Member did Nice Artwork for me, but lacked communication/speed.

[Demon-Seed]

is it ok to express my experiences with dealing with a member of byoac? well former or rather suspended?
Just want to make sure I dont get band, I just want to share my story......about poor service.

thx
JIM

[MonitorGuru]

I'd clear it with a mod first.. Peale or one of the other capable mods.

[mmmPeanutButter]

Let me guess who.... someone banned in the last week or so?

oooh oooh... I've been out of the loop for the last week...  tell us...  oh yea, I talked to one of the Mods and they said it was fine.  

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
Well if the a mod would ok it here I will. I will not us foul language etc.. just want to share a bad experience so others dont do the same.

[paigeoliver]

Is it me? I owe someone a pair of joysticks and I seem to have lost all related correspondence about them, and no one answered when I posted asking abou it.

[Wizard of DelRay]

Is it me?

I'm gonna guess that he's actually talking about SNAAAKE.  Did I win?

[saint]

Keep it civil and factual please. I would personally suggest that you are sure that you have given the other person adequate opportunity to make it right first.  

If someone is not following through on deals then a calm warning to others is prudent.

--- saint

[NoOne=NBA=]

I don't moderate here, but the rules on the boards I DO control are:

1) Post only PROVABLE facts.
Make sure you have the proof available to others, if necessary.

2) Make sure you have done EVERYTHING you could to rectify the situation PRIVATELY before posting anything about it.
The person may be on vacation, or just plain forgot.
(See Paige's post above, for example).

3) Post only what actually HAPPENED, not how you felt about it, or what you THINK the other person meant by it.

4) In addition to avoiding profanity, also avoid namecalling and ALL commentary on the situation.

What you are after is "I wanted you all to be aware that THIS happened"--period.


That said, I know the board here is alot stricter than the ones I run, so I would wait for approval before posting anything.
I do however feel that a general warning may be called for to protect the community as a whole.
I would suggest you PM one of the moderators, with the actual text you will use in the post, and see if THEY feel a general warning is appropriate--given the specifics of this case.

[GGKoul]

My 2 cents:

If you paid this Member to do something for you, then you have all the right to complain.

But people have lives outside of BYOAC and some other things take priority.   Therefore things get delayed.  

And if it is SNAAKE (SNAAAKE) that your looking for... He's rarely posts anymore.. As there is a bunch of people looking for him.  Maybe someone else to handle the request you have.

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
Ok going to keep it short and civil.

In MAY/04 start of month paid SNAAAKE in full to design me some artwork. Marquee, control panel, and side art.

The problem I had was reaching him, it was very hard. I emailed numerous times and rarely heard back from him. Ok maybe he was busy. I continued to email him on numerous occasions to see the art, when would it be done? no definite answers..... finally this week AUGUST it was done. Turned out pretty good.  It was uploaded to mamemarquees.com, but I recieved an email from Scott there stating the quality was too low. I guess they like 150+ dpi and the ones I recieved were low.... Luckly Scotts service at Mamemarquee.com was terrific to say the least and he was able to make the artwork fly.

I couldn't deal with SNAAAKE anymore, I had to send likely 6 emails to get one response. I also had PM from other member who had the same problems, and Scott at Mamemarquees.com recalled similar problems with other clients.

Conclusion:
The artwork did turn out good, however, it took over four months to complete, and it was a pain in the neck to reach Snaake. My idea here was NOT to talk down on Snaaake, I just want members to be aware that his services are on the slow side, and if you want artwork from him be aware of the time delay in finishing your cabinet. Snaaake most likley was busy and just didn't get to it, but I laid out 75 bucks so I was very worried about losing my money.

his is FYI only....

Thanks
Jim

[GGKoul]

So you got the service you paid for?  It just took longer then you then you wanted.  Sorry, but I don't see the complaint?

I mean, I sent GameCab some Yokes back in March to get the missing the gears & pots added. And its now August, and I'm still waiting. But I'm not worried, as I get updates from him every couple of weeks. And since there are other priorities that he needs to take care of.. my Yokes are going to take awhile longer.

And I don't care how long it takes, as I know it'll get done...

[menace]

Looks to me more like an informative message than anything--but I think it was handled well--he didn't bash Snaake, and he passed on info as to the speed of service etc that wasn't (isn't) made available to purchasers from the vendor (i.e. snaaake).   So I guess if you want the art done and don't mind the wait, snaaaake is still a viable alternative-correct?

[Goz]

If SNAAAKE aka SNAAKE only charges $75 for his services, I'd tend to think that you got a great deal. If SNAAAKE still charges this little for all that he does and he does do it well, I might contract him out to do something for one of my cabs of course if he'd have time. Cabs are never really done are they?

