poisinivy opened this issue on Feb 20, 2016 · 87 posts
poisinivy posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 10:18 AM
To all my friend here.
I wanna thank you all for the support & love you have giving me over the many years I have been here at renderosity. But with the recent development of new TOS & no off site linking & Politically correct forum rules. I decided its best I leave renderosity. Because I am anything but Politically correct so it would be just a matter of time before I would violate your stupid rules anyway. So I have pulled all my free 3d content & ani blocks, and zbursh morphs out of rendersoty freebie section.& just left my gallery for now. . I am sorry if this inconvenience any of you members.
I have adored my time here and my friendships I have made. But i feel if I can not link share to my own website or sites I share my work like youtube or facebook.&/or be able to speak freely about the "ALL" things that interest me in 3d whether they be political or anything out side the box of rendersoity TOS then there is no longer reason to come here anymore.
To me Art is the purest form of freedom of expression . which I feel is not longer honored at this web site when renders of Political Satire and off color jokes can be removed because it might hurt someone feelings. or that one person(a moderator) may not like a comment and just say its not being politically correct for the forums & remove it, is going way to far for me to accept. I would post a link to where you could find my new home for my content But that will be against the TOS here so from now on you'll need to GUESS where everyone is keeping there free content. . I am sure it will not matter to some of you or "the I agree with everything Posse" that I have left here. But be assured I am am not the only member that has pulled out our free 3d content because of this new tos rule. Renderosity new rules are just a little to fascist for me to agree with. I am to old to deal with Politically correctness when Art is Expression and sharing of all ideas and opinions, not just the ones you like. . Some art is meant to be thought provoking and something even controversial . which is no longer accepted at this web site and a real shame. If you reply to my comment I will not be replying back. The opinions of those running this site no longer matter to me with it comes to this issue with the politically correct TOS rules. So I am retiring my renderosity account and will no longer be supporting or purchasing any more content from renderosity.
May you all have have a great life here at rendersosity and I will miss you greatly. & even perhaps I will see you in another website that is less restrictive & believe in the freedom of expression of all art forms. So I will not be back until some major changes have happen to bring this community back together like it once was. I do hope the idiot that thought this stupid rule up relies Artist like me are what pay your salary. so take some time to think about that so you don't have to wonder why when your sales have dropped . Take care & God bless. Sincerely Ivy Summers
3D-Mobster posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 10:30 AM
Can't say im surprised :) Did anyone not see this coming? Anyway good luck and btw Daz3d have a list of links to free stuff, maybe you can add a link there as well, at least people will know where to find you.
IceEmpress posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 10:48 AM
Noe that it's the weekend, we are really going to see the **** hit the fan. And since the staff will take the weekend off from dealing with this problem despite it being a highly inappropriate time to do so, if they wait until Monday or Tuesday to listen to the community, by then it will be too late.
Allow me to post something I was going to make a topic about. These points are incomplete, and is based on rebutting arguments that I have seen from more than one admin.
"One of our reasons is to protect users from spammy links and viruses that members post"
Sorry, but this is not a valid argument.
"The other Marketplaces do it too" This claim is highly deceptive, and in Hivewire's case, only a half-truth.
IceEmpress posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 10:49 AM
Part 2. BTW, None of these are anything new, We The Community have mentioned all of these things numerous times and they are being ignored or argued against.
"Just give people instructions on how to find the freebie/tutorial using on-site search (e.g. on ShareCG), Google, or Bing"
In many cases this simply does not work.
"There is no reason for people to upload freebies to other free sites and then post a link here/in Free Stuff. We allow unlimited number of uploads of up to 200 mb per file."
There are many reasons why someone would do this.
wheatpenny posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 11:24 AM Site Admin
Not all of the staff takes the weekend off. I never take off for weekends and holidays.
Jeff
Renderosity Senior Moderator
Hablo español
Ich spreche Deutsch
Je parle français
Mi parolas Esperanton. Ĉu vi?
Lenord posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 1:09 PM
What Wheat says is true not all Mods take weekends off, when I was a Mod I never did either but I know it seemed that way, never understood it because many members only have the weekends to be here. Any way I agree with the sentiments of the membership, always did have members backs first and foremost, one of the reasons I wasn't a more popular member of Staff always bucking the system, I admit I acquiesced on some matters and never felt good or true to myself for it .So that was the reason I quit when I did, I saw the "Revolution" coming knew where it was heading and wanted nothing to do with it, I'm not happy with the direction Rendo took and is still heading, This is no longer my main Home I still come and Post occasionally and check on my friends posts(the ones that are still here) but it's a secondary consideration to come here now and that's a shame because I used to just about live here when Online. Rendo is not a welcoming place like it was before it does not feel like home anymore.....
Remember...No matter where you go there you are
DreaminGirl posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 1:56 PM
Right now I am redownloading all my purchased products for a final backup. Then I will write a letter to all my favourite vendors, explaining why I will not shop from them anymore unless they change brokerage. Then I am done, I will never spend a single dime here anymore. Enough is enough.
Hallowed_Sylph posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 2:28 PM
Renderosity now is time to start paying attention. This is NOT in the best interests of your site, community or business. Why will you not see that and stop this descent into madness before it is too late?
Malysse posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 2:45 PM
OonaTheWild posted at 8:30PM Sat, 20 February 2016 - #4256329
Renderosity now is time to start paying attention. This is NOT in the best interests of your site, community or business. Why will you not see that and stop this descent into madness before it is too late?
Nobody with the power to change anything is paying attention, Oona. They are all in panic mode and have adopted a bunker mentality. Just look through the threads here and see the valid points raised but to which there has either been no response or a trite one. Look at all the pertinent questions asked that have been completely ignored, until such time as it becomes so embarrassing that the thread is locked under some pretense. Speak up and you'll be censored or banned, even if you're a valued vendor and champion of the community, such as happened to 3-DArena just because someone was so insecure that they saw a personal attack where no-one else could.
It's all too late and futile. Best now to just sit back and watch the train wreck happening in slow motion.
hopeandlove posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 3:57 PM
Hi everyone- First and foremost, all of us are working on weekends to ensure everything is being answered/taken care of. You know not see that, but it's the honest truth. We thank you for your dedication to our site and hate to see so many members unhappy with our changes, but please remember that we decided this as a team.
And, I've always told you please feel free to reach out to me with questions/concerns/issues you're having. Just because I may not take the suggestion, does not mean I haven't heard you out or listened to you. I am a great listener, so let's talk.
Thanks.
Hope Kumor
Editor-in-chief of Renderosity Magazine
Malysse posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 4:15 PM
No
DreaminGirl posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 4:27 PM
Hope, you just don't get it, do you..
Everything that needs to be said, has already been said, and promptly ignored. It's not just too late for talking, it has proven to be futile..
IceEmpress posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 4:32 PM
Nothing personal Hope, but I feel that any discussion or concerns I might want to bring to you can and should be discussed in the public view. One reason (or perhaps the main reason) is because any such discussion would be beneficial to the other members of the site, who IMO have a right to hear whatever either of us bring up. The only possible exception being personal issues on your end or mine, which I cannot imagine would come up, esp. since your level of experience (would be different if you were only admin for 4 months or less), age, etc. are not relevant to me (I have not slammed or questioned either, because I take no issue with either of them or any other possible personal issue that I can possibly think of) And while yes, plenty of my discontent, frustration, even hostility is directed at the decisions you have made during this latest issue, far, far more of it is directed towards TPtB. After all, it is not you nor any other forum admin who get the final say on major policies like this, and you most certainly don't get much if any say in their neutering of Prime.
Maybe behind the scenes you are running these concerns by TPtB-- for all I know, you might personally agree with some of our grievances and disagree with some of TPtB's decisions. Problem is, that is not how it looks to us. We have not seen any "I do agree with your point about ____" or "I will run this by the top admin" or anything like that-- which for all I know they do not allow you to say such things-- but that is not how it appears to those of us on the forums, especially when you and a few other admins have been so adamant in your defense of the off-site linking ban. It makes no difference if your hands are tied over making any such responses or not-- the fact is that most people will perceive you to think and act exactly how I have described that you come across, and no amount of benefit of a doubt by me will change that, esp. if my tongue (fingers?) is tied by PM confidentiality.
It might be worth mention that I wonder if perhaps UVDan does not support this decision-- or if he does, is very sad about it-- he has an off-site free programs thread (and IIRC other off-site links stuff as well) and has been (as far as I know) interestingly silent about this. This is merely rhetorical BTW, and I'm not asking for an answer from you or him (unless he wants to)
hopeandlove posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 5:13 PM
Just for the record, the last thing I want is for you guys to hate me. I'm just doing my job and trying to also think about members/staff in-between. I told you before that there are lots of changes going on at once and next time, I'll be sure to space them out and be more mindful of you guys. I apologize for that. Again, if I did not care whatsoever or did not want to listen, I wouldn't be on here trying to answer questions/concerns/issues. But, just like you guys, I have a job to do.
In part, I do get why you're upset. It was too much at one time. But, change is never fun for anyone - including me. I've moved out of my comfort zone and came here with my fiance so we could get a taste of life, experience being on our own and such. It hasn't been easy, but we've both made it work. It's life, right?
Everyone comes from various backgrounds and like I said before, you guys don't know me and unfortunately, I've only had interactions with a few of you from time-to-time. I can tell you're all lovely people! And... I hope that eventually you'll feel the same about me. I've been told by long-time members that since I've stepped in, there have been improvements and whenever something has been broken, let me just tell you, I was right there with you bringing it to the programmers. I've always been around and I will always be around.
Regardless of how you feel about me, just know this: I am a genuinely caring and sweet person. If you don't believe me, I'd urge you to contact the coordinators or moderators. Please do reach out to LPR001, Lobo, Wheatpenny or even 3dfineries, who just became a mod because she's earned the title. Please and thank you.
Hope Kumor
Editor-in-chief of Renderosity Magazine
LaurieA posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 5:23 PM
I don't think anyone hates you personally Hope....don't think that was anyone's intention at all. Certainly wasn't mine. I think what they hate is the site changes and you're the spokesperson. Kind of like the waitress gets the flack if the food is bad even tho they didn't cook it. And to that end, since you seem so steadfast, some of us feel like we have no choice but to move on and leave this place behind :). Since it doesn't seem to bother any of the admin, I don't think most of us will feel that bad about leaving. I know I won't.
Laurie
DreaminGirl posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 6:09 PM
As Laurie said, this isn't about you Hope, it is about how Renderosity is run. And it has been made clear again and again that it doesn't matter what we, the paying customers, and those who has built this community over years, think or want. There is no point talking about it, it won't make any difference. And if you really don't understand by now why people are leaving, then nothing we say now will help you understand.
Malysse posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 6:17 PM
You keep going on about change 'being hard' and 'taking time to get used to', as though we are averse to change. This shows (yet again) how little you understand us. We are not averse to change. We have been begging for change for a long time in the forums. We want change. But we mean change for the better.
What we've had is change for worse time and time again: Home page change, Forum software, chat room, Prime, Galleries, Freestuff - every change has made things worse in the eyes of so many. And now this dumb TOS change which is clearly hugely unpopular, in case you hadn't noticed.
Changes for the worse will still be changes for the worse no matter how much you spread them out. Stop trying to divert the problem onto us for being 'against change'. We're not.
And I don't think anyone hates you. But certainly the disgraceful treatment of 3-dArena, the ignoring of questions asked of you in threads, the censoring of valid opinions etc. are not endearing you to some parts of the community.
As for being a great listener, well, there's a difference between being a listener and great listener. That difference is engagement, understanding and empathy with the other person. It might be prudent to just call yourself a 'listener' and let others decide how great you are, pending a demonstration of such qualities?
Thank you so much for listening and have a lovely, wonderful day!
IceEmpress posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 6:48 PM
In part, I do get why you're upset. It was too much at one time..
That is not the problem. The problem is:
--Broken site redesigns that make Renderosity non-functional for 2 weeks, and buggy for months. Two summers in a row.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make
--Incompetent and unprofessional site redesign-- incredibly basic stuff that the programmers should already know.
--Long-standing bugs not getting fixed
Let me elaborate on these issues further. Unfortunately, all of these are beyond your control.
