With the new TOS, I don't even know if it's okay to ask whether there will be any big sales by Poser vendors in different markets. It would be nice to know what's out there because I don't have the time to participate in every single Poser forum.

I suppose I can understand the need for restrictions to minimize competition with the Renderosity Marketplace. At some point, if we cannot share good news about sales that excite us, there will eventually be a tendency to find a forum with less restrictions.

Advertising sales, whether offsite or on, isn't allowed in the Poser forum.  

Also, it's NOT new.  Advertising's been against the rules in the Poser forum for years.

*"However, to ease your mind, there are exceptions to the rule.  For instance, if someone were to ask "Does anyone know where I can get a pirate ship"? as a question in the forum, feel free to point them in the direction of pirate ships, both free and for sale. 

While you can't outright advertise them, and we shouldn't have allowed it in the first place, you CAN link to products, both free or for sale, should the need to answer a question arise. 

....?

Khai, he's not asking "Hey, can anyone tell me where I can get a polar bear?"  He's asking if he can list what sites are having black friday sales.  Apples and oranges. 

sorry.. still confused.

he's asking can he ask about them... your saying no advertising... but you've already said we can ask about things.......?

could you clarify what then is the correct way here?

we can ask about idividual items, but a post saying 'hey! **** got a sale!' is not kosher?

You can ask about individual items, tutorials, techniques, scripts, or any other Poser related thing that may be available for free or for sale.  Asking about sales at a store does not mean you can post advertisements about the sales.  If you want more clarification, you won't get it on the forums.  Please contact admin@renderosity.com 

thank you for clarifying that.

good god- your shooting yourself in the foot in this thread Jen!

Its NOT SEPTEMBER !!!

I don't see how I'm shooting myself in the foot.  This is nothing new.  A question was asked.  If you don't like my answer, I've told you where to go to seek what you're looking for, with no promises of getting the answer you want.  I don't run this site, and I really don't appreciate getting crap for it on an almost weekly basis.  Starting an attack on me is not going to get rules changed.  I've pointed admin to this thread in case you all have other questions that need to be answered.  As of this post, I bow out of this thread. 

eh? I wasn't attacking anyone. I wanted things clarified!

if thats an attack, I'm sorry...but that's you seeing things that are not there and nothing to do with  me.

here we go again. I'm kinda limiting myself to pointing out freebies...here..;)

Hey, their site, their rules...I'm just here for the cookies...;)

I wasn't referring to your post, Khai.  However, it does seem that you need an unusual amount of clarification on things that are rehashed over and over.  It does tend to feel like you're really trying to goad me sometimes, which is why I tend to be short, which I see as too often.  I'd like it if everything didn't have to be so literal.  Simple rules are most often better.

That said, this IS my last post for a while.  Not only have I been sitting here for a while and drinking Coke, but it's almost dinner time :P   

well thats your problem not mine.  I am doing NOTHING of the sort (as in goading you etc) sorry if you think that but as I said thats your problem with seeing things in my posts that are not there.

 pakled - sorry to say, but they don't even allow you to point out offsite freebies anymore.  (unless it's an answer to someone's question ie no announcing of offsite things)
love esther

If anyone else has questions/concerns about a guideline that has been in place for years, please contact admin@renderosity.com . 

Quote - here we go again. I'm kinda limiting myself to pointing out freebies...here..;)

Hey, their site, their rules...I'm just here for the cookies...;)

Yep. I know the feeling.

Join the site in my signature so that you can keep up on sales and freebies. Lots of good stuff being announced through there daily.

What I'm going to miss are the collaboration of links threads for holidays such as Halloween and Christmas giveaways.

Not being able to talk about freebies here sucks big time.  But if they want to isolate themselves into oblivion, that's their business.  But it seems to me from a marketing standpoint that the goal would be to attract more people to the site and forums, so that those same people will shop here, instead of driving people away.  But it's not my bottom line that's being affected, so not sure why I even care.

I know I've given up caring. now asking a question is 'an attack'.

I'll just read the posts in future. it's safer and that way I can't get into trouble for things I'm not doing.

 Hi there StaceyG,

well the guideline as I gather states  no commercial posts in the poser forum.  the interpretation is the thing that lots of people seem confused about.  ie people think it is okay to say "hey there's a sale here" or "hey there's free stuff here".  People do not know that that is considered commercial posting especially the people posting who  aren't the vendors.

