Thanks for your reply motion... I'm also taken away from the computer by some real-life chores at the moment, I will respond as soon as I can get some time, your situation deserves a thoughtful response.

I quit overall WiseOldMan I just wanted to take away that excuse from the admins. Besides many like to see me go rather than stay...I will do them a favour!

Since I like to make up my own mind on wether or not a skin is any good, I just went into "Edit Account" and changed the setting to display any skin with a rating of 1 or higher.

Thats the way it should be Grog. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

motion: I know this question doesn't pertain to this thread, but what is tainted potato salad? Tainted youth looked like some sort of misfit site(to be polite).

okay, I'm back...

I'm sorry to say, I don't remember the skins in question nor do I remember a series of skins with different colors being rated wildly different. That's only because I spend more time in the upload queue than I do in the regular skin or wallpaper sections. The amount of time I can manage for the site is usually consumed going through all the work awaiting moderation. the message board and a couple other areas. I try to get out and browse through the skins occasionally but it's not every day. That being said, here's what I think could have happened, and why;

There's a bunch of people listed as moderators but only 7 of them are very active at moderating. At any given time there could be any one or several of those 7 people looking at the submissions. There can be as many as 30 pieces waiting to be posted, some of them need special treatment, like an email asking for some details about the work or some investigation on the net looking for a possible unauthorized source that was used or a lot of other things that will keep a piece in the queue for a long time. Maybe it's just a case of a wallpaper that is on the fence and is collecting comments and opinions so we can make a group decision as to whether or not to let it in. Whatever the case, the queue is an interesting beast that can consume a lot of time and even get emotional at times.

I can only speak for myself and not the other moderators. I will say though that every one of them takes the responsibility seriously and makes an honest and thoughtful effort to do what is best for the site, and for the artists. I don't know if it was me that posted your skin with a 4 (or the earlier one with a 7) but I can imagine it very possibly could have been. I consider the entire range of scores 1-10 to be valid. In the case of wallpapers, I don't post something that I won't give at least a 4 because of the filter. If it gets dropped below that after it's up on the site, that's the way it goes. With all other categories the full range of ratings is visible.

I consider 4-6 to be where most of the work fits. To get a 7 it must be exceptional, an 8 or a 9 exceptional, innovative and perfect in its execution, a 10 is very rare and should indicate the piece is at the top of the format's capabilities.

Sometimes I've noticed the state of the queue has an influence on my ratings. I try to avoid this but just the fact that I've noticed myself doing it means it's happening. It probably happens to others too. The way this works is, there might be a whole bunch of wallpapers that will all be moderated, a few ripped skins, a couple copyright infringement skins, etc all at the same time. That can make the task of moderating a real challenge to anyone. In a case like that I might let in a wallpaper that is perhaps a bit below the standard because it looks good compared to everything else being uploaded. I might also skip over a skin or rubber-stamp it because I know it's okay and I know I need to put a lot of effort into doing the other ones. It's not right, it doesn't happen that often, but it sets up a situation where a skin could get either a higher or a lower rating than it would with a bit more scrutiny.

I don't know why there was such a discrepancy in the ratings on your two skins. I do know a lot of reasons why it could happen though. The one thing I think is most important to remember is you can always approach us (any of us) and discuss something like that. Like I said before, I've been contacted by artists regarding ratings many times. Usually it's a case of someone dropping a rating by giving a piece a 1 and making the final result lower than it should be. We'll always try to fix what looks like a rude or vengeful rating and we'll always be willing to talk things over, investigate problems and try to keep the system friendly to everyone.

Finally, the ratings themselves are only really meaningful if 20 or 30 people rate the skin. That's not happening so I don't take the ratings seriously on my own work. The ratings cause a lot of grief for people which is a real shame because they aren't meant to decide what people 'like' they are just to add a sort mechanism and some manageability to the database. The comments and download counts tell a much more meaningful story about the work. The ratings will always be wrong to somebody.

The real danger is taking ratings too seriously which can lead to reactions that a person might regret later. Sorry this got so long but I want you to know, we're just regular old people with all the flaws trying to do the best we can. Everyone gets the same opportunities and the same treatment. And as much as we are able, we would like that to be perceived as fair and caring for the artists, the members and the site visitors.

Thank you David.

I know I over-reacted at the start. It happens sometimes. Just like you and all the other moderators, circumstances can have an effect on how you react to something. July 17th was a particularly bad day for me.

