Was merely pointing out there is a benefit to posting skins to this website that you weren't paid for in any way.

so, we were kind of saying the same thing...sorry I misunderstood your meaning

lol
exactly
I thought maybe you hadn't read the original post and only read the addendum,... which out of context makes less sense.

But seriously, doing it for the cash is actually a lot more fun I find. The end result is woth it if you're doing a client piece.

Nah, the fun part is getting it done and releasing it. It's like letting your child go into the world for review. I feel like god when I make a skin. I creating something unique, gave birth to it, and set it free for the critics to love or tear apart. I don't want the critics to tear my children apart. This is my motivation. To protect my children so that they get love. (Chas psycho-babble)

and the groupies are fantastic

There are groupies in skinning? Hmm. fantastic? Hmm, hmm.

don't jump the gun and put your wallet away yet

hehe

Hi guys,

Wow. Thanks for the support. I really do appreciate it.  I'd like to respond to some points and kind of illuminate some issues that are only partially touched on:

1) WinCustomize finances.  WinCustomize loses money. A staggering amount of money.  Some say Stardock needs WinCustomize.  That's really not true. deviantART or some other site would definitely be up to the challenge of being the "official" site for Stardock's skins and themes.  Microsoft, for instance, doesn't even have a skin library for Windows Media Player.

So why do we have a skin site? Because we love skinning and customization.  You always have to wonder what someone is possibly thinking when they start talking about "greed".  Do they really think there is "big bucks" to be made changing the bitmaps of your title bars and Start bar?  We're proud to say that we can make a living on it.  But no one is going to be buying a private plane any time soon! . 

We love being able to do neat things to our comptuers. It's as simple as that. And like many of you, we like to share what we do with others. We all do that in different ways. Hence, WinCustomize exists.  Hopefully, down the line, we can get the site to being self-sustaining.  It inches closer to being self-sustaining each year. And hopefully WinCustomize 4 will be even better at that.

2) People, myself included, have scaling problems. It's hard to envision the impact of having nearly 3 million different people visit your site each month.  There are about 1.4 million registered accounts here. 

The problem with hate mail (90% of the nasty stuff I see is sent to me via email or forwarded to me one way or the other) is that it doesn't take very much to have quite an impact.  I personally get around 900 to 1200 email each day.  3/4ths of which is spam. But that still leaves 200 to 300 email each day I have to go through.  Out of those 200 to 300 email probably about 5 are from unhappy people.  Out of the 30 to 40 unhappy users emailing me each week, probably only 5 or 6 are really really nasty. 

It's just a matter of build up though.  How many emails or posts or whatevers over an extended period of time does it take before something isn't as fun as it used to be?

Many of you are skinners.  Imagine if you're a good skinner and you've spent 5 years giving away great skins for free. But you also have a couple of premium skins out there that you charge a nominal fee for.  Intellectually, you know that you have lots of people who do appreciate your work.  But how would you feel if you got a dozen or so hate mail each week telling you how greedy you are? Or how your skins suck? Or how they're going to report you to some agency because of some error on their part?

Heck, I've had people tell me they hope I get cancer and die. Seriously.

That is the sort of thing that makes it tough.  I think the tipping point was over the weekend I got slightly more hate mail than normal. And then I come on and read a bunch of bitching about the fact that I wrote (gasp) a third article talking about the Dashboard and Konfabulator thing.  3 articles.  I mean sheesh, newspapers cover the same topics over and over again and here I was writing something that I (and other developers) found interesting and I still had people yelling that I would dare write about something *I* was interested in.

I hate that sort of thing.  If I had been in that person's shoes, I would have gone onto JoeUser.com, opened up a blog and started blogging about customization related stuff I was intereted in and then emailing to see if WinCustomize would link to that blog.  We get a pitifully low number of news submissions each week and so I decided to do the blogging thing because I wanted there to be somethign unique and interesting on WinCustomize.  I'd rather someone else create blogs (on JoeUser) that I coudl link to or quote but that's not the case so I do it myself. 

And I enjoy writing.  But sheesh, it's tough when you get an email telling you how much the game you wrote sucks, how much my opinion on software piracy is "moronic", how WindowBlinds "made them have reformat and that we better compensate him for his time or we'd get sued", and then to see someone bitch because I want to talk about what Apple is doing.

But that's the breaks when you're doing something that's seen by millions of people. And I can grasp that.  I could probably grasp that better if the pay was better. Which is the other issue, nearly everyone who sends nasty email isn't some customer (the customer complaints are the minority). It's usually someone complaining that we're charging for something or about the shareware version or about their account or their skin or their wallpaper or whatever.

