PMBD

Its all here (http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?p=1466833)

So it seems that downtime was to do with the handover to a new owner. He's only just joined AND get this - isn't a Sims 2 player but in fact an online marketing and web development guy. I call Insim dying very soon. Call me paranoid or a fan of the tinfoil hat but I'm very skeptical of him so far.

(I posted it here as its not paysite related - even if he wants to raise $1,000 to cover server costs - but is an interesting change in the community)

Oh and:


Thats about setting up a new donation model and moving to brand new servers :o He wants it done in two weeks. Hello, world economy in meltdown ::)

OK, I got this in my email just now after hearing about it, and needless to say, I am PISSED. Read for yourself and see what you think.

Hi there.

Since you are one of our super-moderators at InSIMenator.net or Insimadult.net, I wanted to contact you first and introduce myself. My name is Walt Thiessen, and I have acquired the inSIMenator.net and insimadult.net websites from Kathy and Eric. They contacted me a couple of weeks ago because they needed to relieve themselves of the responsibilities of these sites so they can concentrate more time on other priorities. We reached an agreement, and the sites and server were transferred over to my control this past weekend. I'll be posting an announcement about this change on the sites soon, but I wanted to contact all the super-moderators first.

Eric has already agreed to continue to update his InSIMenator module for at least another year, and Kathy will undoubtedly still be around from time to time, as she will be answering questions for me behind the scenes. So while there has been an important change, it doesn't mean we're losing the two original founders entirely.

I'm hoping you'll stay on as a super-moderator and help me as I take steps to move these forums forward to the next level. I'm not a “gamer,” and I don't know much about The Sims, so I'm counting on you super-moderators to help me. Among other things, I'll be leaning on you heavily to continue to maintain the standards the sites current enjoy. I'll also be leaning on you for recommendations regarding moderator and super-moderator nominations.

I'm an online marketer and website design/host/development guy. My plans for these sites are two-fold. First, I want to  keep them going in the tradition that Kathy and Eric have already established. Second, I want to make them profitable enough that we can add functionality and hardware to handle the increased traffic that the sites have experienced lately and will likely continue to experience when The Sims 3 is released in February.

I want to share with you some of my ideas for the sites and server for your feedback. I'll also appreciate any suggestions you can make to help me with my transition in my new role.
New Server Planned
First and foremost, as soon as I took control of the server I noted that it is quite under-powered compared to what the demands of the website are. This is something I'm planning to change ASAP, probably by the second week of December. Currently, the sites are served on a dual-processor server which I took over from Kathy and Eric. Over the weekend, the heavy demand crushed them to the point that they were largely unavailable. I've put in a load limit to prevent them from crashing, but that's just a temporary fix. In the meantime, during peak periods some users will get messages saying that the server is too busy, asking them to try again later.

I'm planning to acquire an eight-processor server (plus 3-4 times as much RAM as we have right now) which will give us four times the processing power and should eliminate most (hopefully all) of the bottlenecks we've been experiencing particularly in times of high demand.
Insimadult.net Needs A Big Helping Hand
The Insimadult site is barely at break-even point according to Kathy and some months has been subsidized by the InSIMenator site.

Further, when I tried to transfer the advertising links by setting up a new account at Adbrite in my name, they forced me under a new policy structure they have into their “black label” section which is dominated by hard core porn advertisers. This resulted in a short period where some really hard-core ads hit the site on Sunday. As soon as I discovered what had happened, I pulled the ads and replaced them with some Amazon ads for Sims 2 and 3 products. However, such ads are not likely to pull as well as regular advertising, so it's likely that on-site ads at Insimadult are going to produce less revenue than before.

Obviously, this is a bad situation. If revenue was already no more than break-even before I acquired Insimadult, then we can't afford any revenue reductions for Insimadult. So I'm giving serious consideration to a subscription-based membership system of some kind so that we don't have to shut Insimadult down entirely. I'm also in contact with a large ad agency that specializes in advertising placements for adult websites, trying to discover if there are any alternatives we can use that won't hit Insimadult with hard-core porn ads while generating some reasonable ad revenue.

I'm trying to decide between a VOLUNTARY subscription-based membership system and a MANDATORY subscription-based membership system for Insimadult. With either approach, I'd work on creating some incentives for becoming a subscriber. The most obvious one I can think of is to remove advertising from the pages for logged-in subscribers. I'm also open to any other suggestions you can make regarding additional benefits to offer potential subscribers in order to induce them to sign up.

You know the users and members of Insimadult much better than I do,. Can you tell me what you think their reaction to a subscription-based system would be? Should it be voluntary or mandatory? I'm thinking of putting up a poll to ask them how much they'd be willing to pay on a monthly subscription to Insimadult with the following options: $0, $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $10, $15, $20, and $25 Or More per month. I'd use the poll results to guide the minimum subscription pricing options we'd offer.
InSIMenator.net Needs To Stabilize Donation Model
As I looked at the financial history of InSIMenator.net, I found two things. First, the advertising revenue is consistent, but it's not large enough to finance the site sufficiently. The donation model that the site follows is critical to its success. Further, donation totals from month to month have varied dramatically. This makes management of the site a bit of a financial headache.

Similar to the Insimadult site, I'm thinking about implementing a voluntary donation model here as well. Unlike Insimadult, I'm not contemplating a mandatory subscription model for the InSIMenator site. I want to make it voluntary, which we'll need in order to grow the site. As with Insimadult, I'm thinking about making the subscriber experience advertising-free. Beyond that, I'd welcome from you suggestions about additional incentives and benefits we can offer in order to induce people to become members.

The potential for InSIMenators.net is very great. Over 400,000 people have become site members in the past 3.5 years. That's a sizeable pool, and it seems reasonable to me that we can get at least some of them to become subscribers. If only 1% of that 400,000 became monthly subscribers, it would provide sufficient financing to not only pay for the larger server needs but also to bring in professional developers to add various kinds of functionality to the website over time!
Current Bills Are High Right Now – Donations Are Needed
From the moment I took over the sites, I incurred some instant expense hits that haven't yet been covered by advertising or donation expenses. So far, in addition to the purchase price I paid to Kathy and Eric, I'm more than $750 in the hole in operating costs, and that's going to more than double with the new server acquisition. Plus, the vBulletin licenses for the forum and database are coming due at the end of this month. So I'm going to be putting out a donation drive request, which I'm hoping people will enthusiastically support. We need to raise money fast in order to do the things that need doing.
Polling For User Input On Both Sites
I'm going to put out some polls over the next couple of days to measure user input on a number of things.

First, as I mentioned above, I'm going to poll on the subscription idea to get a sense of how willing users are to support the sites financially on a regular basis.

Second, I'm going to offer a poll about whether they think the sites needs a “face lift.”

Third, I'm going to ask for suggestions about additional features and benefits they would like from the sites.

I'd appreciate it if all super-moderators could encourage people to take these polls. The more input we get, the better.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll be in touch with you all as we move forward. Feel free to contact me with any input and suggestions you have. Also, I welcome your suggestions as to who should be promoted to moderator or super-moderator positions on an ongoing basis.

Yours Sincerely,

Walt Thiessen

Clipped to get rid of personal info. Thanks for reminding me about that, Jojoba, had totally forgotten to do it in the copy/paste.

I posted about this in Sharkbait and waited to see if you would tell us what you heard but...

...omg! :o

Wow.... just wow.

It just sounds so slimy, are you sure it's not a joke?  It's unreal.

Its all over the InSIM frontpage, with links to threads about donations, who Walt is and revamping the entire site. So I don't think it is - it would explain the blackout at InSIM a few days back.

Yup am pretty pissed as well. Was unsure when I PMd you whether you knew about it already or not..from the posts at Insim, it seemed Eric and Kathy decided not to give anyone any prewarning. I am too annoyed for words currently

Although, you may want to snip out his address in your post Paden.

Its sounds weird

First you start out saying that the site doesn't even get enough money currently.
Then you suggest to buy a server that is 3 times as expensive, and make giant upgrades that cost alot of money.
Then make suggestions for a subscription system (like at MTS2, not a big deal). Or, maybe make InsimAdult pay.

But in the end, surprise surprise, it won't be enough, so time to make a TSR the second.
He even SOUNDS like Thomas or Steve XD

This is absolutely ridiculous. I can't wait for Paden to give him a piece of her mind though. I don't believe the whole innocent act of not knowing how the community would react to this news. Kathy and Eric had to tell him about the war that has been going on since the beginning. Something smells to me.

I don't think this is going to go over well.  They pretty much just oked Mr. Corporate Douchebag to come in and try to milk as much money as he can out of the website and it's members.  Then they waited until everything was done and over with to warn their mods and members, cause, undoubtedly, you'd be all WTF are you thinking?  I don't know what exactly is going to happen with insim now, but my guesses is it's going to be the beginning of the end, and if Walt as clueless as he makes himself out to be then it will probably also be hilarious. 

I want to be a fly on the wall, when the shit hits the fan. I'd actually pay to see Paden rant at him in public. Now that would be money well spent.
He's just started the death toll for Insim and Insim Adult. What a dumbass.

If either of the sites turn into something smacking of TSR, I will cut all ties there and only post my stuff at MTS2.
I am very, very disappointed by this news.

Theres also a thread at GoS about this (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=7852.15). Its just riduculous :/ I do not understand how they decided to do it like this. People were not given a prewarning or even the chance to say goodbye - many of the members, regardless whether they are mods or the whatnot, had known Kathy and Eric for years and had built friendships with them. To brush them off like this is just insulting. To further give the site to someone who sees it as a business and investment and not interested in the community/sims in general is just destroying the site in itself.

I got no further than reading up to this part. He really sounds like ThomASS! Let him try this...and watch it become a ghost town.  :D

I find it very hard to believe that Kathy and Eric wouldn't add some sort of no-going-pay clause to the sale, but I don't know either of them so  can only imagine what went on there. If they've had enough of the site that's fine, it can't be easy keeping it up, but this is appaling.

Paden, if he really wants to know how the community would react, I suggest linking to this thread. It's gonna explode nice and proper.

Its lulzy that he says he doesn't want mandatory subscriptions at InSIM in response to Paden, but he's alright with doing it at InSIMAdult?! ???

Sadly, I suspect that letter is spelling out the end of Insim.  This guy is incredibly stupid.

You do not buy a website without knowing exactly what you're getting and what it's potential is. So either he's a complete idiot who bought something sight unseen or he was informed as to exactly what he was getting, was informed about the whole pay/free debate, and was assured that there was potential for a profit to be made of this site and within the Sims 2 community. I wonder where that information came from? Who would know all about InSim/InSimadult and it potential. If this is for real and it appears it is, it was properly researched and evaluated and planned in advance. I hope they made a few bucks of this.  That's the only answer that makes sense to me. Or this is a complete debacle for our amusement.

When I saw his post and the subscription poll, my jaw dropped.  And he's thinking of making subscriptions mandatory for InSIM adult?  WTF?

Where did Kathy and Eric get this guy?  If it were my site, I'd talk to the moderators I knew best and see if anyone could take it, not hand it off to some guy who looks like he's trying to make money off of it.  Again, WTF?

This is unbelievable. Is it April Fools and I just didn't notice?

Insim's ship is sunk, or at least, will soon be.

Are we sure this isn't Thomas setting up another branch of his cult?

Even if this Walt guy is really the one taking over, it just smells to high heaven of eau de TSR. 

I don't know much about Insim, stopped going there a long time ago,so I don't care personally that it's going to go belly up.   ::)

I guess the Insimenator will be sent to the booty. >:(

No I don't think so, Insim itself he claims to be a voluntary sub, but the sister site, well that is another story all together.a

I'm biting my tongue at mentioning "Walt"'s plans (and thusly ending my three year mission of silence at Insim) about InSimAdult there. I breezed through the announcement, but I didn't see any mention for ISA and I didn't want to be the one to mention PMBD at InSim as I don't know about their policies. The "stop panicking, I R devil's advocate, it's only voluntary donation" thing was kinda getting on my nerves.

Gah, I've been hanging around MATY too much. Moar fight is not appropriate for everywhere. *slaps self*

My guess is that it wasn't properly researched. Kathy has stated on the site that they end up paying. Everyone who owns a forum will tell you that member numbers mean dick when it comes down to it. Many people sign up, grab what they want and never return. Others may pop in every once in a while to make sure their username isn't removed. Most of the active members are kids so getting money from them is not an option. The others that have posted state openly that they do not have the means to offer 'anything but their support'.

As far as subscriptions go the guy had better look around at what he has to offer. While TSR has some decent creators to at least bring people in most of the creators on InSIM are new and not that talented when it comes to creating. a lot of the creators who did offer decent CC have retired or moved on for the most part. You can't expect half a dozen talented people to create enough to make the site worth paying for. From what I can see the majority of the members came for ONE thing: InSimenator. I am not saying there are no decent creators, by the way. I just don't think there are enough making new meshes to be worth paying a subscription for.

I think that if the guy makes InSIMadult pay he will lose the only creators worth going there for. This whole ordeal is a shame because InSIM was a decent place. I'm not giving up on it yet. It depends on what he does with it.

Kathy has long since banned discussion of PMBD, or any links to it - so colour me unsurprised that there is no clause.  I have no doubt that as an online marketing guy, Insim will be soaked in ads and slapped onto the screen dripping.  I don't think his cunning plan will work though.

Kathy does allow links to it in the WCIF thread. I think there is ONE thread to discuss the paysite debate too. But yeah, for the most part it's off limits. Personally I think the site is already dripping with ads. I hate going there without being signed in. The ads are in the threads as well as all around it. I can't imagine where else he'd be able to squeeze the ads in.

Well that surely sucks. I recommend everyone download everything they might want from the site post haste. With Marvine gone, there's just a handful of good creators there, and those might not be happy about going pay. Warlokk won't, I don't think BlooM, Enayla or Gothplague will either.

Sounds like everything's going down in flames there pretty soon.

 >:( I do hope they do not go pay. It's a sad day indeed. >:(

Last I read, it was banned - which is when I promptly stopped advertising my site there, deleted my update thread and stopped doing anything there but thanking people for downloads.  She went and changed that later - it was no PMBD for a while.

Delphy PWNS Walt:
In case it disappears:

Love this


ETA: DOI!!!!  Ninja'd by Nouk

And yes he is serious :P

Say what you will about Delphy, the man has his faults, but that reply is made of win  ;D

I've been reading at Insim a bit and I'm alittle disappointed about how... giddy people seem over there. They're either welcoming uncle Walt or mourning the passing of Kathy and Eric. Not a word about these new plans and polls and what have you. Or haven't I read far enough? I'm worried either way.

Delphy rules.  :D

I think I've made clear that I do not like it.

I wanna see him capitalise on InSim's biggest (only?) asset. Make the InSim pay! Doooo ittt! I are fan of slapstick comedy!

Yes you have Paden, i myself am worried as well. >:(

Delphy purchasing InSim and taking over would bring joy, sunshine, peaches and orgasms to the entire sims 2 community.   Merging of the two largest completely FREE sims sites = check mate.

As I said in the thread over there, I think that this has been handled totally wrong.  I wont repeat what I've said there for brevity, but I think it's very disrespectful to the staff there that thier first indication was the email.  Kathy and Eric obviously have been going through some stressful times, but I can say from experience it's way better to get your staff involved with how the site runs and the direction it's going in as well as the technical details (even if nobody understands, they still care! Heck, I spout off stuff about PHP and mySQL to the MTS2 staff and even if they don't understand totally, at least I'm communicating what *I* find interesting to them - which all goes to making the site better).  I just think that this would have been easier and less frightening a move if it was more planned... but I guess hindsight is a perfect science, so we shall see.

I *am* serious about my 4th point.  Pretty much my first reaction when I finished reading was "Hrm, I wonder how much it'd cost?".  Heck, with some decent servers (plural), a good split setup and a day or so of memcached work, the "server busy" stuff would be pretty much eliminated and it'd probably end up cheaper and faster than his "8-core 4-8gb ram" server plans.

But oh well, maybe in a day or two I'll email him and ask him how much. :)

Even if I *did* own InSim, I'd just do the server administration and appoint a few admins to do the day to day running of things and basically just make it business as usual - except possibly changing the ads but thats fairly minor. Everything else?  No real need to change it unless people want it changed.

Regards
Delphy

That was my reaction also, that whole donation system overhaul is so thinly veiled it would be considered immodest in certain cultures. Honest to God some of those people are worse than the BBS sheeple.

It's a couple of very small steps from "ad free browsing" (pfff! in this day and age of Adblock NoScript et al.)  to " Why am I paying for the same content some one else gets for free, I think some other incentives would be nice" to " you want it you pay for it". I hope he enjoys his ride.

Hell, in a day or two he may be ready to pay you to take it off his hands. Which would be awesome.

Also, nixy's post over at GOS in the Insim thread said it all I think...just where are Kathy and Eric and why haven't they said anything at the very least to their (now former) staff? It smells.

I'd say unless he's hellbent on having a paysite, he might take you up on that offer.  And you shall be known as the Sims 2 Community baron - with the most real estate ever. :D

Why did'nt Kathy or Eric at least give the mods a heads up?It sure does'nt take much to shoot off a pm.Personally I think this is pretty low of them it sure shows(in my book anyway) that they have no respect for the people that did all their work for them to keep the forum running smoothly.
I think the majority of the blame for what is going on there now rests on their shoulders.

Welp, guess I need to look for another site to post stuff on, in addition to MTS2.  I might only be talent at Insim, but I'm kind of shocked right now too.  I wonder how much it would cost to make my own site?

And Delphy, that post of yours was in fact, full of win.

I just can't believe that Eric or Kathy didn't mention it to their staff at least.  I know they've had stress, but sometimes sharing around stuff at least with your staff can help lighten the load.

*sigh*

Nothing.  ;)

Shiiiiit, this means he's gonna own Boardwalk and Park Place if Walt sells, doesn't it? Oh well, I still own Marvin Gardens! Yeah, this is still serious shit, a lot of us feel betrayed that we worked there and were considered friends and all of a sudden, the people who we called friends were just... gone. Poof. Vanished. Not a word of farewell, good-bye, shove it up your ass. Nothing. And I won't work for the place if either section of it goes pay. I won't violate what I believe in.

All I'm gonna say is: WALT MUST BE DESTROYED! :P

markus, where the hell have you been?  :-*

Doesn't InSim already have a subscription system?  I mean.. if it aint broke don't fix it?

http://www.insimenator.net/billspaypal.php?

I had him locked up in Pooki's basement, he only gets out to see sunlight every couple of weeks these days.

Delphy i simply applaud you. ;)

Yep. Pooki accidentally left the door a jar, so I escaped. ;)

Delphy, your the man. As to the issue of Walt the Corporate Cock Riding Tool, if he does go pay, insim will die quickly with all its booty looted by us pirate renegades. All right you bastards drink up, opens barrels of rum to all.

Paden! You naughty panther you weren't supposed to let him out yet. You didn't free Snarky yet did you?  Anyway back on topic this so far just strikes me as a paysite in the making and I can't understand why they didn't let the mods know either.

That was my first thought too, I might have somewhat alluded to that over on his "ZOMG Welcomez!!! GLOMP" thread.


wassup dude?

You should escape more often, you look a little pale.  ;D

Hmmm *ponders her own site*

And I tried to register at GOS and it doesn't do gmail....does it do yahoo?

Yes it does.

Yeah, about Kathy and Eric. They have been saying for a long time now that they weren't able to keep up with the site. But to just jump out and hand over this site to a know-nothing tool like walt is a bad insult to everyone who has supported there site in the past.

 I was almost blinded by the sunlight when I left Pooki's basement. :P

Actually I've been working, and aside from MSN haven't been hanging around the forums as much. Between this and the BBS fiasco, what a week :o

THERE you are! *nabs Markus by the collar and throws him into the basement again, with a computer this time* Get the cobwebs by the furnace this time!

No, none of us were alerted as to this happening. I know that Kathy is pretty ill and needs a break from the stress the site causes her on top of RL stuff, but this way of handling it was just WRONG. You don't sell out and not say good-bye to people who've had your back in the past. And, you sure the fuck don't dive right into a community with spreadsheets and financial shit and wanting money right the fuck NAO!!! ANd the next little bitch that don't know her ass from a teakettle that tells me to calm down over there is gonna get a smack upside the head and told to shut the fuck up! I told KATHY that I would behave, I promised HER that I would, but I made no such agreement with Walt. He can suck my non-existent left nut to make the non-existent right one jealous.

