[Automagix]

Hi,
After being a "silent" visitor to the BEA for 20 months now, and contributing to its forums for 8 months,
I have made up my mind that time has come to utter some criticism, too. It is quite easy to praise the
people who have done well around here, and to be quiet otherways. But what I've seen today is
such that I prefer to ask openly if someone is taking me (and the other surfers) for a fool here. This
is not a "flames" message, as I don't want to insult any one at the BEA, I will just cling to the facts.

What happened? Yesterday I made a round-trip visiting all free galleres that are listed at the BEA menu
page, to see if something new was available. While some morphers/artists had very much to offer (I
want to give kudos to BAGallery here, especially), others gave only 3 or 4 full-size pictures for download.
Well, it's ok, I can understand this, as I'm not a paying member here.
But then I came across "BigDreams free gallery" and found - NOTHING!
There are exactly 9 thumbnails (about 50 x 100 pixel) and one bigger picture showing multiple
thumbnails (a collage). And that's it. The End. Finito. Basta. Zilch.
See for youself at:  http://www.bearchive.com/~Bigdreams/

I really don't want to use rough words here, my intention is just to make the BEA a "better place" for
all users. So I simply want to ask these questions:
 - What sense does it mean to offer such a "minimalistic" gallery of thumbnails?
 - Is the artist still active, or has he - maybe - retired, leaving unfinished work?
 - Is it useful for the BEA moderators to accept this free gallery as it is? Actually, as
     I understand it, the free galleries should be an advertising to attract new (paying) members?

Alas, we have also seen in other places of economy people who were not capable of selling
a product well (independently of the product's quality). From what I can assume looking at the
thumbnails, these pictures would be quite worth while looking at them at fullsize.

 SO PLEASE, BigDreams, BE SO KIND TO SHOW THEM TO THE BE COMMUNITY, THANK YOU!

Never mind,
- Automagix -
     

[Zorro]

 "But then I came across "BigDreams free gallery" and found - NOTHING!"

I just went there, to the free gallery of his and every thumbnail that I clicked on, it showed the full size picture.

What may have happened, when you upload the pictures to your gallery, there is a folder called "thumbs" I believe. BigDreams, may have uploaded his pictures there instead of his designated areas. He has corrected this now I guess as it all seems to work.

I had done this same thing when I first got my Galleries, not knowing that the uploads automatically go in to the "thumbs" area on their own.

I suggest you contact the Gallery owners, as it were, in a PM or email, and just let them know what problems you are having first. If this is not what happened with BigDreams, it could of been a site issue and not his fault.

I used to overlook my "Free" gallery all the time, but what I chose to do now is when I upload my pics to my Member's area, I pick a couple of pictures to put in the Free one.

Cut a guy a break. Not all of us are computer geniuses and/or don't know beans about HTML! (Like myself for instance).  

   

[Automagix]

Zorro,
thanks for your prompt reaction. It has at first dumbfounded me, because in the browser
I normally use (Netscape 4.79) the thumbnails on the mentioned page are still "dead",
i.e. no links. Your message caused me to try the page with MS Internet Explorer 5.5,
and voila! The thumbnails became hyperlinks, as you describe it.

As you allude to in your message, I (for my profession) should be able to explain the
effect, but in fact I cannot. What I can say is that it is most probably a bug in Netscape's
CSS rendering engine. If I disable CSS, the page shows OK. *shrug*

Guess I can tell from this incident that Imaginos is really right when he keeps telling
everybody to rather use Mozilla instead of Netscape.... and I *will* do so sometime in
the next months    BTW: Does Imaginos have a clue how to fix the problem, maybe?

Another point is the question if my above text belongs into this forum. I agree that it would
also have been possible to contact BigDreams directly (whom I don't know nor have
ever seen posting something in the forums). But if you look at Imaginos' introductory
text to the Feedback forum: http://forum.bearchive.com//showflat.php?Cat=&Board=feedback&Number=26939&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
you'll see that I used it just the way it has been designed, that is, to give feedback to an
artist about his gallery, isn't it?

But I admit that I have perhaps made a little much fuss about (nearly) nothing.
I promise to do better next year

So let's have a peaceful and merry Xmas, altogether!
- Automagix -

P.S.: I'll be offline for some days, back online at January 3 (maybe somewhat earlier).
P.P.S.: BigDream's fullsize pix are not in the thumbs subdirectory - I guess the whole
 problem is not to blamed at BigDream at all, as he used a BEA stylesheet...

[tndvrs]

happy day's to you my friend.
Un viel spass bei heilig-abend.  

[Imaginos]

Unfortuantly I don't. I dislike using css' just for that reason...they are not compatable with all browsers and they are easy to mess up, really easy to mess up.

Each gallery owner has the "choice" as to what they want to put in their free area. The limitations are more due to bandwidth then anything else, after all non paying members don't support the site in any way as far as deferring that bandwidth cost.

That being said Gallery Owners are welcome to keep adding to their free areas or rotating content in and out as they see fit.

Some gallery owners have taken to placing smaller images of what they have in their free area as an incentive to join, others have place a few full sized images as incentive and yet others will just add an image now and then.

I personally think that the site is worth joining for the content and I am doing what I can to keep the gallery owners as active as possible. No one likes to see stagnant galleries.  For instance people anticipate another update from Rocketeer and really all the gallery owners.

Recently JS' gallery had some content made free, more then normal for a Living Legend, TJ's gallery had a whole new section rotated into it, Union Graphics will have a free area soon with some images and stories, etc..

I plan on doing a Year In Review to show people just how many changes have happened here at the BEA for around the First of 2003.

Imaginos

[Automagix]

tndvrs: Ich wünsche Dir das gleiche, vielen Dank!