Jafo.........if ratings are simply a filtration system, then maybe you guy really should get tougher on submissions.

A summary of the opinions briefly.


paxx says: get rid of them, they are useless

migellito says: not pay attention to the rating

treetog says: I don´t give a crap about ratings

feline says: i can see the point in the ratings

c242 says: ...the rating is still anonymous. Theres no use for that

jcg says: not accept ratings that are not accompanied by a comment

WiseOldMan says: I agree. There needs to be some sort of accountability in the rating system

chichigirl46 says: every time I try being part of this message board some one goes immediately and lowers my skin ratings

Jafo says: if there are miscreants abusing their privileges via vindictive or spiteful 'ratings', rather than via accountable 'comments', then maybe things DO have to change.

Koasati says: ratings are of no value


.........................I am wondering what Brad says?

are you serious adni? you wonder what Brad says?
I thought you already know, he made things really clear about ratings

Brad says: "... it works remarkably well on the whole."

Two points about ratings I don't understand:

1) How can the Admins not know who rated what? By this I mean you can only rate a skin once, the server knows not to let you do it twice. The info isn't stored on your cookie. It has to be there somewhere.

2) Why not require a comment when rating. It would be "semi" annonymous, yet require some accountability. People would not be as likely to "tank" someone elses work with a one vote purely for personal reasons.

This is a really interesting thread. Everyone seems to have a slightly different response, yet they are all similiar. Most of the Admins on this site have no use for ratings, so why are they here...

Bill, most admins don't care about them (meaning the ratings could be there or not they wouldn't care), but there are one or two admins against them and one or two admins in favour of them. So, we are quite divided on the topic.
Bottom line though: Brad likes them.

The ratings on here -- and by that, I mean the results of the ratings themselves, and not the system -- has never made much sense to me. Most of my skins with high download numbers have low ratings.

What concerns me is that most of my skins have 1 rating, which as far as I'm aware is put there by the admin that posts the skin. So the casual user that's allegedly sorting stuff by rating to decide what to dl is seeing the opinion of just a handful of people.

Bottom line is I don't think the ratings system gets used enough to make a difference. But if it has to be kept, how about an "average rating given" stat on people's author page. Keeps ratings anonymous, but discourages people from trashing everyone's skins.

chichigirl46 - When I gave my view point on this new browser coming out and some one here don't like my view point, the reaction should not have anything to do with my skins, but every time I try being part of this message board some one goes immediately and lowers my skin ratings.......

/me *shocked*
i didnt realize that this was happening.

the active people on the message boards seem to be above that sort of childish behaviour.

taking issue with your point of view is one thing, but this should be discussed. there is nothing wrong with two people having differing opinions. this is part of the definition of people, no two totaly alike.

have you emailed one of the admins with an example of this?

perhaps they would be willing to reset the ratings on the effected skins?

as i understand it part of the reason for the raitings is to help limit the bandwidth this site uses.

if you had to pay for the ever increasing bandwidth, then you to might like anything that helped to keep it in check?

hi adni in your list of people's opinions, mine is taken out of context. i am in favor of the ratings. i just don't think the -artists- should pay attention to them. i -do- think the downloaders should pay attention to them.

i realize it's easy to get discouraged. an artist -must- be able to look at critiques and take what they can from them. a critique is like a salad bar. you take what you want and leave the rest. some ideas you learn from, some ideas you leave behind, and your work may or may not improve in your opinion, or in the eyes of others. either way, it will evolve, as the work of all artists does.

with this in mind, remember that the rating number is a critique -so- limited in information that an artist can really learn nothing from it. they are not for the artists. they are for the downloaders and to provide a measure of bandwidth assistance.

So, migellito, you are one of them, hmmmm (j/k)

If you read carefully all my threads, you will find out that I never said anything about removing the system rating, because I know that Brad insist in this, I only said IMPROVE IT!
Also, it has nothing to do with the bandwidth, because almost all the people are downloading "by date" or by "downloads" and very rarely "by rating".

But the most important part about ratings is the folowing:

IF the ratings were only critiques then everything it is OK, but the most of them ARE NOT, jealousy, antagonism, personal antipathies etc, are the causes of most of the ratings! This is the weak part of the existent Rating System. That is why I am trying for the betterment of it.
Please, think about it.

Johanne, (Hi! )
Of course I am serius,in fact I am always serius and I know what Brad thinks about ratings, I have all ready said it, in my previous threads.
But, I also know that he said something about "close minded people that they just want their views to be accepted as fact" and I can't believe that he is one of them, thats why I am still trying.

/me grins in an evil manner

Maybe you should go and rate Brad's stuff down without posting comments and see if the system improves in accountability?

Hmmm, interesting point of view Laurence!

OK...so it's simole.

We must have more ratings per submission to better reflect public attitude/opinion of the piece.

We must police those who are using the rating system to get at other skinners/artists.

How about locking all prieviews to REQUIRE a rating before they can be closed...[is that feasible in the coding?]

Make the Ratings non-anonymous. That will 'force' people to be a bit more responsible....vindictive low scores, as well as fauning high scores 'should' both cease....[at least to some degree].

Maybe the 'peer' part of the rating system could be also coded in specifically....If you have a skin submitted at the site, you are 'made' to post ratings on skin views in the coding, if you do not have skins here, you are not 'required' to rate.

I'm still reminded of the function coded into Litestep.net which gave the themer the option of just who would be allowed to comment and/or 'rate' your themes....fellow themers only, or 'anyone'.
The former was great for genuinely 'constructive' comment, the latter if you really 'wanted' to hear from the 'brat-pack'...the 1337 f1337....

Or 'simple', even...trust me not to have my glasses on...

As long as we're still kicking this around, I'd like to clear up a summary of my opinion that was posted. While I did suggest a no-comment-no-rating approach or a vindictive rating watch as potential ways of improving the system, in no way did I feel the system _needed_ changing.

My primary concern is that people download and use my stuff, secondary is comments, so I can improve my work, and last is rating. If I let ratings determine whether I continued skinning, I would have stopped skinning along time ago. Anyone who saw my early efforts in Litestep would probably concur.

jcg: Ratings determine who downloads and uses your stuff. If it's rated 1, nobody who's not logged in will see it, and those who do won't want it.

Just to add my $0.02, I don't rate things very often but when I do I always try to leave a comment too. Mostly because if it's good enough (sorry, I only rate ones I like not those that I dislike) for me to rate, then I definitely have a couple of things to say about it.

The other reason that I tend not to rate things is that frankly it's kind of cumbersome since the comments/ratings are separated. I have to either bring up the screen twice or remember to click on both submit buttons. I can't tell you how many times I've entered a comment and a rating and then only remembered to click one of the submit buttons. To me at least the interface could be improved slightly. I'd like to be able to submit a rating and a comment in one fell swoop.

Perhaps I am just having a brain fart, but I never see any ratings on stuff. I noticed that the featured wall has a rating of 10 but when I go to that wall's section there is nothing about a rating there.

Aside from featured skins, ratings are only visible to Apprentice and up level users. You're not missing much by not seeing them..trust me.

jcg, listen to TheGreenReaper

I am still wondering, why is it so difficult to improve this System Rating ???

Why we have to go on this argument on and on ?

What is happening?

It's not exactly an 'argument', adni...more a discussion between site members/contributors as inclusive involvement in determining current and future policy direction...

/me feels like he's wearing a suit and tie in a board-room...making effusive comments like that...

Let's 'DO' lunch....

"Aside from featured skins, ratings are only visible to Apprentice and up level users."

Then what is the big deal? 95%+ of the users are never going to see them or even know about them. If that many people can't see them why bother having them?