Have you all noticed that freestuff contributions have plummeted since Renderosity changed the rules about posting links to outside freebies? I check the Freestuff area at least once a week, and I've noticed practically NO new items have been uploaded in MONTHS since the new rules went into effect. Just saying.... Renderosity needs to do an about-face on this, IMO.

Sorry, IMO you should think about new glasses. Nearly daily we have new stuff and in April up to now we have 54 Freebies, is that nothing?

Actually, not that many since March 15, when Corvas uploaded his "Low Level of Detail for M4" add-on to the Freestuff section....before Rendo changed the rules, there were a lot more freebies uploaded on a daily basis.

I understand your statement Anim8dtoon but there still is a steady flow of free items still being uploaded we do sometimes see some drops during especially around holidays like X-mas, New Years and just recently Easter and yes perhaps there has been a small decline since the new rules but it has been steadily growing and we continue to encourage our members to contribute and the new rules are not a hindrance once that is seen I am confident that many of our members will continue to contribute their freebies and more will follow suit as well.

And I would like to thank you for your input

Censorship is not a hindrance. How does that work? IMHO it doesn't because that goes totally against the concept of community and it's that which makes r'oisty works.

A community that's always worked on a simple idea.. content creators create freebies, announce them here, artists come back and bought stuff from the rendo marketplace. But since the new rules came in that's not just happening, if anything product sales are lower than I've ever seen before.

Also consider if creators are posting elsewhere about their freebies, then customers are also looking elsewhere and if they ain't looking here they ain't buying.

OK sure I understand the rationale behind ring-fencing, but if a change like that is counterproductive, then logically should those rules be re-thought?

Hi Anim8dtoon, I am not much of a freebee user, so I don't track the volume, but I believe there was a very good reason for dropping outside links for freebee's: Malware and viruses. The crooks that use Malware and Viruses are getting smarter and faster. The BEST way to keep Renderosity a safe place to cruse around in is to close the door(s).

That was one of the reasons given, but if the outside world has so many scary monsters, then how come banner ads from external advertisers can often be seen at the top of the page?

Also by locking the doors, it's artists like yourself that are missing out on an amazing range of freebies, tutorials. Which 99.9% of the time are nasty free and stored on safe sites.

That is paid advertising, and I will bet big bucks that they have to prove they have firewalls and antivirus / anti malware.

I do not wish to reignite an opinion that was caused several threads to be locked because they became unruly and for the most part inflamed the community in a non productive way. I empathize and accept many of your points of views. The rule change which was talked about and many views were expressed but it was the final decision of management to put the rule in place. Has contributions to the free area dropped of some perhaps but it has also been picking back up as well. I ma happy to see some excellent tutorials and and items being uploaded to the free stuff area. Even with the rule change we still come across some who have tried to circumvent the rules with including links to site that are either commercial, phishing and to sites that are above and beyond against the TOS of any rational site. You may not agree with the current rule but it is place for numerous reasons but largely it is in place to protect our community.

Best regards

Yeah, the "bad, bad viruses" excuse was a real scream. Let me tell ya how many viruses I've caught from a link in the nearly 30 years I've been using a computer. I'll give ya one guess and a hint...it has a zero in it...

There will be not one more freebie from me at this place.

Laurie

Sorry but new rules decided me completly to remove recently all my freebies of here. And I notice I'm not alone in this way from august... And now, to know immediatly if a freebie is for Poser, Daz, Bryce, Vue.... it's impossible. On the previous version of site, it was possible and gave really envy to download things. Now, if I find the same artist and freebies on Sharecg, I go there. And outside freebies could have virus? I believe that renderosity checked what we post in the freebies section?

Now, if you look well freebies here, it's mainly the same artists who propose packs. Otherwise...

We are visiting ideas to boost the freebies so the number of freebies continue to increase and there are good, quality products and tutorials.

The policy was put in place to mainly protect the Community and I am happy to hear neither of you ever received a virus however numerous members have and it is our job to try to protect our members as best as we can.

I am sorry you all feel this way and truly hope you can understand (at least a little) why we stopped outside links being on the items.

