Quote -

..okay, it was half past midnight and I had four glasses of cheap whiskey, dozens of czech cigarettes and a headache like a mule...

Man, you're supposed to share :P

j/k
Have a great night, Bopper ;)

Thank you, I will, I was just kidding, but when I could I would give a round, like they say in dutch, ( no dutch treat, but this one is on me)

goodnight,

Bopper.

Quote - No offense to the "offended" but
when those two/three extra clicks
become such a burdensome task that it ruins my freebie shopping experience then I Should Qualify for $$Disability$$

I don't consider it as much a burden as I do an irritation. Irritations tend to drive away potential customers, users, members, whatever.

Say, let's shift the scenario a bit: 

Let's say that a neat must-have Animation plugin arrived for D|S. You happily use it for months, and while you wouldn't mind buying a paid-for version of it, the free version works okay as it is and the plugin seems overpriced to you anyway in spite of its usefulness. Suddenly, it changes its behavior. Now, unless you pay a few hundred bucks for it, the free version makes you put up with a few advert popup prompts that you had to click through every time you did anything in D|S with that plugin installed (e.g. save, render, open a file, etc)...

...would you be philosophically okay with that?  Sure, it's their right to do it and all, and maybe you'd buy the thing now, but that's not the question. The question is, would you be okay with that action? 

Quote - not entirely.  I'm not going to go into detail, because it's not my place, but they're running a little shortstaffed at the moment.

edit  this was directed at pengy, sorry I didn't quote.

No worries - I just know that I'd be pissed to no end if I had no time to learn about the thing, then suddenly I have to run out and publicly defend/explain/handle-fallout-from/etc the new policy...

*The question is, would you be okay with that action? *

No, I won't. That's why I don't buy "free" software with nagging screens.

Bopper.

Quote - > Quote - not entirely.  I'm not going to go into detail, because it's not my place, but they're running a little shortstaffed at the moment.

edit  this was directed at pengy, sorry I didn't quote.

No worries - I just know that I'd be pissed to no end if I had no time to learn about the thing, then suddenly I have to run out and publicly defend/explain/handle-fallout-from/etc the new policy...

Actually, I wasn't even aware until it went live how it worked.  The way it's meant to work, it's actually pretty good. 

I mean, for all intents and purposes, the Renderosity-based hosting idea is based in ease of use for everyone...and I was reminded of it today.  I just went to check my freestuff, and for some reason, my hosting is suspended.  I know I paid my bill this month, I have the receipt, so I just raised a big fat hairy via email to my hosting company.  In the meantime, my freestuff is down.  (Not like I have hordes of freestuff.)  Now, I should have noticed that it was down before today, granted.  But, not everyone visits their own site every day.  
Anyway, having Renderosity host the freestuff would eliminate downtime, complaints from people who wanted to download my stuff, and possibly a few other things.

However, like I said before, I, too, agree that it should be a choice, not mandatory.

I like to keep any freebies I do at sharecg. I don't have a website where I can host them. But I find that sharecg is accessible to most people. But I do like to advertise that I have produced a freebie in the hope that people will find it useful

I guess most people feel the same way about freebies.

Anyway, by all means pop over to 3DCommune and put your links to your freebies there. They are happy to have links to offsite freebies. That's probably the main place I will be advertising mine from now on.

Quote "It could be worse: on the DAZ and  CP site, you don't download a free item, but you buy a zero-priced item, so you have to wade through all the buying mumbo-jumbo."

Not even close.  Your trying to compare STORE freebies to COMMUNITY given.

Two complete different things. The only thing that they have in common is price.

Quote -

Say, let's shift the scenario a bit: 

Let's say that a neat must-have Animation plugin arrived for D|S. You happily use it for months, and while you wouldn't mind buying a paid-for version of it, the free version works okay as it is and the plugin seems overpriced to you anyway in spite of its usefulness. Suddenly, it changes its behavior. Now, unless you pay a few hundred bucks for it, the free version makes you put up with a few **advert popup prompts that you had to click through every time you did anything in D|S with that plugin installed (e.g. save, render, open a file, etc)...
**
...would you be philosophically okay with that?  Sure, it's their right to do it and all, and maybe you'd buy the thing now, but that's not the question. The question is, would you be okay with that action? 