I honestly cannot comprehend the decisions that Rendo has made since the redesign the summer before last. So many decisions, primarily by TPtB, that come across as unbelievably incompetent and unprofessional. Things like not keeping a backup server with the old site design when launching a redesign, in case things go badly (this was an issue during 2 summers ago site redesign) The programmer's (or site owner's) obstinance during that same redesign in changing the "on sale: x% off" font color to something readable (it was a medium gray font on the current dark grey background. He refused to change it for 2 weeks despite being told repeatedly by Kristi and other admins that the customers wanted this because they had trouble noticing and reading the font) It seems like there are a whole bunch regarding web design that I can't remember right now, that was brought up by professional webdesigner forumites during both redesigns that should have been common sense and not needing to be requested by the community. Wait, I remember some-- the infinite scrolling and lack of dropdown menu for vendors being a couple of important examples. The rest I don't remember beyond that it became PAINFULLY clear that TPtB didn't bother to reference some online resources/tutorials on effective site design-- something which is incredibly easy to find in practically infinite number.
There was the initial asinine gallery rule changes which I cannot recall beyond that they would have been detrimental for non-Prime member vendors.
SO many bugs and broken unrestored features from the redesign-- some to this day have yet to be fixed, and a site redesign is just 5-6 months away. 3rd party ads giving people malware upon loading in the Rendo banners (this is insulting when Rendo claims that one of the reasons for banning off-site links is to prevent customers from malware!), Gallery search by date only being restored a few weeks ago, pain-in-the-ass download system hasn't been fixed. Email notifications have been glitchy for a year and a half, now. It has been more than 6 months since the redesign. No business can expect to survive when it takes more than half a year to fix bugs, esp. when another disastrous redesign is only another 5-6 months away.
The Prime neutering is yet another incompetent decision-- and probably the most self-destructive one of all-- even worse than this no-offsite links thing. Unlike the aforementioned problems, not so much from the getgo like the previously mentioned examples as it is over the fact that TPtB did not listen to customer AND vendor complaints about this decision, and to this day do not seem to care about how much this has hurt them. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it looks to me like the Prime neutering was the most devastating decision Rendo has made in the past 3 years that I have been coming to this site. The downward spiral started before then, but it didn't reach terminal velocity until last summer's site redesign. If Renderosity wants to get their previous sales levels back, then the first and absolutely most important thing they need to do is reinstate the previous Prime system, price, benefits, and all. They may argue that system was not sustainable. Well, I'm pretty sure this downward spiral isn't sustainable either, and the neutering of Prime is probably the biggest factor by far. It used to be that people debated whether or not Platinum Club or Prime Membership gave greater benefits for the cost of membership. Nobody disputes that PC is far superior, anymore. Even if the sales discounts remain modest compared to 1 year ago, many customers would still be drawn to the site by the old Prime.
3D-Mobster posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 8:31 PM
You know not see that, but it's the honest truth. We thank you for your dedication to our site and hate to see so many members unhappy with our changes, but please remember that we decided this as a team.
I don't think anyone see this as if it were your decision alone Hope, but as already pointed out by others, you and any other admin that interact directly with the community will of course take the heat straight on. But that doesn't mean that all the concerns that members have are directed personally towards you guys, in the end its directed against Renderosity as a whole.
In part, I do get why you're upset. It was too much at one time. But, change is never fun for anyone - including me.
Change is not something that can be generalized as being negative as if all changes for some strange reason is also always bad. If a change is for something better, then its positive, it all depends on how a change is received, and clearly the majority see this change as being for the worse and therefore negative and not fun.
Just because I may not take the suggestion, does not mean I haven't heard you out or listened to you. I am a great listener, so let's talk.
That you consider yourself a great listener, might be true, im not aware of what this is based on and why you consider yourself as such and stress why it is the case? Anyone can listen unless deaf of course. So its of little value as a skill in my eyes. How someone reacts to what they hear is what matters and don't get me wrong its not a personal attack, because you might very well understand what the community is saying and want to react to it, but clearly someone at Renderosity does not want to. And that is primarily what the problem is, you keeping stressing that these changes were a team decision, yet there have been no good arguments put forward to why this change is needed?
The initial idea that this would somehow help or prevent viruses.
There have been countless of arguments and questions from the community, trying to explain you why this can and will never work. Yet there have been no counter argument from you as to why any of these arguments are not true?
You claim to have or want to take responsibility in cases where people do get a virus.
Again lots of questions and arguments have been made by the community to why this is not valid. Such as in your own disclaimer clearly stating that you do not take any responsibility. The fact that its impossible for you to remove links faster than someone can make them. To what type of responsibility are you referring to? If you claim that you have responsibility how should a member that gets a virus from a link on your site react or expect from you? or is what you mean with responsibility just as it have always been for every single website with a forum on the internet, that they of course will remove links that contains viruses, not because they are responsable for them, but because its bad for their forum and they do it as a service to their members. Yet there have been no reply to any of these questions or arguments to why they are wrong?
Freebies should be uploaded directly to Renderosity
Tons of arguments have been posted to why this is a bad solution for those creating the freebies and for Renderosity as a whole. You have put forward arguments that people could buy adwords as a solution and yes that is a suggestion, but not really valid when we are talking about free content including a lot more arguments that i wont get into here as it would take to much time. Me and lots of others have made you aware that the changes you apply, will drive traffic away from your site and not to it and thereby you are removing the primary value with freebies. Yet there have been no counter argument to why this is not true either?
So you say that you are a great listener, but as i stated its of little value, when none of the arguments and questions asked by the community seems to get any answers. If this decision was made as a team, there must have been a discussion amongst you, and at some point you have gotten convinced that this was a good idea. So my point is, that since its a team decision there must be someone at Renderosity able to answer and present counter arguments to all these claims, because how on earth did you ever get to the conclusion that this was a good idea, if no one is able to defend it?
Hallowed_Sylph posted Sat, 20 February 2016 at 10:24 PM
It was not too much to quick , It was simply too much.
JVRenderer posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 12:10 AM
HOLD EVERYTHING!
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?policies&terms
Pardon my ignorance, but I've read the Renderosity Terms Of Service three times, and there were no mention of offsite linking being prohibited The only mention of no offsite linking was in the FAQ in the Freebies forums. Making up rules on the fly in the FAQ without updating the Terms of Service may not make them legally binding. Technically you cannot enforce these rules, because they are not terms we agreed on. You may want to update your Term of Service agreements, In addition, non of the other forums have a FAQ prohibiting offside linking. There are loop holes in those forums. You may want to update those forums as well. Perhaps I'm just too tired to find them. The TOS was updated last August. If you enforce them now, you may be breaking your own TOS.
JV
Software: Daz Studio 4.15, Photoshop CC, Zbrush 2022, Blender 3.3, Silo 2.3, Filter Forge 4. Marvelous Designer 7
Hardware: self built Intel Core i7 8086K, 64GB RAM, RTX 3090 .
"If you spend too much time arguing about software, you're spending too little time creating art!" ~ SomeSmartAss
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running." ~ Channing Pollock
JVRenderer posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 3:51 AM
I've found this post from Hope in an announcement thread "Hey everyone-
I just wanted to make you aware that I have made 2 additions to the TOS. Please view the following:
"Disturbing the peace – at Renderosity, we will not accept any members interrupting the community with any negative comments. Here are a few examples: if a member creates a thread asking for help on something, a staff member posts a thread looking for participation say a contest and a member attacks them, this behavior will not be tolerated and a warning will be given. You may disagree with members, but if it’s in a vicious manner, it will not be acceptable."
Additionally, offsite linking to other marketplaces are not allowed within the forum, gallery, or forum signatures. For example: Links to competing stores like Daz3d.com, RuntimeDNA.com, etc are not allowed. However, links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable.
If you'd like to see more, please view the link below. If you have any questions, please do let us know!
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?policies&terms
Additionally, please view our new Community guidelines as well:
https://www.renderosity.com/new-guidelines-for-the-community-cms-18099
And, you'll find the TOS at the bottom the page:"
The new additions to the TOS is not in the official TOS itself. It took me a few hour to find that thread. The Administrators failed to add them in the official TOS, Your official TOS is dated last November. The new additions are dated 1-27-2016. Legally your TOS MUST be clear and easy to find. I suggest you update your official TOS immediately. If you are going to change the rules, please don't be sloppy about it. If someone press charges, the lawyers will have a field day.
Software: Daz Studio 4.15, Photoshop CC, Zbrush 2022, Blender 3.3, Silo 2.3, Filter Forge 4. Marvelous Designer 7
Hardware: self built Intel Core i7 8086K, 64GB RAM, RTX 3090 .
"If you spend too much time arguing about software, you're spending too little time creating art!" ~ SomeSmartAss
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running." ~ Channing Pollock
Vaskania posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 3:58 AM
The official TOS shows August 7, 2015 for me (bottom of page > About > Terms of Service); however, it DOES have the off-site linking rule in there. Strange that if it's been in there since last year, why just post about it in January? Could it have been updated without the date of change being reflected? I have no idea how this site's software works so I don't know if that date updates automagically, or if it's a manual edit.
-----sig-----
Daz, Blender, Affinity, Substance, Unity, Python, C#
hornet3d posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 4:42 AM
The problem here is that there is wide spread dissatisfaction with the path Rendo has taken for a year or more and it has clearly lost touch with the customer base. The opinion appears to be 'we are not getting our message across' when in fact they are, it is just the membership do not like the message. I do however, feel very sorry for some members of the staff, they are human and it has to be soul destroying to have be constantly under attack. I accept none of this is personal (well except for the odd response from a staff member in the Prime forum which was condemned, and rightly so, but maybe they were having an off day) but if you are living with constant criticism it is very easy to condemn.
I exchanged quite a few emails with Hope when I was deleting my gallery, it was a personal decision hence the personal emails. My view then was she was genuine in trying to improve the situation, though I have to admit I doubted her ability to do so. Not that I questioned her skills I just think there is too much running against her. My view has not changed in recent weeks.
There is a great desire to restore the community feeling here but unfortunately this seem predominately to be from the members and very little from the company but then that has been the case for over a year or more. My personal view is that Prime should be scrapped, it is now damaged goods and no amount of changes is going to resuscitate it. I also think the team, and the powers that be, should stop what they are doing and sit down and try and create a new script and then make it public. If it is honest and makes small steps quickly while setting out a timetable for the future more difficult changes members can then gauge whether the changes are on track.
Will this happened, I very much doubt it and I suspect that vendors will begin to see that staying here is having a negative impact on their sales. At least a few of us have stopped spending here and I suspect that the number is growing. This may shock Rendo, but if there is no community then I am really not bothered who I buy my content from, in other words, if the vendors move I will start buying from my favorites again but not while they are in the Rendo Marketplace. Am I happy with this as a outcome, well yes, but I would much prefer Rendo to become a community again, and soon. I come here less and less and it is beginning to feel like watching a favorite pet suffer, there has to come a point where you say enough is enough and put everyone out of their misery.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
-Wolfie- posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 3:22 PM
Malysse posted at 3:12PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256356
You keep going on about change 'being hard' and 'taking time to get used to', as though we are averse to change. This shows (yet again) how little you understand us. We are not averse to change. We have been begging for change for a long time in the forums. We want change. But we mean change for the better.
I couldn't have said it better.... And not only changes for the better, but REVERT changes that the community as a WHOLE so clearly objects to. So one or two members voiced an opinion, and you thought it was best to cause damn near nuclear annihilation for the rest of the community? ("Damn near" might be the wrong choice of words. Maybe total nuclear annihilation might be better suited at this point.)
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
However, imo, using "we're trying to protect you from viruses" is a pretty weak excuse, at best. It's the 21st century. If someone got a virus from Rendo, via Rendo, or through off site linking, THEY were not doing THEIR OWN due diligence, and NO ONE else is to blame except for them.
At this point, I am one of the torn. I have deleted my oldest freebies, and MAY be deleting the remaining as well. I haven't yet decided what road I plan to take from this point on, altho I have several options, and several ideas.
~Wolfie~
Helping everyone is the most rewarding failure you'll ever experience.
- Ray Augé (~Wolfie~'s hubby)
Anything is more stable than Windows . . .
--- Even a relationship based purely on sex!
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
No meat was harmed during the making of this TV dinner.
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
-Wolfie- posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 3:27 PM
hornet3d posted at 3:26PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256414
The problem here is that there is wide spread dissatisfaction with the path Rendo has taken for a year or more and it has clearly lost touch with the customer base. The opinion appears to be 'we are not getting our message across' when in fact they are, it is just the membership do not like the message. I do however, feel very sorry for some members of the staff, they are human and it has to be soul destroying to have be constantly under attack. I accept none of this is personal (well except for the odd response from a staff member in the Prime forum which was condemned, and rightly so, but maybe they were having an off day) but if you are living with constant criticism it is very easy to condemn.
