No problem Boza. You can only respond to what you read as we are not face to face. (Carbon based life forms), sounds like you are a SiFi nut!

'SciFi', WOM....

Thanks Jafo, it"s early. Forgive me.

I thought it was Psi Phi!

WiseOldMan: No, I'm not... If you knew me, you would have known. Do not take everything serious. And don't say you didn't, cause obviously, you did.

c242: I think his questions was not ment for answering, just to think about.

For the last time... To all skinners here. I am NOT downloading any of your stuff! I'm just downloading wallpapers! And I'm just about to upload my own, second creation with GIMP! (I lost the first one when I had do clean up)

I once made a skin for windowblinds... but when I uploaded it, it did not appear on their site... maybe it was to ugly

Well... hope you'll like my wallpaper

Boza: I took you the way I read it and didn't say that I didn't. I also took your response the same way, giving you the benifit of the doubt. So maybe you should not read something that isn't there.

Winamp still doesen't cost anything by the way, and there are still no ads, its an awesome piece of software. I realized that the main thing that bothers me is that stardock is charging for other peoples work. I know that that money is paying for bandwith, but you see without the community work on this site, there would be nothing for stardock to collect money for! Therefor, stardock is collecting money because of the skins that people post, and i doubt many of these people realize that their skins are earning money of stardock. Bandwith wise, i think that wincustomize was allowed to get too big, i think if stardock really has respect for the skinners they would 'cut' some sections from this site in order to cut it bandwith use, and try to stop it (and the rest of the skinnign community) from spiraling down into a sort of a blackhole of commercialism. I myself dont care weather I have to pay, if i do i could afford it, what bothers me is that others have to pay, i am happy to share my skins with ALL the poeple around here, weather they are 'good contributing' members of the community of 'non contributing' ones, it is honor enough for me that my work is sitting on their desktops, and i hope that many of the real good skinners out there feel the same way. Even by charging such a small price, i think that stardock has put wincustomize on a very very slippery slope down.
To conclude, i think the best course of action for wincustomize, that stardock will take if they are a true 'friend' of the skinners AND skin-users, is to cut down this site, eliminate sections and features if neccesary, stop publisizing this thing so much and cut down on the money that it costs to run this place, and pay that money themselves! Stardock benefits from this site, and they should pay for it. And Joetheblow, heres what i want to say, comments would be nice from everyone, but this is not a perfect world, i cant talk for other skinners i can only talk for me, but for me, just looking at the download counter and knowing that other people are using my work is more than enough credit and recognition. I would love comments, but i could live without them. And i dont belive in requiring people to post comments/pay money/participate in forms to download my skins, I am just happy to see that so many people downloaded them, that is enough for me!

Very well... anyway...

I'm a bit confused about the wallpaper upload part...

The preview... Do I only have to make a big preview pic, like 800*600 big, and the server will generate a small one? Or both?

mgorbach, thats how I feel too, even tho I have not uploaded my work yet I hope my picture makes it to the wallpaper page!

But, after my first post, and of folks reactions to it, I'm not sure anyone will download them...

hehe...

Don't worry, if it makes it, it will be downloaded. Most people do not read the message board.

mgorbach: you don't have any skins, stop saying you do. Again, Winamp is not free, it is part of AOL. That is like saying that the Windows Media site is a free site. How much better is it to think your skins are helping to promote AOL/Time/Warner? I am beginning to think that you are really, really deranged. You simply will not give up the idea that ALL the sites you visit are commercial in one way or another. It costs thousands of dollars a month to pay for skin sites, you think people save their pennies?

You are asking questions and restating things over and over, spamming the board just to be argumentative. This isn't your site, and it is none of your business how it is run.

The only material you have uploaded is NOT EVEN YOUR OWN PROPERTY, and therefore SD is profiting from nothing of yours anyway. In my opinion shouldn't have been let in, and it could be deleted with no loss to the site.

You are now officially a troll and I vote that you be removed from the site if you persist, and that these threads should be deleted or closed. You made your point, and got your answer, there was no harm in the fist try. There is no more dialog necessary. Stay and enjoy or move on.

mgorbach : That was the stupiest thing I ever read here, congratulations...
Do You really think the skinners here are stupid and need You as a lawyer ?
Didn't You notice that many skinners are contradicting Your opinion ?
@the other whiners : WHO DO YOU THINK, PAYS FOR THE SERVERS AND HARDWARE USED TO RUN THIS SITE ??? >
Ouch, useless, I will not deal with this junk anymore...

mgorbach: So to help skin authors we should delete their skins to save bandwidth?

This is your solution? How exactly does that help skin authors and which sections and skins are we to delete? If the ratings system causes a fuss, I can't even imagine the debate over whose skins we should delete would generate.

It seems to me that the best solution involves trying to get the 0.1% of the user base that uses nearly 10% of the bandwidth to contribute something back makes sense rather than make the other 99.9% of the user base suffer.

Hm... after reading your answers on mgorbach's post, I think I missunderstod him. Or did I? Well... anyway, I would gladly share my work with everyone else just to see that someone really likes it


And I do it on this site (have not done it yet, so don't come telling me I've got no wallpapers here) because I think I'll get the most respons here. I could host a website myself if I wanted... but who would visit it? This site is already well known, and known for having free download of peoples work, so I don't think they should change that.

But if everyone else wants it that way, then let it be changed.
I'll just move on to another community, that is sponsored in a different way.

I'm quite happy as it is now. But if stardock decides to change it to the worse, it's of course none of my bussines. But that does not render my right to complain!

