IconBuffet | Free Icons, Stock Icons, Custom Icon Design

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

zzzzzzzzzzzzz, huh? what?

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

well, I can just talk to myself then:
- Hi, how are you?

MacManX on May 19, 2007

Arrrrrr!

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

yey!!! someone online!! Hi Pirate!

eury on May 19, 2007

Reading TDavid's column. Fascinating subject. Written in greater eloquence than I had.

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

TDavid is just disrespectful, I believe. It's ok if you don't like it, but I believe he went to far...

Interesting that only pirates are online!

eury on May 19, 2007

I do believe dissent in this forum is not unfavorable. I have raised the issue of social networking here and the VIPs piled on.

I would add to the conversation that the VIPs felt personally attacked because they are paying for the product that critics calling it worthless.

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

Well, I'm a VIP and I don't feel attacked. Every person has the right to have an opinion, but why the aggressiveness? I was never into this social networking thing, until I found the buffet.

And for me, more then being worth it or not (which I think it is), I believe it is fair. I want to help the buffet to continue to grow.

But anyway...

MacManX on May 19, 2007

Pirates never sleep! Gharrr!

zzzzzz . . . arrrrr . . . zzzzzzzzz . . . arrr

eury on May 19, 2007

Some users are more savvy with marketing than others. But if you call it "Free Delivery" then set limits on "Free" then isn't that contradictory , if not ironic?

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

In your case, for example, you are not a VIP. So you are indeed receiving them for free. With limitations or not, they are still free. Don't you think?

eury on May 19, 2007

No. My presence here, as well as others, contributed to some net gain on the Chef's behalf.

An analogy here: Blockbuster continues to send me free offers on DVD rentals. I continue to take them but cancel at the end of the trial since I am very fond of the product. They continue to offer me at the chance that I will sign on. So long as there is a chance I am still living there---like I am still coming here--- then there is a chance I will sign on, however abysmal that might be.

eury on May 19, 2007

But going back to your point on Free. Free with limitation is not free. It is a compromise.

BlackBart on May 19, 2007

Morning Pirates! (at least is is in Italy!)

anti on May 19, 2007

A very good morning to you!

It is morning here on the East Coast of the US! Still dark, but technically morning.

anti on May 19, 2007

@eury, if I prepared you a free meal, and did not give you all the food I had, you would still eat free!

Steax on May 19, 2007

This place actually a lot more active than imaginable... post a public request somewhere on the forums and it's usually sent by 3 minutes (sometimes as fast as 20 seconds)

JBVisions on May 19, 2007

@ eury - No, I felt insulted because he was basically saying that we were all idiots who didn't know what we'd got ourselves into.

SuperLlamel on May 19, 2007

Rum!

AllConsoleGamers on May 19, 2007

I'm on lol you still on?

lparziale on May 19, 2007

@ JBVisions - Don't feel insulted about what others perceive as value. I gladly gave my $48 for a year's worth of selected icons I can utilize in my business. As a bonus, I get "social networking" opportunities with countless professionals I share similar traits with (web developers, designers, etc.). To me, this is worth the money.

I also think a large part of it is sour grapes for TDavid. He knocks the Chefs for making money. WOW. I think they are marketing geniuses and they have inspired me to think of creative marketing ideas for my own online endeavors. Another value add.

So, don't feel bad. Feel sad for TDavid.

iqon on May 19, 2007

TDavid has issues. MySpace grates on my nerves but I don't rant about, I simply ignore it.

@eury - how do limitations prevent IB from being free? "Free delivery", be it pizza or furniture has distance limitations. "Free samples" at the grocery store have limitations (one per customer or while supplies last). What IB offers is about as free as it gets - here's ten tokens, pick any icon set in this group and download it. An Analogy here: say the local pizza joint wanted to promote their new pirate pizza (seaweed & squid toppings) and offered a free slice to anyone who walked inside and said "Ahoy, matey". Is it really free, after all you had to drive there and they benefit when people see a crowded parking lot. By your definition this is not a free pizza. You will be hard pressed to a legal agency that agrees with you.

iconmaster on May 19, 2007

I felt insulted because he was basically saying that we were all idiots

Yup. That doesn't fly here. There are actually a lot of things we welcome disagreement on, as long as it's presented constructively and without anger.

For example, you might disagree that all sets should net you the same amount of stamps. That'd be an interesting discussion. And if nobody took it personally, it could be a fun one too.

Notice how many feature request threads don't get locked, even thrive? These all represent "disagreements" with the Buffet status quo, and that's fine -- because we disagree with the status quo too. The Buffet isn't everything we want it to be yet.

But I won't let the blog forum be a venue for badmouthing our members.

eury on May 19, 2007

All: I love the analogies y'all had coming out since I am into logical reasoning.

