Features for WinCustomize V4 Suggestion Thread
Friday, April 30, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
We're getting close to starting on re-creating WinCustomize.
Here are some basic features we want:
Users will have their own domain: User.WinCustomize.com
Their account will include things like their skin gallery, recommended skins, posts they've participated in, Skinner Groups, etc.
The main site itself will be streamlined in one way but expanded in another. Streamined in that there will only be two columns instead of 3 and less "Stuff" on the main page. Expanded in that there will be multiple page modes. For instance, the top authors and skins will be on the "Most Popular" tab and have vastly more information and details on the top skinners and top submissions so that more people get highlighted and the most popular authors get more kudos.
Speaking of kudos, whenever someone posts or responds or is present in any way, the various awards they've won on the site and other distinctions will show up. So if you have a featured skin, you'll get a little 16x16 medal for that. Get the most popular skin for the day, same thing, reach a certain milestone in downloads get another and so forth.
People who help others will be able to be highlighted more by admins by getting special tags by them showing that this is a "super user". This is a step beyond the regular access levels we already have.
The forums will be vastly expanded and yet kept very simple. It will function much like the JoeUser forum here. It won't LOOK like that at all. The functionality is key though as it will be different than other sites. Each higher level is a superset of the content of the more specific levels. For example, the "General" forum will have the newest articles listed from all the sub-forums. As you click on sub-forums, the topics get more specific. So if you JUST want to talk about wallpapers, no problem, you can go to the wallpaper forum. But those popular topics will also show up in their parent forums and so on. This is the opposite of the way most forums work on most forums, sub-forums are largely useless and empty because what you post there is read by few people.
The whole site will be recoded in ASP.NET and be vastly faster than what we have today.
There will be a lot more admin and moderator tools to police. Right now we're kind of stuck with having to kick someone out entirely with no in-between ways of warning people.
One of the tabs will be dedicated towards the software used to customize the desktop.
One of the tabs will be dedicated towards tutorials on creating stuff for the different sections.
The purchasing of premium skins and themes and suites will be much more integrated into the site and top authors will have a streamlined way of being able to offer the occasional premium skin. But to be able to qualify for submitting premium (i.e. non free) content you have to have already contributed a lot of free content (i.e. we don't want skinning to end up a paid thing but we want authors to have a way of being able to justify their rather time consuming hobby and be able to afford new hardware and software).
WC subscribers will have a host of special features only available to them such as on-site blogging, integration into JoeUser.com onto their site, skin recommendations, and other goodies. One goody of interest is that articles on skinning, a kind of "live magazine" will be able to be done. Subscribers will be able to submit the the live WC Magazine (one of the tabs) so that others can read thoughts on skinning. Admins will still be able to moderate this to determine whether a given article is "featured" on WC Mag live as opposed to listed.
The rating system will be totally overhauled. Instead, ratings will be weighted by access level. The higher your access, the more weight your rating caries. It will be on a star system also (1 through 5 stars) instead of a point system since more people are familiar with that. Existing ratings will be modified to fit this (we track who rates what so the weighting system can be retroactively applied).
The most popular page, btw, will be tracking skins based on most popular for the MONTH, WEEK, as well as day. The Weekly most popular will be the one most highlighted instead of the daily one.
So those are some of our ideas. Are there any features not mentioned here that you would like to see?
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Reply #42 Sunday, May 2, 2004 7:30 PM
I agree with what someone else said that often screenshots do not include enough info about the skin. The screenshot should be about that skin and only that skin, unless its a suite. Often a WB theme will show a rainlander skin(or other such program that interally skins) but make no mention of it. Clean up those shots and show a real desktop also. Some I think try to be too cute and show things so different you don't get a good feel of the skin.
It would be kewl if animated images could be uploaded in some cases. It would give skinners a better way to show what a skin can do.
I agree on keeping the absence of avatars and sigs. I cannot stand sites that use them, it just messes up the flow of the board.
If I think of anything else I'll add it.
Reply #43 Sunday, May 2, 2004 8:46 PM
Spellcheck idea might be good, some posts are hard to figure out just what they meant to say.
Can't wait to see the changes!
Reply #44 Sunday, May 2, 2004 8:53 PM
| If it ain't broke why fix it? kona0197 had to say something stupid!!! |
Not so stupid
I like the messageboard the way it is and I am on the just say no to avatars and sigs bandwagon 
Reply #45 Sunday, May 2, 2004 9:20 PM
Reply #46 Sunday, May 2, 2004 9:40 PM
Reply #47 Sunday, May 2, 2004 9:56 PM
Styl-X Design hits satans child with his keyboard 
Reply #48 Sunday, May 2, 2004 9:59 PM
Reply #49 Sunday, May 2, 2004 10:04 PM
Reply #51 Sunday, May 2, 2004 10:22 PM
Reply #53 Sunday, May 2, 2004 10:40 PM
Reply #54 Monday, May 3, 2004 12:45 AM
Reply #55 Monday, May 3, 2004 1:30 AM
Thats one heck of skin!!I like that idea SC
The contest idea that treetog made (#21) is great
Reply #56 Monday, May 3, 2004 2:29 AM
Reply #57 Monday, May 3, 2004 2:38 AM
| submit things and get them listed right away |
Journeymen or higher.....
Just because someone buys a subscription or has ODNT doesn't mean that their work shouldn't get moderated.| also more OD moderators would be nice becuase a lot of people wait a while for their stuff to get listed. |
Ever hear the phrase....Please allow six to eight weeks for shipping....and those people are getting paid.
I think the geourl is a neat idea though
Reply #58 Monday, May 3, 2004 2:52 AM
Reply #59 Monday, May 3, 2004 9:55 AM
The average age of visitors will by 10 years as soon as you go to it. Just who would want to moderate them? Quickly you would have cat fights over what is generally accetable vs free expression. I have also seen too many forums that were torture for 56k users. Do we really want to alienate the 50% of the population that still uses 56k?
Few banner ads are as irritating as blinking, flashing and poorly animated avatars.
Reply #60 Monday, May 3, 2004 12:39 PM
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Reply #41 Sunday, May 2, 2004 6:53 PM
when it does work, waiting 5 minutes, literally, for the main page to load... this is not funny
also, a light weight message board view. i really don't need side bars full of links, taking up screen space just to browse the message board. again this adds quite a bit to the load time of the page.
avatars and sigs, i have seen one site, which will remain nameless, where over 80% of some threads were the avatars and signature lines! one person had a picture that must have been 600 pixels tall in their sig line
beyond this, add something interesting and worth while for site subscribers. easier said than done i know. what i do know is that Stardock Central recently surprised me by telling me my site subscription was nearly up. this was a surprise because i had clicked on the WC tab by mistake for the first time in 6 months. at the moment the honest truth is that i see very little point in renewing my site subscription. i am going to keep my OD subscription, but what do i get from my site subscription? the bottom line seems to be nothing *sigh* this is a discussion for a separate thread should anyone want to go into this in more detail with me.