sunny, thanks for responding. i respect your creeped-out-ness, but fear even more making someone feel unwanted or jeered because of what they believe in. there are, i suppose, exceptions to this, as i suspect if we tried hard enough (ewww) we could all dream up some awful experience where what a person believed in was collectively objectionable. but lets not go there right now.... anyway, this is what fueled my panic and jumping in wanting to chill things out a bit.

(that said, i am a little confused and concerned over whats up with gre's link to a "homepage". it is a strange domain choice, to say the least! i thank you, sny, for addressing this in her personal discussion area -- we will see whats up, i hope.)

the issue of non-commercialism and sito is a *big* one to me (and i think ed would say the same about him). we (and i mean "the collective sito", as this is a topic open for discussion) have struggled with this issue, wondering even if adding something as simple as the 4 characters "$100" to the end of an artchive description is acceptable.

it all comes down to a judgement call. i think most sitoans are not against an artist making money (let alone a living) from their work, or even somehow *admitting* this on sito. but where does this cross the line into exploiting the generally non-commercialness of sito? its a very good (and difficult) question.

i, for one, do not want to have to deal with a formalized, quantified rule set as to what is too much or acceptable. i can see that being, however, a possibility. personally, i just make the judgement myself, but am always open to other thoughts on the matter. (for the record, ed is outta town til tomorrow; but i do NOT want to consider his and my voices the only ones, by any means.)

let me outline my judgement call in ginas case, as an example. my *opinions* of course. firstly, her bio (albeit a bit over-the-top [imho!] with the html) is sincere and personal. it talks about her motive to create. these are nice thing, but its worth noting that in its ~600 words(!) there is not any mention of selling art. i count this in the "plus" column. as i said, i have *no* idea what is up with her choice of url, tho.

now, turning to her artchive descriptions. they *are* (again, my opinion) a little heavy on the info about selling, but about half of that is technical info about what you would get (e.g.

"original prints - these are prints that are created directly from the original image, not copies of a printed image."

"prints are available for $xxx, signed by the artist"

in the end: a judgement call. very tough to codify, i think. even if a rule of no prices is created, the text becomes

"images are available as original prints on canvas, signed & dated by yours truly. if interested, please contact me."

thanks (everyone) for bearing with this. thanks also (always!) to all the artists on sito, and i say that both personally and as some kinda switch-thrower on sito.org. generally, i am going to lean to the side of inclusiveness, because i want sito to feel as welcoming as possible. this is NOT an easy thing (take language barriers as one example out of many). personal gallery spaces (the artchives) is tricky enough, let alone throw into the mix the shared (and often volatile!) playspace of gridcosm. wow, its not easy at all.

but i am thankful for all of you being here. i am thrilled to have you stick around. heck, i even welcome the occasional lively debate to help remind us life isnt always mindlessly simple. lets keep talking and playing and mostly getting along.