Just my .02

-Goz

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
NO you guys are right, like I said the artwork turned out very well and I am not knocking his work by any means. It looks good. I just wanted to let ppl know that it may take him a while to do the artwork thats all. Nothing against his work, or price.. he gave me a great price.

thx
JIM

[lkench]

I think the point was that he wasn't given any updates and when he tried to find out what the status was, it was like pulling teeth to get a response.

I also don't mind waiting for a service, but let me know what's going on and why it is taking so long.

My take on the situation anyway.

[Demon-Seed]

exactly.

[crashwg]

So now the MonitorGuru has got me wondering...

Let me guess who.... someone banned in the last week or so?

Was it snaaake that you were refering to?  What'd he get banned for?

Feel free to PM me the reason if you don't feel as though it should be posted publicly...

[Wizard of DelRay]

Was it snaaake that you were refering to?  What'd he get banned for?

He posted about 8 posts back that it was indeed SNAAAKE, but wasn't really a bad dealing rather a case of not keeping him in the loop for 4 months.

Now, take this with a grain cause this is based on just what I observed (and very well could be wrong).  It says SNAAAKE got 'banned for abusive postings'.  I'm thinking that it probably had to do with the banter going on between him and Howard_Casto.  They gave each other a couple of swipes but it seemed that while HC stopped retaliating, SNAAAKE did not.  That, I'm guessing, is what led to the ban.

[SNAAKE]

WHAT THE HELL  
You email with like 30 billion questions over and over and dont even give me atleast 24 hours before I get back to you and start making threads here.Ask anyone,I dealt with many people here and didnt have any kind of complains.

WTF  

As for you not getting any answers for like a week cuz you sent the PM through here and I never got it cuz I was BANNED and I didn't get your emails so figured you are still working on your cab. Really had to make a thread about something this minor ?  
I already had 150DPI files on scoot's FTP,you might wanna check with him.

<<< Been really busy

[Chris]

I think it's worth pointing out that most of us are just hobbyists, not full-fledged businesses.  Even an outfit as professional as Oscar Controls is (I believe) just one guy making his talents available to us.  It is very easy for any one of us to sell a service and quickly get bogged down.  And it's not only this hobby; I see this happen in other hobby communities.  This was one reasn I chose not to charge anything for DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox; I didn't want to get to the point where I couldn't deliver the customer service one expects when paying for a product.

Granted, more communicaton would be better, but I don't think this is competely unusual for a hobby.

--Chris

[mozzer]

I think Demon-Seeds thread is useless. It serves no purpose but to bash Snaake.

He might try to make a point of informing other members incase they have dealings with Snaake, but it's nothing more then personal jabs........

[the3eyedblindman]

WHAT THE HELL  
You email with like 30 billion questions over and over and dont even give me atleast 24 hours before I get back to you and start making threads here.Ask anyone,I dealt with many people here and didnt have any kind of complains.

WTF  




As for you not getting any answers for like a week cuz you sent the PM through here and I never got it cuz I was BANNED and I didn't get your emails so figured you are still working on your cab. Really had to make a thread about something this minor ?  
I already had 150DPI files on scoot's FTP,you might wanna check with him.

<<< Been really busy

   Im here to defend snaake, I posted a message in the artwork forum asking people to do a marquee for me, and he was the only one that responded, and he said hed do it. Also, he didnt even try to up the price, I said 20 to 30 dollars, he gladly accepted, I dont know how hard the work is, but he was prompt in responding and gladly accepted my offer. Now I dont know the status of the work hes doing for me, or how long it will take, but if a member is banned then how is he going to get the PMs you send him? I just think we should give snaake alittle credit for the work he does, I mean yeah it might have taken alittle while, but you got the work and said it looked good, so whats the problem? I agree with Snaake for the "WTF's and What the Hell's". Just my opinions, Doug. Ps, what if Snaake would have straight up refused you asking him for help? youd have nothing, whats better? nothing or something that took a while?
By the way if you see this Snaake, reply or PM on the status of my work, just wondering how its comin, thanks.

[Wizard of DelRay]

I'm not here to defend anyone.  Both say different things so...

That being said, at the very least the title should be changed since it wasn't a bad dealing really.

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
I agree the title should be changed. SNAAKE and everyone I am not BASHING anyone... just letting people know about the lack of communication and to be aware of the time delay thats all. the artwork turned out great.

[menace]

I agree the title should be changed

 ???then why don't you do so  just got to your first posting, hit modify and change the title of the post--easy as pie..

[GGKoul]

I think it's worth pointing out that most of us are just hobbyists, not full-fledged businesses.  Even an outfit as professional as Oscar Controls is (I believe) just one guy making his talents available to us.  It is very easy for any one of us to sell a service and quickly get bogged down.  And it's not only this hobby; I see this happen in other hobby communities.  This was one reasn I chose not to charge anything for DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox; I didn't want to get to the point where I couldn't deliver the customer service one expects when paying for a product.

