I think you should always point out what you think might be errored. to not do so is only doing a disservice.

If your wrong, it's not too hard to come clean and admit it. Learn and move on.

I agree...

Disagree with that completely, altho, yes it does happen, very few and far between in my experience, How often has the screenshot been misrepresentative and the conclusion was that the skin wasn't as good as the screenshot.

I think the ratio on this may be quite high.

IR and I had a conversation about this yesterday and both of us, could name one skin, in all the years on here that was better than the screenshot indicated.

As far as the sexist comment, I think that is complete nonsense and paranoid, Im all for female skinners trying to better themselves, Ive helped almost everyone that has given it a go on WC in recent years. Some have become good friends, a few have flipped out and done 180's on me despite my efforts and invested time on their behalf.

Not at all, the screenshot was an almost finished representation of the final skin, absolutely no diff. than a gallery screernshot, all elements shown.. were finished. He could no better have commented on the final screenshot of the elements shown.

yeah beige, blue, orange and green, used in a billion other themes.

The skin itself is in no way representative of any MS default skin.

representative, reminded.. pretty close.. again.. semantics.

This isnt about me getting feedback, obviously if I didnt want it, or exposure I wouldnt post WIPS. It appeared to be an obvious unwarranted knock on the skin to me and everyone I know. If you don't see it that way, so be it, people can make up their own minds. And again.. I could have cared less until it was contradicted.

Same with gallery skins, the screenshot is all you have to go by, that said.. it looks exactly the same as the start menu, frames, taskbar in the purchased wb. One CAN easily form an opinion on a screenshot without purchasing it. period.

Perhaps some cannot. Cant imagine why, considering.. its the same thing... printscreened.

I seriously can hardly believe I'm even arguing this point with intelligent people.

I have an aunt who has little 'saches' alll over her house. The smell reminds me of my Grandmothers front porch.

The colors in your skin remind me of everything MS.

He didn't say it looked bad, or sucked, or wasn't worth the money. JUst that it reminded him of something.

Another contradiction? I have blown by skins because I thought .Nah. Not for me. Looks bad.' Whatever. Then gone back and looked again or tried them. I stand by what I said. Not ALL screenshots do the work justice. Hell, sometimes the wallpapers people put behind them take away from the skin. Just because some folks can make a windowblind does not mean they all know the best wallpaper to put with it. (That would include the little pony in your screenshot. For me, grass is just another reminder of MS)

No they don't just 99% of them... and on a pay skin, The screenshot is what sells the skin.,

Is it entirely possible that some are just better judges of a theme from a screenshot than you? I dunno.

Ive one time gone back.. and been surprised and only because of an animation and only one time.

It was a kitty malone skin and an animated start button. But i could easily tell, from the screenshot that I didnt like the skin in general design or quality of design.

It's not that difficult. Perhaps some people just have a harder time than others but that doesn't mean that those who have not purchased cannot form an opinion. They are commeting.. on what's shown.

Ive already adressed that a couple of posts up. Besides.. I believe the common belief on this site is that Luna is crap. Trying to liken it to Luna.. was certainly a knock on the skin...IMO.  If you feel differently.. thats cool too. Everything is open to individual interpretation.

Thought id post the theme so folks can reference it. Nothing shown on the original screen is shown any differently. No element of this skin is in anyway..imo.. representative of a MS skin other than the biege.

Can we agree to disagree on the Screenshot issue?

As for the rest...I haven't made a blind yet. That holds me back from making comments. As for Master skins. the combo of not having made a skin and the fact that 'Master' is in the title holds me back. But what the hell..

I've seen a few, quite a few Master skins that I kinda shook my head at. The 'quality' is there. I see the clean lines, they work well, etc. But I have only ventured to buy a few. (YOurs, as a matter of fact) and the others I won't purchase.

Me, personally...I want more Oxidized. It's a good skin. If I lose you on this, I am sorry. I have a hard time with my descriptions which is why I don't comment as often as I would like to. Oxidized has soem weight to it. You can almost touch it. It's bold but not overdone. (The wallpaper sucks..but eh) It's not too heavy like say WOW or Rogue Proton. It's original without being gimmicky (Like Naked which is an outstanding minimalist skin) The closest I have seen to it in recent times is Dragon. I want less 'Halloween' and less 'SPiderman'.  And it seems to me a lot of folks with some truly amazing talent have played it safe.

We all know that they can execute a skin well, now step it up. I can't belive some folks get all hot over some of the skins they do. For VOIP, as far as what I like about it...the icons stand out the most. It doesn't do it for me. The taskbar color reminds me of the nutral tones (Sand?) of Win2000  and the bllue, green, orange do the same. Yet, as a minimal, nutral skin that is clean, easy on the eyes, and somewhat stylish in an angular, clean line kind of way, it's great.