Hi  I sorry but
your comparison is not relevant for many reasons.
Primarily Because in the  Draconian scenario you describe:"(click through every time you did anything in D|S with that plugin installed (e.g. save, render, open a file, etc)"

The  "must have" plugin now adversely effects
o core functionality of the Entire program in a Global fashion

Two extra mouse clicks in a segregated section
of renderosity.com  ,that I chose to visit, does NOT affect the core functionality of the site at large( forums,Sitemail, filelocker, my personal vender control room etc etc.)

Cheers

It's the overkill that's aggravating. One extra page wasn't enough they had to do two. Why not just cram the extra ad on the second page. I can see the mercenary logic of putting the ads before the download link but why buty it even further under a vertical line of comments complete with space hogging avatars? 3DCommune has a second page as well but the ads are confined to the left frame and the top banner and the comments are under the download. That's more reasonable.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2779940&page=5#message_3507083

Attached Link: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/6512

They tried that before (Renda was sprung on an unsuspecting world in June).

Quote - This was done by admin and the programmers, not the freestuff staff.  The staff, in general, heard about this roughly 2 hours before y'all.

See attached link.

What's Renda?
Sounds familiar, like it's something I should know, but I can't place it.

Quote - What's Renda?
Sounds familiar, like it's something I should know, but I can't place it.

the fouled up human figure released by rendo - her code was infact V3's.

Quote -
Why not just cram the extra ad on the second page. I can see the mercenary logic of putting the ads before the download link but why buty it even further under a vertical line of comments complete with space hogging avatars?

Oh, it's the ads that are a problem?
I don't even see them, not a single one. Adblock Plus, best thing that ever happened to Firefox and the internet in general. Between that and FlashBlock, that is.

Quote -
the fouled up human figure released by rendo - her code was infact V3's.

You're kidding me. Oh man, I'd love to hear that story. :-D

Quote -

Oh, it's the ads that are a problem?
I don't even see them, not a single one. Adblock Plus, best thing that ever happened to Firefox and the internet in general. Between that and FlashBlock, that is.

Quoted for Agreement
I have use adblock Plus since Firefox introduced it.
I would not go online without it!!!

Cheers

Quote - > Quote -

the fouled up human figure released by rendo - her code was infact V3's.

You're kidding me. Oh man, I'd love to hear that story. :-D

 http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2318729&page=1 enjoy!

Oh man, Kaibach, that's cruel - I've got work to do, now I'm not gonna get anything done. ;-)

 revisiting the Renda thread with ill-hidden glee

Meh. Small improvements.. now Vendors only see their own things advertized.. I guess that's always something. 

But I STILL wanted people to come to MY site... Guess what: I'm not SELLING anything from there.. The closest to a store is the link to my store here. But I like the hits. It makes me feel speshul! L Now.. I won't get any hits on my own site.. And I do have other things than freebies there, like a few tutorials and other randomness.. and who's going to see them now where there's no reason to go there in the first place?

And yes, I know all my previous 232 freebies are still linked to my own site. But now my site opens in a teeny weeny window that won't allow people to navigate, let alone FIND my freebies :(  So I suppose they'll feel scammed now.. coming to a weird, partially hidden splash page after all the clicking. And I can't even change the link, because then I'd have to upload the stuff all over again... and it's not like I have all the zips just lying here and waiting for that.. they're ARCHIVED! On DVDs.

Also the naming MUST be changed. I always tend to call my free stuff items something meaningfull, now that's for naught.

Oh and Sean... Anything I download that isn't zipped with a Runtime folder as the first thing.. goes right in my recycling bin. My life is too short to unzip everything to dummy runtimes first. I want to be able to drag my zips to the Poser folder and be done with it. I am pretty sure I'm not the only ione! (that's why the Market Place makes this mandatory, and that's what ReadMe files are for - to tell people what's in the zip. I don't need an extra layer of folders to tell me that this is new Materials for V4's bikini or whatever - quite the contrary.

Quote - > Quote - The staff, in general, heard about this roughly 2 hours before y'all.

Ouch. You do know that considering this wasn't a crisis that precipitated the change, the short notice is a classic sign of gross mismanagement, right? 

