Insim under new management!

[Missbonbon]

I have been trying to say for years that it is possible for every creator to have their own free (limited) or pocket-money (almost unlimited) site for their creations and not to need any donation drive ever!

Ehh that last part I don't know entirely. Even the cheezserver and MTS2 has a donation drive every once in a while. Difference between cheezserver/MTS2 and InSim? They know exactly what they need, and ask for donations for the next year. So you only donate once a year, plus they have updates as they reach their goal. So  you don't continue to blindly donate until their pockets are lined. InSim on the other hand, Kathy and Eric would only pop in every once in a while and beg for donations in an unreasonable time frame.

In a sense, if it's a small server you wouldn't need donation drives. But once you hit the size of MTS2 or PMBD/MATY, one person can't afford it all. But I'm 99% of the community doesn't mind donating once a year to a cause, as opposed to every other year. Plus in lieu of all the financial information that has been revealed, it seems Kathy and Eric have been making a profit on InSim, or lied to Walt to make a profit selling it. Either way, they made a profit off of the good will of their members.

So not only have they abandoned their forum, members, and their family, they have basically said a big fuck you to everyone there. And honestly this Walt character isn't helping.

If he has every intent on keep InSim I think he needs to get into a chat with Delphy and Pes and discuss how to stream line InSim to reduce running costs, and how to make it more appealing to try and build a fan base if that's his goal. If not, he might as well sell it to Delphy. Because option A. Trying to fix InSim with knowledge of other people will cost him money, but not as much money as he wants to spend. Plus not only would InSim run better, members would be happier with having greater access to the website, and be happier that he isn't going to have a sub based system. Option B. will give him the profit in the end. Delphy has already made it sound like he is willing to pay whatever is necessary to get InSim, so Walt could actually end up striking a profit. Then he wouldn't have mad ravaging Sims fans wanting to rip his balls off, put them in a blender, and shove them down his throat as a protein drink.

[Vod Kaknockers]

Add me to the list of people not surprised that Kathy and Eric sold the site in such a way.  You could tell there were storm clouds on the horizon.  I'm sorry they've had personal issues, but they're not alone.  It really doesn't excuse letting the site languish for a year, in spite of numerous offers of help, and then selling it without so much as a how-do-you-do.  Their site, they can do as they want - true enough.  My money - I can do what I want with it just as easily.

I'm not keen on Walt's condescending little posts and my monthly sub is soon to be canceled.  I never liked being threatened with site closure by Kathy after just paying out my sub money, but taking what I'm giving, begging for more and then dismissing my contribution is just not worth it.  

[Elphaba]

8 extra pages since I last looked, serves me right for going to sleep, eh? Ah well, back at work now so have plenty of time to browse the site (I swear lately that's all I do here...)

Anyhoo to a point which I do have,, in fact two, both relating to my housemate. My housemate works for an insurance company whose bosses have decided to get out of the UK financial market while they still can and are selling. They told the employees it might be happening months ago, then told the shareholders, then told them officially it was happening a few weeks ago, and the sale won't go through for another couple of months yet. That's the process you HAVE to go through in a proper business and if K&E were professionals they should have gone through something similiar (told the mods way in advance then told the community BEFORE handing over the reigns). This cutting and running is almost childish.

The second point is when I tried to explain briefly to my housemate what was going on here, this then led to me trying to explain the sims 2 community as a whole, something which I utterly failed at. How do you explain what sort of positions Delphy and Pes have? I ended up with 'you may not agree with them, like them, or do what they say but you have to respect that they have a position in the community that you can't ignore and have for some time... this new guy can't come in and assume he'll have a similar or better position just ebcause he owns a site, even if he knows such positions exist...' acommapnied with much arm flailing as I find it hard to express myself.
Basically I got a blank look. My housemate doesn't play sims or take any part in any gaming community, but she is familiar with online communitiesn so she's kind of in a similar position to Walt.
If we had been told that this was about to happen we in the sim community probably could have predicted one or two of the things that have happened because we understand the groundwork. But there's no way Walt could ahve seen any of this coming, and probably doesn't understand why it has happened. He's probably got that same blank look. it's not him thinking 'why won't they like me?!!!' or 'why won't they give me monies!!!' it's 'what the heck is going on?'
Sorry, have gone on. Will summarise. We Simmers are a strange lot. You've got to be us to understand us. Sorry Walt but you really should have lurked for about... what do guys think, year? two?... before trying to step in and take over a huge chunk of a community.

[carlydunham]

its still down

[Craftingmomma]

Walt has made such a bad first impression, he may as well sell.  He came in all condensing, threatening to make the adult site pay and other things.  It is hard to change a bad first impression and takes lots of time.  Good old Walt doesn't have the time.  I've canceled my donation and will not donate to that air bag.  Have a feeling he thought he bought the creations, too bad.  Hope that all creators pull their content.

Lulz with what Pescado did, but slightly ticked as was posting at Insimadult when it went down.  

And Paden I'm so sorry for what you are going through.  Was not right what Kathy and Eric did.  I had posted at main site that while I appreciate what they have given to the community, was totally wrong to sell to someone outside the community.  Guess they got blinded by the $.

[WedgewoodBlue]

I predict Witless Walt Dismal's next move his own reality show. "How to KILL a forum in 48 hours or less."

[keirra]

  Blue! I wish I could be a "fly on the wall" when he logs on tomorrow and finds it crashed. 

[Quorneater]

In a sense, if it's a small server you wouldn't need donation drives. But once you hit the size of MTS2 or PMBD/MATY, one person can't afford it all.

