i am not a skinner (maybe one day, if you are really unlucky ), so i dont have the same perspective on this as some of you.

i am merely someone who hangs out here a lot, and wishes that people could get on with each other better, since all this upset and anger isnt nice.

i can sort of see both sides of this, and a lot of very valid points have been made. most of them stand as they are.

davad70, about the items that were never sent to you. i would guess that the real cause of this is internal comunication problems at stardock.

i work for a fairly small company (about 50 people), perhaps similar in size to stardock.

however, even at this size, the number of major messes we get ourselves into, with customers being promised things in writing, but never given them, is simply increadible.

its not malice, its simply the people making the promise isnt always comunicating clearly with the person doing the sending out.

add to this confusion caused by changing rules and policies, and its only to easy for this sort of thing to happen.

sometimes you need to be blunt to get your point across, but hopefully our common interests outway our differences? *hope*

From someone that has done support/helpdesk.

1) This is why most owners don't identify themselves. Usually they identify themselves to most customers/public as VP of sales. I would not be surprised if we start to see less and less of Brad.

2) Of course logons gets short shift from support. At a company the money generating products deserve more attention as do evals.

3) Mistakes happen. I have seen posts from at least 6 people either tied to this site and/or Stardock. Several of them apolegetic. I am sure they are buzzing now behind the scenes. It's not fun getting sand kicked in your face in your own sandbox.

4) Some people enjoyed the gui's in spite of not winning and all the whinning. They even appreciated them. Could it have been handled better? I think that Brad would agree to that. Would the summer ones have been handled better? We may never know. Did it generate interest in WB (more sales)? Of course. Was it worth the money, time, and aggrevation? Hard to say. It probably would have generated more sales if they had spent the money/time on an add in a computer magazine or if they had payed for better placement with various search engines.

5) OD was priced with the idea of it being able to support the company. This price was determined before the popularity of Wincustomize. This site has been great advertising for the company, but at what cost? Do the extra sales offset the huge cost of this site? From all indications, no. I may be mistaken in this, but the I had heard from other sites that they payed for the amount of traffic they had. I knew one excellant site that was killed by its own popularity.
/me misses thinkpiece.com.
They have tried already several things to pay for this site. They didn't sell enough mugs, hats, and such. The ads are not paying enough. Where does that leave them. In a way they are asking for a donation. I doubt that the software/skins is worth 20$. If you use the site alot, then help pay for it. Its 20$ not 100$. Do I think it is over priced? Probably, but then everything is overpriced to the unemployed.

6) I don't care for the rating system as well, but then I doubt there is a rating system that everybody would like. It would be nice to see a rating system more people could agree on though.

7) Everyone needs to take a deeeep breath. Close your eyes and imagine. In with nice calm blue air, out with tense/angry black air. Each time you do it you see your lungs turning more and more a calm blue. Each time you see less and less angry/tense/frustrated black air coming out. HEY! Wake up!

-Me

Griffinme: Nice post.

/note to self: Read Doreen's note to self.

i don't download many skins. i like reading the mb. but i'm old enough to know something about business and a lot of people here seem to need to learn about 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth'. all those dot coms went away for a reason. i saw all the sh*t brad took because of the gui olympics. it sure doesn't make people want to volunteer.

I would like to make a comment about the rating system.

First off, we have many discussion behinds the scenes about the rating system that none of you never see. We are not ignoring the skinners wishes and desires. We have been trying to come up with a solution that is happy ground for all.

Now, in my opinion, there are 3 basic types of people who are here:

1) Admins
2) Skinners
3) Users

Admins represent less than 1% of the people at WinCustomize, but represent about 4$ of the voiced opinions. (well, Brads lengthy posts may increase that figure some )

Skinners represent about 1% of the people at WinCustomize, but represent about 95% of the voiced opinions.

Users represent about 99% of the people at WinCustomize, but represent about 1% of the voiced opinions.

Ok, now many of the skinners (not all) do not like the rating system. But skinners are the major voice of the oposition. Thats less than 1% of people that visit WinCustomize.
I think its safe to say that most people only speak up when they do not like something. If things are going well, most people just tend to be content with life and just keep to themselves.
The fact that about 99% of the people are not complaining about the site says a great deal about how things are being run.

One of the reasons that Skinners do not like the rating system is they feel it hides their work from the eyes of everyone. It only hides lower rated skins to those who choose not to create an account (visitors) or to those
who use the ratings filter. Its not permanent. But, I would like to argue that part of WinCustomize's success is due to the fact that we only show the higher rated skins to visitors. This in turn gets them more excited about skinning, gets them to come back to the site, which makes the site more popular, which in turn gets your skins noticed by more people. So in my opinion, I feel that the rating system helps the skinners get their skins noticed by more people! Not the other way around.

