Let's all try to stay on topic.  Discussions of dA are not relevant.

Not sure where the irrelevancy is, sounded like the comparrison was good.  Oh well...  

It most certainly is relevant..depending on when he removed it from DA. Did he remove just prior to making his statements here ?

This is whats wrong with this site - if things don't go the way you want it you try to
censor the ones that say what you dont want to hear.

I won't be a puppet that you pull my strings and tell me when to nod.

What I said was the truth. Now lets all twist it and make me the bad guy ...

Makes no difference to me at all.

See comment 79 - " dont rock the boat or else "

Reminder: Please keep the conversation friendly.

Has ZERO bearing on this discussion and I personally dont like your accusatory tone. Feel free to speak your mind but keep it civil please. If you want to criticize anything I do at another site then PM me or post at that particular venue.

Disagree. When, where and what is acceptable advertising and self promotion is exactly the topic.

..as it pertains to THIS community was MY point. As far as I'm concerned anything outside of WC has nothing to do with what is being discussed. Maintaining a standard here was the topic. If folks want to start flaming me for that.. feel free. I've gotten the anser to my question.

on Wincustomize sure but can we statued about DA? i don't think so.

Anyway it's an interesting topic and it'll be really nice if we could be adult and talk about it friendly IMO

I made true statements that were not unfriendly at all - they were only facts.



You dont have to personally like my statements anymore than I liked you calling Z71's post " Spam" ...

I have no idea when you removed it from DA. But you contradicted yourself. You said you felt justified putting it on DA cause its a wasteland - then why did you remove it ?

If I felt justified in doing something I wouldnt remove it at all.

But your right - it has no bearing on this so lets move along

I didn't remove it It was removed 1-2 weeks ago by admin... Just fine by me... now if DA would treat everyone equally instead of wallering in ambiguity.

Throughout this thread, THIS community has referred to the skinning community on more than one occasion. WC does not live in a vacuum.

i've known john (vstyler) for years and am familiar with the tones of his writings. i don't see his posts in this thread as anger or as making accusations toward anyone. i think he voiced his opinion, right or wrong, and went on. he has the right to do so, as does everyone else. until recently in the thread, nobody was accusing anyone else of wrongdoing. all of a sudden, vstyler is the bad guy of the thread. that's wrong! john said his piece and has the courage to stand by it. i'm not saying he was right or wrong. it's not my place to make that determination. my point is this: john said his piece without using a derogatory tone, nor did he make accusations. i think he politely made his point to z71 and dropped the discussion.

this thread started out as a friendly conversation. keep it that way.

Correct, Spammer is not the correct term. Perhaps Solicitor is better.

I don't know how you work it at the moment, but maybe a fair way would be that you put up so many new master skins a year at this site through the master skin program, and then you can post some as was done today to inform people that you have finished a new one. This then gives people a chance to go and check it out as soon as it's finished. Instead of when they happen to check the site, as I would think that most people if they like your work would have the site bookmarked any way, so the post just told them to check it out today rather than when they happened to pop over to see if there is anything new.

It was removed because it was a screen shot of a windowblind uploaded to the download windowblind gallery . Had you uploaded it to the DA Screen shot section then you would have been correct. Amazing that DA even bothered to remove it.


And I politely pointed out that he was called " Spam" at DA.

Perhaps had he chose the wrong words..

I still feel Z71 did nothing wrong at all...

But feel free to make me the bad guy here - thats the way it is if you don't agree with the 'in crowd'

For starters, what would you do with people like xyz company, which contributes quite a bit to the community, sell products, and advertise their site with about everything they put out. Remember a certain very popular free package which took you off Wc to download...
I don't think they would contribute too much if they were not allowed to advertise.

What about someone that puts out a lower quality of work here and then outright tells you in their descriptions that Higher quality is available at their site. But you have to subscribe with them to get the higher quality. Gotta cut that out too....

It appears to me to be a double edge sword.

We're veering off here.  This isn't about silencing dissenters, it's not about pushing the opinion of the "in-crowd" and it's certainly not about avoiding criticism. 

The thread is about what is and isn't OK to post on WinCustomize; forums, news, skins etc. that might border on the edge of unacceptable advertising or spam.  Do Masters get a bit of leeway?  Can non-masters sell their stuff on outside sites and advertise it here in the forums?  What are the limits?  What's fair to both the community at large, and the skinners who have contributed free work for years?