Ah, there we go - hopefully I can change it to my gmail account later - since I never check my yahoo one.

Yeah I read that and I was just *flabbergasted* at her tone.  Yes, it -might- not be as bad as it looks, but as Numenor said, it helps build trust if you actually -play- the game the fansite is for.

Investment *snort*

Well Paden, don't attack walt yet, if you haven't already. We may need a person on the inside for the possible upcoming struggle for the soul of Insim.

I am not surprised at what Kathy and Eric did, though I'm saddened by it.

I hope Delphy can buy Insim.

I think this would be a bad idea, though. Such a move would negatively affect the truck size of the community, especially given that Delphy is not exactly somebody good at staying alive.

Markus you forgot the mustluvcatz vs BlackDwarf cage match over in the TSR thread.

It's nice to see some of the TS2 "heavies" digging their heels in over there. I hope he and others have the sense to read what they wrote (but I doubt it). And good work there Paden, you da man wit imaginary testes.

On a side not, props to all FOJs for not subjecting us to blinky pink welcome signs

Good points Calisto....ohh I mean neriana. :P

I almost feel sorry for this guy - he doesn't really grasp what he's gotten into, i wager.

Ahh but Pescado, whoever said I would "take over" if that did happen? :)  (Protip: I wouldn't)

Like I've been sayin, if InSIM goes pay in any way, shape or form, I'll be walkin out the door and they can be kissin me arse. I'm pissed, sure. No doubt about it. You don't treat your staff like shit unless yer an old shit like Pescado, and that's just expected out of the old fart.

It is highly unlikely, judging by his attitude so far, that Walt is going to listen to his staff much. If he wants to do things which will imprive InSim, it will be improved; if he wants to do things which will damage it (far more likely), it will be damaged.
Because staff should be consulted before proposals are announced to members.

 :P





.......sorry for the interruption.......

Actually, treating your staff like shit is important to maintaining order. Otherwise they start getting weird ideas and raised expectations. Consistent abusiveness is the key to any successful relationship. Once they have gotten used to a consistent level and form of abuse, they'll come to expect and even like it that way.

I completely agree with your statement. And to add to it, I would really hate to see insim go down the tube. Its been a great site for me to get downloads for my game. Whatever happens-happens,I just want to see our community excel instead of becoming corporate commercial trash.

Like I said in the GOS thread, I think that Kathy and Eric may have hoodwinked Walt. Honestly, a site that is forever begging for money is an investment?

Paden, I am so sorry for you. I know you talked about InSim alot. But this just boils my blood. If InSimAdult because sub based, I will completely remove InSim and InSimadult from my favorites. It is outrageous. In the long run though, I do hope that Delphy will take over the servers, because why should a man that has no knowing of the game run that site? I think this all was a very bad move on Kathy's, Eric's, and Walt's part.

Besides, if he turns InSim/InSimadult into a sub based system, that will ruin all that InSim stood for!

He did mention about wanting to transition the site with TS3 so that would sort of be in keeping with the theme.

Like I said, you know what he can be suckin.

Treating your staff like something might be a good idea - no matter what - it should be consistent.  Kathy and Eric don't seem to be consistent at this - but I'm sure that all of your staff rely on your consistent obstreperous jerkery.


I agree - it certainly does look like that.  They must have known what he was going to do, and they let him do it cold anyway, while rubbing their hands with glee.  And what better as a final fuck you to the community than Insim the new paysite?

I'm totally going to do this when I quit. :D I'll turn off guestbook moderation before I go, just to really stick it to the sucker I sell to.  

HAHAHAHA! Kenmtl, I agree TS3 is gonna equal trash.

I was thinking that too. This Walt guy obviously had no idea at all what he was getting into. Right now, I do feel sorry for him, because he obviously thought he was buying a real, legitimate investment opportunity. Kathy and Eric really haven't done right by anyone in this.

Cala, I can't see you selling out to anyone without you being dead or at least haunting the bastard if he did make your site into a paysite.

But there's monies and butthurt community members to be had. :'(  Plus, if I could beat the 2-for-u guestbook fiasco, with the most hate spam ever, this would be a great boon. :D

Ya but here's my thing, guys like this are by profession looking for profit and besides that, he writes like someone with a reasonable amount of intelligence, so I'm assuming he's educated. He would of course want to see financial reports, membership info, traffic data, server costs, etc. So if he was hoodwinked by Kathy and Eric either they a: fabricated data or b: were in fact making a profit and led him to believe there was more to be found (paysite). Who knows.

This guy is not a gamer so why buy a fansite? I don't see a benefit. Anywhere. He has every intention of making a profit from this, that shouldn't even be question, I don't think he just always dreamed of being a member of the Sims community. Websites are business, fansites are not. He's a business guy not a fan guy.

So either a: he had enough truthful information given to him to see an actual profit and even more potential profit or b: Kathy and Eric are big fat liars and this poor dolt is a complete idiot.


and for future reference calalily might potentially need to be destroyed

edit: now my first b: makes sense

And if they were making a profit, then they were lying anyway, since they were saying the site was in danger of being closed down from lack of fundage.

I like Kathy....it makes me said no matter how its sliced.

I know what you mean. But, Eric is committed to updating the InSIM for a year...

IMO, this guy wasn't lied to. His plan is to make money and he believes he can make money with his new business venture. If that includes becoming a paysite, that's what he's going to do.

It's shitty.

After reading the threads here, at GOS, and at Insim, I'm really just... sad. Any way you look at it, long time members are going to get burnt. New members and going to be either taken advantage of or turned off completely, and one of the biggest community sites out there is going to in fact become something to point and laugh at - or scream, depending on your temperament.

I really hope that the people who used to run the site made a killing off of selling out. What I don't understand is, if things really were so bad IRL, why they didn't first offer it to someone with a little more invested in the community - either staff members at the site, or someone like Delphy with some experience.

I've had an account at Insim for a couple months, but haven't ever posted and rarely go there. I had gone through some of the boards the other weekend, thinking about getting involved, and I'm glad now that I let my shy side win. I had enough of a time when I realized how shitty T$R is, without getting involved in drama on a new site.

Hopefully the little bastard goes bankrupt.

Oh, I meant what I said - I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, after all, investment -can- mean more than cold hard cash.  There are other sorts of payoffs - the pride of a job well done, experience with running a large website and the like.

I don't think they were making a profit (at least I hope they weren't), but I can see how a web developer would look at InSIM as a good investment.  Sure, it's in the hole now, but it's also a big site with a big community.  I bet Walt thought it would be a lot easier to "rescue" InSIM than build his own site from scratch.  Of course, he knew little about the srs bsns that is the Sims community. ;) 

I've tried not to think poorly of Kathy and Eric over the past few months, even with the whole Beos fiasco, because I believe they have a son in Iraq among other real life issues that should definitely be more important than a Sims 2 site, but I'm not sure if I can help it now. :-\  Would it have been so hard to make some sort of announcement, at least to the mods?  Urgh.

I agree with crunk--I don't think that InSIM will come out of this for the better, no matter what.  I don't frequent InSIM anymore, but I have a lot of memories of people there helping me when I was a wee n00b downloading game-borking files from the exchange, so I'd definitely be sad to see it go.  It's one of the few big free sites in the community as well; it would be a big loss. :(

Souvenirs heads up, I slightly edited my post you just quoted but it doesn't really affect your response.

That is really, really, really stretching it. It's one thing to think the best of people, but it can be taken too far. He said he wants to make the website more profitable. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a non-gamer to take over a site like Insim unless he thinks he can make money from it.

My opinion of Kathy and Eric wasn't exactly stratospheric before, so I'm not having trouble believing they'd sell to someone like this :P.

Well, yes I know its highly unlikely - but until he does prove folks right, it doesn't hurt to hope he won't, you know.

I am a tolerant person - less stressful to take the high road, and the disappointments are outweighed by the times I'm right, even if they happen more often.

I also make like a duck and let stuff roll off of me alot.  So, if he does turn it into a paysite, then oh well - my stuff will get yoinked and I won't have anything to do with it.  If he doesn't, then that's fine too.

Even as someone who is not a member of Insim, this concerns me greatly. I wonder about the details of the transaction--not just how much it was sold for, but more importantly, what was sold. Did "Walt" just buy the site, or also it's content? Does he think that he owns the creations submitted by the two communities? It's pretty presumptuous (among other things), to buy the sites, and immediately threaten to start charging money for content created by members of the community, and posted freely for all to enjoy, with no intention of it being SOLD.  >:( I hope that everyone will have no hassle with removing their creations if it becomes necessary.

Yeah, I am already considering taking down everything I uploaded. Better safe than sorry. Most of the pages are pretty old, so I don't think anyone will notice them. If anyone asks me about wanting them again I can always upload them elsewhere and put a link to them in my signature.

Twice a year Kathy & Eric would suddenly appear, do a 'we have no monies, so cough up 750 bucks in 2 weeks or the site is finished'.  And they would get the money.  Then disappear until they asked for more money, been sooo busy, you got 2 weeks...

If they presented the regular monthly donations plus the twice yearly "mystery" amounts raised to this Walt guy, he just might think he can raise a shitload of dough.  After all, he did mention about the number of members being 400,000 or something...plus even 1% of the people donating on a monthy basis = 4,000 people.   

4,000 x  $5 monthly fee = 20,000 bucks a month

THAT.......Imho......is the "investment" Walt is looking at;
an established site, dedicated fans, and all he has to do is convince only ONE PERCENT of those fans to cough up 5 clams a month.

ah yes, here is the quote:

"The potential for InSIMenators.net is very great. Over 400,000 people have become site members in the past 3.5 years.
That's a sizeable pool, and it seems reasonable to me that we can get at least some of them to become subscribers.
If only 1% of that 400,000 became monthly subscribers, it would provide sufficient financing..."

Ditto.  For me it's because a place like insim shouldn't be sold.  I can appreciate the time and effort they put into insim and the forum but insim is a community.  They sold a community.  You have mods, and creators and loyal members and friendships possibly made and held by the forum and frankly there shouldn't be a market for that. 

It's like having a local coffee shop bought out by Starbucks.  So maybe the coffee is the same price, but now instead of using local suppliers they ship in their corporate stuff.  Instead of paying their employees more, it a minimum wage job.  It simply doesn't give back to the community the same way and frankly is a little soleless. 

Who benefits from this?  No one but Kathy and Eric and possibly Walt.  They brought in someone who sells ads and by his own admission just wants to turn a profit.  That is clearly the goal.  Is the how you see the communities you love and respect?  I don't.  They are labors of love.  Not revenue making machines.  I can understand making ends meet, but I don't see it here. Sorry.  I won't feel the same about donating there, and if I was a mod I wouldn't feel the same way about volunteering my time knowing that the new owner doesn't have the passion for the game.

Maybe Kathy and Eric are completely within there right to have done this (their forum and program) just like the owners of that local coffee shop, but it still feel a bit hollow now that it's said and done. 

I hope that he'll cut his losses by selling the forum to Delphy. 

Well, there is nothing on the main page of InsimAdult about a new owner.

Just an month old post asking for money (and nothing about selling the site...remeber Walt said he had been in contact with them for WEEKS about selling the place):

Oct 19, 2008 - 3:15 AM - by Eric 
Hi Everyone,

As everyone knows this site is completely free for everyone, to download, to upload, to socialize. All we ask for are donations to keep the sites running.

While last month we met our server costs, this months bills are due again by the 25th and we are $650 short for the servers alone.

You can donate by making a payment through PayPal here or you can mail in a donation via the information found below in post #2.

Also, we have monthly subscriptions for those who wish to donate on a monthly basis.

For those who missed the announcement, Kathy has also finished upgrading the software on both sites. Some of the features include personal photo albums, customized profiles and more. You can check the thread out here.

Thank you for your support.

(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h49/markusrandall/WALT.jpg)

Maybe it's because I am tired but one of his front teeth looks more yellow in comparison to the others and it's all I can focus on now. 

It's yellow, trust me.

Must be a replacement tooth, or he missed it with the bleach.

I'm a bit pissed off, enough so that I won't give him a chance to make people pay for my stuff. Needless to say, I'll be pulling it (but it'll be available elsewhere; I'm not a total asshole).

I find it both disheartening and amusing that Kathy not only went against her word ("I'll never sell the site"), but she sold it to a complete asshat. It's almost laughable. Almost.

I had plans to e-mail Kathy and ask her why, but upon further consideration, I've decided to let her fester in her (and Eric's) own decisions.

Rot on, InSim.

It has nothing to do with "hope" and everything to do with logic and simple truth. The guy said he was making an investment, and what he wants it obvious. Twisting things is twisting things, whether you're trying to make them look prettier or uglier than they really are.

Kathy and Eric did a rotten thing here. It's far worse than selling a neighborhood coffee shop, because the owners of the coffee shop are running a business and they unquestionably own it and have the right to sell it. Also, I can't imagine any business owners not informing their employees that they'd be working for someone else soon. Just how much money did Kathy and Eric make in those donation drives, anyway? And just how much time does it take to write a couple sentences about where the hell you are, on a forum you own, in a community where you set yourself up as a leader? (Largely by screaming at people on a semi-regular basis, in Kathy's case.)

I don't know anything about Walt, except that he obviously expected that his ideas for making money with the site wouldn't be greeted with anger and trepidation. He may have been a victim in this.

I'm sure many of those 400,000 members are like me.

I have been a member of InSim for years.  I haven't ever posted, let alone donated or any of the like.  I really only ever went there for the InSimenator and Enayla's section.

He came on like gangbusters, all full of how he's gonna turn it around and make it something that will pay and bring in some money. I don't like people that call a community an investment and use words like revenue, as if the people there can be milked like old Bessie in the milking barn. I don't moo for no man!!

You can't - due to the spambots using it a while back Ligen banned all new users from using gmail to set up new accounts. You could try asking her about changing it now you've signed up, but I wouldn't think it would be possible.

And woah, this is why living in a different time zone sucks; personally, if Delphy can get it off this Walt character then its something I would like to see happen. Delphy has more experience and know-how about running a site and running a sims 2 site specifically.

I hear you Anyerfillag. You in Europe too? This thread sure went splode when I was sleeping. I'm glad  didn't miss Delphy's reply.

I'm going to give this Walt character the benefit of the doubt. He obviously hasn't got a clue about this community and the hive-mind stances toward pay content. It's a little silly buying something you don't fully understand, but remember that we're on the inside, looking at the inside, while this Walt is clearly an outsider. It's possible he doesn't know that there's anything wrong with selling Sims 2 content. TSR does it and they appear very fluffy, friendly and successful to the casual observer.

Still, has anyone tried to inform him that selling content, or asking for donations to access said content, is illegal? As a bussinessman, I'd think he would like to know that.

I've been meaning to ask this: we know that selling the actual content, the .packaga files, is illegal. But if you charge people to register on a download forum or site, aren't you selling them the right to use the site as opposed to the actual package files? I know it does't make any difference practically, but would that logic hold in court, so to speak?

Actually, you can. Such email addresses are not permitted for use when registering (email is not even checked!), because spammers are both stupid and scrupulously honest in this regard. Besides, I'm not certain the stupid email thing even works and have no means of testing it.

There's plenty of weasel-logic involved. None of it appears to be NECESSARY because EAxis does nothing. Whether the logic will hold up in court is similarly irrelevant, because it never WILL go to court. Our view is simple: If you have to pay to get it, it's a paysite.

Pescado had it covered months ago.  :D


Noukie has a community creations section now. :)

I don't know what school of management he goes to, but his lack of reaction is deeply stupid - he's pissing people off and leaving them unsure. 

I just checked my favourites and realised I don't even have Insimenator in there. Goes to show just how often I go there, and I am a member.
Ran over there and saw this:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/deelink/The%20Sims%202/insim.jpg)
If it's too small, click to zoom or  go here (http://www.insimenator.net/billspaypal.php)

Look at all the methods to pay, at all the obscene amounts, and all with little yellow "subscribe!" signs underneath. Overkill much? Desperate much? What are your real intentions Walt? To revamp the site and make it More Awesome? Without telling your "donators" and "subscribers" what it is? At least TSR had a model, and at least the subscribers knew what they were getting into. Urgh, I just vomited a little.
I don't understand this guy's intention, it smells like he is just trying to make a quick buck. And it stinks.

It reeks to high heaven. For all we know he'll rake in the donations for a couple of months, let the servers explode and walk away a richer man. Or even better, take the donation money, sell the site to Delphy and leave him with a big steaming mess while uncle Walt laughs all the way to the bank. I'm not saying he's going to. I'm saying we know fuck-all about this dude. It could be a con, for fuck's sake.

It's insane. I heard this news yesterday and this happened a couple hours later? What is he playing at? Half the community is still going "Wait, what?" I imagine the other half hasn't even heard about it yet.

It's about time I start grabbing everything I can from Insim Adult. Never thought I'd say that, by the way.

I'm in the UK. Its weird when something like this happens, nothing is said or done whilst I'm here yet the next morning I come back and everything has happened whilst I'm asleep :D


Ah my bad, didn't know that! Ignore what I said SoggyFox!

And geez, that smells like the beginnings of a paysite! $100?! He onviously doesn't give a shit about the world economy meltdown then ::)

None of it looks good.  If it even looks like going pay I don't understand why Delphy has to pay the guy a dime.  The patrons, mods and creators owe no loyalty to this guy.  The creators are free to choose where they upload. Mod the sims has a site already set up for anyone from insimadult that would want to upload there.  The only thing that wouldn't be able to be negotiated a new home is the insimenator itself.  I know to go about it this way is disrespectful, but hell I don't think respect for anyone came into it when the site was sold.

Walt bought the site as an investment - if it's money he wants, Delphy will buy it.

Synaptic Sim reveals they've had the site up for sale for a while (http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100055&page=6)

Also, their selling points make me wonder why they're constantly threatening closure with the constant donation drive:

Hosting $500 per month, ad and other revenue per month $3200 per month - found from Synaptic's link here (http://www.dealasite.com/buy-sell-website-12642.html)

This just gets worse and worse :o

In case it goes off the site:

(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b33/cosmic_charly/10b89087.jpg)

Insim information according to http://www.dealasite.com. Have Kathy and Eric been lying about needing donation this whole time?

Pfeh. This is entirely shady, I say. Not to mention there is absolutely no reason why creators should remain there after the site is sold, given that they will not be receiving any of the profits, so all they're doing is generating income for some business while getting nothing in return. Either those figures are massively inflated and the true picture is much more grim, or someone is being cheated.

Interesting page Calalily.

I have to say though - I feel those numbers for page views and visitors are way overexaggered.  32 million pageviews a month?  MTS2 only gets about 40 million right now and we are a hell of a lot bigger.  750,000 unique visitors a month? Err, no... with only 400,000 members plus guests?  And all this in "only" 3.8TB.  Come on, if those figures are to be believed then it should be shifting some 12-15TB a month, not a lowly 3.8!  

It's especially fishy when you use Alexa and compare insimenator.net to other sites like TSR or MTS2:

(http://www.modyourpanties.com/hosting/4089_081127065124insim_tsr_mts2.jpg)

So, yeah, I honestly don't think it actually has those traffic levels or visitors or gets that much ad revenue.  As somebody else said, if they get $3,200 a month in revenue, why did they need to keep having donation drives every few months?

Is it time for the Doom song yet?

I don't know Delphy. The graphs clarifies some things, but I can't help but feel that even if Kathy and Eric lied on that site and inflated the numbers, anyone buying it would want to verify the numbers. How likely is it that they simply... you know... cheated us instead of Walt, with their never-ending donation drive? :-\

EDIT: apparently you can fill in any number you want on that auction site and it's not verified in any way before it goes online. So they could have been pulling numbers out of their ass for all we know. I don't know about this Walt but with that kind of system in place, I'd be very careful to actually verify everything.
By the way, didn't he mention that Eric and Kathy contacted him? That's bullocks then, isn't it?

Every single envelope estimate pegs Insim's size at being about 3-4x the size of MATY. Consider: When I did this estimate for #grah a few minutes back, Insim + ISA was hosting about 340 peasants, with MATY/Phorum at about 100 peasants. They claim "32 million". You say MTS2 is 40M, which, of course, makes the 32M figure bogus. They obviously added an extra zero there, so if we go by "extra zero", it brings it down to 3.2M, which is, again, roughly in line with the figures of being 3-4x the size (ours is about 1M).

