Joining Parsimonious

Visitors: You do NOT NEED to register to use this website

The site is open to all, just click on a photo of something you want and follow the instructions provided to add it to your game.

Related Links

  • Sims 3: Adding Downloads to Your Game
  • Sims 2: Adding Downloads to Your Game
  • Sims 1: Adding Downloads to Your Game

    • Custom Content Creators

    This topic is for Sim creators who are looking for a home for their Sim creations. Parsimonious is one of the oldest sites in The Sims community, we have a truly international audience and are well known for our original and unique content. If you're wondering why you should join Parsimonious then see the summary at the bottom of the page

    It is a small site with only a few contributors and the standard for quality has gradually increased over time. Our very mixed audience makes it hard to communicate any awkward aspects of our content, so it's important that we try and release stuff that is technically sound as well as nice to look at. Because of this I ask that any artist who wants to join submits an application showing previews of their creations. The application process is very informal and discrete, no personal information is required (except I will need to know your age IF you are under 18) although you may be asked a few creation-related questions.

    Jump To...

  • Sims 3 Houses
  • Sims 3 Worlds (please also view the Sims 3 Houses details)
  • Sims 3 Fashion
  • Sims 3 Furniture
  • Sims 3 Create-A-Style Patterns
  • Sims 3 Wall & Floor
  • Sims 2 Houses
  • Sims 2 Fashion
  • Sims 2 Furniture
  • Sims 1/2 Wall & Floor (this is a combined vacancy - you do not need The Sims 1 installed)
  • Sims 1 Fashion
  • Sims 1 Furniture
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Why Join Parsimonious?

    • Before You Apply:

    Please read the Terms and Conditions of membership which are fully detailed at the bottom of this page, there's also a Frequently Asked Questions section.

    You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available. All too often in the past people send in glorious photos of their creations, but when I ask to see the files that go with them, they suddenly and mysteriously develop computer trouble, or their dog ate them, or they were abducted by aliens and could no longer remember where they kept their creations once they returned to terra firma.

    General Requirements:

  • All contributors must have a basic standard of English. Although we have had contributors in the past who have understood no English at all, this has proved to be difficult for both them and me!
  • Since 2012 I no longer distinguish between active and retired artists, however any artist who is not available if a problem arises with a significant number of their items, does risk having their account closed without prior notice. How willing I am to to fix problems with your stuff will depend entirely the quality, volume and popularity of your items and how difficult and time consuming it would be for me to fix the problem. Problems are often technical, but they can sometimes be administrative, like missing information or wrongly sized or poor quality preview photos. Artists who have contributed more over longer periods of time will get more assistance than those who have joined recently and contributed little.
  • Parsimonious does not (and cannot) support the use of offsite content which can't be included in the download. So any 3rd party meshes, objects, textures etc, which you want to use as part of items you publish here would need to be distributable.
  • I cannot accept applications from any artist who is under 16.
  • Since 2012 we no longer have an exclusivity policy (see the terms and conditions at the bottom of the page for full details)

    • The Sims 3: Worlds

    Requirements:

  • Parsimonious does not have a size limit for worlds so it doesn't matter how large your world is. Nor do we have a limit on how many you can upload so long as each is of excellent quality and is thoroughly tested.
  • You'll need to be able to make both quality worlds AND your own original lots - you can use distributable lots from Parsimonious and from other websites, but you will still need to make some yourself too.
  • You must be willing to use only good quality, technically sound custom content and to use it sparingly where it is important to the design. Preference will be given to creators who are happy to use little or no custom content over those who like to cram their lots and worlds with tons and tons of CC.

    • Please note that our setup does not really work for instructing visitors how to install package files if you've used custom CAW world decor. In that respect it is better not to use CC outside the lot spaces because it will not show up for most users.

  • Artists are encouraged to always plan their worlds (and lots) carefully to avoid unnecessary Expansion and Stuff pack requirements where possible
  • Worlds MUST have properly organized layers, i.e. a lots layer, a layer for all trees and plants, one for decor, one for spawners, one for effects

    • Help can be provided for re-organizing existing worlds if you haven't done this for items you have made in the past, but you will need to provide your original CAW files.