I exchanged quite a few emails with Hope when I was deleting my gallery, it was a personal decision hence the personal emails. My view then was she was genuine in trying to improve the situation, though I have to admit I doubted her ability to do so. Not that I questioned her skills I just think there is too much running against her. My view has not changed in recent weeks.
There is a great desire to restore the community feeling here but unfortunately this seem predominately to be from the members and very little from the company but then that has been the case for over a year or more. My personal view is that Prime should be scrapped, it is now damaged goods and no amount of changes is going to resuscitate it. I also think the team, and the powers that be, should stop what they are doing and sit down and try and create a new script and then make it public. If it is honest and makes small steps quickly while setting out a timetable for the future more difficult changes members can then gauge whether the changes are on track.
Will this happened, I very much doubt it and I suspect that vendors will begin to see that staying here is having a negative impact on their sales. At least a few of us have stopped spending here and I suspect that the number is growing. This may shock Rendo, but if there is no community then I am really not bothered who I buy my content from, in other words, if the vendors move I will start buying from my favorites again but not while they are in the Rendo Marketplace. Am I happy with this as a outcome, well yes, but I would much prefer Rendo to become a community again, and soon. I come here less and less and it is beginning to feel like watching a favorite pet suffer, there has to come a point where you say enough is enough and put everyone out of their misery.
Well said.....
~Wolfie~
Helping everyone is the most rewarding failure you'll ever experience.
- Ray Augé (~Wolfie~'s hubby)
Anything is more stable than Windows . . .
--- Even a relationship based purely on sex!
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
No meat was harmed during the making of this TV dinner.
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
IceEmpress posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 5:10 PM
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes, see my first post in this thread (post #3) I brought up most of those things. If people don't want to read it, then I can summarize it (it is post @4256359)
--Broken site redesigns that make Renderosity non-functional for 2~3 weeks, and buggy for months. Then exactly 1 year later, implementing ANOTHER redesign that is equally as bad.
--Incompetent and unprofessional site redesign-- incredibly basic stuff that the programmers should already know, such as creating a backup server of the old site design in case the new one goes disastrously, or that infinite scrolling, esp. of vendors, is bad. It was clear TPtB did not do any research on good site design, despite being easy to find in infinite number across the web.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make. They refuse to listen to the resounding complaints from BOTH customers AND vendors about it, and actually had the audacity to blame the vendors for raising their prime prices due to no longer getting 100% royalties from Prime product sales.
--Initial asinine gallery rule (limit on allowed # of uploaded images for non-Prime members, which would have been devastating for some vendors, as the gallery is used by many for advertising.)
--Obstinance by programming staff at implementing certain features-- main example being color of the "sale" text color that is readable instead of medium-light gray on dk grey background.
--Long-standing bugs not getting fixed, such as email notifications (buggy since site redesign 1 1/2 years ago)
--Features from previous site designs being removed and not returned until months later-- searching by date function on the gallery was only restored a few weeks ago.
--Implementation of Markdown language, a super-crappy programming language, for forums
IceEmpress posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 5:13 PM
-Wolfie- posted Sun, 21 February 2016 at 5:39 PM
IceEmpress posted at 5:39PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256592
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes, see my first post in this thread (post #3) I brought up most of those things. If people don't want to read it, then I can summarize it (it is post 4256359)
--Broken site redesigns that make Renderosity non-functional for 2~3 weeks, and buggy for months. Then exactly 1 year later, implementing ANOTHER redesign that is equally as bad.
--Incompetent and unprofessional site redesign-- incredibly basic stuff that the programmers should already know, such as creating a backup server of the old site design in case the new one goes disastrously, or that infinite scrolling, esp. of vendors, is bad. It was clear TPtB did not do any research on good site design, despite being easy to find in infinite number across the web.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make. They refuse to listen to the resounding complaints from BOTH customers AND vendors about it, and actually had the audacity to blame the vendors for raising their prime prices due to no longer getting 100% royalties from Prime product sales.
--Initial asinine gallery rule (limit on allowed # of uploaded images for non-Prime members, which would have been devastating for some vendors, as the gallery is used by many for advertising.)
--Obstinance by programming staff at implementing certain features-- main example being color of the "sale" text color that is readable instead of medium-light gray on dk grey background.
--Long-standing bugs not getting fixed, such as email notifications (buggy since site redesign 1 1/2 years ago)
--Features from previous site designs being removed and not returned until months later-- searching by date function on the gallery was only restored a few weeks ago.
--Implementation of Markdown language, a super-crappy programming language, for forums
Agree totally... 100%.
~Wolfie~
Helping everyone is the most rewarding failure you'll ever experience.
- Ray Augé (~Wolfie~'s hubby)
Anything is more stable than Windows . . .
--- Even a relationship based purely on sex!
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
No meat was harmed during the making of this TV dinner.
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
LadyElf posted Mon, 22 February 2016 at 2:48 PM
IceEmpress posted at 5:39PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256592
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make. They refuse to listen to the resounding complaints from BOTH customers AND vendors about it, and actually had the audacity to blame the vendors for raising their prime prices due to no longer getting 100% royalties from Prime product sales. --Implementation of Markdown language, a super-crappy programming language, for forums
Agree totally... 100%.
~Wolfie~
Add my agree totally...100%.
The Prime 'neutering' (good word for it) was for me the real kicker. I've been around way, way long time and I've seen some doozie mistakes, but this one IS by far the worst. Not only the worst idea, but the way it was handled was atrocious. As has been said already, it needs to be totally restored to the way it was. I know of a lot of vendors that started losing hundreds of dollars a month because of this. Some have moved on, some have had to raise their prices to make up for it to the point that it's just another normally priced item and of no benefit to those that have paid subscriptions. Lack of month long coupons, the benefit of a product a month being delayed and even blaming that on the vendors because "we can't find anyone that wants to contribute a free product". Of course you can't, Rendo should be hiring the vendors and paying them for the product, especially now since they are receiving a cut of the profits.
So, Hope, it's not really about you, or about Jen, or about Kristi all of you who have to take the hits for the decisions because you are on the front lines. It's about the policies and the procedures that have been done that are of no benefit to the membership, and in fact in the case of Prime were actually deceitful.
The 'so you won't get a virus' doesn't fly either. We are on the internet a LOT not just here and should already be protecting ourselves. Put security measures in by all means, but don't think that we don't already have our own as well. The security measures WE worry about are the protection of our files, our identities and our credit/debit cards and paypal accounts.
The banning and silencing of a well respected vendor, after she voiced her opinion ( as was told would be welcomed) because of 'personal attacks' that only staff seemed to see certainly was the other straw that broke the camel's back.
I just don't understand this place anymore. I've been here (yes I'll say it again until you listen and show some respect for it) since before there was a store, when it was an artistic community only. It's like seeing someone bulldoze the house you grew up in and not giving a damn about the aftermath it causes.
-Wolfie- posted Mon, 22 February 2016 at 3:11 PM
LadyElf posted at 3:11PM Mon, 22 February 2016 - #4256725
IceEmpress posted at 5:39PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256592
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make. They refuse to listen to the resounding complaints from BOTH customers AND vendors about it, and actually had the audacity to blame the vendors for raising their prime prices due to no longer getting 100% royalties from Prime product sales. --Implementation of Markdown language, a super-crappy programming language, for forums
Agree totally... 100%.
~Wolfie~
Add my agree totally...100%.
The Prime 'neutering' (good word for it) was for me the real kicker. I've been around way, way long time and I've seen some doozie mistakes, but this one IS by far the worst. Not only the worst idea, but the way it was handled was atrocious. As has been said already, it needs to be totally restored to the way it was. I know of a lot of vendors that started losing hundreds of dollars a month because of this. Some have moved on, some have had to raise their prices to make up for it to the point that it's just another normally priced item and of no benefit to those that have paid subscriptions. Lack of month long coupons, the benefit of a product a month being delayed and even blaming that on the vendors because "we can't find anyone that wants to contribute a free product". Of course you can't, Rendo should be hiring the vendors and paying them for the product, especially now since they are receiving a cut of the profits.
So, Hope, it's not really about you, or about Jen, or about Kristi all of you who have to take the hits for the decisions because you are on the front lines. It's about the policies and the procedures that have been done that are of no benefit to the membership, and in fact in the case of Prime were actually deceitful.
The 'so you won't get a virus' doesn't fly either. We are on the internet a LOT not just here and should already be protecting ourselves. Put security measures in by all means, but don't think that we don't already have our own as well. The security measures WE worry about are the protection of our files, our identities and our credit/debit cards and paypal accounts.
The banning and silencing of a well respected vendor, after she voiced her opinion ( as was told would be welcomed) because of 'personal attacks' that only staff seemed to see certainly was the other straw that broke the camel's back.
I just don't understand this place anymore. I've been here (yes I'll say it again until you listen and show some respect for it) since before there was a store, when it was an artistic community only. It's like seeing someone bulldoze the house you grew up in and not giving a damn about the aftermath it causes.
Here, here!
~Wolfie~
Helping everyone is the most rewarding failure you'll ever experience.
- Ray Augé (~Wolfie~'s hubby)
Anything is more stable than Windows . . .
--- Even a relationship based purely on sex!
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
No meat was harmed during the making of this TV dinner.
- Pam Augé (~Wolfie~)
RavynGyrl posted Mon, 22 February 2016 at 4:15 PM
LadyElf posted at 1:58PM Mon, 22 February 2016 - #4256725
IceEmpress posted at 5:39PM Sun, 21 February 2016 - #4256592
I don't think it's _ just_ the off site linking that has us in an uproar. As I mentioned in a previous thread, it's the total compilation of the mess over the last year or so. This was just the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
--Prime neutering being the worst decision I have ever seen Rendo make. They refuse to listen to the resounding complaints from BOTH customers AND vendors about it, and actually had the audacity to blame the vendors for raising their prime prices due to no longer getting 100% royalties from Prime product sales. --Implementation of Markdown language, a super-crappy programming language, for forums
Agree totally... 100%.
~Wolfie~
Add my agree totally...100%.
The Prime 'neutering' (good word for it) was for me the real kicker. I've been around way, way long time and I've seen some doozie mistakes, but this one IS by far the worst. Not only the worst idea, but the way it was handled was atrocious. As has been said already, it needs to be totally restored to the way it was. I know of a lot of vendors that started losing hundreds of dollars a month because of this. Some have moved on, some have had to raise their prices to make up for it to the point that it's just another normally priced item and of no benefit to those that have paid subscriptions. Lack of month long coupons, the benefit of a product a month being delayed and even blaming that on the vendors because "we can't find anyone that wants to contribute a free product". Of course you can't, Rendo should be hiring the vendors and paying them for the product, especially now since they are receiving a cut of the profits.
So, Hope, it's not really about you, or about Jen, or about Kristi all of you who have to take the hits for the decisions because you are on the front lines. It's about the policies and the procedures that have been done that are of no benefit to the membership, and in fact in the case of Prime were actually deceitful.
The 'so you won't get a virus' doesn't fly either. We are on the internet a LOT not just here and should already be protecting ourselves. Put security measures in by all means, but don't think that we don't already have our own as well. The security measures WE worry about are the protection of our files, our identities and our credit/debit cards and paypal accounts.
The banning and silencing of a well respected vendor, after she voiced her opinion ( as was told would be welcomed) because of 'personal attacks' that only staff seemed to see certainly was the other straw that broke the camel's back.
I just don't understand this place anymore. I've been here (yes I'll say it again until you listen and show some respect for it) since before there was a store, when it was an artistic community only. It's like seeing someone bulldoze the house you grew up in and not giving a damn about the aftermath it causes.
And I agree to all above. Prime being "neutered" was what did it for me as well. I checked my account...last time I earned Render Rewards was last June...BEFORE the new Prime rolled out. Since then, I have really curbed my spending because there just aren't any good deals anymore. The coupons are poor, the products (save for a few top vendors, one whom you banned for no reason other than speaking her mind) have gotten shoddy, and the rules are turning draconian. This is not a beloved community any more. No amount of "well, we're only doing this for your own good" and cheer-leading without really listening to and working with what the community wants will bring back the old Renderosity that so many of us loved. The exodus will continue.
hornet3d posted Tue, 23 February 2016 at 3:44 AM
I have had my fingers crossed so long for this site to improve it makes typing painful. Seriously though, I see the last few weeks as a really dark time here because there are some people I have seen here for years now jumping ship. It is not a new trend, but, the fact that the trend is continuing is depressing and I am also well aware that these are the once devoted members who are taking to trouble to announce they are either leaving or becoming far less active, and why. Behind that there must be many more who do not like what Renderosity has become and have just moved on quietly.