The inflated 400K usercount is similarly estimated: MATY has about 5-6K users, but we subject them to monthly DB purges. Going by the "historical" view, the highest user ID is nearly 43K, meaning if we did not expunge all the bloat from the DB on a monthly basis, we'd be up to some 43K members (obviously, we don't give a rat's ass, so BRING OUT YER DEAD!). However, there's a wrinkle to this: MATY explicitly discourages registration and makes doing so completely unnecessary. Given that the standard distribution of users on MATY is about 2:1 guests:members, we can reasonably multiply that 43K figure by 3, assuming all guests were forced to register because you couldn't get anything without being a member. Thus, we get a figure of about 130K. This is, AGAIN, in line with the original 3-4x estimate.

Going with yet another figure, Alexa reports that Insim is around 0.002, as similar to your graph,with MATY, again, at about third to quarter. Again that 3-4x number.

Basically, based on all the information available, Insim is about 3-4x the size of MATY. Every single measurement I've found and computed confirms this figure. And that's just MATY/Phorum. If you graph it against the Booty, the picture gets even more interesting: PMBD is about the same size as Insim and basically follows the same fluctuations. In short, Insim's constant server-costs issues are a product of either woefully inept financial management, embezzlement, or both.
(http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/crapola/alexa.jpg)
So I am convinced that this problem is either gross incompetence, fraud, or both. It is highly likely that everyone, from Kathy & Eric, to Walt, to the donators, have all been cheated.

I have to say, (I know this is going to come as a shock) that I agree with Pescado in his figures and his maths for the last post.

Delphy and Pescado agree? Isn't that the 7th seal before the Apocalypse?

Someone is getting cheated alright and I don't think this Walt is the big bad guy here.
This is turning into one of those "Where were you when Insim exploded?" kind of moments.

EDIT: Walt posted some clarifications here (http://www.insimenator.net/forumdisplay.php?f=96).

heres a  update



Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Warrenton, VA USA
Posts: 9
   
Clarification About Free Site Access
I want to clarify some key points.

First, I apparently made a mistake in the way that I communicated my intentions for the web site in yesterday's announcements. Let me clarify. This site will continue to offer all content free. No one will be forced to become a contributor in order to share in the community, mods, downloads, etc. on this site. I apologize for the confusion that was created.

Second, I want to thank those who have already donated on the first day of this donation drive. It is already helping. To those who have not yet donated, please consider donating if you can.

Third, the idea of the voluntary subscription plan is NOT to make some of the contents of the site unavailable to free users. Rather, it is intended to be a replacement for the donation drives.

I want to thank those who have given me your warm welcomes. I pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to make sure this web site will thrive.

To those who have expressed concerns or doubts about the viability of this web site in bad economic times, I respectfully disagree. I am a student of history among other things. While we undoubtedly have some rough times ahead economically, we will get through them.

I have studied the Great Depression of the 1930s. One of the most startling facts about that time period is that not all industries went belly up. In fact, some industries thrived. One of those industries was the entertainment industry. Despite the fact that huge numbers of people were out of work, the vast majority (75-80%) of people DID have work and always scrimped and saved to have a radio to listen to or to go to the movies or to engage in other forms of inexpensive entertainment. My parents were children of the Depression. In fact, while my father passed away this past year, my mom is still with us. She is not online and knows nothing about the Internet, but she is helping financially with this website. Why? Because she knows how important entertainment was during the Depression! She grew up on a very poor Kansas farm in the midst of the "dust bowl." She KNOWS from personal experience what it takes to survive in a Depression. She knows that entertainment is the key, that it's imperative to have good entertainment alternatives in order to survive bad times!

That's why she's supporting this web site.

When times are tough, people need to be able to escape for short periods of time. That's what the entertainment industry offered...much needed escapes. Movie theaters were popular. It was the Big Band era, and in places like Harlem ballrooms such as the Savoy, the Roseland Ballroom, and the Apollo Theatre survived and thrived. Night clubs were popular in the cities. In the towns and rural areas, dances and church events and county fairs and community groups were organized to provide entertainment alternatives. Throughout America, people engaged in low-cost and no-cost entertainment of all kinds, and the pattern repeated itself around the world.

The Internet is the modern entertainment realm, and gaming is one very important aspect of that realm. The Sims is one of the most popular computer games in the world. That's why I think this web site, this community, is so worthy of the relatively small amount of investment involved.

Kathy and Eric

A number of unkind things have been said about Kathy and Eric. While I wasn't here during the past few months, I do know from personal contact with them that there were other issues that you don't know about in their lives, issues that go beyond gaming, the web site, the economy, etc. I have little doubt that these personal issues were behind much of the negativity that some of you have reported. I am not at liberty to discuss these issues in detail, nor would I do so if I was at liberty. Privacy is private, and I respect their privacy. But I can tell you this. If you knew what they were going through, those of you who have said such negative things about them would almost certainly want to take back what you said!!!

Those of you who have expressed support and confidence will find that your faith will be rewarded. This site is not going to change its basic good character. It will continue to offer all free content, and I have every confidence that it will continue to be supported as it has always been supported...by the people who love it the most.

Gasp!

Jesus Christ!

*not an actual quote*

Is it me or is the Sims 2 community going out with a bang lately? Or is a whimper? Or is that too poetical? Or will Elphaba stop asking questions real soon?
...I'll be good

EDIT: My goodness how cultish is that! The truly faithful will be rewarded while those sinning doubters WILL BE THROWN INTO THE PITS OF HELL (also known as... the BBS!!!)

All that stuff about the Great Depression made me roll my eyes.  He's running a community here not a business steeped in history!

Haven't you seen his picture? He looks old enough to have lived through the great depression LOL


ROFLMAO :D

He sounds like a bad infomercial - what a creep.

Also, the money numbers floating around, whether inflated by Kathy and Eric or real, obviously lead this guy into thinking that he was going to make a killing. From a business standpoint, I'd guess that he figured that the staff could be replaced if needed, and that the majority of people using the site wouldn't care. If the revenue numbers are real, then I think that the entire community over there has been getting screwed for a long time.

Also, I can haz incoherent morning postings... sorry if this didn't make any sense!

Additional figures I have rounded up suggest that for a site the size of Insim, monthly ad revenue is on the order of the lower-half of three figures. Not 4, meaning that the publicly listed figures of "$2000" a month are off by about an order of magnitude.

The site has definitely already been sold, the transfer apparently having gone through about a week ago. It seem likely that this Walt person is aware that the advertising figures have been inflated and he knows the real figures, if he's still talking of a shortfall. What this means is presently unclear.

nice little tantrum walt had


Quote:
Originally Posted by carlymichelle View Post
walt can you understand why so many of us are concerned and upset though we had NO warning whatsoever and IMO that isnt right what we need now is honesty
walts  reply to me
Sure, I understand. What I don't understand is why some people think I can fix the way they left. I can't. No one can. Get over it.


http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100123&page=2

carlydunham, you don't need to quote everything - you can read it without being logged in.


Someone here is being cheated - donators or Walt.  And creators are already pulling out - so download while you can, and while it's free. He mentioned making InsimAdult pay, and Insim having a subscription system for ad free placement - so all of his assurances on Insimenator of "this site will always be free" - that's what he's already said - it will be free, but adult content will be paid.


I don't think that they would - surely that would not be possible for a site like Insim - particularly considering that the site was left to fester and die while Kathy and Eric were off.  



DOOOOOMED! A 12 at the wheel. Fucking hell - his mother  ???

I get this feeling he might jump ship sooner rather than later, as I don't think he took into account how pissed off everyone (bar the the extreme sheeples) would be about how this was handled.

Wait - his mum supports the site? Norman Bates anyone :D

Again my immediate reaction when I saw this, "what is he up to"? It doesn't add up to me at all. At least for Kathy and Eric (pulling a profit and deceiving the community or not) they had some sort of personal investment in the whole business. Keeping  2 sites running requires time and effort from someone, so who's that going to be and why would they be willing to do it? This guy has no interest in TS2, he has no connection with anyone in the community and I seriously doubt he will ever develop an interest in it, so there has to be a purely financial motivation.

He must have (truthfully or not) seen what appeared to be a good investment opportunity and grabbed it. Was he mislead? Possibly. His he intent on making a profit of other peoples free given time and effort? Definately. Would he unload it in a minute if that's not the case? Absolutely.

I would suggest that anyone who works over there make it a condition of their staying onboard, that he provides them with a written agreement that the site will never go pay and that it will always remain completely free and accessible to everyone without financial restrictions. Either that or run the site and do all the moderating yourself. It not legally binding in any way, but it will be available to be posted at any time in the future should the need arise.

A Walt sim will soon be available for any one who is interested.

I suspect that he may have inadvertantly meant "bright" in the way a Big Fiery Ball Visible From Space is bright.

Originally Posted by carlymichelle
walt can you understand why so many of us are concerned and upset though we had NO warning whatsoever and IMO that isnt right what we need now is honesty

(Walt's reply)
Sure, I understand. What I don't understand is why some people think I can fix the way they left. I can't. No one can. Get over it.

Wow... Anyone else struck by the 12-ness of that response?  Nice, coming from a supposedly serious adult businessman.  Idiot.

Which is quiet frankly why I would want to leave the site, be it mod or creator.  It's not as if Kathy and Eric decided to have new donation drive/system or put up ads and then they just happen by some profit.  I would be okay with that so long as it was only donations not pay or subscriptions.

It's his intentions, he intends to profit off the site, off the creations, the mods, the fun and friendship of the forum.  Whether he makes it pay or not, he intends to make money off your labors.  That's such a kick in the balls to everyone there.  

The kick in the balls imo is the profit Kathy and Eric seemed to be making with their "DONATE NOW OR WE'LL BE FORCED TO SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY!!!!" apparent bullshit. And if it was just bullshit to make the site appear more profitable to whoever bought it that's still disgusting behavior.

Walt pretty much said that the financial information (probably referring to the info on the auction site) was incorrect. Also, that he refuses to discuss things as complicated as "fay-nanse" with the peasants. (My interpretation)

Well, that does make him a dumbass then but it doesn't make Kathy and Eric's behavior any less disgusting. Still, in my opinion.

Walt For Dummies. 

Watch me backpedal like a mofo!
You heartless bastards! Expecting custom sim stuff to be free, just because that's the LAW.  Damn it, why can't I be TSR? 
Gave me monies? Give me more.  Haven't gave me monies? Give now, thnxs!
Whew! Thank god I thought up this excuse. I just have to hope that everyone is idiotic enough to believe that anyone would expect people to "subscribe" to a site for absolutely no benefits at all!
Dance for me, my puppets, DANCE!
I took a history class in High school. Thus, I am an expert you twits.
I hope you're buying all my history cred.  Even though what I said is something anyone who watched 10 minutes of A&E knows already.
Mom ROXS.  Love ya Mom, now, where did you hide your purse?
Moar Histories!  I'm sure glad I watched The Waltons when I was a kid. 
Please don't bring up that people already have to buy the games, so why would they want to spend more money on stuff to put into the game.  Please don't... I have no answer. 
Kathy and Eric are my best friends, because I paid for them.  Giving money = friendship.  Just ask my mom!
PRAISE JESUS!
Cash = Love.  No cash = you hate this site.  Money can buy happiness! Give me money and I'll be happy.!

 :D That's too funny BlackDwarf!  I can't believe I missed the part about his mom!  OMG is he really 12?  Loser. 

"But my mom says I’m cool"

I love my parents too, but I don't use them to validate arguments.  I used to, but then I turned six and that became sooo baby-ish.

Kathy and Eric have always been infamous for their LOUSY FINANCIAL PLANNING, which is why they tend to resort to last minute histrionics when it comes to donation drives. Over here, we plan these things months in advance, so as not to create a sense of panic or pressure.

Why was it necessary to go outside the Sims2 community to find a buyer for Insim and it's sister site? Why wasn't Delphy contacted and offered the site? These are questions I would surely love to have answered.
Delpy doesn't play Sims2 either, but he at least has his finger right smack dab on the heart of the Sims2 communities.
This Walt is flying blind. He waltzes into Insim, makes his first colossal blunder with his announcement, and then doesn't get why no one thinks he's God's gift to Insim. Then he makes the crack, "Get over it."
Only Pescado can make those kinds of statements. We expect that from Pescado and would be sorely disappointed if he didn't.
But Walt is not Pescado, not even close. We have Pescado and Delphy to go to for clarification. Walt obviously does not know this. For a business man he neglected to realize, or take into account that Insim is a forum with *gasp* people on it. His people skills are of epic failure proportions.
I will never again donate to Insim. I'm not gonna finance this asshat's vacation property or aid in lining his bank account. I don't care if that's what some of my money goes to do at MTS2 cause Delpy doesn't rub my nose in it. (anyway I don't think it does)
Walt is apparently oblivious to the fact that the staff at Insim is voluntary, they don't get paid for their time and effort. The entire staff should be outraged at his shenanigans.
Walt doesn't play the game, he has no clue as to what draws people to play it. He has no knowledge of the Sims2 communities, so how in hell does he think he's God's gift to Insim or the Sims2 communities in general.

And all I wanted was to see TSR go BOOM.With Walt at the wheel, it's possible Insim will go BOOM before TSR, what a shame that will be.

*adjusts telescope* So Salty-Walty emerges on the horizon. No need for the harpoon and cannonballs. This guy's going to sink himself.

Yes we'll get through them but right now I am going through hardship and know of others going through the same thing. Heck, I'm having to send money to my parents as my dad's part time job isn't bringing in anything and my mum's wages aren't that great. If I'm doing that, do you fucking think I would send money in for a gaming website?! The world economic is going down the pan and he expects us to fork out money which would better spent on keeping us going through this hardship?

And I couldn’t give a shit if the 1930s were worse – I’m living now not fucking back then. And shove your History high school education up your arse!

He’s a fucking greedy shite and I’m going to stop typing now before I get too fucking pissed off…

That whole speech sounded like it calme straight out of an Employee Motivational Speech handbook. Or Cults For Dummies. Take your pick.


I swear this guy is doing things by the book. Some shitty book about running a successful e-bussiness and dealing with plebes. I'm insulted.

Cause they wanted to say clearly to the community "Fuck you all".  They took some time and effort to set this up - it wasn't as if they weren't looking for someone to buy it.


I agree - Pescado has earned it with consistency - he provides mods, booty, hosting and help - if that comes with a bit of his persona trolling, at least he didn't fuck anyone over without telling them he is going to do so.


Actually, the 1930's entertainment booms were about a lot less than entertainment, and a lot more to do with prohibition - it's largely a USian phenomenon.  Not to mention that all the fun to be had was free - my Dad grew up then, and made his own toys, went to dances, and watched sport - not put in a couple of hundreds of investment on a high luxury item like the sims, PC and net access.   ::)

His arguments about how people still need to be entertained in bad economic times just doesnt make sense to me.  I agree with that actual statement but if website A is totally free and website B is not then during hard times I go to website A.  During the Depression people still went to the movies and spent a small amount on entertainment, sure, but if all the movie houses on the next block were showing thier movies for free or asking people to help out with the electricity to run the projector if they had any spare change in their pocket (and told the rest not to worry about it ) then thats the block I see my movie on.  

I wonder if Walt knows how huge this community is.  Does he understand the vast Sims 2 community and the unbelivable amount of amazing FREE sims sites that exist or does he believe that he now owns something "unique" and in "demand" within the community?  Insim may be a big site but I, for one, dont use the Insiminator.  I go to the site for the community downloads.  I know that hte majority of the creators that I enjoy will walk away and move their creations elsewhere if this guy doesnt get what the Insim website is all about.  

The mere fact that he has a voluntary subscription payment option with $100 a month shows me that he doesnt get what the community is all about.  He doesnt seem to have done any research about the community he was joining.  Not a smart way to do business.  

$100 just for no-adverts? lol fail lol

Sad thing is, some idiot will actually select this option.

He didn't have time to study the ways of business.  He was too busy learning his histories. 

Eheh scrappysim, I'm honestly not sure how he can actually be in the business he says he's in. (Cross-posted from InSim, 'cause PMBD gets moar fun bitchin')



I'm not sure how Walt ended up in this position. Clearly he works for a company, or possibly is a company, which does this kind of thing fairly frequently. How, then, did he fail to double-check the seemingly positive information given to him by owners of a site which, as a little research would have quickly revealed, is clearly struggling financially?

Has he not taken over a forum before? It seems that way, as his handling of the staff and members has been frankly appalling.

How can he possibly be in the business of running websites without even basic knowledge of server technology - I understand that he's no expert, but surely by now he has enough experience with websites to know that optimisation is often far more efficient than spending more cash, even if he needs assistance in actually doing the optimisation.


The WaybackMachine indicates that his site has been up since at least 2002 (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dirtcheapadvertising.com). A company which takes over other companies and organisations doesn't survive for six years by doing absolutely no prior research into what they acquire, which is the only explanation I can see for how he ended up in a such a pickle.
Is this not his company/site? If it is... huh? I have no idea what could have possibly compelled him to buy InSim.

In fact, does anyone know where exactly we got the Dirt Cheap Advertising link? I missed that bit.

Whiterider, he gave the Dirt Cheap Advertising address in the purely charming email he sent to the moderating staff which Paden posted on page 1(?) of this thread.

I am currently watching the Insim thread with a very blank impression. I am very disappointed and hurt...although it is not a surprise that Kathy and Eric would not be able to keep up with the site, them doing it like this is really shocking. The community there simply does not deserve that treatment. The staff that have kept the site going when the site owners first disappeared off do not deserve all their effort and time to be dissolved by someone like Walt. Its in the support of those members of staff, and the hope that somehow this will be sorted, that I have yet to pull my creations but damn am I really tempted to.

This guy seems so out of his depth and researched this so badly that its almost laughable. Almost.

Ah, thanks, that must have been the removed personal info, as I don't see it in the email.

I don't wish him luck, but I'll bet he finds a way to make money off of other people's work.  He has a fine model to follow, after all. ::)

For the younguns and non-members, here's the post from Insim Adult:

The reason Delphy was likely not contacted first is because there is a history of bad blood between E/K and Delphy.

I'm sure Delphy does, in fact, use overflow funds for personal purposes, but most of us are not in arms about it because Delphy is viewed as a contributing member of the community, so if he skims some voluntary donations off the top, it's not a big deal: He's still one of "us", so to speak. This Walt fellow, however, is NOT a part of the community. He contributes nothing and many see him as a parasite whose goal is simply to suck the blood from it. Already, the SITE DOESN'T WORK, yet it is plastered with ad crap at the bottom.

I think the question is how is he going to make money off of it.  Walt is not a charity, he bought the site, for profit, so him playing off like he just wants to make ends meet is BS.  



Yeah I don't think those are going to be dying down until the site does as well.  


That's exactly how I feel.  He may make some money, but I don't feel like things are done with the purpose of making money.  I do hope Delphy acquires insim, I am not going to donate one cent under Walt.   

I haven't read the whole thread yet, I just got to Walt's yammering about the Great Depression. My eyes are rolling so hard I think they may shoot across the room. Oh my god he is an IDIOT. He's one of those people who read an article in Esquire and thinks he therefore knows everything. I'd love to show his imbecility to one of my professors to punish them.

Pes why don't you post your graph over there if you haven't just to make him look like a total asshat.

Like that guy needs help looking like an asshat! That's probably the only thing he studied besides history. But posting the graph would be excellent pwnage.

Problem is, the site has to be working to post any graphs...and most of the time I'm getting "server is busy"   :P

edit:  page 6 has the buyawebsite info on revenue/expenses, page 7 has Delphy posting some delicious graphs
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100055&page=7

I'm a lurker here and the Insim sale is really distressing.

I got this when I logged in just now (after several "Server Busy" messages"):

(http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w13/nycgirl321/StartingaNewEraatInSIMenatornet-Pag.png)

Not wasting any time, is he?

Oh well I've been avoiding visiting that site for fear that his low IQ is contagious.

Okay, my mind is still reeling from this idiot's Great Depression spiel. I'm not a specialist in 20th century American history, but of course I have studied some basic things about it -- and I mean actually studied, under professors, not watched a show on The History Channel about them, as Walt apparently has.

But one does not need to have studied history to see that his analogy doesn't work at all. People expected to pay for movies, which were not incidentally really cheap to go to at the time. A better parallel would be things people don't expect to pay for, like dances or picnics. People who could afford it did contribute food and money to those, but it was a very small investment all done for the sake of community. No one was expected to profit from them!