Warmest Regards,

Any responsible customer-focused organization which discovered that a link on their site lead to a virus would immediately warn any all other members of the specific danger so that anyone else who had followed the link might check their system for malware and/or delete the download. It would be totally irresponsible to discover a link to malware and then not tell the community about it.

I have NEVER been alerted to such a threat. When I asked for a link to such warnings in the past, the request was completely ignored.

From this I conclude that either (a) the idea that numerous members have gotten viruses from links on Renderosity is a lie concocted to justify an otherwise obviously idiotic policy or (b) it is true and Renderosity is an irresponsible organization that does not really care for the protection of its members.

So, once again to the admin who claimed her son had got a virus from a link on Renderosity: exactly what action did you take to warn all other members who might have downloaded that same file? Please provide a link to the community notification of the danger.

The issue happened a few years back and the item was removed and the Admin was me and it was not a claim as it did happen. Those that know me around the Community and Marketplace know I am far from a liar as there is nothing for me to gain by lying about anything.

It was only 1 time, it was years ago and was handled appropriately right away. This was not because he was my son as it would have been handled the same no matter what. To be honest, it is completely irrelevant for a couple reasons.

Reason number 1 is because as stated before this was NOT the sole reason for making this change. Free items are to follow the same policies as the Marketplace products because even though they are free, they are still products. We do not allow links to outside Marketplaces on products so they were not supposed to be on Freestuff items either. This was a policy that had fallen beneath the cracks with the old Community Manager and Assistant

Reason number 2 is to protect our members the best as we can and that is to be proactive and try to eliminate the potential of harmful links by not allowing them. I brought u the instance with my son just to let people know that harmful links can happen and those who are newer to this world may not know what to look for or do.

I really do not wish to keep going back and forth regarding this as it is an old policy that was not being enforced as it should have been so it really is not anything new.

We absolutely care about our members and we are always trying to think of new ways and new things to do for our members to show them. We know and understand we can not please everyone as that is humanly impossible however we do try to please as many as we possibly can.

Do we make mistakes? Yes, we do as nobody is perfect and we always try to do whatever we can to make it right when we do.

Warmest Regards,

So ... only once. Years ago. With only anecdotal evidence.

Anyway, thank you for acknowledging that it is completely irrelevant.

No, things like this happen weekly, we yesterday had a link to a free tool and the download showed up in 4 of 5 virusscanners as infected so we removed this link to protect our members. Most members don't realise how much time the staff, mostly the unpaid ones, invests, to deliver a good service to the members.

Wait long enough and they'll have less and less "services" for you to work for. A good thing since they aren't paying you.

Laurie

This is how seriously the threat of viruses is taken here. Case in point: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2902047

An offsite link was provided to a product. Rendo member went to download said product and their antivirus program stopped the download due to the site being reported as dangerous. What was the forum moderators advice? - "Can't you override the security software? I'm sure it's just because the site doesn't have certifications."

Maybe it's due to the fact that nearly all staff members know this site nd most of them use the tool made by basicwiz.

Thats like saying my computer is free from viruses now therefore it can never be infected. Sites get hacked, malicious software gets installed, a site that was clean yesterday might be infected today. The link should have been immediately removed, the member should have been advised to trust their antivirus software until the site can be declared safe. If the claims that Rendo are making about the seriousness of the threat of viruses in freebies are to believed then that sort of advice is just reckless.

Jules53757 posted at 10:49PM Tue, 10 May 2016 - #4268176

Maybe it's due to the fact that nearly all staff members know this site nd most of them use the tool made by basicwiz.

If they really did know and really use the tool, they'd know EZMetals was not made by BasicWiz, but by me. These pathetic excuses would be funny if they weren't such a joke.

Anyway, I'm glad the staff enjoy using my EZMetals, even if they don't allow anyone else to find them easily. A bit bloody selfish, but there ya go.

I fell from my chair. Someone wrote "To protect the community". Sure, if you are chasing everybody out? This place will become "super-safe".

tonyvilters posted at 1:08AM Tue, 17 May 2016 - #4268925

I fell from my chair. Someone wrote "To protect the community". Sure, if you are chasing everybody out? This place will become "super-safe".

hehe...ya got that right ;). Let's give KristiS a chance tho and see what happens. She's been around a long time and knows the place. Maybe we'll get what we want eventually. I'll be quietly watching on the sidelines.

