DeviantArt

<b> No skin site could exist without a wallpapers section </b> - <b> all good skinners have started skinning by doing a wallpaper </b> , (we all know that there is no rule without exceptions). <br /> <br />Love and understanding is what we all really need, the rest are secondary. <br /> <br />Let us try to have a better New Year!

&quot;If you had to pay for all that yourself ´just´ to have a website, I think you´d be finding some meens of funding too! <br />&quot; <br />Snowman, I DO PAY for a site, actually, 2 sites. Both are totally free , like Skinbase. I know what imtalking about. I just dont tow the corporate line like most others. <br />I guess finacial gurus would laugh at me. so be it. Ive been laughing at them for quite some time. Also, when you dont have money, and you have to pay big money to have internet access, and a computer and the vaarious crap like firewalls, and adware apps etc. and you have to feed you and yours etc. The last thing I want to do is give my aret for free and pay them for it. <br />Sorry, i just dont think its right. If i cant pull my weight then ill ask for help. If I cannot get that help ill move on. If devart want s to ask me nicely, who know? oh wait, this is the real world. right, i am constantly reminded of that. <br /> <br />But life is short, so whatever happens happens. I still like everyone here and the site is awesome, thats what matters most to me.

Well thats great Orion, but do your sites get millions of visitors each month, requireing <b>huge</b> amount of bandwidth? I&acute;m just asking, since thats the case with DA.... <br /> <br />Sure I would like all sites to be off fully free access to all, but as little as we may like it, thats just not possible. <br /> <br />I see nothing wrong in those that are willing to pay a small amount of cash to help and support the running of the site(s), are getting a bit more options than those that have chosen not too (including yours truely) <br /> <br /> <br />I&acute;m running a site too, and there&acute;s no way in hell anyone will ever have to pay to visit/use any part it. Nor will you ever see any ads on it either. <br />I&acute;d rather kill off the site before that happens!!

Doreen and others: <br /> <br />Let&acute;s talk business for a second. An application doesn&acute;t need a 1000 skins to be viable. It only needs a few dozen GOOD ones along with a consistent stream of quality skins/themes over a long period of time. <br /> <br />Now, getting bakc to deviantART, explain how deviantART &quot;needs&quot; a million submissions to be viable? Go and look at most of those submissions. It is deviantART doing thhose people a favor by allowing them to store their &quot;artwork&quot; on their site for free. Not the other way around. <br /> <br />Those people who make heavy use of a site have a responsibility to contribute something back. Some sites, like WinCustomize, have access systems to reward people who can&acute;t contribute finanically but can contribute in other ways. <br /> <br />I don&acute;t think people realize just what an infintesible number of people actually give something back. <br /> <br />Consider this: WinCustomize will get over 2 million unique visitors this month. ~500 people will subscribe (which is way above aveage). As a percent, that&acute;s tiny. At deviantART, it&acute;s probably even worse. <br /> <br />Anyone suggesting that these sites run a profit simply has no idea what they&acute;re talking about. I bet deviantART costs well over $100,000 annually to run and that&acute;s only because nearly all the work is done by volunteers. <br /> <br />Skin sites are a labor of love. And those of us who run them do so because we love doing it. But it puts a sour taste in our mouths when some cheapskate tries to somehow argue we&acute;re making money doing it as their lame excuse for not helping or compalining that the freeloaders of the world can&acute;t use the more epxensive to run parts of the site.

Doreen - please point me to these sites making a profit because I want to know their secret. I&acute;m not aware of any content intensive site (ala WinCustomize, Skinbase, deviantART, etc.) that even remotely makes a profit. <br /> <br />The best analogy for a skin site is a party that&acute;s gone out of control. At first, the host is supplying the free food, drink, and a place to stay. A tiny tiny percentage of the guests also bring in some food and drink to help out. But over time, the party just gets more and more expensive to run as more and more people come who just consume what&acute;s there without doing anything in return. <br /> <br />At some point, the host either has to say &quot;Okay guys, we need more people to help supply this party&quot; (deviantART/WinCustomize) or the host says &quot;Sorry guys, Party&acute;s over. We can&acute;t afford it anymore.&quot; (Deskmod). <br /> <br />BTW, WinCustomize doesn&acute;t have a search the entire site function because of how intensive it is. If you have a WC subscription, you can use the WC browser which will allow you to do this. So the only difference between WC and dA in this respect is that we hide this functionality from non-subscribers.

