Is Skinning Worth It?

- Alot of time, no money back, headaches....

Published on November 26, 2005 By --Gabriel In Community

[rant]
Okay, I like doing graphic design. I grew up on a farm, in the middle of a 200 acre cornfield, I didn't like to ride 4-wheelers, go hunting, or line dance so I messed around with the computer when my Dad first bought an old 486. I was lucky enough that my best friends dad was a web-page designer on the side, and that MY dad is an art teacher an had an educational version of Photoshop. I began designing really ugly websites that served no purpose because it was fun and I had nothing better to do.

A few years later when Windows 2000 came out, and everyone was itching for XP I saw a program that could let me have the look of XP early on my older system... I thought that was pretty neat and so I used it. I began customizing the look of my PC and soon began designing skins because they actually were appreciated by people (unlike the useless websites I created.)

I've been happy to make skins and upload them but now as I'm becoming more and more busy and the time it takes to make a good skin become greater and greater with all the new features the fun factor is beginning to wane. I still enjoy the compliments, and the creativity involved... but is it worth dealing with the headaches, the insults, the assholes, the loss of free time?

In my observation several good skinners have recently seemed to say that it isn't worth the hassle, and kept thier creations to themselves. They may be onto something.
[/rant]

Comments (Page 3)

Ash08

on Nov 27, 2005

It's been tough for me...college and a girlfriend has kept me extremely busy...

Same for me here!

eieio

on Nov 27, 2005

If the first rating that your skin receives is a malicious low rating, it immediately removes it from the view of the casual visitors

BoXXi is right on target with this. This one facet of rating has the effect, intended or not, of saying "This skin is not good enough to be shown on WC".
The sad part is that anyone with rating ability has the power to determine if your skin shows on the site.
Yes, I know things tend to even out after a period of time and it gathers enough ratings, however this period can extend almost indefinitely if your skin is not included on Newest,Popular,etc lists due the low rating.

I'm not looking for an argument here or asking for someone to 'prove' me wrong, just saying some things that many skinners think but have not said.

Gabriel: Above all, do what you think is best. I agree ... if it's not fun, why do it?.
Just know that there are sites where you can post your skins without being rated and without getting inane, idiotic comments.
Check my Favorite Links on my WC page Link for an example.

Styl-X Design

on Nov 27, 2005

Is it possible that because skinning has become more mainstream there are more people who have no clue how to create skins take the work for granted? For me the 'community' skinning pleasure got lost when WC stopped to bounce 'bad' submissions. I remember when starting out I was so happy when one of my skins got accepted and there was a lot of good critisism on it making me push harder to improve. I have stopped uploading skins for 2 years or something now and only do graphic design for companies to make some money. In 6 months i'll stop doing that too and change the course of my live. Perhaps I'll pick up skinning for the public again.

Phoon

on Nov 27, 2005

I don't think the rating system is a problem

Sorry Brad, but I have to disagree

I agree with Boxxi on this. If the rating system didn't have problems it would not lead to these kinds of threads so often. It IS a problem and WC has lost many fine skinners because of it. Isn't it time that you guys took these threads seriously instead of always telling us that it isn't broken?

Robbie_Boy

on Nov 27, 2005

I think it's sad that people would be like that, i'm just starting to skin cos i would like to give something back to this great site and all who put so much time to upload for us all thease great skins, mine arn't that good but some do like them and that's what matters. so all you guy's don't give up cos of the ones that don't matter think of all of us that love your work.
thay should try skinning them selves it's not that easy at all!!!!!

HG_Eliminator

on Nov 27, 2005

Gabe.. i understand your feelings ...i saw the BS on your recent skins comments and it sickened me ... sad part is he thinks that any body who has ever used gradients and a lime green has violated his copywrites....id like to see XBOX's email reply to him when he goes after them for "stealing his stuff" for their site..

I agree with the sumise on ratings.if the first rating on a skin is low the skin will be hidden from most visitors site. unfortunately many good skins are not ever seen by most visitors because the first rating was low. there fore discouraging many skinners....

TO my skinning pals.. i know the haters are getting more prevalant.. but please remember .....there are those of use who really appreciate your efforts and goodies you share with us..the joy you spread is unmeasureable...

Thanks to all the artists for their time and works.

Sincerely
HG_Eliminator

drexler

on Nov 27, 2005

anything to make the skinners happy. speaking as someone who loves your work. there are a lot of heavy hitters on this page.ignore the those losers. you know your work is awsome.

Frogboy

on Nov 27, 2005

What would you have us do then Phoon? There has to be some sort of mechanism in order for casual users to be able to sort through the skins of various qualities.

Let's use Boxxi's skins as an example: The average rating on his skins is 4 stars.

https://www.wincustomize.com/Skins.aspx?LibID=1&view=1&sortby=4&sortdir=DESC&p=2&advanced=0&searchtxt=Boxxi

The lowest is 3 stars which is STILL above average (2.5 stars is an "average" skin).

Boxxi's 5th most popular skin of all time has a 3.5 star rating.

Ratings are part of any serious library site. Over on Download.com, WindowBlinds has only a 3.5 star average review. Yea, it stings, but the alternative is for new users to be overwhelmed with skins OR we personally moderate skins very very harshly.

