34interactive selling out...it's dejavu all over again!

Is that the right link?

Well, honestly they didn't have to try at all. I never really understood the Spointz thing, either.

The fact is, a big, expensive site that you have to sit on all day, and get no monetary profit from, is never gonna work. I don't hold it against them. I got the skinnerz.org domain, and after 6 months playing with it and doing the math, I realized that if it were popular, at all, I couldn't afford the time and labor.

The admins there are talented people that no doubt have a lot of other stuff to do. I can't begrudge someone not being able to pay literally thousands of dollars a month so people can house and download skins. If there is a sin involved, I guess it is in the attempt to do something you really can't or don't wanna do. I appreciate the effort, though. I'm just glad it isn't just a mothballed efront domain.

I feel yer pain, K, i miss the old skinz too.

oh now I get it... I'm a little sick today. Damn 500 dollars???? Not bad. If I had the money I would buy it. But anyway that is not the point.

I guess they want to sell and get out. I was not around when skinz.org was hot. I thought it was skinbase that was the site to be on back in the day.

Anyway, maybe in the end it will be for the best. Who knows, something good might come of it.

p.s. I hope someone, even someone commercial *cough*, buys them out, just so it doesn't go to pr0n or skinheads. It would be enough just to forward it to one of the community sites.

I suppose they could refuse to sell, but they would have to recognize who they were selling to. If it goes to pr0n or skinheads it would be really bad, considering all the links floating around in skin zips, old sites, blogs, link dumps, etc.

I feel... doreenish...

Joe: note the reserve on the auction. I doubt you'll get it for 500.

and btw, the only part that creeps me out is listing the 6500 registered users and 2500 skins as assets. Considering the anonymous nature of Ebay sales, I would advise all to ponder that and let their instincts guide them to do what they feel is wise with the personal information and material stored thereon. Not much you can do about what's in the db backups, though.

Actually, Baker....Doreen should buy it....it's her fave place...

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

We've offered to buy Skinz.org in the past. I'm surprised Mian didn't contact me. Though things got chilly after the Shoggot thing lsat year.

We could even have skinz.org share the database with Wincustomize but have its own look/feel to it.

Someone said the reserve was 5 grand. Dunno if it is true. If they had done this 6 months ago I could have gone halfsies with someone, but right now I couldn't chip in nearly that much, and then I'd have no server/upkeep money. ah, well... I'll keep my fingers crossed for SD.

I do wish they'd not sell the db content to an unknown party. At least they oughtta lose the backups so people can change their email addresses until we know who is getting it.

Jafo I don't understand why the site came back only to be sold again?

and trust me I would buy it if I could. but this time around I'm in a diff spot financially unlike the first time, but the first time I could not get my hands on it cuz the other stuff involved. so I cannot touch it or I would and run straight to crae and few other old timers for restoring it to a true skinning site again somehow.

That site now has a pretty big Ghost running around on it, but I'm not scared of it! hehe (just cannot afford it)
at any rate, me too wants to see someone w/ a true heart for skinning get it...

/me is watching that story and it's conclusion too w/ the rest of you guys

I bet if a bunch of us pooled our funds we could swing the purchase price. I'm in for $300 (maybe a bit more).

Sadly the purchase price would be nothing compared to the operating price over the course of months or years. If I recall, Skinz was costing thousands a month at the height of its popularity. With the top 4 or 5 spots in this genre filled by other sites already, it would have to be pretty innovative to regain its popularity. Unless a wealthy patron comes along, I really think it would be best if it were absorbed by an existing *community* site.

I would love to see Stardock or deviantART buy it up... maybe even a joint venture.

Basically integrate it into existing skinning sites or at the very least turn it into a skinning portal or skinning/graphics news page, and it HAS to have the old brown look back

pour on some gas and flick matches at the backup tapes...

it is a crock that they are selling, without permission, everyones emails and artwork. isn't that considered illegal?

when efront replaced everyones "removed" stuff from backups, it was bad enough. are they selling those backups as well? or is this JUST stuff that has been submitted since 34 took over?

I wouldn't visit a site called skinz.org unless it looked and worked like the old skinz.org! I hated the new site when it returned.

As I posted on the DA news:

I think the admins/rules/owners/managers/whatever of the various skinsites *of today* should stick their heads together and have a talk about buying "The Brown Site" and restore it to it's original state!
It would be a real shame if the site fell into the wrong hands and be use just for promotion shit or just direct the domain to another site!!!

I think/hope that alot of the skinners/artist that roam The Skinning Community have a great deal of respect for what Skinz "did for the community".

Silly idea?!

They are buying the container, and the rights to the stuff *should* remain under the user agreement. Kind of like buying a mall, but not the stores that in the mall, if that makes any sense.

Really, if you think about it, there is nothing stopping anyone from downloading all the skins and gleaning all the emails now, without buying the site at all. I've found lately that idiots can do about anything they want as long as they based in countries that have odd concepts of 'law'. If I was uncomfortable I'd remove what I could and not worry about the rest.

hmmmmmmmm.....

One problem is that the value of domains today has dramatically decreased with the dot-com burst.

For instance, is Skinz.org today worth $5,000? In my mind, only the domain really has value. The rest of it would be too clostly to deal with. WinCustomize has 400,000 names in its database, mining out duplicates out of 6500 or whatever would't really make sense.

There'd have to be a good business case for $5k. Though I could see people wanting to buy it for ego reasons.

Doreen...I figured that once mian found he had the domain back from eFront, he felt compelled to put it back up, but circumstances had changed with the advent of several new sites and the 'emotion' just wasn't there to get it thriving.
That, and the horrendous graphic choice, making me at least have to squint just to endure reading anything.
It was the 'brown' that made skinz sooooo successful...that, and one or two dippy members...

I know Jafo it definetely was not the same when it came back you did not have to be a rocket scientist to feel, see or smell that! hehe

I can't see anyone buying it now for 5k not even for ego reasons... (would have to be a pretty big ego!)

/me thinks only the porn ppl may go after it since they are the only ones w/ a rhyme or reason for a site called skinz.org that would possible have that kind of money maybe?

anyways we had a great time there and "that" won't be forgotten

let me make a slight revision there...

I would prob be the only one w/ a big enough ego to spend 5K on it just for the fun and love for it, but my bank account is not big enough at the moment... hehe

I think the rest will bid fair prices (somewhere in the 3 digits) but flake out when the price goes anywhere near 5K understandably.

was peeking in on the current 2 bidders but I don't know how that stuff works over there (me never uses ebay)
snow most likely anyone buying it would use only it's name to increase traffic on an existing site cuz it's so deeply entangled in the web that would be it's only benefit to most right? doubt they are interested in the current db baker? don't you think?

Who knows, maybe something can be done to preserve what is and once was. I've been following closely, the discussion of the current/future state of skinz_org in the deviantART article and I must say, a lot of people still have a positive outlook on things. That's definitely a good sign. I know one of the bidders thus far is part of the community and would want nothing more than to see the proliferation of the community. I say more power to them, and anyone else within the community who places a bid.

hmm yeah me was reading up over at DA too and was surprised to see some of the comments over there, maybe there is hope or maybe they'll negotiate in the final hour, who knows!

Latest bid is 610 dollars......... I don't think 34i is going to see close to 5k.

Jafo...I don't think the problem was lack of emotion, when skinz returned. It was the lack of brown, the abudance of popups, and the attitude of mian, and company. They were never very friendly admins to begin with, but they seemed even more surley when they returned. Then they just disappeared, never responding to anything on the messageboard, and updating infrequently. It was almost as if they wanted to kill it again. This latest incarnation isn't the skinz I knew and loved..........