chichi, I probably regret saying this, but what the heck...
I've always thought a great deal of you and respected you a bunch. But I must admit that lately I haven't read anything from you here that wasn't a direct attack on Stardock, Brad, this site or its admins. And I must admit I am starting to be a bit disapointed in you.
I've always known you as a sweet person. Why so much negativity lately?
Sure, you're allowed your opinions. But please try to diversify a little bit, not always just attacks and critics.

Peace, chichi. Please.

.....Disney, ESPN, PC Magazine, NBA, NFL, PlayStation, Upoc, HBO, Adobe, Macromedia.....

yes we are being used by Stardock...

but we are also using them......

I still think it is a community site because its free for all to use.

Peoples...chichi, like most of us, has personal real-life [tm] issues that can and will inadvertently colour your impressions of things in general.
Sometimes it's hard to separate the 'bad' in one environment from the 'mediocre' in another....and perhaps things come out 'less successfully' than one might have wished. {I'll say no more on the subject], chichi...

BTW....the 'if you don't like it, leave' comment is mild in comparison to what you will encounter at some other sites [name and address withheld]...

Just between you and me:

After reading all this thread (and some others in the past weeks), I am disapointed to see how some are fast to find bugs and basically start "fights" on words. I mean, yes we can voice our opinion and it's up to each and everyone to take what they want from what is written but at the same time, and it's just my very humble low-level opinion, but I find that some threads/posts are "polluting" figuratively speaking the board and shouldn't be there. I mean, for me the question is: what does it bring to the community constructively speaking? Does it help doing one more step forward or is it just a step backward?

Some invoke the fact they are customers and own the right to express their opinions but me too i'm a "legit" customer and I also have the right, in this case, [start of my freedom of speech] to say I that I don't appreciate "word fights" and that I wish they never make it to the board. When I come around, it is to relax from my day to day very stressful job and try to enjoy my passion with others. Honestly, between you and me, when I read some posts, I feel more frustration than anything because I honestly don't expect to be enflammed by "unecessary spicy" topics on a board dedicated to the art of skinning. "Well, don't read them" you might say, and you're right. But just as you reading these lines, my curiosity is so strong that I can't resist reading them and it's a human behavior I don't want to exploit when I come here So if they were just not there, it would be naturally easier to resist [end of my freedom of speech]

Ok, I know that by writting this post I might not help the cause of "good manners" because i'm confident it will surely tease someone who will shortely reply to my post and express his (her) opinion about it. Then I will have to reply saying I didn't meant what he(she) understood, we'll launch another word fight and it will start all over again...

Seriously, my intentions here aren't to point at anyone (really!) but rather to express my feelings toward certain human attitudes I've noticed. Maybe my understanding of some topics is wrong and maybe it's just that it's now about 1:30AM here and I have my week where you can think of so I should get to bed instead of writing this (which I will do in a minute). Still, the call of nature was strong enough for me so I had to tell someone. And as I said at the beginning of the post, please, keep all this between you and me

P.S. I was totally sober when writing these lines

Lecrayon....Stardock would [I assume] have an accountant.
Between the 'Directors' [CEO/whatever], the 'Accountant', and the 'Govt. Tax Office' - numbers would be disclosed.
However, only ONE of those 3 'entities' is entitled to divulge information to the public if he/she so WISHES...and it is not the Accountant, or the Tax Office. If they did they'd be out of a job quick-smart.

Private Business is EXACTLY that.

What I CAN tell you is that according to my records I have paid Stardock about US$50 or there-abouts...to help pay for Wincustomize.com [while getting neat Tee-shirts and CD compilations], and Stardock has paid for EVERYTHING you see here...and it's a LOT of money.....

Asking for financial statements from a private entity is both intrusive and rude. Would you care to post yours for our perusal?
I thought not...

In case of supporting this site and the great cool programs that it delivers you could easily check what I have done, what I subscribed to and what I have bought. And also check the dates and the start of some threads. Just to ease your curiosity and my honest behaviour. As it comes to subscribe to WC and get a year of guaranteed access..I havent gotten an answer about what happens if the site closes halfway, I bet my subscription isn't returned for 50%..So IF you want to subscribe, people may want to have a look at the healthyness of the business. Cold hard facts. No promo's by staff of any other who are biased, just a way to decide for yourself if it is worth the money. To get a program like skinbrowser and say that that alone is worth the subscription...It isn't if the site closes down..You get the idea? If you ask for money to maintain a site, people want to have guarantees in exchange of cold hard facts. Nothiong more, nothing less. Not intrusive, just a means of being able to have a judgement of your own about the continuity of the business...Not rude, just the american way. Bang for your buck all the way.

Blah Jafo you know that's beside the issue...My question isn't answered...business is business..no suppport but buy and deliver, that;s about it.

"Love is in the air, everywhere I look around..."

hmmm... how did I hit the 'a' key instead of two ss's? I'm sure it's just a typo and I wasn't subconsciously trying to spell something else...

and sooo...the question still stands..and email adresses are available I believe

. No lacrayon, in the United States, private companies are the same as private individuals. They don't have to disclose anything.

It's irrelevant anyway. It's what one would call a strawman argument. It is hard to argue that Object Desktop (and components) customers should subsidize non-customers unlimited downloading indefinitely.

In my view, anyone who has downloaded more than 50 megs of stuff from this site should, at the very least, have an Object Desktop subscription, if not a WinCustomize subscription or be a skin author or active contributor in some other way.

finally the info, thank you...See? that wasn't too hard..Reading is so awfully difficult and so many times people pick one line, make a fuzz out of it and forget the overall situation...I accept the way how you see it Frogboy, I too would think subsidizing non-customers would be out of the question..Anyway, I happen to think it's a sales argument against a strawman one (whatever that means). You are in your right to run your own company the way you think is best and to promote it the way you want it. the programs are cool and the site is technically so good I take a deep bow for that achievement. I happen to think a bit different about this costcontrolling argument but then again the profits I would make will be lower than average

more skins, more people, more people invited to skin, more people have skins on there desktop, more people see the skins, more people buy the product, more people download for free, more skins, more people, more people invited to skin.......