  • We have no strict requirement to use 8 or fewer terrain textures per chunk, but you will need plan your terrains carefully, use smaller texture sizes where reasonable, make sure the textures you do use are good quality and important to the world design (i.e. avoiding tiny splashes of generic textures)
  • Spawners and effects are a significant factor in how well a world will run, too many and it will lag. You will therefore need to use these carefully in the world and the lots. Similarly effects including the fog emitter should be used with care in limited numbers.
  • Your worlds must be exhaustively tested, especially for routing issues, making sure Sims can walk, drive and ride to places they want to get to, that all bridges are connected etc. All inaccessible areas, or areas where Sims might get stuck in a dead-end in the routing grid, must be painted carefully with non-routing paint.
  • World builders are permitted to populate their worlds - the same general restrictions on custom content apply, only good quality distributable items which are up to date and important for the story of your world.

    • Advantageous:

    Preference will be given to world builders who are able to do (or willing to learn) the following:

  • An understanding of how to use the debug tools to make adventure elements, set up lighting and other advanced elements in your world is extremely useful
  • Being able to use the various community Mods (NRaaS Tools) to add populations to your world is encouraged
  • A little basic knowledge of how to use S3PE to do things like changing your world type, adding a fly-over, adding water levels or changing the default sky/water colours is also a great way to really make your worlds unique.

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 3 items
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available. For Sims 3 Worlds this means you may be asked to make available not only your finished exported worlds, but also your CAW working files (the world, settings and associated folder in Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds). Arrangements will be made for you to upload those files to our web server so please don't attempt to send them by email!

    • The Sims 3: Houses

    Requirements:

  • I will only consider artists who create high quality, carefully planned lots
  • Particular attention to the use of landscaping items is required, too many different plants, trees and terrain paints can cause a lot to be too demanding for players with basic computers or for use in larger worlds BUT at the same time lots must be appropriately landscaped. No boxes in the middle of empty lots please!
  • Lot builders MUST be willing to use custom content sparingly only from approved quality sites

    • It is very important that all CC we use is properly made and kept up to date with Sims 3 format changes. If you do use custom objects in your lots you would be responsible for keeping a record of what you've used and where it came from and keeping an eye out for any updates. Any serious changes and you will need to update your lots to update or remove included CC, artists who contribute a lot will likely be offered a lot more help to get this done, than those who only update occasionally.

  • Since we do not use pay content in our lots, or require our visitors to purchase content so the lots they download look as advertised, we do not allow any Store content. Regrettably around 50% of our visitors do not even have the free items so it is simply not viable to use them.
  • Artists are encouraged to furnish and decorate their lots carefully to avoid unnecessary Expansion and particularly Stuff pack requirements where possible

    • Advantageous:

  • It is highly advantageous if you are happy to create community and adventure lots as well as residential home lots

    • Please do be aware that the very large rabbit holes are generally banned because they leave too little room on the lot to be very creative most of the time. Burying them underground is an option some artists use to avoid this, but this makes rabbit holes slow for Sims to access and can cause significant lag and career management failures with story progression mods, so it's not something I encourage.

  • Priority will be given to artists who are comfortable using the Debug Tools to create Tombs and to use in general for adding advanced features to other lots.

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 8 items. Please include both interior and exterior photos for each lot (don't worry if your interiors are a bit blah, as long as your exterior building is good the interiors won't matter as much).
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 3: Create-A-Style

    Please note that I will not consider applications from artists who use the official Create-A-Pattern tool - our server cannot process these files. Traffic isn't particularly high to this section, but I suspect it would pick up quite a bit if there were regular updates of nice new stuff!

    Requirements:

  • You must be able to create high quality patterns which seamlessly tile
  • We only share our patterns in sims3packs so you must be willing to use tools that support this format
  • You will need to use textures and other materials which are distributable (you will be responsible for checking the policies for any brushes, shapes, textures or other materials you use in your patterns)
  • Your patterns must be properly organized into appropriate separate channels

    • Advantageous:

  • Preference will be given to artists who can make their own original pattern designs rather than simply converting existing textures made by other artists

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 16 items. The preview photos can be either the preview of just the texture, or it can be photos of your pattern 'at work' in game on furniture, walls, clothing (or whatever). If you can also provide one or two examples of your original .dds files that is also helpful.
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 3: Fashion

    On a personal note I am not terribly interested in (or very good at) making fashion so anyone who joins to share better fashion items will likely have the section to themselves!