End of discussion!

Now to something completely different;

I'm a bit confused about the wallpaper upload part...

The preview... Do I only have to make a big preview pic, like 800*600 big, and the server will generate a small one? Or both?

Please, I need this answered. Else I won't know the reason my art did not show up here was due to my preview pic beeing wrong, or my art beeing to ugly!

How long does it take for it to show up?
Will I get some kind of confirmation that my art is approved?

Cheerz!

If you make it an 800x600 Not many people will want it. To small. Start at least with 1024x768 or bigger. The preview is in .jpg format and the server will generate the thumbnail. Your picture will be in .bmp (zipped) format. It will take sometime to go thru moderation. Depends on the workload, time of day, whose available to moderate and so forth. Thats the best I can do as I'am not a skinner or wallpaper hanger.

ok... so preview should be at least 1024*768? compressed about.. 50%?

I've included one 1280*960, and one 1024*768 in the zip file. Is that enough?

Look Boza, Do not compress. It's best to ask questions on a new thread instead of a long bad one. OK?

well i'm not happy i've been off the net for months and then come back to find my account is dead and i had to got and make another one .. now whats going on .. with this level this and that ..?? this is not right i came on here when it was free and thats good but now ..pay pay pay no thanks starts free stay free..

You're right WiseOldMan, I just wanted to change the topic a bit.

Thx for replying!

Good Afternon....

Making the site smaller will help the bandwidth not the users and skinners. Who to cut out? I think that would be more of an uproar than anything else (please don't cut out the wallpaper section!! , please don't cut the beatnik section!! , please don't cut areas older than 2000!!... I can keep going)


Winamp does have commercials. I'm looking at 3 at this moment. Most of those commercils on Winamp is TimeWarners stuff. As I also said earlier, Winamp files are small.

Hey, lets put a limit on creativity and not allow any skins over 2mb. I guess know one will see the DesktopX I'm making about a music video... (stands at 7 mb so far)



I would like to say that my posted questions are for thought AND for answering.



If this site gets more popular, is it possible that skinners can get SEEN by more poeple? Isn't that what is happening at DeviantART? If it can mke smart moves, 2 years from now it will be the number one spot for artist and the number 10 spot for advertising. How do you get there? Volenteers I guess. What if the voleenters need help or try to set up a way to fund the site? I would think that mgorbach would say, "WAIT A MINUTE!! Isn't this supposed to be a free site!??!?"




I think this could be better descussed if we pick a site that is "free" and go into how it does it. I would also add that even if it turns out to be a great example, could it be repeated with other sites.

mgorbach should pick a site (Winamp, DeviantART, Skins.org, or some other skin site) and we can go from there. You could also pick CNET or Download.com (same thing) or Windows Media Player. It would be better to pick a site of skins.




I also typed this before. This site is a 2 way street. Skinners can make the more of it by connentions, popularity, jobs, information on designs, use a program that DOESN'T crash users computers, upload to a site that takes care of thier property AND protects it by not allowing RIPS to the best of its ability, show a site of there's, push ideals or values (i'm designing a Sept 11 DX and one on the stock market called NYSE for info on investing), and so on.

Did I mention jobs for artist who are usually poor? Did I mention some artist can use this place to perfect there skills as an artist and maybe start a business of there own.


you mention one probelm but you don't mention the many benifits. You still have not come up with factoids, only point at a place and write a conclusion. Do you understand how hard it is to run a site that has 1000 of veiwers downloading and uploading millions of magabytes?



I am not saying that you do not have a point mgorbach, I just want you to come up with facts. Do some research. And you will find why it is the way it is and maybe can find a way to help instead of throwing auguements and corperate sabatoge all over a site.


That is what I am triing to do.

Instead of acuzations, why not try to come up with ways to help.

Joe - I thought you were supposed to be studying...

Oh and another thing, coplianing about it not being free is fine. Not understanding why it isn't anymore is another subject. Find out why it isn't, find out just how hard it is to fund a site to be free for others to use anytime.

Maybe you'll disagree with it, but at least understand. And maybe can somehow voleenter your services so it can be free again




I wonder if anybody will directly refer to this post.... hmmmmm....

bob2002 "pay pay pay no thanks starts free stay free"

Y'know. I initially thought Bakerstreet and Hippy were a bit harsh, but I'm beginning to appreciate their outlook on things. It's like trying to carry on a conversation with a sea spunge.

Let me ask you this? Why should something stay free when its no longer viable to keep it free? Did you bother reading any of this? How does it stay free? So everything should be free, or it shouldn't exist at all? Is that your argument? I'm a bit confused at your logic.

Please, let's hear your plan on how to do this. It'd be helpful if you could break it down into:

Bandwidth needed
Number/type of web servers needed.
Type of database server needed.
Type of file server(s) needed.
Colocation facility
Maintenance
(who/how many people, what's your projected uptime, and response time when something goes
wrong)
Site Enhancement
(who/how web developers/database developers, how much time should
they spend on it)
Administration
(how many admins,...)

Could we have your projections on the effort and cost for your plan? Maybe cross reference it with user-usage so we can get an idea on the overall cost to support a user). It'd really helpful to hear your alternative!

BTW you don't have to pay. You could contribute to this site. But I bet you don't feel like it, right?

Yeah I guese this site have grown too big to remain absolutely free, but please... can we end this discussion now?

I wish I could just close this thread now...

Er...'Sea sponge', Chris.........