Hey Walt: your last name isn't Disney. Also a quick trip to Wikipedia might dim your enthusiasm a tad. "As the Great Depression deepened, MGM could make a claim its rivals could not: it never lost money. It was the only Hollywood studio that continued to pay dividends during the 1930s."

I noticed the "We buy websites!" link on Stupid Walt's website. Kathy and Eric must have gotten desperate, filled in the form and sold Insim in about five minutes.

Ya that all sounds fine and good, and I would like to think the best. However, when you arrives in the community to say hello and announce yourself thus,

We're Under New Management!

New Server Planned

InSIMenator.net Needs To Stabilize Its Donation Model

Current Bills Are High — Donations Are Needed Right Now!!!

it still makes me go , hmmmm.

So if he really didn't know what he was getting in to I'm waiting for the announcement that negotiations are under way to pass this whole mess off to someone else. Otherwise I think big changes are going to be occurring over at InSim.

Personally I don't think "skimming a little bit of the top" would be quite sufficient for someone like that considering the work involved to keep 2 sites running and active.
It one thing when you're personally invested in the content and have connections to the community involved. But that's not really the case is it? So I'm sorry but my Spidey senses are all a tingle over this one. Besides he talks like a telemarketer and they just get right up the crack of my ass.

The guy just doesn't listen at all.  He keeps going on about insimadult  not making enough donations.  People have explained that because of paypal restrictions on adult content they had to donate to the adult site via the main site. 

Can't post a screencap at the moment, but one of InSIM creators Mellisenda has already removed all her creations and will be uploading them elsewhere. Has anyone else seen others taking down their downloads?

Hilarious - I'm watching the video on his site - he talks about authoritative websites linking to you is the way to go - the BBS doesn't allow links to Insim. And all the fansites use pictures - so google doesn't rate them the same way.  That plan is fail.

His business seems to be selling links to businesses, and then embedding that content on the page, so as to form a webring type thingie.  


Link for those gawkers like me: http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=76291

A webring?  That's so 1995.

Yeah - I'm giving serious thought to trying to start up my own site as well.  I know how to do clean html, even if I'm rusty.  I don't have tons of content to share, but I've been more creative lately, and so I've been trying to do some stuff as I can, and of course there is always MTS2 as well.

I just....I'm still upset.  I can't imagine then just up and selling like this - someone on insim said it was a family - who sells their family?

We don't even know who he is really.  If Eric and kathy could pretend they hardly had enough money to pay the costs of the site when in fact they were running at $2500 profit a month, what's to say they can't be pretending to be called Walt now, so as to deflect some of the personal attacks they would have found themselves under with this change of tactic?   On the sock puppet theory, remember the sock has to put a distance between himself and the hand up his ass.  What was the first thing Walt felt he needed to say to us?  "I don't play The Sims".  Now that's a funny opening gambit when you think of all the things he could have said to *close* the gap between him and us!   He's trying to appear as different from his puppet masters (or co-conspirators) as he possibly can.

I bet he wonders what the hell he has gotten into.Pity he didn't lurk for a while before putting all his monies into a community web site.

It doesn't strike me as the sort of thing Kathy and Eric would do - they are absolutely crap at organisation and this one would take a lot of planning.  Every time they come back they just make more rules, and take an opportunity to have a go at everyone for everything over the last 3 months, ask for money and leave again.  I don't see why they would make a far more elaborate plan this time.

But you're right in not knowing who he is - I for one am glad I don't have any real information for myself in my Insim profiles. 

Yeah, I think that's it. I think they started the site because they loved the game and the interaction with people. They had RL problems like everyone does, started dipping into the pot, became dependent on it. They lost their ethics along the way. The really big line they crossed was manipulating people's emotions, getting money out of their members that they believed was going to the site when in fact it was supporting Eric and Kathy directly.

A whole "new era" has started over at InSim. I think it's to be called the Age of the Clueless Doofus. Its motto: Privacy is private.

Seriously though, the first thing Walt should do, after he's finished alienating everyone, is take down the notice that's always reminding me of how unsociable I am whenever I visit. I hate that thing.

Same here!  And isn't it just encouraging people to post rubbish when they didn't have anything to say?

Is that why they have these weird games of guess what the person on top of you is up to?

Oh that "why don't you post" notice? It always gives me the shits.. I've donated to Insim once or twice when they've been in a hole with the money, but I barely download from there (just Bloom and Warlok's stuff) and I don't have the energy to string a sentence together with people I don't know most of the time.. I'd prefer to download and leave.

And I think that shows the major difference between the way they did donations and the way a lot of other sites do donations.  Other sites have set goals, warnings ahead of time, etc.  More information, less on the begging.  So if there's $50 profit (pulling a figure out of my ass here) left at the end of the month on a site that just has a donate button, or a small "perks" subscription on a forum, you probably wouldn't care if the site owner went out and had a nice dinner with it.

On the other hand, if the owner comes up with a doom-and-gloom story every couple of months with a rather large figure to be pulled off in a smallish time-frame (We need $600 by the middle of next week or the site explodes!!!!!11), that's honestly more than taking advantage of good will, it's closer to blackmail.  You're only able to raise the money because of people's emotional investment to the site, and you're threatening to take it away to get the money.  Plus, the sums of money are turning out to be larger than the monthly bill for the site according to the information we have now, and it appears to be sheer greed, one way or another.

People are not going to be willing to give in the same amounts to a new owner looking to turn a profit that they were to a long-known community member who was supposedly only trying to keep the site up, especially now that they know the latter of the pair was lying the whole damn time.

SynapticSim is gone. Everything will be moving to his site eventually.

Does SynapticSim have a site? I can't find one for him when I search..

Yup. http://s11.zetaboards.com/SynapticSims_Lair/index/  :)

He certainly is.  All this flouncing while he's eating turkey - great timing guy.  ???


I get rid of that by posting thanks for stuff I download - I don't download there often, but often enough. It shows up for me at Insim Adult though.


Once (for Freetime I think) they even held the Insimenator over people's heads.  


Googled for you: http://s11.zetaboards.com/SynapticSims_Lair/index/

Yeah, I helped Syn. I deleted (most of) his section this morning.
I'll be deleting mine once I'm sure people know where I've uploaded everything.
I know of 3-4 other Creators/Staffers that are going to be leaving too.
I'm going to be buying a domain by the end of this week, but hosting is gonna be a bit more interesting.

Also, I think it's funny he's so quick to assume we know nothing about Kathy and Eric. Like a lot of people here have said, it's a community. We knew the owners rather well, but not well enough, obviously.

 :) oh that's cute.. I like the layout.. I won't join though, communities where I need to sign up to download make me nuts.

Corinne, with your domain, make sure you get whoisguard protection.. Namecheap's really good for that, they charge you ten bucks for the domain, then you get the whois protection for free. It's worth it not to see your personal details plastered everywhere. With the hosting, it depends on what you need as to what you want to buy...

I had this to say to the son of a bitch and am doing a copy/paste so non-InSIM members can read it:



Also, I found this upon the staff boards and the person that wrote it gave me permission to quote it so long as I didn't use her name because she likes to remain unknown here, being as she is a lurker. :D Thanks, babe!




We're calling for the motherfucker to have some talks with us, but he seems to wish to remain upon his money bags, reclining while munching on a turkey leg with some grapes nearby to finish his repast with. Hope the fuck chokes on some gristle for a few moments...

Paden, makes me think of......"The king was in his counting house counting all his money...."
I hope his turkey is undercooked.  :-*

I can't believe you guys are giving this money hungry d-bag a chance.  He's not going to talk to you until he realizes he is failing miserably and that is his only option left.  If he does say anything it will be the same regurgitated shtick that he has been feeding into the rest of his posts.  He doesn't want your complaints, companionship or opinions (unless they help him make more money) he wants you to work for him much like a boss wants his employers to work.  He wants you to help deal with what he deems problems, take orders, be supportive of him and most importantly make him money.

He's an ass.  He dropped this bomb of an announcement yesterday knowing full well what day it was and then is using Thanksgiving as a reason to excuse himself from the ensuing uprising.  If he really gave a shit would be actively working with staff to help resolve...yet for some reason took the time to set up a poll to try to forecast how much money he could milk out of a subscription system.  That's exactly where his interests lies, in money.  

I am so glad to hear people are leaving.  I hope both the turkey and the forum are left cold for him. 

 

anyone who wants their section deleting at insim let me know before I get sacked

........... and most likely I will as I won't be able to keep my mouth almost shut much longer!

I've long been disgusted at the behaviour over there but couldn't bear to leave as it's my home, but this is just one slap in the face too many for this lassie  >:(

Well said eledhel, and Bravo Paden! :P

There is something I have never really understood.  What do unpaid moderators and admins do it for, unless it is because they like the site owner a lot and want to help them keep the site running?  Why do so many people work as moderators for sites where they say they don't like the owner, or don't approve of all the rules, yet they still work, unrewarded, at enforcing them?   I know the answer you often hear is that the person likes helping users, but they could help the other users without being moderators.   The only thing that moderators can do that non-staff helpful people cannot, is delete posts and reprimand users.

This is not aimed at any individual BTW!

I'm sure he'll be firing up his diamond hot tub in his ivory tower soon. I never really go in InSim, but I feel sad that such poison has corrupted that place in such a small space of time.

I find it suspicious at how someone buys a website two weeks before server costs are due with no ready guarantee or even money set aside to cover them. That's either poor business sense or a lie. Probably both. Also, why leave the gravy train? I know K&E had RL issues, but it seems unusual for people to deceive others like that and then just "suddenly" decide they don't want to anymore. And here are some select quotes...

This is very fishy, if we're going by the financial information we've seen. The costs are supposedly $500 (per month) and they apparently make $2000 in advertising alone every month. Someone is definitely lying here.



Huh? The Sims 2 is coming to an end. He mentioned that development of InSim is soon coming to an end. Why the hell does he expect that community to grow much more beyond what it is now. Plus the whole idea of "voluntary subscriptions" is doomed to failure. Why on earth, especially in these financial times, would you want to such a vast unnecessary expense every month when you can do it for free. Sure, no ads, but that's why adblockers were invented. His ultimate aim is to charge people for continuing to be a part of a community they love. Emotional blackmail.

Plus there's the obvious fact he's a businessman who doesn't even play the game and has no understanding of how it, or the community, works. He's not interested in merely keeping it going. All he wants is cold, hard cash, and will subject that site to anything and everything until he gets it. Bye, bye InSim.

He's an out and out conman. They all are. I feel like bringing up the Oblivion post again. We should do what the Oblivion community does to anyone who marches on up and demands their weight in gold: Point and laugh him out the door.

ETA: You make a good point about moderators Quorneater. That's exactly the reason why the SimMasters had a mass exodus over the weekend. EA gave them the cold shoulder.

Most moderators on there liked Kathy and the site. They enjoyed helping people. Right now they are in limbo. The old owners left without so much as a wave and the new owner hasn't even personally addressed them outside of an email that he cut and pasted onto the forum the next day. No direction, no real introduction and no compassion. Most of the people who are staying on are doing so because they have a soft spot for inSIM and they are in a holding pattern. Most likely they are hoping something will be resolved.

I am at odds with Delphy taking over InSIM. While it would be nice if he did so and didn't change it into MTS2 I am hesitant about how it would work. MTS2 has pop ads that I get on every other page and other ads all around. Besides that I was under the impression that Delphy was phasing out MTS2. Why buy a site if you are not interested in continuing the current site? Not to sound snarky... hopefully he's had a change of heart.

Time for me to go as well, have asked Corinne to smash the delete button on my section there.
If anyone is interrested in moving their stuff to Noukiesims2 they are more than welcome.

I don't mind ads really, as long as they are for stuff I can buy, not all American things.  And as long as none of them have spiders suddenly running across your screen, like one that TSR used to have.  That put me off logging in there for ages.

I would love it if he came back to the site after Thanksgiving to find the place deserted, tumbleweeds blowing past and nothing that will bring him the profit he so obviously wants :D

I think there are a lot of other things that will put you off even entering their url. For eternity.

I too would like to see Walt return to find a ghost town. Sadly I don't think it will happen quite that quickly, but certainly soon enough at this rate.

Let me grab copies of my things and then I think go ahead and delete my section as well.  Considering Kathy had asked if I minded her deleting it a while back, this is almost ironic. [ I didn't mind, not sure why its even still there.]

fake edit - I've nabbed my things.  So push the button.

I gave Walt the benefit of the doubt - obviously, he's a tool, but was he a duped tool? I think that he was - at least as far as the nature of the site he bought is concerned. Of course, those of us who gave money to InSim because of its dire and urgent need for big cash infusions are even bigger dupes.

I know I'm being elitist, but seriously: website using a 16-color palette plus random point sizes of Arial = clueless at doing intarwebz. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but he's a bottom feeder at best. His life's work seems to entail doing all the things online that most of us simply filter out with a couple of browser plugins. Of course, if I ever need to participate in a marketing scam, engage the pointless assistance of a cellular service middleman, or need someone to write me bad fiction about spirit guide hijinx (http://www.stories-by-email.com/author.asp?AuthorID=0), I know I can count on Walt. Some might not consider it relevant, but I am not comfortable with the attitudes expressed on the various slightly paranoid and god-flavored Libertarian rant sites that he runs, if only because it makes him seem like an even poorer fit for a diverse and talkative gaming community.

As for the Insimenator, based on what people are saying about M&G, it probably requires a final update. Assuming that Eric does do that, what else would he need to do during his promised year of continued work on the mod? I don't use the Insimenator any more, but the only upgrades I recall always happened shortly after the release of a new EP (or not so shortly, depending on whether or not E & K were around). With no further EPs or development expected for Sims 2, what would he be doing to the Insimenator other than a bug fix? It sounds to me like the promised year of care and feeding of the mod is actually something that can be handled with a single e-mail attachment.

I really can't imagine Eric doing any more work on InSim after this!

And if that one Gamestop person is correct, there might be more stuff for sims2.

I mean, After FT I thought it was done....then after AL came out, I thought it was done.  So....

I think the fact that the guy's not even a gameplayer is a total joke. It'd be like giving a bone to a cat. All in all quite a funny situation.
*Beefcake hands out cocktails*
Sit back, relax, and watch inSim run dry

Cheers!  ;)

Now that K&E are gone, I wonder if this means we could get away with booty links at insim.  ???

Just to add my indignation: I'm speechless about how this idiot has handled the purchase of a forum. How fucking stupid do you have to be? Even businesses tell staff what's going on when they buy each other out. It's like rocking up to work one day and instead of finding your boss who you liked and had a working relationship with, even though they hadn't been there much lately, you find some old guy in a suit telling you he's the owner, he has no clue so he'll be relying on you even more, and he's charging an admittance fee. Oh and it's a holiday in the US and he wants you to handle the customers discontent while he eats turkey. WTF?

I know all the mods at insim must have a lot invested personally, to be there doing what they do, even with K&E randomly disappearing. But what would be good to see is the bulk of the creators and mods bailing over Thanksgiving, just to show that he can't treat people like that.

Of course I can delete your section, Nouk. If someone hasn't done it yet, I'm heading over to take care of it right now.

I'll be around all day if anyone needs anything.

Fakest Edit Ever: SoggyFox, what's your Section called there? I'll nuke it for you, no problem.

Soggy - Mansion & Garden is the 9th SP for the Sims 2, goes past the 8 for TS1 8 for TS2 thing, so maybe there's a 9th EP for the Sims 2 yet :)

Thank you so very much, Corinne! Or in the spirit of this forum: baaah baah <3

The Fox's Den :)  and thanks!
I'm Reyn there.

TS1 only had 7 (glorious) EPs.

Really? And I loved the TS1 expansions. I can't see EA/Maxis doing an uneven ratio of EP's / SP's so I think there's a 9th EP to come.

Wipe out Kathy and Eric's forums too?  (doh where is the evil grinnie?)

She's Reyn, of the Fox's Den, I do believe.

Edit: Ninja'd!!

I got them both, Nouk and SoggyFox.

I'm just sorry it had to come to this. It's not fair for any of us, especially since Kathy and Eric made it seem like I was one of their friends. Truth be told, I'll miss them both, but I'm so pissed at them right now I don't think anything they could do or say would change my mind.

This Walt must be very trusting.  He has left several people with Admin status, not taken care to ensure they are on his side (in fact knows some of them are not), and gone off to eat turkey for the day.  Heck for all he knows they could be deleting the whole site by now   ::)

If I was him, I would have done an immediate lockdown, and held talks with the staff before deciding which ones should keep their roles.

D has retired from major duties of day-to-day drudgery on the site - fixing accounts, setting up new forums, that kind of thing, and has me and Tig to do that, as well as a great team of staff to do the rest of the stuffs.  MTS2 isn't being phased out or discontinued at all - there probably won't be a huge amount of new major features on it, but it's sticking around, and who knows, might even get expanded to offer some sort of TS3 stuff, even though TS3 will suck.

If you're getting the popup ads on every other page, something's wrong - you should only get the takeover ad once per day and then it's just the little ads (which you can easily ignore or block).  If it's happening that often, post up in Site Issues (I think there's a recent thread on this or you can make one of your own) with info on what browser you're using (including the version) and any further details like which ad in particular it is and I'm sure we can get it straightened out.  The ads on MTS2 aren't meant to cause a problem with using the site, and if they are, we'll find a way to fix it.

Someone pointed out in another thread that the .exe file for M&G Stuff is, in fact, EP 9. Apparently this is because it comes with a new option in build mode and a new interaction.

I don't know - i have faith that the community will make it fun - even without the ability to make new neighborhoods.

I've reached page 7, now the server is busy constantly, too much traffic on there? I am still a site monkey on Insim, cause Kathy scared me away. There was a paysite-debate over there for a long time ago. My impression have always been that Kathy was not really against paysites, even if she might have said so. But Inseminator is great, i am addicted to it in the game, and a lot of great skins to use. :) So i used to donate too, since they seemed to have such economical troubble with their site. Was that just a lie?
Well, then i am very sad and disappointed. And i can't believe i've missed Paden been a super-moderator over there. :P

Don't you think this Walt, might have been too quick as the businessman he is? Maybe he'll reach a solution everyone might agree with. I don't know, but i would wait to judge him too hard before he has sorted things out. (But that's me).  At least the community told told him.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The guy's bought a fansite and wants to make a money from it. He's clearly an idiot.

And don't make a comparison of that to TSR, as they were clearly a commerical venture from the get go.

Except TSR was a free site that offered hosting with the sims 1, iirc?

Hey Corinne and SoggyFox, what about Animal Army? Does that need a website of it's own?

Through the tragedy of it all, I am having a wonderful time reading the comments on this scandal both here and on insim.  :P Creative people are creative.

Nouk - I'm not sure; I think Nymphy would know better than I. I would hope they get their own site, though!

You are so right it's sick. I would have been making sure at least ONE admin was spoken to on each site to make a game plan. I just don't think this guy has any idea about what the site is about or why the people come there. Hell, he didn't even know about the software. So far he has not contacted anyone. His lack of presence is only making everyone want to jump ship more.


Thank you for the clarification. It's good to know MTS2 will still be around. I am sure TS3 will suck too, but I am getting that itchy finger to buy it anyway. *sigh* I'm trying to hold off to at least make a statement but ya know...

I remember seeing the thread somewhere and will look for it again. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I use FF so the only thing that keeps popping up is the box without the ad. I'll post there anyway.

I keep waiting for Walt to at least say something that makes me think he has at least ONE clue as to what he got himself into. Tomorrow should be interesting when he returns to once again put out the fires.  

Oh, that might be good - since I think the reason it fizzled on insim was the whole 'No more paysite' debate rule, probably prompted by Beos..... >.>

The Animal Army that is...

Since you use FF you might be interested in this using noscript (http://noscript.net/). With that you can block everything and nothing, depending on your preference. 

damn me ... now there's an idea  ;)

I also agree he was a bit stupid leaving people with admin powers when he could tell people were getting a little pissy with the whole thing. I so want to be a fly-on-the-wall when he returns!

That's what I'm counting on. I'm not buying it until somebody fixes those faces.

You can use Noscript to get rid of the takeover ad?!

InSim is dying. While I'm glad to see Kathy and Eric gone because they suck, I'm not sure how I feel about its effects.

