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WHAT IS THIS?
Next question...
LIKE ARE YOU AN EZINE? OR WHAT?
What's an ezine? We are a religion. Come worship with us. Seriously now, what we are is small. We strive to be a large community of smallness. We celebrate small groups, small business, little ideas that make a difference....Obsession. Specialties. Niche commerce. Small tender films. By coming together here we hope to give the big boys a run for their money. Does that make any sense?
SO YOU ARE A MAGAZINE OR A COMMUNITY? WHICH IS IT?
Both. We are an automatic magazine. A community of people sharing content and... sharing ad revenue. CITIZEN JOURNALISM!!! We split 50% of the ad revenue with the people that upload content. That's the engine that keeps the content flowing. If YOU contribute content, a gallery of photos or an article, video or music, too, if you contribute ANY of that, we'll pay you. Kapish?
WHAT ARE THE PLAYGROUND RULES?
There are none. OK, maybe there are. We don't edit your submissions,
however, if we think your submission is completely worthless,or rather if a jury of your Brink Peers thinks your submission is worthless, then your submission might not be published. People can upload just about anything, but, if the Brink Jury judges that it is crap, it goes in the crap bucket. The jury can also judge that the submission is not worth posting as an article, and can instead, send it to the forum. You will not be paid for submissions sent to either the crap bucket or the forum.
WHO ARE YOU?
We are you. You are us. We are all together. Being here now means you've come
far enough to be a part of it. Of what? Of it, this, THE BRINK. You are on it, now.
HOW DO WE PARTICIPATE?
First register. We don't ask for much, just a name and
an email address. It takes less than 20 seconds to post.
We had a speed contest and Sam Shriver managed to register
in under 7 seconds. He had a really good Internet connection.
Get a GMAIL or HOTMAIL account if you don't want to give
your real email address, but also note that we in no way
would use your address for anything sinister and you have
to check the box to OPT IN to our Newsletter mailing list
to even get our Newsletter, which we send out really infrequently
anyway.
So after you've registered, log in. Then you'll be able
to post comments, upload articles, photos, videos, etc. or use our forum, and as
a very special bonus, you'll get paid for the content that you upload! One note here, if you want to be paid for your content, don't forget to tell us what your paypal email address is (on your MYBRINK page). We don't use that for any sort of public display, but our automatic engine needs it, in order to pay you (once a month) for your content.
HOW DO WE REGISTER AND GET PAID FOR OUR CONTENT?
Oh come on, we went over that already... didn't we? Just
register. It's fast and easy and the more people that we
have registered the more our wonderful advertisers will
pay for ads and the more we can pay our content creators
for wonderful content and the better the brink will be.
YOU HAVE ADS?
Look around. Any serious endeavor on the Internet has ads.
Our advertisers are a bit different though. They have a
sense of humor and a sense of perspective. A superbowl tit
doesn't bother them, in fact, they celebrate the Superbowl
tit.
ARE THERE ANY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAC AND PC?
Well... on this site??? Yeah, sort of. First of all we
are assuming that you have maintained and updated your browsers
and that your computer was made in this decade. So let's
see, differences. PC's using IE (Internet Explorer) or Firefox
(a great browser for PC - thank you crank) should have no
issues what-so-ever using any of the more advanced posting
features. So that takes care of about 92% of the people
on this site. So now, you remaining 8% on a Mac or some
other Operating System. If you are running LINUX or something,
you should be an advanced enuf user to post on our site.
Back to Mac users, poor little Mac users. Above all you
Mac users, STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER!!! Microsoft stopped
supporting it years ago and IE for Mac truly fucks
up with modern CSS (stylesheets). We are tired of writing
work-arounds for you 3% of users still on Mac IE. Get Real.
What you need to use is the LATEST version of Safari or
Firefox. Safari is a great browser for mac - especially
OSX. (Is there a system 9 version of Safari??? Not sure.
I think on system 9 Mac you should try Netscape. Let us
know if you have issues) Anyway, Safari or Firefox on OSX
should solve your problems. Just don't use IE. Although if you are uplaoding articles, Safari does not support our text editor - so make sure your text is clean text before you upload with Safari.
WHAT SHOULD WE POST ABOUT IN THE BRINK FORUM?
We encourage anybody to post anything about any conceivable
topic. We'd love to see interesting discourse on film and
the arts in general, and politics if the spirit moves you.
If you have great inside stories about working as a sex
slave for some Hollywood Mogul... we want to hear it! We
post about our own Brink endeavors, but that's just because
we started the forum. You can post about your various endeavors,
too.
HOW DO WE PREPARE PHOTOS TO UPLOAD?