I think TDavid was making a case against the thin-skin this blog/forum has on criticisms. I didn't take it personally per se because I had dog in this race.

Iqon brought up MySpace, which recurred in TDavid's thread, which is locked. Two things come to mind: The chefs did not look good walking away after locking it down, it gave TDavid the mantle to deliver the point: You can't take a criticism, period.

Second, though I had no profile on the site, and never stayed there for a total of more than 30 minutes in its life, I brought up the MySpace here in my first blog thread, calling it "unsophisticated." That's the experience. It felt restrained. My point is Ib now feels less "free" than "Free."

Lpzale: He knocked the chefs on not just making money. He knocked them for making money lowsy products---hence calling the VIPs, the true consumers of the site, idiots, which prompted personal fights from JB and other VIPs.

Steax: The activeness of this site is besides the point. There was a thread here complaining about the competitiveness of this "game." It is fast if you framed the receiver's P.O.V. but if you take on the senders, some of them once griped about "snipe." I mean if there is a such a limitation on IB, this is it, the inability to cope with realistic demands.

Did MySpace delivered what its promise? Yes. It is a social networking site by definition. It even redefined the term after stealing the concept from a South Korean site. Its biggest selling point is being simple for the collective. You don't need FAQs to jump in. But here, how many pages? I saw Tamashii and the Chick compiling the Spanish Q&A.

eury on May 19, 2007

Oops, mistake: I should have wrote: "I had NO dog in this race." Where is that preview feature PHP that could free-deliver in a jiffy?

Forevagrey on May 19, 2007

well if you get shot down, you try something else, or just modify your ideas.

eury on May 19, 2007

Yuck...so many mistakes after re-read...I should have used Wordpad.

rajr19 on May 19, 2007

forevagrey, check your box, notify others :)

eury on May 19, 2007

The Chef asserted a level of unfairness so similar with Wikipedia not so long ago that ran against the site's mission. They locked down a thread. You don't do that online and not look like censors.

iconmaster on May 19, 2007

This is not a wiki. We will lock threads if they get out of hand (as on most any internet forum I've been on). Keep it friendly if you don't want it to happen here too.

eury on May 19, 2007

What's with the preemptive strike "We are not a wiki" and a threat "Keep it friendly if you don't want it to happen here too"?

Don't you have to admit that calling a forum thread---which is clearly what this is---a "blog" to play up the unorthodoxy of IB is like calling a "cat" a "dog" to play up the confusion?

Steax on May 19, 2007

The definition of "blog" on IB is a bit vague, though. They're more like full-blown discussions. I separate "Forum" from "Blog", in that in a Blog we discuss the original post, while in Forum we discuss between other people's posts.

eury on May 19, 2007

Steax: I can't tell which is which. They all lumped up below one tab: "Blkog forum" like Marrying a cat to a dog and get a catdog.

Steax on May 19, 2007

At least its called "Blog Forum" in the tab. ;)

eury on May 19, 2007

Anti: Love your food analogy. You give me food but not all of it, still free? I will say yes. I get to eat the food and no other strings attached right? If not, I would scream, "Who moved my Cheese?"

You moved my cheese when you give me the food you called free but told me to jump through a few hoops, like each iota of proteins is 3 tokens. A spoon is for 5. Food is free, I would hear you retort, but the souvenirs aren't.

That's the catch.

iconmaster on May 19, 2007

eury, you have 45 icon sets in your collection. How much did you pay for them altogether?

eury on May 19, 2007

My recollection is a bit stale on this. I think I had more than 2/3 of from the Free Delivery days.

If you want to the gross payment, I can't say how much time I spent here. If I could take the gross number and add the frustration time, which is the sum of my tort, the net is more than ideal.

eury on May 19, 2007

But let me ask you since you are the host of this party: How much should I pay?

iconmaster on May 19, 2007

Every one of those 45 sets represent hours of my time or Brian's. Any one delivery would cost hundreds of dollars if executed for a client.

So in American dollars and cents... how much have you paid for my professional hard work?

eury on May 19, 2007

I should not pay. The chefs' disclaimer hits the sweet spot of why I signed up in the first place: Free.

My point, as the chef have alluded to, is how much should we pay for things the chef claim "Free"?

Free Delivery with a cost? Isn't that oxymoronic?

robbyrice on May 19, 2007

The free deliveries are free. You don't spend a cent on them. Nobody is obligated to sign-up for a VIP account if they don't want to. You can get all the same icons if you are not VIP (although it will take longer). I think it is great that the chefs are offering these great icons at no cost whatsoever (even the tokens you get each month don't cost anything :o).

iconmaster on May 19, 2007

It's precisely because you've paid zilch for our hard work that we retain the prerogative to release our products at our own pace.