    Please note although we have no make-up and tattoos online in our Sims 3 Fashion section, this is due to lack of content and not because our setup doesn't support them! Unfortunately the same is not true for skin tones, since we use require 3rd party items in our items if we can distribute them AND do not host global mods on the site, it is simply not possible to ensure our visitors would all be able to use skin tones properly. Without CYMar's skin tone panel mod they would function like default overrides, which is something else we also don't do here!

    Requirements:

  • Your designs MUST be Create-A-Style compatible (at least in part). I will not host simple Sims 2 conversions which do not recolor with the CAST, however nice they are
  • It doesn't matter at all what your personal style is (i.e. fashion, goth, historical, fantasy... whatever). What does matter is that you must have a solid level of skill, being limited to putting logo on a t-shirt is not enough.

    • Advantageous:

  • Being able to adjust/chop and re-map the game meshes is highly advantegeous. Being able to make your own meshes even more so, but of course they will need to be properly jointed, no bending shins please!
  • Preference will be given to artists who make a wider range of items (not just clothes) such as shoes, accessories, hairstyles etc

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 8 items
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 3: Furniture

    At time of writing this section is not yet currently online, however I do anticipate it being available sometime in April/May 2012. The section will not have coordinating sets in the style of our Sims 1 and Sims 2 objects, but rather single items organized by function. This means there won't be a requirement to make a complete set of coordinating items to make up an update but you will be able to associate groups of objects to be displayed together at a later point, if you wish.

    Requirements:

  • The standard for Sims 3 Furniture is extremely high - artists will be required to produce properly UV mapped meshes with appropriate poly counts which are correctly jointed.

    I'm sorry to say that I will not offer posts to artists who are only able to convert existing meshes from The Sims 2 or other games. I will also not be giving posts to artists who ONLY create overlays for painting meshes which are not CASTable. In short you will need to be able to make a wider range of furniture, not just decor. Your meshes don't need to be completely and utterly perfect, professional standard quality, but they must be your own work and ideally something at least approaching the general standard of the items already in the game.

    • Unlike TSR who allows ridiculously high poly objects so long as they look good to potential subscribers, I do have fairly strict limits and will expect you to keep your meshes down to a sensible level. Anything that exceeds 1000F/V per quarter tile is definitely a no-go. Also some effort to make separate lower poly medium definition and shadow meshes is expected for any design which isn't very low poly to begin with.

  • Parsimonious objects are all in a sims3pack format and require at least the 1.26/1.27 patch.
  • Your designs must work properly with CAST with appropriately sized texture maps (i.e. no 512x512 textures for tiny vases of flowers please!)

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching copies of at least 8 objects you have made (the actual files please!) adding some preview photos of your objects in game is optional.
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to

    • The Sims 3: Walls & Floors

    If you are applying for this post please let me know whether or not you might have any interest in making occasional wall and floor updates for Sims 1/2. It is not a requirement, but it would be very helpful to me personally to find someone who can deal with all 3 sections - please read the information in The Sims 2: Walls & Floors and The Sims 1: Walls & Floors for more information.

    Requirements:

  • All designs must be CAST compatible (i.e. not just conversions of existing Sims 2 wallpapers which cannot be recolored)
  • A general understanding of how to use the different texture maps is necessary, i.e. specular, mask, overlay, stencils etc

    • Advantageous:

  • Preference will be given to artists who can create entirely original textures.

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 12 items - you can either send the composite preview .dds file or photos of your items in game.
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide your working files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 2: Furniture

    Requirements:

  • I can only accept applications from artists who are able to make SETS of new mesh objects. You will be welcome to create recolors of your own meshes, but I no longer permit recolors of game objects, or off-site meshes to be published to the Sims 2 Furniture section.