I guess the reason I get stuck (I have five blinds half started) is because I am trying to capture the same feeling and imagery that first got me interested in all of this. I have one or two very minimal skins also, but they don't interest me as much.

Your skins are well crafted. I can see it on each corner and in each line. I would hope I could be half as good. But even though I snagged two of your Master skins, which I love, I am still waiting for the one that will knock my socks off.

That's all I will vber say about any Master skin or any blind for that matter. Aside from the usual 'I love it. Looks great.". I don't feel I have earned the right to critisize. I DO feel that those who have earned the right, should do so with the same intelligence that got them where they are.

Hiding commets would be bad for the reasons I originally mentioned and for others. People rely on them for bug reports, fixes, and to get a feel of rthe overall impression. I don't think one asshole comment is going to stop them from downloading a quality skin if they see it as such and want it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when doing this for a living, one has to keep in mind braod appeal, I try to do one way out skin [Outer limits] and a couple of more mainstream ones, Naked, VXP then I'll do another far more creative one..VOX and two more broad appealing ones, Havana, Harmony... In short I try to balance what I do creatively with what is going to put food on my table, I'll be honest.. the plain jane ones.. SELL. Knowing that, do I do all plain jane? Hell no, look at my gallery. But I have to do enough to feed the family. It's just how it is.

Another massive issue is Vista\ 7, it is just is not possible to be as creative as we used to be with WB. I hope Neil can workaround some of that but as it stands, from a popularity standpoint and an OS recstrictions perspective , I gotta tell ya, it aint looking promising.. look like we will never get back to the good old days of XP going forward. SKinners can still be creative but only to the point of sacrificing usabilty.

I liked your last post, its good to see honesty in opinion.

I don't know how much this would help a skinner who has been around here for a while. I know that since I've been here, I have developed a network of fellow skinners that I can contact when I have any skinning issues. They offer advice, and opinions on the skins I make...and I do the same in return. I am not afraid of being told that what I am making is crap, and I am not afraid to tell them what they are making is crap either. Most skinners have (or should have) a network of some kind for this.

Having said that, I still think an advanced critique section is a pretty good idea....for new skinners. This would allow them to get help and advise from people who know what they are doing. New skinners don't have the network that most of us do. They need help and usually don't know where to get it, or are intimidated about asking a master or journeyman just because they are so far advanced compared to them...or don't want to make a forum thread about their work because they dont want to get flamed. I'm not saying that they would get flamed here, but I guarentee that some feel this way....I did when I first started skinning.

The Advanced Critique section could be available to anyone to upload in, but only available to, say, Master Apprerentice and above to view and comment on. The gallery could be 'hidden' from the general public. Skins would remain in that gallery for 30 days, unless it was updated with fixes before then. The submitter could only see his/her skin and the comments on it, unless the submitter was Master apprentice or above.

What can it hurt to try this? It just needs a gallery and a 'few' codes to limit access, right? Try it out for a while, see if it works.

We all volunteer to forego the right to say anything we want when we agree with the TOS.  We do this for the sake of a more friendly community where your right to say anything you want is made secondary to the needs of reasonably civilized forum.  So there are site imposed limits to free speech which you have the option to accept and be a member or not accept and depart.  I personally feel that the site has become somewhat over bearing with political correctness but it as a commercial enterprise, Stardock has every right to do what they think works best to achieve their goals.

As for commenting without downloading first, I think this is fine depending on what you  are commenting about, i.e., one does not need to download a pink skin to know that one does not like a pink colored skin.  or an aero type skin, or a minimalist skin,  or that it looks like 10 other skins, whatever).  It is another conversation entirely as whether ot not is t is good form to comment that "this skin sucks" because it is pink and minimalist or whatever.  My point being that there are a lot of things that make people like or dislike a particular skin that can easily be seen from a screenshot.  I do not personally feel the need to make negative comments about such things, but firmly believe that others certainly have the right to do so as long as it does not take the form of harrassment.  To limit comments to only those that have purchased the skin seems to me to remove criticism or positive comment based on the above type of reasons for "liking" a skin, which is what most people are doing, not commenting on a detailed analysis of the skins functionability.  All should be taken with a grain of salt regardless.

From the technical functioning aspect of a skin, it is not unreasonable to think that a master skin will function properly.  Obviously one can not comment on how a skin functions without trying it, but I would venture to say that the vast majority purchase  a MASTER skin because they like the look of it in the screenshot with the assumption that it works as expected, but I must admit that I do agree with Fuzzy about the dilution of master status.

Attention Whore-  Label given to any person who craves attention to such an extent that they will do anything to receive it. The type of attention (negative or positive) does not matter.

an attention whore tries to draw attention to themself without making it seem like she is.

Some very intelligent and reasonable posts, thank you.

damn, i love coffee SOOOOO much