i'm not a creative, but i am someone who often commissions creatives for custom wearables i personally never pay csc for digital content. i've never even considered paying csc for custom wearable content. i guess i don't have anything to add except that i support removing this rule, and i think that valuing artists higher (even if it's only in the way of giving them more freedom to accept what they think is fair) will only make them more respectful of the platform.

As someone who is her personal Creative & someone who doesn’t usually have or spend money on commissions, I fully support this rule. Personally, over the years I haven’t taken many commissions or been paid real currency for my work but this is mostly due to my own lack of confidence when it comes to my art and my skill. I think forcing Creatives to offer an sP/CSC slot really devalues Creatives more than we already are in the world, especially in today’s society.

Full support for the removal of this rule! If we can take small steps with minimal effort like this to keep Creatives and therefore people on Subeta, I think we should snatch every opportunity.

I agree that this rule should be removed. I always thought it wasn't right to begin with, though I'm one who would purchase things with csc, I still think it should be up to the creative's whether they want to accept that kind of payment for their work. I know I'm just echoing what others have already posted, and I'm not so good with words but I feel the same way. If this rule is only pushing people away from Subeta, then it should be removed. The site is a much better place with them than without.

As my wife Bastit stated before, I fully support the removal of this rule. I agree with everything she said, because this is something we discussed privately a lot of times. I also wanted to add that I think that by removing this rule, Subeta will be giving the artists on site the recognition they deserve for maintaining the quality and diversity of the site items, because I can see how every and each artist pour all their love and creativity to their works <3

Thanks, , for clarifying that piece of things. I would prefer to pay for customized code with USD. It makes so much more sense to me than paying CSC for something done entirely by the creative.

If there was a like button I would give the thumbs up, I am not a creator but everything you have written makes total sense to me. Hope Subeta works it out to your satisfaction. It would be a big loss for Subeta to loose any more creators, I, as a user see and notice the loss of many creators already. Good Luck to you in resolving this issue which could actually bring users back to the sight.

I always thought this rule was kinda reasonable, and didn't think much of it tbh. It didn't affect me personally as sometimes I only want on-site currency. Reading everyone's input and experience regarding it however, I can see it's a fairly dated rule and definitely needs to be reworked or removed entirely.

I'm in support of this!

From a business standpoint I can see why subeta would want this rule in place. IMO when I started playing here I was hype that subeta allowed us to ask for real money under the caveat that CSC or SP sales were included as an option. (coming from neopets where you would be banned for a typo) Nowadays as pointed out by others, this rule feels like an archaic practice.

Back in the day I wanted to offer accessible art to people who were maybe in a similar situation to myself. Being poor, in school, and absolutely unable to afford a commission. SP was a fine route when I was starting to build this account 13 years ago. It helped me grow and learn as an artist. But it isn’t 2010 anymore. I’m at a point in my adult life where I can’t spend four, five, ten hours on something to be paid in what is essentially monopoly money. It isn’t sustainable, or enjoyable.

Also words are hard and other people articulated it waaaaaay better. This is just my two cents. I support changing this rule.

I support removing the rule.

(Side note, I nevvvver call this a petsite lol especially at my age lmao. I refer to it as a character creation/ world building site. Imo it's just the natural way for a site like this to move towards. Most people use the petpages to host characters or stories)

fully support the removal of this rule. as someone who can't currently take commissions i don't have a huge stake in this personally, but reading the input on this thread makes it clear it's something that would be very useful for those who do.

If they removed the rule it might increase activity since more artists (myself included) would be able to accept comms and do design sales over forums. ( More traffic like this might be good for the site? ) And forcing people to accept csc isn't doing anything but driving people away at this point because there are so many ways around it anyway.

Full support for removing the rule.

I know it has not been long (about two weeks) since I originally made this thread, but I do not want this issue to go silent and get pushed under the rug.

I'm aware that staff is very busy, so I don't want them to feel like I'm trying to pressure them as I'm sure a full answer to this will indeed take time.

If at all possible, a simple 'This thread is being discussed by staff' would be greatly appreciated so that Creatives watching it may feel a little reassured that their concerns are being listened to.

Thank you.

[edit]

Thank you so much , I really genuinely appreciate it.

In an earlier post, feral states: Subeta isn't providing me a service. "Using the forums is a service" but then any user who uses the forums should then also have to pay to use this service. Which, I think, is reasonable.