It is still okay to discuss what is okay or not to post in the poser forums isn't it?

Although it is very clear to you it is not all that clear to other people.

Love esther

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showforum.php?forum_id=12473

 ooh that is good news.  looks like an interesting forum actually.  thanks jenx
love esther

I'm going to discuss this with the entire admin team again with the concerns brought up by the Poser members.

What  everyone needs to understand is we haven't changed any guidelines about this in a very long time. The only thing recently to happen is the guideline is being enforced more consistently since we have a large enough poser staff to stay on top of it.  The problem is the whole forum gets over run by postings advertising products/sales/promotions offsite and that is not at all fair to our Renderosity vendors who aren't allowed to do this either. They have a forum/gallery here to advertise their Renderosity stores and they use it to do just that.  We made the decision to make the Showcase forum/gallery to be Renderosity vendors only due to business reasons so then the you have members who started using this forum to advertise and promote all these things offsite so heavy it was ridiculous. That hurts it for everyone .
If I was a vendor here, I would be beyond upset about it personally.

I will bring this up next week in our admin meeting and get back to you all here as soon as I can.

Please be patient

 okay - could u please mention to them that the product showdcase forum (under present guidelines) only allows merchants (not non-vendors like me and the guy who recently posted about the stonemason product there) to post.
ie there's nowhere for non-vendors to say "hey  - there's a great new M4 body morph set at daz" for example.  well as far as i can see.
love esther

Right there is not and that was a business decision and best for Renderosity vendors but I will bring this to the table for more discussion.

 say for example that there is a great texture set for M4 here at rendero but the customer doesn't like the look of M4 even though the texture is great.  he might like the body morph at daz and then come back to rendero to buy the texture to match.
or a piece of furniture at rendero - useless on it's own, might look great in a daz house.
i don't think you can just say the customer only has a limited no of dollars to spend on 3d stuff.  remember - we are all addicts and one 3d object needs another etc

love esther

It seems to me that most people here are looking for this kind of "community support".  Wouldnt it just be easier to create a forum for that kind of stuff?  I spend tons of money here, that isnt going to change, I love the vendors I buy from, and even though at times I think the forums and the attitude of some of the members suck, Im not going to stop coming here, or buying here for any reason.  Cant we find some kind of middle ground here??

 StaceyG said she would talk to admin.  So lets wait and see what they say.
Love esther

 actually at daz i think, you can flag a post as commercial, and people who don't want to see those posts can actually have a setting so the posts don't show up when they view the forums.
Love esther

There aren't really that many markets selling Poser  products worth buying, so it shouldn't be too difficult to vist the sites and see what specials are offered. 

uh uh.  a sale for only a couple of days can be easily missed.
love esther

uh uh. a sale for only a couple of days can be easily missed.

Yes, but anyone concerned enough to start a thread asking if he can ask about 'Black Friday' discounts should be vigilant enough to check the relevant markets himself. 

For the rest, if you snooze, you lose, but what you don't know can't hurt you. 

Now that we're waiting for the outcome of the admins decision...Howbout that Jewish Pirate Ship.?  Where's it?

 If you snooze you lose?  that's not a very nice attitude.  What happened to "hey have you seen the latest freebie baking set at daz?"  I find these posts very helpful.
That's like saying, well if you have a question about poser, just try reading the entire manual first before asking.
I and a lot of others find sale notifications very useful.  KNowledge is power.  Not everyone has all day to check every website. some of us have families or work or just lots of rendering to do.  Anything that helps speed posering up is helfpul afterall.
Love esther

*If you snooze you lose? that's not a very nice attitude. 
**
*That's not an attitude. It's the reality, now that announcements are against the rules.

Anyone who can't take a few minutes to check the other markets probably doesn't have the time for Renderosity either.*

 Hey I sometimes spot sales that other people here are happy to find out about and vice versa.  
Anyway it may not always be against the rules.  Rules can be changed if enough people are unhappy about things and of course if it doesn't end up costing anything to renderosity.
I have enough time for renderosity and daz but not necessarily every poser store out there.
well I will miss these posts - that is for sure.
Love esther

Not trying to be a smart-mouth or antagonize anyone, but should I be scouting out other sites to find the usual Christmas freebie announcements that various sites normally post this time of year? A lot of the sites being in languages I don't understand, the links are essential in finding these.

