Every day, WinCustomize serves up well over 1 million pages to users all across the globe.  Our forums hum with activity and dozens of user submissions come in every day.  There's no question that WinCustomize is a very popular site with a thriving community surrounding it that grows every day.  We've been working a lot behind the scenes to improve the daily experience here through things like the new website, contests such as the GUI Champs and the St. Patrick's Day Icon Contest, and Island Dog's stream of community and product walkthrough articles.  We're not simply content to sit on our laurels and just let things coast along though, we want to keep growing, expand our user community, turn the forums, articles and skin libraries into something really special.  WinCustomize 2007 was just the first step.

One of my primary jobs here at Stardock is to grow our communities, find ways to make the sites better, easier to use, more inviting and more interesting.  Now, I can sit here at my desk and dream up contests, exclusive content (like the Vista Tour series in January) and work with Island Dog as he writes up his fantastic skinning articles, but that just doesn't have the same community feel.  So now I turn to you all and ask what you would like to see more of.  What is it that keeps you coming back day after day to WinCustomize?  What sort of content would you be interested in reading on this site?  What types of community activities could we run that would get you more involved in the day-to-day happenings of the community?

We're already working on the WinCustomize Wiki, which will allow expert users a better method to share their expertise and knowledge with newer skinners.  For our expert users, there seems to be little, simple, opportunity to share what they know.  But what about our intermediate users?  Or new users?

This is an open question to everyone who surfs this site.  Even if you're not an active member at the moment and just scan the page every few days, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what could make the site better, and invite more people to stick around and participate.

As has been said in the past, often people look at us and think "Those Stardock folks will come up with something cool"  and we often do, but to help the community grow and get better with time, we need you to step up yourselves and take a more active role in how everything is run.  The hope has always been that WinCustomize would be largely run by the community, with Stardock playing more or less a high-level administrative role.  We want to encourage user articles, news, projects more this year.  We want WinCustomize to turn into a site you come to several times a day, every day.  A site and community you want to bring your friends to.

What sort of content could the site provide to make the experience even better?  How would you like to help grow the site and the community?

This is your chance to toss in your two cents, to be heard and help influence the direction of the community in 2007!