Doreen - please point me to these sites making a profit because I want to know their secret. I&acute;m not aware of any content intensive site (ala WinCustomize, Skinbase, deviantART, etc.) that even remotely makes a profit. <br /> <br />The best analogy for a skin site is a party that&acute;s gone out of control. At first, the host is supplying the free food, drink, and a place to stay. A tiny tiny percentage of the guests also bring in some food and drink to help out. But over time, the party just gets more and more expensive to run as more and more people come who just consume what&acute;s there without doing anything in return. <br /> <br />At some point, the host either has to say &quot;Okay guys, we need more people to help supply this party&quot; (deviantART/WinCustomize) or the host says &quot;Sorry guys, Party&acute;s over. We can&acute;t afford it anymore.&quot; (Deskmod). <br /> <br />BTW, WinCustomize doesn&acute;t have a search the entire site function because of how intensive it is. If you have a WC subscription, you can use the WC browser which will allow you to do this. So the only difference between WC and dA in this respect is that we hide this functionality from non-subscribers.

Well, FYI <br />I cant get into my own site cause there are too many UNREGISTERED users. I lost the info to to where I can shut it down. <br />Cosimic justice strikes again.

ahhh <br />thanx for the replies everyone including Hob. <br />I never heard of basehead.org. This IS a very frustrating community in general. Hob, you make an excellent point(s). <br />The amount of money and time in applications and such makes comments like the one i got the other day (shut the fuck up) from someone whos only posts were desktop pics, even more frustrating. <br />heh heh I wanted to slowly kill that guy! I guess the only real way to deal with this IS to limit the sites to registered users only. <br />Actually I have no problem with that at all. And maybe even limit them to users who contribute SOMETHING other then crazy-ass rude remarks. <br />btw, if I were a mod at that infamous site, id ban that jerk. <br />ahhh............live and let die

that was not what I ment.....

hehe ;) Dont hold actions from the past against people. <br />That was a loooong time ago and I needed the money!

And a little bit more on topic: the only way to prevent people from not signing up (that&acute;s one complex inverted sentence) and &acute;leeching&acute; is by denying access to the site unless you have an account, sort of like how Art&acute;n&acute;Skins does it. <br /> <br />As for walls, solid black for the last few years.

Actually, snow started out as a ripper: http://www.teknidermy.com/issue6/artsknvntry.html Which just shows that you can&acute;t judge a book by its cover.

<i>I come back to this thread and i see that people are talking about killing off wallpapers</i> <br /> <br />No one is talking about killing off walls, only moving them to Basehead.org, which <b>was</b> gRAVEs initial thought (amongst others) about that site. Dunno if it will ever be though.... <br /> <br /> <br /><i>But were we all not &quot;leechers&quot; at some point?</i> <br /> <br />Umm... not I. If I wanna download some skins/themes/pics/whatever from any site I create an account and log in before downloading anything. As said before, that is the least you can do if you wanna be a part of any site! <br /> <br />There are alot of people that never take the time to do just that. That is in my opinion wrong! <br /> <br />----- <br /> <br />Well since the talk has taken the wallpaper-direction, lemme give ya my point of view on walls: <br />Apart from <b>many</b> others I generally dont give a shit about walls. Sure there are made alot of fine and well made pieces but I wouldnt be the first to cry if there were to appear a site purely for skins/themes and without any kind of wallpapers/general art/photos/etc etc - I hardly pay any attention to those anyways. <br />Heck I cant even recall the last time I actually downloaded a wallpaper..... but I do remember which one it was: http://www.deviantart.com/view/22382/ <br /> <br />I dont say this as an <b>admin</b> but as an <b>artist</b>!

snow paying a sub fee for a site that has wallpapers and nice skins for free apps that they skin and download on etc ppl would not gripe so much about that at all, not one single bit I don&acute;t think? <br /> <br />some of us need to look at the bigger picture here, or atleast the skinners most likely will be paying more attention when they notice stuff as time goes on, if you have to pay to share a skin I doubt most will skin, however the un skinners will prob pay since they have no choice if they wish to skin their machines right? oh well time will show it all I guess...