The basic concept is that your photos should be at least 350 pixels
wide and under a megabyte in weight. If you want to really control how your photos will look run them through some sort of "web ready" program like Image Ready in Photoshop, that would be a good idea. We recommend a much
simpler program like CLICK
TO CROP in PC and in MAC you can always use IPHOTO which
comes with the operating system. The idea, in most cases,
is to reduce your digital image to 350 pixels wide and 72dpi.
If it's a jpeg you want to compress it a bit as you are
saving it (try 70% - if that doesn't look good go up to
80%). If you've never done this (edit a digital photo) get
someone who has done it to show you how. Once you've seen
it done, it's very, very, simple. The bottom line - even if you don't prepare them for the web - our system will accept them (and prepare them for you) as long as they are under a megabyte and at least 350 pixels wide. (425 pixels wide with articles).
YOU PAY FOR PHOTOS?
We've gone over that several times.Yes, we do. A gallery earns Brinkos (which are exchanged once a monh for real dollars) the same way as an article does. Upload one and see.
CAN ANYONE POST FILMS IN THE FLIX SECTION?
Yes. If we like it we'll show it. Send us a link to it
(not the actual film please stick it on a server somewhere)
at this address
and we'll check it out. If we like it we'll let you post
it on one of our servers.
WHERE CAN I BUY YOUR FILMS?
SPUN is available just about everywhere and we also sell
it with the rest of our films right here in the BRINK SHOP.
Buy the TV
PARTY or PORNSTAR PETS DVD now!
WHO MAKES THE FORUM CATEGORIES?
When we feel new categories are needed we create them.
If you think of a category that you'd like to see, post
a request for it.
WHO ARE YOU?
Didn't we answer that above? We are a rag tag team of renegade
content developers. We produce feature films like SPUN and
PornStar Pets and always have a project or two in development.
We travel around the world with the homeless jetset spreading
the Gospel of Living on the Edge. And we always come back
to our studios, deep in the Southwestern desert, where armed
with little more than good bandwidth and digital video,
we attempt in our own meaningful ways, to change the world.
To support our insane lifestyles we occasionally take on
a commercial client or two like VelvetRevolver.com, Triggerstreet.com,
coolcapitals.com, Soundgirl.com etc. When we aren't building
web communities for other people we work on our own. This
is it: The Brink. It's a place where anyone with an attitude
can use it, where you can roar or whisper and everything
is allowed.
WHY DID YOU BUILD THIS SITE?
It's a reaction to all the bullshit content out there on
the web. We wanted a chance to make our own.
WHY DON'T YOU HAVE PERSONALS?
Umm.. We don't have personals? Can't you you just post
what are looking for in the forum? No.... Geez, OK, well...
tell us what you really need and someday we may give it
to you. You need some kind of a forum to find your soulmate
or something, OK. Tell us what you want. We'll find a way
to deliver it if enuf people want it.
YOU MAKE ALL THIS COOL FLASH ANIMATION FOR CLIENTS,
WHY IS THIS SITE SO BASIC?
Well... it just looks basic. There's actually not one bit
of html on these pages - it's ALL flash! Cool concept eh?
Flash that looks like html... Just kidding. Truth is, we're
getting really tired of flash animation, especially the
vector art variety that makes every site look like a Disney
cartoon. It's all looking totally played to us. So 1999,
know what we mean? Sure we like to mess around with cool
action script as much as the next guy, but where's the creativity?
And these days every client seems to know exactly what they
want so why even hire us for our creativity? So fuck it.
This is our site, we'll make it cool. It's a work in progress.
When we get the time we work on it. And we promise, you'll
see some cutting edge dope web shit here, when we get the
time to make it.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
We want to hear from you. That's what makes a community,
even one on the margin like this one. React to things. Tell
us about your projects and maybe we'll tell you about ours.
Talk about politics or something you built or where you
live or what you drive or the lemonade you tasted in West
Baltimore. Show us your digital photos, films, music, etc... Write an editorial or an article. A poem even.
Log In... it's easy. It takes 5 seconds. We let everyone
and anyone in. Go ahead and post. You know you want to.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COUNTER CULTURE"?
WHAT IS THE "COUNTER CULTURE"?
If you have to ask this, you just may not belong here,
but you are certainly welcome here anyway. Maybe we can
bring you over to the dark side. Look at it this way: the
counter culture is why authority exists. It's not easy pissing
people off, but someone's gotta do it. You can do it, too!
YOU SEEM TO REALLY LIKE CARS... WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?
We like cars, fast ones and we like girls with big tits.
Big real tits, not fake tits. We hate fake tits. If we want
soccer balls we'll play soccer. We like girls with small
tits, too, but we are sick and tired of girls with shaved
bush. The country is going in the wrong direction with all
these fake tits and shaved bush. Sometimes suicide girls
are cool, but all these shaved twats is just a conspiracy
started by the razor blade manufacturers. We urge you to
see through it. A little bikini trim is maybe OK, but it
has completely gotten out of hand. And guys who shave thier
pubes should be shot on contact. History will prove us right.