Ya know, Amazone, I dunno if I ought to take that as a compliment or as a slur... I hope it was a compliment cause this whole shittin thing is tiring as all hell. The fucker can't even bother to deal with the hornet's nest he's stirred up and seems to believe that as long as he ignores us, we're gonna die down into silence. Big, massive honker of a mistake. You don't ignore the masses when you've shit into the community punch bowl, you just don't.

I use noscript, and with it, only the scripts I decide is allowed to run. Nothing ever pops up for me, unless I say so specifically.

Synaptic Sim leaving got me thinking about past happenings - where I deleted my creations from the Insim site because I did not agree with BeosBoxBoy's actions towards me.  BeosBoxBoy made a point out of insulting me in front of all the other mods and admins, Synaptic Sim chimed in and made some very hurtful comments and accusations towards me based on nothing, then tried to start another paysite debate because I had reported a paysite thread in accordance with the rules.
One of the things I remember him saying was that for leaving, I didn't care about the Insimenator community, that I insulted his home, etc. etc. When I told him I had my reasons for leaving and they were between me and BeoxBoxBoy, he simply told me he didn't care. Also, after Kathy came back and I had returned, she asked him about it, he apologized to her to save is ass, told her it was a misunderstanding, etc., but never once said a word to me. Not a thing.

So I should conclude him leaving must mean he doesn't give a damn about Insim, and per his reasoning, I shouldn't care what his reasons are for leaving.  :D

The more I hear and see, the more I realize that perhaps Insim isn't a place I should be anyway... That's really terrible!

Perhaps some of the newly-disenchanted insim staff can now explain to me why Beosboxboy changed his userID to be the same as his female modding partner?  (So they became Marvine and Marvine)  I was pretty much told to mind my own business when I expressed surprised before.

No I think it's just some weird phenomenon where people are unable to see things from anothers point of view until they are in the same situation.  Unfortunately, most people don't even realize they are doing this, and when you point out that they are behaving in the same way they will find some way to convince themselves that the situations are entirely different for them.  

He left and went to create for TSR only, and there he also stopped because of health issues. When he left, he didn't contact Kathy, Eric, and just told another admin to change his username and that was that. Even discussing it sent Lethe, an admin at that time, over the edge. He scolded anyone who asked why he left without saying anything to anyone, told them they had no respect, and basically the whole conversation was stiffled by his ranting. It was weird.

It's really bizarre how these people, whom I was "friends" with most of, all of a sudden magically left.

I just wonder if the only reason they got Squinge back is so they could sell the site for a higher profit.

Does anyone, including Yakov himself, know why in the fuck he does a damn thing?

Haha, Paden; I think we already know the answer to that without thinking twice about it - HELL NO!

hmmm what a weird development.  I can't blame Kathy and Eric for wanting to sell the forum as it had likely run its course and yet was worth something to sell to someone who thought he could make it reasonably profitable.  While its strange not to aid in the transition but sell and run they may have wanted to avoid the drama (as has obviously occurred). Still its a weird time to buy a site for a game that's basically dying.  Sounds like they may have gotten the better side of the deal.

Whether Insim become TSR with better creators or even runs a paid subscription will be interesting to see (doubtful). Of course with all the server issues on MTS and difficulties paying for Insim I can't blame any party for wanting to improve the site performance / make it financially sustainable at the same time.  I know that might mean its a paysite in many people's eyes here but on the other hand even charities have paid employees.  If people think their donations to Red Cross don't go to employee wages, building improvements, events as much as the charities themselves they'd be kiddign themselves. If this guy's not a Sims fan then he clearly want to be getting enough from his investment to live off it (as I'm sure Kathy and Eric wanted the same at one point) so he'll be the one paid employee.  Whether mods will continue to work for free (why they do in the first place is always what surprises me) or even stick around should be interesting.

Just hope people don't take a slash & burn technique to leaving as it would be even a ruder move to piss on the community right before leaving.  I can certainly understand if people took their sections and left or gave up their moderating with new mgmt.  Still life will go on as it always does.

Anouk, my reasons for leaving InSim is because of Walt's mentality.  He's treating this like a business, and my number one concern is that he thinks because he bought InSim, he bought everything on it.  And I don't want anyone thinking that they own my stuff besides me and the people that download it to use in their games.  As far as the situation between us goes, I'm sorry that things went down the way they did.  I'm sure I could have found a better way to handle things, but I don't have a time machine so I can't change it.  At the time, I did consider InSim my home, and that included Kathy and Eric.  But this has put the final nail in the coffin for me.  And you are 100% right, I don't care about InSim anymore.  I do care about a lot of the people there however, and I hope they can find a new home, because I don't see InSim bouncing back from this if I'm being completely honest.  As far as BeosBoxBoy goes (and judging by what I've seen here, what I'm about to say probably doesn't bode well for me here) I still consider him a friend.  He has helped me out a lot along the way, and I'll always be grateful for that.  And in that sense, with what happened between you and I, Anouk, was a result of me standing up for my friend.  Whether that was misguided or not.

saraswati, the reason that I don't allow guests into my site is because I'm anal-retentive and some members would forget to log in, so I was getting "Guest" posts all over the site, with no way of knowing who said what.  I'm sure there's a way I could fix this better, but I needed a quick fix for it.  But I will look into a better solution.

~ Syn

I can. I do. And I hope people slash and burn, rather than sitting around being screwed by some jackass and "hoping" everything will somehow turn out right.

Couldn't someone from the site set up a refuge site for the people who left, and bring the things they liked about Insim to it?


No shit Sherlock, as we said in 5th grade. I don't think anyone here thinks we're talking about nuclear war. That doesn't mean it's not a big deal.

You know Paden I gotta tell ya (all my goofball fucktard schtick aside) I'm sorry this happened to you. I know you invested time and effort in InSim, I know you went to bat here for K&E several times when we were hating on them, and I know you always make an effort to do the right thing and your intentions are always good. So I know this has really must suck for you. I'll probably go back to being an ass next post but I just wanted to tell you straight up I really am sorry, you're a nice lady and you deserved better.  J

Mutiny like that takes a bit of time to plan... Keep your eyes open. Some of us plan quickly.

Not necessarily.  All it takes is one or two people to take the initiative and the rest of the people who want to be a part of it will come.  That's pretty much what happened with SFV/simscave.  Ofcourse SFV was "temporarily" down for like the billionth time, but after I talked to Ferris who kinda had a temp site up, her and a couple of others had a new forum up within a few days, and the majority of people just moved on over.  I don't think a ton of planning went into it, just alot of work and help.

Sometimes you just need to move on, and shake of the bad vibes. 

Edit: Nevermind I totally missed the small print. I need to go put the glasses back on.

Agreed - it only needs a forum to start it.

THE END IS NEAR.
(http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e17/kxmerune/motivator6224019.jpg)

 :D :D :D

Oh man, I so needed that. I've been biting my nails all day and this made me laugh so hard. Thanks, that did me a world of good.

lol. Kathy and Eric saw the ending credits on the site and sold it to an interested party who was willing to pay for what he likely thought was a still thriving site.  No doubt that Insim contributions and ads went to the roofs above their heads as well. Sounds like they got the better part of the deal and a nice severance check.

I'm sure Insim refugees can put together a good competition for it and put together a thriving forum.  Can they do so completely free and how long will people want to spend on Sims 2 mods, content, and discussion after Sims 3 comes out?

PS I don't consider slash & burning taking the content you made and uploaded to the site and leaving with it or even yelling at the new mgmt and quitting.  I do if people want to lock others accounts or access out, delete other's content, or do similar destructive acts. That's quite a bit more unethical and unwarranted.  Might as well hack or do DOS attacks on paysites if you live by those standards.

That picture is truly terrifying. I thought it was the witch from Hansel and Gretel when I saw it. *shudders, squeaks, and hides behind CapnJ, even though she isn't here at the moment*

I think it's going very well so far.

(http://pic16.picturetrail.com/VOL646/2837408/20739150/344946584.jpg)

Ok who the fuck are those 6 people who can cough up $25/mo. or more! Geez, I needz me one of them.

I'm glad you people like it, and thanks for the complements.
LOL Kenmtl, are you that desperate for money?

That was hysterical Filthy Priest. :D

Hey Syn

I'd suggest going to a two-teired thing.. Maybe having a spot that's open to guests that just for downloads only, or a preview gallery? People probably just want to be able to see what they're going to download or get an idea of what's on offer before they log in.. I actually checked out your stuff on MTS and liked the look of it. But like many others I'm often horribly busy (in my case running Reclaim Your Game and creating for Skadi) and I don't have time to commit to posting on another forum just to get downloads.

I will also mention that I can't speak for Skadi or what she'd offer an individual person.. but she's set up free subdomains for people before if she gets on well with them. And our hosting on Sublime is set up for the next two and a half years, so it ensures a site is up for a long time. And you can ask Cala and Hec about what kind of host Skadi is if you want to check things out first..  ;) And we've also got a nice, friendly site if people decide they want to talk to Skadi about maybe just uploading their stuff to Sublime..

What I'm comforted about is that all of the people who're leaving Insim at the moment will have multiple options to find new homes or places to share their stuff.. it's a disaster but it shows we've still got a good, strong community even at this point. :)

Kath

That's ridiculous. Get Firefox and Adblock. No advertising for the cost of FREE.

$3200 in $500 going out.  $2700 income a month /  $32k a year.  So are Eric and Kathy a couple (do they live together with that shared income), or are they splitting that, and did they have any other jobs?  Again if people think they ran Insim fulltime without getting a paycheck....its a little naive. You can't pay for a house and food with Simoleons.    

Ok, this is what I get for spending the day with family.  I miss the ruckus.  Good internets drama, though.

Question:  I must have missed some stuff out there.  Why would Kathy and Eric have this kind of attitude toward the community and their own site?  What is the background that I am missing here?

Well, one one side, I do care for Insim, I don't care for what Walt's about to do with it after Kathy and Eric sold it to him, so I agree with that point. If you want to shake hands and forget about the nasty things we told eachother I'm more than happy to. :)

Hey if someone can throw $25/mo at a fansite, trust me that $25 is just the tip of the iceberg.

They're married. As far as I know, Eric has a job, too. It makes -no- sense.

Also, anyone who thinks Kathy and Eric ran Insim fulltime is... misinformed. They haven't run it at all for a very long time. Nor is running a site like Insim a fulltime job in the first place.

actually it can be really timeconsuming Neriana.. any site is timeconsuming. Even a small site can take ten or fifteen hours a week depending on how much you're updating.

I'll bring the rum so we can toast. ;)  I'm more than happy to let the past be the past.  Thanks.  At least something good has come from this madness.

And thank you for the suggestions Saraswati.  I like the idea of a preview section.

~ Syn

I couldn't care less one way or another what happens to InSim. The only time I posted there, I was shouted down by that double-dipping twat BeosBoxBoy, and had some of my anti-paysite posts deleted by the aforementioned double-dipper. After that, I decided it wasn't worth my time contributing to discussions there. Every time I see that bloody message at the top of the page telling me I haven't posted there for a while, I find myself yelling at my screen, "yeah, there's a reason for that!"

I can't say I'm surprised by Kathy and Eric's attitude. Hell, they only turned up now and again to impose more rules, to hear the sheep shout "boobies!" and to demand more donations before pissing off back into obscurity. If those figures that have been posted here and on InSim are true, then they've been taking many donators, contributors and staffers over there for a ride  >:(.

 I have not visited that site for awhile, so I took a pop over today. There is not a whole lot going on over there...BUt a whole lot of begging for money! Even some members have a "please donate" in their siggys. It is like the annoying friend who is always broke and ask for money every time you see them.

I have to say that this looks like the largest scam I've seen in the Sims community to date. And the most personal.
I say grab your pitchforks and torches, folks.
My sympathy for those of you who were loyal Insim members. Huggles and back pats from me.

Aside from how this effects Paden, I have to agree. I am curious about Squinge though. Does anyone know if he'll be leaving Walt Dismaland? 


Maybe having a fence post stuck up their asses for all these years inclined them to be a bit disingenuous.

- edited because I had to deal with family today and both my nerves and my concentration are shot. Wanna buy them, Walt? - cheap?

Squinge hasn't decided what he's going to do yet, but I'm sure we'll all know soon enough.

Hey-  maybe the Insim mods should change the tile of the thread there from "Starting a New Era..." to "New World Order at Insim" It would be more appropriate.

OT: My conspiracy theorist brother would love you for mentioning any New World Order...

The mood of the site has already changed for the worse in so little time, it's shocking.

He'll probably be moving as well. This whole situation isn't sitting well with him (or Chaavik and I, his moderators), and we've had a few offers from other sites to host his stuff.

Maybe he doesn't anymore. You know, the economy and all.

He could TURN TO THE DARK SIDE. We have cookies.

The whole situation isn't sitting well with me either. What's worse is being told about the announcement Walt made at Insim by someone else on another site where I do frequent. None of us knew what happened. That's the betrayal of those who put time and energy into the site because we like to be with other people whose interests are as common as ours.

To think the previous owners really cared about us is an understatement. To think that the money we donate doesn't always go to the costs of site maintenance. To think they sold out to someone who had absolutely zero interest in the Sims 2 community or even the game franchise. All of this is sickening. Sickening to think they would care about Insim and the community behind it.

Yeah, we got blindsided royally. Real nice fucking way to tell us you were leaving us without so much of a "goodbye" or a "warning" to tell us the new changes were coming.

I don't know what Squinge's plans are for the moment, but we both do know he already had his mods backed up on his machine(s). I have my own mods backed up. They always have been backed up before I uploaded them.

What kind of cookies?

Evil cookies. Also, Insim's cheezserver has meltz0r3d under the baleful gaze of angry rubberneckers.

Yeah, but God only knows what you put in the fucking things, Pescado.

Rohina burnt them chaavik, plus they leave a bitter taste in your mouth. :D

it appears insim has  gone   down  i  cant  get in

Just as long as rum is provided to wash the taste away, all should be well.

ETA:
Or Jack Daniels, as Paden suggested. Thankfully, I have that in plentiful quantities.

Think Jack Daniels, CM, it's about the only thing that will work. Or Everclear.

Maybe walt returned from his t'day dinner to find a huge defection and loss of filez and locked down the site?

Absolut works wonders too.  ;D

its  gone down for sure maybe to much downloading of the artists own creations?

Well, if the little bastard has done that, it proves he's nothing but a worthless piece of shit. I won't be surprised to find myself fired at the end of all of this.

all,i keep getting in firefox is problem loading page

I would like to say welcome to all of our new Insim friends.  This totally sucks for you guys and you should feel free to come on over and speak your mind.  Vent it out.  We dont mind.  Get rowdy, Yell, scream, cry but most of all Plan!  This is a great place to sit and think and plan.  It has helped many people in this community to get organized and many new forums and communities have popped up or been reclaimed due to the open and unmoderated planning that can be done here.  If anyone needs any help with any of this just ask.  We are all always willing to help.  You all deserve a break after all the crap you have been dealing with over there what with having to keep the site going without any real support from the owners all this time and now this.  

Anyway,  Welcome and enjoy.  Let us know what we can do.

-jen

Vile calumny! I was totally and utterly nice and helpful to Walt, both on InSim and sim wank.

You can't be fired, you're not getting paid for anything.

Sorry to dredge this up, seeing as it's 10 pages back, but this struck a nerve with me. I've been a long time lurker and never registered until tonight. I am staff at MTS2, and I must say that Delphy has been nothing but kind, considerate and pro-active since I've been on board. No major changes have ever been made without full staff input.  We aren't paid at MTS2,  but rather do our job for the love of the game and for the site.

My first reaction , when learning the news and how Walt and the prior owners handled it, was absolute bewilderment. I cannot imagine putting my heart and soul into a website, for no pay and very little thanks from the membership, and then having the rug pulled out from under me. I can go to bed at night and sleep tightly knowing that Delphy would never, in a million years, pull a stunt like this nor even consider turning our beloved site into a bloody PaySite.

The whole situation is just pathetic. Prior subscribers who feel ripped off, general users who enjoy the site, and lurkers like me who love to pop on over and see what's going on...we all feel a loss. Not just a loss of faith, but a loss of community. Maybe something good will eventually come out of this. That is what I am praying for.

Hehehe I'll take those evil cookies and leave a morsel on the plate.

Thank you for welcoming us. Who knows what will be there tomorrow when we wake up or come home from work to check?

Canoodle couldn't have said better for how we felt as well as Corinne, Paden and the others here. Yeah, the rug was pulled. To think we would have some sort of input as to the future of the site since the majority of work were done by unpaid mods at the Admin level down to the Mod level to keep the site going for the community, the ones who put in time and energy without asking for anything in return really for the love of the game and community.

Now you have piqued my curiosity, please elaborate further.

Actually, it's probably my fault. I kinda aimed download scripts running 7 high-bandwidth machines distributed around the globe at it in an attempt to suck it dry. As a result, it seems to have meltz0red, even though I stopped. :P

You naughty boy! I am so proud of you... :D

Well dear the first batch of cookies were under cooked, and the second batch tasted salty. I'd rather have rum balls instead.

Sim wank  here (http://community.livejournal.com/sim_wank/8565.html). You even get a mention.

My letter to Walt seems lost for the moment, since Pescado meltzored InSim; rest assured it was a post worthy of my usual brilliance and erudition.

Yeah, thanks for the treatment. Thing is, when I signed on to do the job, I gave KATHY a promise to be on my best behaviour in order to be able to counter some of the pay site supporters always directing people towards T$R to get things. I was able to direct them to the Booty, with official sanction. Now that she is gone, so is the promise to be on my best. Everyone slips with the language at times. I am no exception. I can think of no one that is an exception. I did, however, enjoy what you had to say to the man.

So a guy who has nothing to do with the sims and no personal investment in the situation swoops down and buys one of the largest sims communities, which the creators have sold part and parcel without a peep to the mods, users or anyone. Great. (I don't know how anyone could ever trust people in marketing. They only want what they can get out of you and they are horrible at hiding it.) To make things worse he doesn't play video games, so it's abundantly clear this is nothing but opportunity for riches in his greedy little eyes. (Did he really just admit at his age his Mom is bankrolling him? Lollin forever.)

Shame on Kathy and Eric. I know they have friends that will chide me but I wont take that back. If they were sick of the site, there are lots of qualified people in the community they could have turned it over to. If they really did care things wouldn't have been handled this way and there's nothing nice about what's going on right now.  I don't think they'll be back this time. They did this on purpose to flip off the community and make a little extra cash on their way out. This is the way they decided to say goodbye.

Klassy.  ::)

Just 7?

I know that I would love to see Squinge/Chaavik over at MATY. Kinda like how Lord Darcy has migrated over there. Besides, I think they would receive more respect over there anyways.

Rohina I loved the summary at the end of the Sim Wank. I just don't think Walt realizes the shit he has gotten into. Not only has he managed to piss everyone at InSim off, but pretty much any community involved with InSim as well. Way to go Walt!

I'm glad there is no Thanksgiving here - I got all the gawking and drama. :D

Kathy and Eric for about the last year or so just couldn't give a shit - this is how it went last time they returned (http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/index.php/topic,1871.msg92489.html#msg92489).  And here is a statement made after one of her returns - before she left the last time.


There is of course all kinds of statements like this on Insim and Insim Adult, as well as a long discussion on SFV which is now dead, and unavailable for linkage.  Every time they've been questioned about leaving and coming back to ask for money only to leave again, they've acted like the community owes them a lot, but they owe nothing back.

Well, it's not as ready as I'd like, but seeing as Insim is um...well, melted, I'm launching now. Please forgive the not so fabulously customized theme. I just started setting up the server 4 hours ago, and had to stop several times and reinstall because I kept getting distracted, so it's not done. It will be cleaned up soon. Any/all Insim refugees, and anyone else interested are more than welcome. Right now, our plan is specifically to relaunch the contest section, but we also have general chat sections up and open, and we'll be thinking about whether or not to take on other sections after we see how much interest there is. Check it out.

Sim Oasis (http://forums.sim-oasis.com/index.php)

I sent a message to Kathy on Myspace. She's likely to not answer, but whatever. Fuck it.

And nice work, Pescado; I couldn't have done better myself.
Nuking things seems to be the only productive thing I've done lately.

I love that Kathy said she was anti-drama. That's (almost) the funniest thing I've read all night. What next, Pescado saying he wants Less Fight?

I feel really bad for the people these jerks screwed over. I hope y'all find a home where you're actually treated like human beings next time.