Believe me Orion I know exactly where you are coming from... When it comes to respect, I have found that &quot;respect&quot; is something that is held from forums.. For some reason it is held back in the community, not by choice of the site owners but the people posting... What I&acute;m trying to say is simple.. You are judged by your last upload... Because of the vast number of &quot;new users&quot;... They go from site to site looking for anything that fits their fancy.. Some get to the chat boxes and some even make to the message boards... Not many but a few.. They voice THEIR opinions of the works uploaded and are quick to say &quot;it&acute;s garbage&quot; only because it&acute;s not what they are looking for... <br /> <br />A lot of people will say, What the hell does he know... He&acute;s not a skinner and doesn&acute;t even make walls... but his nose in these threads as if he knows what its like... Well I DO know FIRST HAND... I see the frustration that the skinners have to go through... I see the hours spent trying out new programs to get &quot;just the right effect&quot; for a new skin or wallpaper... I have spent a LOT of money on hardware, programs, AND SUBSCRIPTIONS to various applications to change the looks of Windows... What I have found out is just this... It takes a certain type of person to cope with the various types of problems that have to be dealt with on a daily basis... The pain staking time to deal with the minute detail for perfection... and after each of these items are addressed and perfected... That piece of work still has to pass its final critic... the skinner&acute;s scrutiny...a skin to change windows will usually take 3 to 4 weeks to complete, a wall 1 or 2 weeks... Only after spending this time and drawing on personal talent... does the skinner reap his/her rewards... SATISFACTION... <br /> <br />So, Orion... When it comes to &quot;respect&quot; you won&acute;t always get it when conversing with other people on the messenger boards, chat boxes, e-mails, or in any other form of communication. However, you will find that respect with people that have the same interests as you. But keep in mind, &quot;respect&quot; is, and,always will be secondary to &quot;satisfaction&quot;.. <br /> <br />Oh, btw Nikuki is an admin here at Skinbase... :)

Snowman, i know who the fuck I am. Im just someone trying to get along in a world of shit. From every damn direction there is. <br />Thats my point Hob, the skinning community is more cutthroat then the porn industry. I have tried to make a point here with this topic, that a little respect goes a very long way. thats all. Its my opinion that Devart does not do that. Yesterday I tried asking a serious question about posting rules at another site and some moron tells me to &quot;shut the fuck up&quot;. Or a post of mine is not accepted with no reason given, leaving me with no idea what was wrong. <br /> <br />Unfortunately, thats not a rare accourance. I come back to this thread and i see that people are talking about killing off wallpapers. More crap I have to deal with. Im an administrator at a site where the only respect that is consistent is from myself. I said it before and ill say it again, this site rocks, and for the most part, so do the people. The emoticons leave something to be desired but i can live with that. <br />But were we all not &quot;leechers&quot; at some point? <br />Anyway, Ive been around this stuf for over 2 yrs and the abuse and reckless disregard of other people is amazing. <br />This site is no exception I see.

Out of hand?? You shouldn&acute;t let your emotions fly... A better choice of words would bring across your point. :( <br /> <br />Orion, I&acute;m confused with your last post... Just what point are you trying to make in regard to the subject?? :|

Orion: What is ment by leechers are those 127 of the current 129 people on Skinbase downloading stuff, <br /><b><font size=&quot;5&quot;>THAT ARE NOT LOGGED IN AND DO NOT HAVE AN ACCOUNT</font></b> <br /> <br />Who the fuck do <b>you</b> think <b>you</b> are?!?!?! <br /> <br />The least thing <b>anyone</b> can do if they want to mass-download from <b>any</b> site, is to create an account and log in when visiting! <br /> <br />And if you think we&acute;re all doing this <b>just</b> for the sake of money (Hence you reference to MS), why dont you just fuck off back to your own sites?! <br /> <br />Sheesh, c&acute;mon dude..... lighten up puuurleese, that last post of yours was way out of hand! <br /> <br />