Just this morning, I went to download.com in search of a program to remove ad ware from my system. I chose to download Ad Aware. Do you know why, because it had a high rating! Just as I use ratings to determine which software to download many many many people use the rating system here on Wincustomize as well. Download.com allows anyone to rate the software, but at Wincustomize we only only Apprenctices and up to rate. Most of these people have already proven to be an asset to the skinning community. And therefore most of these people are fair and honest in their ratings.

The rating system is meant to aide the USER not the SKINNER. Does the rating system help you make a better skin. No, not really. But its not meant to be. Does the rating system help Wincustomize's popularity. I think so. Does Wincustomize's popularity help get more people to see your skin. ABSOLUTELY. Isn't that what is all about. Getting your skin to be seen by as many people as possible. Trying to get your skin higher up in the ranking? Getting your name exposed to millions of people? I think so. There are those of you who are doing it just for the artistry of it. And if thats the case, I bet those people really don't care one way or the other about ratings. But for those who care about rankings, I'm sure they are the ones who care abour ratings. They think ratings have the potential to hide their skins from view. But in the long run, I think the ratings help show off their ratings to more people.

As an admin, I think part of my responsibility is to represent the majority of the users. The silent users. WinCustomize has become extremely popular. I would like to think that we have a clue as to what we are doing. And that we are not just mindlessly running a dictatorship as some people seem to think.

Just because we do not take every suggestion and implement does not mean we are Ignoring you. We have changed many many things on Wincustomize based of users/skinners suggestions. But it doesn't mean we have to do EVERY suggestion.
And, as I believe Jafo has stated. We are still working on it. We are trying to find a solution that most people will like (Well, I think most users like the rating system already).

Thank you for letting me speak my mind. Now you can start picking my response apart.

oh boy Pat you've been hanging too close to Brad...
/me begins to try to read this thread once and for all!
(how long can I put it off it keeps going to the top!)

Hmm, my office is right next to Brad. Maybe I should consider moving to the other side of the building next to Koop and Javabrain. Hmm, not sure if I like that deal either. Either way, I'm Screwed!

Doreen, You better start reading the thread now. If you wait too much longer it will take over a week to read it. And then by the time you are finished you will have another weeks worth of reading to catch up on. And then so on and so on...

OMG if only I had the patience to read just one educational book in my life rather then these msg boards I might be a smarter person for it... (but then if I was smarter I would leave the skinning community and use that time to do more constructive stuff between work)
nahhhh

okay well I skim read it Pat! I did! hehe
and...

So….am I overreacting, or do I have a right to be a tad pissed?
by JourneyMan davad70 - 5/18/2002 5:08:39 PM

nope you have a right to be a pissed if that is how you feel and furthermore you have a right to post it on the msg board (even though some said to handle it via e-mail) cuz sometimes you get a better response and it also sometimes makes changes w/i the skinning community cuz of the discussion that developes w/i the thread itself right?

that's about all the comment I'll share cuz I'm tired from all that "reading" sheesh!!!!

If you are looking for the opinion of one user on the ratings system: I like the ratings. I don't make the decision to download a skin exclusively based on ratings (some highly-rated skins just don't have a look or style that I like) but they do help to guide me towards which skins I might look at first, if my time is at a premium.

T-Man - nice post. I think some skinners forget that if it weren't for the users, no one would give a rat's posterior about what we do except other skinners. I for one am not interested in being a member of a mutual admiration society.

I'm sure you're estimates of the percentages are pretty close T-Man. I would imagine if anyone besides Brad would know, it would be you.

That said, I do have some bones to pick.

Surely you're not implying that skinners should have less influence on the direction of the site than the user/consumer should???

Afterall, who provides 100% of the content that the users come here for? Skinners

Who provides 100% of the skins that people are paying you $20 to use the skinbrowser to get? Skinners

Who helps out the admins and Stardock by answering at least 50% of the problems/questions on the message boards? Skinners

I'm certainly not trying to put down the users/consumers here. Obviously I love them or I wouldn't give them my skins. I also wouldn't respond the emails I get from them or answer their questions on the message boards.

Again, I'm not putting down group #3. I'm just bringing the fact up that this site wouldn't exist without group #3.

One thing I didn't take into account are the skins that are here which were made by admins/wizops. I would hope that most of those people would consider themselves skinners before all else though. Obviously excluding the non-skin making admins/wizops.

