One of the supposed principles of the Internet as a system is that you don't need to store files locally, you can get what you want when you need it. It doesn't work with respect to Poser. There were some files recently that I had seen before on a particular site which I now find would be useful to me. But when I go to download them - they've all been pulled off the site. The moral one has to draw is that if you see a site with good material on it, download EVERYTHING whether you need it or not, because otherwise, when you DO need it, it won't be there anymore. But of course, if you do this, and particularly if everyone does it, the site gets hit so badly it gets pulled all the sooner. It's like "prisoner's dilemma", really. Of course, being able to access other people's work for free is a privilege not a right, and privileges can be withdrawn. That's fair enough. But the instability of popular sites does encourage a "grab everything now" approach and life would be easier all round if this were not so.

Or even here at Renderosity in freestuff, many items are only available for a short time before the server (usually yahoo or something is blocked) Afterwards, the item may or may not ever be available again, and you see comments left by others saying "site blocked" or Couldn't download :( If you pass by and say "Oh, I will get it later." too many times it turns out that you never get it at all. (Or it turns up in the shop for sale!)

Even more frustrating is when a site disappears, comes back as a subscription site, and you still can't get the stuff that used to be there, cos its an all new site and the old stuff you wanted is gone, presumably for ever.

I know, I've been trying to get a dress by Bolnog, that was featured here a while back. I think someone referred to it as the "Valentino" dress. A black dress with an elaborate, art-deco type, form following,pattern that looked like complicated draping. I don't know if snyone knows what I'm talking about. But I really liked it, and have been trying for ages to get it. I missed it when it was available. I'm hoping it will be possible to find it again. Bolnog's been having a lot of problem's with his site, recently.

Chohole. Has it occurred to you to mail the owners of the subscription site and ask them if you can have certain files - assuming you know what it is you want. On the other hand, if you mean Poserworld/Fairywoods. ALL of Steve's old files are available in three cd collections. So they're not gone for ever at all.

I for one usually download with the future in mind. I have had 2 websites that offered free stuff get shut down, and my one server is having troubles so I can't offer through that server. Now that I have a new server I have new free stuff I intend to distribute so I have not put up the old stuff. I partialy haven't put up the old stuff becuase the quality is vary poor compared to what I do now, and since I sell some of my stuff I don't want people thinking the stuff I sell is of the same quality as the stuff I used to give a way. Though the free stuff still won't be as good as the stuff I sell, I just can't afford to invest the same amount of time :( Deimos.

No offense, but the "download first and think later" approach is one of the prime reasons Poser freestuff sites get closed down these days. Most of them are on a "bandwidth budget" and the grab-it-all-NOW downloaders overrun that budget in no time at all.

Thip--I don't take any offense, but do feel stuck in the middle. If I don't get it, sure as the world I'll want or need it for either a project I'm working on or someone else's I'd like to load. If I do get everything I can find, I feel really guilty for gobbling bandwidth. I never d/led Vickie stuff, swearing I'd never buy her. Now I have her, and wish I had some of the items I passed on. I'm doing the same with the Daz kiddies now. Hmmm...gotta go download a bunch of stuff... Seriously though. I think part of my reason for grabbing stuff is that I know no one else here (me included) will redistribute items. Sites like Bbay and Daz (the largest, but not only sites) have free downloads of the week, and it's "snooze ya lose". I accept that they don't want people passing them along, I paid my membership at Bbay, and think others should to. So how do we deal with this? Is there an answer? GrayMare

Grab and go ....... it won't be there when you want it. Particularly free stuff

It's a fact of human nature that people will grab and hoard when they perceive scarcity or potential shortages. This is physically different on the net because there's never a shortage of actual material; bits don't come from mines or wells. But the result is the same. Seems like an opportunity for somebody to play the role of "antique store" or "surplus store". Such a store would make a contract with each popular creator or source website, paying the source an agreed-on price for one copy of every available product, on condition that the surplus dealer will be able to sell the products only AFTER the original dealer stops carrying it. This would have two good results: products would remain available, and (if the surplus stores become well-known and trusted) customers would then feel confident that products would be available later, and therefore would be less inclined to grab and hoard.

Another possibility would be a sort of Poser-Gnutella, and promote distributed file sharing to take the weight off one server. One would need to convince the artists that this was in their best interests, of course.

Hi, This always suprises me, I've known of a tool for a few years, it's called "hotline" (www.bigredh.com for details) but even hardened internet addicts don't seem to know about it. There are several hotline servers out there that carry 3D stuff, some with poser specific stuff, some not. Either way, it's one way to attempt to "keep up" with the ever changing amount of "stuff" out there, and a great way to search for stuff you need. It's also not part of the "regular" internet, (it uses a proprietery protocol on the back of TCP/IP) the servers are run mostly of DSL cable modems and the like, and are far more like the "original" internet of 1994-96 in flavour, (which is a refreshing change to the increasingly clean and corporate internet of today :) You'll certainly be amazed by what you can find, though this may or may not be a good thing depending on how you look at it ;P later jb (and no, I'm not telling you how it works, I always end up doing that... :)

Another problem I have encountered often is some new texture or morph will show up for "so and so's whatnot"...I did not d/l the original whatnot because it just didn't look that great...But Wow, these new textures really look great. Then a search for the original proves fruitless and this makes the textures the same as obsolete.

To Artnik and all the guys could not DL my stuff. Folks, i am changing hosters very often. And with every hoster i have bandwidth problem... :-( I dunno what to do...