master skinners are just the people that paid the most

Quentin94

Join Date 08/2006

+119

Darn these pedants.....I'll need to spray....

ROFL

Well maybe it will be useful to make the about page the first thing people see when create an account here

From the about page as recall

# Apprentice

A citizen user who has submitted skins can be nominated to be promoted to an Apprentice. To become an apprentice one needs to be contributing to the skinning community in some way. WinCustomize is not the skinning community, helping other websites in the skinning community counts as well. The honorific "Sir" or "Lady" is appended to the front of their name. There is also a Master Apprentice rank for those right on the verge of becoming Journeymen.

# Journeymen

A handful of "super-citizens" will be at this class. These are people who are significant contributors to the community. The honorific "Sir" or "Lady" is appended to the front of their name. If you're a journeyman, then you are one biggest contributors to WinCustomize.com. The difference between a Journeyman and an Apprentice is that a Journeyman is contributing significantly to WinCustomize in particular as well as the skinning community in general. A Journeymen's skin is automatically made available upon uploading. It does not have to go through moderation first. As a result, only the most trusted users will become Journeymen because of this power. They also have the ability to post news items to the front page of WinCustomize.com

# Masters

These are the "elders" of the skinning community. People who have been around for awhile. Only a few people will be at this class. To be a Master, not only must the user be a significant contributor to the community, but instrumental to the day to day life of WinCustomize. A Master can do everything a Journeyman can do plus they can nominate and vote on users to be promoted. The honorific "Master" is placed in front of their name A master has to think of WinCustomize as their home skin website.

(PLEASE NOTE THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TWO PARAGRAPH

)
Master users will also be able to sell their work through the WinCustomize store.

for Information
bold = what they might be to become
underline = what they get as rights (thought that if a people made BAD things under the community or people or ... ADMINISTRATORS CAN MAKE HIM/HER as CITIZEN LEVEL

)

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BX

Join Date 10/2001

+21

we guyes are too talketive ... !!!!

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Being one who does NOT make skins but for the last 3 years has enjoyed useing and creating with the skins that all the talented artist and designers make, including MasterSkinners(which I have paid for a few) I am grateful and thankful they exsist.

Artist who spend time and talent perfecting their craft are intitled to distribute their goods in anyway they feel comfortable. You would think nothing of buying a painting from an artist in a gallery or street fair. Such should be the same of the artist behind the computer. If you like their work then there should be no disbute about paying for their years of experience.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

tapeman2,

I challenge you to find any profession, any process by which you can make money that does not in some way actually cost you money to reach. Ultimately, the greatest cost to achieve anything is time. Masters have invested hours, if not years, of their lives in the process of learning and improving their work.

The cost associated with building and fully testing a skin? $20. It would cost you $20 to get a copy of WindowBlinds. SKS is free. And you can do all your art work with free or trial tools. But that $20 is pretty insignificant next to the amount of time you would have to put in. Master status is not handed out to someone who's been here a few weeks and tossed out a few skins. Most of our Masters have been around the block for a few years.

It makes no sense to me, to see a new user to the community take issue with the Master benefits. We hold Master status and the associated perks for those longest in the community, who have contributed the most. It's like starting at a Burger King flipping burgers but on your third day demand to know the career ladder to becoming CEO and asking when you can expect to land the job.

Time. It's all about time. That is the greatest cost there is.

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RomanDA

Join Date 12/2003

+147

I have been recently promoted to the rank of master. 99% of all of the work i have done was with a little crappy graphics program Ulead Photo Impact Link and as i just looked (to get the link) $49 thats next to nothing. They have a TRIAL version as well. I have a "work" copy of Corel Draw/Photo Paint, and to be honest im 100% better making things in PI then Corel.

As for people charging for their work, i think the only person who can determine if you should charge anything for your work is you. If you feel you work is "worth" something to people, then go for it. If you think that your are gonna get rich selling "master" skins, ROFL ROFL ROFL good freeking luck. I the past few years of selling "gadgets" on Desktop Gadgets as well as my own site, and now on WC (i uploaded a few that have been for sale on my site for months, to see what would happen) i have not made enough to cover my time to make back the investment in a Single one of my larger gadgets. So why do i sell them and not give them away, well i do put a huge amount of work into these things, and its very gratifying to get a "little" back from the work. Why do painters Sell their work and not give it away? Why do programmers not give away their work? Etc..

I started here in Dec, 2003 actually making Windows Media Player Skins, some i have removed because the sucked so bad. Then i found Dx, and have played with it for years now. I feel (this is just me) that the people that should be made a "master" are people who dont just make pretty things, but contribute to this community, to the irc channel, to the site, to posts, to help people who email them, etc. To me thats what a MASTER is. It does no good for a Master of Tae Kwon Do to know everything if he is unwilling to pass that knowledge onto others?

As for the people who bitch about "pretty soon no one will post anything for free" they are just full of B/S. There will ALWAYS be new skinners, and they have to get exposure and they want feedback, etc. so they will be posting things for free.

As for masters that sell their works, i see this as people that started out skinning for fun, and gained knowledge, and skills, and the skinning can grow into something more, and time becomes more and more precious, so, do you spend a week (or month) working on something that takes time away from working in skinning (working - meaning being paid for work) to make something to give away? I see a lot of people do just that, I have a hard time with time, i have less and less every year, and so i also have a family and bills, and if i can make a few extra bucks by selling something on-line, why not? Its my time im selling.

As for me, if its a gadget, i will more then likely have a free version that shows you the basics of the program, and then a full/pro version that has additional features, etc. I have spent HUNDREDS of hours on several of my most recent gadgets and i guarantee im not making that back in sales, but hey, i need to try right?

Ok, enough of me.

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gtfo.

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master skinners are just the people that paid the most

master skinners are just the people that paid the most

there the ones that have all the programs to make the skins