Will you be running it on already uploaded templates?

Let's just keep it at two links. What's the NEED to have so many? If don't limit the amount of links you'll find most the designs we get are those boring blogs with the whole lot filled with them... and here's the prtoblem with that.

Other designers come and have a look at this site and see poor quality link filled designs - We want our sites to have a wide range and not have the admins queued up with poor designs.

It will make the site look spammy and cheap and not very open source.

Let's keep it at two and if a designer wants more he can fill his own website up with them not us. And if his family goes hungry because of it then they can plead their case on the forum and ask for a donation from all the caring members here who wanted sponsored links for cash porr designers.

If we leave it to the admins to determine what is 'appropriate' then they have another responsibility to take care of , that being, deciding, discussing and justifying why design A has 32 links and design B has 23 links. If everyone has two then it will put everyone on an even par.

Designs with lots of sponsored links look trashy.

I think some people are under the impression that anything has changed as far as the type of templates coming through. Go back a few weeks before this. Whats different as far as what's permitted? nothing at all. A few weeks ago we could put as many sponsored links in our designs as we'd like. Spamming wasn't an issue then and there's absolutely no reason to think there would be now... In fact, no one noticed or cared about them until someone pointed ONE link out.

@JeremyD: As Pete pointed out, the original issue was a paid/sponsored link that couldn't be removed. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time this has ever happened... so yes, it opened the door for the conversation that's going on now...

Posted By: Sean@JeremyD: As Pete pointed out, the original issue was a paid/sponsored link that couldn't be removed. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time this has ever happened... so yes, it opened the door for the conversation that's going on now...

yeah and that issue has been taken care of. now some people want to limit the # to 2, based on the opinion that there will be spam and an abuse of the newly approved sponsored links. But I don't see why there would be an increase in spam at all. Before all of this was brought to attention, we had no issue with people spamming the hell out of templates with unlimited sponsored links. So there's no reason to think now, since other than it being brought to attention, nothing has been changed. Yes, now they're legal, but before this they were just as legal because there was no rule against them.

Just because nobody ever complained, does not mean that it was right or than nobody cared about the issue. So it is quite a valid to want to discuss the number of sponsored links that can be included in a template.

There are a large number who would rather see no links at all and they will not go away. There will even be a group that find the authors links too much!

i would just like to add this..

some of the arguments against sponsored links involve what this site will turn into - trashy templates thrown together, loaded with dozens of links, being submitted on a constant basis.
a) the adding of nofollow to preview links means that any 'link farm' templates won't affect opendesigns, nor will any of the sponsored links get any pagerank advantages from opendesigns
b) anyone who downloads one of these templates is likely to make removing all of the sponsored links their first priority, regardless of whether the template license permits them to do so.
so the overall benefit of spamming this site with 'link farm' templates = 0. therefore it likely isn't going to be done.

Posted By: ainslieWhen you look in the shop window and find the shop is full of cheap and nasty rubbish do you buy from it, or walk down the street to a shop you know and trust to sell you good quality items?

that is a matter of rejecting designs that look 'cheap and nasty', not of allowing or disallowing sponsored links.

how about a designer is only allowed to submit a certain munber of sponcored links each month or something?

Sorry I was under the impression that the adding of nofollow links would be done in php as the frame loaded, basically running through it finding the href's and adding a nofollow to it, which would make it easier to deal with it, but if it's being done once upon upload then yes I can see the problem and we'd have to return to looking at some sort of report feature.

The only other thing I would add, would be possibly having the designers link in the top frame with the download link etc, with follow.

Sorry to try and change things again just as you seem to be getting things sorted, but I really feel it's only a fair trade for designers to bump up OD's popularity with top quality designs and in return OD bump up designers with top quality link backs.

Obviously again this can be abused by putting a sponsored url into your account url, but you would only be able to do this once and unless people are seriously considering that people on here would be unscrupulous enough to sell that single link for bags of cash, based on the fact that it would be appearing on a number (considering they design alot) of high rank pages, then I don't think it would really be a problem.

As we are talking about commerce, why don't those that like sponsored links make a COMMERCIAL website, where you can place your templates with as many links as you want. You share the expenses, and use that website for commercial transactions, because that's what sponsored links are all about.