Quote - Not trying to be a smart-mouth or antagonize anyone, but should I be scouting out other sites to find the usual Christmas freebie announcements that various sites normally post this time of year? A lot of the sites being in languages I don't understand, the links are essential in finding these.

As always, that's completely up to you.  However, if you check the Freestuff forum, you may find the same threads here at Renderosity.  (link available in this forum header)

My suggestion, if you know you want something, you could IM the vendor and ask them if it will be on sale?  Many do that to me....I tell them.  Unfortunatley, you may just have to take the time to look and ask the vendor.  Sharen

 we won't find the sales that way though.

I just worked out why this may be much more important to some than others.  If you just use poser to make a still one off render of something, you might think, hmmm what to  I have in my runtime.  Ah a chair, and a street scene and a whatever.

However I am trying to make a comic and have the whole novel and a couple of sequels already, so I need to find all the particular things for putting in the scene eg like an airline intererior (of which there was a great one at a different website just recently for example).  It really is a whole different kettle of fish when you want to make a scene that has to have certain things in it than if you just want to make a more random sort of pic where you can just take or leave certain features in a scene.

Love esther

Quote - For the rest, if you snooze, you lose, but what you don't know can't hurt you.

... and that is a prime example of the NON-community attitude that everybody is concerned will prevail based on the enforcement of this policy.

UA

 It does seem kind of rough I have to agree.
We all use poser in different ways, and the way I use it, I find various announcements very useful.
Love esther

Now I'm even more confused. Can, say a French site, post links to their holiday giveaways in the Free Stuff forum or not? As hard as I'm trying to not question authority or tread on any toes, I get the feeling that questions are not welcome. hmm... maybe I'm not, either.

Quote - Now I'm even more confused. Can, say a French site, post links to their holiday giveaways in the Free Stuff forum or not? As hard as I'm trying to not question authority or tread on any toes, I get the feeling that questions are not welcome. hmm... maybe I'm not, either.

There's no reason they shouldn't, and I don't know why being French should come into play.  There's a ginormous thread in the freestuff forum about Japanese freebies.  If you're posting your holiday or advent style freebies, I say the more the merrier.  That being said, you may want to clarify with the freestuff forum staff.

These are the interpretation of the current rules at present as I understand them:-

you can post announcements of free stuff (even if this is a link to another website) in the free stuff forums. (But not in the poser forum)

You can post announcements of sales in the product showcase forum - only if you are the merchant.

You cannot post announcements about offsite sales or products anywhere in renderosity if you're not a vendor.

You can answer a question with an appropriate offsite link in the poser forum if someone in the poserforum asks.

Hope this info is helpful to everyone.
Love esther

PS This means that if stonemason makes a really nice thingy at a certain website, and you are totally blown away by how awsome it is, you may not link to it.
I am not sure if you are allowed to say "I saw this awsome thing at daz" without posting a link, but I think this too is against the rules as I understand them.

.*.. and that is a prime example of the NON-community attitude that everybody is concerned will prevail based on the enforcement of this policy. *

Glad I finnally met the spokesman for "everyone." I just wish everyone made sense. 

well, anyway, good news, esther!  i daresay they're gonna re-examine this policy,
as (for now at least) they're only enforcing it in the poser forum.  they're still allowing
ads for daz items to be posted in the carrara forum, which is o.k. with me, but selective
enforcement is, in effect, non-enforcement IMVHO. I still stand by my original scheme
whereby they institute a pay-per-click deal with these other sites.  said scheme allowed
google to crush microsoft and yahoo re: search engines, so there must be something to it.

The problem with the product showcase is that it's the equivalent of watching the Home Shopping Network. It's wall-to-wall advertising.

The problem with the freebie forum is that it's mostly a repeat of what's in freestuff. When I have more free time, I'd rather visit Faeriewylde''s gifts forum to look for other freebies.

That's why I don't visit those two forums.