I don't know why I should care so much, or even at all, after so long but I do. Truth is though that, despite all hope and wishes I cannot see a way back even though I desperately want to be wrong. I can't see anything the team at Renderosity can do to get people to start to put their freebies back, to start another gallery here, to start being really active in the forums (other than to complain), or change Prime into something worthwhile. Adding another forum or announcing another 'exciting' competition is not going to cut it. The bit that should really worry the company is that I cannot see how they can get members spending again at the levels they used to. I cannot prove they have lost money here but unhappy customers tend not to visit and if they don't visit, they don't spend and I see very little evidence that members/customers are happy here.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
Madbat posted Tue, 23 February 2016 at 5:41 PM
I just came back here on Dec 25, and this place is worse that it was when I left, and I thought it was atrocious then. Point is, people don't need time to get used to changes. Rendo needs to wrap their heads around the fact that people HATE those changes. And Like I said to Hope in another post, WE spend the money. If we stop spending our money here, you don't get our lovely money, and you get to enjoy being unemployed. I'm going to re-download and archive all my orders, this place is going down hard. The last time I was here, there were twice the people on line when it was slow. You can't even muster 3000 people now at peak, you're loosing vendors, your loosing freebie contributors, and you've certainly lost thousands of members.
PilotHigh posted Tue, 23 February 2016 at 7:24 PM
I hate to tell you this but we just lost RuntimeDNA. They merged with Daz!!!!!! Check out their forums.
cschell posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 1:42 AM
You know... it occurs to me that I've heard all these arguments before... both from site owners and community members for and against certain changes... At DAZ when they started putting in the rules about 3rd party posts etc a year or more ago. They used many of the arguments for doing so that Renderosity is now using here, and the community there used almost exactly the same arguments against making those changes as I've been seeing everyone list over and over again here.
I will say only this... I would not be where I am now as an artist or as a content provider if it had not been for people that I met here on Rendo, or there at DAZ in their forums. People that are no longer here, people that are no longer at DAZ, simply because someone somewhere decided that profit was more important that the community that got them where they are today.
Rendo was once a great place, it is now a shadow of what it once was. Daz was a great place and it too is a shadow of what it used to be. Neither got the way they have because of the community... they both got there because somewhere, someone decided that the community no longer mattered, that the sharing and free spirit of the artists that built them into the sites they both have become, was less important that making a buck on the backs of the artists that got them there.
I think it is a damned shame that the people that helped so many of us learn this craft are gone now because the changes that were being made drove them away. I think it's even worse that the changes (claimed to be in the best interest of the community) are made anyways when the very community these changes are made for says no. I think the worst of all though is that the people making the decisions think that they have anyone else (other than themselves) in mind when they go ahead with things like this in the name of "community"...
And with RDNA going to DAZ another vibrant community will most likely be lost soon too...
Honestly... it's not about making the community better... it's about profit, pure and simple... why not just admit it and get on with it... at least we'd all know where we stand...
A_Sunbeam posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 3:01 AM
With RDNA going Rendo needs to be as user-friendly as possible, so that we will have somewhere to post images, shop and talk. Maybe you could take on some of the format and the ideas RDNA had (Deep Freeze, anyone?) and regain some of the members you've lost.
hornet3d posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 3:53 AM
PilotHigh posted at 9:53AM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4256963
I hate to tell you this but we just lost RuntimeDNA. They merged with Daz!!!!!! Check out their forums.
Perhaps that is what Renderosity is hoping for.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
IceEmpress posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 4:43 AM
Daz was a great place and it too is a shadow of what it used to be. Neither got the way they have because of the community... they both got there because somewhere, someone decided that the community no longer mattered, that the sharing and free spirit of the artists that built them into the sites they both have become, was less important that making a buck on the backs of the artists that got them there.
Actually, DAZ has all but flat out said that the community on DAZ is irrelevant (their words were more along the line of that complaints and trends on the forums are the opposite of sales, and that the overwhelming majority of their customers never post on the forums and probably never even visit them)
3DFineries posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 6:11 AM
Staff was as shocked as everyone else about the Merger. However, we DO care about our forums & community. You can vent, but we ask that it is done in a constructive way without bashing, flaming, & certainly without personal attacks on staff. We, as staff, must enforce rules even if we don't agree with them & we have feelings just like everyone else. We are on the front lines but no one should be shooting the messenger. So please, be kind to one another.
Have a creative day!
********
taoz posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 7:47 AM
cschell posted at 2:30PM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4257031
Honestly... it's not about making the community better... it's about profit, pure and simple... why not just admit it and get on with it... at least we'd all know where we stand...
Well it costs money to run such a site, and if the profits are too small the site suffers. If they had huge profits like things were before, then why change them?
Maybe the big sales and huge discounts before the changes ran them down economically so that they had to make these changes, but a bad economy is something companies rarely want to admit publicly. If that's correct I think it would be better for a company like this that they admitted it, then people would probably be less hostile and more understanding, and maybe even helpful.
Besides, it also seems to be "about the money" for many customers - lower prices, bigger discounts, more site features etc..
IceEmpress posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 7:47 AM
We are on the front lines but no one should be shooting the messenger. So please, be kind to one another.
People shoot some of the messengers because they are voicing enthusiastic support for and defending the policies that they hate-- in addition to showing a lack of understanding as to what it is that has people upset and why such as blaming our displeasure at the freebie thing as "finding change difficult" and in regards to the last two site redesigns that "it was too much change at once for us to handle" In addition to several forum admins stating that they (all of the admins) were accomplices (to TPtB) to this new rule about links.
Somehow I find it had to believe that UVDan was very supportive or enthusiastic about it, though (and I have yet to see him voice any support of it on the forums)
Well it costs money to run such a site, and if the profits are too small the site suffers. If they had huge profits like things were before, then why change them?
Maybe the big sales and huge discounts before the changes ran them down economically so that they had to make these changes, but a bad economy is something companies rarely want to admit publicly. If that's correct I think it would be better for a company like this that they admitted it, then people would probably be less hostile and more understanding, and maybe even helpful.
Except that someone mentioned in this or another thread that vendors have been losing sales ever since the Prime change (esp. since they no longer get 100% royalties for prime products sold like they did before the last redesign) The problem is that even if the big sales and discounts was unsustainable, what they are doing now is clearly even less sustainable than that.
3DFineries posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 8:05 AM
Negativity never does any good. Not a single person deserves to be mistreated under ANY circumstances. Be angry at the change all you want but taking it out on others will not be tolerated.
Have a creative day!
********
IceEmpress posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 9:05 AM
I should have specified that I was merely explaining why people are taking it out on the admins. Angry at the change? How about angry at those responsible for the change. Most of my anger is towards TPtB rather than the admins, but there is one particular admin that I am quite angry with, and it has to do with the fact that this admin voices ONLY approval of the changes, zero condemnation of them, zero "personall I do not agree with X decision", along with blaming our dissatisfaction with the no linking AND the last two site redesigns on difficultly with the "sudden change", as though we are all children.
taoz posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 9:58 AM
IceEmpress posted at 3:07PM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4257095
Well it costs money to run such a site, and if the profits are too small the site suffers. If they had huge profits like things were before, then why change them?
Maybe the big sales and huge discounts before the changes ran them down economically so that they had to make these changes, but a bad economy is something companies rarely want to admit publicly. If that's correct I think it would be better for a company like this that they admitted it, then people would probably be less hostile and more understanding, and maybe even helpful.
Except that someone mentioned in this or another thread that vendors have been losing sales ever since the Prime change (esp. since they no longer get 100% royalties for prime products sold like they did before the last redesign) The problem is that even if the big sales and discounts was unsustainable, what they are doing now is clearly even less sustainable than that.
Maybe, but the question is for what reasons it's less sustainable. Maybe people got used to those huge discounts and then when Rendo have to increase their profits and change Prime conditions to make ends meet, people refuse to pay what may actually be a fair price (or even more than fair, just check the prices at e.g. turbosquid...)? I did a calculation of my old Prime membership, it showed that in total I got over 70% discount on my Prime purchases. And most other stuff I've bought has been 30-60% off.
As for site design they may have made some bad decisions yes, that happens, but the new "must work on all devices" demand can make it extremely complex to design a site that both fulfills that demand and is good looking and well functioning at the same time. And as I understand it the latest design was mainly because of requirements from google, which, if they hadn't made them would make them rank lower in searches. That's just google trying to maximize their profits, at the expense of smaller companies who have to spend a lot of money in constantly keeping their sites up to date with google's SEO requirements. So you can blame google and the stupid invention called competition for a lot of the things people are complaining about here (like no linking to other sites, ads everywhere, etc..).
cschell posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 10:38 AM
IceEmpress posted at 11:37AM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4257056
Daz was a great place and it too is a shadow of what it used to be. Neither got the way they have because of the community... they both got there because somewhere, someone decided that the community no longer mattered, that the sharing and free spirit of the artists that built them into the sites they both have become, was less important that making a buck on the backs of the artists that got them there.
Actually, DAZ has all but flat out said that the community on DAZ is irrelevant (their words were more along the line of that complaints and trends on the forums are the opposite of sales, and that the overwhelming majority of their customers never post on the forums and probably never even visit them)
That must have happened after I left DAZ then...I quit going there after things started going down hill and 3rd party content providers got blamed for it as scape-goats...
rosity.jimsspm posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 11:02 AM
hornet3d posted at 11:58AM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4257048
PilotHigh posted at 9:53AM Wed, 24 February 2016 - #4256963
I hate to tell you this but we just lost RuntimeDNA. They merged with Daz!!!!!! Check out their forums.
Perhaps that is what Renderosity is hoping for.
I've been wondering about that ever since the "Please no DRM" thread got locked after two posts.
IceEmpress posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 4:01 PM
And now we have a convenient distraction from Renderosity's most recent decision... No, I am not suggesting conspiracy theories, simply that this is, sadly, likely to distract people from their anger over the no-offsite linking rule.
LPR001 posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 5:56 PM
IceEmpress posted at 10:01AM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257223
And now we have a convenient distraction from Renderosity's most recent decision... No, I am not suggesting conspiracy theories, simply that this is, sadly, likely to distract people from their anger over the no-offsite linking rule.
Helps if i quote you in the right forum LOL I don't think the issue goes away and we realise members are upset about the changes but as with the latest developments with RDNA things do change and it affects individuals differently. What I have been doing is going through all these comments and just making sure that the members are not believing something that is based on the wrong info. The changes have been made and some are obviously unpopular but I am seeking clarification on a few points to ensure that when the members do have an opinion or object it is not under the wrong impression as under the circumstances this would be unhelpful.
- Johnny G
"Try animation to get things moving"
lpr001@renderosity.com
IceEmpress posted Wed, 24 February 2016 at 8:21 PM
or even more than fair, just check the prices at e.g. turbosquid...)?
Please do not use Turbosquid and CGTrader as comparisons. Models on those sites are expensive because when you buy a model, you are also buying a commercial license, unlike at any of the DAZ/Poser sites. If you want a good comparison, look at the prices for 'Extended License' products here on Rendo.
As for site design they may have made some bad decisions yes, that happens, but the new "must work on all devices" demand can make it extremely complex to design a site that both fulfills that demand and is good looking and well functioning at the same time.
RDNA, Hivewire, and DAZ do not have that same problem. Or is Hivewire not an "all devices" site?
That's just google trying to maximize their profits, at the expense of smaller companies who have to spend a lot of money in constantly keeping their sites up to date with google's SEO requirements.
Yes, I'm well aware of that. Problem is that people here have said that Rendo doesn't work very well on ANY device.
hornet3d posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 4:45 AM
IceEmpress posted at 10:43AM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257223
And now we have a convenient distraction from Renderosity's most recent decision... No, I am not suggesting conspiracy theories, simply that this is, sadly, likely to distract people from their anger over the no-offsite linking rule.
Your right, it is a distraction and it is sad news but I wouldn't buy from Rendersosity under the present situation. If it was the only place left I would either learn to make my own content of find another hobby.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
SeanMartin posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 6:26 AM
Just my 0.02...
When the site went through a re-design, I hated the new look. I mean, really, really hated it — and said so in the forums, quite pointedly. So did a lot of other folks, and eventually Rosity got the message and cleaned up the front page where it's actually a helluva lot better looking. So yes, folks, they do listen.
As pointed out above, this rule has been in place officially since August, but seems to me it was in place unofficially for a lot longer than that, wit Rosity pretty much turning a blind eye in most cases even though they preferred you really not do it. Apparently enough things happened that they had to turn it into a site rule seven months go. So it's not like this was any kind of surprise thrown out there at the last minute.
