@Ainsle - my bad. I think I am just going cross-eyed. I do know that when I did a search for a wood based design here at OD, the results were over 50% from freecsstemplates and/or some variant on that name. Maybe I got the very similar names confused ... but I do find it hard to believe one person is so creative and so dedicated as to crank out one, two, or more templates a day ... but hey, if its one person .. I bow to their "work ethic" ;)

yea, but i think you are missing the point. Any open source community should (by definition) support Open source, and one of the ways to do it is supporting:

- firefox
- Open Office
- Linux

And, specially for a design community:

- Gimp
- Inkscape

But hey, that's just my opinion :P

@XSQueen: of course they are more than 1 individual. So, what is their CC license protecting? The template creators or a comercial website? Or is it just a farse?

As far as polling goes I think it should be up to just the mods and admins. They can vote within a a few days (publically here for all to see) and we can act on that decision.

At the end of the day the admins are here do act and do something and if they can't or won't then let those admins and mods who are active step up and take control.

@ Chris and Joe, How about handing over your roles to to a mod here in the interim, and step down. You're long absences on many topics are not good for this site.

@ Sean, Just make a decision. You're trying your best but if the others are playing games then do your own thing, and if the other 2 try to object i think they'll have a hard time justifying it - I for one will support you.

@ the mods, contact Chris and Joe and offer to take over their roles and/or voice you objection.

Pete

How about race related? religious related? political related?

What do we define as 'Porn'?

it's too ambiguous, This site isn't for designers making money from this site by way of their links, it's about free, freedom and open source.

If designers are so desperate for bread on the table and they rely on OD to feed them then what service are we providing here? A link soup kitchen for mal nourished designers?

If we allow these type of links we will be, forever and a day, be questioning/arguing these type of links.

Let them link to the designers website and let the designers website fill themselves up with links, not 'our' site.

Posted By: perthmetroIf designers are so desperate for bread on the table and they rely on OD to feed them then what service are we providing here? A link soup kitchen for mal nourished designers?

that seems a little over the top, and somewhat selfish. anyway, if the link can be removed and nofollow is added to the design preview, what does it matter if there are sponsored links in a template?

be careful when restricting what designers are allowed to do - templates are not posted here for money. if a designer was interested in money it would be far more profitable to spend all available time on commercial designs, or entering templates in design competitions. so please treat the designers well, as they are providing a free service without which this community could not exist.

ainslie, i completely agree with you. personally i am not a supporter of the sponsored links, but i won't lose sleep if we don't end up forbidding them. i can see why people think it's inappropriate for this site, but on the other hand i don't feel that a designer including sponsored links is doing anything wrong or is violiating the 'spirit' of open source templates.

pleasing everyone is impossible, so a majority decision (preferrably with everyone in the community voting, failing that the moderators are the voice of reason among us and they should have the final say ) but a solution needs to be reached quickly.

The reality is getting a reliable poll up where any reasonable sized proportion of the whole membership base can participate is next to zilch.

We need the next best thing that has a slight chance in getting done... mods and admins are by their position a good section to poll from... we more or less trust them. Exactly was was said before.. we need leadership first and foremost.

Let Sean make a decision until all the mods can be given a vote/say then lets just go with that decision.

So, what are the choices in regard to links and licences, lets list them all...

1.
2.
3.
4.

I'd rather spend my efforts supporting Sean than trying to get Chris and Joe onboard - until we vote in a new committee then It's really just a one man show in regard to getting things done, so I think we should back Sean in his efforts to bring about any decisions either way.

thanks for the update sean :)

Sorry guys I've been having problems retrieving email lately and had my main site(s) moved onto a different server and it wasn't as quick or as smooth as I would have hoped!

If anyone wants to take my place as an admin please speak up and if people are happy with the replacement then I will step down.

Currently I am mainly handling daily design approvals, rejections and updates at least twice daily, and helping new members register (the email system doesn't work 100% and people quite often don't receive a confirmation email so email an admin/moderator) by manually activating the account and setting a random password through phpMyAdmin for them to login and change.

Anyway, I thought the whole point of this new Community. Driven. site was that it wouldn't need to rely on 1 , 2, 3, or 13 peoples decisions, and that it would be a majority vote.

As an admin I don't feel I should have anymore say over things like "sponsered links" than anyone else! If you guys can come to a sensible decision and the majority of people have had input into it and happy with the result then make it.

RE the sponsered links, I made my point perfectly clear about it. I don't care if they are in templates or not - under one condition. That the end-user must be able to remove it, there cannot be any restrictions on them.

Reading the comments it's developed a bit further, e.g. allow them but have rel nofollow set in previews on the openesigns.org domain, which sounds great. Any ideas on implementing this? Currently a user uploads the zip file, files inside it are unzipped in a folder on the server. So how would be automate this? Doing a rel nofollow on every link would be pretty simple, but how would you figure out the sponsered link(s)? Would this need to be manually done for each template?