There's always a fine line between allowing the community to post about special sales and cool freebies they find versus disrupting the normal flow of conversations. There's also a fine line between moderation and over-moderation. Nobody wants to see this forum become overwhelmed by commercial posts. At the same time, there ought to be some room for forum members to talk about cool sales, freebies, and products in the forum. I couldn't say how much is too much. It's sort of like OT posts. I've seen forums overrun by posters that forgot what the subject of the forum was about and ruin the forum. OT topics are, to some degree allowed or tolerated in this forum. There are no absolute rules being applied to OT posts. If they start getting out of control, moderation becomes necessary. Maybe the same sort of fuzzy logic ought to be applied to posts about sales or freebies. The preference is to have hard and fast rules so that there is no question about what is allowed. That's not always possible.

This is a community forum for Poser. Poser is not a standalone product and relies on outside content, not provided by the program, to be fully useful. It's an awkward choice to not allow discussions of such content in the forum. Take that away and this becomes a tech support forum. Open up a Poser tech support forum and don't allow any tech issues to be posted here and this is going to be a fairly empty forum.

I don't want this forum to be overcrowded by commercial posts or freebie posts, but I like knowing about great sales and cool freebie finds. Right now, Poser users can buy Wardrobe Wizard for $30 (half price) because a store is offering a Black Friday 50% off coupon for an entire order. That store has never had that good a sale before, so it's news that ought to be allowed here. I wouldn't want to see constant posts about DAZ sales because there isn't a time when they don't have some kind of sale. Even with DAZ, every now and then they have a sale that's a lot better than their regular sales. I'd like to know about those because they tend to be very short duration sales.

I wish I could offer hard and fast rules about what ought to apply, but I can't. I've had to make those types of decisions in forums I moderate or used to moderate. I've found that I have to be unfair when I moderate a group because I apply a lighter hand moderating some community members than I do others. Some community members are better than others and I'm more liberal with productive members than I am with others that tend to be a little disruptive. I want to encourage and keep productive members. If such members have an off day where they make a questionable post, I'm more likely to leave their post than if it comes from a member that is a moderate nuisance. If a nuisance poster posts a similar message, I'll probably delete it. if the nuisance poster gets upset from moderation and leaves, I don't care. I don't like removing members who aren't outright violating rules, but there are some people with naturally abrasive personalities that I'm always on the borderline to delete. I will delete somebody whose first post is an ad or an attack on another member. There's no reason to be patient with everybody. I've found out the hard way that coddling an abrasive member only emboldens that person and allows that person to be overly disruptive in the group. I won't ever be a completely fair moderator. There isn't any reason to be completely fair. It's not entirely fair to ban a person with a personality disorder that they cannot always control. It's also not fair to allow a forum to be constantly disrupted by such people.

I'm becoming worried that moderation here is starting to hit a point where posts, that would be of benefit to the Poser community, are no longer allowed in the Poser forum. Things are getting bad when it's not appropriate to have a thread here about Christmas freebies. I understand that it's allowed in the freebie forum, but I rarely visit that forum. I like the one at Faeriewylde better. With the internet, it doesn't take me any more work to go to that freebie forum than it does to visit the one here. At the moment, the Poser forum here is the only one I visit daily. My preference is to find everything I want to read in this one forum. If the rules prevent me finding the information I want to see in this forum and I have to click elsewhere at Renderosity for that information, there's no guarantee I'll go to there. In most cases, I probably will go to another site. I can only speak for myself and my web surfing habits.

It's really important for the moderators here to pay attention to what members, like Acadia, are saying. Acadia is the kind of helpful person that any Poser community would be glad to have. It's not a good thing that she's getting frustrated with rules she doesn't like and going elsewhere to participate in another community that is more to her liking.

While I don't want this forum to be overly cluttered with ads and freebie notices, I'm not sure that I want it to just be a technical support forum. Being kept informed on what good content is out there, and the best prices and places to find them, is every bit as important as the technical aspects of Poser. It is impossible to do the best Poser artwork without being knowledgeable in both.

I do understand what you are saying and some of the things you've said are spot on.. Especially about the over run of commercial postings and even more of the freebies that aren't uploaded in our freestuff area.   While being helpful is a good thing sometimes too much of a good thing really begins to hurt the site as a whole.  Its a very very fine line and its a difficult task coming up with a solution that is beneficial for everyone including the business which is what keeps us able to have all the free features and such that we have.

I am going to bring up the points mentioned here and see what we can do but I hope that everyone can understand that regardless there will have to be some type of limit or line to draw...there is going to have to be. Sometimes I feel (this is a personal opinion) that its like the old saying "give an inch and they will take a mile" type of thing. Its unfortunate but an honest opinion.