But then in a follow up feral also states: They also shouldn't be forced to go offsite to places like discord to operate 'outside of Subeta's rules' because this completely removes any protection the buyers and sellers have since it's no longer onsite and no longer staff's problem.

This makes it clear that the service the site provides does exist: it's providing the protection for buyers and sellers that exists when they are onsite, and enforcing the rules.

This absolutely does cost Subeta money. Subeta pays their staff to respond to tickets. Buyers and sellers create tickets when someone breaks the rules and Subeta staff gets involved, which is a cost to Subeta specifically from allowing this monetary-exchange to utilize their site and enforcement.

I don't really have a preference for this rule, as it would change nothing for me, but I wanted it to be clear that Subeta is in fact providing both a market and a payment-exchange service for creative people to sell their creations.

If you believe this statement is reasonable then... Anyone who files a ticket and uses staff's time during a ticket should also be charged, regardless of why the ticket was filed... no?

People who use tickets to complain about, say, an item they got at the Free Gift disappearing, do cost Subeta money, but they don't get charged because that problem was caused by Subeta. That's not the case with the support for user-to-user monetary exchanges. That's Subeta helping specifically people exchanging real money. Subeta isn't a party, they're providing the service of being the middleman between the parties. They're entitled to some way of being compensated for this, however that happens to be.

The thing is though - Subeta isn't getting artists refunds to their paypal etc. They're protecting artists and customers simply by letting them know that scamming (not following through on their end of an arrangement) is not allowed and that if they do not follow through, they'll be frozen. This happens for giveaways too, so should those folks be charged since that isn't something Subeta is responsible for but that they do handle tickets about?

Like, say I offered to pick a random winner for a free digital drawing and then I pick someone and decide I don't want to do it - by Subeta's rules, I am now a scammer and can be reported and frozen if I don't follow through. But nobody exchanged money/site currency for this and it isn't the fault of Subeta.

Also - Subeta does get compensated, in the end, even if users don't accept site currency for creative endeavors - those buying CWs to submit will then need CSC to submit them. Folks who want to buy the CWs need CSC to buy them. Users being active on forum threads means more traffic on the site which means more potential advertisers etc etc. They don't gain anything really by forcing users to accept a site currency option - they're not guaranteed that anyone will use real currency to buy CSC or buy stuff requiring a new CSC purchase to sell to earn sP. There's no "I'm buying CSC in order to commission an artist so you get a 10% cut" kind of thing happening here.

BUT, requiring creatives to offer site currency or not be allowed to offer their services on site will continue to guarantee more and more artists conduct business off of the site and are open to getting burned (as are their customers) but also are directing traffic away from the site. Some of those discord groups are very active but the site doesn't get that traffic, it doesn't get that potential ad revenue - all of that goes to discord now, who doesn't tell any of those artists that they have to accept discord currency or pay a percentage to discord in order to sell their services.

Forcing site currency options does actively harm the site, but not forcing them doesn't and may potentially actually help the site and increase activity and revenue.

that's very reasonable and you may well be right that it would be better not to require creators to have a csc or sp purchase option. I wanted to take issue with the specific assertion that Subeta isn't providing a service specifically to creators by letting them advertise what they're selling and exchange it via the site, when it clearly is.

I think it's more that they're not providing a service any different to other customers who are not required to pay for it (because scamming is scamming regardless and generates tickets and staff intervention). But again, lots of sites offer the same "service" in that creators are allowed to advertise their skills and those places do not require any sort of payment specific to that unless you want to boost your sales or get an official designation on their site (pretty much all social media etc) and gaming sites that allow the sale of creative endeavors do not require site currency options aside from Subeta, so the spirit of the argument that they're not providing a specific service is there. It really is a semantic argument about language since technically they provide the same service to all of their customers, free of charge unless people choose to support the site.

Answering a ticket = taking time = costing the site money to cover the wages of the employees answering tickets. So yes. Everyone who files a ticket is costing Subeta money. Just because their ticket seems 'small' does not mean the staff member answering them doesn't get paid for answering them. My point still stands. If I'm being charged to use the ticket system. So should you.

I also just wanted to say that needing to file a ticket for assistance from Subeta is rare. I have been on this site for almost 15 years now. In those 15 years I have had to have staff assistance regarding my commissions less than 10 times. That means less than once per year. I've been paid in over $1000 worth of csc in those 15 years.

Is Subeta helping me with 10 tickets and receiving $1000 fair compensation?

The truth is, a lot of artists never have to file tickets. The majority of Subeta's users are actually good and honest people. Those people are still being asked to pay.