If nothing else it might be good material for a poser news web site wouldn't it spark chaser...

"FreeStuff providers can still link to their sites (for more info and additional images) by using html in the “notes” area " That explains the one item with a direct link on page 2, the loophole that will probably be closed if people start using it.

"I don't even see them, not a single one. Adblock Plus..." 

Neither do I as I stated previously. The point is the design not how it can be circumvented - and many people will block them which shows the futility of ad bloat, anyone can use an ad blocker. For that matter, with a bit of client side programming skill, the whole lot can be dispensed with. That's not an option most people have. It's unfortunate because some good ideas like comments, listing other free items by the uploader and hosting (if optional) come wrapped in this rather lame package. I probably would not have even blocked the ads had they not been positioned as a speedbump on the way to what I clicked on the thing for in the first place. But enough about ad blocking before they start requiring all downloads via a a Rendo branded toolbar that displays a 30 second ad before you can get anything.

"Anything I download that isn't zipped with a Runtime folder as the first thing.. goes right in my recycling bin"

:: shrug ::  I archive like a madwoman, so for me, having a name is essential. I keep my RTs lean and simple; everything else gets moved to storage. Having a folder name that tells me what's inside is essential. And frankly I cant imagine folks archiving any other way.

And after the debacle at DAZ over installers that no longer work in OSX, I wont archive a zip file without unpacking. No way. No how.

Quote - Actually, the "Freebie Posting Policy" was the creation of a freestuff forum.  At the request of site members.  Because ALL of the forums (not just the Poser forum, which isn't the center of the universe, by golly) were getting spammed with freestuff announcements, both by creators and non-creators alike.  No one said ANYTHING about not being able to post off-site freestuff, since, well, until today, all freestuff HAD to be offsite.
The only thing we said was that freestuff announcements had to be made in the freestuff forum.  A heads up could be made here, in this forum (or whatever forum the free stuff was relevant to), but the announcement and information was to be posted in the freestuff forum. 

I know this JenX, But I also know at the beginning it wasn't clear to a lot of people that we could still post off site freebie links and I'm guessing quite a few people walked away with that thinking still in their heads as the post you were replying to so clearly showed. Not everyone got the whole message.

with that, I'm going to bed ... happy clicking

Quote - > Quote - Actually, the "Freebie Posting Policy" was the creation of a freestuff forum.  At the request of site members.  Because ALL of the forums (not just the Poser forum, which isn't the center of the universe, by golly) were getting spammed with freestuff announcements, both by creators and non-creators alike.  No one said ANYTHING about not being able to post off-site freestuff, since, well, until today, all freestuff HAD to be offsite.

The only thing we said was that freestuff announcements had to be made in the freestuff forum.  A heads up could be made here, in this forum (or whatever forum the free stuff was relevant to), but the announcement and information was to be posted in the freestuff forum. 

I know this JenX, But I also know at the beginning it wasn't clear to a lot of people that we could still post off site freebie links and I'm guessing quite a few people walked away with that thinking still in their heads as the post you were replying to so clearly showed. Not everyone got the whole message.

I know this is going to sound really mean, but how do you misinterpret "You can't post ANY advertising threads (including freestuff announcements) in the not-freestuff forums anymore" to mean "You can't post ANY OFFSITE LINKS EVER"?   Sure, there were some things we were strict on, and some we went too far on, but we even clarified.
This sounds really mean, even coming out of my head, but I'm so totally tired of repeating myself and talking down misinformation.  Why is it that SO MANY PEOPLE in this community interpret things that AREN'T EVEN THERE?  I hate going through galleries, and reading people's image descriptions that say "Oh, I tagged this for nudity, even though she's dressed head-to-to.  You never know! I've been hit with that one before!"...then going to check their member record, and there's NOTHING ON IT.  NO warnings for anything.  But, the comments are all "Damn the Man!!" 
We don't have to do anything to make us look bad.  You all do it for us.  And it sucks, because no one listens when we say "wait, back up.  WHAT?  No, that's not even right."

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Actually, the "Freebie Posting Policy" was the creation of a freestuff forum.  At the request of site members.  Because ALL of the forums (not just the Poser forum, which isn't the center of the universe, by golly) were getting spammed with freestuff announcements, both by creators and non-creators alike.  No one said ANYTHING about not being able to post off-site freestuff, since, well, until today, all freestuff HAD to be offsite.

