Hmmmm Palm Beach sounds good.....better than winter in Melbourne...
And half of 40% is 20%......you live and learn....

Bad Idea. Are you gonna watch what I download? not that Im doing anything bad but.. dont watch me. Im not here for that and if that is the case I wont come here anymore. I am registered but I still dont like the idea. If hosting is such a pain then why did ya take it on? This is not what was planned for this site in the begining.. or did ya forget the old " This site will be ran by shogot and 10c without Stardocks influence" what happened here? It all seems to rotate around the mighty buck. I dont recall that being the issues back then. Sure selling T-shirts and all that can be necessary to help host bandwidth and all but watching your members and what they do for the benifit of one software compant which also hosts this site? hmm why dont ya just charge people $100. a year to have the privlage of being a member here. OR just tack an extra $5.00 on the proce of the Stardock softwares to have access to this site? Just my oppinion but to me.. This stinks.

Crumbut: Of COURSE it revolves around the mighty buck. If you don't think money is important, why don't YOU host the site? It's always nice to spend someone else's money.

The reason why it's an issue now and not before is because traffic has FAR exceeded expectations. Therefore, it's way overbudget.

Your suggestion for having Stardock customers further subsidize all the freeloaders is a horrible idea. The budget is already there for Stardock customers. Why should they foot the bill for all the freeloaders, too?

As for your concern that they could be watching what you download, exactly how is that different now? If they were somehow interested in what you were downloading, it would be trivial for them to do so now (assuming you're a member).

what am I new kid on the block? You dont know me.. no Im not having a bad day.. just voicing my oppion on something I have played a part it since oh.. 1999 maybe even late 98 dont recall... Thanks for your input though.

<egocentric core>
To be honest, I don't really care about it. Seeing I neither use the software, nor download the skins for it, nor look at the sections (only when very bored), none of this applies to me.
</egocentric core>

Anyway, the average Joe Blow Downloader is just as egocentric as I am. he or she just wants downloads. Requiring people to register to be able to use the site would certainly reduce the bandwidth usage in a way. But that would also mean lots of people would be cut off from it unless they register, which might mean they'll abandone the product altogether. Not quite what the goal was. Similarly, registered users might also suck up all the bandwidth.

A quota system could work, non registered users can download amount X/month, registered users can download the triple of that or so. Still there's the multiple accounts backdoor then. So that's no solution either.

Is there a solution anyway? One one hand you want exposure, on the other hand you want to constrain bandwidth. Sounds pretty conflicting to me.

Crumbut: I don't know where you got the idea that I thought you were new. You're right that I don't know you, but I've been reading your posts (and enjoying your skins) for quite a long time, first on Skinz and now here, and I don't recall you going off like that, especially in two different threads. That's why I asked if you were having a bad day.

And I know you were just voicing your opinion. So was I. Isn't that the point of this board?

Tarkus, you know what I find interesting? Over at Skinz.org, I remember CRUMBUT and Doreen being the BIGGEST fans of Object Desktop. The would never miss a chance to tell some rookie to go buy the whole Object Desktop subscription, that it was worth every penny...
And now this...
We hardly see CRUMBUt or Doreen around this part of the neighbourhood anymore. What happened? How did this site succeeded in driving away two of Stardock's biggest fans?
Just food for thoughts...

I know everyone hates when I get statistical...

But statistics are the only real way to make these kinds of decisions. We can't live on anedotal view points.

WinCustomize already does nearly twice the bandwidth per month that skinz.org did at its height. I've talked to Mian about this very issue on many occasions over the years.

And that's the issue. When we set up this site, we assumed it would never do as much traffic as Skinz.org did. Skinz.org was the ideal site. In our mind, it was the perfect skin site.

This month we will get over 400,000 *unique* users. As I type this, there are 306 people currently logged on. The resulting bandwidth use is problematic.

Skin sites, not just that one have really 3 options (or combination of):

1) Make the sites incredibly slow by lowering bandwidth to what the site can afford.

2) Find ways of lowering the amount of bandwidth being used by users.

3) Find ways to see if the users will help chip in on the bandwidth bill.

This is something all the sites have to wrestle with.

We want to avoid option 1. We've done a lot of work this month to decrease the bandwidth the site uses to work on option 2.

And selling T-shirts and CDs and other goodies may help on paying for the bandwidth.

But if all that fails, I don't understand why someone would object to trying to stop people who are pirating our software and downloading many megabytes of skins. As has been pointed out, anyone downloading 50 MEGABYTES of skins isn't a casual user. A casual user wouldn't even be aware of any of this. I haven't even downloaded 50 megs of skins. But there are already thousands of people who have. And if they've at least registered the software they use, then that's great, we hope they download everything. But what about the guy who'se using a cracked copy of WindowBlinds? Why should people paying their hard earned money to register their software have to pay for the guy pirating the software and massively downloading?

Aren't crumbut and doreen admins on LOS now? I gather they spend their time there. Oh hey, nice they changed WinCustomize from being a community site over there to being a company site. Very classy on their part.

paxx: Point taken.

Aren't crumbut and doreen admins on LOS now? I gather they spend their time there. Oh hey, nice they changed WinCustomize from being a community site over there to being a company site. Very classy on their part.


by Developer Tandis - 8/12/2001 11:23:59 PM

whats that mean? are we making changes here? nah just voicing an oppion. dont let me ofend you, I have no plans to do that. Im not here to stand up for Doreen but what did she say that got ya mad? just wondering?

Who's mad at Doreen? And why would anyone be mad at Doreen? How can anyone be mad at Doreen? Oye, time for bed.

