We've had a lot of debates on allowing freebies from sites that require free membership in order to download. On the one hand, it's a hassle to have to sign up at a lot of different sites. On the other hand, we want to let people know of as many resources as possible and we definitely understand why sites would want the sign-up before allowing downloads. From now on, if a freebie requires sign up at another site, we will approve the freebies (assuming they're valid) but we will require that it says in the "Notes and Requirements" box that free membership is required. (Or we'll put it in, but we'll be cranky if we keep having to add that in for the same sites.) Note: if paid membership is required, then the freebie will be disallowed as it obviously isn't free. This allows everyone to know about the generosity of these sites while letting people know there's an extra step involved to download the freebies. Sorry if we've been inconsistant in the past. We've had a lot of good arguments on both sides of the debate and we think this is a good compromise. There's a few freebies that were in pending while we reached a decision on this. Hopefully they'll get approved tonight. If you had a freebie that was denied in the past due to the sign-up requirement, please feel free to resubmit them if you'd like. Questions? Comments? Chocolate?

Sounds fair. :)

Yeah, I'll have some chocolate, thanks. :) The new system souds perfectly reasonable.

Any good ideas on software to use to manage a passle-of-passwords? (Hum- maybe I should take a look over at Tucows)

Oh, and if it's a paid membership site, but the freebie is acessible without signing up for membership, that's fine. Alternatively, if they have a free sign-up that allows you to download that freebie, plus you can pay to get more stuff in addition to that freebie, that's cool, too. (I'm trying to think of all the combinations, here.) ;-) Sam - milk chocolate or dark?

I sure wish there were less free membership sites to have to have more passwords for. As there are so many, it becomes impractical to make a different user set (name and password) for each one - and my worry often is that if one site is hacked and usernames and passwords found out, that the said hacker could reasonably try the user set at other sites of the same genre and get in... I try to mix them up or add a consequtive number to the end of the password but then I always have to consult my password list and sometimes I find I've used the same ones elsewhere anyway (maybe even a few times since there are so many...). I sure wish there was less of it.

Veritas - just don't use Gator. Comes with a slew of spyware attached :(

A lot of sites require sign-up to keep the bandwidth reasonable. They figure that people will be less likely to "hit and run" the freebies if they have to sign-up first. It makes people stop and think about if they'll actually use the freebies if they have to fill out a form to get those freebies. And, yeah, Gator = massive evil. :(

Crescent - dark, please. :)

I'm beginning to think that R'osity is taking some giant, possitive, leaps, forward recently. Keep up the good work guys. 8) Catlin

hmm i dont know abotu this particular matter, but one think i should be viewable without signing up is the gallery ! (sorry for being a bit off topic)

Yes, it's understandable, but a nuisance nevertheless. SO many passwords to try and keep track of. I don't mind signing up for a site I intend to use on a frequent basis, but it's annoying for one that is not high-traffic.

Attached Link: Password Safe

Well, maybe this will be a good thing. Since I won't sign up for any memberships just to get freebies this could cut way down on my "hoarding" g Bad enough we have to go dig through sites to find them, I understand the free sites not allowing direct linking, but signing up for a membership is out of the question.

Not for me. :-) I signed up for DAZ's free stuff long before I bought anything from them. And Sixus1 is another site where the free membership is well worth the free stuff.

Attached Link: http://beta.help2go.com/index.php

I don't mind having to sign up for a site...but I hate having to do it more than once. I don't know how many sites I have signed up for, been 'given' a unique password or selected my own, and then had to rejoin next time I went there because my PW was no good. This has happened to me at BatLabs several times. I use the password manager built into Netscape 7 and it has worked fine for me so far w/o having to cram another utility on my harddrive.

I understand people's apprehension about having to join a site, but unfortunately, there are good reasons for the site owner to impose such requirements. I know of several people who have had to take their site entirely offline because of issues of bandwidth abuse (I don't mean bandwidth USE, I mean various kinds of nasty things taht steal or suck the bandwidth) and other such things. It's unfortunate, but it's a decision that some site owners have had to make. It's also, of course, the decision of visitors to choose NOT to sign up if they don't want to. :-) bonni

I wish Lannies 3D world would come back online, I wouldn't mind signing up to use their site and if it stopped the bandwidth theft that made them close in the first place that would be a good thing. Catlin

Indeed yes. But a lot of these sites seem to be Renderosity wannabes with forums with no posts in them that no-one would ever want to read. Membership is one thing in a site that is frequently updated, where you really do want to visit once a week or more often. But not appropriate for ones where there isn't really an active community.