THE SITUATION: I invited one of my friends to join Renderosity. He tried 3 different screen names and they were all taken.

WHAT ANNOYS ME: The people using those 3 screen names niether have a gallery nor anything in their homepage, in fact they haven't logged on for a very long time.

ANOTHER THING: I just had my very FIRST troll. The typical troll; no gallery, nothing in the homepage. I remember when Brendan had his troll, it was much worse. 8'D

WHAT I THINK:
The Renderosity Member's List is due for a cleaning. LOL. This really isn't that big of a deal to me, but it's a little annoying.

Please share your toughts.

I personally just love wankers who don't have a single image in their gallery yet comment on your works as if they were the Bryce Gods themselves... I just love it. Especially if they give my work nasty rankings. THAT is what makes my day, everytime... but yeah. some of them are legit, people who just want to look. others, i'd venture to say 30-50% are just ghosts. hot20 anyone? Drac

As my Sainted Grandmother used to say,"consider the source". You get hundreds of positive, effusive, and glowing reviews from other artists, many of whom I would consider giants in both Bryce, and other 3D apps(and 2D apps). Along comes a talentless Wanker, without the yarbles to display their own work in a gallery, and they proceed to troll your fabulous artwork, in which you've invested much passion and joy.

The natural human reaction is to feel wounded that someone else would attack your"children". Now I ask you Alvin, who are you going to listen to, a forum of your enlightened peers, or a spiteful, jealous child? I know you're just venting frustration. That an artist of your caliber and rep has to endure such things has caused me to want to vent too!

And, now you see why I'm exceedingly careful when commenting on the galleries.

Yeah, Iv'e had my share of critics. But what I consider trolling is stuff like this: "F*CK THE BIBLE! THIS IMAGE SUCKS *SS TOO!" LOL It really makes me laugh. I'm not at all angry, just annoyed, baffled and amused at the same time. I guess my main issue is with how easy it is to get multiple accounts that can be used EXCLUSIVELY for trolling, and of course (a subject that sparked some controversy over and over again)potential "SELF-VOTING" for the Hot20! ;) (Hmmm, Is self-voting a word?)

I knew drac would be the first one with an opinion on this one =D, anyway, I have yet to encounter a troll in my gallery, and I do think that a members list clean up probobly wouldn't hurt any.

I've heard that self-voting will make you grow hair on your palms, or make you go blind!

Trolls! Always hated those ugly little f.....s! But i think you gave It a great answer. :) Dont know anything about programming, but wouldnt it be possible with one account per IP...?

That would be great in a LAN but IP addresses can change if you don't have a static IP address. Dial up connections change IP addresses almost every time they log on since modems don't have MAC address, and dial-up is what I have right now, pretty daym slow and it ties up the phone. =(

It should be if you haven't logged on at all within maybe a year, to have the account deleted. I would think someone to take a year off, that's their fault. Maybe what they could do is when it gets closer and closer to a year, have an e-mail sent to that account...if they respond back say by clicking a link in the e-mail to stay activated (thus logging them in) then so be it...but if there's no response in the e-mail (or maybe send 2 or 3 e-mails) then oh well, their fault and then release the account for someone new. Alvin, you are for surely right though, it is in dire need of a housecleaning. I was going to use "MadDog" as my username when I first started, but then I saw someone that hasn't logged on in like 2 years still holds it. That upset me...so I tacked on my fave number at the end. MD PS...I've had one troll, and thankfully AgentSmith took action and deleted the response. I'm thankful he took action that quickly. If it hasn't been fixed for you, give AS a hollar to remedy the situation. :)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=123276&Start=37&Artist=Brendan&ByArtist=Yes