Googled Walt - for the lulz

http://www.dld2000.com/ (http://www.dld2000.com/)
http://www.uavmedia.net/author1.html (http://www.uavmedia.net/author1.html)

 :P

Saharia the color theme is really nice. Not overpowering, but visually pleasing. Wish we had something like that here.  ;D

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/Witchboy/Pictures/INSIMCONNECT.jpg)

I keep getting the lil pop up above in the lower right hand screen everytime i try to access InSim. Is this because Pes nuked it or has Walt Dismal stopped all incoming traffic at Insim?

Or saying "make love not war". :D I was flabbergasted every time she attested that, because she's always in a shitstorm of drama or arsekissing.

Especially considering I first got to know her because she charged in and screamed and swore her head off at Pescado on a site where she hadn't ever posted before iirc.

I'm reading that thread you linked, and I wish I'd known what was going on. I pretty much avoided insim because Kathy rubbed me the wrong way, and also because its "organization" drove me nuts, but I always pretty much thought it was on the side of the righteous. Enayla was there! But the whole "neutrality" thing -- yeah, I think I'll just be "neutral" while my neighbor gets robbed blind.

Thanks! It's going to get cleaned up more. I haven't even had time to start on the graphics.

Yeah - I got here because Hecubus got involved in some Animal Army cases, which led to emailing EA about the legality of PMDB and paysites.  Then, when we couldn't discuss it anymore, its like the AA died.  Since a majority of the theft investigations we got were paysites stealing free creators, I think most of us were varying degrees of anti-paysite.

And not -all- marketers are bad.  In fact, one of my sweethearts has his masters in marketing.  Its not what he does for a living though, and getting him to use his expertise to help me market my skills is like pulling teeth.

My husband does network marketing using the internet, and I don't think he's a terrible person.  (Granted he thinks Sims is a waste of time.)

Well I have the advantage of being here every day and much drama gawking.  I hope someone has emailed Enayla - it would be awful to find that she comes back to a lock on her stuff - I know that would really upset her.

Oh, and per Saraswati's post a couple of pages back, Skadi is available for those who want to discuss having their own site - I can honestly say I'm really happy being at Sublime, where there is *truly* no drama.  ;) And all site costs were met earlier this year - so don't worry about that. :)

You should kill him and eat him.

I don't think there's anything at all wrong with marketing for legitimate businesses. And, you know, if you're not a total nutcase, like Walt seems to be.

Walt is apparently marketing air, if you watch his video.

lol.  The business's he's involved in are all legit, and been going a while.  One of the products is apparently being used in Africa at the moment to cure malaria, and the company's even donating products to the cause.

I'm referring to my husband, not Walt, who seems to be a total airhead himself.

I wouldn't say he's full of hot air, I would say he is full of methane gas. He's a part of global warning, don't you know?

Yippee, at last, it's not my hot flashes after all. :-*

Didn't think I was ever going to get to the end of this as it just kept growing! Paden, I feel really bad for you & the other staff/creators at Insim. I don't know Kathy & Eric at all and even tho I am a member at Insim, I rarely post, do not use the Insiminator, and only went there for downloads. I think it is really shitty to treat people who are supposed to be your friends and who they apparently relied on for much of the maintenance of their site in such a way that they did. This guy Walt is truly a clueless dipshit! I'm not even sure Delphy could save the site now, but hey there are lots of other free sites where the creators can upload their content. This seems to be a good place for people to look for a new home...people here from lots of other forums. I just want to say good luck to any that have pulled their content from Insim. A good thing to come from this already is that it seems to have pulled a lot of the community together...just a really crappy way for it to happen. Also, gotta say that I was irritated that I could not pull up Insim...until I read that Pescado sizzled it. Then I just LMAO!

I didn't watch it, he seems like a bore.

I'm not sure how much validity we can place in this, but I remembered here at work that I had this website value calculator saved in my favorites.  I plugged in InSim and InSimAdult and this was the result:

http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.insimenator.net

http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.insimadult.net

But a combined estimated worth of $137,196.20 is outrageous considering the donation drives.  And a combined Daily Ad Revenue of $187.94 just adds to that.  Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that number saying that in a month you could make $5,638.20 (based on 187.94 x 30 Days).  And the combined page views of 61,703 seems more in line with what Delphy and Pescado has posted earlier.  Maybe InSim IS a cash cow afterall.  Damn Walt for thinking of this take over first, lol.

I don't know if the website value calculator can be verified or not, I suppose a site owner that knows his financials could see how accurate it was.

Anyhow, just found this interesting, and like before in the interest of staying informed, decided to share it with y'all.

~ Syn

PS - Thanx for the welcome btw.  I was kinda looking forward to the newbie macros though.  :'(

I don't know that that's very accurate - here's what is says about Sublime:



We don't have ads on Sublime. So I'd say it's just a complicated algorithm that takes into account page rank etc. and what you *could* be making.


Much obliged good sir, here you go:

(http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/673/roflbot55os9.jpg)

Thanx for checking that out Calalily.  What you said makes total sense.  And also thanx for the cute kitty.  I feel all warm and gooey now.

Saharia , your forum looks gorgeous.. Really visually appealing and pleasant looking.
And I am so glad we don't have ads on Sublime.. they annoy the life out of me (I hate those ads on the top of Insim) We don't have a need to have extra cash coming in the door, our hosting is covered..

Since she was mentioned a page back - has someone who knows her tried to contact Enayla? Maybe she wants to pull her stuff too.

Geez, I don't even play Sims2 but this still upsets me greatly. I wish all refugees good luck in finding a comfy new place for their creations.

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!

Thank you very much! I still have plans to fiddle with a bunch of stuff and customize the theme some more. And I need to quit slacking and make a splash page for the main site. :P I just feel anti photoshop tonight.


I don't know if anyone has contacted her, but I know she has a lot of health problems, so she might not even be able to respond for quite a while if someone was able to let her know.  :(

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.

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.  

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.

its still down

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.  :P

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 $.

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

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

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.

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 :P)

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Just to add to the sublime offer, we also have a few spare free sub domains and can assist in helping people who need a new home. (Either on a sub domain, the main site or the forum). Our hosting is paid up for another 9 months or so and I am saving up myself for next years hosting and will have the funds prior to it becoming an issue. If anyone wants our help just speak to me, HugeLunatic or Dinad.

Sorry all of you are going through this :(

Slightly off-topic: My grandfather and uncle are both named Walt. Grandpa is a retired lawyer and uncle is a farmer. They are both gigantic douche bags.

Straw poll here:

What would people say to an alternate copy of Insim, only with a few slight differences, such as, say, different domain, being ruled by me, and having 100% less Walt?

Just to answer a question earlier - while I am interested in getting InSim, I'm not going to pay a ton of money for it.  My current estimate of what Kathy and Eric sold it for is somewhere between $5k and $10k and quite frankly I don't think the site is worth that in money terms.  While I know I may have annoyed some insim people by saying that, I also know that the community as a whole would probably go "Err, what? HOW MUCH?!" if they where asked to foot some of that bill.  I guess if you include the community and everything too then it could be worth that theorectically - but I don't like putting monetary value on a *fansite* - it just doesn't seem right.  (Yes I know thats a bit contradictory but I guess it's more of a "I don't like putting THAT much monetary value on a fansite")

$5k-$10k? Oh yea, Walt was so duped!

100% less Walt? Yes please! But not sure how some would take being ruled by you Pes :D

Well, a lot of people are already accustomed to living under my shadow as it is. But hey, there are drawbacks to it. It is also one of several warplans currently being kicked around.

That would be fine with me - but it's the creators that really matter.  Also, the 12s are scared of you, and may choose different chat forum alternatives rather than taking the chance of being harangued.

As you can see by my username I'm all for 100% less Walt. I'm one of the recently shit on mods over there and I can't express how pissed I am, not so much at Walt because he's just a fudipshit trying to make a quick buck that was sold a white elephant by K & E. My real complaint is them and how they said nothing to my knowledge to anyone and just waltzed, if you'll pardon the expression.

Yeah, I'm not so fond of 12s either. My plan would just be to have the surviving staff elect a deputy and then let them do their thing, much like the other sites I own now. I might occasionaly deign to show up and demand a sacrifice. But as a whole, I am pretty disinterested.

I think it would be the greatest satire of all time.  I don't know if it would be the best thing to happen to the community, but very entertaining nonetheless :)

Or maybe Pescado would show us he is capable of being sort of normal in some contexts?

Edit:  Yep - see Pescado's post that nipped in just before this.

I think if you made it clear that you were just going to set it up and be as hands off as you are now (apart from dropping in to call them buttmonkeys if they break something) I think there would be wholehearted interest - and if Walt sees that all is lost to your mirror, he may just sell it to Delphy at a heavily discounted price. :D


I lolled at it when I saw it in the latest member thingie.  Sorry Kathy and Eric are dicks.  :P

It would get the thumbs up from me.

I've lurked here forever on many a night reading various threads and laughing my ass off at times but learning a hell of a lot about the community at large at the same time. I know you don't take kindly to noobs in the ol' pirate's den so I've always been hesitent but as this topic here has really got my blood to boiling I thought that there was no time like the present.

I wouldn't be against a plan like you're describing Pescado but I certainly can't speak for any other staff there. Now, with the servers "meltz0red" it's going to be pretty damn hard to get any kind of word out to some of the fellow staff or members that may be sympathetic to that option. The worst part of the whole thing is that I know creators/staff that were trying to get items of their own off of both site to make backups of their creations that now can't get to them.

Yes we hate n00bs but not Newbs. There's a difference.  ;D You don't post like a n00b, that's all that matters.  ;)

ETA: Welcome to the dark side.  :D

And now you know exactly why the servers are meltz0red. It's like a bank run.

I don't say much, but I must put in a vote of yea. It will be more comfortable than what is available now. What exactly would be the "slight differences" other than the domain?

Speaking as a casual visitor to that site, I like the idea. I'm guessing that the desperation donation drives would come to an end and people could actually visit the site without feeling guilty.

I'm also curious as to what would become of the actual InSiminator hack. Now that the expansions have (I believe) run out, does it get left behind in Walt's world or would it make the transition as well?

Normally I respect even paysite owners' copyrights.  But Eric diddled people who could hardly afford it out of THOUSANDS of dollars using emotional blackmail and lies.  I say put the InSimenator anywhere we like.

If Eric has washed his hands of the actual InSIM and not the site, then it would make sense to take over the project and see if anyone else would be able to work on it.

100% less Walt, and you in charge Pescado, you have my vote.

i still  cant get into insim has it been pulled? or is walt doing those supposed changes?

nah, Pescado did what Pescado does best.  And I don't have that much of a Pescado ruled Insim - a better alternative to Waltster and day.  Insim was a good site.  Its sad to see it go this way, all because some outsider chooses to take it over and run it as if it was a business, totally disrespecting the people who work for it and access it.  Hardly a good way to run any sort of a business really.  He is definitely a major dickhead.

Insim meltz0r3d because I tried to snarf all the stuff at once. We are waiting for Walt to reboot it so I can try to snarf it again. Eventually I will either have it, or the site will be reduced to molten slag by my attempts to do so. :P

ohhh i see well good on ya ;D

So you were just trying to download everything at once to back it up or were you deliberately trying to shut the place down?  Because I might be ostracized for saying this, but the latter is kind of low. 

And so begins my excellent first post...


You've got my (insignificant, I'm sure) vote.


And I'm afraid that makes Walt pretty much a dumbass, QED. I'm still reeling from reading 25 pages of this thread , but I can definitely join in with hoping Mr W returns to find his "investment" gone belly-up like he was the MD of Lehman Bros.  :P

I never went to InSim other than to lurk and snatch downloads (yeah, that annoying "You've never posted to InSim before, please post!" was always at the top of my pages), but having been involved in a site of similar magnitude to MTS2 in the past (not Sims related) which had the previous owners sell to another bunch of people only interested in making money off it while I was one of the staff, I can at least guess how you all are feeling. As far as I'm aware (I have not been there for a couple of years), the change in hands of owners meant that all the people really interested in the subject left and the staff members were left with only the dreaded 12s.

From what I understand, not only was pescado trying to get as much as possible, creators from insim were also trying to grab their stuff, which was a bit much for the site.

Back it up - although he never said explicitly so here - but did at GoS:


http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=7852.msg235718#msg235718

As well as all us just-plain members hopping on and off and hammering the refresh key to read the latest :D

Ah ha! I didn't go there.  OK, carry on then.  Honestly, that makes me feel much better.  Sorry to have doubted you Pes.

He's a bastard but not a low-down bastard  :D

Aye, beneath that tough fire and brimstone exterior he's all soft an' warm an' fuzzy  :D

To Pescado:  Baaaaaaah!

I was pretty sure it was Walt had decided to pull the servers... but glad to see everything's being backed up.  I'm full of phail and forgot to get other things I needed backups of off of there last night.

Well, no, I was *TRYING* to back everything up, but the CHEEZSERVER IS MELTZ0R3d.

Ah... well, even if it doesn't work, the bleating still applies.   ;)

*Edit because what I had earlier made little sense.*

Excuse the stupid question, but what the hell is the cheezserver anyway?

Just one question Pes...  what happens to PMBD, MATY & mirror Insim if you kick the bucket?  Is it all lost foreverz?   ???

Presumably Mrs Thumbscrews has instructions who to hand it on to.

You are serious about it, so i vote yes for YOU!! But let me have my sexy feets for heavens sake, i am in troubble here  :D

You have my vote here (yes, I know, not that it matters). But still... more Pes = more awesome ;)

Like I said on GoS, you have my vote too, Oh Powerful Leader.

I'd say aye, but make the slight differences a little less slight. I'm one of those people who really only went there for the downloads, but finding them was a bit of a pain. I'm a hit&run kind of downloader: browse all the pages and snag what I want, going by preview pictures, the MTS2 way (I suppose). At Insim, you basically had to know what you wanted before you got there and then start looking for it. Maybe I was being a doofus, but navigating that site gave me a headache.

100% less Walt and maybe 99% less guilt trips? Yes plx.

Wow, I'm late to the party.

I can't say I'm surprised that this happened.  They've had their feet out the door for so long that it seemed like an eventuality to me.  I stopped using Insimenator back when OFB was released because even then Eric was bitchy and slow about having to update Insim after every expansion.  Kathy was already "done" with the drama and had ongoing health problems.  One day she left the social irc channel and never came back.

*glomps whiterider, delphy and hystericalparoxysm*

Yes to the annexation of more provincial territories and besides some form of order would be in well, order. Oh ya and ixnay on the inkyblays!

ixany ixon hupcl?

Is this going to be like the time we all started speaking in binary for some reason?

01001111 01100110 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110011 01100101 00100000 01000100 01100101 01110110 01101001 01101100 01100110 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100001

(http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn130/BlueMoon1958/PWND.jpg)

The devil made me do this, honest he did.  ;)

I feel confident that Glorious Leader will manage to snarfle all relevant booty, and that nothing of importance will be lost.

What little contact I had with kathy was here, and I liked her fine, aside from the incessant BANOOBIE-type talk, but the excuses and money-grubbing donation drives did get a bit old, especially when questions were raised months ago about the amount requested and the frequency of the begging, and then the PMBD censoring on INSIM.

I'm torn between simply quietly P&Ling at Walt from afar, and rushing out to get marshmallows for the inevitable burnination in effigy.

Also, kittun macro above reminds me of my two fuzzies scrapping, a sample of which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGW4XB26QLQ
No ferrets were injured in the making of this video.

Cheers! *blows dust off of rum and vodka bottles I hid in my secret cache when Real Life got hectic and I had to wander off the ship* GLUG!

That would be awesome - and we'd get Insim and a new simspage as well [or two.]  Oasis is really well laid out for a baby site.

Questions, Pes - one, do you want the stuff people yoinked before you tried to acquire it all?  Two, do you plan on letting folks who had sections there but deleted them to keep their stuff from becoming potentially pay, have their sections back?

It was always nice to have a place to check for new things when some of the creators's main sites were down.

And I'd like to thank everyone who is showing their generous natures by being supportive on this, as well as offering various other alternatives.  Makes me feel like I've drank all the rum just seeing it.  I personally wasn't that close to K&E and I feel smacked in the face, and I know it has t be much harder for those who thought of them as close friends. *passes around rum and popcorn*

Im on board. I would be happy if anyone got the site back, even with a few new features.

and Hale yes, good rum indeed!

The whole situation is utterly comical to me. You have K&E who may or may not have lied to everyone up to and including staff,members, new guy, all world leaders and the guys out orbiting the planet. You have New guy who has 0 idea what a "fansite" is and as such spouted off "blah blah business, blah blah revenue..MOMMY!!!". And the resulting uproar (heard by the aforementioned astronauts) followed by yoinking of creations, yelling, crying and door slamming.  and then as the cherry on top we have good ole' Pescados backing up efforts  kersploding the server like a bottle rocket up a cats butt....

As sad as it is to watch it crash and burn, it has also been highly entertaining from an outside stand point. I feel for the staff/members for the loss of their home away from home, but you must remember "even during the great depression people needed entertainment!" (paraphrasing, of course)

The refusal to discuss financial matters in a public forum is absurd. If I donate to (insert any donation funded entity here) I can get all info about how much they've received, what it was used for and how much more they need...heck I can get that if I donate to the local high school booster club begging outside the Walmart. The whole thing just obscene.


*goes back to lurking quietly*

LDE, I think that was the thing that annoyed me the most. How does that work? In chronological order, this seems to be the bussiness plan Walt follows:

1) Ask for money from members
2) Brush off financial 'scandal' these members were involved in
3) Tell members they have no bussiness asking about said money
4) Ask for more money from members
5)  ? ? ?
6) PROFIT!

What the fuckity fuck? I'd love to see the bussiness school he attended so I can go wallop them all with a rotten shark. Idiot.

He could just be utterly embarassed about how much he paid for the site,
now that it turns out it was probably too much.
It doesn't exactly make him look like a savvy businessman.

Possibly. But I think he just expected to step in as CEO and is now having a WTF moment while the people he thought were his employees (or slaves, since he bought the package fair and square) are throwing a stink-fest at his wicked ways.

I think it's becoming obvious that he overpaid, by a lot. I'd still prefer it if he counted his losses and sold to Delphy for peanuts. At least he could pay his mom back then. Poor dear. Alternatively, having PESCADO: THE DESTROYER OF SERVERS rule the place sounds like it would be a shark-filled blast.

We'll see. I just hope Insim comes back for now, so at least everyone there can say goodbye and take their toys to a better playground.

Whoops I misunderstood you Quorneater, my apologies. I wouldn't have any problem with InSim2 by Pes, my only question would be, is someone/has someone gotten into contact with the creators to see how they feel about it?

Now that Insim has apparently gone kaboom, it's getting hard to contact anyone. They all ran in different directions. It's the Great Insim Diaspora of 2009. Lovely.

But I agree, if anyone knows how to contact them without going through Insim, it would be fair to let them know of this. I imagine not everyone would be pleased with a Pescado owned Insim.

I just can't get over just *how* out of order it was for K&E to "sell" the site when apart from one or two small downloads it was totally the work and copyright of the unpaid contributors!  It wasn't even theirs to sell, only the domain was.  They didn't even own the server.

I don't think a bucket would stick around long enough for Pes to kick it  ::)
I vote yes to a Pescado-owned InSim. At least most of the sheeples and twelves will stay away. Also, anything with 100% less Walt is excellent in my book. Just his picture bugs me. It probably has to do with his stained restoration so he has two different colored front teeth. Dental Education? I haz one :P

100% less Walt is very appealing. What really matters is what the creators think. Both Pescado and Delphy have their un-fans, but I think that either of them could take over as long as they didn't turn it into MATY or MTS2.

I think Inge Quorneater is right though. Mega-sites are problematic just like mega-corporations: when they crash and burn, there's lots of collateral damage. If everyone had their own low or no cost site, with some central locations for tutorials and such, things would run a lot more smoothly.

Actually regardless of how we feel about them cluttering up our boards with WTF's and ZOMG's , 12's have every much of a right and a need of a place to go as we do. And InSim was that place for many of them. In a certain way I almost feel the most sorry for them in this whole situation. The bigger creators and modders will find a new home and people will follow them there. Plus I'm assuming they have all of their work backed up so nothing is really lost. But it would be a drag if all the self sims, hunks, babes, lots, recolours, etc. that the younger members made and were proud of were all lost. So i hope Pez grabs those also.