    • This also means that I will not accept applications from anyone who is limited to only recoloring my meshes either - 4 previous artists have tried doing this, but sooner or later the section becomes a mess as they want to mix and match different items from different sets, or do most of a set but miss out one or two items, or can't find a suitable base here so want to use an off-site object, a game object, or worse they then need me to make a new mesh to suit just so they can recolor it.

  • Meshes will need to be of high quality, properly mapped with an appropriate sized texture for the size of the object, reasonable poly counts (i.e. less than 3000 F/V per tile) etc
  • Style / theme is unimportant, but you will be expected to create items which have some style elements in common (i.e. they coordinate with each other to some degree). There is a minimum of 6 items required to make up a set. A set can include a number of recolors for a single new mesh in some function categories (i.e. decor, lighting).

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 12 items
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You will be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 2: Fashion

    Requirements:

  • You will be required to make clothing to a high standard in original designs, although style and technique is unimportant (i.e. whether you prefer photo-skinning or drawing your own textures)
  • You will be required to base your designs either on game meshes, or on distributable custom meshes (which must be of good quality, properly jointed)

    • Advantageous:

  • Being able to create your own meshes is advantageous but they must be properly jointed
  • Being able to do some simple SimPE editing to change the age/gender and categories of your items is also an advantage, however training can be provided
  • Preference will be given to artists who make items for other age groups and for males, not just female adult/teen
  • Preference will also be given to artists who are familiar with using the free camera and don't mind installing the photo studio lot I've set up for our photos. There is a fairly precise setup needed to get the correct pose, angle of view etc, but it's not especially difficult once you've got the process down - an instructions guide is available and after a little bit of practice it is generally pretty quick. It is an option to not do your own photos, however since I would be doing them for you, there would most likely be a regular delay between you submitting new items and them going online, in addition I might ask you to create larger updates less often, rather than smaller ones more frequently, to make doing sessions of photos more efficient.

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 12 items
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 2: Houses

    Due to a minefield of technical horrors relating to custom content incorrectly packaged up with Sims 2 Houses I am unwilling to accept new contributors for this section without a great deal of persuasion (and I am genuinely sorry about this, but if you'd spent 8 months of your life trying to beat a couple of hundred badly behaved houses into a fit state to be online you'd probably feel much the same way!)

    Our visitors don't really seem to like houses with no CC very much, they're all a bit samey after a while. But lots with custom content have a huge variety of potential problems. Very few lot builders seem to grasp ALL the many fundamental problems with things like repository slaves missing their master objects, ridding lot packages of unwanted recolors for new mesh objects, zipping up game object textures that were used by not packaged with the item, using the Any Game Starter to limit the expansion pack requirements and to test the contents of the lot package post-production and so on etc etc.

    Obviously if you feel you do thoroughly understand all these issues then you are welcome to apply, but please be aware that after 2 completely irritating and exhausting fix-up sessions my patience for house related drama is unbelievably thin - I would rather have no contributors for this section at all ever, than need to fix up more of these irritating and time consuming nuisances!

    I will therefore be expecting a detailed essay from anyone who still wants to apply (I can't imagine anyone would after reading this!) to explain your complete understanding of things like why the Sims 2 installer is bad, why its a problem if you place a custom door or window only on diagonal walls, never on a straight wall, how to remove spurious files post production, how to remove Stuff/Expansion packs from the lot's file table, why it's important to only use quality terrain paints etc.

    In short, if you can convince me that your lots will be technically sound and will not require ANY of my time and attention to fix EVER, then we are on the starting line! Obviously the usual additional requirements, your lots must be highly creative, fully landscaped and furnished etc, also apply.

    To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 12 items. Make sure you can send the actual lot files on request AND as noted above I will expect an essay (don't laugh, I am being perfectly serious!) which explains your understanding of the technical problems of using CC in Sims 2 Houses.
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available
  • Your essay will need to be in a text format, a .doc, a pdf, HTML or you can simply write it in your email

    • The Sims 1 & 2: Walls & Floors

    Please note this is a combined post with Sims 1 Wall & Floor - you do not need to have The Sims 1 installed and it is trivial to make conversions from 2 to 1. Wall & Floor creators for Sims 1/2 will be asked periodically to create coordinating items to go with furniture sets, there is a very short turnaround time for new sets (usually 2-3 days) and materials and a general style/color scheme will be provided along with a deadline. Creating coordinates is not mandatory, however there may be small goodies available if you finish them to a suitable standard within the time allowed.

