I visited Ron Knights' site, and found this message. (Sometimes when I visit, I get an excessive bandwidth message). I hope Ron doesn't mind that I posted this message. He can't come here to speak for himself. "I regret to inform you that the tutorials have been removed due to potential costs related to excessive bandwidth. I am in the process of re-evaluating the direction of this site, and many sections have been removed pending final decisions. At this point I am also facing some other vital personal challenges, and this web site has the lower priority. If things go badly, the site will disapper totally. Thanks to everyone who made this Poser experience bearable for a time, and to those who appreciated the humble offerings I tried to provide. Ron Knights"

But I won't be one of them. Despite all the problems/trouble that seems to surround him he's still done a great job of creating tutorials aimed at complete beginners & that will be a great loss to all the newbies out there.

I second that, c1rcle. How many times have we pointed newbies to Ron Knights for easy tutes? A shame.... mac

I know that I printed out some, so I could refer back to them....I agree with you C1rcle....Sharen

Just to fill in some details: apparently it would cost about $20 a month to support the kind of traffic found on that site. A quick search revealed that a somewhat wimpy computer could be bought with that money (monthly payments over 4 years, ouch), or it could cover some much-needed medical expenses. Add those considerations to the "events of recent months," and you have "the big picture."

Sure he had some good tutorials, but the opening pages of his site included some heavy "editorial" cartoons. Were these examples of his ability or his way of getting back at the sites who had banned him? And if new people were going there for the tutorials, I wonder how many were put off by those cartoons? And if the traffic on the site was go high, why not go get one of those low-cost, high-traffic hosting companies. There are plenty out there- just do a search for them. Or is this message just another attempt at getting sympathy from the community?

Or you might figure a person has every right to do whatever he pleases with his web site. That includes having fun with art and cartoons as well as the tutorials. When you get something for free, you must be willing to put up with whatever "cost" presents itself. This site has been remarkably free of penalties until the costs outweighed the benefits. Oh, and this site was hosted by a low-cost hosting company that basically provided a free ride until the bandwidth became too costly for the patient web host. Now we're back to "economic reality." The truth is most web hosts don't want people who generate high bandwidth because that erodes the web hosts' profit margins. If they keep you, they will charge lots of money. Why should someone pay to give something away?! Now, as to your suspicions, let's see if I get this right: 1.) Someone spends 40+ hours of their personal time doing tutorials to help others, merely so they may "gain sympathy or cause trouble for others?!" Totally Ludicrous.