I have tried to hold out on this message board as much as possible due to the length and all the reading. But I feel I might as well react to these post's as I am a skinner in the community.First of all, I am amazed at the anger and jealousy I have read on this board. I have been vising WinCustomize since it started, before that Deskmod, DeviantArt and Skinz.org. It is my firm beliefs that in a skinning community, it's the skinners and visitors that keep the site up in the first place, so why not listen to the community an what they want? Without listening to your visitors and members, they will turn elsewhere. However, WinCustomize is one of the only QUALITY Skinning sites left. Since the corruption of Skinz.org, the downfall of the original Customize and DeskMod, we are pretty much left with a few select sites, this one being the most visited and most advanced.I also feel that there is somewhat of a communications issue going on here, many of you that find problems do not realize that Brad is 1 Man and can only handle so much at one time. When you have thousands upon thousands of visitors a day, chaos is going to break loose. A quick response is nice, but when we are talking about many of yall going directly to Brad, its a little bit ridiculous to assume a response should be given almost immediately. I am sure that if Brad promised something, he will live up to that promise. That's the kind of person he is. I personally have nothing to complain about because I have had no issues that haven't been taken care of in a timely manner. Im going on my third year with ODNT and I recently signed up for the WinCustomize SkinBrowser, I've also purchased a CD. I have given well over $100 and I feel if we have a hope of keeping the last real community open, we have to sacrifice a few dollars here and there. Now I understand some of you have mixed feelings, however, before you make a big deal out of something, please look around and see how absolutely lucky we are to still have a site such as this with wonderful people like Brad, Alexandrie, Boxxi, T-Man, Crumbut, Treetog, Dangeruss and countless more...Though it's more than just a hobby to some, we are lucky to still have a community like this to bring us all together.I love you all....My Friends.....And I love WinCustomize for keeping us all together.Thank You and Good Health to you allKarl E. GoergesAetna, Inc. (Formerly Aetna US Healthcare)

Davad....I think of myself as a themer first, skinner second, and wizop third....but when it comes to caring about input into the on-line skinning 'community' I tend to put the 'wizop' for Wincustomize first, because I maybe can do more 'good' with that than my LiteSTEP-centric themeing which is still a tad 'odd-ball' [now that there's OTS], and precious few are interested in grey, transparent WA skins...[thanks, you few...cheques are in the mail]...but between the Admins and wizops we have a fair number of bases covered, with experience in many, if not all of the skinnable apps.
Wincustomize is run by skinners, and for skinners AND their 'users'. We can't ignore the 'needs' of the casual 'user' and cater solely for the comparatively small skinner base. Both 'should' and ARE 'listened to', perhaps with disparate, but equally valid viewpoints.

As for those groups '1, 2, and 3'....I fit into all of them [though I tend not to be too much of a user of others' skins....but just in passing]....and try to imagine the perception of this site from each of these 3 viewpoints....looking for a balance.
Is it over-administered - over-regulated?
Is it a skinners-only mutual appreciation society?
Is it a deserted database for mindless downloads?

Any one of those would be a 'Bad Thing'[tm]...

Sorry for everything being scrunched together. Guess my html isnt that great anymore....

Some good points there jafo. Especially regarding not ignoring the "needs" of any of the three groups.

T-Man, I too recently went to download.com to find a program that would help me get rid of spyware. And I too opted for Ad-Aware. Do you know why? Because it was the one with the most downloads.

Now the big question!!

Is there any software out there that call tell you if Ad-Aware is another type of 'Spyware'. And if so, then is there another program to tell if that program is....and so on, and so on.

Point is, you can never be 100% sure. Maybe 99.99%, but not 100%.

Actually, if you should only need two, think about it

OK, been thinking about it. Two groups?

Uh Oh off topic, I meant two spyware detecting programs.

got it now, thanks

I too tend to hold the opinion that without that 1% of skinners, you wouldn't have the 99% of users in the first place. All you'd have is an empty library with a message board tagged on. I do therefore think that the opinions of the skinners should be listened to above those of the users. That doesn't mean the users' opinions aren't important, or any less valid, but with a site like this it's the skinners who are needed to keep things ticking over. If one day all the skinners just stopped making skins for the site, where would you stand then? Sure, the site could keep going for a while, but once the users run out of skins to look at they wouldn't have any reason to stick around.

After the admins, it's the skinners who put the hard work into keeping the site going. We're the ones who spend our time making the skins that keep people coming back to the site, and that generate sales of Stardock products. So it does seem a little misguided to say that just because we only represent 1% of the visitors to this site our opinions should take a back seat.

However, please remember to take my comments in context. I consider myself slightly more of a user than a skinner, as I only really have three or four skins to my name, and I'm certainly not as frequent a contributer as treetog, Alexandrie, etc.

100th post!

Good points grayhaze.

I think of each site as a Art Gallery. I post my art at the gallery and the visitors come and rate or download it.. ( or say damn that sux
Anyway, we 1%ers create the content that generates the visitors. Now as most of you know I have been on the admin side also, Skinz.org, LOS, and even here for a very short stay. I know what they mean when they say that they are looking out for the visitors. BUT I also know who generates the content. Fact is this. Developers and skinners are the 1% that makes up 99% of the content. The admins/webmasters are equaly imporntant but basicly they are our reporters. They are the ones that are serving the content or better said, they provide us the equipment to serve our content.

ramble ramble...
what Im saying is if yer gonna say whos most imporntant in perctentages.. heres my take.

Developers and skinners:80% Users:19% admins:1%
Like I said I have worn the admin hat, I know that making a site succeed depends on how you treat your most active content providers.