I think on WC2K5 we'll definitely have to do mroe for people who are subscribers. Some cool little button along with extra features.  That's the really galling part This site gets nearly 3 MILLION uniques each month and about 200 people subscribe each month.  If 1% of people who visited subscribed, that would be 30,000.  If 0.1% people who visited subscribed that would be 3,000.  So if you're a WC subscriber, you're one of the elite elite elite elite users  (0.01%).  Just like if you're an apprentice or higher.

If we had even 0.1% of people subscribing, then WC would be easily paying for itself and I could hire someone to answer the hate mail!

 

groupies

Hmm....I could comment on that, but I wont....I'm sure she'll show up sometime.

Very nicely put, Frogboy.
Just a thought, if'd you'd like someone to answer your hatemail, I'd be glad to give it a whirl, for free.

Same here, Teddy! We could have a list of common resonses to people, including statistics and stuff...that would be cool.

Hey, I think that if someone says something like "I hope you get cancer and die" they should be exiled for WC.

I think if someone sends you hate mail, cursing you, they should be exiled from WC. Why do you have to put up with abuse?

I think if someone sends you hate mail, it should be published here and let the community decide if this person should be banned, and we can all see the identity and character of this person.

Maybe there should be a requirement to create a free account before one can download anything at all. This way, if their account is revoked because of their actions, they cannot download period. Maybe this way people will conduct themselves in a more appropriate manner.

If you get tired of the abuse, maybe you could just hit a switch and change the site to the above requirement. I'm sure a lot of freebies won't like it. But, like you said, its not them that are helping the site even one bit. And, if they are sending you such hate mail, they are hurting the site, by making you even have the thought of wanting to close it. It is therefore hurting all the subscribers as well. Why should we suffer from the abuse? Skinners, subscribers, customers, admins, and anyone who contributes to the site, shouldn't have to suffer for the actions of those who do nothing but leech and complain. >

Nice follow up Brad. I doubt that you'll get 3000 people subscribing each month anytime in the near future. I do see that when your premium skins take effect that that might come close to covering the bandwidth cost. Hope so. I plan to be here for a long time to come.

I think that a notice needs to be put up on the initial "Sign-up" screen saying that there is a 50 meg limit before you have to purchase something.

Why should we suffer from the abuse? Skinners, subscribers, customers, admins,

Makes me wonder if people read their emails at all....

Makes me wonder if people read their emails at all....

Sure, I've got a few nasty emails. Mainly from some people here, because I didn't respond soon enough. But excite started using third party tracking cookies, and ad policies that wouldn't let me into the email until I dropped my shields and allowed trojan files into my computer. So, I refused to do it and I couldn't get my email. Now, I've switched to hotmail.

P.S.- Jafo please don't send me anymore hate mail.

Ah....but you see...therein lies the problem.

A request from a site Admin that a member 'toe the line' and refrain from public personal attack is not 'hate mail' ...it is part of the duties of a site Admin who is charged with maintaining the site's smooth running and decorum.

Multiply similar instances by 'several' weekly or monthly and you see where Frogboy is coming from with this post.

Always strive to be part of the solution, not part of the problem...

Ah....but you see...therein lies the problem.

Ah, I see too, but therein lies the Hypocrisy.

Therefore, I say to try to be part of the solution and not an instigator of the problem.

Now, need we air our personal dirty laundry in public?

Multiply similar instances by 'several' weekly or monthly and you see where Frogboy is coming from with this post.

Also, I have fully supported Frogboy with my positive response to his post. I have supported Frogboy throughout my posts. I support Frogboy wholeheartedly in his site here at WC. Such as, spending 80 hours plus on each of the four WB skins that I have submitted here and at the GUI Olympics. I have not asked nor expected any payment for my time spent. I also had positive suggestions in support of his unjust and unfair situation in this post.

In respect to you as a person, I refuse to air personal dirty laundry here on the messageboard without your consent. So, can we end this now and the distraction this is creating from the real problem that Frogboy is facing? A problem which I agree is terrible.

#63 by Skinner ChasUGC - 7/27/2004 8:17:11 PM I guess everyone gets angry sometimes. The wise ones digress, apologize and think about the big picture. The even wiser ones learn to "bite their lips", laugh, and move on. Someday, I hope to be one of the "even wiser ones".

I really appreciated that post Chas.

The problem with banning people from a site is people are so quick to file law suits for any reason, and also, some stonehead would enter the site from a different computer or different name and start to sabotage anything and everything. No matter where you go, there will just be those types of people. The good thing is, they have to live with themselves, which I'm sure is not that easy to do.

1) No grounds for lawsuit.
2) What could they do? Come back and be banned again?

You're right. But that doesn't mean someone won't try saying his ego was injured or his time wasted and ATTEMPT to sue for damages. There's always the lady who sues because her coffee was hot, and wins. She also would have filed suit if her coffe was cold.