EH....the 'you' was the rhetorical one, not the specific one....

Well, there are no official skinning guidelines. Nothing defines what one rating means. So everything goes, really.

Veterans will remember me for my big rants against the rating system specifically because it means nothing.  Because there is no guides, because there is no rating grid, the rating values are therefore 100% personnal and therefore anybody can define his own rule on what a 1 is or what a 10 is.  Mr X gives it a 2 because he hates the color, and Mr Y gives it a 10 cause it has animations and Mr Y Looooves animations!

Having said that, I tend to rate according to my own personnal tastes, because there was no other way put forth.  If I hate a skin, no matter how technically brilliant it is, I am incapable of giving it a high rating.

A while back, I suggested a rating grid. It is a bit more of a fair way to rate, IMO.

But you'd give it a 'less low' rating....

Hehehe EH: ratings have a purpose, but not necessarely a meaning.   What does it mean to have a 4?  That the colors are bad? That it's technically bad? That the design is ugly? That the skin is too slow? All of the above?
For each rater, there is a different meaning. If a skin gets 5 ratings, chances are the 5 ratings were given according to 5 different criterias, making the overall rating meaningless.

Since there is no predefined definition or guide for ratings, one has to assume that, by default, ratings mean: How do you like this skin?  And therefore has nothing to do with technically good or bad the skin is, unless in some people's own tastes "technically well done" means that they like it.

No, there's clear meaning there....it means that by whatever criteria of subjective or emotive opinion incited/inspired the disparate 5 to post a rating the resulting mean is a reflection of the skin's acceptance.

Sure, if 2 rated on technique...and 3 rated on appearance then the averaged result would make no sense if you expected it to reflect only one criteria, eg. technique.

However.

It's an averaging process...an amalgam of opinions, and it gives a perfectly justifiable/defensible indication of a skin's acceptance ....by those 5 people.

It's painfully obvious, however that the next 10,000 viewers/raters may not agree....but that is the blatantly clear failing of a limited rater-application [number of rates applied] and any 'criteria' of rating classification......1 for originality, 1 for looks, 1 for technique, etc will fail exactly equally as well through lack of numbers of ratings to establish a real-world mean reflection.

If Joe Public sees a rating of say '6' his interpretation of that will be [should be] that it has been considered by others before him to be about average or better....purely in general terms, not for example for the pedantic-accuracy-wanters that the start button was rated at 6.  If you were to split criteria then each individual part would be subject to variations of opinion focus/reasoning which would make them all equally 'meaningless' if that were really the case with an overall single rating as it is at the moment.

The only clear, accurate rating method is for it to be purely un- adulterated....eg the 'opinion' of one person only....where hopefully that person isn't subject to mood-swings or prejudice....an unlikely animal, but a newspaper film critic would be a case in point....one opinionated opinion.

10 opinionated opinions would give a better inkling of what the film was like.

Perhaps ratings should be applied transparently.....no-one sees what they are at all [though their application handles band-width screening still].  Instead the skin could display......'rated 6 times'.....just to prompt others to add theirs.

Maybe something could be hard-coded to prevent a rating be applied unless the dl link is clicked first.....might reduce drive-by idiots.

Again, the 'star system' is a ratings-obsession-softener.....to bypass this obsession with numerology....

Was I mumbling or not not typing loud enough?

I think that its often hard to get used to one system over another one.  Perhaps its unfortunate that the stars started shining while the numbers were still there for comparison.  In a bit, when it is all one system, and not both ways... when everything is that way.. then it will probably seem more natural. Some old codgers like me take a little longer to change our frames of reference.

I always had my view preferences set to show everything because early on I found great skins rated low.  (either that or my taste is kind of radical)  It would be great if these stars would stop the trolling for good rates, and the vengeful rates too....

Earlier I said that I was surprised to see that I had given a 3 ... I should clarify that to say I was surprised that I had rated at all.  My browser loads a page then when when all the images  have finally loaded it takes a little jump.  So a click in process is often misaimed... I have learned to be extra careful.  But I hadn't really thought of that with the stars... so when I found that I had mistakenly taken a good skin down quite far I was surprised.

BTW, about this:

How did you do that? Did I miss something?  Where do you have access to the skins library from your new homepage?  All I see are my own skins. Or were you rating your own skins?