Well, will wonders never cease. <br />&quot;Posted by: nikuki skinbase won´t have as many leechers who are here just for the wallz... &quot; <br />What the hell does this mean? Leechers? Are you out of your mind? Who are you? <br />Some of you people would not be happy unless everyone that didnt think like you where taken to another planet. <br />You all sound like a Bill Gates clone. Towing the MS corporate line. Due unto others and then screw em. <br /> <br />

Well the thought is nice but isn&acute;t basehead.org run by gRAVE too??? I hardly see where he would benefit by that kind of change. Looks to me the cost is the same... Although I see the advantage to Skinbase if it did not have the walls... A true skinners site... Hmmm... interesting... :)

I quite agree with you Nicki! <br />I wouldnt mind if the walls were &quot;transferred&quot; to basehead.org entirely

hmm... makes you wonder if skinbase will have such problems in the future... <br /> <br />my two cents here: <br /> take wallpapers off of skinbase, make that basehead&acute;s sole purpose. <br /> therefore, skinbase won&acute;t have as many leechers who are here just for the wallz...

I wouldn&acute;t buy a subscription for myself. It&acute;s ok for others. <br /> <br />Sed, I had problems with DA in the past. It still burns me. Now, I&acute;m in & can download beautiful art & skins. I dunno why in hell DA showed our IP address thingy. I got banned for no apparent reason. Someone STOLE it on me. It pisses me how people lie, cheat & steal to get what they want or have nothing to do with their own lives. Sadly to say, but it&acute;s true. :-( <br /> <br />I do have friends at DA. :) ❤️ Especially, here.

Chickie.. ❤️ .. I disagee there... they have been good to a lot of us.. :o IF THEY F**ed up their money ? Wll that isnt my end of the biz.. CALL ME .. Unknowing, I appologize................. :)

I think it&acute;s a waste of money to buy a subscription at DeviantArt. That&acute;s my opinion. :D

hehe <br /> <br />I myself don&acute;t mind paying once &quot;at all&quot; maybeeee even twice, but three or more times times I get alil annoyed myself. <br /> <br />you either limit your party guest or don&acute;t have a party but you don&acute;t keep annoying your guest to pay for the whole party...

dont like it - dont go there <br />Couldnt be more simple! <br /> <br />I do understand why they have done it though. Searching through 3mill uploads has to take up an enormous amount of resources..... and someone has to pay for it :)

Ah...the world MUST remain free...at all costs......LOL

DeviantArt is DeviantArt. Very hard to explain their ways!

Well, the world must remain Free. That&acute;s true. But there is a difference between Free=Freedom and Free=Without Cost. Freedom is something the world deserves, Free Skins is not.

DeviArt always have BIG problems. :,

Freedom comes at a price. Life, vigilence, money... something. Freedom isn&acute;t free. <br /> <br />Anyway... they are trying to reduce the load on thier servers. No biggie.

/me goes see what&acute;s up, I always seem to forget about DA =(

ok ok <br />i did not mean for this to get into world politics. <br />look, why dont they just charge for the damn site? <br />i have never heard of charging for searches Ive heard of just about everything but. I looked up &quot;icons&quot; <br />I have to pay to look up icons?? IM NOT EVEN DOWNLOADING THEM!! <br />just looking. <br />THERE SERVER PROBLEMS ARE NOT MINE. They have offered that site to the public for free. <br />I didnt tell them to accept all that crap i see. I didnt tell them anything <br />they are already charging for everything they can get away with. geez.

<i>look, why dont they just charge for the damn site?</i> <br /> <br />they just did..... <br /> <br /><i>i have never heard of charging for searches Ive heard of just about everything but</i> <br /> <br />See #3 <br /> <br /><i>THERE SERVER PROBLEMS ARE NOT MINE.</i> <br /> <br />Obviously it is, otherwise you wouldnt complain about it.... <br /> <br /><i>they are already charging for everything they can get away with. geez</i> <br /> <br />I think, just for one month Jark should let Orion handle the cost of running DevArt... <br />Do you have <b>ANY</b> how much it cost to run a site of that size?!

