I suppose another perspective is this: Renderosity is a little bit like an incubator. A merchant can come here, learn the ropes, get a sense of what people want, post freebies while they hone their skills, then open a small store and start to build up the business side of things. Once they've mastered all that, they're ready to go it alone, and off they go. Birds don't live their whole lives in the nest where they were hatched. Apparently neither do 3-D artists ;-) Not to deny that R'osity has had problems. Some of their decisions do seem a bit baffling at times. But I agree that the "community" moniker is a bit of PR. I remember when AOL billed itself as a "community" which lasted just about until they went public. Then with almost blinding speed, they disassembled all the community features to replace them with sponsored areas. Suddenly, all those community "members" were merely "customers" or less flatteringly, "eyeballs." This happens all the time with gaming "communities" too. Real communities, by definition, are never owned by a single entity. And any community that occupies a space that is owned by someone else basically exists at the whim of that owner. No matter how good the friendships or how interesting the discussions, if they decide to pull the plug, or kick everyone out, there's not much you can do about it. - Jimdoria ~@>@

• Jimdoria  ~@>@