They may be annoying sometimes and hard for us to comprehend, but you know what they're players too. They need a place to go and communicate and share stuff, and learn stuff, and quite frankly just be 12's with other 12's. The great thing about InSim was the mix of members there, you had the newer players who were just learning and the older more knowledgeable players helping them out. And doing it very patiently and without judgment. (and that's not easy sometimes) It's a stage they have to go through and InSim provided the environment to do that for many. It wasn't for everybody but that doesn't mean it didn't serve a purpose.

Well if he does invite the same staff over, and lets them set the tone for the new site, then it should be ok.

I vote ok for Pes to make an InSIM2, I know at least if shit was gonna change, he'd sure in the fuck let us know. And he may even let us warn the 12s about the baby sharks in the toilets... Wouldn't count on it, but what the hell?

I'm totally down for Pescado taking over if the staff will have say over what's going on. However, I will not be planning on moving the contest section back. If we can get back what was up before, we'll finish out what was in progress on the clone, and move everything else over, after a fashion. I posted a whole explanation of why at the Oasis, but it's big enough to be its own site, has been for some time, and after what I went through to keep it from getting deleted in the last few months, I'm not interested in doing anything like that ever again and moving it is the step I'm taking to avoid that. But on all other fronts, I think it's a great idea. You have my vote.

I think a clone is a great idea.  I also vote for the name REsimenator if it's available. :D

Well I just read the extra 28 pages that spawned during the night and throughout today. I guess the BFBVFS has occured. Sad. I fully support and approve of an idea to make a Pescado-based InSim, but I agree that electing a Deputy to take charge would be the best thing to do.

Fake edit: Day gets even sadder. Just found out that GTA IV on PC will be using SecuROM.  :'(

I dunno - maybe walt.mustbedestroyed would appeal too. :D

Don't you mean walt.hasbeendestroyed

hey there, fellow 'shit on insim staff member', don't know which one you are but you're not only pissed off one around *huggles*

I'd be happy with somewhere else to go, not sure how I feel about it right now it's all a bit overwhelming - those rat shit bastards have taken away home (such as it was) and that's completely pants, but somewhere where I wouldn't be afraid to get proactive and do stuff instead of holding back because 'only Kathy is allowed to touch the announcements on the front page' would be nice

edit .. it would also be nice to go somewhere where you're allowed to have an opinion and some debate please

Lol - he still has a lot of creations - especially those who have left the site forever, and forsaken creating.  So he hasn't quite been destroyed yet.  

ETA: Holy crap! Git downloading Pescado - it's back.

oh!  Examine the place carefully - he could have pulled all sorts of tricks while it was down.  See if the admins are still admins and if the creators are still allowed to remobve their downloads.

I got server busy at insim with ads

Eh, that in itself is just too much Walt!

Makes me think of Resident Evil Simenator! We could have just a bunch of zombie sims all of the place too.  :P

I kinda got that vibe too. RE is pretty awesome. I'm afraid to try the Zombie Apocalypse from MATY, but it's getting so damn tempting to just unleash it on my sims...

I've been asked by the admins at SapphireSims2 (aka Deb & Jafa) to extend an invite to anyone from Insim who needs a place to land, either temporarily or permanently).
Anyone interested, just leave me a PM & I will get back to you with their IM's...or just pop on over to the site & PM them there.

On a personal note - I don't care if it's Pes or Delphy that takes over Insim...either would be OK by me!

Yeah, I've been thinking that all my fantasy stuff would be great over there. I don't need a special section or anything, it's really not that much (I'm jmtmom). Right now, I'm busy trying to back up and remove all my stuff from Insim.

I lul at how the site server is crashing even more than usual due to the mass exodus. I'm certain that when the dust clears, Walt Dismal will be the only one left.

Also, ReSIMenator has a nice ring to it.

Get to grabbing cause it's back!

Yeah! Its back but its bloody slow, and I keep getting server busy, it’s a pity the ads aren’t busy.

It's a bit slowgoing - keep getting timeouts/server is busy - it must be being hammered by gawkers. :P

Okay, there seems to be no new major communication from Walt.

GeneralZoi's Barracks are empty, and the one person I was able to look at the profile for, it didn't seem anything had changed.  But that doesn't mean that nothing has changed - they can only tell when they endeavour to edit.

I've removed a few more items. It comes and goes. Even if Pes takes over, I'm done. I didn't have any trouble getting on and/or removing stuff other than the server timing out.

Can someone provide a link to where, exactly, Walt told everyone to "Get over it"?

I'm sorry for everyone who's been put through the ringer by this.

It was in his clarification thread. If you go to the front page, you might be able to find it. I think everyone else is too busy getting their stuffs to bother to link it for you. Expect lots of "server too busy" messages.

So far, I don't see any demotions of some of the more rude members of staff, so I can still get in to see if there's anything in the staff areas from the fuck.

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?p=1468172#post1468172

Here ya go....

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100123 (http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=100123)

Whew, yanked everything but a few items that were linked closely to items still up there. Now to grab a few of Squinge's hacks for back-up.

Ho, that's rich.

Thanks for the link. I'm glad to have finally seen that remark.

*evil laugh* And we could ban any MENTION of paying for the damn meshes and maybe even let them be included in the downloads from now on?!

Does anyone need a hand making backups of stuff there?  I don't mind helping out  :)

I can help as well - Maybe assign different people areas to archive stuff from, for the creators who haven't been around much lately?

My god its alive! Well, its up and I still get server busy messages. But for shame! I was expecting a a big post from Walt aka a hissy fit over everyone taking their stuff down and running for it :D

Right now he's probably too busy getting his lawyer briefed on suing Eric and Kathy.  If they didn't lie about the turnover, they certainly must have misled him about how much of the site was legally theirs to sell!

Here's a few thoughts. How many visits/traffic has this generated? How many other sites is Google picking up the mention of the Insim sites issues? Will it make the market value appear better for the next potential buyer?

I already DL'd all of Enayla's stuff, and most of Squinge's - so if the site times out again, I've got those covered. I also ahve all of Sgooby's historical stuff - I can go back and grab the rest, if people want to concentrate on other areas - especially the community area - it's huge!

Caveat emptor (http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/caveat_emptor) He got himself into it, so he can eat it.

I was wondering about that too, but in relation to ad revenue.  It still couldn't possible be enough to earn in one weekend what he paid for it, could it?

Edit:  Has anyone got all of olemantiker's stuff?

Well then ole Walter is about to learn about one of our most ancient and sacred rituals, the taking of the toys and the going home.

I was actually in the process of grabbing some of Ole's stuff that I've been meaning to get for awhile. I figure now's as good a time as any. I don't mind helping out either. But who knows what the FOJ already has and if people really want us snarfing all their stuff.

Better to have duplicates than not have it all.

I don't suppose anyone would mind the initial snarfing, as long as they had some say in the subsequent publishing.  Some people might be only too glad if you had grabbed their stuff and could restore it to their possession.

I'll get as much of his stuff as I can.

*puts on safety glasses*

Walt can't make a post now. That raging hard on he got when he thought he purchased a cash cow now cannot be brought back, even with an overdose of viagra.

I've been grabbing lots of stuff from both sites along with preview pics, but does anyone know - or is Pes himself around to say one way or the other? - if his backup effort has been renewed? If so, then it's probably better to let that take precedence. Otherwise, I'm going to start grabbing Warlokk stuff.

This will surely last more than a weekend but one could sell a bunch of ad space in a single day, if you show enough traffic. Either way there is money to be made. Can't beat a scandal when trying to draw people to a site.

It's not going to be generating a lot of income - if the site is to be onsold, you can't show a spike of two days (with a blank day in between) as proof that it's saleworthy.  After everything is vaccuum packed from Insim, the traffic will diminish immeasurably.  So you'd have a say 1 week spike, and then flatline.

As for other sites - google ranking needs a bit of consistency, and as far as insimenator visibility, it's not particularly high - too neglected for too long.  

I got all my crap out and deleted my section. Monica (Mohicantunes) may have me delete hers too, since I backed it all up. I'm not sure this Walt idiot knows where the Staff section is, but he really needs to locate it and start a dialogue with the staff and creators.

Some of the Staff and Creators are going to stay on the log ride, even after all the water has dried up, but I'm not going to push them down the slide.

I dont think he will freak out since I am not sure he even understands what is happening.  He doesn't seem to understand what he bought. I doubt he even understands the downloads area or that the creators own them and can remove them.  He may also have not realized the amount of daily attention he should be paying to the site especially during the transition.  I mean if the only people he talked to about it were K&E and we know how much daily activity they had maybe they told him all you have to do is go over there every once in while and make sure the money keeps coming and the staff will do everything else.  

Ok I am trying to get past the server busy messages to start backing up the modding section.  There's some useful tut's there we don't want lost either.

Is it my imagination or have the main admins stopped posting too?

You have valid points and the smart buyers would know that but the current event at hand shows not all would do the proper research before buying. I think it was Barnum who said "There's one born every minute."

I don't think it's your imagination. The staff has been running the site for so long, this bastard was probably told to make his announcements and the staff would handle the transition. I got news: Like HELL we are, asshole!!

How much did you manage to grab Squinge's stuff? He has a lot going back to 2005 or thereabouts. I already got my own stuff backed up and ready to delete them (the MQ computers). Got a message to prepare to post in MQ's old thread at MTS2. I will still plan to update them one more time and test them with Mansion&Garden for compatibility.

Admins, supermods, mods.  Were all pissed and as much as I would like to help, it would be defeating the reason of how we feel. What's the word Im looking for...Strike anyone? Even though we dont get paid for any of that, Walt should have been direct with his intentions.

Caffeinated Joy sounded like she was intending to stick by him.

I have most of the stuff for olemantiker, but I didn't get any images.

Does someone have an add on that will strip those quickly?

Well, if someone wants, and hasn't done so already I'll grab Enayla's stuff - I'm pretty sure I already have it, but another copy doesn't hurt.  If not, is anyone making an archive of the -community- section?

I grabbed all the Enayla with images, and I got most of Gothplague and Bloom, though it wouldn't hurt to have someone else get those if it's not already done.

I do believe zillah said she got all of Enayla.

No - they seem to have - probably don't know it's back up, or are too busy baleeting and downloading to shout into the abyss. :D


Well it'll also be immeasurably smaller when everyone is finished - it won't have such and such fan content - it will be a shadow of its former self, with graffiti all over it, and angry shit all over the place - and a terrible reputation.  He let it go down for one day, and already there's far less optimism than there once was.

Of course, there is one born every minute, and Walt may make money at it.  It strikes me that before he gets over his arrogance though (still hasn't checked in) that it will all be too late.  He doesn't have a clue how to handle sims community drama - it's not enough to just say "get over it" or "if you want to leave, leave" - that's a quick way of killing a forum.  Fucking over the staff - that's a big mistake too - it would be a spam farm there if they're not caring for it.  He may have bought a big fansite - but he's going to have to sell a small fansite, and once I know where everything stands, I'll be removing my link to insim, and I'm sure a lot of others will do so also. He may just be the last sucker in line once he's through with his management techniques - particularly if everyone is saying Yay! Pescado.

Furthermore, he'll have to invest far more time to stop all those bitter people who will leave messages about "Insim is dead, come to Reinsim" etc. just like TSR has to do.  I think he'll give it up as a bad job.

Oh fuck I was doing that too, lol

I'll grab the community section then, as I can - after all, while those folks aren't as well known for their creations, they put as much love into it, and shouldn't have it used to make money for this guy either.

Got a show and family stuff to do tonight too, though, so it will be kind of catch as catch can.

She may sound like that in public, but the staff section is another area entirely.

I imagine Pes will finish backing up, but for those of you want to do it yourselves too, DownThemAll! (http://www.downthemall.net/) for FF.

Should be able to nab the images too. If you get DL issues (other than general server shittiness and overload), go into Preferences and turn off multiple DLs and multiple chunks. Some sites (such as MTS2 and the booty) have protections against these functions which will lock you out from downloading if you're using them.

Yeah, Pes will likely get anything that is missed.

But I think Walt Dismal was planning to "shine" the place up a bit and sell on to the highest bidder, mostly likely another "online marketing and web business guy". Either way InSIM was doomed to destruction; it was only a matter of time.

No worries ken!  As long as we get everything.  Duplicates are ok.

 Oh For Fucks Sake (http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?p=1467199#post1467199)

Just keep trying you'll get it eventually

I got Enayla's files, but NOT the images - was going back for that, but since Nixy got those, I'll concentrate on Sgooby right now.

Ahh, Paden locked the thread. I was going to ask them if they were on crack or something.

HAHAHAHA! Oh dear, they're brown nosing people who don't give a flying fuck about them. So sad!

I did it so I didn't explode like all hell in the general area. That, and I was getting massive sugar poisoning.

http://forums.sim-oasis.com/index.php?topic=8.msg270#msg270
http://forums.sim-oasis.com/index.php?topic=8.msg325#msg325

This is one reason Insim used to drive me nuts. They worshiped Kathy and Eric as gods over there -- including worshiping Kathy's stupid booby picture.

However, many people really liked the tone of the site. I'd hate to see it become just another Pescado production, because many of those people would be left in the cold. If the same staff were kept, though, it would probably work out well. However, since I only went to insim to snarf downloads very occasionally, I don't really have a horse in this race. :P

Guess someone has to be a grown-up.

I'm really not too worried anymore. Everyone is busy backing up the important downloads. I yanked nearly all of my stuff. Insim will either continue nuking itself or Pes will save it. Meh....

It is a pity though about all the people who gave so much only to be shafted by K & E.

Oh they deserve to rot alright. What they did is unforgivable. No, I never knew them. But for those that did, I have a lot of sympathy for you. As for Kathy and Eric, I don't care what crap is supposedly going on in their lives. It gives them absolutely NO right to do what they did. They get no sympathy, and they will get what's coming to them no matter how lazy Karma is. They almost make TSR look like fraudster wannabes. Almost.

And this is turning out exactly as I predicted. The ship is sinking, and based on posts made at GoS it appears that Pescado's WFIS plan is going ahead.

I used to find some of her humour quite irritating, but I wanted to be nice to her because people used to tell me what a hard time she was having in her personal life.  But I think she's made up for that now with a few thousand of our dollars.

She always got on my nerves. I donated to the site maybe a year ago but she got so annoying, I quit. I wanted to be sympathetic, but she was so unstable and profane I just couldn't.

So I would swoop in, grab downloads, post enough thanks to kill the "why haven't you posted message" and be on my way. Some of the creators there are really good. I hope they find a new place to post their stuff, they don't deserve this.

Not to mention trying to sell a community of individuals and thinking the staff was gonna roll over and expose our throats and bellies to this new son of a bitch like trained dogs. When I think of the hours that some of the admins spent on that site, doing the damn updates, chasing down some of the folks that uploaded stuff in order to get rid of pay content, and just generally doing shit that K&E ought to have been doing, it pisses me off more than I can express.

The sad thing is, if they had just been up-front and said that they needed $700 before the end of the week to pay their rent or fix their car or whatever it was for, I bet people would have donated anyway just out of loyalty and a feeling of friendship.  It wouldn't have necessarily been classy, but at least it would have been honest.

Other people have pretty much said it, but having a hard time in your personal life does not give you the right to treat other people like garbage. What kind of hard time were those other people having, and what gave her the right to walk all over them? It was just an excuse.

Paden, I'm glad you locked it -  after reading some of those posts I want to explode - and I don't explode usually.

And I think the goodbye to the boobies was pretty funny.

So yeah, Walt... good luck with your server and domain name. The soul of insimenator (creators, creations, shitload of members and staff) is simply moving elsewhere to continue to make the community you tried to buy.

I think I prefer Elton John's "Good-bye, Yellow Brick Road," it has a hell of a lot more honesty to it.

True.  But honesty is almost never the easy way out, and I believe that is exactly what they were bargaining for.  It's the same reason they neglected to even notify their own staff of the changes.  They would have been subject to alot of criticism.  Selling the site to Walt was easier.  They got the money from someone who was probably more than willing and were able to check-out without having to deal with the drama, anger and hurt feelings.    

Oh yeah, if anyone's interrested, there's always a place at Noukiesims 2 if you wanted your creations there. Either resident creator or a Community creator.
Edit: DUH, there's this server space and help with building your own site too, ofcourse. 100% free.

So HugeLunatic I assume between the two of us we got Ole covered, so I'm gonna give it a break.

Walt's first post, condensed to reflect honesty and brevity: "Hi, my name is Walt, and I'm a greedy dumbass and I own this site, everyone here and all of the creations posted. You'll like slaving for me and bringing me more monies and if you don't, you will be forced to watch my incredibly boring YouTube videos and learn how to shoot yourself in the ass with no help at all. Support this site, my mommy does, and she's nice enough to let me live in her basement and she even gives me allowance money cause I just suck at businessman. Isn't my mommy great, she went through the Great Depression and she knows how important it is to be entertained. So, give me monies and I'll act like a dancing jackass for you!"

Yep.  I've got images too.  Downthemall was not working quite right, kept giving me php.  I'm sure I used it wrong.  But got all of ole's stuff.  And a copy on my external as well.

You owe me a new monitor, mine has milk spewed all over it.
I love my Paden. WOOT!

Do any of the admins have ftp on the server over there?  Because I think it would be faster to dl via FileZilla all attachments in one fell swoop.  I''m guessing no, hence why we are doing it this way.

I'll soon have my new place set up, thanks to Quorneater.  But I'm thinking that when I make stuff that's fantasy I'll crosspost it at Sapphire Sims, and if I make something alternative, I'll do the same at GoS.  Basically, I think this has a nice silver lining - its bringing the community as a whole together more, and I think crossposting stuff around will help keep it strong.

And if we do get our new and improved reSiminator [or whater it is called], I'll see if I can get my old section back and use it as well.  Sharing can mean caring, even if I want to nuke that damn purple -thing- from orbit.

*passes around more rum*

No, we Admins do not have FTP access. Kathy made sure of that.

If this asshole wants to ban us naysayers, he's definitely not going to have anyone to fork over their cash. He may as well just delete the whole site cause NOBODY likes him.

What exactly do Quorns taste like anyway? Are they salty/tart/fruity, what?

I don't think they do, that was kept under Kathy's province, such as that was, as far as I know. My comma abuse, let me show you it cause I don't give a fuck about it. One of those days, guys, one of those days.

I had to laugh at that name actually, because there is a fake meat product called Quorn (http://www.quorn.com/) which ironically is not made from corn, even though it is pronounced so.  My boyfriend has me buy every so often to make him Tacos.  It's pretty bread-like.

Nixy posted this over at GoS

BlooM seems to be MIA at the moment, not seen hide nor hair since before this shit went down.

lol I always thought her name was that for that reason. Anyway, it's pronounced kworn, not corn. It's made from a fungus. My uncle's science team discovered it. ;) Apparently it's quite bad for you if you eat too much of it.

Don't tell me that you know this from personal experience?

Really?  That's interesting.

I heard there was some controversy about the fact they compare it to a mushroom, when really it's not, and that some people have had some really bad experiences with it (digestion-wise).  We don't eat it very often though, maybe 3 time a year.  We are more apt to make seitan, which we jokingly pronounce satan because it sounds kinda similar.   

PS.  I need to tell everyone I know they pronouncing it wrong. 

Interesting to see one thread started by Walt being deleted in Site Announcements. It's the one where he asked for feedback on new site features and so forth.

Thanks, zillah. I should have posted that first over here  ::)

I wonder who did that one, I wanna shake their deletion hand!

Are there any plans for salvaging InSimAdult?

Shake? I wanna hug whoever did that!

My understanding is that we're going to try to save InSim adult as well, though I don't know who, if anyone, is working on that right now.

I keep getting kicked off insimadult when I sign in I get the busy message.  Then when it comes back up I have to sign in all over again, is any one else getting this

I know I can barley get into the site before it hangs, so my thanks to those of you that're pillaging.


I'd sure like to her something about that as well. Contrary to possibly popular belief by alot of the community we're not all a bunch of sweaty palmed post adolescents looking for anything sheer or tittilating to drag to our (Mom's) basement so we can conduct our version of Sim pRoN. The adult side was home to a small but loyal group of regulars that not only wanted realism for our games but a social setting where we could discuss all manners of topics without being inundated with idiotic posts from the tweener demograph.

