Thanks for your comments WOM. It make me think of a new battle plan.
"Hum, feature a new artist or author everyday or once a week? Sounds like a good idea as long as its not political and it's fair."
Of course it will be fair and not political. We are on WC here, WOM.
"But it seems to me that if the author's work is good it wont take long for him or her to be recognized by everyone. Case in point, Ingui burst on the scene and in no time everyone knows who he is. So I guess a case can be made for either course of action."
I am concerned about just that. If we do nothing then new talent may slip through our fingers. Of course some will be noticed. But the fact that some do get attention does not mean we have to do nothing.
People are clever enough to decide what they like or not. But my theory is that if we show people new stuff of new skinners then good talent is spotted earlier and people will get more involved in helping new talent.
The rating system is OK for established skinners (in fact I do not want to discuss it here), but new skinners should really get some attention to help them make better skins. I rather see 2 comments on a skin that helps figuring out how the skin can be improved than 60 comments that just tells how great he or she is.
Skins in the spotlight do have a high download count, a high rating or are a Featured Skin. That _may_ give the idea that skinning is all about some kind of competition. The old school started skinning just for the fun of it, they loved to experiment and push the limits. Skinz.org may have been an important milestone, but I do remember Stardock's news groups to be full of people doing just that. A skin usually wasn't created in private. Instead people would upload a beta of the skin to binaries and people would comment about its color, the fonts used, the shape of the images, the look and feel, how to use the lastest WB techniques to the max or whatever.
Recently I noticed a shift towards support on the news groups. People are using it to get help about a specific product. I am glad to see that people are still willing to beta test Stardock's software, though. But it looks like the skinners are moving out.
I think it is natural that both the news groups and the WC site are moving more towards end users of skins and its software. Afterall there are more end users than skinners. The experimental section may be a location for skinners to learn and experiment gain.
People now test and experiment with skins on a much smaller scale. Examples: I will mail Transmutate to ask what he thinks of a wall that I have made or send my WB skin to the GreenReaper to test it, or Phil sends me his latest DesktopX creation. That is all very well and I love that people are willing to help eachother in this way. The only additional input one has is after releasing the skin. That leaves hardly room for new skinners. They do not have these contacts yet.
Times have changed and we cannot get that feeling back, but we have this fantastic site here that may allow us to get some of the advantages of the old school skinning (whatever that may be) back.
Sometime ago virophile and me were talking about that. We came up with the following idea: Create an extra category in the Library called "Experimental". It is designed for established skinners to experiment new techniques or test their betas and to help new skinners to create skins. That section is not related to a specific app, but it is limited to the apps supported on this site. In this section there should be NO download count, NO rating, but there should be a preview, the skin should be downloadable (no automatic installation is required, they will be ZIP files) and people should be able to post comments. The section should be open to site members and Stardock customers.
The "no download count" and "no rating" requirements are very important because we are not competing at this level. The "no guests" requierement is important because comments of the casual visitor is not what we are after and it may help preserve bandwidth. It would be fun to see how this would work. Maybe we can get some real interaction back. The message board is fun, but often is not about skinning at all. The Experimental section may bring that back.
If we do use the HotList idea then the Experimental section can be an aid to new talent. If we do not want such a list the Experimental section may still become a breeding ground for new quality skins and talent.
/me hopes that it will get back some of the "community" feeling too.
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