Seems subtlety is lost on some....;p <br />Remind me to talk slowly for the hard of grasping....;p

Their server problems are yours as well if you visit them. If my house were on fire and you were to drop by, would you act as if nothing was going on?

Ok know it alls, I DID pay, for a 6 month membership. What I got was no adds, same speed and a little app. <br />Oh Mr. Snowman, I know all too well about the cost. But if im going to open a sit(which I did) and INVITE people to come in AND want them to submit work FOR FREE, then I am not going to INSULT them by making the same people who MADE THE SITE WHAT IT IS , nickle and dime them to death. <br />Its obviously poorly managed. Think about it, any legitimate company would be dead by now if they charged you to go in the front door and then charged you to look at thier merchandise. The site I have and have put money into is MY problem, not YOURS. <br />I happen to be GRATEFUL that people GIVE me thier work FOR FREE. And if i have problems, regardless of what they are, im not going to insult the very people who made the site what it is. <br /> <br />&quot;If my house were on fire and you were to drop by, would you act as if nothing was going on? &quot; <br />If you were stupid enough NOT to call the fire dept. Thats YOUR problem. If you ASKED for my help, then I WOULD call the fire dept. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

Well I do have an opinion on that but.... I better keep it to myself.. lol lol I understand completely where you are coming from orion... lol I wonder... Just what do they mean by... &acute;only for the time being&quot;... to me, it sounds like they are testing the waters, to see how many will go swimming.. lol lol

Orion: Lots of places charge you to even go into them. Ever heard of a cover charge? <br /> <br />deviantART is now one of the most popular websites on the Internet. It gets over 2 million unique visitors each month. <br /> <br />Many things in the world go up in price as time goes on. My mom always told me how she used to get ice cream for 25 cents. Now it&acute;s what? A buck or more? Does that mean that icecream shops are &quot;poorly run&quot;? No. It means that as time goes on, costs go up. <br /> <br />deviantART happened to be free when it started. But over time, its costs have gone up. It has to pass on those costs to those who use it. And a subscription there is only what? A little over $2 per month? <br /> <br />I&acute;ve never understood how those who seem to imply that others should pay for their bills try to take some sort of moral high ground. If the &quot;evil&quot; Stardock wasn&acute;t paying for most of WinCustomize&acute;s costs it would have had to do something even more drastic. <br /> <br />I do agreee (for once <g>) with Doreen - I much prefer systems that last a long time. But dA isn&acute;t guilty of bugging its guests often, it simply provides options for those guests. Maybe they should provide a lifetime membership fee?

Couldnt agree more Brad <br /> <br />Running sites of that magnitude cost <b>loads</b> of dosh, and just look what happend to Deskmod........

what does stardock have to do with it? <br /> <br />Ill take the moral high ground if i can. nobody else does. <br />&quot;you either limit your party guest or don´t have a party but you don´t keep annoying your guest to pay for the whole party... &quot; <br />could not say it better. <br /> <br />&quot; Lots of places charge you to even go into them. Ever heard of a cover charge? <br />&quot; <br />Ever hear of charging to be able to look at the other people there? <br />I havent but I dont live in Iran either. <br /> <br />All these so called great sites miss the whole point. as do frogboy and snowman <br />the people who make these sites are skinners. they do it FOR FREE. They promote your so called hard up websites FOR FREE. <br />When they stop respecting that simple point, thats when you geta a devart or deskmod. <br /> <br />If you dont respect the skinners themselves then you aint gonna get any respect back. <br />so hers to YOUR moral low-ground

I&acute;m sorry Orion I don&acute;t agree at all. <br /> <br />A website has 3 equal partners: The website admins/owners + The skinners + The users. <br /> <br />What you call skinners doing it for free can be turned around as admins allowing people to store their content without charge for diskspace or bandwidth. It all depends on your point of view. <br /> <br />Each group is critical. The skinners clearly do their part. But so do the admins. The users have to do their part too. The challenge is to find a way to do that which is fair and equitable for the users.

