Johnny,
I see your point. I already said I understand that. I don’t agree with deleting, but that’s only my view, you should you what you prefer.
Let me be precise in one thing:
I’m not selling nothing.
I have a question that asks if people are interested in buying and agree with the price, but that is to know if the collection has any future. Nothing is for sale!
As for feedback, I like the Beethoven. The large eyes make it a little ‘cute’ (like those awful paintings of puppies and children), but overall I like it. Marie Curie reminds me of the Lady in the Radiator from Eraserhead. So I like that one as well. I like the idea of drawing historical figures
My personal tastes, insofar as hanging something on my wall, do not run to caricatures. I appreciate them more in books, magazines, and newspapers. Of course I can see the effort and artistry; they’re just not something I’d personally choose to hang on my wall.
That is called a double negative. Since you are not selling nothing, it means that you are selling something.
We do pedantic nitpicking here, free of charge.
The official rules at the moment (as I understand it) is that paying members can pimp their site in their signature, but neither they nor guests can start a thread for it no matter how many posts they have. If you want a self-promotion thread, you have to ask for special dispensation from the mods in ATMB first. If you get permission, then regardless of how new or old you are, you’re free to go at it (to the limit that everything is contained in a single thread and you aren’t bumping it.)
Johnny, thanks for your comment.
Thanks too, Sage Rat.
I’m sorry but I am already ashamed to be here.
The forum is yours, so the rules should be your choice and not mine.
Nah. Click on his profile, and go to “contact information.” You’ll find a link to his home page there.
I thought the one of Raphael looked kind of like it had been, well, not produced by, but inspired by Picasso. And for no particular reason that I could discern. None of the others looked quite so Cubist.
And I felt very sorry for Marie Curie, and wondered if the deformation of her head was related to radiation poisoning. 
Senhor Rogeiro, the “Figures of Humanity” site is the same as the link you had posted, is it not? If not, of course, you could always locate that link on your home page, and invite first-time visitors to check it out.
Welcome to the Dope, btw, in case you’re interested in being a Doper. We have two classifications of membership here. There’s “smartest, hippest person on the planet,” and “total dipstick.” For the most part, you even get to choose which kind you’re going to be! 
O, and I would have thought Isaac Newton’s hair would be more ringlet-y, and less Shaun-Cassidy-naturally-curly.
I’m aware of the rule, but just think the whole “You’re stealing from the community, outsider” business to be a little over the top.
Eh, gloss over it or polish it up but I’m fairly certain that the rule exists because of financial realities. The Straight Dope is based on a newspaper and has a lot invested in selling advertising space, so they aren’t just going to give it away free. They also want to keep their ad-looking client base so they don’t want to let spammers think they can come in and fill the forums up. Certainly some of that will be stuff that’s genuinely interesting to the people of the board and can, essentially, serve as content, but the powers that be would still need to be the ones to decide what’s spam and what’s content before letting people run free.
I really enjoy the style of the caricatures. The only thing I don’t like is the bubbly borders of the sketches, for some reason. There’s something about it that feels incongruous to the style of the sketch, at least to me.
But, yeah, looking at that website, I could see why the link was removed. Even if it was meant completely in good faith, it smacks heavily of marketing and feels a little bit spammy, especially as a first post.
I could have written this post. I agree completely.
Oh lord, do we ever. Your best bet would have been to introduce yourself as a caricaturist and post pictures of your cat. Some of us would have checked your site from your profile without you having to promote it and everyone would have been happy.
Cat pictures. This board is dotty for cat pictures.
I’ve watched online communities die before. Letting people with no investment in the community post links to their off-board sites can quickly destroy a message board. Once you allow that, the signal-to-noise ratio quickly craters as the real posts get swamped by spam.
The problem isn’t one post advertising someone’s art. The problem is the thousands of junk posts that will follow once you permit posts like that.
Frederico, don’t let an initial misstep drive you away. Most new posters accidentally break a rule or two. Hang out and talk to people … that’s what the board is here for.
I’m thinking two things here; one, that if your first introduction to this site is to have your links deleted, I can see why you might feel unwelcome and want to move on. My second thought is that if all you’re here for is to pimp your drawings, then the mods really got this one right.
I’m sorry for all of this.
I’m sure you all had decisive moments in your lives, and that’s my case now. To stay here relaxed and chit-chat pretending I don’t want nothing is just not possible. Even if I were an hypocrite, I couldn’t go that far.
I understand that you protect your group from people like me (even if don’t consider myself a spammer), but you have to do it in a different way. I suggest you automatically forbid links for newbies or something like that. I believe senior members are the soul of these places and deserve that privilege. Be realistic: no one’s gonna read the rules and this polemics are no good to anyone.
One thing you really should not do: delete something that was actually posted and it is not offensive, not pressing, not noisy. No one with a bit of self-respect will stay here after that. Is like to take away something that you gave. That is just not right.