The only thing we said was that freestuff announcements had to be made in the freestuff forum.  A heads up could be made here, in this forum (or whatever forum the free stuff was relevant to), but the announcement and information was to be posted in the freestuff forum. 

I know this JenX, But I also know at the beginning it wasn't clear to a lot of people that we could still post off site freebie links and I'm guessing quite a few people walked away with that thinking still in their heads as the post you were replying to so clearly showed. Not everyone got the whole message.

I know this is going to sound really mean, but how do you misinterpret "You can't post ANY advertising threads (including freestuff announcements) in the not-freestuff forums anymore" to mean "You can't post ANY OFFSITE LINKS EVER"?   Sure, there were some things we were strict on, and some we went too far on, but we even clarified.
This sounds really mean, even coming out of my head, but I'm so totally tired of repeating myself and talking down misinformation.  Why is it that SO MANY PEOPLE in this community interpret things that AREN'T EVEN THERE?  I hate going through galleries, and reading people's image descriptions that say "Oh, I tagged this for nudity, even though she's dressed head-to-to.  You never know! I've been hit with that one before!"...then going to check their member record, and there's NOTHING ON IT.  NO warnings for anything.  But, the comments are all "Damn the Man!!" 
We don't have to do anything to make us look bad.  You all do it for us.  And it sucks, because no one listens when we say "wait, back up.  WHAT?  No, that's not even right."

Jen, Jen Jen... I DON"T! But I do remember all the heated threads at the time and posts from people who did. All I'm saying is some of them apparently never got it through their heads. Sheesh! I'm on your side here. I'm just saying some people never got the posting rules through their little pin heads.

Sorry, I didn't mean to vent ON you...just...my response grew.  

I'm just tired that most of the staff here are painted as the bad guy because people don't want to read.

I don't blame you. I'd be a frazzle too if I had to put up with half the shit you guys do. Glad I don't have to. REALLY GLAD! ;) Have a nice weekend!

Ok so we have had the smoke and mirror treatment , the token Mod dumby spit , now all we need is the post from a PR person telling us that "moving forward" it will all be better for us and we will save money  :P

cheers

what's a "dumby spit"?

And we don't have any PR folks. I have already, about 2 pages ago, linked to where our VP posted, indicating that she's listening, and working on it.

Working on it shouldn't take much, if you've got Bondware running on CVS, subversion, or even MS SourceSafe handy... s'called a version roll-back. ;)

Sorry - I had to :p

I get it though - they have to retreat to a huddle, and come up with a way to push the ads without alienating the forumites and freebie hunters. Me, no makey - I can sit back and watch. :)

I liked the nonsense justification "we have to pay for the service somehow, would you prefer site usage fees?"

We have to pay for the service that we are being forced to use for new Renderosity-listed freebies (except in the Free stuff Forum, which isn't really a list, but since it's like a list, wtf?? Maybe this was the reasoning process. 

A: We could have a server to host freebies...
B: Yeah, but that would cost money.
A: What if we load it with pages of advertisements for Renderosity products?
B: People with slow connections would avoid Renderosity-hosted freebies.
A: Ok, what if we made it mandatory for every new freebie in the main listing to be hosted on the Renderosity server?
B: Ok, that might work. This recession is costing us and we need to sell now!!. Go for it. 

Quote - Working on it shouldn't take much, if you've got Bondware running on CVS, subversion, or even MS SourceSafe handy... s'called a version roll-back. ;)

Sorry - I had to :p

Bad Pengy! Bad!
They obviously use Bazaar :ohmy:

>> "Why is it that SO MANY PEOPLE in this community interpret things that AREN'T EVEN THERE?"

Because it's obvious that you guys want to UNPLUG GRANDMA... :)

People see what they want to see, Jen. Way of the universe, Poser or otherwise.

Quote -
revisiting the Renda thread with ill-hidden glee

I found it dull and anticlimactic.
I signed out with an inexplicable urge for popcorn.
Tim's page he linked to in the very last page before it was locked is gone, so I don't know how it was resolved.

it's still there
take the number off the end of the link and put it on a rendo forum link
the forums changed format since the threads were made

oh and er...Mike? you posted in the resolution thread actually....

