"Will it be against the TOS to talk about the vanished?"

There are no vanished. To assert that there are any vanished is to argue. Arguing is against the TOS. See how simple that is?

Look, clearly the folks who runt his place are free to run it anyway they want to - and we are free to continue using this place or not. That's the basis of websites being effectively private property. That's fine.

What they can't mandate is this simple consequence... the more they limit the type of things we can come here to discuss and learn about Poser, the more the limit how we can network by trading links to our work and our websites and the sites of others... the less relevant this place becomes.

I am not attacking this forum with this post, I am trying to make sure someone understands why this site is useful and important. To do that, we need to be honest about what it is not. Renderosity is...

• Not the only place to get information about Poser. Several other sites are stepping up to fill the gap. That includes PoserPros for technical information and others for other areas.
• Not a useful place to get serious information about software other than Poser. For all intents and purposes the power users of the CG community don't ever set foot here (other than Poser). You find that at CGTalk and 3DBuzz.
• Not the most important place to get tutorials on general 3D topics. That's 3DBuzz again.
• Not a particularly important place to showcase your work, or make professional contacts. That's CGNetworks.
• Not the best place to network with other artist... because now you aren't really allowed to mention your work or your site without being extremely cautious.
• Not the best place to get comments on your work in progress... because it might be an advertisement if someone takes it wrong.

So, at the moment, what exactly are the strong points here?

• The store has a lot of stuff. The quality is generally bad but some of the merchants are doing an amazing job.
• There are a lot of people who make this site part of their daily rounds in the Poser world.
• This site has a strong feeling of community for some of us (myself included)
• The gallery is convenient though extremely limited in it's functionality.
• That's it... and those things are primarily legacy items. Once the "clean up" takes away from the relevance of the site that will all fade.

Community is fostered by us being able to trade links, talk about what we are working and how, show images of work in progress and link to our company and home pages. That's what a web community is built on.. being able to cross pollinate information. Make that hard or impossible and it fades away.

Again, it is important to know that I support the right of the powers that be to do anything they want with their site. It seems that these are very conservative (not politically) people and maybe the soft sex nature inherent in the concept of Poser has always bothered them.

But it makes this site less and less relevant every change they make. Have ti the way you want it, just don't be confused when it turns out the focus of this Poser community has moved on... and Poser is the only community that is focused on this site.