Inevitably your going to get the sort of audience like at www.deviantart.com who capitalizes on the easy access to mess up the business as we know it. So the "dark side" goes a little beyond just the illegal stuff...into the bad quality, questionable, and just downright stupid  .

And the more I hear, the more I'd like people to be able to police their own issues. Instead of centralizing so many things on main site, I wanted to create a plugin (inspired by Cascoly) which manages network needs on a larger level. So you can take your SY site and make it into a sort of host, thereby not only creating an index for networks (either the whole SY network, or just your hub of 10-30 sites who agree to similar philosophies), and running things that way. It would be able to collect and manage data, formulate extended search engine abilities, and the list goes on. Like an SY site greatly modded.

I cannot tell enough how much I must keep myself separate from the politics. By way of illustration, I enjoy building awesome cars, not making rules for the road.

The BIGGEST priority for SY is to keep artists in control, and a central site completely un-needed. Its actually a fun web science experiment too.

+10

I can understand not wanting to get into the politics of it all, especially for someone who's schedule is already jam packed with being the creator of this awesome project on top of a full time artist. 

For those that really think a central network is essential we should be looking at all the options...what if someone other than Leo ran a centralized site that listed the participating stores and pooled results from people who want to participate?  What if it was run more like a co-op made specifically of those people who want to build a larger network?

I don't think the main network aspect has to be based on the Symbiostock brand or hosted on the main site for it to work necessarily.  It could just be a separate group of MSG contributors who use the theme and want to inter-promote and raise awareness as independent sellers.  The rules for being in the group seem like it would be a bit of a gray area, but I'd say anyone who is active on the MSG/Symbiostock forums and has stock portfolios at some main sites (ensuring they understand the legality of producing stock) should be enough to get in?  Maybe make everyone who joins sing a simple contract saying they won't post inappropriate content (adult images etc) and will take minimum security precautions with their site.

The one thing I'd really like to see a group like that stay away from is turning people down based on quality.  There are enough exclusive groups out there.  A system like this really encourages survival of the fittest on it's own.  If your content is good, people will want to network and your images will sell encouraging you to produce more.  If someone with a tiny sub par portfolio wants to join, I say let them.  They will either grow and learn or not.  As long as someone has experience with stock basics (copyright, model releases etc) I personally think they should be allowed to join.

To add an end to this thread.

There are two networking ideas developing.... an open distributed model, and a slightly more controlled central model. ( I want to be in both)

Both of these networks will rely on peer review ( who you link to) and the market to control the content and quality level.

I am excited for the future of where this is going!

Glenn

To add an end to this thread.

There are two networking ideas developing.... an open distributed model, and a slightly more controlled central model. ( I want to be in both)

Both of these networks will rely on peer review ( who you link to) and the market to control the content and quality level.

I am excited for the future of where this is going!

Glenn

Yes, I guess that summarizes this thread well. I also want to be in both network models. And, yes, of course, I am excited about this, too.