The expectation of maturity is sadly overestimated I'm afraid.....

lmao... you guys...

look back to the root cause of the thread and ask yourselves if this really, really merits discussion. I think we know these two well enough now to take them with a huge grain of salt. Well, more of a boulder of salt. I mean come on; the outrage is over the fact that padding one another's rating isn't 'sticky'. This is not the perspective on which to base change at any level.

well, the idea is that if you are totaly imature you wont get promoted by the powers that be

however, that logic doesnt apply to subscribers. on the other hand, i wouldnt expect people who are only here to pass insulting comments wouldnt want to subscribe.

They subscribe to get unlimited downloads. Which is not incompatible with not being capable of objectivity.

Hmmmmm, cut and paste, cut and paste......where's my scissors?....hee, hee

"Are you being sarcastic, Pat?"

Yes, Extremely!

"I do believe the top download list and the top author list should be removed, but I think the download number should still be shown. It's nice to know how many time your stuff was downloaded, good or bad. "

Thats my point! Ratings is a "different" way to measure the status of a skin.

Downloads is not a perfect system.
Comments is not a perfect system.
Ratings is not a perfect system.

THERE IS NO PERFECT SYSTEM. BECAUSE EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT AND HAS DIFFERENT TASTES.

So because everyone is different we have different ways of looking at the skins to help you sort through them.
So for all those people who say we should get rid of the Rating system because its not perfect or because they do not agree with it please step back a bit and apply those same rules to everything else around you. If you did I bet you would be getting rid of Everything. Why is this such a hard concept to understand.

by JamMeister33 - 12/11/2002 1:50:57 AM
Now, don't get me wrong, I am for the rating system; however, I think that once a person who has the privilege of being able to rate a skin has made a choice, they should not be able to go back and change it.

The rating system is being abused by malicious minded people who either have a grudge, or just get a twisted
pleasure out of having the power to negatively influence other people's hard work.

Because the rating is connected to display skins to visitors for controlling bandwidth. It shouldn't be. Rate and download all you want, but if you start to use it as a means of exclusion I think it's not fair.

Just to add more. Then we should get rid of sorting by alaphabetic order because that in bias towards peoples names. Or sorting by date because those who recently uploaded have an advantage over a skin that was published two months ago.

How many times have you seen a list somewhere where you see people put A or AAA or AAAAA or _AAA in the begining of their name just so they get to be first in the sorting list. That is obvoiusly not a good system. But you never hear of people yelling about the alphabetical system and suggesting that it be abolished. The Rating system is just as good. Its not perfect. It can be done many different ways so it will also be controversial. But none the less its a system that does work. Just learn to accept it. Its here to stay.

(sorry, didn't mean to go on a rant but this is really starting to grind my ax)

This is the only point I am trying to make here.........not abolishment of ratings, or comments, or download counts. I am merely pointing out how one person abusing the privilege can have negative repercussions.

Pat, I think Lecrayon is refering to the fact that visitors only have access to skins and themes that have a certain rate and above, not to the fact that you can sort skins and themes by rate. To follow your example, it's as if we'd give access to skins and themes from author's who's name start with P to Z.

Pretty compelling arguments, T-man. I agree.

No one hates rating systems more than me. Our software at download.com gets maliciously trashed every time and they allow anyone to vote.

But at a macro level, they work pretty well. They don't exist for the benefit of the skin author. They exist so that casual users can sort by rating and get a rough guestimate of the nicer skins. It's not perfect but it works "good enough".

Yes, it's annoying when some creep goes through and decides to have fun trashing peoples' ratings. But this is only the annoying exception, not the rule. I say keep the ratings system, it's nice to see what people think of a certain skin, even if it's only the opinions of 2.5 people. As for when people have trashed my ratings, in the past I've had some friends go through and artificially restore the rating back to where it was. One thing I would like to see on the ratings, is how many people have rated the skin.

Likewise, keep the download numbers, it's nice to see that enough people like my stuff to get 20,000 downloads in a month. Even if feedback systems aren't perfect, and they never will be, they're still useful and often brighten someone's day.

I also say keep the top authors section as it is for two reasons. One, it's nice to go into the detailed secion of the top authors and see where you personally rank. Second, it's a good way for newbies to see some really great skins without having to wade through everything. Yes, it artificially inflates their downloads, but I don't really consider that to be a problem.