I wonder if there is a way to limit clone accounts to ( lets say ) about three? Sure I understand, that for various reasons, some folks need a couple of accounts to do various transactions around the galleries and marketplace, but more than three should have to be granted by special request so that tabs can be kept on what is going on. My most recent troll ( there have been a few others! ) managed to clock up about 40 accounts. As far as I understand things, even though he has been blocked, the accounts still take up space and usernames that might be of use to someone more productive ( in a friendly, and, or, a useful way I mean! ). I can think of a few artists that have left the site because they were *Trolled* and felt violated and vulnerable. I am sure enough of myself to know that the poison is nothing to do with my work, rather It comes from within the the *Troll* and only has significance to them, little of what they say ever has any relevance to the artist or work that is being attacked as it is about dumping their own dysfunction onto someone else. As a lot of you know!, I have my own ways of dealing with this sort of thing. Tap into the power of an image I dedicated to *Trolls* way back when I was quite new here, it sits quietly in the background healing the sick in heart and needy in soul that come to this site in anger. The one thing I never do!, is exchange IMs with these pests. They see that as a validation of what they are about and an invitation for one to be insulted some more. I like to keep the proceedings right out in the open where we all can see the whole of the episode unfold. It is not pleasant to be *Trolled* and I would be a liar to claim that it did not get to me at times. Sticks and stones may break our bones but *Trolls* have mental scars to deal with!

Rochr, there's always proxies, which is pretty much bouncing your IP off a different computer, thus changng it. There's always going to be workarounds for things like these...

So far, touch wood, I have not been trolled here although when I posted a couple of images to 3DCafe I was hit at my email account by a few virus/worms attached to emails. I know it was from 3DCafe 'cos that is the only place my email is openly available. Luckly that email account has a high security alert so that everything is scanned for web evils before you get it and since that is where I get most large items sent to it saves a lot of pain. I also agree with the house cleaning 'cos I don't think your account should stay open indefinately if you don't ever use it. Catlin

Yeah, eventually everyone will have to resort to numbers(how was your vacation, 189836378?).

Very true about IPs...shouldve thought of that... :( Alvin, Listen to Maddog and let AgentSmith know about this. Ill bet he dont mind erasing a little... :)

When I Comment (as I'm sure with others also) it comes from the love, admiration and passion for art itself. Negative expression derives from frustration & suffering. If it offends you then their attempt to pull someone into that pain has succeded. The old saying "misery loves company". Thank them directly & dismiss the thought of suffering with them. It's all a choice... What's yours?

A whiskey please ICM, thanks..................8)

np alvin... that happens, even to the best of the best (which means you and a few others) I hate people to especially the ones making a mess out of (our: your and mine) belief... so what if he doesn't have a GOD? all he has to do is respect ours and thats it... geez good thing i didnt see his line or hed get a big KAHUNA from me and mine... as for trolling? well havent experienced it yet, hopefully never will experience it... double account? well well, waitaminute! doesnt ICM have a double account? does that make him bad too? and due for deleting? GRIN!

Yeah, I hear you alvinylaya, There should be a limit to the number of Cloned accounts a member can have ... and If someone hasn't logged on for 6 months or so their account should be dropped. I've noticed that lately, people who made accounts several years ago and whose accounts were apparently dorment for six months or more at a time seem to pop back up, suddenly very actve, with full knowledge of what has been going on on certain forums and in full flame mode. One can omly assume that at least some of these accounts are clone accounts set up for the purpose of flaming, trolling or what ever you wanna call it ... on the other hand there are, as has been stated, valid reasons for clone accounts and for long periods of inactivity, but if someone hasn't logged on for two years it seems that account should be reasonably thought of as abandoned and the account deleted. - TJ

LOL, Ok Ok, You can have my "ICMgraphics" username. ;)

ICM you have abused your stand as a brycer... your clone has wrecked havoc... and you shall pay dearly for.... AW HECK! i can never be a good writer... ehehehehehehe i was meaning to look for my old account.... i think that was AIRWRECK... AS can you find that for me? i seem to forget that name and my password too... its old... very old like 3 years waaaaay back when i was just a WATCHER and not a 3D artist.... e

Ah-Ha!..........so you're a lurker in disguise then Eyecon. I'm glad you stopped lurking a actually joined in in the fun. 8) Catlin

Let's face it. There will always been a certain ammount of artistically-challenge, anonymous poltroons who prowl the galleries looking for targets to unleash their uncooth, crass comments on the rest of us. They usually have no galleries of their own, have no place except to bad mouth others and they are usually driven by a a twisted little urge to hate what they cannot do themselves; namely create anything of worth. So don't ever bother taking what they say to heart, Alvin. They are usually motivated by their own inadequacies rather than any artistic criticism they need to express. In the end they will totter off once more to play with their crayons and paper :)

