Skins, Themes, Icons, Wallpapers: All of these things have ratings associated with it. Ratings are designed to allow users to better find things that are of higher quality while helping new skin authors improve on their skill set.

Unfortunately, the ratings system is imperfect. Only those with Apprentice access or higher OR have WinCustomize subscriptions can rate skins. But some people abuse their ratings priviledges. Some people will give a 1 to a nice skin and many people will give 10's to terrible skins.

There is even what appears to be the occasional use of rating trading. Where authors will agree to vote on each others skins in exchange for high ratings for their own.

Let me be clear: We can see the ratings. That is, we know who rates what. And they are cross referenced. The Admins actually get a visual cross reference of what a user rates things. So if User A is giving all of User B's skins 10s (or 1s) and vice versa, it's pretty apparent what's going on.

Here is the standard of which rating should be done:

It's a 1 through 10 setup. 5 means average. A 10 means you think it's one of the best skins of all time. A 9 would be one of the best skins of the year.  Most skins should get between a 4 and 6.

We have begun prooning ratings to try to make them somewhat more representative.  Giving your friend a 10 on a bad skin is not helping them. It is definitely not helping other users who simply conclude that the users here must just have terrible taste. We don't want to have to threaten removing ratings priviledges from users so please, just try to be fair and honest in your ratings.

Thanks!