Same with the top downloads section, yeah sure, some don't really "deserve" to be there, but most do. When I'm just doing a quick pass through the site I'll often visit the top downloads section to see the best stuff of the week. One complaint I do have about the (short list) top downloads section is when more than one element of a suite is on there at a time.

by JamMeister33 - 12/11/2002 1:50:57 AM
Now, don't get me wrong, I am for the rating system; however, I think that once a person who has the privilege of being able to rate a skin has made a choice, they should not be able to go back and change it.

The rating system is being abused by malicious minded people who either have a grudge, or just get a twisted
pleasure out of having the power to negatively influence other people's hard work.


Hmmm. I didn't want to "GO THERE" BUT...This whole stupid thread started from someone who gleefully wrote me that he'd down-rated Bakerstreet's wallpaper out of "revenge"...

Oh the hypocrisy! Rich!


'Tis the Season for folly

Jammy, I agree that once a piece has been rated by someone, they shouldn't be able to rate it again. They've done this for the polls, they should be able to do this for ratings as well.

I agree with you Jobe........

#39 by darkseraphim.com - 12/11/2002 12:32:56 PM
by JamMeister33 - 12/11/2002 1:50:57 AM

Hmmm. I didn't want to "GO THERE" BUT...This whole stupid thread started from someone who gleefully wrote me that he'd down-rated Bakerstreet's wallpaper out of "revenge"...

Now that statement is patently untrue, and you are just trying to stir things up as usual, Devil Witch, or whoever you are today. You don't want to "GO THERE" ?... all you DO is go there.

I gave bakerstreet's wallpaper a '10' rating, no ifs, ands or buts....

i'd like some clarity here.

is the main problem some people have with ratings just that some ratings are low? your skin or wall you worked on and liked well enough to upload got a low rating? or you feel sorry for someone who got a low rating on their piece?

or is it that many ratings are far too high for mediocre work?

if it's the first, i think we need to remember that any time work of any kind is graded or rated in any forum, whether on the internet or not, it's a tool used to try to improve quality - usually the quality of the exhibition. it's not a device for making people feel better, or bolstering their confidence. we should not give out high ratings or avoid giving low ones for the sole purpose of 'not hurting somebody's feelings.' that's not what it's about. it's about the quality of the work, and sometimes the work isn't very good. yes, they tried - maybe they could have tried harder, maybe not. but if the work isn't good, it isn't good, and even though it might hurt their pride a bit, they deserve to know. they are still are friends, and what we think of them as a person remains unchanged.

if it's the second, i agree. looking through the site [particularly the wallpapers] there are many mediocre pieces rated too high. i would imagine this is due to 'getting one's buddies to pad it' or a misplaced sentiment of 'not wanting to hurt their feelings.' as far as i can see, there's no real way to combat this, and frankly it's not out of hand, but rather an occasional bother. it generally evens out, as i now routinely see -many- pieces with nearly a dozen or so ratings.

as i've said countless times before, compared to what it's like trying to get your work shown in a 'brick n mortar' gallery, or trying to sell it to design clients, the ratings system and moderation policies here at wincustomize are incredibly forgiving.

hopefully, when one sees their work online here and rated well, they feel a great sense of accomplishment.

"Jammy, I agree that once a piece has been rated by someone, they shouldn't be able to rate it again. "

It actually was like this at one time. However, it was changed to accomodate those who continually update their skins.

What used to happen is that once you updated your skin, all the previous ratings were thrown out because the skin has changed so the Rating was essentially out of date. This cause a problem with most updated skins have 0 or 1 number of ratings.

So, what I did was change it so that the old ratings were not thrown out but a person could re-rate (not give an additional rating) the skin.

Migellito, the point is about certain 'people' maliciously giving low ratings to someone they don't like for their own twisted enjoyment.

Whatever JM. I'm not your enemy nor your friend and I'm sure you feel the same so there should be no argument there. So, please, stop the "name calling" as it's utterly childish and below you. I won't speak to you any more and you do the same and life goes on. All I ever tried to do was be polite and even compassionate to you until you started in with the weird comments so please move on and find someone else to target. K?

Make friends, sing songs...be jovial...life is short.

Happy holidays...and a happy new year.

Buh bye

hi

if this conversation between jm and ds needs to go any further, please take it to email.

thanks

Personally, I wish she would just drop it already, I don't wish to speak with her at all, at any time, for any reason.

I think when they have WinCustomize be able to rate skins, the actual people that are rating skins will increase, at least by one.

migellito: if this conversation between jm and ds needs to go any further, please take it to email.

I said similar back at post No3 but no-one was listening...