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The Bebo staff refused to feature the above skin, which I made the other day. For non Bebo users, a 'featured' skin is a Bebo skin (aka profile layout) which is promoted in a list of a few hundred other featured skins when users click "change skin". The difference between getting your skin featured and simply making it public (so anyone can use it) is that featured skins (and hence your profile and other work) get much more exposure.

The following is what they said to me in a generic rejection letter:

"Sorry! Unfortunately your skin was not approved for one (or more) of the following reasons:
--The skin contained copyrighted material.
--The skin contained gang related or sectarian material.
--The skin contained a number of graphics from other skins we have already accepted.
--The skin was deemed not of publishable quality.
--The skin was considered to be similar to another skin."

I've ruled out reason 1, 2, 3 and 5 because I made the skin from scratch, using images and a photo which I created myself, and I have yet to see a skin on Bebo which is in any way similar to mine. The only other possible reason is that it was not "of publishable quality". I don't know if they are referring to the quality of the images (e.g. if they are pixelated), or simply whether the skin suits their personal preference. There certainly seems to be a case of the latter going on here, because my skin is obviously very different to the other epileptic-fit-inducing skins they currently have featured.

As far as I can see, I have met all of the requirements for my skin to be featured. However, Bebo have been known to have been picky with past skin submissions. Take this Bebo member's story [link] for example. They actually said that his skin was "too good" for Bebo. I mean, wtf. Who are they to decide if it's too good? They should be jumping at high quality skins like his. If he submitted it then obviously he doesn't think it's too good to be published. I sent them a message asking them to clarify and specify the exact reasons for rejecting my skin and if they think there is a copyright issue then I can verify that I own the copyrights. They also won't let me re-submit my skin. I can get around that if I make the same skin over again as if it were a new one though. The guy in my link said he was going to keep re-submitting his rejected skins until they accept them. Good on him. I hope my story serves to tarnish their reputation at least a little bit, because it seems like they deserve it.

Bebo staff should really consider reading messages before they reach for the automated response button, because so far their responses have clearly failed to answer any of my questions. Here is the message I sent to the Bebo staff:

"Hi,

My skin, titled "Scarlet" was not approved to be featured. Of the possible reasons I was given to explain the rejection, I have ruled out:

--The skin contained copyrighted material.
--The skin contained gang related or sectarian material.
--The skin contained a number of graphics from other skins we have already accepted.
--The skin was considered to be similar to another skin.

If your reason for rejecting my skin was because you believed it contained copyrighted material, I can assure you that the skin is 100% my own work and can provide verification of this if necessary. I also have not seen any skins similar to mine on Bebo, which only leaves that the skin is "not of publishable quality". Could you please let me know specifically why my skin was not published, as I see it as unfair if it were rejected for copyright issues when it was my own work."

...and their reply:

"Hi

Because of the large number of skins we review everyday we created one automatic message that would incorporate all of the reasons why a skin is rejected. We send this message to the creators of all skins that have not been accepted, which is why we use the qualifier "your skin has not been accepted for ONE of the following reasons."

If you receive this message it means that your skin has been rejected for ONE of the reasons we stated, not all of them. You can determine by process of elimination which reason applies to your skin.

I hope this helped in answering your query.

Kind Regards
Myrandi B."

WTF?! I'm pretty damn sure I documented my process of elimination in my message to them, and pointed out that I still did not know exactly why my skin was rejected. I bet this reply is yet another generic message. Dickheads.

P.S:
Check out LiveWire's Teen Forums, College Forums, Teen Advice, Peer Support, Teen Help, and Professor Reviews sites.

While you are welcome to view my gallery, please be advised that all images are covered by the copyright law and that no image may be reproduced without my explicit consent. In the event that a breach of any of the aformentioned laws/rules should occur, serious penalties will apply. All photographs, images and photo manipulations shown in my gallery or used to create the images in my gallery are my own unless otherwise stated.

I believe that using someone else's images in your own manipulations is cheating, particularly when the stock images make up the majority of the end product. Because of this, I try to use my own images as often as possible and take my own photographs for use in my manipulations.

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Last.fm

So I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to compress my new animated gif avatar for DA, while conserving as much detail as possible. I resorted to google and found this site where you can upload your gif and they 'crunch' it for you. They produce a table which would hold around 8 versions of your gif at different size reductions.

The problem was, I hadn't signed up for their ridiculously costly scam in order to obtain all of the images, and instead of displaying an image, the text 'DEMO MODE' was shown. I was heading for the back button on my browser when I noticed a link in each rown of the table named 'Reduced Image'. I clicked, and viola! There was the image I was so disappointed not to have access to! Fuckers!

In addition to this, they also provided the settings they used to reduce the image (e.g. dither, amount of colours), so even if they hadn't so kindly provided me with a link, I could have punched the settings into Photoshop and prdouced the same result. In paying attention to the details, I had in effect better preserved the details of my gif

Just a quick note. Some aboriginal chick came into work crying her eyes out the other day. Alison and I went around the corner to see what was wrong and found a girl in her teens wandering around fruit and veg, her hands held up to her bloodied face. She had obviously been bashed, and in some places her skin had been torn from her face. We both chose not to get involved because we could possibly put ourselves in danger if her attacker was still around. A lady from the service desk at work ended up giving her ice and the last place I saw her was outside of Liquorland. I can't believe that human beings are capable of such things.

I mean, there are always other ways of solving problems, and sometimes physical punishment can leave psychological scars behind as well. We were studying stuff like this in psychology, and were even given a case to study where an elderly aboriginal woman was left for dead at a bus stop after having a stroke. I can understand that this 'laying on the ground' thing is quite common among aboriginals and is one of the reasons why nobody helps them. Also, they could fear for their safety like I did, as who knows whether the person is drunk or prone to violence.