SKinners want to pick up their ball and go home? I would hate to see that happen but the only ones who suffer are the users and the skinners.

When the supply of free content goes down, the market for premium (non-free) content goes way up. So users better start bloody being more appreciative of skinners. But skinners, I think, need to have a thicker skin sometimes. Not everyone can have a 5 star rating.

Since Boxxi is a moderator here and we're friends, I'll use his skins as an example. On his top 5 skins I've rated them personally at around 3 stars on average. I don't consider that malicious. It's just my opinion.

The rating system is weighted by access. An admin rating a skin has their rating count 9 times versus an apprentice which is only counted 1 time. Few skins don't get rated by at least a couple of moderators (who are weighted at something like 5 times an apprentice or super moderator 6 times an apprentice).

If the rating system costs the site a few skinners, so-be-it. There's nothing that can be done about it that doesn't involve causing pain to someone. If only the admins rated it, for instance, the results could be even more dire. Again, to use Boxxi's, if only I rated skins, Boxxi's would average 3.5 stars which is lower than the rating most people give because we all have different tastes.

To me, a malicious rating would be a 1 star rating in which the user didn't even take a good look or did so in order to purposely lower the person's rating for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of a skin.

What I don't like personally is that subscribers can rate skins. I don't think that's right. I think that rating a skin should be earned. This was something implemented without my input and now it's hard to take away such a feature from paying users.

I also think that skinners should have the right to control who comments on their skins. On JoeUser.com, users can say who can comment on their blogs for instance. I think the same thing would be nice on WinCustomize.

But in the end, the problem is that the people who care about the skinners hang out in this forum and the people who would say crappy things do not.

I think one solution may be to have a place here on the forums where skinners can easily report this kind of thing and we moderators can jump in and take care of those people. I feel contempt for losers who have nothing better to do than to crap on people who share their hard work with the world.

Hankers

on Nov 27, 2005

Thanks to all the artists for their time and works.

Absolutely agree the artists deserve a grateful thank you! It's a shame a "few" bad apples have to spoil things for the rest of us who appreciate all the time and effort that goes into making these wonderful creations.

No matter what you do you will have the "Good" the "Bad" and the just plain "Ignorant" commenting.

Frogboy

on Nov 27, 2005

BTW, that STJ character is clueless. I checked out that Xbox skin you made. I've been using it since it came out and featured it right away (it may still be in the queue). It' s a really good skin.

People who are in the spotlight attract the attention of jerks. I think most here (who know me) will agree when I say there's no one in this thread who has been flamed anywhere near as much as I have over the years. You never get used to it.

Phoon

on Nov 27, 2005

Brad, I do thank you for acknowledging that there is a somewhat broken process happening here. All I desperately request is that you and your team try to put your heads together to try something different with it. Something different may not work either, but sooner or later a better process can be found.

Frogboy

on Nov 27, 2005

We have put our heads together and the solution is the current rating system. No system will satisfy everyone. We've had years of discussion on the rating system and essentially you will always have a percentage of people who object to any rating system at all and that's a non-starter. We will never get rid of the rating system. There will always be some mechanism in which skins that people like better than others are distinguished.

The current rating system is not the same as the old one. It is weighted by access level which makes a huge difference. If one jerk at citizen level gives a rating of 1 to a good skin and an admin gives it 5 stars, it's going to have 5 stars still. It would take 5 or so jerks to bring it down to 4 stars even and that's exceptionally rare.

47songs

on Nov 27, 2005

Why can't ALL skins be availabe to "view" by everyone, but only the lowest scored (under 3 stars) can be downloaded by visiters (nonsubscribers)? The incentive to be able to download the better skins (3 stars and above) would be to subscribe to WC.

NightTrainthedark

on Nov 27, 2005

Find a way to not have ratings and everyone should be happy.

GhoS

on Nov 27, 2005

I agree with Frogboy that ratings are needed. I have never had a problem with them, though I do not skin either. I don't believe there are enough malicious people on WC to be able to grossly affect the overall score a skin receives in the ratings. If you start out at an 8 and drop down to a 6, well obviously the first people who rated it liked it a lot more than those afterwards. Averages tend to work that way. Not everyone is going to like your skin.
While its sad to be potentially losing great skinners, I think they fail to see the big picture when complaining about ratings. If its getting high downloads, its obviously popular.
I have to object though when Frogboy suggests that subscribers shouldn't be able to rate. I think my vote should count for something even if I don't have the skill for creating skins.
As for comments, I do agree that an artist should be able to allow or dis-allow them. They should also have the ability to pick out comments that are clearly derogatory or improper and send them to moderators to decide on removal. If they allow comments, being able to remove and keep only those an artist wants would be wrong. You have to take the good with the bad. Just there should be a way to remove those which are really cruel.

I appreciate all the hard working skin artists, even those who's skins I don't particularly like. At least you have made an attempt to do something I would never try. You should not be subjected to ridicule for your skins.
Maybe information should be added that shows how long someone has been skinning? So people would understand a 1 month long skinner not being up to the ability of a 4 year skinner for instance.

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