    Requirements:

  • You must be able to make good quality original items using only materials (i.e. textures, brushes etc) which are distributable

    • Advantageous:

  • Preference will be given to artists who can create their own textures and designs from scratch as well as working with a selection of prescribed textures and materials from time to time

    • Full training can be provided for using Sims 1 Home crafter, although it should be fairly obvious to anyone who has used the Sims 2 version!

    To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 20 items, these can be in-game photos or your original texture graphics.
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • If you are applying for the complete combined vacancy (i.e Sims 1, 2 plus 3) please make sure you label your photos accordingly or send your applications in separate emails

    • The Sims 1: Furniture

    Requirements:

  • You must be able to create original designs to a very high standard
  • As our Furniture section is largely based on room sets, you will need to be happy creating sets based on a room scheme which coordinate with each other (how they coordinate is up to you - they can be in a similar color/pattern, or in a similar visual style - it's not too important so long as they look good together!). Please note there is now a 6 item minimum per set.
  • You will need to prepare your own photographs for publication (training can be provided)

    • Advantageous:

  • It is NOT necessary that your objects be based on 3D renders, but preference will be given to artists who use either 3D Studio Max 8/9 on a Windows PC as I can give you access to various tools that automatically convert your model renders into pre-cut sprites which are automatically aligned upon importing into Tmog
  • Being able to create NPCs and do other minor editing is extremely helpful, but help can be provided in this area if not.

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 18 items, ideally showing at least 2 sets of coordinating objects
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You will probably be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos to assess the quality of your Z buffers so please make sure they are available

    • The Sims 1: Fashion

    Information:

    Please be aware that traffic to this section is now quite low with popular items now getting less than 500 downloads per month.

    Requirements:

  • You will be expected to make good quality original items using only distributable 3rd party or game meshes
  • You will need to know how to create buyable skins
  • You may be asked to create NPC skins occasionally with a short turnaround time (2-3 days typically). Usually the theme and textures will be determined by the style of the object set they need to coordinate with, however the specifics of the design will be up to you. Small prizes may be offered for making suitable quality items within the time allowed.
  • You will need to create your own preview photos using our standard pose library

    • Advantageous:

  • Making heads as well as clothing is advantageous but not required - however if you do make head textures you will need to make single designs in all 3 standard colours plus pale, preference will be given to Photoshop users as I have a base template which makes the process of doing skintone conversions from a light base, pretty quick and easy!

    • To Apply:

  • Please email webmistress@parsimonious.org attaching preview photos of at least 12 items
  • Please do not send attachments larger than 10Mb per email but you can send as many emails as you need to
  • You might be asked to provide the files for the items shown in your photos so please make sure they are available along with any meshes they use

    • The Sims 1: Walls & Floors

    Information:

    Please note that traffic is incredibly low for this section, most items get less than 100 downloads per month. For this reason no posts will be given to artists who only create Sims 1 walls and floors.

    This post is instead bundled into a combined vacancy for Sims 2 and Sims 1 Wall & Floor, for which you will need The Sims 2 installed on your computer. Please view the details of the combined vacancy to apply.

    Terms & Conditions

    Site Artists (known as Residents) are obliged to agree to the following Terms & Conditions. Please make sure you understand these conditions and that any exceptions are sorted out before accepting an offer to join Parsimonious.

