If you gamers think skinning is BS then you should stop using the smiles. They were created by a....SKINNER.

Not me! I eat what I can while it's still warm and leave the rest for the other animals.

All I said was that I didn't understand what all the hoopla was about and that *in my opinion* it's merely cosmetic. You act as if I killed your grandmother. 

However the smilies *were* in fact discussed and I believe at the time I liked them to Hannah Montana. Actually I still stand by that characterization.

What's with the new smilies?

For the many users out there Kryo, that is fine and understandable. But when a Stardockian is showing that behaviour it is a far more worrying thing.

Comments about games and skinning is not the point, there is obviously a market for each and there will be folks who care adn those that don't. What the true issue is, and what this thread was about, is that the two camps, just because they happen to both be part of the SD family are not apt at getting along.

Wincustomize has been around for a while, so it has becaome obvious that many users/devs from WC feel that everyone, as you point out Kryo, should be aware of WC. Ok, i actually see some sense in that, WC users feel we have come into their domain, they would be reading this from wincustomize.com i assume, so they believe we have come to their site.

Much like the debate that raged some months ago with the influx of OT threads into GC2. The blending of sites mixes users with very different tastes that have joined their respective sites and are now being thrust together.

Mumble and i for instance joined GC2.com as we play the game and choose to be part of the community that goes with that. That is my one and only reason for going to GC2.com. I don't expect to find an online auction there, thats a different site. I don't expect to find user uploaded video's, again a different site. It is why it is so frustrating to find Religious/Political/JU/WC/Impulse topics on a game site. (ok i'll grant Impulse as much as it bothers me)

Had GC2 the fan base of WC and vis versa, would not the WC users be complaining that they have come to their skinning site to be part of the WC community yet find themselves bombarded by Abundant all stratagies and talk of Carriers and Governers.

Stardock may as well abandon the GC2 forum. I'm serious, why bother with the upkeep of yet another site when it's just rolled into the SD network anyway. That could be said for any one of the SD sites that don't have the traffic of Impulse/WC...Ju?

Our (GC2) threads get obscured by topics not associated with the purpose of the site, like this thread for example. I still fail to see how that helps the greater community. I have nothing ill toward skinners/bloggers. I just have a different taste and wish to be part of a community that reflects that.

Why can't GC2 be that community, it used to. The arguement can be made for any part of the SD network.

Countering the statement/opinion/whatever that skinning is about vanity is hardly an attitude of superiority....other than the impression given by that comment that skinning is somehow 'trivial' and beneath a gamer.

The gamers' GalCiv as well as the skinners' Windowblinds are BOTH the products of artisans at Stardock, both valued equally.

I don't give a toss whose side of a fence one likes to prance around on....you slight skinners/skinnables and you slight the likes of Neil Banfield....you slight games and it's Cari Elf.

I'm equally happy to jump to the defense of either/all.....but I'm not going to bother explaining myself repetitiously to the deliberately obtuse.

When someone asks the question 'what is it about skinning'? expect an answer.

When someone verbalises profound indifference...well good for him.

When someone suggests skinning is for the character-flawed then expect a rebuttal.

************************

Re the Op....yes. it's a 'blog'.....though it seems to have been hijacked.

It ain't likely to change re the forum interlinking....simply because Stardock itself is multi-faceted so, too will be the forum topics/interest...

Let me be just a bit blunt here.

There is one word we all need to focus on....community.  I see a lot of "attitude" going around from several sides because they don't like or are necessarily "into" the other.  That really needs to be stop as we are all, as another poster said, at Stardockia. 

The cross-forums aren't going anywhere, it's just not gonna happen.  Are there improvements that need to be made, or changes to make the experience easier for folks....maybe, and I know there are some plans in the works for them.  But regardless, people need to learn to respect one another.  There are specific forums for skinning, there are specific forums for Games, and there are specific forums for Impulse related topics.  Right now this is in the Personal Computing section which stretches across all platofrms because......personal computing is a general topic that applies to all whether it's a PC issue, or just someone looking for advice on hardware or something.

What I was arguing was that people's site of origin should be known so as to provide some basis of context as to their interests, etc.

The second point was that it should be well known what forums are shared among which sites and the relative importance placed on that forum by any particular site.

For example this forum is forums.galciv2.com/forum/1 and it's also forums.wincustomize.com/forum/1. I don't know if there any special meaning in the forum number but to me forum number 1 implies an old, well established forum. However on GalCiv2 the Personal Computing forum appears to be just a minor subforum of the Off Topic forum while on WinCustomize it's a major Category with multiple subforums below it and then on forums.stardock.com the forum doesn't even exist.

From this structure I have to assume that the WC site may very rightly feel that there is some level of proprietary ownership in that it's been "their" forum and now suddenly there are interloper "gamer" posting to threads that have previously been exclusively WC folks or whoever. I suppose I would feel the same way about response by non-GC2 folks in the GalCiv2 Metaverse forum.

The point has been made that forums will be shared. Fine. At this point all that I'm asking is the knowledge of what forums are shared with whom and suggesting that a system similar to the recently set up Forums/Site Issues forums would probably help things a lot. That way you truly have a set of known "global" forums and whenever you post or reply there you know that your audience is the world but also have a known set of "site local" forums where you're free to express yourself with primarily like minded folks.

