Let's all try to stay on topic.  Discussions of dA are not relevant.

Not sure where the irrelevancy is, sounded like the comparrison was good.  Oh well...  

See comment 79 - " dont rock the boat or else "

Has ZERO bearing on this discussion and I personally dont like your accusatory tone. Feel free to speak your mind but keep it civil please. If you want to criticize anything I do at another site then PM me or post at that particular venue.

..as it pertains to THIS community was MY point. As far as I'm concerned anything outside of WC has nothing to do with what is being discussed. Maintaining a standard here was the topic. If folks want to start flaming me for that.. feel free. I've gotten the anser to my question.

I made true statements that were not unfriendly at all - they were only facts.



You dont have to personally like my statements anymore than I liked you calling Z71's post " Spam" ...

I have no idea when you removed it from DA. But you contradicted yourself. You said you felt justified putting it on DA cause its a wasteland - then why did you remove it ?

If I felt justified in doing something I wouldnt remove it at all.

But your right - it has no bearing on this so lets move along

Throughout this thread, THIS community has referred to the skinning community on more than one occasion. WC does not live in a vacuum.

Correct, Spammer is not the correct term. Perhaps Solicitor is better.

It was removed because it was a screen shot of a windowblind uploaded to the download windowblind gallery . Had you uploaded it to the DA Screen shot section then you would have been correct. Amazing that DA even bothered to remove it.


And I politely pointed out that he was called " Spam" at DA.

Perhaps had he chose the wrong words..

I still feel Z71 did nothing wrong at all...

But feel free to make me the bad guy here - thats the way it is if you don't agree with the 'in crowd'

We're veering off here.  This isn't about silencing dissenters, it's not about pushing the opinion of the "in-crowd" and it's certainly not about avoiding criticism. 

The thread is about what is and isn't OK to post on WinCustomize; forums, news, skins etc. that might border on the edge of unacceptable advertising or spam.  Do Masters get a bit of leeway?  Can non-masters sell their stuff on outside sites and advertise it here in the forums?  What are the limits?  What's fair to both the community at large, and the skinners who have contributed free work for years?

To all: Please drop the "he said, she said" and other various attacks.  The original topic of discussion was very interesting and relevant to how WinCustomize handles Master Skinning and outside sales sites going forward.  I think a lot of people have very valuable input into the subject and have a stake in what is decided.

If the thread continues to steer away from the core topic and towards attacks and insults, I'll have to close the thread.

Perfectly summed up.

For the record, there exists no special promotional relationship between WinCustomize and MaxStyles.  The fact that often MaxStyles skins are featured is because 1) They're on WinCustomize and Free 2) They're good.

What they're doing is tossing out a lot of high-quality stuff that draws folks to their site indirectly.  For example, I wouldn't consider the mass of Harmony related skins to be spam since they're skins.  They're free.  They're good.  They just happen to be centered around a for-pay skin.  Spam?  Not really.  A brilliant way to market a skin?  absolutely.  But it works because in the end the community is getting a lot of value without ever actually having to purchase anything.

RomanDA does two versions of most of his gadgets, a free one and a more feature-rich for-pay one. 

These are examples of good ways to "advertise" your work without being direct and in-your-face about it.  Why?  Because even if you don't want to pay for whatever the item is, you're still getting value from the "free" stuff that's related.

And this takes me back to my original post - If anyone thinks that this has not been going on for years they are very nieve. Some do it 'gently' and 'subtley' others are shall we say more 'overt'. Personally I don't give a flying f which option you chose as long as its done in a reasonable way where it's not thrown in my face like an advert every day. Let's leave things as they are and allow the moderators to moderate and allow those Master Skinners to 'tell' us about their skins when they become available. I for one are always looking around the net at various sites and occassionally I come across something special which IMHO is worthy of mention here which now takes me a conversation I had with NT in another thread

"NT, you make a reasonable point and no harm done. I often come across things whilst I am around the net which I think are a 'little special' that are not on this site - admittedly it's my opinion. It might be a skin, it might be a piece of software and I see no harm if anyone not just me, brings this to the attention of our community here at WC. The iconpack in question has been made by an artist who is a member here but understandably he will not 'spam' the site with his wears. However, it's nice if someone who admires this piece of work - as exceptional - lets others know that it's available. I know there is a 'fine line' here but how many people on this site would have come across this pack if someone does not tell them that it exists? I have been around for some time and spoken to a lot of people who use OD and visit WC and who don't have hours to spend researching what is available and are appreciative when someone brings something worthy of note to their attention via the news or forums. There are also several artists who have joined us here at WC because I have encouraged them to bring and show their work here. Yep, we have to be careful but we also have to recognize that people like to be 'informed' and 'kept in the loop' with items of interest otherwise our community becomes a 'walled garden' where life does not exist outside of WC. I would like to think and hope that WC is or becomes the hub for everyones skinning interests. Is that not good for everyone? I'll let others decide. And one thing is for sure - there are many talented artists and skins outside WC. As I said NT, you make a decent point and we have to be careful and differenciate between 'spam' and 'information for users benefit' but there is a bigger picture to consider as well"

I think NT and I have different opinions on this subject matter but I respect his opinion and his reasons for them. ME, quite simply I WANT TO KNOW WHATS GOING ON AND LIKE TO BE KEPT INFORMED.