Yes. Yes, we do. *eg*

As a skin author, I don't like ratings. As a software developer, I don't like ratings. As a user, I really need them.

I went over to Download.com today and what do I see? WindowBlinds rated at 68% with a bunch of lunatics attacking it for reasons that mostly don't make sense or worse, Style XP advocates attacking it to bolster their choice.

They are a necessary thing though because as much as I hate those ratings, whenever I go looking for some utility or whatever in which there are mnay of them, I will inevitably look at the ratings they'll get. When I bought my video camera, I relied on the ratings people gave heavily.

The difference HERE though is that the apprentices on up are able to rate. Joe user can't just pop up and give ratings. And if 5 is the average, then half the people shoudl technically be below that.

I don't think there is any filter on CursorXP themes, all usrs see all of them (pretty sure anyway). The filters are really on things like wallpapers.

Ok. I always seem to miss the action.

I do not agree with Lecrayon discription of skinners not being "artists" or that skinning is like changing a sign on a door (as a designer in many areas, on being architecture, believe me changing a sign on a door and what it looks like and what it says can have much meaning and many design implications).

I do not think that view is arrogant though, or egotistical (keep in mind most good artist have ego's the size of a MAC truck so if it came out that way I am not surprise because I think we all do it), it is just an opinion. I am sure he is mis-informed about the efford to design (that's right DESIGN) a skin.

I am not sure about the other things he said happened to him with comments and other stuff.

IMHO I feel he should stick around and make the community better by showing those works of art that he has. It will be viewed and critiqued just like everyone else's. From the work I have seen of his, it is good.

And as far as an adminaster saying that this is a skinning site, well it is. That does not mean it is not an artist site.

I do agree with Lecrayon on one point, and that is Photoshop is a tool like any other program and not knowing the fundementale of design and positioning (and since your using Photoshop, why not know about photagraphy and actually printing a photograph; contrast, dodge, hue, saturation, threshold, burn, etc, are terms of photography).

So there might be some artists who skins who does not know those finer points of Photography or painting or positioning, horizan lines, or what ever term you can come up with, but that does not mean they are not an artist (designer) or that they should not comment on other peoples work.

well... this thread was very strong worded. I hope more comes out of it than jokes or pointing fingers at people who have opinions (even if worded in a way that can only bring up anger)

Ok. I always seem to miss the action.

I do not agree with Lecrayon discription of skinners not being "artists" or that skinning is like changing a sign on a door (as a designer in many areas, on being architecture, believe me changing a sign on a door and what it looks like and what it says can have much meaning and many design implications).

I do not think that view is arrogant though, or egotistical (keep in mind most good artist have ego's the size of a MAC truck so if it came out that way I am not surprise because I think we all do it), it is just an opinion. I am sure he is mis-informed about the efford to design (that's right DESIGN) a skin.

I am not sure about the other things he said happened to him with comments and other stuff.

IMHO I feel he should stick around and make the community better by showing those works of art that he has. It will be viewed and critiqued just like everyone else's. From the work I have seen of his, it is good.

And as far as an adminaster saying that this is a skinning site, well it is. That does not mean it is not an artist site.

I do agree with Lecrayon on one point, and that is Photoshop is a tool like any other program and not knowing the fundementale of design and positioning (and since your using Photoshop, why not know about photagraphy and actually printing a photograph; contrast, dodge, hue, saturation, threshold, burn, etc, are terms of photography).

So there might be some artists who skins who does not know those finer points of Photography or painting or positioning, horizan lines, or what ever term you can come up with, but that does not mean they are not an artist (designer) or that they should not comment on other peoples work.

well... this thread was very strong worded. I hope more comes out of it than jokes or pointing fingers at people who have opinions (even if worded in a way that can only bring up anger)

Hey joe;

These threads take long enough to load without you double posting those stemwinders

LMAO!!!!

that was my eggerness to get into the mix!!!
(my spelling is horrible)

ANYway, the message board looks like a "I can't take it anymore" board. Why is it that I miss this stuff??? I get here and all of a sudden BAMMM!!!

Can't we all just get along??

Just to throw my 2c (+GST) to this thread. From a non-skinner perspective (ok, that's a lie, I just don't share my work), I believe ratings to be idiotic and pointless. An artist expresses her/himself through their work. To put a rating on what someone feels and/or does and thus creates is akin to telling someone what to think. There are a lot of wallpapers, skins, cursors, whatnot that when I look at them I think "Wtf was that person thinking?!?", but I always appreciate their effort and their form of expression. Ratings are evil. No matter how justified. If you don't like a skin, ignore it. If I go to a gallery and don't like the paintings, I don't walk around whining and telling the artist how little I appreciate his creativity. Constructive comments are always nice, but ratings? Bleh Of course this is a moot point if we're trying to create an exclusive club where some types of work are just not welcome.

Amen Mack!

Well, instead of looking at the ratings, I look at how many downloads. Specially when I'm looking for some particular utility. When I find that there are a whole bunch of apps that basically all do the same things, I will dl the one that everyone else has been dl'ing. Sometimes I do the same thing with skins, cursors, etc. The preview may not present to me something I would want to have, but if it has been dl'd hundreds of times, I'll dl it just to try it out and see if there really is something there.
I've never liked the idea of grading subjectivity (?) In an art class, if I have put a lot of work into a painting and have done my best, is it really fair for the instructor to give it a bad grade. I'm not an artist. I'm in the class because it is required of me, but I give it my best. Some have actually liked my stuff
Same applies here. A skinner puts a lot of work into something, gets something he really likes, shares it with us, and gets bad ratings with no constructive suggestions.