Yes, people want to use formats other than zip, but the problem is that most browsers will open zips automatically while things like rars and 7s require an outside utility. Zip is neat and clean and works, so what's the problem?
Now... the big one. Two issue here: (1) Honestly, I dont see a problem with linking to an offsite tutorial.... unless it's going to a site with adult material on it. I know, I know... "the beauty of the female form as celebrated throughout time!" blah blah blah. Dont care, folks. If you're taking me to a site with adult material, and you dont warn me in advance of that, that's a lousy thing to do, period, end of story. (2) If you're running an offsite store at that link, then yes Rosity has the right to deny you that link — you're getting a free platform here and then turn around and exploit it for personal gain elsewhere? That's like going to a bar, having a great time with your friends, and then telling everyone you have beer for sale in your car parked outside. Not cool, period, end of story.
The Prime issue? OK, let's just think about this for a moment. Right now, at this very moment, you have almost three thousand people on this site, a massive gallery that gets filled with new stuff at an alarming rate every minute, and an equally huge store operation. All of this requires some pretty expensive hardware that actually keeps going up in price if you want to stay on top of things... not to mention the no-doubt increased costs in net security to keep this place as virus free as possible. I'm sorry, how do you propose Rosity pay for all this? They're not going to charge a membership fee, so what are your proposals?
The virus issue... someone up in the thread wrote "We are on the internet a lot and should know how to protect ourselves" — well, see, the operative word is "should". A lot of people dont. Now imagine the uproar if someone puts in a link that goes to a site that has malware on it. You think folks arent going to blame Rosity for that? Dream on, folks. Of course they are: "You should have told us! You should have known!" That's happened before, so can you really blame them for wanting to err on the side of caution?
I may have my issues with this place on occasion, but by and large this is a pretty amazing place. The very fact that it exists at all with as minimal a staff as it has is nothing short of a freaking miracle... and you guys are upset because they're trying to do things that ensure the place hangs around for a while longer? Maybe I"m missing a few things here, but I seriously feel the outrage here is somewhat misguided.
Again, just my 0.02. Do with it what you will.
docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider
hornet3d posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 7:01 AM
On the Prime issue I am afraid you have not understood. I was for the changes to Prime initially but the way it was implemented and the contempt with which the customers were treated was not acceptable. Throwing the vendors under a bus was clearly wrong and cannot be justified in any way, let alone with 'we needed the money'. Many feel they were robbed by Renderosity, claiming that it cost to run a site is not going to lay easier with any of them. Finally, if they really do need to save money they could employ a web designer who knows what he is doing, getting it right first time is cheaper than constantly playing.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
LaurieA posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 1:05 PM
Yanno, I don't NEED Rendo to protect me from other links to other sites because I can do that myself AND I won't BLAME Rendo if I get a virus from another site. Simple as that. It's my OWN responsibility to protect myself from outside threats - no one else's. I quit needing a babysitter a LOOOONG time ago, thank you.
What I DO need from the site is a site search that works, ebots that work, MP categories that don't need a cheat sheet to understand what they mean, a WYSIWYG editor for posting like every OTHER site rather than stupid, idiotic markup language...THAT'S what I need.
Laurie
Malysse posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 3:37 PM
SeanMartin posted at 9:36PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257367
Just my 0.02...
Thank you. Your evaluation of its worth matches mine very closely.
FrankT posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 3:49 PM
Malysse posted at 9:45PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257474
SeanMartin posted at 9:36PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257367
Just my 0.02...
Thank you. Your evaluation of its worth matches mine very closely.
I must say I thought that Sean made some very valid points. I personally have no problems with the new site and I can quite understand why some things have been done the way they were. I imagine I'm not alone in that either - you know what they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
One feature that I really liked has already been removed because it didn't suit some peoples idea of how the site should function according to them. never mind if anyone else found it useful but I digress
IceEmpress posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 3:58 PM
and you guys are upset because they're trying to do things that ensure the place hangs around for a while longer?
We are upset because they AREN'T. Their current meager discounts and Prime neutering has eliminated any semblance of marketing advantage over the competition. People consider Daz and Hivewire (and formerly, RDNA) to all have much better deals. In short, Renderosity is no longer competitive with other sites in the sales and web design categories. If people can get exponentially better deals at other sites, then they will spend their limited monthly allotment of cash reserved for 3D sites somewhere else. Prime was once considered by many here to be superior to Daz's Platinum Club despite the steep price, but no longer.
If Prime had to change like Platinum Club did a few years back, then the changes should have been minor. The changes at DAZ were pretty minor-- prices increased up to 2.5x what they were before, but backlog remained the same. Fewer sales included additional discounts for Platinum Club members for non-Daz originals. Nonetheless, PC is still a steal at the price it is, and no additional attempts were made to push people to join PC. (They did make those dumb "get x discount if you buy x" however-- though in their defense, they have greatly simplified those sale stipulations since last December because customers found it much too confusing and/or too much to keep track of. Though time will tell if they continue that policy when March Madness begins.)
In comparison, Hivewire3D's sales aren't usually that generous, but they are combined with rewards points and the ability to customize the product bundles-- a feature which no other major MP has.
3D-Mobster posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 4:15 PM
The virus issue... someone up in the thread wrote "We are on the internet a lot and should know how to protect ourselves" — well, see, the operative word is "should". A lot of people dont. Now imagine the uproar if someone puts in a link that goes to a site that has malware on it. You think folks arent going to blame Rosity for that? Dream on, folks. Of course they are: "You should have told us! You should have known!" That's happened before, so can you really blame them for wanting to err on the side of caution?
I think you are correct about very few things here, meaning that Renderosity as you say should be active in removing any links with virus, malware etc from their site when they find or notice them. But i think you are misunderstanding the effect of this rule and why your view can actually be harmful for you. If you think that this will improve your security when browsing Renderosity you are doing so under a false impression of security, which can be very dangerous, if you dont want to get a virus.
So I would strongly advise you and anyone else thinking this way to rethink it, if you want to avoid these things, because this rule will do nothing in preventing you from the risk of getting a virus/malware and so forth from a link!!
If you want to protect yourself against viruses you need a virus protection software. There are free and very good ones available on the internet.
AVG - www.avg.com
Avast - www.avast.com
If you prefer better protection you either buy a license from one of these or one of the other companies that develop software designed to remove and prevent viruses.
If a person want to spread virus here on Renderosity, simply telling them to not do it, will not prevent it. Such person will post a link regardless of what Renderosity think and if they don't remove it fast enough or even prevent people from posting links in the first place, someone might click it and risk getting a virus if you don't use some software to protect yourself.
Also remember that Renderosity is only removing links to people that create freebie items, so a person wanting to spread a virus can simply post the link with a different topic.
People creating viruses, malware etc. and spread them are not stupid people and they very well know how to use a computer, the internet, forums and ways to spread these thing. There is a reason why there are so many companies develop software to remove these things, if it were a matter of simply telling those making them not to, then all these companies would be out of business.
Besides Renderosity making this rule in the first place, which was a mistake overall. Im really worried to see anyone actually believing this will help protect them against these things, because that is a serious problem.
So again and i STRESS it, if you want to be protected against these things get some virus protection software and don't trust any links on the internet, just because someone say they believe they are save.
RavynGyrl posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 6:30 PM
SeanMartin posted at 4:14PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257367
Just my 0.02...
When the site went through a re-design, I hated the new look. I mean, really, really hated it — and said so in the forums, quite pointedly. So did a lot of other folks, and eventually Rosity got the message and cleaned up the front page where it's actually a helluva lot better looking. So yes, folks, they do listen.
The Prime issue? OK, let's just think about this for a moment. Right now, at this very moment, you have almost three thousand people on this site, a massive gallery that gets filled with new stuff at an alarming rate every minute, and an equally huge store operation. All of this requires some pretty expensive hardware that actually keeps going up in price if you want to stay on top of things... not to mention the no-doubt increased costs in net security to keep this place as virus free as possible. I'm sorry, how do you propose Rosity pay for all this? They're not going to charge a membership fee, so what are your proposals?
The virus issue... someone up in the thread wrote "We are on the internet a lot and should know how to protect ourselves" — well, see, the operative word is "should". A lot of people dont. Now imagine the uproar if someone puts in a link that goes to a site that has malware on it. You think folks arent going to blame Rosity for that? Dream on, folks. Of course they are: "You should have told us! You should have known!" That's happened before, so can you really blame them for wanting to err on the side of caution?
Maybe I"m missing a few things here, but I seriously feel the outrage here is somewhat misguided.
The site design visually is ok for me...took getting used to the bigger thumbs, but everybody's going bigger, so whatever, I got used to it. However, it's extremely slooow to load. I have the updated version of Firefox for my browser. Every other site I go to loads quickly. Renderosity is the only one that takes forever to load. I do not like waiting minutes upon minutes just to look over what's new or for a product page to load. Sometimes, I just don't have the patience and I close Rendo altogether. That equates to lost sales for them. Whatever is making the site run so slowly, they need to fix.
The internet has been around for a long time. My kids know about viruses and how to stay protected. It's up to the individual to protect themselves from viruses. Of course the site should protect itself from malware and hacks...but to get rid of outside links entirely is a bit too much.
And Prime is a disaster. Instead of leaving the legacy products at $3.50, almost everything jumped up in price. Some vendors pulled their products from Prime completely with no warning. I had a few DM Prime products in my wishlist to get whenever. Yeah, I now won't be getting them anytime soon...not at full price, not when they were created for Prime. There are rarely any good coupons anymore for Prime. The money it costs to keep a Prime membership is no longer worth having it. Not to mention Rendo throwing the vendors under the bus when confronted about the sudden product price increases when it was Rendo who caused the uproar. Yeah, they may be hurting for money, but shredding Prime, and AFTER many people already upgraded too, was one of the worst ideas this store has had.
I feel these concerns that are being voiced are justified. Obviously people aren't spending the money here, as Rendo is in panic mode. But instead of working WITH the community to figure out a better path for everyone, they are working against us at every turn.
3DFineries posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 7:55 PM
3D-Mobster posted at 7:50PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257482
Also remember that Renderosity is only removing links to people that create freebie items, so a person wanting to spread a virus can simply post the link with a different topic.
Um, No. It is all off-site linking to competitive sites. Not just in the free section but also in signatures & posts, so if you have a link your signature expect a message as soon as we can get to it. Additionally, offsite linking to other marketplaces or freestuff sites are not allowed within the forum, gallery, or forum signatures. For example: Links to competing stores like Daz3d.com, RuntimeDNA.com, etc are not allowed. However, links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable.
And please don't shoot the messengers. We're just doing our jobs by following the rules. Please & thank you.
EDITED TO ADD THIS: My apologies for the confusion originally. It is NOT all off-site linking. As clarified by LPR in this comment. https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2899790&page_number=3#msg4257977
Have a creative day!
********
SeanMartin posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 9:25 PM
Malysse posted at 10:25PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257474
SeanMartin posted at 9:36PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257367
Just my 0.02...
Thank you. Your evaluation of its worth matches mine very closely.
Duly noted. And not surprised.
docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider
Wonderland posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 11:25 PM Online Now!
This is so sad. First we lose RDNA and now all this is happening here... Seems like it's the beginning of a mass exodus just when we need a safe place to hangout after RDNA's demise. Where will everyone go? Certainly not back to DAZ, they were the ones who invented deleting posts they didn't like and banning... I'm shocked to hear about 3D-Arena being banned! Banning a major vendor just for stating her opinion? So many people leaving and I don't understand why the powers that be aren't listening, it seems they are just shooting themselves in the foot...
I doubt it's the fault of the admins, I'm guessing they are just doing what they are told, but maybe if they banded together and told whoever is making all these bad decisions that the customers, vendors, and freebie creators are all leaving, something has to be changed, obviously things are moving in the wrong direction... What about maybe hiring some of the long time vendors or customers as staff instead of chasing them away? Just a thought. The Poser community is totally falling apart right now and Renderosity could save it or be part of its demise. Or maybe someone else will take over, a new community, maybe just a forum site with no store, where people could discuss art, software and post images and freebies without admins, without a TOS, on a personal blog site? Maybe just have admins to remove spammers or those who are truly hostile, not a vendor making a valid point that both customers and vendors agreed with... But if everyone is angry at Renderosity, they won't be buying which will be the closure of another once great site.
I hate what happened with Prime, the new freebie laws and the new sales with just three hours to buy from rotating vendors which has led me to buy nothing this month because I have a life and can't keep up with these time limited sales with hours in another time zone, but what I hate most is the banning of a vendor who just stated her opinion. This is the United States and there is a law called Freedom of Speech and I'm just appalled at what happened.