Chris, with such a large community it will impossible to have a simple vote and get a majority vote. The chances are too high in it being skewed by donkey votes.

Elections need to be held and the mods and admins need to be the representatives that vote for this broader community... members of parliament if you will... or one needs to 'qualify' to vote. If the community likes the philosophy of a particular mod/admin then they can vote them in.

Leadership is a very important part of this site due to the very broad worldwide base we have.

That issue aside I don't want sponsored links full stop - like I said, we will need to argue for ever and a day on what is and isn't 'appropriate' links. even with a nofollow the designs will start to be affected - we will start to see designs made specifically for lots of link placements (more blogs!!!) and less designs that are original and filled with content and styling etc.

Very ordinary designs with a huge amount of links will clog up the queue.

So maybe let's compromise between you and me. How about a maximum of 2 sponsored links with the nofollow thing and if 2 or more mods or admins don't like the links (due to being 'inappropriate' according to them) then they (the links) can be removed by those mods (mods need more control by the way).

This addresses the problem of too many links and those links being inappropriate for display this site. And of course the links can be removed by the user.

What this method does do is allow those admins and mods voted in to have a mandate to exercise some leadership and keep this site flowing over times like this, instead of all talk and no action.

Pete

PS, why on earth do all 3 admins not have equal access to every part of the site?

Posted By: perthmetroPS, why on earth do all 3 admins not have equal access to every part of the site?

@perthmetro: We actually do have the same access (Joe, Christopher and myself).

Posted By: fernbapSomeone had to say it.....

I think it's been said lots of times but just in different ways.

Does anyone think my proposal above is a suitable compromise?

I personally do not think a poll would be fair because (correct me if I am wrong - which I doubt) but the amount of 'downloaders' far exceeds the amount of designers on this site and especially those that participate in forum discussions.

Some may say "exactly, so the majority should get their way" but the majority aren't the ones that this site couldn't live without. The site just would not exist without the designers.

I agree with Christopher that as a community, decisions should be made by all of us and not just admins but I think in this circumstance it just would not be fair on the designers.

As the admins are a mixture of both designers and developers I would feel happier leaving it to them to decide.

Oh and, I would also like to praise Christopher and LobsterMan... Yes, Sean participates in discussions a lot but LobsterMan and Christopher do a lot behind the scenes (developing new code/approvals and email support) that keep this site running. Just because they don't speak up doesn't mean they're sitting on their arses doing nothing. Thank you guys :)

Posted By: SeanI was tired of pulling almost all the weight... and it's why I've considered stepping down as an admin here on OD. So many people ranting and raving and a few of the core people who can help make changes are not chiming in...

Yes, they can make the changes and they more than likely will be the ones making the changes once this decision is made. You are not the only one working hard to keep this community alive.

This isn't meant to sound spiteful so apologies if it does, but other than participating in forums Sean, what exactly is your role as administrator on OpenDesigns? Because it does seem that Christopher and LobsterMan are the only ones that do the coding and approvals... Even perth got confused and assumed you just don't have the same privileges, which you do.

You would find that many do not want sponsored links full stop.

Even though this comes after your post, christopher, It's not really aimed at you. It's kind of like a shotgun. Im firing it and hoping it hits the right people in the face.

which is why we need to stick to what this site was founded on. The community. Let the community decide. Who cares if not everyone is a designer? They're still part of the community and their vote is just as valid as someone who dishes out 50 templates a year.

I can't believe anyone wants to move away from that.

@Christopher: No. I expect the community to be on the basis that it was founded. Run by the community for the community. I have nothing against suggestions but where is the democracy.

Why does it seem that nobody is prepared to accept a vote?

Why do you Christopher, support having sponsored links in templates?

Jenna, why do you speak up in support of sponsored links in templates? You have 3 templates on here. Not one has a sponsored link.

By the way here are the rules: Open Designs Rules How many suggestions do we need?

No need for language like that Pete, even if you do filter out a couple of letters with some symbols... you should be able to get point across without resorting to foul language.

Ainslie, I don't support sponsored links - not sure where you've got that idea from? As I have never said that. What I have said is I do not care whether they are allowed or not so long as there are specifics in place controlling them.

@Christopher: Sorry I got the feeling you were supporting them. I didn't mean offence.

AS I said earlier we all should be thankful for your continued efforts here on OD and we shouldn't be giving you a hard time.

Posted By: JeremyDI just don't like it. My absolute favorite thing about this site is that WE did it. we made this. Yeah, the admins did a lot of the actual site-building, but we voted for everything. I don't want the site to lose that. And just like how everyone thinks letting one sponsored link go by will open up a floodgate of spammers, I think that letting one major decision go by without a community vote will help rip up the community driven feel of the site.

Right on. I'm behind you man

Posted By: JJenZzOh and, I would also like to praise Christopher and LobsterMan... Yes, Sean participates in discussions a lot but LobsterMan and Christopher do a lot behind the scenes (developing new code/approvals and email support) that keep this site running. Just because they don't speak up doesn't mean they're sitting on their arses doing nothing. Thank you guys :)

@JJenZz: Actually I also do a lot of coding things behind the scenes as well including but not limited to SEO optimizing of code and layout. We don't always disclose it publicly for security reasons, but we do have an admin/moderator area where we discuss things. The 3 of us admins have done a lot at various times for the backend code and development of OD.