Laurie

Reason number 1 is because as stated before this was NOT the sole reason for making this change. Free items are to follow the same policies as the Marketplace products because even though they are free, they are still products.

Wow. You heard it here, folks. Your donations to the free stuff area are PRODUCTS whether you like it or not. That is scary language right there. BTW, I notice that we're still using markdown. There is no excuse for that.

She's been around a long time and knows the place. Maybe we'll get what we want eventually.

Only if the upper management changes their minds, as Lobo stated, it was their decision, and they have already heard all opinions on the matter. In other words, these rules are here to stay, because the execs will never be convinced, even if every one of the admins here at some point were to all decide that it is a horrible idea.

I'm pretty sure you're right and the only way people have to protest is to vote with their feet and their wallets, right? I don't see that happening much, so I guess we're stuck with the silly rules that are now in place. I like the people here. I always liked Kristi..she knows how to schmooze angry people ;). But it's the owners that are killing the place and you're right...there's not much the admin can do about it. So I go back to not participating and just watching. Apparently my "products" were not appreciated by the owners when they were here, so they won't be missed. Only maybe by the "community" the owners espouse to want to cater to. Pfft.

I understand about the no linking to offsite marketplace sites. But my site ONLY have my freebies. And a few links back to ... Rosity... for the few things I stil sell.

So why's that "unsecure"? My site has been up and running for 14 years now. (probably a good thing because at least someone will still remember it)

But I don't feel the same joy in posting freebies here now.

I don't even understand the ban on linking to offsite Marketplace sites to be honest. It smacks of desperation to me. CGBytes puts links to extra items needed for a product they sell right on the product page no matter what site it's from. Even from here! In my mind, that's the right way to go because all stores scratch each other's backs really. But the no linking not even to free sites unless they meet Rendo's "rules" just effectively closes up that little walled garden nice and tight. How can you call that a community? Some might call Guantanamo Bay a community too, but who wants to be there?

Oh, and hi Trekkie...good to still see ya around :D

Laurie

_"Freestuff contributions have plummeted since Rendo changed the rules"

Not entirely true. There are still many new free stuff available. Just because Rendo prohibits exterior links, doesn't mean that freebies are not being made. They are just posted somewhere else. Try sides like sharcg, Daz, Hivewire, cgbytes, etc.

Render on!

If the issue is virii, then why are the admins not checking this before allowing them to be posted? I thought there was some kind of delayed time period between submitting a freebie and actually seeing it on the site: is this not to make sure it's (amoung other things) virus-free? And to that, I see sigs and messages that contain hot links; I gather all those (including my own) are to be scrapped since they might lead to some possible virus? You have products in the MP that occasionally link to the outside world — if, as I assume — those are checked for proper virus protection, then again why not apply the same philosophy to your freestuff?

Seriously, folks, the more one looks at this, the more... uhm... unnecessary it becomes.

Well, you all are giving me second thoughts about submitting to the Free Stuff area. About the Virus thing... I work hard on protecting my computer. I've had to reformat a number of times. I've even gotten philosophical about it. I like a Spring Cleaning.

Anyhow I will ponder the issues.

So with all said and done I've decided to support Renderosity. And plan to upload my freebies here...and I may upload them to other places. But I'm unsure about that at this time.

Thank you so much CatherineTodd as we really appreciate it

Just so you know, there will be a Freebie activity starting the 1st of August

Have a wonderful day,

You're very welcome. However I've taken a glance at the Beta Tester forums. Not a lot of activity there. Should I just upload my Tempest for Sadie and hope for the best? Or can you point me to someone who might test it to see if I've got all the bits and bobs in the right place. Been at a decade plus since I packaged anything up. The only thing that was missing from my old Daz Install (Thank goodness I found that, as they couldn't) is the hair texture which I'm working now as I type this.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks, CT

If you want to send it to Wheatpenny, he will be more than happy to look at everything for you to be sure all is there

Let me know if you need anything further.

Thank you again and have a wonderful day

And also, the Freestuff Coordinators check the new items if they work properly before they approve an item. This cannot substitute a beta testing but will ensure at least a minimum quality of the stuff.