Personally, IMHO, if an account has not logged on in 45 days, it should be discontinued. Why? This person is not actively participating at this site, they are sucking up a user name and other hardware/software facilites. I realise that there are folks that post/participate at several sites, as long as they participate actively it should not be a problem. The short life span of an idle account would probably deter, to some extent, those that bounce back and forth between sites just for purpose of trolling, well hopefully. :) BabaLouie ( was skydiver )

wellllll..I should have to put an exception to the above..

1. I make backups of all the stuff I've downloaded, and all the pics I like. In Sept '02, I had a bad CD, and lost the whole month. I tried recreating what I downloaded back then (if you search on specific artists, you can go back as far as they do)..some of our top-notch folks have 6-month gaps in their gallery, so I don't know if that would work. 2) there's trolls everywhere..so don't let them get to you. Any #$%^ can destroy something, but it takes real artistry to create.
   Pakled, coulda been 'Gadfly' (my first choice), but it was taken too..of course, if anyone wants 'nu-be'(my first handle), it's up for grabs..tell 'em I said so..;)

I jump on this thread quite late... but I just saw what Alvin's talking about. Ok, now we're all here saying: "Hey, don't fret too much, just ignore him", and that's okay. But one of the Bryce images I liked most since I'm a member here, Alvin's "Thomas", has disappeared from spot #1 in the "Best Rankings" because of a single troll. It's not my problem, I have that image well bookmarked among my favs, but... please consider HOW MANY people come here and click on Hot20 and BestRankings, just to see what's best. Problem is, they won't see Alvin's picture up there anymore. And this is indeed annoying. Just my 2 annoyed eurocents... S.

CATLIN: IM NOT A TROLL IM NOT HONEST! im a live moving and talking MODEL:ZX58-246GRY6 VER.5.6 REV. 29 SERVICE PACK 4 with patch 48. I also have a nifty set of plugins exclusive for my self alone... im upgradable and running in both MAc and Windows OS... my Bios is Currently dead but im still moving... have to change my mecha arm though... its a bit old... HEEHEHEH crazy robotic eyecon

I've never really had a troll, but I do think that ANY web-sight (mis-spelled on purpose, mind you) should keep up and maintain their active list. Maybe AS or Clay can help us out in this regard.

The Admin staff are throwing around ideas on how long to let a members go before their screen name is completely deleted. As of right now, screen names are not completely deleted, but are given an inactive status, so yes there are some old screen names out there that haven't logged on in forever, so they are most likely "inactive", which also means no one else can have that name. When the site programmers can finish a more complete way of automatically deleting ALL a members screen name and all that goes with it, then we will actually be able to get rid of that name and someone else will be able to have it. Why? We have to have it so that (for example) the name "AgentSmith" can be fully deleted. meaning, the next person who applies for the name won't be coming into it with 3.5 years worth of forum posts and gallery comments that HAD been made with "AgentSmith". AgnetSmith

Agnet? See...changed my name already, lol. Anonymous

Maybe the site programmers can rig up a system where you can change your name, and everything like artist favourites, gallery postings etc. gets changed with it? And have all inactive usernames get changed to a null status? Just throwin out ideas here...

Oh, that's in the idea box also. It's just creating the massive automation that will scour a site this big with ALL its various archives, and still change or delete every instance of a name. Every instance of that name in every gallery post, gallery comment, forum post, and replies, contests, polls, marketplace, article opinions, free stuff, tutorials, member photo gallery, etc, etc. And, each of these things go on for 2-3 years, lol. AS

Ouch, I hear ya.

Sounds like a huge "undertaking" alright!

The only problem with automatic deletion is that sometimes it can go wrong. Now that would be a disaster if you were accidentally deleted and lost everything along with your name. Catlin And.........MODEL:ZX58-246GRY6 VER.5.6 REV. 29 SERVICE PACK 4 with patch 48, (EYECON), good to meet a fellow automaton......................8D

Automatons are totally awesome. Way cooler than cyborgs, if you ask me.