  • All Residents are required to uphold our privacy policy, it outlines the obligations we have to protect any information that visitors and other staff members share with us (this is something required by international privacy laws, not just something I've dreamt up to be awkward!)
  • All submitted items are considered property of their respective creators. If your items are published elsewhere without your authorization then I may act on your behalf as the publisher to seek their removal, but this does not affect your rights. You will always be credited as the author of your creations whilst they are online. You can request the removal of your items at any time. Once items are removed the site relinquishes ALL associations.
  • Items may be subject to vetting upon upload. New Residents are most likely to be subjected to this vetting during the first 6-12 months, in some cases longer for sections which have a lot of potential technical problems with file integrity (ie. Worlds, Objects etc). Vetting is also designed to catch any items which may cause significant offense due to their explicit nature, or items which are of poor quality well below the normal standard (we all have our off days!). Every effort is taken to ensure that all vetting is fair and reasonable and not ever used for matters of personal taste!
  • All Residents are asked to allow the re-publication of their items by visitors and other creators within the conditions of our site policies. Currently all items except for Sims 2 houses and Sims 3 worlds are allowed to be re-published on other sites so long as they form part of another piece of content (i.e. furniture & wallpapers in a house, clothes for a complete Sim, houses in a world etc).
  • From the start of 2012 we no longer require Residents to keep their submitted items exclusive to Parsimonious. This means you can also upload items you publish on Parsimonious to other community sites provided the other site also allows non-exclusive items and does NOT require you to surrender your effective rights of ownership to your creations ***
  • These terms and conditions may be subject to change in the future, a minimum of 3 months notice will be given prior to any such changes coming into effect.

    • *** Not all sites define clearly what rights members retain when they upload content.

    For the purposes of these terms if you have agreed that another site you are submitting to takes full ownership of your creations, if you give them the right to cease crediting you for your creations or if you lose the right to have your items removed upon request, then I would consider that you no longer have effective ownership.

    Under such circumstances you would therefore not have the right to grant us, or any other website, permission to publish those items since they are for all practical purposes not yours any more. Of course you could still join Parsimonious, but you would need to post new items that you hadn't already put on the other site that has taken ownership of your stuff!

    Frequently Asked Questions

    "Can I post items which only appear on my Studio only and not on Parsimonious?"

    No - at this time the present version does not have the data structure to make this possible. If there is a sufficient demand it may be a feature I add in the next version, however the last version was released 6 years ago, so it may be a long time coming!

    "Do I get visitor comments or a guest book?"

    At the present time I am looking into comments for artist's Studios, however due to serious security problems (attacks from another community site which have been on-going since 2009), we are not able to guarentee keeping visitor's personal data secure on our servers. In the past we allowed any visitor to leave comments, but spam messages outnumbered real messages 15,000:1 which made the administration of the comments annoying and slow. My present aim is to require registration to reduce the spam, but setting this up in a secure way is going to take time, effort and money. Currently there is no timetable for introducing this feature meaning it could take a long time to resolve.

    As an alternative you can create an email account for your site correspondance and publish that on your Studio news page (yes we can assign you a @parsimonious.org forwarding address, but no we don't have a full mail server set up). It sounds like a terrifically bad idea putting your email in the public domain, but mine has been online as a clickable link for 9+ years and it's not as bad as you'd imagine. I recommend using Gmail, it keeps a lot of the spam out of my inbox (yes there would be a lot of spam!), and keeps any nasty attachments off my computer.

    "Can I choose my own custom scheme for my Studio?"

    Residents can choose their own basic colors plus an avatar as soon as they submit their first update. To get access to more significant customization such as multiple backgrounds, changing the button styles, even custom menu icons and such, residents must be active for 1 year. There are a lot of options available, I work with each artist to try and get their studio to look as much like what they want as possible.

    "Can I join and share an account with my friend / sister / daughter..?"

    If you make ALL your creations jointly with someone else then you can share an account, however you will be required to register separately with our staff forum, additionally one you will need to be the nominated 'leader' who has the authorization to request the removal of items, close the account, receive any payments made via the site, deal with all urgent administrative requests etc. You will both be held jointly accountable for any rule breaking! If the partnership disolves both parties may have the option to set up individual accounts, subject to your creations meeting the required standard, but you will need to start over with new items, all shared items will be removed from the site and cannot be resubmitted. Any disputes about the authorship of shared items will be result in the items being deleted, so if you choose to set out as a partnership, you will be expected to handle the situation maturely. I am not a mediator and will not put up with 'I want sole credit for this house because all she did was put a few plants in the garden' - in short any negative consequences arising from this arrangement and you'll both be voted off the island!

    "I'm only 15, can I apply now and join later when I turn 16?"