I think such a system would be less aggravation for all concerned.

Basically the people that I don't care to talk to are the people that have already demonstrated to me that they're not going to listen to anything that I have to say and give it the least amount of credence. In this kind of case why would I want to talk to such a person. It appears to me that the only thing they're willing to hear is utter and total agreement to their position. It makes for a very one-sided conversation.

When someone tells you that every opinion you hold is not just an opinion but is an unreasonable opinion to hold while their every opinion is not opinion but fact then there is no chance of any kind of rational discourse. My closed mindedness is only in response to extensive closed mindedness that I've received from both User's and Moderator's of these forums.

Again I want to stress that "All generalizations are false, including this one", but in my personal opinion in general the treatment that I and other GC2er's have recieved from non-GC2 forum goers has not been good and frankly we're tired of being treated like the red-headed orphan.

I see your point, Mumbles, and on that basis, I'd probably feel pretty much the same way and not wish to communicate with those persons again, either. However, I don't take life or myself too seriously these days and generally shrug it all off.  Life is too short to be upset or worried about such things, so nowadays I don't let them rock my boat and just move on to the next thing.

Another thing I am loathe to do these days is tar people of a similar ilk with the same brush... and while I would not lump all Galciv forum members into the same category (because everyone is different), I would like to think that those people wouldn't paint all Wcers, Joe Users, etc, with the same brush.  Every great communty can/will have an element of argumentative killjoy types who delight in getting a rise from taunting others... but these days I just pass such people by and find community members who are more amiable, pleasant to converse and share a joke with.

It seems like this fight flares up every few months, skinning vs gaming.  One side calling the other silly, both thinking that they are more important than the other, and always crying for separate forums, or at least clear demarcation of where a thread or post originates from.  It's a battle I was even involved with nearly a year before I even started working here.

A few things to clear up for everyone involved...

1. Skinning is not more important than Gaming.  Gaming is not more important than Skinning.
   Both are parts of Stardock's business.  Both are audiences we've served for many years.  Both are passions of ours.  In terms of the business, they compliment each other quite well and there are benefits realized by both sides (DesktopX is the tech that powers the UI in GalCiv 2, Political Machine (2004 & 2008).  In terms of community, many people have started out on one side of the fence and over time discovered the other half of Stardock.  I myself came from the gaming side and later spent two years running WinCustomize.
   
   I'm honestly sick and tired of people on either side trying to claim that their passion/hobby is better, more important, more valid etc than the other.  Guess what?  It's not.  It doesn't matter if you're a gamer who sees no point in skinning, or a skinner who thinks gaming is a waste of time, don't try and insult the opposition and then get all in a huff because they attack back.
   
   Both gaming and customization are equally important parts.  All conjecture to what has the larger customer base, what deserves preference from Stardock, or what should be treated with a softer touch for whatever reason should be thrown out.  All are our customers, all are our community and believe it or not, we value you, your contributions (whatever they may be). 
   
2. Cross-posting Adds more than it Takes Away
   As ID said, cross-posting will never go away.  We have this fight with users every year or so, but it seems to come from users who want their site to be entirely self-contained and to hell with anyone who doesn't want to talk about ONLY a particular topic.  Cross-posting is actually one of the key features that keeps all of our sites so active.  Users who never neard of GalCiv may post to the Personal Computing forum via JoeUser asking a tech question, this may spark discussion from GalCiv2.com, WinCustomize, ImpulseDriven etc.
   
   You may not realize it, but many of the discussions everyone here participates in regularly are likely the result of the cross-posting forum setup.  It makes all of the forums more active and more interesting.
   
3. There will likely not be indicators on where a post came from
   The reason is simple; All sites are part of the same larger community.  The goal is to have it be seamless.  Icons or badges telling a user where the post came from creates an additional, arbitrary barrier.  Since in the cross-posted forums, there isn't anything site-specific about them, adding site-specific information divides more than it unites.  It would be like formally creating a caste system for users... "Ohh, you wear the mark of the Chameleon.  Your kind is not wanted here!"
   
   It's only a small set of users who know or care about the cross posting, and for most of them the only solution they'd be happy with is the elimination of the system.  The badges won't make those folks happy, and they'll just draw attention to the system from folks who never noticed or cared before.  It would create problems where there currently are none, and would in part defeat the purpose of the system.

You're all part of the same large community, like it or not.  Going after each other, biting at each others heels and trying to stir up trouble won't get us to bend to your personal view of how the sites should be run.  Learn to live with it and play nice.

In any case we've had Jafo, Island Dog and now Zoomba all read the riot act and I think that's plenty enough for me for the moment.

Apologies to putradi for hijacking his blog, however I've heard that there's no such thing as bad publicity other than your own obituary so on that basis he probably should be thanking me.

Now that I think about it, that's absolutely correct. Without cross-posting we could never have these lively little chats.

Saying.. * dude you suck* is an insult as well as a opinion..

opinions can be stated without the need to belittle other people or their past times