To all: Please drop the "he said, she said" and other various attacks.  The original topic of discussion was very interesting and relevant to how WinCustomize handles Master Skinning and outside sales sites going forward.  I think a lot of people have very valuable input into the subject and have a stake in what is decided.

If the thread continues to steer away from the core topic and towards attacks and insults, I'll have to close the thread.

Very true Phoon.

I suppose that is where the communtiy comes in to voice their opinion and then gets scolded for dirtying up someones comment section of their skin.   

Perfectly summed up.

Yep!!!! That's it in a nutshell!

My iniation reaction to vStylers first post was "talk about the pot calling the kettle black". I was actually beginning to think that Maxstyles had a special promotional relationship with WC! Do not get me wrong, this is not a flame in any way. John has done a great job in promoting Maxstyles and more power to him. Z71 was simply trying to promote his site as well. Both have contributed mucho free stuff to the community. It has opened a great topic as summed up by Zoomba and can only benefit the community when further guide lines come forth if needed from the powers that be.

Peace!

For the record, there exists no special promotional relationship between WinCustomize and MaxStyles.  The fact that often MaxStyles skins are featured is because 1) They're on WinCustomize and Free 2) They're good.

What they're doing is tossing out a lot of high-quality stuff that draws folks to their site indirectly.  For example, I wouldn't consider the mass of Harmony related skins to be spam since they're skins.  They're free.  They're good.  They just happen to be centered around a for-pay skin.  Spam?  Not really.  A brilliant way to market a skin?  absolutely.  But it works because in the end the community is getting a lot of value without ever actually having to purchase anything.

RomanDA does two versions of most of his gadgets, a free one and a more feature-rich for-pay one. 

These are examples of good ways to "advertise" your work without being direct and in-your-face about it.  Why?  Because even if you don't want to pay for whatever the item is, you're still getting value from the "free" stuff that's related.

I don't think there should be any advertising on the messageboard. Master skinners already have a perfect vehicle for advertising what they do - a 'Master Skin' tag on some of their skins, which is possibly seen by many hundreds times more people than a post on a messageboard.

There's nothing wrong with advertising, but there's a time and place and I don't believe this messageboard is it.

And this takes me back to my original post - If anyone thinks that this has not been going on for years they are very nieve. Some do it 'gently' and 'subtley' others are shall we say more 'overt'. Personally I don't give a flying f which option you chose as long as its done in a reasonable way where it's not thrown in my face like an advert every day. Let's leave things as they are and allow the moderators to moderate and allow those Master Skinners to 'tell' us about their skins when they become available. I for one are always looking around the net at various sites and occassionally I come across something special which IMHO is worthy of mention here which now takes me a conversation I had with NT in another thread

"NT, you make a reasonable point and no harm done. I often come across things whilst I am around the net which I think are a 'little special' that are not on this site - admittedly it's my opinion. It might be a skin, it might be a piece of software and I see no harm if anyone not just me, brings this to the attention of our community here at WC. The iconpack in question has been made by an artist who is a member here but understandably he will not 'spam' the site with his wears. However, it's nice if someone who admires this piece of work - as exceptional - lets others know that it's available. I know there is a 'fine line' here but how many people on this site would have come across this pack if someone does not tell them that it exists? I have been around for some time and spoken to a lot of people who use OD and visit WC and who don't have hours to spend researching what is available and are appreciative when someone brings something worthy of note to their attention via the news or forums. There are also several artists who have joined us here at WC because I have encouraged them to bring and show their work here. Yep, we have to be careful but we also have to recognize that people like to be 'informed' and 'kept in the loop' with items of interest otherwise our community becomes a 'walled garden' where life does not exist outside of WC. I would like to think and hope that WC is or becomes the hub for everyones skinning interests. Is that not good for everyone? I'll let others decide. And one thing is for sure - there are many talented artists and skins outside WC. As I said NT, you make a decent point and we have to be careful and differenciate between 'spam' and 'information for users benefit' but there is a bigger picture to consider as well"

I think NT and I have different opinions on this subject matter but I respect his opinion and his reasons for them. ME, quite simply I WANT TO KNOW WHATS GOING ON AND LIKE TO BE KEPT INFORMED.