Level 4
Sunday, June 9, 2002 by WOM | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Reply #22 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 8:37 AM
the last word should have been "already"
i am starting to worry that i am being swayed from the true path of neutality, and am developing a viewpoint on skin ratings. where will this end?

Reply #23 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 9:21 AM
But I would be interested to know how skinners currently feel. Would they rather have a high download count or a high peer rating?
Reply #25 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 9:35 AM
High downloads are nice in the sense that it feels good to know something that you made is being enjoyed by many. However, there are several skins which I've made that I knew would never be popular, but bring me a great deal of satisfaction in a different way.
Reply #26 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 10:09 AM

But, I've always preferred comments/ratings from fellow LiteSTEP themers than from Joe Public.
Davad...you may think there's a lot of work in a WB skin...to get a paltry comment, but when it's a LS theme that has been literally years in refinement/development.....it really rankles...

Just the time it takes to write a clear, precise step.rc... or, in the case of the LS 'theme' I'm using at the moment...to draw 1,507 bitmaps of varying sizes, adding up to 95,836,139 bytes.....and then maybe have someone say 'this sux0rs'....well, you get the idea...

Reply #27 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 10:12 AM
one mad idea deserves another
davad70, as for "less popular" skins, variaty is good

Reply #28 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 10:23 AM
*eeek*
talk about a labour of love.
i am begining to think all comments and ratings can be divided into 3 sections:
1) by people who really understand what they are looking at, and the work that went into it.
2) complimentry ones by innocents
3) pointless / rude comments by people who dont know what went into it
so if we can have an option, so you can specify which sections you want to see...

Reply #29 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 10:58 AM
I never really liked rating skins, especially when it's anonymous. I've never rated a skin nor will I ever do so (well I might have to counterbalance some moron's blatant meanness of rating a 1 to a perfectly good skin. But there's no contextual information encapsulated in just a number.
As for comments, I don't know what rating you have to be to able to add comments, but again this is tricky. On the one hand, you want some semi-informed interaction. But I really cringe when I read comments that say "That's lame", or "dude, your not trying hard enough", or "sucks". They either are mean-spirited or simply lack of understanding what the skinner was attempting to acheive and have a narrow extremely subjective view of what constitutes a good skin.
So what are the choices: limit the ability to people to comment/rate until they've hung around long enough to "mature" with the community (sounds elitist)? Let anyone comment, who say just joined the community and signed up for a subscription (and take the good with the bad)?
Reply #30 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 5:26 PM
Reply #31 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 5:27 PM
Reply #32 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 6:23 PM
Reply #33 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 6:49 PM
Now I have a couple of questions.
1. How come when I try to use the skin browser and enter a question or comment I get -99 ?
2. When do I get the ability to rate?
Reply #37 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 8:38 AM
from the about info, you have to be promoted to Journeymen or above before you can rate skins.
however, i beleive this is out of date, and it is actually Apprentice or above.
as for how you get promoted, this is by act of admin

Reply #38 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:32 AM
I wasn't aware of this before this thread. But it seems it's the way it is.
Reply #39 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:41 AM
Yes, indeed, according to the Windcustomize Subscription Info page, anybody who buys any Stardock product or a Wincustomize subscription gets the ability to rate:
Level 3: Object Desktop / Stardock customer / Elite User. These are users who have either purchased Object Desktop or some other Stardock product (Stardock is WinCustomize's sponser), or has Apprentice access or higher due to contributing to the site in other forms (making skins, being an active contributor to the message boards, etc.). These users get all the benefits of a registered user plus the ability to rate skins and can download an unlimited amount of content.
Anyway, it doesn't matter to me as I don't care about ratings one way or another. Just seems to me funny that the argument of those that were in favor of ratings was that ratings, as opposed to download counts, were done by fellow skinners therefore were more meaningful.
Funny.Reply #40 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:51 AM
(and paxxy has a point as usual)
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Reply #21 Tuesday, June 11, 2002 8:33 AM
perhaps the admins want to think about this a little?
i would have thought that there were enough incentives for subscription alread.