Not sure what you mean by "take the number off the end of the link and put it on a rendo forum link"

I posted?
Well I forget far more than I remember. ;-)

for any old link from before the forums changed over, all you need to do is copy the end number of the link then put that onto a current forum link.

eg: this thread is http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2779898 - you replace the 2779898 with the number of the old link

Ah I gotcha, thanks.

Quote - I liked the nonsense justification "we have to pay for the service somehow, would you prefer site usage fees?"

IMHO, Bobby was just airing his frustration.  He doesn't speak for the Admin as to WHY things were done the way they were done. 

None of us know the hows and whys right now.  I'm sure that helping to pay for the bandwidth that is inevitably going to be used was a PART of it, but not the whole thing.  Yes, I agree, sometimes, our marketing staff goes a bit overboard with advertising, but it's not to spite you guys.  It's not like Jason, Debbie, and Preston sit in their offices with little devil's horns and pitchforks and come up with new ways to piss off the Poser forum.  They're office jocks.  They do what they think will be a great idea from feedback from a ton of customers.  One of the feedback items that we get on a regular basis here is "I can't download freebie X that's been in the freestuff a week.  What do I do?"  Our best answer is to contact the creator, and wait.  That's more than likely where the idea for us to host the freebies (something that's been asked for for YEARS by the general membership) came from.  I think they were just overzealous when they made it mandatory.  And, you know what?  I'm sure that something OTHER than editing the HTML will be worked out.  The Admin team isn't stupid, they know when they've pissed you off.  They also know when it's legit, and when people are complaining just because it's awesome to complain.  They know you guys are legitimately upset by this, and they ARE looking into it.  Just like it took a while to implement this and get it going, it will take a little bit to fix.

good morning :)

Site usage fees .. now that would go over just sportin, wouldn't it ?

Again, we're not going to have site usage fees.  I don't know why Bobby said anything about them in the thread in the freestuff forum, but we ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE THEM.  Period.

you know. for the freestuff a simple 'report dead link' button would have solved a lot....

Not as much as you think.  We have report links for the galleries.  About 4 people use them, from what I see in the TOS report log.  The rest of the "complaints" we get via email or sitemail.

passes Jen a cattleprod

we can fix that....

use the complaints button.
No! I prefer to emaiAZZZZZPPPPTTTT* you zapped me!
yes. use the complaints button.
butZZPPPPPPTTTTTTT AAAaooook! it'll use it! I'll use it!

LOL, if only.  We actually got a LOT of requests for a report button, and then, the week it was implemented, it was awesome, we got some good feedback...and then it slid.  We get a few legit reports, and then a lot of weird things.  For some reason, a LOT of members think that's the way to give feedback to the artist...

Quote -
I mean, for all intents and purposes, the Renderosity-based hosting idea is based in ease of use for everyone...

I don't doubt their intentions were good... I am equally sure that they do want to maximize their income as well. Note that the latter is not a sin in any sense - they're a business, and it's natural for any business to want to increase income.

Me, I would have gotten community input before anyone wrote so much as a single line of php towards that end. They would likely have gotten a lot of better ideas as to implementation if they did, and at least everyone would know beforehand.

Yep, I'm well aware of how one's own host can choke up. My favorite? In 2005, my (now) ex-wife maxed out the Amex out of spite, and the automated hosting payment (among many other, more vital bill payments) bounced before I knew what happened. OTOH, that was my problem, not RO's. I don't expect them to 'save' me from problems on my end with my own (well, used to be) posted freebies.  Nowadays, shareCG among others does a fairly excellent job of hosting stuff.

Back to the ads and the multiple click-throughs... I mean, c'mon, someone wasn't thinking this one through. It's like the marketing folks wrote the code themselves, and left the web designers and community out in the cold.

If it was new code in the marketplace, I'm very sure everyone at RO would make the distance between product pages and checkout as short as humanly and technically possible. And yet in the Free Stuff section, a (if not the) major consumer draw for the site, they take the opposite tack? Not smart.

BTW, I was only half-joking about the download wait timer for non-payers thingy... I'm almost certain that one was tossed around in the meetings more than once.