Ok, there are quite a few issues that have been on my mind for a while, and some newer ones that really have me irritated.

1. Why is it that lately this site seems to be disregarding the wishes of skinners more and more often? The majority of skinners, as well as many of the wizops/admins who are actually skinners, want to scrap the rating system. Do the wishes and requests of skinners matter to the people who run this site on this issue? Apparently not. I’ve also not come across a skinner who thinks that the libraries should be sorted by the date they were updated, but now they are. It was decided a ways back that the fair thing to do was to sort the libraries by create date. Now with the launch of WC2, we are back to sorting libraries by date of update. Why? Because Frogboy wants it that way. It doesn’t matter that most of the skinners want it another way. Frogboy wants…Frogboy gets.

2. We hear quite a lot about the heavy burden that Wincustomize has placed upon Stardock. We also hear quite a bit about how popular WC has become in the past year. I’m curious as to why this site has become so popular. Personally I think it’s popularity is mostly due to the fact that people can get skins from some of the best skinners in the world here, who give their skins freely. We also hear a lot about the fact that Wc needs to be able to support itself, and not be funded directly by Stardock. Yet it seems that Stardock will always be in control of this site and that it will never truly be a “community site”. So I ask, why shouldn’t Stardock pay for this site? It seems to me that this site is the greatest marketing tool that Stardock has. I would think that people buy Windowblinds and the other programs to be able to use the skins that they see on this site. So with the advent of the subscriber program what benefits do skinners get? Ummm, we get unlimited downloads just as we always have before. BTW, that’s the same benefit that OD (which I am also) users get also. So, the fact that I’ve submitted 15 skins since the first of the year gets me nothing. My contribution is apparently not better than Joe Blow downloader who paid $20. Joe Blow gets the skin browser, “exclusive suites”, etc. I get nothing but the privilege of downloading my skins as much as I want. J

3. Now to the issue that’s really got me pissed off to the degree that I finally am fed up. Anyone remember the GUI Olympics? Anyone remember the prizes that Frogboy stated that Honorable mention winners would receive? Let me refresh your memory. Anyone who picked up an honorable mention will get a free copy of Object Desktop (or a renewal), an Object Desktop sweat shirt, a T-shirt, a LWNinja T-shirt and some other goodies. Those who won multiple honorable mentions will be given additional Object Desktop renewals. posted by Lord Frogboy - 4/2/2002 1:07:58 PM. Well, I won an honorable mention and didn’t receive anything until I contacted them. They just forgot about me. That was no big deal to me, sometimes thing like that happen. So I got an email saying that my OD subscription was renewed and it was. Great right? Well, I waited about 2 weeks to get the other goodies that I had coming. Still didn’t get them, so I write back to ask when I would be getting all the other stuff. Basically I was told that they changed their mind and were not sending out any of the actual physical prizes. I then contacted some other skinners who won honorable mentions to see if they got their prizes. They all got their OD renewals, but no one got any of the other prizes for honorable mention prizes. After emailing Brad back he tells me that I should have gotten those other prizes (yes, I know that), and that he’ll check with the person who sent out the prizes to see whats going on. This is the same person that told me that there weren’t going to be any physical prizes given out for honorable mentions. Sounds very odd to me.

So….am I overreacting, or do I have a right to be a tad pissed?