This is the first month in a long time that I haven't spent enough for render awards and the first month in years that I didn't spend a single penny at Renderosiry, partially due to the annoying timed sales and overpriced Prime items but also due in part to the fact that most new products are for G3 and I do hope the vendors remember that there are still a lot of Poser users, but that's another subject.
Please bring 3D-Arena back, fix Prime, allow links in the freebie section, apologize to all the longtime customers and vendors, go back to the big coupons combining with sales and I bet you will see a huge financial benefit because when the customers are happy, they will spend more, and if they stay on your forums and get a sense of community back, and actually like the administration rather than being angry at it, customers will spend more and vendors will not leave for other sites. This seems like a critical time for Renderosity and I hope they choose to save it before it all goes down in flames-- or is also bought out by DAZ, which is maybe what they are hoping for? I really loved it here, before it went so off-track and really hope it can recover and get back to its once glorious self!
ART BY ALICIA HOLLINGER
www.AliciaHollinger.com
FACEBOOK: Alicia's Page TWITTER: @AliciaHollinger INSTAGRAM: @AliciaHollinger
JVRenderer posted Thu, 25 February 2016 at 11:55 PM
Wonderland posted at 9:50PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257540
"This is so sad. First we lose RDNA and now all this is happening here... Seems like it's the beginning of a mass exodus just when we need a safe place to hangout after RDNA's demise. Where will everyone go?"
I signed up with cgbytes.com. Guess who signed up as well? SnarlyGribbly, Bagginsbill, Erogenesis, Laurie. and a few displaced folks from RDNA. When your welcome is overstated, you'll find a new hangout, build a new community. We are a resilient bunch.
JV
Software: Daz Studio 4.15, Photoshop CC, Zbrush 2022, Blender 3.3, Silo 2.3, Filter Forge 4. Marvelous Designer 7
Hardware: self built Intel Core i7 8086K, 64GB RAM, RTX 3090 .
"If you spend too much time arguing about software, you're spending too little time creating art!" ~ SomeSmartAss
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running." ~ Channing Pollock
Wonderland posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 12:18 AM Online Now!
JVRenderer posted at 10:13PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257542
Wonderland posted at 9:50PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257540
"This is so sad. First we lose RDNA and now all this is happening here... Seems like it's the beginning of a mass exodus just when we need a safe place to hangout after RDNA's demise. Where will everyone go?"
I signed up with cgbytes.com. Guess who signed up as well? SnarlyGribbly, Bagginsbill, Erogenesis, Laurie. and a few displaced folks from RDNA. When your welcome is overstated, you'll find a new hangout, build a new community. We are a resilient bunch.
JV
Yes, I was reading on the RDNA forums that Project E will be there. I will have to check it out...
ART BY ALICIA HOLLINGER
www.AliciaHollinger.com
FACEBOOK: Alicia's Page TWITTER: @AliciaHollinger INSTAGRAM: @AliciaHollinger
LPR001 posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 1:42 AM
SeanMartin posted at 5:45PM Fri, 26 February 2016 - #4257367
Just my 0.02...
When the site went through a re-design, I hated the new look. I mean, really, really hated it — and said so in the forums, quite pointedly. So did a lot of other folks, and eventually Rosity got the message and cleaned up the front page where it's actually a helluva lot better looking. So yes, folks, they do listen.
As pointed out above, this rule has been in place officially since August, but seems to me it was in place unofficially for a lot longer than that, wit Rosity pretty much turning a blind eye in most cases even though they preferred you really not do it. Apparently enough things happened that they had to turn it into a site rule seven months go. So it's not like this was any kind of surprise thrown out there at the last minute.
Yes, people want to use formats other than zip, but the problem is that most browsers will open zips automatically while things like rars and 7s require an outside utility. Zip is neat and clean and works, so what's the problem?
Now... the big one. Two issue here: (1) Honestly, I dont see a problem with linking to an offsite tutorial.... unless it's going to a site with adult material on it. I know, I know... "the beauty of the female form as celebrated throughout time!" blah blah blah. Dont care, folks. If you're taking me to a site with adult material, and you dont warn me in advance of that, that's a lousy thing to do, period, end of story. (2) If you're running an offsite store at that link, then yes Rosity has the right to deny you that link — you're getting a free platform here and then turn around and exploit it for personal gain elsewhere? That's like going to a bar, having a great time with your friends, and then telling everyone you have beer for sale in your car parked outside. Not cool, period, end of story.
The Prime issue? OK, let's just think about this for a moment. Right now, at this very moment, you have almost three thousand people on this site, a massive gallery that gets filled with new stuff at an alarming rate every minute, and an equally huge store operation. All of this requires some pretty expensive hardware that actually keeps going up in price if you want to stay on top of things... not to mention the no-doubt increased costs in net security to keep this place as virus free as possible. I'm sorry, how do you propose Rosity pay for all this? They're not going to charge a membership fee, so what are your proposals?
The virus issue... someone up in the thread wrote "We are on the internet a lot and should know how to protect ourselves" — well, see, the operative word is "should". A lot of people dont. Now imagine the uproar if someone puts in a link that goes to a site that has malware on it. You think folks arent going to blame Rosity for that? Dream on, folks. Of course they are: "You should have told us! You should have known!" That's happened before, so can you really blame them for wanting to err on the side of caution?
I may have my issues with this place on occasion, but by and large this is a pretty amazing place. The very fact that it exists at all with as minimal a staff as it has is nothing short of a freaking miracle... and you guys are upset because they're trying to do things that ensure the place hangs around for a while longer? Maybe I"m missing a few things here, but I seriously feel the outrage here is somewhat misguided.
Again, just my 0.02. Do with it what you will.
Maybe I can help with 0.01 one of the issues here on this thread SeanMartin We have tutorials from members/affiliates here on site but it would be impossible to cover all aspects of operation considering the multitude of software dealt with on this site. Renderosity have made the rule they don't want links to competing marketplaces so if the tutorial is sitting proud in the center of a 3D marketplace or a website/blog etc then obviously there would be an issue.
**Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. If you want to link to a tutorial on YouTube, Vimeo or Lynda.com, info/install guides pages on Smith Micro or DAZ, and links of that nature are accepted. ** If you have a blog and want to share your tutorial then pick the link up from the host ie YouTube etc and that would be fine. Since the majority of videos are hosted by the majors and streamed to your blog I don't think anything has changed with the tutorials as far as being made available.
I don't think Renderosity ever intended to have a rule where anyone was expected to miss out on the valuable resource of learning their craft.
I understand the confusion as I have worked my way through these threads and can see a tweak or two is possibly required. Knowing that everyone who has taken exception to these changes is following these threads and I hope this clears up the matter regarding tutorials. If any member is still unsure please contact me and I will go through it with you
- Johnny G
"Try animation to get things moving"
lpr001@renderosity.com
3D-Mobster posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 3:01 AM
**Um, No. It is all off-site linking to competitive sites. Not just in the free section but also in signatures & posts, so if you have a link your signature expect a message as soon as we can get to it. Additionally, offsite linking to other marketplaces or freestuff sites are not allowed within the forum, gallery, or forum signatures. For example: Links to competing stores like Daz3d.com, RuntimeDNA.com, etc are not allowed. However, links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable.
And please don't shoot the messengers. We're just doing our jobs by following the rules. Please & thank you.
Have a creative day!**
Don't worry i wont shoot anyone :D im just addressing the rule.
And i will make it perfectly clear to anyone, im not against Renderosity removing links, whether its signatures, competing or non competing links or any other type of link for that matter, if it contain or have been reported to contain viruses/malware and so forth they should remove it. Any company running a community should do that, so i have no problem with that. I also understand why Renderosity doesn't allow competing links to places like Daz3d etc, but it have nothing to do with preventing viruses, its for completely other reasons, so these things shouldn't be mixed together.
So my issue is aimed towards a specific addition to the rules of linking that i strongly disagree with for a lot of reasons, But those people and by far the most, that have added links and free content to people here on Renderosity completely free of charge, that a lot of you have benefitted from and enjoyed over the years, does not want or are trying to spread these things, But because a few incidents of people getting a virus from a link in the freebie forum, all these people are some how being accused or pointed out as if they are the main problem here and simply by removing ALL their links the problem can be helped.
But the fact is that you can get a virus from any link, regardless of the place its posted, if you click a link without protecting yourself or using your own judgement when downloading something, there is a chance of you getting a virus. A person spreading these things might have posted in the freebie section, because its the most obvious place to post it, but they will post it regardless of whether Renderosity want it or not, and should it be removed or not have the effect that they want, nothing prevent them from posting it in another forum with another topic, that won't be removed before its to late.
Its impossible to look at a website or something you download whether it contains a virus or not, therefore specialized software have been developed and continues to be so in other to better analyze and remove these things for you.
But if a person is defending this rule, because they think it will increase their security, they are simply being mislead by Renderosity argument, which can potential be very harmful, because such people might assume that due to this rule, any link found on this website is save and therefore don't use there own judgement or software to protect them self.
Tips for protecting your computer from viruses by Microsoft
Protecting your computer from viruses and other threats isn't difficult, but you have to be diligent. Here are some actions you can take:
Install an antivirus program. Installing an antivirus program and keeping it up to date can help defend your computer against viruses. Antivirus programs scan for viruses trying to get into your email, operating system, or files. New viruses appear daily, so set your antivirus software to install updates automatically.
Don't open email attachments unless you're expecting them. Many viruses are attached to email messages and will spread as soon as you open the email attachment. It's best not to open any attachment unless it's something you're expecting. For more information, see When to trust an email message.
Keep your computer updated. Microsoft releases security updates that can help protect your computer. Make sure that Windows receives these updates by turning on Windows automatic updating. For more information, see Turn automatic updating on or off.
Use a firewall. Windows Firewall (or any other firewall) can help alert you to suspicious activity if a virus or worm attempts to connect to your computer. It can also block viruses, worms, and hackers from attempting to download potentially harmful programs to your computer.
Use your browser's privacy settings. Being aware of how websites might use your private information is important to help prevent fraud and identity theft. If you're using Internet Explorer, you can adjust your Privacy settings or restore the default settings whenever you want. For details, see Change Internet Explorer 9 privacy settings.
Use a pop-up blocker with your browser. Pop-up windows are small browser windows that appear on top of the website you're viewing. Although most are created by advertisers, they can also contain malicious or unsafe code. A pop-up blocker can prevent some or all of these windows from appearing.
The Pop-up Blocker feature in Internet Explorer is turned on by default. To learn more about changing its settings or turning it on and off, see Change Internet Explorer 9 privacy settings.
Turn on User Account Control (UAC). When changes are going to be made to your computer that require administrator-level permission, UAC notifies you and gives you the opportunity to approve the change. UAC can help keep viruses from making unwanted changes. To learn more about turning on UAC and adjusting the settings, see Turn User Account Control on or off.
hornet3d posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 4:28 AM
JVRenderer posted at 10:26AM Fri, 26 February 2016 - #4257542
Wonderland posted at 9:50PM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257540
"This is so sad. First we lose RDNA and now all this is happening here... Seems like it's the beginning of a mass exodus just when we need a safe place to hangout after RDNA's demise. Where will everyone go?"
I signed up with cgbytes.com. Guess who signed up as well? SnarlyGribbly, Bagginsbill, Erogenesis, Laurie. and a few displaced folks from RDNA. When your welcome is overstated, you'll find a new hangout, build a new community. We are a resilient bunch.
JV
Some of the RDNA people have turned up at Hivewire3D as well but I think the more important aspect is that they have turned up as the danger is always that they will just move on. I am happy to go anywhere that there are interesting threads and helpful people, it is just the software wars and personal attacks I avoid.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
3DFineries posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 5:51 AM
There is always a way to stay within the TOS regarding off site linking & it baffles me that people just have to complain about things that can't be changed. However, it literally takes two seconds to make an offsite link not a link. This rule isn't new either, it's been there for years but it's just now being enforced. Not to mention there are so many other sites out there that don't allow off-site linking.
Have a creative day!
********
LaurieA posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 9:12 AM
People only complain because they give a damn. What will be much worse for the site is when hardly anyone is complaining. Add that together with hardly anyone posting and you've got an empty house.
Laurie
wheatpenny posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 11:10 AM Site Admin
We have no problem with people complaining and wanting to vent over things they don't agree with. But attacking staff memebrs over it will NOT be tolerated. Our job is to inform you of the rules and enforce those rules and that is what we are doing.