I'm splitting my efforts between the adult and non-adult sites. I'm having better luck with the adult files, actually. The Warlokk stuff I'm getting is all from the adult side so far. I'm trying to get all the files by any creator I'm working on from *both* sites. Unfortunately, after getting in pretty regularly for quite awhile, I've had a HUGE slowdown in the last few minutes. I think my plans to get ALL the Warlokk files from both sites are now a bit over-ambitious. Anyway, I'm getting what I can.

I hope so - never spent much time there, but I appreciated being able to find some sexy things for my sims on occasion, not to mention accurate skins.  I don't play with barbies and it always annoed me that girl sims loose bits from childhood on up - it also made me feel a bit like a pedo decided that this was still worthy of a teen rating O.o

Definitely would want to salvage Insimadult because it is part of Insim with a community there.

Wow, I've been missing in action for about a week or actually more and all this happens...

Okay, I have now tried to catch up a little with what the hell went on and am still rolling my eyes at the insanity of it all.  I have decided I don't want to be any part of a site that is run by Walt or any other Walts for that matter and plan on pulling my creations off as soon as I can.  Unfortunately being that it's end of month for me I have run my bandwidth into the ground and don't have the resources to do that as yet.  I plan as soon as my bandwidth is restored in a few days to remove all my files and delete the threads (mainly from Bloom and Warlokks guest sections).

As far as a mirror site run by someone that is known within the Sims2 and or Modding community, I am all for that.  Be it Pes or Delphy they would both know what they are doing.

I must go back to reading more now on the situation as it's a lot for me to catch up on.

In this age of Jack Thompsons, where some people consider skins with nipples and any hint of body hair pr0n, sister sites like ISA and SexySims2 are necessary for anyone who wants a hint of realism in their game.

I've got just about all of jwilson5's stuff and I've been hitting the community genetics section trying to save all the custom skintones I can. But lthe server hasn't been very cooperative for me, either.  :P

I went MIA for a few months due to nursing school and I dropped in to catch up on the juicy gossip and see what might actually be the shitstorm of the year. I've lurked at Insim maybe even longer than I have been lurking here, and it makes me sad to see that it's been taken over by a complete and total d-bag. And worse: a creepy, momma's boy d-bag.  :'(

The "get over it" comment was especially sensitive. My jaw hit my keyboard on that one. I can only assume that Walt and Thoma$$ are brothers.

I just finished that one

I've decided my simmies don't like Walt either:
(http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5113/nowaltdu2.jpg)
Get it here (http://www.sublimesims.net/buymode/obj_skadi_nowalt.zip)

Finished jwilson or community genetics?

Has anyone started on bloom's adult stuff?

Ok, who just posted as "Walt." on insim? The pix were seriously creepy.  Ick!

J wilson lol

I don't think so. Do it! I was going to if no one else picked it up, but I'm still doing Warlokk.

No idea, but I was simultaneously LOLing and making the D: face.

That's basically what happened at my last job. Of course, the "old guy in a suit" was the rep from the company that was handleing the bankruptcy liquidation sale...

Me too JMZ. Full of win. The verbage, not the pix, that is.


*edited to clarify

 

Anyone snap a shot so the rest of dont have to wait around until the site lets us see it?  (please with rum on top).

Combining what I hope is becoming my regular Friday night BBS tease with a Walt tease. But you probably need to be quick (http://tinyurl.com/5accdj)

Paden, hon, can I convince you to share that screen cap for some rum & cookies?   :D

I got a cap of it, but can't figure out how to post it without half of it getting cut off.... I know I suck, lol.

Here is a link to the cap in my album.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo24/SmeagolShay/Screencaps/MWSnap820.jpg (http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo24/SmeagolShay/Screencaps/MWSnap820.jpg)

Oh my.  ::)

*throws rum & cookies to Smeagol*

Oh my gods.....that's priceless.

Eeewwww! Why oh why did I click?

Maybe cruel but it's so funny I don't care. Thanks for posting the screen cap link.

Glad to assist.   ;D

Pass the eye bleach please  :D

Oh my! That -is- priceless.

You girls are naughty.

oh lord, Smeagol, you're evil.. :-X

Rohina, that BBS post is a thing of beauty..  ;D

I've got the pix, but that was not Walt. If it was, do you think he would have made it out with his ass intact?

Looks like there is still one Admin over there batting for Walt.

Oh and i dont know if anyone else posted this link but someone on the sims 2 community found this link: http://www.dirtcheapadvertising.com/rlm/salespage/index.asp   Scroll down. It has Walt's name there. Sleazy right?

No, I certainly wouldn't imagine he would.  ;)

 :D I laughed out loud.

I heard about the Walt. thing from my younger cousin, but by the time I got to the computer it was burninated. I lol'ed, and honestly, I wonder if they'd post again. I'm also conflicted. I'm torn between wanting to see the last of the post and being so glad that I didn't.

Ya one of the admins is closing the threads down before they "descend into anarchy". Oh noes!!  Someone didn't get the memo.

I actually think that's not a bad idea. I get the feeling everyone had a chance to vent and provide insights and information, anything new would just be repeats.

Any admin with time on their hands should be making themselves busy deleting the forums!

anyone who thinks that I'm batting for Walt can go fuck themselves right now

Insim is my home, I don't give a shit whether you guys like or not, or think we're all dweebs or not ... or whatever the hell else you think ... we've worked damn hard to keep that site going over the past year and whilst it's still around we're *trying* to keep things as normal as we can

think you can do a better job? then go fucking do it

Well ya I know it's probably the adult and mature thing to do but, but, but it's anarchy and that's hard to find on a cool slightly damp Fri. evening.

(http://pic16.picturetrail.com/VOL646/2837408/20739150/345074301.jpg)

Insim is down again, just when I had the time to start downloading things  :-\

Is that what it is. I am over at adult and it has taken ten minutes for my download popup and it still hasn't done it.

Blame Pes, he's trying to make cheese toasties again.

Hope he gets the stuff first this time.

Is it Pescado or is one of the admins shutting it down right now to stop the downloading spree?

Tell me about it, I managed to accidentally click on a thread I had read through before and screwed myself out of seeing anything new because of a single mis-click. The reality seems to be Grandpa is limiting access or something, which just makes him look even more incompetent to me. If he was wise (yes, I know he isn't; lets pretend for a minute) he would just shut down all access and accept that he's screwed. Alternately he could just do what has been said at least 46 million times in every forum in our community and relinquish this steaming pile of crap to one of the big dogs and just fade away...like a nasty sunburn.

I just hope he realises he only stops it for a while. Those that want to go will, and he has no right to hold on to their creations

Y'all need to stop downloading so I can do it. Otherwise the entire cheezserver locks up.

You know, this may not be the most popular position, but I sort of worry about the 12s over at Insim. Mature members can migrate to places like GoS, MATY and here, but I really doubt any of the younger members is going to feel welcome at any of those places. And I'd feel sad for them if they had to go to BBS, that's just too cruel. I really feel for the mods and loyal members of Insim, but I know Insim was quite welcoming and patient with it's younger members too. I hope the 12s are going to be okay when all is said and done...

Pescdo, do tell us when It's okay to start again. If it comes back this time, that is.

Didn't he say in a post that he was going to be away, due to other engagements, for Thanksgiving?  I got the impression, he wasn't around right now and had left the Mods. and Admins to deal with his bombshell.

@Devilfish, is there anyway they can be notified, if Pescado puts up another site so that they may go to that one?  That way at least, they will be able to have somewhere; other than the BBS, where they can call home.

yep, he's dropped his shit storm and walked away to leave us picking up the pieces

.....

oh wait ... I have deja-vu right about now

I'm sorry eledhel, this cannot be easy and I do feel for the members that are presently there.  Sadly, the only thing that I can think of, is exactly what the creators are already doing, taking their things and leaving.  I'm really hoping that another site can be put together, so that the Insim members do have a nice place to call home agian, without Walter and he idiocy.

Plenty of ways. It just needs to wait until I can finish DOING it.

Pescado's broken it again, I can't get in to the site ....   ;D

I don't envy you at all right now. Just from what I've been reading on other forums it's hard to imagine the confusion over there right now.

I am staying away from Insim so as not to suck up the much-needed bandwidth :P

Ya know, I gotta hand it to her man.  Rohina+BBS= Pure WIN!!

 ??? I missed that, with all the crazy going on. Linkage?

you guys are going great  i have  not been able to get into insim since yesterday

NONE of us is batting for Walt, we just don't want shit like that up on the forum. And I second the fuck you very much if you think we are. That motherfucker owes us for keeping that goddamn place alive, even if it is a home we love. I have many homes on the net, the few places where I spend my time and post. We've been done shit and we want this bastard to come clean about it! Among other things!!

no no i meant its great that the community is taking a stand against this  its so wrong on so many levels!!!

 here (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.131,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23&threadID=cb7ee6c16a2c42f3065464e7d41e98d6&directoryID=131&startRow=1)

I was referring to something that someone else had posted a page or so back, but it's hard to get in cause everyone is so quick on their keyboards today/tonight!!

Everyone who took a stand and stripped that site clean of their things, are buhtphucking him. Thats taking a stand.

I'm sorry if this already has been posted (I don't believe it has) or if it's out of bounds but I have this habit when it comes to creepy-people on the internet. I run them through Google to see what I can find about them and boy howdy, Walt is busy on the interwebs. I used the location on his profile at InSIM as a cross-reference as well as his last name in my search and I'm 99% sure that (1% margin of error) that is the Walt.

Take this article he wrote: http://www.nolanchart.com/article3401.html (http://www.nolanchart.com/article3401.html). Laugh or cry, I did the former.

Oh, yeah - that's just one of his many somewhat disturbing rants posted about the web. He calls himself a businessman, but in fact, his degree is in Poly Sci, and every website he touches has his political propaganda slathered all over it.

you missed his "hotties for Ron Paul"   :P  http://www.nolanchart.com/article660.html

Wow, that's pretty sick. I'll have the latter please. This man makes me very unhappy.


Well, that sort of kills any doubts I had about the man's intelligence. Thanks Uncle Walt, I understand now!

No, I saw that one. I just thought the "Global Warming is Good!" article was more telling of his mental health.

See, you love me when I use my evil powers to spork your enemies.

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/uglybutt/winsauce.png)

That ought to be "Whinesauce" when it comes to people like Walt.

I like his 4 star story best:
http://www.stories-by-email.com/story.asp?StoryID=1

I want to say something particularly scathing about this, but I can't get past the first sentence...

Holy crap, is there no end to this asshat's infamous over bloated ego?


ETA: Where is retroactive birth control when you need it?

Well, I wouldn't say supporting Ron Paul is -that- horrible - Ron Paul stuck me as being an idealist, and horribly naive, but not as evil or as icky as a lot of politicians.  What I saw, anyway.

But I object to being called a 'Greenie' by some dork who fails at history AND science.  I mean, come on - Global Warming -is- good?!?!

It just made me feel bad for Ron Paul.   :-[

I wonder if he realised that a horde of people would be googling his name and digging up all this stuff about him.  Makes me feel a little bad for him... but only a little. :)

Well of course, credit where credit is due.  And your team is delivering straight up lulz.


I take it you stalkers have all seen this?

You know, I dont feel sorry for him anymore. He ignored us, so whatever people dig up on him shows me proof of him being a douchebag.

mywiz.org.........  my wiz ??     

What's wrong with supporting Ron Paul? *I* supported Ron Paul!

I gotta say Rohina has really outdone herself this time. Funniest thing I've seen on the BBS evar!

He's a nutjob who thinks evolution shouldn't be taught in schools.

I agree, Redisenchanted, that thread is pure lulz.  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.  Nice one, Rohina.
 

*Hi everybody*...

Like we/i - uhm, didn't knew that?

Holy shit, he looks like the Chicken Lady on Kids in the Hall.

"Bawwwk, I love my gravel and groats, gravel and groats!!"

I have not heard this position. Are you referring to the doctored clip about his evolution views?

God damn it...they freakin deleted the thread and i was only halfway through reading it when i accidentally closed out. A lot of people were clueless; which is pretty sad and that wal-mart bullshit...wow they really had no idea who walt was did they. oh well it was pretty funny and i wish i couldn't finished it.

Damn the real world. Did anyone get screencaps of the Rohina/BBS thread?

If you got that far down, you were pretty much done.  I was taking a screenshot and couldn't finish before they removed it.  Sorry.

I got caught up all the LULZ only got the first post

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b212/FierceKiten/Too%20Funny/ScreenShot015.jpg

OT....Hey Snarky  :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*

I warned you it would probably get zorched. There was a thread of people talking about it, as well.

Here's the thread: http://www.mediafire.com/?qjvwodz9zzv

I've managed to save it before it got zapped, although some posts are missing as I forgot to save it in its final state before it got zapped.

Thanks anonomus...I was hoping someone got a copy although I think some of the ending is missing. Although, from what it seemed everybody was getting bitchy as the thread went on and the comedy went away so you pretty much got all the good stuff.   ;D

Nice touch with the eye patch there thedom.

Yay thanks for the download. Pes maybe you should just download a little bit at a time. More or less focusing on downloads, then the forum part. Even though you probably are already doing this. So it will stop breaking. :P

Lol, thanks  ;)

Damn it! And I'd just gotten to the point where I'd forgotten how stupid people on the BBS are! Curses! >:( :D

And what the hell was that bit about Sam Walton?

Thanks, DecoraChroi and anonomus. Rohina sinks the Waltanic and the S.S. BBS with the same torpedo. Classic.

Hey, AW. Good to to see you around again.

I know those people are such idiots...Sam Walton...Wtf?? Rohina said her name was "Walt" and yet those morons start talking about Wal-Mart and Sam Walton. Oh well it was funny when the people who actually knew what was going on posted.

Walt here. I found you, you demons! I found you by sacrificing children from the BBS to God Money. I really should have used the blood of freesite owners but as I know exactly ballsacks about this community I don't know where to get any. Moving on...


I have come to believe that you are trying to steal Insimenator, which I own - and all the content and members, which I also own - from me, who it rightfully belongs to because I paid for it. Theft is illegal, but with the piratesque frippery tossed around here I suppose you enjoy stealing things.

Well, I'm buying Mod The Sims 2. That is RIGHT. I can fuck you in more holes now! My enormous penis can now violate you doubly. Well, until I purchase this site, and as many of these magical "Forums" as I can. You people, with your rights and needs and moral convictions. Hah! It's all about money. My MOTHER CAN TELL YOU THAT. Get over it.


What are you doing, reading this? MONEY. GO MAKE THINGS FOR ME, SO I CAN CASH IN.

Well now that you have control of MTS2 is the future going to look bright?   ;)

It's going to look bright, indeed. I'm thinking of replacing those annoying pop-up ads with ones that blink, and talk, and move - they'll get more attention, more clicks, and more revenue. And, since the site really isn't making money - get this, I've got a BRILLIANT idea for making special gifts for people who donate a certain amount. Plus, as an added feature, I'm really considering removing the "community" aspect. You creator people don't need to be bullshitting, but making things instead.

Oh yes, the future is so bright - I've got to wear my 500$ shades.

You sir, are a fuck twat. Congratulations.

1. We are not "stealing" Insimenator. You are "destroying" insimenator. Period. Look at how many creators that we did not "convince" to leave. They left because of your dumb ass. Congratulations on trying to not make yourself look like the bad guy.  ::) Plus if you actually really the front page of the booty you might get a clue as to why what we do in not stealing, and why it hasn't been shut down. Educate yourself before you spew your word diarrhea at us please.

2. I do not want you to fuck any holes. My mother taught me better than to screw trash. And why would Delphy sell you Mod The Sims 2? Gives us a logical answer and I might feel a little bit of belief in my heart, then just realize that your IQ is so low that if was gas used to power piss ant's motorcycle around the inside of cheerio, the ant would fail before he starts.

3. Enormous penis? Right. Guys who need to brag obviously are very lacking.

4. Purchase PMBD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh. I know for a fact Pes would not sell this or MATY in a hundred years. Kepp bluffing smalls.

5. Are you Thomass? Seriously dude. Money can't buy happiness. And with  your attitude, InSimenator will go down the hole. Wait it already has.

I can't wait until you phail so hard, so you get fucked by your own "enormous" penis.

The way things are going, there won't be much left of Insim to steal.  Holy shit...blinkies!  We love blinkies!  OMG...and special gifts.  Walt, you have saved us.   :P

ETA:  Missbonbon, I believe it's a joke.  ;)  However, the last line had me cracking up.

 

Yes Sir, I'll go get started right now!!

Ok wait I don't actually make anything.

I'll just send all my mone......ok wait no, I don't have any of that either I gave it all to Peggy.

How bout if I just show you my boobs?

Dang!!!  I don't have have boobs.

Ok wait wait wait. Can I borrow someones boobs just for like two minutes? I promise I won't get them dirty or anything.

I CAN HAZ BLINKIES NAO!!!!

Ack! And I was hoping I would get to tell him off.  :'( Eh I shall use this Walt sock puppet for my amusement then.

I thought it was serious...until he said he's buying MTS2.  Then I laughed so hard I damn near woke my kids.   ;D

Walt can go fuck himself anyway.

kenmtl.....priceless.  Almost made me want to lend you my boobs.  

Same here. But obviously I did not find it funny. My anger over his stupidity got the best of me.

I don't think he's Walt for some reason.
I don't know why but it's not him. He doesn't know about the BBS.

You people need to tell the difference.

Edit: It's not him, it's a sockpuppet pretending to be him. You guys phail at recognizing the joke!

He would be an absolute idiot to come here and pull that kind of shit.  When quite a few of the admins, creators and mods are members here.   However, it would be a lot of fun to kick him around a bit.  



 

I actually woke my cat from laughing so hard, but I could tell it was a joke strait off. The probable truth is that Walt made his ridiculous announcement thinking the community would be all happy about the upcoming changes and then he went off for the holiday. I bet he has no idea that the site has exploded and everyone has jumped ship.

I thought the whole I own the content and members thing seemed even too delusional for him.  But I've been wrong before!  lol

Did anyone look at his profile?  And his e-mail? rofl

raped@insimenator.net

ETA:  Misread your post HL.  Sorry for the blond moment.  :P

If anyone cares, I have the post that the bogus Walt put up at InSIM. It's in two parts because it was kind of large and I'll put it up on Photobucket or something tomorrow, if I don't just rar it up and post it to Media Fire.

I would go check his profile but I can't get on the fucking site since it's been down for like 2 hours.

Umm I was the only one that phailed because I really think this guy is dumb, and I thought he was dumb enough to come here. (Hey it's happened before!) Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect and has a perfect sense of humor either.  ::)

No, that's Joke Walt's email at "Insim". Wow, this thread is turning into a terrible Laurel and Hardy routine. :P

True, but make sure you reread things before jumping to conclusions ok.

Well thank you armywife. At least ONE person here was kinda close to considering thinking about almost being willing to take under advisement at least the possibility of an option to help me out. As for the rest of you stingy boob hoarders, why i outta.......

Or I could have just slipped and I admitted I was wrong for it. Look at how many times things have been misinterpreted here. Ok said it was my bad and admitted it.


I could go buy you some bewbies, but I'm sure my boyfriend wouldn't appreciate me lending mine out.

Well i don't have boobs since I'm a guy but I can lend you my wonderful nipples. lol

Its so much easier to jump to conclusions I find. Seriously there is enough confusion over the whole situation without fake Walts running around making things more confounding.

lol Well Missbonbon I almost ripped Walt apart, but the Absolut is slowing my senses and reaction just a bit.  ;)

Lol. Mind sharing? All I've got here is Kahlua and no milk for it.  :'( Plus I'm out of vodka as well. But my roomie has stocked out fridge full of shitty beers so even if I did have vodka/milk I would have no room for them.

kenmtl, you can use mine for the next two days, but then I need them back cause I have to go into town to get some stuff and I look funny with a flat chest.

Yes. Offerings of breasts? That's a good start. Oh, I've a fantastic idea! I'm so brilliant. Why don't you women, with your breasts, take pictures of them! That would be a magnificent gift for the people who buy memberships at Insim Adult.

I've also been considering ordering someone to edit the Insimenator thing. I'd love it, if it charged a credit card every time it was downloaded, and every time it was used (per component, of course.) I'm sure your hacking people can manage this. Get on it, now.

I also want your souls, a Heath bar, and some more money. Also, I heard about a Nuke Family server? I want to buy that, so I'm going to go look for information.