(A word of affection to those who comment on my drawings: I am gratefull to you, and I’m sorry for this mess)
Most of the points I would make have already been made – and it’s great that most people grok the reasons for our hardline no-spam policy.
I would like to emphasize one thing in addition, though – pls. note that though I treated the link as spam*, I did not treat the poster as a spammer, which would have involved banning him and disappearing not just the link but the post and his profile. Instead, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, welcomed him, pointed him to our rules, and let him know why I did what I did, leaving the thread open for him (and anyone else who cared to) to respond.
Not totally jackbooted.
*Per the Registration Agreement, quoted above, spam includes “advertisements, … or other messages primarily intended to promote a … venture, … website, or other entity or activity, whether or not money is involved.”
ETA: Frederico posted while I was writing my own post.
I’m sorry you feel unwelcome here, but the rest of what I say here stands.
Fair enough.
I do draw a distinction between new guys coming in to have a discussion involving feedback on their ideas (even if they never come back), and spam. A guy saying, “Hey, check out my website,” with no intent of discussion is spam. Sometimes people have cool ideas, and I’m sure I enjoy reviewing and criticizing as much as they enjoy reading and weighing the reviews. That’s one of the best things about the internet: you can open a discussion about this kind of thing with people who have no idea who you are, and no interest in protecting or hurting your feelings. Of course, some websites are purely useless for seeking advice, as pubescent teenaged boys run wild, and feel it’s their god-given duty to declare “FAIL!” or “ur a fag!” to everything, but if you can find actual grown ups to offer valid opinions, you’re golden.
Anyway, I know rules are rules, so I’m not criticizing the mod action here, it’s just a rule that I think could afford more flexibility. YMMV, IANOMod, Best if used or frozen by 9/13/2010, and the usual disclaimers.
You don’t have to leave, dude. I haven’t looked at the artwork, but if you’re the kind of guy that would take the time to draw historical figures, you’re probably the kind of guy that could contribute to lots of threads around here, some serious, some not.
Ya piddled on the rug. A mod smacked you with a newspaper and said “bad dog”. This ain’t an unrecoverable incident. This thread will be off the first page of the forum in a couple of days, and most likely nobody is gonna mention it again.
Hell, we thrive on messes! 
Don’t take it too hard. You just bumped into one of the idiosyncrasies of this message board. A lot of people do it. Some even get Official Warnings for misbehaviour and they still stick around. (I’m pretty sure I’ve had a couple of Official Warnings, when I was newer – and that was back when they were harder to get.)
If you came here to promote your website, well… that’s not what we’re about. But if you are sincere about Fighting Ignorance™, then this is a good place to be. Sure, most of the board is social; but General Questions is very useful for finding out the straight dope on any number of subjects. Maybe you’re feeling unwanted because your link was deleted. As I said, don’t take it so hard. Keep coming back. Maybe you will have a question you need answered, and a post in General Questions will almost certain be answered. (You may get a lot of jokes, too. But the general rule for GQ is that jokes are frowned upon until at least one serious answer has been given.)
Rule #1 is ‘Don’t be a jerk.’ As long as you abide by that one you should be OK. We’re a pretty good little community here. We’ll share your joys and console you in your grief. We’ll answer your factual questions, and we’ll offer (usually) intelligent debate on the issues of the day. Draw yourself a microbrew (pun intended – I hope it translates) and see what we’re all about.
I will be satisfied if we agree in one thing, that is understand our motivations.
Yours is to protect your space for advertisement. I tottaly understand that, even if I think you could use different means to do it, like I suggested.
Mine is to gather impersonal opinions about my work, wich means they can´t come from communities I belong and where I’m known. That would be great if I had a fortune to spend on ads, but being not this the case, you could understand that once in a lifetime and after working hard in something, for the sake of it I don’t fell so ethically restrained that I would prefer jeopardizing my project to bother people for 3 minutes.
Probably if I were on your side I would do the same as you. But I’m positive that if you were on my side, you definely would do the same as I did.
I think that if your motivation were other than you say, you would have left without a fight. Since you are still here, explaining your motivations, I think we can agree to understand them.
Sometimes I work on films. Believe me, I know how hard it is to be noticed. I fully understand that you’d like to get feedback on your work. I think the error was in your approach. Instead of linking to your website (which, be fair, does have a commercial ‘vibe’ to it) and asking people to fill out a poll, a better way to introduce people here to your work would have been something more like ‘Hello, I’m Frederico Rogeiro, and I’m a caricaturist. Here is one of my drawings [link directly to one drawing]. Does anyone have any thoughts?’ That is, if you ask for feedback in this forum, people will usually be happy to tell you how they feel. Asking people to go to a website and complete a poll is a little off-putting.
I understand where you’re coming from. I think we’re just having a small clash of cultures; easy enough to get through.