Updates and New CSS

So, It's been awhile since the last time I gave out any official updates as to how CEA is progressing

As of a couple of weeks ago the old backlog of violation reports which had plagued us all year long was completely cleared. From Aust 1^st through to the middle of September damphyr and I reviewed well over ten thousand reports.

For the last couple of weeks no report has sat unreviewed for loger than about 48 hours over the weekend.

Generally speaking I've seen a few opinions that the switch over to a two person full time staff from a 6 person volunteer staff was a "bad" or "stupid" move but in fact it's resulted in a huge increase in efficiency and productivity- what most people don't realize is that the huge backlog we were fighting for so long built up during the time CEA functioned as a volunteer team and Helpdesk replies lagged behind as much as two weeks.
As a two person full time team we are completely in control of both the Helpdesk cases and violation reports.

I've seen a large number of people in the helpdesk who seem to think that "credit" or "disclaimers" somehow excuse them from complying with our copyright policy.

This is of course untrue and such "credit" or "disclaimer" statements are worthless and do not replace the need to obtain a legal license to use the material.

There are also numerous people who use "renders" in their work.

Now most people who work with any sort of modeling program is familiar with the word "render", however it would seem that the wallpaper and signature making community has adopted the word "render" to replace the phrase "cut out", or to explain more fully "Something Cut Out From Another Artists Work Without Permission Or In Other Words I Ripped This Off".
If you are using "renders" you should be aware that I have yet to find a single 'Free Website' offering "renders" legally- every single one that I have seen so far is a massive den of copyright infringement populated by people making every possible effort to kid themselves that they aren't doing anything wrong and that this stuff is actually 'free'.

A third excuse is that you're being 'singled out' because we deleted your copyright infringement but you can find something just like it which is still hanging around months after being submitted.

We handle these sorts of violations in the order in which we notice them, so it is only natural that some things will evade attention for longer than others.

We will eventually get them all though- it is only a matter of time.

On a more personal note everyone has probably noticed the new journal CSS in use right now.

For a complete n00b I don't think I did that bad- I simply checked out three or four different tutorials here on the site and I picked apart a few notable journals to see what made them tick.

It'll probably evolve a bit as I absorb more CSS knowledge but it looks about the way I want it too right now

Some narrow minded people have claimed that CSS on a website "isn't Art" but I say that Art is what you make of it- even when it involves a set of fairly standardized instructions.

You just need to be a creative person