Jeff
Renderosity Senior Moderator
Hablo español
Ich spreche Deutsch
Je parle français
Mi parolas Esperanton. Ĉu vi?
LaurieA posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 11:12 AM
I wasn't attacking anyone. It was a STATEMENT. Wasn't an attack on anybody.
Laurie
3DFineries posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 12:26 PM
LaurieA posted at 12:24PM Fri, 26 February 2016 - #4257601
People only complain because they give a damn. What will be much worse for the site is when hardly anyone is complaining. Add that together with hardly anyone posting and you've got an empty house.
Laurie
Yes I know that, Laurie. Let me be clear: I'm in no way saying anyone is attacking staff. All I was doing is asking folks to "not shoot the messenger" when they start getting site-mails asking them to remove their links. I want everyone to know, we're only doing what we are told.
Have a creative day!
********
wheatpenny posted Fri, 26 February 2016 at 1:18 PM Site Admin
@LaurieA, I wasn't referring to you, I was speaking generally because this thread and the one that was locked included some attacks and other posts that came close.
Jeff
Renderosity Senior Moderator
Hablo español
Ich spreche Deutsch
Je parle français
Mi parolas Esperanton. Ĉu vi?
IceEmpress posted Sat, 27 February 2016 at 6:20 AM
Yes I know that, Laurie. Let me be clear: I'm in no way saying anyone is attacking staff. All I was doing is asking folks to "not shoot the messenger" when they start getting site-mails asking them to remove their links. I want everyone to know, we're only doing what we are told.
That's it? You aren't even bothering to tell your superiors WHY this is such a horrible idea, or forward the grievances made here by countless customers and even vendors? Just "Sir, yessir!!" Why is it that you do nothing other than say "we're listening, we're listening"? You guys come across like drones of TPtB. You owe it to your customers, your vendors, and most of all, yourselves to be far more than just underlings. Argue with them, tell them why their decisions are so destructive. Keep doing that every day or week or however often you regularly interact with your superiors until the day that they listen. It's the only way to save this site.
3DFineries posted Sat, 27 February 2016 at 6:54 AM
IceEmpress,
You have no clue how hard we've tried. YES, we've expressed our concerns to tptb & but there comes a point when it's time to accept what you can't change. So, with that said, the community needs to move on. In order to do that, the negative comments needs to stop cause it's not helping. I think this thread is nearing it's end.
Have a creative day!
********
3D-Mobster posted Sat, 27 February 2016 at 8:37 AM
You have no clue how hard we've tried. YES, we've expressed our concerns to tptb & but there comes a point when it's time to accept what you can't change. So, with that said, the community needs to move on. In order to do that, the negative comments needs to stop cause it's not helping. I think this thread is nearing it's end.
Ain't that just trying to refusing a fact? Clearly the community you want to move on agree with you on that point, but the negative feedback that is expressed just doesn't seem to agree with you in which direction it should move on to. If people doesn't express their concerns and feel as if they are ignored, there is not a lot of value left in the community, which you argue for is so important. We constantly hear arguments "We want people to be happy", "We are really trying", "We are listening", "We do it for you"...etc. Yet if you really believed that yourself and what you were doing actually resulted in that, how come so many people see it as being the complete opposite? At some point someone at Renderosity have to wonder, why your statement doesn't reflect reality?
I have asked several times and as you most likely know, most of my argumentation are not in the public forums, but in the vendor forum. Yet none of my questions or those of others have been answered, except either with new questions or simply by repeating the arguments that was put forward in the first place and are the ones that people don't agree with as either being beneficial or valid.
So fair enough that you want the community to move on, but Renderosity have done nothing for it to do so. Again its based on an illusion as if there is an unbreakable bond between you and the community and yet you do nothing to encourage it, except repeating the same statements mentioned above, that the community clearly doesn't share with you, due to you not listening to what they are saying.
And again the assumption that this "thread/topic" is over, might very well be, but keep hiding/ignoring the concerns from the community is not going to make it go away, people are complaining about lots of things, this was just another slap in the face to the community and the answers from what i can understand haven't changed. "If we all look the other way, it will go away".
Ill ask again for the third time, how is this rule beneficial for the community (Renderosity, vendors and members)?
Btw. Im not referring to you in particular 3dfineries as if you have to do it, as you probably already know, from reading my thread in the vendor forum. So i don't expect you to answer or having to defend it.
Seliah posted Sat, 27 February 2016 at 6:03 PM
My very first purchase here was in March of 2003. I joined the site in July of 2002.
I've ridden the waves of multiple changes for over a decade. Almost fifteen years, actually. I've done it for the MOST part without lodging major complaints. For the most part. There's been a few times where I had enough and spoke up, and of course, was immediately ridiculed, insulted, and jeered at, or just ignored and blown off completely. I don't like to lose my temper, and I don't like to holler and yell. I don't think either of those things does anyone any good, and they are just not constructive ways to get a point across.
A few years ago, when the upper echelon of Renderosity decided to follow Daz's oh so wonderful example of "but we're a BUSINESS!! so take what we're handing out or go away!", well......... I went away. I deleted my ENTIRE gallery, ALL of my freebies (ten years worth at the time), and I moved my whole gallery over to DeviantArt, and I kept my freebie posts to Daz's Freepozitory, and eventually ShareCG.
I did continue to purchase here, albeit at a MUCH lower rate than I once did. I buy the things I need, and I don't buy the things I have no need for.
I saw the Prime membership as Rendo's attempt to keep pace with Daz and it's PC. Unfortunately, for some of us, it was a joke right from the start. At $100 in one lump sum, for an entire year, it was quite frankly not worth it to me, nor was it affordable. Nor did I see much in the way of actual benefits to me, since I am not the type to try and "keep up with the Jones" and buy the latest/greatest/newest/whatever product that's coming out. (This can be seen if you look at my renders; I still use M3, V3, M4, V4, and Genesis 1 figures and their items, I use many items that date all the way back to the reign of the P4 female and V2/M2.)
So, therefore... the Prime was pointless for me. And still is. I am thusly, NOT a Prime member, nor will I ever likely be. I do have a PC membership on Daz because there are a lot of props and environment and other such resources that I find useful. However, lately, with the encrypted-only releases, I'm beginning to doubt how much longer I will maintain that membership either.
In all the changes across the many forums, many sites.. some places disappearing (Remember PoserPros or 3DCommune anyone?) for the most part I have tried to just ride the wave, adjust to it, and continue to move forward with what I'm here to do. I like making content. MOST of my content is made and distributed as freebies. I enjoy making art, even though my art is usually ignored by the gallery-at-large because I don't post pinups or do T&A shots. I do story illustrations. Big difference, and when people are looking for skin, they won't bother looking at story images.
Anyway.
I very recently came back to the site as an artist and freebie maker. I DO upload my freebies to the free content area here, but only because I have no choice. Because I have so many years worth of content, I vastly PREFER to attach a link to my main website IN ADDITION TO THE FILE when I upload a freebie. Why? Because MOST of my freebies are not even on this website any longer ,due to the actions of the Renderosity Business Echelon at the Top. However, that said, I have the same policy in just about any place I post my content. If the place allows a direct upload, or prefers it, I will do it and attach a link to MY website.
I do not sell at MY website. Yeah, there's a small market section, which is no longer even valid. I have emptied out and closed my small store on Content Paradise some time ago, so those links are dead and I need to update my website to reflect that. However, that said... the main reason I attach MY website link to my content posts, is so that folks can find the REST of my content, and maybe they might find something else that is useful to them on the site.
Now, when Rendo first decided to ban these links, I stopped bothering to even post my freebies on the forums here. After all, no links allowed. And then when Rendo went to the Daz attitude of "to heck with you all, we're a BUSINESS and we want MONEY," I ended up wiping out my gallery and my freebie section on this site.
Now, last summer I think it was? I tentatively came back as both an artist and a freebie maker.
I'm wondering if I made a bad decision there. I'm actually considering wiping out both the gallery and the freebies one more time. Rest assured, if I do this a second time, it will be the LAST time, because I will NEVER bother to upload either content or gallery images ever again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And at the moment, I'm starting to think this just fell into the "Fool me twice" category.
Banning ALL outside links is unproductive to a community environment, which the upper echelon of Renderosity CLAIMS is so gosh darned important to them. Banning ALL outside links actually hampers a community environment, whose purpose is to SHARE information. How the heck are you supposed to share information without links? Someone explain that to me, mmkay? Because to my eyes, it's simply not possible.
Now.. I don't NORMALLY bother to post in discussions such as these. Frankly, they're pointless. We can, as members, rail on all we want. The fact of the matter is that the mods themselves are not the problem, and I am NOT angry with the mods. The other fact of the matter is, that no matter what we say or how many times we say it, or how many of us say it, the upper echelon of the BUSINESS MANAGERS at this site are going to do whatever the hell they feel like, because they DO NOT CARE about the community at large. I do believe the MODS care. I do. But they are being hamstringed by draconian rules and behavior and the money-first, profits-first attitudes of the business managers at this site.
Mods... I could never do your job. I don't envy you your jobs. I would not have the patience for it, and would probably get myself fired for telling off the business managers. I have a bad habit of refusing to do something that I vehemently disagree with. So... props to you for continuing to wade through the piles of horse puckey to do your jobs, because I would never be able to make myself do that.
Now. All of that said. The direction Renderosity is going concerns me. It concerns a lot of folks. I got my start here and at 3DCommune. I've been at this a long time. I don't for even a minute think that anything I or anyone else on these forums has to say is even being READ by the folks at the top, let alone LISTENED to. I know better by now. It doesn't matter how much spin the mods or the admins place on these policies, that's all it is - spin and PR campaigns aimed at trying to herd the membership like sheep into their pens. It's meant to make us kowtow and behave and stop questioning why. They (the business managers at the TOP of the site) dont' care about a dang thing other than how many pennies go into their coffers at the end of each day. Period.
Despite all of this, the community here has limped along. It's NOTHING compared to what it was when I first came here. I won't comment on the banning of the vendor because I have no idea what happened or what was said to cause it.
I am sick to death of corporate and business attitudes. I remember when this hobby was first and foremost about sharing with each other. Heck the whole reason I started to MAKE freebies was to give something back to the hobby that I had benefitted so much from in the first place! Now, with the whole no links thing? You are crippling my ability to give back!
All I will say here, is that at this point, I've found my home at HiveWire, and I will be selling content ONLY through them, but I do still come here on a regular basis to read and sometimes buy a little content from the vendors I love. I still love this place. I would like to continue adding freebies to this place, and my art, and being on the forums to read what gets posted, even if I don't msyelf make a lot of my own posts. At the moment, that is looking doubtful here.
I really wish the greed of business managers would stop destroying places I love.
That's all I say. I won't post again, so don't anyone worry about it. I just had to get that out.
Thanks.
moriador posted Sat, 27 February 2016 at 11:31 PM
LPR001 posted at 9:07PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257552
**Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. If you want to link to a tutorial on YouTube, Vimeo or Lynda.com, info/install guides pages on Smith Micro or DAZ, and links of that nature are accepted. ** If you have a blog and want to share your tutorial then pick the link up from the host ie YouTube etc and that would be fine. Since the majority of videos are hosted by the majors and streamed to your blog I don't think anything has changed with the tutorials as far as being made available.
I don't think Renderosity ever intended to have a rule where anyone was expected to miss out on the valuable resource of learning their craft.
3DFineries posted at 9:08PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257520
It is all off-site linking to competitive sites. Not just in the free section but also in signatures & posts, so if you have a link your signature expect a message as soon as we can get to it. Additionally, offsite linking to other marketplaces or freestuff sites are not allowed within the forum, gallery, or forum signatures. For example: Links to competing stores like Daz3d.com, RuntimeDNA.com, etc are not allowed. However, links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable.
And please don't shoot the messengers. We're just doing our jobs by following the rules. Please & thank you.
I don't want to shoot the messengers. But I do wish you would talk to each other, decide what the rules actually, really, truly, finally ARE, and then let us know. As long as, you're contradicting each other -- in the same thread, even -- how are we supposed to have any idea what's going on?
There's nothing worse than having one mod say, "Yes, that's fine," and then have another turn around and delete something and then give you a warning as well, as though you're some kind of reprobate who refuses to abide by the TOS.
Anyway, I am not going to post help to newbie users if I am going to be hamstrung. If I can't link to tutorials -- no matter where they are --, if I can't link to freebie scripts and other products that help to solve a problem or are necessary to perform some function, then I'm not going to post any help because it's just not worth it doing dances around a TOS that is against everything the World Wide Web stands for.
Linking is the FOUNDATION of the web. It's what makes the internet the super connected source of information and sharing that it is today.
