to go back to an earlier figure, how accurate are the numbers "5% of users are taking 80% of bandwidth"?

i think there are two "views" here, one that is thinking lots of "average" users will be impacted, and one that thinks only a very small number of "very heavy" users will be impacted.

or to put it another way, what percentage of users is the initial cap expected to effect? if stopping 6 users (silly extream i hope) solves the bandwidth problem, then this sounds radically different from statements that imply 50% of users will be effected.

check this out:
1) If having a skin site were a good marketing vehicle, then every application would have its own skin site.
2) Even if SD didn't point to other skin sites, it could simply have a database of say 35 "good" skins/themes that users could ...

Can you say "Music Match Jukebox"?

Well, I'm going to drop out of this thread for now. My points are entirely being missed, and I don't have time to refresh this thread every 5 mins .

-gorman

Frogboy: I like your idea of a leech fund. Certainly anyone preaching that the site should have free, unlimited bandwidth for everyone would be more than willing to contribute to this fund. Otherwise, they'd be a hypocrite, and I'm sure that can't be true.

I agree with everything Dangeruss said.
(never thought I would say that!)

paxx, surely most people well familiar with skining would already have most of the skinz for the apps they currently use? if so, then the only skin downloading they would be doing would be new stuff as it is posted, and possibly the full set of skinz when they try out a new app.

as for download.com, i seem to recall figures suggesting that wincustomize is heading for the same sort of bandwidth requirements as download.com, but without the death by adverts.

i see your point, but i am not sure how it applies.

as for names, if all that bandwidth cost was comming out of my wallet i would be inclined towards using the occasional rude word / name myself

How do you become an apprentice?

Paxx, Thank you for your reply. I love computer art, but I am graphically challenged...I have done 2 Talisman ports to Windowblinds, but I don't think they are good enough to post(even if the original author gave his permission). I am an OD subscriber (since 6/2000) and I do a lot of downloads, but I don't have much to contribute to this site except to say that I enjoy it.

Listen to paxx...

Copy-paste for D'mer (who can't post here, hope I picked the right thread):

------------------------

here's my two cents:

1.) Renato and Johanne charging people to download their skins is totally acceptable to me. and in my opinion it is well worth the $8. Any site charging users to download others work with no fee paid from the site to the artists would be wrong. I am not saying this is what any site is doing. Just showing the difference between the two things being mentioned.

2.) OK, WC is claimed to be a separate entity from StarDock. WC is having problems paying for it's bandwidth. yes, something needs to be done to ensure the site stays online. From what I have pieced together from posts at WC there are several options they are considering for implementation. The option getting the most coverage is to limit amounts of downloads/megs to particular types of users. The user types that will be exempt from limits will be split up by people who have "contributed to the site". examples of "contributing to the site" that have been mentioned are commenting on skins/message board, uploading skins, helping users and finally, purchasing Stardock products. This last "user type" is the one causing the hullabaloo. let's break it down:

A.) OK, if the site is a separate entity from SD, then how is supporting SD supposed to support WC? The main reason given for including this "user type" is that if someone is downloading 100+ MG of WB skins even though they have not paid for the app, they are obviously just a leech. OK, I can accept that. But what about people who are downloading 100+ MG of HVD themes and have a registered copy of HVD? Or any other non-SD app such as the Box series of programs? If the site is going to say. "Your access to this site will be limited unless you support the developers of the applications that are featured on this site," then it needs to include all apps on the site, not just the apps from one company. And what about LS and other freeware apps? If a user goes onto WC and downloads 20 LS themes in one day (approximating 25-50 megs) can they be considered a leech for not paying for a freeware app?

B.) The second problem that people see with this is that it comes close to being interpreted as "you have to purchase something to get full access to the site; hence someone other than the artists are profiting from their work."

a.)In my opinion point B is not an issue due to the fact that they are not forcing you to purchase the software; because they give users other options to follow that will lead them to the same access as if they were to purchase ODN. Point A, I believe should be considered as a reason to not implement the "purchase SD products for full WC access."

Will someone please be kind enough to copy/paste this on the WC board for me since I still cannot log in to the site?
Thanks,
Deven Stephens
D`mer

D'mer, could you email alexandrie or T-man (pford@stardock.com)? I'm sure they can straighten out your account.

As for the issues you raise, ultimately doesn't it really boil down to a simple "Who is going to pay for the bandwidth?"

The nuts and bolts go something like this:

Stardock reserved a server and X megabits of bandwidth for WinCustomize.

WinCustomize needs a lot more than X megabits of bandwidth and so in June Stardock provided an additional Y megabits of bandwidth.

But that situation cannot go on indefinitely. Stardock is willing to pay for X megabits of bandwidth. But it's not willing to pay for the additional Y megabits indefinitely.

So as a website, we have to either find a way to pay for that extra Y bandwidth or try to lower our overall bandwidth useage so that the site runs fine with X megabits.

Stardock's bean counters have long concluded that the site is "worth it" if the site uses X megabits of bandwidth. That with X megabits, the fact that this site is the world's leading skin website (in terms of where people actually download skins, icons, etc.) it generates enough sales and "good will" in the skin community for it to be worth it. But the bean counters say that the additional Y megabites the site is using is total waste. That the money being spent on that extra Y bandwidth is money being thrown away.

We knew this back in June. So in June we did two things:

1) We did a lot of analysis on where the bandwidth is going.

2) We looked at ways we could generate additional revenue to help pay for the site.

We discovered that it's really a tiny minority of users using up a huge chunk of the bandwidth.

Each day, this site gets 55,000 downloads of skins, icons, themes, and wallpapers. Each day the site gets around 20,000 unique visitors.

But it's really only around 1,000 of those unique visitors that are using significant amounts of bandwidth. The other 19,000 come on, download a skin or theme, maybe comment a little, browse a bit and leave. But those 1,000 heavy duty users come on with a cable modem and a download queueer and download many dozens of skins and themes per day.

Surely you guys have looked at a skin section and seen some horrible wallpaper or skin or theme and seen that it still got 40 downloads in a given day. Haven't you ever said to yourselves "Why in the heck would anyone download that crap?!" That's because some people visit daily and literaly download everything new on the site.

It is our belief that by targeting the users who use massive bandwidth without giving anythign back to either WinCustomize or the guys paying the bill (Stardock) that we can get the bandwidth use down to that X megabits per month.

I think it may be accurate to say that presently (until DA upgrades anyway), WinCustomize uses more bandwidth per day than all the other skin sites do combined. I could be wrong on that and it's not a fact to be proud of because look at how active DA's message boards and news boards are and how dead ours are by comparison. Heck, LotsOfSkins message boards and user activity is nearly as high as it is here and it's being run on Chaz's parent's cable modem. So it only makes things worse that many people, when they want to interact, will go to DA or other sites but when they want to leech hundreds of megabytes of stuff they come over here.

As a person, as a user, as a skin author and part of the skinning community for a very long time, that bothers me a lot. It bothers everyone associated with the site. It doesn't bother the bean counters (they just want the bandwidth back to X megabits) but it does illustrate the bigger picture pretty well -- we need to get people who want to download fractional gigs of stuff from here to either buy the CD, become activity in the community, register a product or go away.

Phew!

btw, I'm glas u decided to stay, snowman