That's exactly what I am saying.   Look at how the large sites that take uploads from large numbers of creators have shifted the cost burden from creator to downloader.  Many people will obviously think that is only fair - so I am not knocking it.  Just observing.

I pay $7 a month for space I choose to use to enable me to share what I make (you can pay less but I have very good quality hosting).  No one told me to make it or share it, so I don't want to ask anyone else to pay my hosting costs.   A metaphor:  If I have a houseparty and invite guests, I expect to pay for the food and drink according to what I choose to give my guests, not charge them for it.   The nice thing is my guests will invite me to their parties too, and I won't have to pay for what I eat there, either.   So in the end it all evens up.   If one of my neighbors couldn't afford their own party, I might tell them to invite their family to mine, and celebrate there (eg sharing my space with other creators)

To continue the metaphor, the large sites are as if instead of having a normal houseparty in my own home, and letting my neighbor invite her family, I let *all* my neighbors invite their families.  Then I find my house is no longer large enough and I cannot afford to buy food and drink for all the guests who will come.  I now need to hire a hall, and get caterers in.  Now I can't afford it myself, so I have to ask the guests to pay for tickets or put money into a whip-round.

[Alexia]

I think that this guy's (Walt) worst decision wasn't buying a site not knowing its fiscal condition. His worst decision was buying a site without knowing anything about the fan base he was aiming at. How ridiculous is it to asume that the simming community would welcome you with open arms just cause you bought up one of the biggest sites but never actually bothered reading up on it ?

As to his claim of 400.000 members? I've been a member of InSim for two years, I have never posted and certainly have never donated. I joined up to get Insiminator, but promptly got rid of it due to tight pants issues. I looked over Enayla's section but actually got the genetisised skins off Mme Mim's site. So seeing as I never actually used the site, why should I donate? K&E I have never spoken to and they were rather ambiguous as to their stance on Pay vs Free, so why should I support them? I am one of the thousands of transients that Walt hoppes to lure in by offering Ad-free site access and alienating all his CC creators and staff?

And finally if you don't play the actual game what's the reason to invest in anything assosiated with it? I mean even Delphy used to play it way back when and I'm sure Pescado fires it up, even if it's only to test out his stuffeths.

Just my two cents on the whole matter. (I didn't have internet connection for a week and I come back finding this whole mess and the BBS fiasco at the same time. I spent two days lurking and reading )

[keirra]

And finally if you don't play the actual game what's the reason to invest in anything assosiated with it? I mean even Delphy used to play it way back when and I'm sure Pescado fires it up, even if it's only to test out his stuffeths.

Pescado plays. You should check out Awesomeland sometime. Pretty funny.

[Alexia]

I'd actually join Maty keirra, if the damned site didn't insist that my I.P. already has an account there  I'd love to find yet another forum to luuurk Moar in 

[Quorneater]

Assuming Walt is genuinely who he appears to be, I reckon he's not guilty of much more than naivety, so I am not gonna give him a hard time.  It's Kathy and Eric who have let us down as members of the community.  I won't put it more strongly than that, having calmed down overnight.

[Pescado]

I'd actually join Maty keirra, if the damned site didn't insist that my I.P. already has an account there  I'd love to find yet another forum to luuurk Moar in 

You apparently share an ISP with a serial troll of old. I have removed the block now.

[Alexia]

Baaaaaaaaa! (promise to never thank you. Oh wait I just did, didn't I ?) 

[jokerswild]

Lotta reading. I'm not surprised this happened. I've been pissed about the adult site for a long time now. I tried to help the site with suggestions. Even kept them in a PM to an admin at first since some of the information might embarrass the owners and staff, till they blew them off. Then I posted about it hoping someone else with the power to update the old text and it was promptly moved so no members could NOT see it or so I was told. Couple of pms later that contained rules I had never heard of and that changed both replies. I  was sent this quoted statement.

"please dont tell us how to run our site.
you have already told me about this and now you post it in the forum.  i can only assume you are trying to cause some trouble.
how and when things are delt with on this site is none of your concern.  please refrain from trying to pick a public fight."

Right I was trying to pick a fight by trying to make the site a bit cleaner. Might make perfect sense if I hit myself in the head with a hammer till I'm brain dead but most likely not.

What did I say that got that response? I told them that the updates above the various forum areas where months out of date. I figured I had a right to point that out considering I posted something new there. Add to the fact it made many of the forum areas look dead with the bold text saying it hadn't had posts in months. The other was questions and suggestions about the "Featured Downloads" and what qualified one to get top billing over another. It went from having your own area there to being a mod. I gave up trying to talk with that Admin and emailed Kathy.

And just what did that say? I had offended Kathy because she had spent hours updating the site. Also told there was no difference in the "Featured Downloads". What? Then why were they separated in categories and stacked one above the other? Guess I'll never know because you can't talk to some people, so I gave up before I was accused of plotting the end of the world.

Sites like these aren't crap without members and contributors. Yet if you didn't have your own area or a member of a clique the most support you would get from staff was a generic "Awesome Thanks" post. However if you were one of their special ones your got actual comments about your work.

Now I read that the site might have been and may continue using contributions as "cash cows". I'm really ticked off. I take no pride in saying that we've been one payment from homeless for several months.  If anyone gets money from the stuff we made then the creators should be the first in line but none of us asked for it. We made what we made for the community for free.

If it's gone it's gone then I don't have to worry about it. But I have no home for my work and my project will die.

I was also posting at the adult site finally getting things off my chest till it exploded. Maybe that was for the best since one pissed off Irish, English, Black Dutch and Apache was about to go postal.

The admin I mentioned will probably reply. They're popular so I'll probably be attacked by some clique they belong to. If so I hope they enjoy themselves.