That's always been the case here. We've never promised anything more than one free set a month. That still holds today.

eury on May 19, 2007

Robby: A little divergence here. Love the avatar. Is that a directional pad on a gamepad? Looks like a cross on the first pass.

Now then, people should stop bringing up the "no obligation on VIP sign-up," that is a non-issue. Such is not disputed here.

eury on May 19, 2007

Nowhere did I mentioned you should rush out any product. Did the Chef just made yet another preemptive remark?

Since the topic has not moved beyond the payment, would signing up VIP makes one a vote-casting member---a shareholder indeed---to the future implementation of the site? Is that where a user gets their "prerogative?"

robbyrice on May 19, 2007

@eury - my avatar is actually the cross from Oslo Easter :o) Glad you like it.

eury on May 19, 2007

Ah then, the "pay zilch for our hardwork" premise. IB must have an internal traffic tool. Does that have a download stat for each member?

If so, can the Chef kindly remind me how many time I downloaded any item? I could recall Marseilles Cafe, and the recent Pirate to make the avatar.

The "pay zilch" premise sounds like there is a reaping of benefits without remittance of a sale.

eury on May 19, 2007

Remember this? "While our Free Delivery icons are made available for no charge, they are protected by copyright. We simply ask that you not resell or redistribute the icons on their own. They're free, and they should stay that way."

The "you've paid zilch for our hard work" logic runs afoul with IB's very own disclaimer.

robbyrice on May 19, 2007

I don't see the point you're trying to make. It is normal that the icons here be copyrighted. The chefs don't want other people taking credit for their hard work. I don't think anyone can blame them for that.

eury on May 19, 2007

Robby: No blame here. But the last statement, "They're free, and they should stay that way" runs against the "So in American dollars and cents... how much have you paid for my professional hard work?"

justG on May 19, 2007

@eury: No it doesn't. "So in American dollars and cents... how much have you paid for my professional hard work?" Answer: $0.00. Hence, free.

robbyrice on May 19, 2007

I think the point that iconmaster was trying to make is that you haven't paid anything for his work because according to the Iconbuffet disclaimer "icons are made free of charge" I really don't think there is any incoherence here.

robbyrice on May 19, 2007

but, then again there maybe something I'm missing.

fdev on May 19, 2007

Hm. I was bored too until I read about all these brouhaha ...

I'm new here but if I were ever to become a VIP, it would probably be because I'm an iconphreak who just wanna play the icon-collecting game for the heck of it.
I'm sure other people become VIPs for their own reasons though.

Since I'm not paying any dollars and cents, I don't see it as a big deal having to wait for my next dose of icon fix.
I also don't think I'm jumping through hoops to get any of the free icons, since all I need to do is wait for a refill, then holler "I have tokens!" and everyone will start throwing icons at me faster than I can say uncle. :)

It didn't take me long to figure out the system either since I could just look at the number of stamps vs. tokens vs. icon "costs"... and IMHO, you'd probably only need to wade through the various FAQs if you wanna find out about points and badges, which are mostly for fun anyways.

One of the first things I noticed when I found IB was what's written on its ID: "Trade icons. Have fun."
I think those words summed up my IB experience so far...
... and I'm sorry eury if you're not having fun, but you're starting to sound like you're nitpicking on words like "free" vs "pay" just to keep the arguments going.
Look around the web... many sites offered "free" products/services, but there's always a catch, though the bottom line is, you don't spend a dime.
So what's new? Why pick on IB's "free" term?
... and why am I not in bed already when I should be? :P

eury on May 19, 2007

So if we agree that Icons in Free Delivery are free, then why the catches of Tokens and Stamps? This is the conundrum that could get this conversation in a loop, a point which TDavid raised and my first blog, which begat my current follow-up.

The Chefs will speak on their term. Closing in on any unspoken conclusion would premature the dialog.

fdev is suspicious about my motive for this dialog, being "new" to the site et al.

What brought me back into this fray, are various loose responds from the Chefs and members, which summed up the "Since users pay 'zilch', take it and like it."

Well put. But here is the inverse: "Would signing up VIP makes one a vote-casting member---a shareholder indeed---to the future implementation of the site?"

bcarneiro on May 19, 2007

Guys, I'm sorry this thread ended up like this. My intention was just to have fun and talk about nothing when I posted it.

@eury: I'm sorry, I don't agree with you. No need to make a point. I get icons for free. I paid to receive them faster and have a discount to purchase the other stock icons (which I have already, I have purchased about 6 sets in IB). I believe one can still have fun and trade icons, just like fdev said. All the promises have been fulfilled so far.