Well said...

[Goz]

I think the new subject is better, but shouldn't it read more like "SNAAAKE did Nice Artwork for me, but I wish I new how long it would have taken up front" or "SNAAAKE did Nice Artwork for me, here's how the experience went".
 
The thread did originally look like a flame post of sorts. It seems that you both just didn't have the same expectations on delivery. If this was SNAAAKE's profession I could see it being a customer satisfaction issue, etc.... But as said so many times already it is a hobby and even though he was paid, he did you a favor as well.

I'm stepping off my soapbox

-Goz

[GGKoul]

The new title sucks.

If I was "The Member" I wouldn't do any other work for you or anyone else anymore.  People don't need this harassment over something they do in there part time.  

Posts like this make people think twice about offering a service to the community.  

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
No guys listen I understand all points now lets end this. This message was not intended to be a flame nor a knock at SNAAKE. I wish I knew upfront how long it would take etc.. thats all.. no complaints about the artwork or price.

I would deal with SNAAKE again, but would get clarification on when things would be completed. thats it!! no hard feelings to SNAAKE or anyone..not intended to flame just FYI.....

ok no more for me on this one.. the artwork should be here any day i will keep u posted
later
JIM

[MiKman]

ok no more for me on this one.. the artwork should be here any day i will keep u posted
later
JIM

When you get it be sure to post some pics with it installed :-)  I always like to see some new artwork on cabs.

[Wizard of DelRay]

I definitely like Gozur's second idea for a new title.  "SNAAAKE Did Nice Artwork For Me, Here's How The Experience Went" let's them know that you like what he did and how it went for you, without having it sound even mildly negative.

[MasTequila]

Ok Demon-Seed I have one question:

Did SNAAAKE ever give you a time when it would be done, like a deadline of some sort?  

If he did I do not believe you mentioned it and if he did not then how can you say it took a long time.  Seeing as he did your artwork for you I would assume you do not know how long it would take someone just doing it in their spare time.  So therefore it isn't late, if you never had a deadline set.

Just my $0.02

~Mas

[Pixelhugger]

Did SNAAAKE ever give you a time when it would be done, like a deadline of some sort?  

If he did I do not believe you mentioned it and if he did not then how can you say it took a long time.  Seeing as he did your artwork for you I would assume you do not know how long it would take someone just doing it in their spare time.  So therefore it isn't late, if you never had a deadline set.

Well put. I second that! Reading this post sent a chill down my spine as I realized how easy it is for a misunderstanding to develop over art/favor delivery and I did a quick mental inventory of all the people who could be frustrated with me right now.

I don't know how long it takes Snaake to produce his work, but I will say doing custom art for people can be VERY time consuming. People should remember that what may look simple often isn't. I generally spend a couple of hours just testing fonts to develop a logotype. Even when paid, you generally make less than minimum wage. Frequently the payment is almost just a token of appreciation for a favor. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a professional designer will generally charge around $100/hr. Not that anyone would pay that rate for a personal project, but it does underscore what has been said before... that this is a hobby and a part time endeavor. My work can take dozens of hours and I'd be FAR better off flipping burgers part time for what it breaks down to hourly. I've always just sort of assumed people understand that this is a hobby and has to take a back seat to 1) Family 2) Work  3) All the other adult responsibilities (most) of us have.

I really don't think Demon-Seed intended for this to be taken the way it was. I think his well intentioned cautiousness in preparing to post this had most of us expecting to hear how he got taken for a ride, so no matter how benign the intent of the post was, it continues to come off wrong.

OK done.

Buck up Snaake, old chap  

[Sir Auros]

I could understand people saying that Demon-Seed got the goods he paid for, but at the same time, SNAAAKE is at fault for not communicating well. Even if this is just a hobby and something bogs you down in the real world, it's just plain rude to not update the person paying you on why there's a delay.

If you wouldn't offer your services to this community again after someone posts a polite thread detailing his dealings with you, then I'd wonder if you're someone worth doing business with anyway. I think the people being inflammatory in this thread are the ones defending SNAAAKE, not Demon-Seed.

[fredster]

Do we all now need a feedback rating???

[Wizard of DelRay]

Even if this is just a hobby and something bogs you down in the real world, it's just plain rude to not update the person paying you on why there's a delay.

I think the people being inflammatory in this thread are the ones defending SNAAAKE, not Demon-Seed.

I've had things happen where I had to drop everything for a while and just didn't get back to people (talking about life outside the boards).  When you have a family believe me, EVERYTHING else should take a back seat, no matter what.  It can be misinterpreted as rude, but it really isn't.

Now about the people with the inflammatory posts, I agree with you there.  I try to always stay objective if I personally don't know the situation.  Yet in posts like this one, you'll find that once one or two people side with a person (no matter who it is), here comes the rest of the 'hop on the bandwagon' crowd.