LeCrayon, I really wish you wouldn't leave. You give this community variety in your work and your opinion. I certainly appreciate that. I can look past your "artistic ego" (no disrespect meant) and get what you are trying to say. That's what the skinning community is all about. POV's that are different. It *should* bring enlightenment and discovery.

Sorry for rambling, still worn out from this weekend

When I visit a site, I rely on ratings. So do most people I suspect. If I go to the WindowBlinds section and if my only choice was to sort by downloads and sort by date, that would be very limiting. Like it or not, if you sort by rating, the skins listed first are really good skins.

The ratings aren't there for skin authors, they're there for users. Comments are there for the skin authors.

Thank you werewolf, finally a good objective comment! I understand Frogboys' argument fully. I want to say one more thing then. Generally Frogboy is right, if you aim for the perfect world. It isnt. I had a wallpaper here that got a 4 (maybe DavidK moderated that one). There was a comment like "doesnt do anything for me", well thats ok, everyone has his own taste. Then Migellito started to give comments on a hole series of wallpapers. I loved him telling people to make their work better. He gave my piece also a nice comment, fairly general one. Suddenly the rating went up from 4 to 6. Now I wonder who did that. How can a moderator, and I assume he has some kind of art acadamy background, give a 4, when after a comment from another moderator suddenly it rises to a 6. I have stated so many times I don't care what ratings are given because you must have a whole lot of ratings to be sure of what the greater percentage of the people want. It still doesnt say anything about the work. It says something about popularity. If you want popular work, visit WC. It's a great place for that, and I grant Frogboy fully he reached that. Great achievement. But as another leading figure said, if you want to look for art, do not visit a skinning site. And then everybody gets angry start to call names and insult that the dogs even won't eat their bread. Art is IMHO about renewing, exploring new ways, amaze people, provoke people, make people think, making statements with their work. I have tried to just do that with the cursors I uploaded, they were fun ones, not wanting to imitate the boring arrow, and with the only 2 wallpapers I uploaded. One was a comment on an haphazard insult I got, and the other was about not letting nudity through. I have really wondered how moderators apply their own made up criteria. I see a lot of wallpapers too where light/shadow comes into play, which is one of the most important things in painting, being messed up. That also is a criteria. But now I fall back into repetitive behaviour. I think there are a lot of good working skins here and I will keep on visiting this site just for that. It's a beautiful site and well organized too.
But, I, as a visual artist, don't belong here. Change and renewal is not rewarded here, but downgraded because the organization here want popular works that makes sure people come back to visit again. Just as I do. Thanks again werewolf for that remark. God bless you all.

I'm a user. I like ratings. I'm a customer (I purchased WindowBlinds) but I have never made any skins myself.

I like ratings, because even if they are someone's individual opinion, they can help me weed out the really bad stuff (ie. things that get a 1 or 2) from the really good stuff (an 8, 9 or 10). When I don't have time, I'll just look at the highly-rated stuff. If I have time to browse, then I'll look at everything.

But I like the ratings - they are just another tool that helps me to decide whether or not something is worth downloading.

As a side note, I only ever rate WindowBlinds skins here. Most of the wallpapers here would not get a high rating from me, because they are not my 'style'. I like landscapes and scenes of nature, and there aren't many wallpapers like that here.

I'm a user. I like ratings.

Lecrayon,
I can only ask you to disregard the ratings if you don't agree with them. They are no there to seperate the good from the bad skins, they only measure how good is a skin according to the people who rated it. No skin, no art is bad. No skin, no art is good. It's just a matter of tastes. Some people like Picasso, some people think he's a psycho. Some people like Chagal, some people think he never perfected his talent since he drew pictures in kindergarden. If they were to upload wallpapers here, they may not even have made it past moderation.

Please, just ignore the ratings. I do. A lot of people do. Just throw it over your shoulder and forget about it.

I personnally like a lot of the stuff you've made. You're WASP cursor is still one of my favorite of all times.

yeah I like the wasp!!! and the hand one too.
very inpsiring.

I, as I said before, think the ratings are not usful in its current state. A system that goes from 1 - 10 is no better than a system of A - F.

It tends to weed out to much, and explain very little. Sure the 10, 9, and 8 works are mostly good, but I think you'll be nicly surprised by the works that get a 3,4 and 5.

There can still be a rating system, just not the one that exists now. I agree with Frogboy that ratings are looked at whether you want to ignore them or not and it does help somewhat in if you want to download it or not (the how many people downloaded number helps too).

I think it can be done better. Not sure as to how yet but better.

Well, if you want to have a better rating system, perhaps here is a thought that I developed last night. It's called the Swip factor. Swip stands for: skill (technical & optical), workmanship, innovative performance. Like with an index of shares, you can give weighing factors to each component. People should be able to search on each of the component or/and overall swip factor. If someone want to rate, all the components have to be filled in. Maybe, this factor could lead to a whole range of new design idea's and different wallpapers and such.

oops, I meant innovative, performance...4 components in total

Sounds an interesting idea. Apologies for my reply previously. I just read too much into your comments I think.

DeskMod uses a similar idea.

Hey paxx
I guess you never got really bad rattings, like 1 or 2 with all the consequences and effects on your work.
In academic way, it is very easy to say "ignore the ratings", but in the real world it is not so easy, you know? It really bothers!

If someone of you have received really bad rates and he still believes in this Ratting System, then I must say that I am wrong if I will go on bothered by the rates.

I know that for some of you it is boring having from time to time this argument, sorry but I couldn't resist to write one more time about it.

Apologies accepted PJ No hard feelings. Peace.