To be sure, a marketplace's Google rank is, in fact, still largely determined by the number and quality of its links. But any site that limits the outgoing links, in a misguided effort to prevent the loss of sales, is going to lose far more than it gains.
If I link to a tutorial on Daz in a forum post that helps a newbie, the newbie will watch or read the tutorial -- and they MAY decide to browse the Daz marketplace. Or they may bookmark the tute, close that tab, and return to Rendo's forums to thank the person who made the link.
If I can't link to that tutorial, but must, instead, give directions about how to search for it, that newbie will almost certainly end up on Daz's marketplace while they are looking for the tutorial -- and they are far more likely to get distracted and stay there.
Moreover, for every outgoing link to a freebie maker's site that Renderosity loses, it will also lose a quality incoming link. What is a quality link? It's a link to a site with a closely related topic or within the same industry.
Sure, links to Etsy and Ebay and so on are permitted, but Google has told us themselves that links both to and from sites which are unrelated to the topic or industry of the site in question are not considered "quality links". They are, in fact, more likely to drop your ranking because Google perceives lots of unrelated linking as being link farming. So, yeah, ban the quality links, encourage the low quality ones. See what happens.
I used to make a living doing search engine optimization. I've seen sites buried by Google and for no other reason than that they tried to create a walled garden. Walled gardens are okay if you're Apple or Facebook. But if you have fewer than several hundred million users, setting one up is like cutting your throat. Google is deeply committed to the FOUNDATION of the world wide web -- that is, the LINK: they made and continue to make their living from it. And any not-enormous site that tries to go against the philosophy of free information flow through the technology of the LINK is going to be hurt by Google.
My $20's worth. Take it or leave it.
PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.
LPR001 posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 12:29 AM
moriador posted at 4:59PM Sun, 28 February 2016 - #4257975
LPR001 posted at 9:07PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257552
**Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. If you want to link to a tutorial on YouTube, Vimeo or Lynda.com, info/install guides pages on Smith Micro or DAZ, and links of that nature are accepted. ** If you have a blog and want to share your tutorial then pick the link up from the host ie YouTube etc and that would be fine. Since the majority of videos are hosted by the majors and streamed to your blog I don't think anything has changed with the tutorials as far as being made available.
I don't think Renderosity ever intended to have a rule where anyone was expected to miss out on the valuable resource of learning their craft.
3DFineries posted at 9:08PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257520
It is all off-site linking to competitive sites. Not just in the free section but also in signatures & posts, so if you have a link your signature expect a message as soon as we can get to it. Additionally, offsite linking to other marketplaces or freestuff sites are not allowed within the forum, gallery, or forum signatures. For example: Links to competing stores like Daz3d.com, RuntimeDNA.com, etc are not allowed. However, links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable.
And please don't shoot the messengers. We're just doing our jobs by following the rules. Please & thank you.
I don't want to shoot the messengers. But I do wish you would talk to each other, decide what the rules actually, really, truly, finally ARE, and then let us know. As long as, you're contradicting each other -- in the same thread, even -- how are we supposed to have any idea what's going on?
There's nothing worse than having one mod say, "Yes, that's fine," and then have another turn around and delete something and then give you a warning as well, as though you're some kind of reprobate who refuses to abide by the TOS.
Anyway, I am not going to post help to newbie users if I am going to be hamstrung. If I can't link to tutorials -- no matter where they are --, if I can't link to freebie scripts and other products that help to solve a problem or are necessary to perform some function, then I'm not going to post any help because it's just not worth it doing dances around a TOS that is against everything the World Wide Web stands for.
Linking is the FOUNDATION of the web. It's what makes the internet the super connected source of information and sharing that it is today.
To be sure, a marketplace's Google rank is, in fact, still largely determined by the number and quality of its links. But any site that limits the outgoing links, in a misguided effort to prevent the loss of sales, is going to lose far more than it gains.
If I link to a tutorial on Daz in a forum post that helps a newbie, the newbie will watch or read the tutorial -- and they MAY decide to browse the Daz marketplace. Or they may bookmark the tute, close that tab, and return to Rendo's forums to thank the person who made the link.
If I can't link to that tutorial, but must, instead, give directions about how to search for it, that newbie will almost certainly end up on Daz's marketplace while they are looking for the tutorial -- and they are far more likely to get distracted and stay there.
Moreover, for every outgoing link to a freebie maker's site that Renderosity loses, it will also lose a quality incoming link. What is a quality link? It's a link to a site with a closely related topic or within the same industry.
Sure, links to Etsy and Ebay and so on are permitted, but Google has told us themselves that links both to and from sites which are unrelated to the topic or industry of the site in question are not considered "quality links". They are, in fact, more likely to drop your ranking because Google perceives lots of unrelated linking as being link farming. So, yeah, ban the quality links, encourage the low quality ones. See what happens.
I used to make a living doing search engine optimization. I've seen sites buried by Google and for no other reason than that they tried to create a walled garden. Walled gardens are okay if you're Apple or Facebook. But if you have fewer than several hundred million users, setting one up is like cutting your throat. Google is deeply committed to the FOUNDATION of the world wide web -- that is, the LINK: they made and continue to make their living from it. And any not-enormous site that tries to go against the philosophy of free information flow through the technology of the LINK is going to be hurt by Google.
My $20's worth. Take it or leave it.
Some change
We use the same TOS the members do and while I was making my way through the posts I noticed many members were stating that it was all offsite links including tutorials. I kept flipping back and forth between the posts and the TOS and had concerns about tutorials as there was nothing in the TOS that states you could not do this but also nothing to say you could. We only worry about when it says you can't. Anything dubious is based on its own individual case. What it does say is no links to competing marketplaces. Given the members are claiming we are ignoring them I felt I should go and seek clarification as I thought it was very important if anything the need for tutorials is critical and I have posted the answer. If anything as I stated the TOS may need a tweak in relation to this because I could see the confusion myself. It is as I stated above and 3DFineries did ask me about this and will pin a post regarding the matter. The main part to consider - Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. And providing your link does not land in a competing marketplace there is no issue. If someone asked about a nVidia Graphic Card you could land them smack in the middle of the PC nVidia /retailer store or eBay etc as Renderosity would not take exception to that.
Now the members either want the mods (namely me) to sort through this each and every line, address their concerns, see where there may be confusion, and hopefully in some cases bring back something that looks a little more acceptable, or at the very least a clarification when it looks like it falls short somewhere. However if trying to sort through this is going to be an issue for you guys please let me know now because I really have got better things to do with my time than play games. After all it is contradictory to slap us down when we are only trying to do what you are asking for.
- Johnny G
"Try animation to get things moving"
lpr001@renderosity.com
3DFineries posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 8:02 AM
Thank you Johnny for clearing that up for everyone. The wording in the TOS is unclear & it was confusing everyone but I am glad this is perfectly clear now.
My apologies to the members. :heart tip:
Have a creative day!
********
IceEmpress posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 8:18 AM
We use the same TOS the members do and while I was making my way through the posts I noticed many members were stating that it was all offsite links including tutorials. I kept flipping back and forth between the posts and the TOS and had concerns about tutorials as there was nothing in the TOS that states you could not do this but also nothing to say you could. We only worry about when it says you can't. Anything dubious is based on its own individual case. What it does say is no links to competing marketplaces. Given the members are claiming we are ignoring them I felt I should go and seek clarification as I thought it was very important if anything the need for tutorials is critical and I have posted the answer. If anything as I stated the TOS may need a tweak in relation to this because I could see the confusion myself. It is as I stated above and 3DFineries did ask me about this and will pin a post regarding the matter. The main part to consider - Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. And providing your link does not land in a competing marketplace there is no issue. If someone asked about a nVidia Graphic Card you could land them smack in the middle of the PC nVidia /retailer store or eBay etc as Renderosity would not take exception to that.
LPR, you need to look at Hope's locked thread in the Freestuff forum which is THE official announcement about off-site links.
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2899703
In the TOS, we now have a new addition that states we no longer accept off-site links. So, unfortunately, you're unable to post off-site freebies.
In addition, we fear that any off-site links could be harmful to other members and could potentially give off viruses.
Tutorials are not mentioned specifically, but it is clear that hope is referring to any and all off-site links, PERIOD. There is nothing in the announcement about 'trusted sites' for videos or tutorials nor that there are any exceptions to this rule.
adh3d posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 8:25 AM
I think, with all its defects, I think there are many things can be improved here, in Renderosity, this place is the way to go after the "close" of RDNA , for Poser artist and content creators.
Big stores and community like this one, and RDNA was till now, are very important and vital for survival of Poser world, not only for the Poser application.
Everyone can have an opinion about everything, It is normal and even recommended, but I don't think the solution of all problems is to close and leave this place, and less in the times we are living now.
I have nothing against DAZ3d and its way of making business, I have nothing against DAZ3d when try to get the entire "cake" of Poser business, this is normal and logical from its point of view, even mandatory for a company of this size, but to people that " cut" with this website, for one reason or other, justifiably or not, I would say that try to imagine a "Poser world" where there is only one big community and store to go, with its own rules and without equal competitors.
Just think about it.
LPR001 posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 9:36 AM
IceEmpress posted at 1:39AM Mon, 29 February 2016 - #4258008
We use the same TOS the members do and while I was making my way through the posts I noticed many members were stating that it was all offsite links including tutorials. I kept flipping back and forth between the posts and the TOS and had concerns about tutorials as there was nothing in the TOS that states you could not do this but also nothing to say you could. We only worry about when it says you can't. Anything dubious is based on its own individual case. What it does say is no links to competing marketplaces. Given the members are claiming we are ignoring them I felt I should go and seek clarification as I thought it was very important if anything the need for tutorials is critical and I have posted the answer. If anything as I stated the TOS may need a tweak in relation to this because I could see the confusion myself. It is as I stated above and 3DFineries did ask me about this and will pin a post regarding the matter. The main part to consider - Links to known, safe, established websites are not being banned. And providing your link does not land in a competing marketplace there is no issue. If someone asked about a nVidia Graphic Card you could land them smack in the middle of the PC nVidia /retailer store or eBay etc as Renderosity would not take exception to that.
LPR, you need to look at Hope's locked thread in the Freestuff forum which is THE official announcement about off-site links.
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2899703
In the TOS, we now have a new addition that states we no longer accept off-site links. So, unfortunately, you're unable to post off-site freebies.
In addition, we fear that any off-site links could be harmful to other members and could potentially give off viruses.
Tutorials are not mentioned specifically, but it is clear that hope is referring to any and all off-site links, PERIOD. There is nothing in the announcement about 'trusted sites' for videos or tutorials nor that there are any exceptions to this rule.
IceEmpress - Links to known, safe, established websites are accepted. This includes Daz and Smith Micro just make sure it does not land in a competing marketplace and you will be okay. If you have any difficulties contact me. Now we can move on and see what else is not clear.
- Johnny G
"Try animation to get things moving"
lpr001@renderosity.com
IceEmpress posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 2:48 PM
Sorry, but I still don't believe you. If this were true, then Hope's thread that I linked to would be deleted and either you or she would make a new official one that clarifies these points. Instead, you are telling us this within threads where it will get conveniently buried. This tells me that what you are saying is not the official TOS at all, because it's not official until an announcement topic is made about it.
Unless, that is, that it IS the new official TOS, but TPtB have prohibited you guys not to make an announcement about it because they do not actually want people to know that it is permitted...
LPR001 posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 4:22 PM
@IceEmpress You don't have to believe me that is up to you. Where it states in the TOS - links to non-competing stores like Etsy.com or Ebay.com are acceptable is IMO a little light on detail. I will ask Hope to see if we can have this done. Nothing has changed, nothing was added or subtracted from the principles of the rule itself it is basically more examples only. There is no conspiracy.
With your comment
The TPtB have said nothing of the sort that I am aware of and if we were prohibited to make any announcements then I probably would not have put the clarification up don't you think?
I have been here long enough to know that nothing can be buried in a thread here. I am positive you will find it if you need to.
- Johnny G
"Try animation to get things moving"
lpr001@renderosity.com
LaurieA posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 5:43 PM
I am SOOOO confused and because I am now so confused, and because this back and forth has been going on so long, I'm too tired and no longer care to have it clarified. Thanks Renderosity. Good luck to the mods. I'm not being facetious, I really do wish ya luck.
Laurie
hopeandlove posted Sun, 28 February 2016 at 8:52 PM
Thanks everyone for your comments. But, this thread is being locked because there's nothing left to discuss.
Hope Kumor
Editor-in-chief of Renderosity Magazine