I appreciate your patience to give us time to discuss this and see where we land.

Regards,
Stacey

I for one am glad to have read this thread.

Frankly, I don't care about who posts, or what -- commercial or off-topic or otherwise. I just don't like that Renderosity doesn't seem (to me) to be quite the friendly and intelligent place it once did.

And though I haven't said much, I suppose I have been privately blaming the moderators for it.

I have been feeling, for a while, that the moderators were being too much of a pain, not just on this topic, but when it comes to OT threads as well -- which I am almost afraid to participate in these days.

In any case, I think I now better understand some of the difficulty, i.e., the fine line, and as such from now on I will make an effort to think twice before I blame the moderators, privately or otherwise.

I do very much hope, though, that something can be done to restore some of the friendliness and intelligence which seem now to be in somewhat shorter supply here than they once were ...

Maybe instead of 'moderators' I should have used the term 'administrators' ...

I sort of believe in the old adage, "give an inch and they will take a mile". I don't wholly subscribe to it. It kind of goes back to my feeling that not all posters ought to be moderated the same way. I'll always moderate new posters, or posters who are mostly complainers, more than the best, and most productive, members of a forum. That's sometimes going to result in the complaint, "if he can do it, why can't I do it?" The answer is that the poster, I allowed, earned the right to post more freely. That extra freedom doesn't mean that a "star" member has infinite privileges.

I actually had one forum where one of the members was fairly productive in starting and participating in conversations, but was also mildly combative in discussions. Things hadn't gotten nasty enough that I thought there was any reason to intercede for the longest time. Eventually, this poster started telling other members what they could and couldn't do in the forum. Other members, that I valued far more than this one individual, started commenting on this and I had to publicly rebuke this poster and provide a friendly reminder that I was the forum owner and moderator and was the only one that had both figurative and literal control over the forum. That person didn't care for being told he wasn't in charge and left. That was fine because his participation had shifted over time from useful to being a nuisance.

I wholly understand that I'm only a member here and have no authority other than to suggest things. If I don't like how things are run here, I can always find another Poser community to interact with. I don't think that the situation here has hit that point, but there are a few rocky areas that need to be smoothed over.

Although there are some people that, given an inch, will take the whole mile, most people aren't like that. Most people will be happy with the inch. Not giving people an inch, when all they want is an inch, sets up an unfriendly environment. It's usually not too hard to figure out which are which and apply the appropriate level of moderation when needed. It won't always be fair moderation, but it will be judiciously exercised where needed. Moderating a forum is always tricky because there's a desire to keep everybody reasonably on topic, in a respectful fashion, within a forum while allowing discussions to be open and free. It's hard to find the right balance between the two.

I'm not sure how Renderosity can best balance its business needs versus its community. To some extent, the two needs don't always mesh well. Overall, I don't think that the business side ought to dictate how the community side runs. When a store opens up a community, they have to live with the reality that the community is not always going to agree with what the store wants. If a store doesn't like that, then it ought not create a community forum.

Since a Poser community relies on freebie and purchased content to create Poser art, restrictions on discussing those things aren't going to be appreciated. Poser users are interested in finding the best prices on the best products and, if the Renderosity marketplace isn't delivering on that, the marketplace is going to lose business. I can appreciate that Renderosity doesn't want to lose business. Is the problem that posters are taking business away from Renderosity or that Renderosity isn't doing more to keep that business?

No matter what anybody thinks about DAZ, it's hard not to give them credit for aggressively marketing their products and constantly trying new things to get customers to buy from their store. All the other Poser stores put together don't approach the effort DAZ puts into selling their content. DAZ's efforts don't simply help in selling more product. Those efforts are drawing away some of the best content creators from other stores that used to exclusively sell through those stores.

I look at Renderosity, and other Poser stores, and they're frankly not doing much to combat the business they're losing. Trying to restrict conversations in the forum isn't the solution. Feel free to delete posts by people marketing their own products. I'm less comfortable being told that I shouldn't share a bargain I find at another site. If other Poser stores have better deals than Renderosity, then Renderosity needs to find a way to provide even better deals. That's easier said than done. It's ultimately where the real solution lies. I might be wrong, but wasn't Renderosity the biggest Poser marketplace a little more than half a dozen years ago? If it wasn't, it was probably commanding a larger share of the market than it currently has.