I do understand the enormous stress you and all the moderators can sometimes be under. I'm not a stranger to stress myself. (I work for a graphic design/printing company where every hour is a deadline.) Sometimes, the enormity of the situation can lead one to look for shortcuts, but like you said, it is very rare.

It's been a few days, and I'm calmer now. Reason has had a chance to creep back in.

Enough reason to know that I will probably begin uploading skins again some day, although I doubt I will re-upload the ones I removed. (They would remind me of a bad few days in my life that I would just as soon forget.) So, it will most likely just be new ones.

Again, thanks for the reply. It has hit it's mark and I'm rational once again.

I think Dave has covered everything admirably...

One other thing, though.....yes, it's true, just like the OS you use to view this, the site generates 'bugs', as the coding is in constant revision/improvement....It's sort of 'entertaining' to come to 'work' each day only yo discover the Janitor has moved the entrance, painted the walls pink, and forgotten to empty the ash-trays....but we love 'im anyway...

The 'bug' was very real....I've checked it first-hand...

Er....'yo', dude....that's 'to'...

{It's Monday morning in Oz....I'm allowed some mistakes]...

Saw an interesting discussion over at DeskMod about ratings. Or at least: as interesting as a discussion about ratings can get (ergo: not quite).

Someone made the very valid point that people will look at ratings as school ratings. Meaning 5 (or 50) and below is insufficient, 6 (or 60) is just good enough, 7 (or 70) is so so. GOod starts at 8 and above and people actually expect to get 10s, as if it were a school test or something.

In fact though, the way Dave rates is far more realistic. An average skin will get an average rating, meaning most skins should end up in the 4-6 range.

But if you mix the two systems, you get miscommunications. And we all know what that can lead to.

What? Windows XP has bugs? I thought it was to be the OS to end all OS's. I'm sure that's what Mr. Gates said!

I'm glad you're back motion...

now, where did China go?......

Hey WiseOldMan.

Tainted potato salad is potato salad that's been left out in the sun too long. Eating it in that state would probably result in long, long bouts of uncontrolable vomitting. .....much like that.

Those aren't bugs.......they're enhancement anomalies.

Thank you motion. Glad your back, missed your humor.

I've seen china over at Skinbase.

Some of you guys would really hate being a game developer I suspect.

I remember a few years ago we wrote the game Entrepreneur. It represented TWO YEARS or our lives to create it. It came out and back then there were 4 major US game magazines. One of them was called PC Games. The guy who reviewed it had only played the game for probably 10 minutes tops (based on screenshots and the words he said in the review). He gave it a D. He even rated the multiplayer system a D even though unlike other games of 1997, Entrepreneur came with an integrated match making service ala Battle.net, far superior to anything available at the time (other than battle.net itself). He had never even logged on.

Luckily, the other magazines gave it very high markets, 3.5 stars, 4 stars, etc. But the PC Games review was the first one and you can imagine how we felt. It also hurt sales.

It happens all the time. We also made a game called LightWeight Ninja. Gamespot gave it a TWO (out of 10). Totally reamed it. But it was totally inconsisten with other reviews they'd given. A differnet reviewer had given a 7 out of 10 to a competing game even though every othre site had rated us far higher than the other game and the graphics of the other game were much worse. We just happened to get a bad reviewer in our case.

The bottom line is, inconsistency happens. It happens all the time. I'd say this site is much more consistent than most because the moderators here literally agonize over what they rate things. More thought often goes into the ratings here than you see done by paid game reviewers!

Virtually every site that has a database of content has some sort of rating system.

I understand what you're saying Brad. Inconsistency is just a part of life. In my job if I'm inconsistent (printing) it can mean thousands of dollars of product is returned by the customer and the company has to eat that loss. That means I get "called on the carpet" and royally reamed. And rightly so. I'm paid, and paid well, to be consistent in my work.

I have a feeling that the overloaded moderators here are not paid, or if they are it is not very much.

The mistake was mine. I've admitted to over-reacting.

This baby's been fed, bathed and put to bed. It's time to let it sleep.

AMEN.

another thread I missed.... I guess the only thing left for me to do is post on every thread so all the threads with "why bother" are together at the top of the message board.

I am sure this subject will come up again, so hopefully I can voice my opintion too and be in the mix.