I agree. Since Windowblinds is *the* flagship Stardock product, it makes sense, to me, to be showcasing the *best* of what can be achieved with the program.

To quote a comment from a particularly bad hack job:

Those hacks are your future skinners just breaking into the scene. The skins should be in the galleries so the Authors can get feedback so they can improve. As unsightly as they are, it is important for those authors to be noticed so that they can improve. I wish I had more time to offer them to help them grow. In most cases, people are all alone when starting skinning and they need assistance from the community. Noone sees personal pages so the skins will go unnoticed.   

The current policy on WB submission is that unless they are rips, don't work etc, the skin goes public. Once you start moderating skins on quality grounds you leave yourself wide open to further criticism.

{moderator hat off}
These are probably the worst couple of skins I've ever seen. Not only that, the author has failed to follow all the good advice given to him. Quality not quantity should be the mark to follow. Skins as poor as those need to be personal page only...
{moderator hat on}

Don't know about the filter not working. I have to have mine set at 'all' to moderate.

Zoomba submitted a ticket yesterday for the filter issue to be adressed.

This is all well and good NT.. if 'said' skinners actually listen to the feedback, on the flipside a lot of good stuff gets buried. Perhaps a noob area is in order OR.. as I have always suggested, a real WIP section where each skin gets its own thread and the author posts progress and asks for feedback. A place to nurture and harvest new skinners if you will.

It just doesn't look good on the community as a whole when the entire first page of stardocks backbone application is filled up with unfinished, unpolished 'learner' skins...and the inevitable flaming that accompanies them.

Well i agree and disagree...

It'll be good that the option to don't show skin under the ratings you set works. that's a point.

I agree with Night Train we need to help those beginners in skinning and their works should be see by everyone...

But in an other hand what i see today is "some" beginners who made WB skins in fews days upload them and don't care about the feedback/councils of good skinner (and sometimes Masters) that is simply odd.

How could they learn and improve if they don't care of councils and tips?

I'm not for a quality control as hard as the QC in wallpapers gallery.
as statued by WC/SD (i could be wrong) Wallpapers need to be good to show. But WC is a skinning site so all others skins can be in main gallery, so wallpapers under 2.5 stars don't show up in main gallery and stay in Personal pages.
I agree... that allow me to improve my skills to try to get one in main gallery

But in case of WB, i think it could be interesting to not allow skins in main gallery under 1 or 1.5 stars and like for Walls to put them on personal pages.

why? cause like that hopefully, some beginners will improve their works and try to learn more.
Why i think that could be work? cause moderators in general (i can't talk for them) as show before it seems that they not bash skinners so in general you don't see WB rate as first as less than 2 stars.
So it could be works...

More it could be interesting in the case of a WB skin rate by a mods under 2 stars that in the mail to tell to the skinner that his skin is available in his gallery to put the links to the Wiki tutorials or/and some others in articles section.
As remind forums can be there too to allow the skinners to put a link to their skin to get a feedback and councils from the community isn't it?

I'm not here to bash to work of some of those beginner i'm one too i'm making my 3th only and i still learn. In general i don't comment this kind of skin but send sometimes a email like yesterday morning to give some links to good tutorials or tips.
I know how hard is it to make a WB for a beginner and how that can be make fear.
I hope many people will try to begin in skinning. And i know we will be there to help us/them.

Personally I'm all for someone wanting to learn to skin, but when they are obviously NOT making an effort to learn and just start pumping out junk like there's no tomorrow...in some cases several skins in a day!...I repeat...several skins a day!...then they need to be regulated to the personal pages. Its completely unfair to the ones that are taking the time to learn and put out quality stuff.

There are plenty of new skinners in the WB library that are at least making an effort to learn and you can see they're submissions improving, but to allow this obvious junk...it feels more like spam than anything.

Having a WIP section would be a great idea...and the moderators could regulate WIP's to that section rather than flood the library with unfinished stuff that looks like it was done in MSPaint.

And I wanna be clear that I don't want to discourage anyone from trying to learn skinning...but they at least have to make an honest effort at learning before they start flooding the libraries with slapped together stuff. There are lots of people here that are more than willing to share tips. Start a skin....get some tips...improve the skin...post some screenshots for comments and more tips....polish it some more...show that you at least are trying to learn. But please don't subject us to slapped together stuff just because its fun for you...if thats the case have fun....but please keep it in your personal library and give your friends the link...then slap away. There are a lot of people here that take this stuff seriously and don't deserve to get they're hard work buried under it. And it certainly does not do the software any justice either justice.

at less we all can see that the someone in question has got the advice if we take the time to see back in his skin comments

Hey Jafo, it use to be the way, there are no more rating filters on galleries, the public sees all skins.
Using bootskins as an example, filter use to be 2 1/2 stars, there is a boot added yesterday rated 2 stars, it already has over 450 downloads, would not be that many if filtered and not seen by general public.

Yes, it seems (I have not tested)the personal setting going thru ones account, but the galleries themselves are no longer filtered by rating for general public. Everyone that comes to WC now sees all skins, walls etc, not just members with setting at show all.



Yes it would be, back in the filtered days, a boot only seen by members would be lucky to get that many downloads in a week, it has that in just over a day. It is now at almost 500 dl, only 10 dl by members.

I don't think you will find any WB skinners that would object to crappy skins getting pushed into a WIP section. Except the crappy skin makers of course.   

I trust (and I am sure most people do)the moderators to weed out the skins not ready for primetime. Perhaps the Authors could be pointed to a forum section for people to assist if a library is out of the question. I am sure that once something is established, there will be many people offering their opinion. People that don't skin can have a way to help out in the community.
It possibly could actually be a build it and they will come sort of thing.

The Skinartistry workshop was started for just this purpose. The goal was to help new and old skinners weed out the bugs before releasing. I like to think that it improved the overall quality of the libraries here as well.

In the end, some people simply don't listen. They are in such a rush to get their downloads that they ignore obvious flaws and bugs that were pointed out to them. Well after a couple thousand downloads, it really doesn't matter does it. Your work is still amateur, your reputation is non existant, and people have grown tired of helping you.   

gotta get back to work, no time to proof, hope I didnt make an ass of myself again.