ergo, I'm the 'cold one' drinker....nudge, nudge....