The ideal economic model is that everything &acute;I&acute; want to do will cost me nothing. <br />I do not want to pay a Mortgage....I do not want to pay for food....I do not want to pay my ISP at $100 per month....I do not want to pay to have my skins hosted...I do not want to pay to access/download them. <br />It all sounds real peachy but it is NOT reality. <br />Those who DO pay know the cost. Those who do not pay think they know it all. <br />They are simply either blind, ignorant or just plain wrong.....or all three...;p

and what is so wrong w/ not wanting to pay for everything in life? I think it feels rather great to get something good for free, as a matter of fact that is what brought me to the internet in the first place, I liked getting my skins and apps for free (you&acute;d be a fool to deny saying you enjoy now having to pay for things you used to get for free) <br /> <br />Yes it&acute;s understandable times change and now ppl are &quot;expected&quot; to have to help out to keep the sites going but don&acute;t expect everyone to be &quot;happy&quot; about it, nor hearing the words gimme gimme gimme or the sites you enjoy to romp on will go bye bye soon...

also remember the kids Jafo under 16 could care less about expenses or cost of things, they have no idea until they get out into the world of the words &quot;Pay your own Bills&quot; do you seriously think they care or have compasion about someone who has to pay for the Bandwith costs? <br /> <br />even the older crowd over 21 don&acute;t want to hear about the word &quot;Bills&quot; when they come out to play on the net, don&acute;t we do enough of that in real life?

&quot;What you call skinners doing it for free can be turned around as admins allowing people to store their content without charge for diskspace or bandwidth. It all depends on your point of view. <br />&quot; <br />This is true. However, without the submitted work by those skinners, then the site would not exist. Thats all im saying. In other worlds, the business in question (any business) is not reselling thier products BACK to the companies that made them. They are selling to people who happen to like, need etc. that product. <br />Now, if they were to charge the people who DONT submit anything then I would certinly have to agree with that. TO A POINT. <br />But to nit pick the very people who make such a site what it is, to me, is an insult. To make people who make the site what it is and charge them for SEARCHING FOR A KEYWORD is ludicrous

It&acute;s obviously an uncomfortable subject when the words money, fun & profit get mixed together... <br />not sure there is a perfect solution for it (atleast not on the net) <br /> <br />when fun needs to be supported <i>financially</i> for the fun to stay around there is no problem <b>(when there is no other element involved there)</b> <br /> <br />buttttt when ppl see someone making a profit from it then there is a problem when the fun = work/time that goes into designing and making skins and then having to <i>&quot;pay&quot;</i> to share something you just worked and spent time in designing and <b>&quot;simply then want to enjoy and share w/ other ppl?&quot;</b> this does not make sense to most to have to pay for this kind of fun when there is other elements such as an app owner reaping a profit at the other end of it all and asking you to pay for the ride he is enjoying the most profitable benifits from... <br /> <br />and no Brad I&acute;m not trying to home in on you, I&acute;m thinking out loud (which is why I don&acute;t never like to think much) hehe! <br />just a yuk situation that I think will eventually suck most the funnest part out of the skinning sites or I should say the <b>&quot;skinners in general&quot;</b>

<i>To make people who make the site what it is and charge them for SEARCHING FOR A KEYWORD is ludicrous</i> <br /> <br />Once again Orion, they are not chargeing for the search function <b>ONLY</b>, they are chargeing for the use of resources/bandwidth/hard work/hardware <br /> <br />I quite franktly see nothing wrong in that. <br />If <b>you</b> had to pay for all that yourself &acute;just&acute; to have a website, I think you&acute;d be finding some meens of funding too!

One more thing Jafo I have to say before I get busy... hehe <br />(me is on mini vacation so I&acute;m in a chit chatty mood) =) <br /> <br />I find it funny for ppl that were not born yesterday to think it is wrong for ppl not to recognize or be able to add 2 + 2 = a few thousand or even million dollars at the end just for some fun... =) <br /> <br />