@Pete: Joe did the custom code for the contest stuff and I didn't back it up before it was removed last time which is why I don't have it on hand.

Posted By: JeremyDwhich is why we need to stick to what this site was founded on. The community. Let the community decide. Who cares if not everyone is a designer? They're still part of the community and their vote is just as valid as someone who dishes out 50 templates a year.

I care that not everyone is a designer and I am sure many other designers would agree. We have no chance in this 'vote'. Even if EVERY SINGLE designer on this site voted to allow sponsored links we would still loose the vote since we are not the majority. In that situation, the things we'd want would be completely ignored and we could all leave and this community would hit a brick wall.

I am not saying all designers would vote to allow sponsered links, but this is pretty much a lose/lose situation for us.

I recall a few weeks or maybe months back when people moaned about the lack of refreshing, new, unique templates appearing on this site and I can tell you now... that is NOT going to change if you restrict the designers so much. Why should they spend so much time creating something that extra bit special for nothing in return. Believe me, designers that are capable of creating something like that do not submit here purely to help the community.

Posted By: ainslieJenna, why do you speak up in support of sponsored links in templates? You have 3 templates on here. Not one has a sponsored link.

I'm not going to kick up a fuss if one out of 5 downloaders remove my link and I don't care to add sponsored links to my templates (don't get me wrong, I prefer people to keep my link otherwise I wouldn't submit here) because I have a fulltime job paying good money so do not have to worry about things like that. However, some/a lot of the designers here do not have that luxury.

Some designers here don't have a fulltime/stable income and so one month they could earn thousands, the next ... nadda. This is why I think it is unfair for the community to expect them to spend time creating stuff for free with nothing in return.

Yes we have hobbiests submitting designs but I have yet to see a jaw dropping design submitted here from a hobbiest and one never will be if you stop the freelancers from pocketing a little from their submissions.

I totally stand by the idea of allowing sponsored links but disallowing the requirement of them being kept in templates after download. I am also happy with the idea of rel="nofollow" in the design previews.

It seems I am only one of a few designers here speaking up about this, which just goes to show how much of a minority we are here and how little the designers are active in this forum. It would be unfair for this vote to be so heavily 'downloader' biased IMO.

Posted By: perthmetroAlso on the issue of supporting the links - you sort of need to not support the sponsored links to show that you not a supporter. It's a bit hard to be a fence sitter, either links are IN (in some form) or they are OUT.

Lol... Christopher is just trying to keep everyone happy here, he is actively trying to make a useful decision on this and just because that's his decision it does not mean he supports the use of sponsored links. He is thinking about designers and downloaders as a whole here instead of the rest of you that seem to just be thinking of your own kind.

I totally understand the frustration for downloaders that forced, unremovable sponsored links would cause, which is why I think they should be able to remove them. But seriously, having the link there and being able to remove it is not THAT much of a problem for you all to get arsey about. AND, with rel="nofollow" it would not effect the site either! It would not effect you or the site in any way but it would effect the designers to disallow the use of sponsored links in their templates alltogether. I can't help but think you're all being so selfish. Sorry.

Posted By: Sean
@JJenZz: Actually I also do a lot of coding things behind the scenes as well including but not limited to SEO optimizing of code and layout. We don't always disclose it publicly for security reasons, but we do have an admin/moderator area where we discuss things. The 3 of us admins have done a lot at various times for the backend code and development of OD.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Posted By: perthmetroI don't believe you Jen - there are designers here who don't design for a living and are here to help because they like to help. There are also designers who give their designs away with a PD licence 'cause it's their way of giving back to the world in the best way they can - how about you? Would you ever contemplate releasing a design purely for goodness sake?

I know, and i agree with that... but what I said is designers that are capabale of creating that extra special design do not do it purely to help the community. You can't honestly think they do... that's just naive.

And yes, I have submitted many designs in the past for 'goodness' sake because I enjoy helping and making people happy... but that's because I have a fulltime job. As I already said.., I do not have to worry so much about making money from this community. Others do.

Posted By: JJenZzYes we have hobbiests submitting designs but I have yet to see a jaw dropping design submitted here from a hobbiest and one never will be if you stop the freelancers from pocketing a little from their submissions.

You don't visit here much do you Jen. There's a guy called Wolfgang, he's a priest and would you believe a 'hobbyist'. He released a series of designs called Multiflex and they are all PD and they are some of the most downloaded designs in the world. They are nothing less than jaw dropping. Yours are 'nice' but i wouldn't pay for them, I've seen better PD ones here by non designers.

Don't underestimate the hobbyist.

And yes, I have submitted many designs in the past for 'goodness' sake

I dare you to release a design that is PD and doesn't have a link to your website