davad70 davad70

I'm pissed

I'm pissed

Ok, there are quite a few issues that have been on my mind for a while, and some newer ones that really have me irritated.

1. Why is it that lately this site seems to be disregarding the wishes of skinners more and more often? The majority of skinners, as well as many of the wizops/admins who are actually skinners, want to scrap the rating system. Do the wishes and requests of skinners matter to the people who run this site on this issue? Apparently not. I’ve also not come across a skinner who thinks that the libraries should be sorted by the date they were updated, but now they are. It was decided a ways back that the fair thing to do was to sort the libraries by create date. Now with the launch of WC2, we are back to sorting libraries by date of update. Why? Because Frogboy wants it that way. It doesn’t matter that most of the skinners want it another way. Frogboy wants…Frogboy gets.

2. We hear quite a lot about the heavy burden that Wincustomize has placed upon Stardock. We also hear quite a bit about how popular WC has become in the past year. I’m curious as to why this site has become so popular. Personally I think it’s popularity is mostly due to the fact that people can get skins from some of the best skinners in the world here, who give their skins freely. We also hear a lot about the fact that Wc needs to be able to support itself, and not be funded directly by Stardock. Yet it seems that Stardock will always be in control of this site and that it will never truly be a “community site”. So I ask, why shouldn’t Stardock pay for this site? It seems to me that this site is the greatest marketing tool that Stardock has. I would think that people buy Windowblinds and the other programs to be able to use the skins that they see on this site. So with the advent of the subscriber program what benefits do skinners get? Ummm, we get unlimited downloads just as we always have before. BTW, that’s the same benefit that OD (which I am also) users get also. So, the fact that I’ve submitted 15 skins since the first of the year gets me nothing. My contribution is apparently not better than Joe Blow downloader who paid $20. Joe Blow gets the skin browser, “exclusive suites”, etc. I get nothing but the privilege of downloading my skins as much as I want. J

3. Now to the issue that’s really got me pissed off to the degree that I finally am fed up. Anyone remember the GUI Olympics? Anyone remember the prizes that Frogboy stated that Honorable mention winners would receive? Let me refresh your memory. Anyone who picked up an honorable mention will get a free copy of Object Desktop (or a renewal), an Object Desktop sweat shirt, a T-shirt, a LWNinja T-shirt and some other goodies. Those who won multiple honorable mentions will be given additional Object Desktop renewals. posted by Lord Frogboy - 4/2/2002 1:07:58 PM. Well, I won an honorable mention and didn’t receive anything until I contacted them. They just forgot about me. That was no big deal to me, sometimes thing like that happen. So I got an email saying that my OD subscription was renewed and it was. Great right? Well, I waited about 2 weeks to get the other goodies that I had coming. Still didn’t get them, so I write back to ask when I would be getting all the other stuff. Basically I was told that they changed their mind and were not sending out any of the actual physical prizes. I then contacted some other skinners who won honorable mentions to see if they got their prizes. They all got their OD renewals, but no one got any of the other prizes for honorable mention prizes. After emailing Brad back he tells me that I should have gotten those other prizes (yes, I know that), and that he’ll check with the person who sent out the prizes to see whats going on. This is the same person that told me that there weren’t going to be any physical prizes given out for honorable mentions. Sounds very odd to me.

So….am I overreacting, or do I have a right to be a tad pissed?
44,985 views 169 replies
Reply #151 Top
Amazing.......at this time of the evening, if you read this thread at a slow pace....one may NEVER finish....for all the "additions" going on. Ths damn thing was growing while I was scrolling! That is an example if an proactive, dynamic community!
Reply #152 Top
You know what I would love to see. Instead of people telling each other that the other persons way is wrong and their way is right, is to have people try to work together and solve issues instead of create them. The motto "If you do not have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all" goes along way.If you see a problem, notify us. If you have a suggestion, offer it. But don't cast blame.

by Janitor T-Man - 5/21/2002 10:39:50 AM


Apparently you really haven't noticed us skinner's T-Man. We've been offering suggestions and compromises regarding the rating system for the last 6 months, only to seemingly be ignored each time.

Similarly, I see too many skinners behaving as if we admins are their servants or something. I see too many users treating us as tech support people.

The smearing of volunteers is really ironic because it usually comes from the most anti-corporate-involvement crowd.


I'm not aware of anyone here either taking the admins for granted or "smearing" any of them.

Regarding the extra goodies: They were being sent out presently. While the rules implied that it was an (get one of these items) it's probably best to just send out goodies. Davad should already have his now.

Brad if it was not your intent to give out these prizes then you shouldn't have. I don't want anything that's not owed to me.

I'll quote from your emails;

Yea, you should have received them.

Indeed. Alexandrie told me today that she never received hers. Nobody but you ever mentioned it to me.



Obviously these comments, along with your posts regarding the prizes, make it appear to me that you intended to give those "goodies" out as prizes from the beginning, and didn't understand why we hadn't gotten them. It was just forgotten, just like my OD subscription.

Ok, I'm definitely done with the topic of "the goodies". I just don't you making it sound as if you did me a favor by sending out the prizes.
Reply #154 Top
Skinners, users, admins, wizops
all sat down in one boat together...

troubled voyage in calm weather...

listen to Jafo – for the most part we are all skinners running this site.

The decisions made are almost always a debated consensus which always takes all the message board conversation into account. Everyone has a voice and the overall reality is you can post your stuff, speak your mind, download some goodies, take part/not take part, support/not support, whatever you want! It's all here for *you*... and we're glad you're here... so there...
Reply #155 Top
The only thing I didnt like about this site is the fact that the downloads accumulated on the Stardock Library didnt transfer over. I lost over 23,000 downloads that had been on my Encarta DX theme. Other than that, I am 150% satisfied with all the administrator's hard work and fellow skinners hard work and users support and the site in general. Home away from home....
Reply #156 Top

Out of curiousity, how much does stardock pay for bandwidth? I've got a T1 at home that costs me about $450/month. I can't imagine that a T1 would handle all your bandwidth needs, but surely 2-3 of them would. Where does the extra $140,000/year in running expenses come from?