It's just not sexy. If we are anything, we are devoted to
bringing back the bush. Our God, of course, is Bob Guccione,
the man who first brought us bush. We hear he's a bit over
tanned now, but we invite him to guest edit The Brink any
time and any place!
DO YOU EDIT THE POSTS?
We don't edit posts, but if it's incredibly stupid (and
not even funny) or completely worthless, we may delete it.
Why don't we edit these posts? I don't know, maybe we're
lazy. No, that's not it. This is a place where anyone can
say anything, and that's how we like it. This is The Brink.
HOW DO I CONTACT YOU?
Email us at
. If your email makes it past our spam catcher, we'll get
it. If it doesn't make it and you aren't a known spammer,
ask your server administrator some questions about who else
is on your server. If you don't get any satisfaction, switch
servers.
WHAT IS THE BRINK JURY?
At Brink.com everything is automated. User's can upload
galleries, articles, poems, video, music, etc. When an upload
is fresh, the first 24 hours are a trial period. The content
is labeled "fresh content" and a warning is posted that
the brink community has not yet approved the content. 5
users are randomly chosen to be on the Brink Jury and are
alerted by email that new content has been uploaded. Their
instructions are simple - to judge solely whether the content
has any merit on any scale. This is to prevent people from
abusing the system. If two out of the five deem that the
content actually has no merit the content goes into the
CRAP bucket. The crap bucket is available for the people
that like to look at crap, but content that is in the crap
bucket is not eligible for pay. The jury can also send content to the forum, if the content is judged not ready for publication.
HOW IS CONTENT JUDGED?
The only thing the
Brink Jury is really judging is whether or not the content has
any merit at all to anyone at all. Tolerance is encouraged.
But promoting hatred, outright plagiarism, child pornography
or any content that breaks the law, and technically flawed
uploads are all valid reasons to send content to the crap
bucket. The brink jury can also judge that your content is not ready for publication as an article, or that it is somehow incomplete. If that is the case, they can send it to the forum.If you content gets sent to the forum, maybe that's where it belongs. If you disagree, rewrite it and submit it again. WHAT ABOUT CONTENT RATINGS?
Content ratings are different than the judgement of the jury. After content is uploaded, all Brink users are invited to rate content from one to five stars. One being not that great and five being really great. These ratings help us determine the value of different pieces of content, and in the future, will help us sort through all of it.
WHAT IS THE BASIC PREMISE?
The basic premise of The Brink is to build one of the world's
largest informational databases of how people really live on this planet. A database of original content, not rehashed dreck.
We believe that ordinary people, given the chance, can express
themselves with intellect and grace.
CAN YOU APPEAL THE BRINK JURY?:
A user who has uploaded content that was judged crap has
the right to an appeal. If the user does appeal, an appeals
board will review the content. The Brink Appeals board has
the right to overturn a Brink Jury's ruling.
WHAT IS ALL THIS PAYPAL BUSINESS?
We pay for content! If you upload a gallery or an article
we pay you for it. We take 50% of all the advertising revenue
and we split it among our contributors. That's how Brink.com
works. It's completely automated. But, we can't pay you,
if you don't have a paypal email address. If you upload
anything to us make sure you have a paypal email address
so that the system can automatically send you your share.
WHAT IS A PAYPAL EMAIL ADDRESS?
That's the address that you used when you signed up for
your paypal account. If you don't have a paypal account,
go to www.paypal.com
and sign up for one.
SO NOW WHAT?
Now all you have to do is upload your content. If it stays
out of the crap bucket, you'll get paid for it. We pay in Brinkos. Once a month we run a script that takes all the Brinkos in circulation and divides that number into 50% of the total ad revenue for the month. That determines the Brinko Exchange Rate. Then we apply another formula that takes into account average user ratings and average content ratings. Everyone who has uploaded content gets a payment of some sort sent to their paypal email address.The higher the ratings (both user and content) the higher the payment.
WHAT IF I DON'T POST A PAYPAL EMAIL ADDRESS IN MY BRINK?
The system can not and will not pay you. Every month is zeroed out. It is an automated system. Brinkos that can't be converted to dollars are fed to stray cats.
WHAT IS ALL THIS RSS BUSINESS?
The all new Brink RSS news. It allows you to get news content
with given keywords. So, what exactly is RSS?
RSS is an XML-based format (using the Resource Description
Framework (RDF) - a language for representing information
about resources in the World Wide Web) that allows the syndication
of lists of hyperlinks, along with other information, or
metadata, that helps viewers decide whether they want to
follow the link.
HUH?
Basically, RSS is an alternative means of accessing the
vast amount of information that now exists on the world
wide web. Instead of the user browsing websites for information
of interest, the information is sent directly to the user.
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