Well....I'm mad at Doreen....she got me into this ICQ thing...then is almost never on it...

Tandis: they were here before LOS existed. So why did they feel the need to go somewhere else? If it would have been anybody else, I don't say... But those tweo where fanatics in my mind. I remember thinking "Come on guys, Stardock isn't the end of the World and Brad isn't God!"
Why are they admins at LOS now?

Anyway, myself, as I said in another thread: I was pissed off at first, but now I accepted what the site is. For it is NOT a community site, it is a Stardock-community site, and therefore, yes, as listed on LOS a company site. And that's OK with me, once I accepted that for a fact.

This site is just as mcuh as 'community' site as any other place. who the hell gets to decide what a 'community' site is?

The community?

No, seriously. In my mind, and in most people's mind, the word "community" excludes profit and cannot be biased to any specific product.
Pretty much the same as the real world's definition of "community". People who work for the community usually don't work at MacDonald's or in the local theater, even if those are indeed places where people in the community go to...

Now what did I do???
(actually ppl are always mad at me)

hehe Jafo what? you miss me on icq?
I'm opening it "right" now to look for "you"!!!

So do you and a group of 'key users' decide what these definitions are? Skinz.org was a for profit site. I guess skinz.og wasn't a community site.

Frank....'skinz.og' was the stone-age 'skinz.org'.....back then, the skinz were real skins.....when men were men, and sheep were nervous...

I'm not mad at Doreen, Master Crumbut. If anyone is angry or upset it's you.

And if we're gonna take sides,where one side are the software pirates leeching skins like MP3s and warez and on the other side people who contribute to the community and don't steal their software I am proud to be on the latter's side.

It's also laughable for somebody to try to make whether a site makes money part of the criteria for being a community site in the wake of eFront which owned Skinz.org, THE community skin site for a long time. So let's cut with the historical revisionism.

I think why skinz.org is getting dragged into this and regarded as a community site as opposed to this site as a "corporate" site, is because this site has a heavy StarDock feel. I didn't have a thirty4 feel with skinz.org. Skinz.org was skinz.org, no strings attached (that is, no visible strings). An example of strings attached here is the no-Hoverdesk policy (though that's the only thing I can come up with now). Note that I do not see this as a company site myself. More a skins site (dare I say "community"?) with a strong company presence.

One notable difference between this site and skinz is that things are more open here. We get to hear what's going on behind the scenes, opinions are asked and such. In all those years (both of 'em) that I hopped on to skinz.org, I never had any idea what was going on behind the scene and nothing really notably changed over time. Maybe the admins should just do what they think is best and let us bitchers and moaners boil in our own fat (and that's a Dutch saying)?

Another thing (going slightly off topic now) is the role of Froggy. He is not an admin nor has he anything to do with this site (right?). Yet everyone treats him like he runs this site and a lot of times he is the one giving the lowdown on the site and its status. Confusing.

jafo> Hey, "sheep" is my word! Or are that your Tasmanian roots emerging?

Crae has some good points.

Naivete isn't restricted to just some skinners. I'm naive too.

After what happened with Skinz.org with eFront, we decided that when we put up WinCustomize we would put everything on view. No secrets.

We'd let users know how many visitors the site gets. Where they come from. How much bandwidth is used. How that bandwidth is distributed. How much the site costs. What ideas we had for the site. Get people's input on directions for the site.

And of course, the result has been somewhat disastrous. You'd think we were now charging users to download. I'm a slow learner (as T-man would say). I'll put out an idea to see what people think and expect some constructive discussion. Afterall, that's what we do in the Stardock groups all the time. We had a discussion on price increases for Object Desktop for instance there. Price INCREASES mind you. Not one flame. Not one melodramatic crazed response from anyone.

So what causes this difference? The problem is that we're used to people trusting us. And for whatever reason, the skin "community" just doesn't want to trust any companies no matter how benevolent they are. So I'll put out an idea to get views and suddenly histerical responses will be made as if such an idea was not only goin gto be implemented, but had already been implemented.

Whereas on the Stardock news groups, our users trust us. They know from years of experience that we do care what people say and do take what they think into consideration. The software we've created wasn't designed soley by some tiny group of Stardock engineers but by our community of users.

But in the skinning "community" you have a decent chunk of users reading everything we say as new evil ways we're out to screw the little guy.

That's the naivete that we really have to get over. That there will always be some vocal percentage of users who will believe the worst no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

And hence, instead of having gropus of rational people trying to solve a problem (we have X bandwidth but Y bandwidth is being used where Y is greater than X, we need to find a way of either increasing X or decreasing Y) it's a bucnh of unconstructive shooting down of ideas and vague, pie in the sky "everything should be free and corporations are evil" mush.

So clearly, the solution is to discuss iddeas for the site on the news groups if we want constructive suggestions and simply implement them here. And to blow off discussions (We could have just blown off the Hoverdesk question and it would have died. So answering honestly and openly suddenly makes WC the "bad guy".

Ultimately, we will never have 1 vision of "the community". I don't think of "the community" as the 2 dozen active posters on a couple of websites. The 400,000 unique visitors to this site are nominally part of the community. Even if 99% of them are discounted, that's still 4,000 people. They are part of the community in my view. Economics, politics, whatever have nothing to do with "the community". In my view, "the skinning community" is made up of people who, for whatever reason, choose to spend their time creating or using skins.

BTW, for those of you who chaffe at long posts (another unique issue to "the community") this post would be considered short in other discussion groups. But I'm sure there's a "What song are you listening to right now" post waiting another response somewhere...

Im listening too...

I'm listening to CNN actually, god knows why.

Oh wait... ahum....