    For security reasons I no longer keep 'old' applications on file, they are either deleted or accepted (then deleted). It is better to apply when you actually are 16 - if nothing else it'll give you a bit of extra time to practice and create more content. Parsimonious has been online since you were in baby school, we'll probably still be here in a few more months!

    "I've applied loads of times in the past - why don't I have an offer to join yet?"

    There are a few basic reasons why some creators consistently get their applications rejected.

  • Lack of talent - very sadly too many applicants simply don't produce content which is anywhere near the typical standard of what is currently online. Sometimes the items are broken, because it's too technical and they haven't understood the process. More often their creations are simply too unoriginal, lazy or unfinished. I would never reject an artist's application for style reasons, but their creations must have a style. Obviously I could let you in anyway to make you happy (or shut you up), but honestly that would just be unfair on all the other artists (myself included) who have worked our butts off for years to become better.
  • Terrible photos - occasionally I do see what might be passible applications with the most awful, tiny, or poor quality photos. It's like writing a job application in crayon. Take nice big photos in game in the highest quality you can, zoom in on the item you've made. Oh and turn the lights on - I get a lot of really dark photos especially from lot builders who seem to forget to put lights inside their lots.
  • Failure to follow instructions - too often people send in files intead of photos with their original application and typically these don't have instructions or any indication much of what they are. I already work 80+ hours a week, I don't have time to figure out what 'redandyellow.sims3pack' actually is by searching my whole game
  • Not responding to follow-up emails - a third of the time applicants don't make it through the application process simply because they don't answer my questions. In plenty of cases offers are made but the creator never response to the offer email and so never takes up their place. Emails are sent from support@parsimonious.org so please check your spam folders

    • Why Join Parsimonious?

    In general the creators most likely to benefit from being part of this site are:

  • Those who are tired of being lost in the crowd at the big public sites
  • If you've struggled with the upload/submissions system at sites like TSR or MTS, ours doesn't require you to write an essay about your item and wait for days on end for it to be processed
  • If you've previously tried running your own site but found it too time consuming / expensive
  • You're looking for a sanctuary away from community bickering. We do have the occasional gossip now and again, but typically Parsimonious is very much a drama-free zone!

    • I've always said we're small but feisty! For a good deal of Parsimonious' time online we've been one of the most popular sites in the community, largely to due our high accessibility as well as because there really isn't another site quite like this one.

    We get visitors from everywhere. That may not seem like a big deal, but I personally find it enormously heart-warming to think of people from completely different places thousands of miles away all being connected by our little site.

    We are a small group, which means that each artist's work gets a lot of exposure (although of course we do all benefit the busier the site gets!). In the past we have done collaborative projects, but the less crowded environment gives artists the opportunity to work on their own if they prefer, but with the background admininstrative and moral support available when it's needed.

    In the new version of Parsimonious you do get your own Studio site. There are quite a lot of customization options to make it yours without the bother of having to set up your own website (and what a lot of bother it is! It might be fun setting it up, but updating it can be a total nightmare!). If you're not wild about our site presentation, you can do a lot to change your Studio so it fits with your own style, you can share that as your official 'link' .

    Most people rightly view the application process as a big negative, but it is designed to give contributors as much peace and creative freedom as possible once they are here. This means not having to wait forever for submitted items to be approved before they go online. In the unlikely event there's something wrong with what you've uploaded (and I mean wrong in the technical sense of being broken or unfinished), you will get specific information along with as much help and support as I can give to fix it, not just a standard rejection notice!

    Our content management system is completely bespoke, so each upload will ask you for specific information about your item - you don't have to remember what you're supposed to fill in, or write out a long list of things you think visitors might want to know. All you have to worry about is making something beautiful, taking a picture of it and putting it in a zip! We're still in the process of making changes and adding features to make these easier and faster, but even now anyone who has submitted to the big public sites before, should find our system compares favourably. Certainly it doesn't matter if you're a total techno-phobe, you definitely don't need any experience of web coding or anything like that, and there is plenty of judgement-free hand holding available for the terrified!

    From around June 2012 I am introducing a grant scheme that allows contributors to claim some money towards the cost of expansion packs and other software related to creating, although this benefit will only become available after 1 year of active contribution (proof of purchase required).