Just wondering.
Reply #157 Top
Peff...
I'll leave it to Frogboy to give you an indication of the scale of this site, but you need to add a bit for paid coding time for the site, which is apart from the size of the pipe...
Reply #158 Top
I'm sure the coding time is minimal compared to bandwidth costs. Say coding = $50k (might be a bit of a low estimate), that leaves $100k for bandwidth/hosting.

Now did I see someone use the word "get" in conjunction with my name?
Reply #159 Top
Obviously it's none of our business, but surely with all the time Alexandrie spends working on the site, she must be getting paid right? I hope so for her sake.
Reply #161 Top
The bandwidth is really the killer because it's an ongoing cost whereas programming time can be more easily controlled.

20 megabits X ~$400 per megabit = $8,000 per month. (includes rack space, etc.)

That all by itself is $96,000. Luckily my time on the site costs $0 since it's purely volunteerism. Same for many of the other wizops and admins who without their hard work this site would come to a halt. There is so much to do on a site like this that most people don't see. Rip patrolling (it's no coincidence that few rips make it through, it's not that people don't submit them constantly) is time consuming, answering questions and responses to users who got their skin or wallpaper rejected. We're lucky the the bandwidth is the biggest cost, can you imagine if we didn't have all the volunteers we have? Treetog made the default new look for WinCustomize completely on his own as a surprise and made the WindowBlinds skin to go with it. Totally voluntary. Imagine how much at say $40 per hour it would have cost to contract something like that?

Volunteerism is really the cornerstone of the post-dot-com era. My *personal* view is Stardock's salary costs on the site (which are considerable, there's a lot of equipment, a lot of database work, a lot of other stuff that's really advanced and not readily seen) are not something that need to be covered by users. It's the bandwidth. If the site can just generate enough revenue to pay for its bandwidth. ~$100,000 per year.

This site averages around 35,000 unique visitors per day (and growing). Around 900,000 uniques per month. Now, if 1% of that 900,000 subscribed, that would be $180k. If .5% did it would still be $90,000. That's the goal, for .5% of the users who use the site on a monthly basis (5 out of 1000) to find the subscription features cool enough to subscribe to so that we can pay for bandwidth. That wouldn't let the site break even but at that point the "marketing" exposure argument can make the difference.

There's a darker reason as well: As users and skinners, it is not in their best interest that the site be completely paid for by Stardock. What happens if WindowBlinds stops selling as well as it has? I wonder how many people have considered that. Or if Object Desktop sales declined for some reason. I think most users would agree that a much more secure long term system is where the bandwidth costs of the site are taken care of by the site itself rather than Stardock using sales of Object Desktop and such to fund it.
Reply #162 Top
I don't know if my analogy is appropriate but I would "dare" to compare in some way the situation WC is facing to the one of Microsoft vs Hotmail. Hotmail as always been and is still a free service. But, storage space and bandwidth costing alot, Microsoft had to come up with a solution to get more return on their investment (and not only rely on ads). The answer: pay a small yearly fee and get more storage space, no expiration risk, larger attachement files, etc. As anyone here wrote to Microsoft to complain about this? I doubt it. Why? because we already appreciate the product they offer for free and we feel totally free to buy the "upgrade" or not.

Roughly, that's the same thing with WC: subscription is free and you can download whatever you want on the site. But, if you pay a small amount to get SB, you can get more bells and whistles. You are totally free to buy it or not. What's unfair with that? Don't we appreciate what they are already offering for free? (comparisons ends here )

I may not be correct saying that (and i'm aiming at nobody!) but if we complain about handing out a small 20$ to Stardock to get their product, why would Stardock feels to "obligation" to hand out 150K$ per year for us in return? It's not like handing out money for nothing. We actually get something cool in return if we choose to buy it. Sounds totally fair to me.
Reply #163 Top
Peff: It would take 14 T1's to handle the bandwidth for this site. $450 for a T1 is a great price btw, who's your provider? Does that include the line charge?

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Reply #164 Top
WOW!!! Let it fregin go people. Everyone's a critic - almost everyone's a whiner.....

I've been a Stardock supporter goin on 2 1/2 years now and have been a regular on the NG's during that time. It seems that almost all the gripes included in this thread (excluding GUI) have been rehashed SO SO SO many times.

If you don't like Stardock move on to somewhere else. I personally think there are very few companies in existance today that do as much for their customers as Stardock does.

Can anyone here tell me the last CEO (other than Brad) they conversed with via email or IRC?????? I think that Stardock tries very hard to go out of their way to take care of their customers.

If you don't like the way Stardock does business, move on. If you want to stay, quit bitchin!



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Reply #165 Top
C-Rat>
Reply #166 Top
Just wanted to update everyone...I did get the prizes from Stardock (thanks again koop!), however...Crumbut is still waiting for his CD that was supposed to be sent over a year and a half ago.
Reply #167 Top
I am learning allot about how things work and what happeneds behind the scenes of this site. I really like allot of the "threads" aroun here. Even the ones with the yelling and screeming. Even with misunderstandings and all, I have learns a enormous amount of information.

I hope there is a solution to the problem of the bandwith. This site will most likly get more popular over the next few months so I hope Stardock can keep supporting the site as is for a little while longer.

What is going to be the game plan for 2003? How will the site be self paying by then? Should there be a "electonic suggestion box" for ideas?

Reply #169 Top
Good question . . . but I have a better - "why are you asking in this thread?"