Much of this message board is becoming redundant. Almost a month ago I posted a thread about skin requests and their various evils in an attempt to cull a lot of the repetition and cloggin up of the board with almost identical threads. It seemed to work to some extent, although we still get the requests for Barbie and Chevvy Chase skins on almost a daily basis.

Now it's time to deal with a second pet hate I have on these boards - the multitude of people complaining about their wallpapers being rejected. I understand that each of these individuals take a great deal of pride in their 'work', and the lack of a reason for its rejection stings somewhat, but do we really need an individual thread for each and every wallpaper rejected?

Here are some things to remember.

1. Why has my wallpaper been rejected, and yet I haven't been given a reason for this cruel and unusual punishment?

When we first had the wallpaper section here at WinCustomize, each wallpaper was treated with the utmost respect, and those which didn't make the grade were rejected through the use of a personal e-mail detailing the reasons and some suggestions for improvements.

This approach worked for all of about 20 minutes. Within moments, the moderators responsible for rejecting wallpapers started to receive angry, and in many cases obscenely abusive, replies to their comments from the wallpaper creators. Not everyone responded in this way, but enough did to warrant taking another look at the procedures.

Now remember that these moderators are volunteers, and that they get nothing out of doing this job aside from the pleasure of maintaining one of the best collections of desktop customizations on the Internet. It was therefore decided that they didn't deserve to get this kind of abuse from disgruntled wallpaper artists on a daily basis. The e-mailing process was stopped, and wallpapers were simply accepted or rejected without comment.

This was perhaps unfortunate for those artists who found the criticism to be genuinely helpful, but this lack of feedback was deemed to be more acceptable than the constant harassment of the moderators by those less willing to have their egos bruised.

To get an idea of the severity of responses received by moderators during that dark period, they included such gems as personal insults, racism, and in some cases death threats. I think you'll therefore understand why we have the system we do now.

2. Starting threads to get a second opinion from the general public.

A large percentage of the threads started on the board are by artists who have had their work rejected and want other users to back them up in their fight for justice. Don't do it.

If your work has been rejected, you're not doing yourself any favours by trying to bypass the moderators. You're only giving yourself a bad name and drawing attention to yourself. This could impact negatively on your future submissions.

Posting your rejected wallpapers in a public forum opens you up to exactly the kind of criticism you probably won't want to hear. You're likely to receive some very harsh critiques, and end up feeling a lot worse about yourself and your work than you did when it was simply rejected.

While it's true that you may get one or two positive comments, what you are effectively doing is parading a known sub-standard piece of work in front of the harshest bunch of critics known to man - the public. You're unlikely to get any genuinely helpful advice, especially if your thread is the 100th one of the week complaining about the unfairness of the moderation process.

If you honestly believe that your work was of a high enough standard to get accepted, then e-mail a site admin and get them to take another look at it. Don't just re-submit it, or try to generate support in the public forums.

3. Uploading a rejected wallpaper as a desktop screenshot.

If your wallpaper doesn't get through, it's often tempting to simply upload it to the screenshots section. This section has less moderation than the wallpapers one, and is used to show off your current desktop customizations to other users.

While it's fine to upload a screenshot with your wallpaper as a background, the screenshot cannot be useable as a wallpaper itself. You must obscure the image with windows, icons and other items so that you're not just using the section as another distribution outlet for your work.

If you are found to be doing this knowingly, a very dim view will be taken by the site admins. You may have certain priviledges revoked, and your experience of the site will be heavily limited.

4. Helpful information.

If you need more advice about wallpaper submissions, it's a good idea to take a look at the site's submission guidelines. These can be read here: https://www.wincustomize.com/guidelines.asp

If you feel you have a strong enough case for your wallpaper being re-evaluated, contact one of the admins by e-mail. Some useful e-mail addresses can be found here: https://www.wincustomize.com/index.asp?Cmd=about#rule

Above all, remember that to succeed in this 'business', you need to be your own harshest critic. Before submitting your work, take a long hard look at it and try to decide whether it will be something that other users of the site will want to have on their desktop.

Take a look around the wallpaper section and try to get an idea of the sorts of things people like. Look at ratings and download counts for wallpapers of a similar genre to yours, and decide whether you should upload your wallpaper or simply keep it for yourself and work harder on your next effort.