I do understand the problem of definition we're having here. What I think needs to be understood is that to some extent, definitions shift over time, especially in the online space.
Heavy Equipment is the ultimate Community Skin project that everyone points back to because of its scale. And the recent Halloween project from theAVMAN and crew. These are great projects and should definitely be held up as some of the best examples of what can be achieved when members of the community come together to work on something.
But to be a community effort, a skin or set of skins put together by multiple members of the skinning community, it doesn't necessarily have to strictly adhere to how those two projects were handled.
Does it have to be an open invitiation to everyone? No. But the projects that do that will obviously be more successful and more fun for more people.
Does it have to accept anyone that wants to be involved? No. But those that do will likely be better for it.
Does every piece of it have to be free? Again, no. But those that are 100% free will have a more lasting impact on the community and be more fondly remembered.
Just like every skin is not created equal, the same is true for community projects. And I'm not talking quality of artwork necessarily either.
My goal has been to bring focus to any efforts made by the community to do bigger and better things with skinning. I see the MaxStyles sets as a wonderful example of what the community could be doing as far as skins and cooperation. The fact that they get a lot of coverage is partly because not many other groups are stepping up and doing the same. If 4 out of 5 group projects come from the same group, then 4 out of 5 news stories about group projects will be about them.
I originally hoped that by bringing attention to skin sets like Harmony, Whitefire2 etc that it would inspire and encourage more people to get together and work on more large projects like that. Not that it would turn into anger or jealousy over being excluded/not invited to the party/not warned beforehand etc.
I also see a slippery slope with people asking us to start more narrowly defining what does and does not constitute community. Clarification is one thing, but I do not for one second believe we should start to limit and scale down what we consider worthy of being labled as a community project, skin, effort, site etc. The more inclusive, the more broad we are in what we consider community, the more inviting we are to newcomers. The more encouraging we are to people who want to try something new. We're here to grow skinning and the skinning community, not whittle it down to fit the desired definition of any one user.
