Oh, okay. Then how about a can of Coke? Not spiked at all. No, really. There's nothing but Coca-Cola in there. Absolutely nothing. I swear.

*hides rum bottle behind her back*

Definitely after a bottle of rum. Let's have some more ...  :lol:

I think that’s exactly the point. Sadly  

Ry, I really didn’t want to make you feel bad. Maybe you were misguided at the time. But the important thing is that now you’ve seen the light. Here, some rum from me to you.  

Yes, that's right. It was Micha, and I remember someone else creating the stuff for her too.

ETA:
I think her name was Patty.

I don’t think it was you, ry.    This one was always patrolling the WCIF’s, if I remember correctly, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who got one of those PM’s. Peggy or Pammy or something like that.

And you just had me remember what must have been one of the oldest paysite scams. There was a creator (whose name I don’t remember either) who used to showcase her stuff at Liquid Stars. She was very good and everybody adored her. She didn’t have a site of her own and would send the files to you by email. So no bandwidth, but the files were almost all pay.

At one point there was a pay/no pay discussion going on and the general consensus was that it was okay to charge for bandwidth. Then somebody, Aleesha I think, innocently asked then what about this creator? She uses Yahoo mail to send out her files, so she can’t have an awful lot of bandwidth. Is it okay for her to charge?

I’ll leave you to imagine the rest of the drama.  :twisted:

Oh, Liquid Stars … Yeah, that’s where I received my very first PM from anybody. It was from a mod (probably not you, ry) telling me off big time, because I’d tried to help out with a WCIF. She’d said that the requested thing was ‘unavailable’, and all I did was reply that I was sure I’d seen that object on a site somewhere. WHAM! then I got a beating.  :evil:

I think I did manage to make a few friends over there, though.

Fabulous news! Congratulations to you all.   I so needed My Sims Site to come back online.

Now, I know I'm new here, but aren't we celebrating this with some rum? *Passes around the bottles*

Calalily and Carissa have already said much of what I wanted to say, but ...

Kalliope, we have a certain amount of things in common. I’m a free creator too. I don’t like paysites at all. And I don’t much care for unauthorized file-sharing either. I’ve already taken a beating over this in another thread. That’s ok with me.  

But I have to ask what was your purpose in coming here? If you wanted to help the freesite movement or try to change things here then stomping in and throwing an angry flame around isn’t really the way to do it. I assure you – from an experience that is only a few days old – that people here WILL listen to you, even if they don’t agree, as long as you talk sensibly and respectfully to them. And they WILL accept that you have a different point of view, as long as that point of view is not ‘Paysites are good’.  :wink:

And yes, it may be insulting to the paysite creators to host their files here, but I think the paysite creators are also insulting the entire community by trying to make money out an what is an innocent hobby or passion for many gamers – including children.  

About the stealing of freesite creators’ work: That has been going on since the very first Sims 1 sites appeared on the internet and is not inspired by the pirates. It might be that some are now trying to make the connection between ‘general thiefs’ and ‘pirates’, but that is not correct. You’ll see that there is now talk here of how to make sure the pirate message is clear. That it is wrong to steal from freesites, and that even the paysite files that are in the booty are always clearly marked and credited to the creator.

Maybe they misguided him into thinking this is where the blame should go ...  :?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence either.

But it could be EITHER Solander was disillusioned and decided to close his site for a while and some other German creators did the same thing to back him up and show sympathy.

OR Solander was disillusioned and decided to close his site for a while and some other German creators saw that as an opportunity to clamp pirates and disrespectful assholes together and throw a punch at them.

Do we have an idea if all the temporarily closed sites are paysites?

Solander, thanks for making things more clear. I don’t think I have ever sent a thank-you message to you and I should have. Your stuff is very good, your site is cool and you share everything for free. Thank you very much for that.  

Oh shoot! Sorry Redlove. But I had my hands full of bottles. I couldn't carry more.  :oops:

Here's a cookie. And a muffin. And a jelly donut. I hope that makes you feel better.  :wink:

Better have them wondering about that than thinking up new ways to 'lure' and 'bait' people into subscriptions, no?  :lol:

I agree with Clementyne and Feverish. I wish he’d given more details, because I’d like to know what or if something happened. I mean, just a thought, but if it was for instance somebody repeatedly ‘stealing’ his creations and passing them off as their own, I can understand his anger. I’d feel the same.  

And although I’m not the greatest conspiracy theorist, Hecubus does have a point. I could imagine certain people doing something like that and pretending to be pirates, so the blame would fall on anti-paysite people. In love and war, you know ...

The Sims2 Studio thing is really silly. There's no logic in that argument, and I never liked punishing a whole community for what a few individuals may do.  :roll:

Wow, you guys are incredible. Thank you so much for all those kind words. They are very much appreciated and I’m feeling much more ‘at home’ here already.  

I hope I won’t offend anybody by not sending out any more PM’s. There is a fair amount of people here who already know who I am, and one day it won’t be necessary for me to hide behind another name anymore. I’m going to ask you to please be patient until that happens. (For any spies, though: I have nothing to do with TSR, so no need to speculate over there).  :twisted:

Right, enough, mushiness. I brought some bottles. Finest Caribbean stuff I could find. Anybody? *Hands out rum – and a pancake for RedLove*

Typos

Calalily, very good idea. Let’s talk about how best to go about it.

And do sign me up for the party too.  

Thank you Hecubus. It’s really good to be able to talk to you here as well.  

Just one little correction: I don’t ask for donations on the site. I’m on a completely free host, so there’s no reason for it.

Calalily, I don’t think PMBD is the only rallying point for the anti-paysite thing. It is the biggest and most powerful and the one that has the most chances of getting the battle won. I would like to support and be part of that, so I'm trying to find a way to do it that I’m comfortable with.

Sent you a PM, so all is clear.