Do you know what the problem would be? Your website would look like many other websites made with that purpose in mind, and would never give you the return OD does. And, of course, would be quickly spammed with trashy templates. Then you would restrict the acceptance of the templates based on quality and lose your submitters, because quality would not be an important factor in a commercial website.

Posted By: Trin

Posted By: greg

Posted By: ainslie When you look in the shop window and find the shop is full of cheap and nasty rubbish do you buy from it, or walk down the street to a shop you know and trust to sell you good quality items?

that is a matter of rejecting designs that look 'cheap and nasty', not of allowing or disallowing sponsored links.

The point is that the allowing of sponsored links is likely to attract 'cheap and nasty rubbish'. Time will tell.

hence my original comment:

Posted By: gregi would just like to add this..

some of the arguments against sponsored links involve what this site will turn into - trashy templates thrown together, loaded with dozens of links, being submitted on a constant basis.
a) the adding of nofollow to preview links means that any 'link farm' templates won't affect opendesigns, nor will any of the sponsored links get any pagerank advantages from opendesigns
b) anyone who downloads one of these templates is likely to make removing all of the sponsored links their first priority, regardless of whether the template license permits them to do so.
so the overall benefit of spamming this site with 'link farm' templates = 0. therefore it likely isn't going to be done.

if trashy templates are going to be submitted, it wont be because of sponsored links given the new nofollow system.

A design doesn't have to be rubbish to hold sponsored links and how rubbish a design is, is all based on personal opinion anyway.

I think you are missing the point. If sponsored links were not allowed, people who make rubbish templates just to add sponsored links wouldn't care to submit at all. They would rather submit to your website.

I would rather see here poor templates submitted by well meaning but not talented amateurs than rubbish made by people who know how to do better.

And just because someone adds a sponsored link does not mean they are not 'well meaning'. They are still providing for the community just like everyone else

Let's look at this: a designer "provides" a template with sponsored links. He was payed to make it, so the template is no longer his, it belongs to the sponsor. Hence, the designer adds the sponsored link. What about the link to his own website? That means 2 owners of the same template: the sponsor and the designer. So, you issue a CC license claiming the ownership of the template by 2 different people. Hmmm.... Open Source?

Yea, but the link should be to the author or to the sponsor? Or is it legitimate to keep selling a product over and over and retaining its possession at the same time?

Posted By: JJenZzI see a heck load of what i'd class as 'rubbish' templates on here without sponsored links at all so it's not just sponsored links making people submit rubbish here.

Totally unbelievable!

If people would put more pride into what they submit, then I think we would all have a better experience.

Exactly. And putting pride in your work is doing your best. Not just do "enough for a free job". "Enough" is a commercial concept, pride has nothing to do with commerce.

ainslie...

I'm not trying to crush "hobbyist", I'm trying to crush the people that continue to put out the same crap. People who truly enjoy design get better with time.

I think you are simply looking at our statements from a different view than us. Jen and I believe in a little bit of exclusivity, and you believe in 100% acceptance.

The fact that you think we should be ashamed of ourselves leads me to believe that you don't fully understand where we are coming from. We really aren't trying to be rude or hateful or anything. Just stating that a little bit of design discretion isn't a bad thing, especially when it favors community members (As it inherently would). I doubt that this community would prefer design discretion because it is kind of against the whole "Open Designs" concept. If this were called "Awesome Free Templates" it would be REQUIRED that the designs be "Awesome".

I don't know how you feel but, although I have never met anyone on this board, I consider you all to be passionate about this field... and would suggest anyone here to one of my clients.

I don't profess to be better than thou or anything. I am willing to bet that I am somewhere in the lower half of good designers. I am just saying that things ran differently over at OSWD and they worked fine there until the labor got to be too much for FS and he gave up without handing it over to someone else.

The fact that anyone is reading this (8 pages in on a post that really isn't meant to have replies)... means that they are at least passionate about website design, and thus, I consider them a good designer.

Just thought i'd post this article re sponsored links - you could just substitute "Wordpress" for "OD website"

http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/04/12/on-sponsored-themes/