Actually the more I think about it the madder I get. I can't even see what ratings my own skins have! That is stupid and elitist. Not sure that I care for a site that has that attitude. "We can see it and you can't." What bullshit!

Ok, first and foremost. I support the rating system. I feel that the system works. I feel this way because If I go sort by ratings I'm very confident that I am going to find good skins. However, if I sort by downloads overall I may find skins that have just been around along time and are not particulary great. If I sort by Downloads Today I may only find stuff that was just uploaded and is not that great. But when I sort on Ratings, guess what, I find good skins.

Is the system perfect? No. Can it be approved upon? Yes

Before I get into some of the major details I just wanted to point out that yes Contributors does not equal Saints. And to the same respect, Contributors does not equal Evil Doers. It seems to be assumed that most people who rate skins are doing it maliciously. Though there may be a few who abuse the system I would tend to believe that most people are fair and honest with their ratings.

Now as several of you have stated, part of the problem is the lack of ratings. First off, the skins are rated by my fellow administrators, who I think do an awesome job. In the past it has been suggested that we just use the admins rating. But as its been pointed out many of times everyone has different tastes so why should the admins rating be final? If we can get other people to rate it as well then it just makes the whole rating system better.
Now there are several reasons as to why the ratings are low: Most people don't have access to it, Some people may not know about it, others may not want to click on the extra link in order rate a skin out of laziness, others simply dont care, some dont like the system and lastly, are current system clears all previous ratings when you update your skin.

So what have do done?

1) Upon updating your skin all ratings used to get thrown away. We don't do this now. We keep the old ratings. So this will help skins have more ratings overall.

2) Upon viewing a single skin, the comments and rating are displayed right along with the skin. Thus making it easier to comment and rate. And hopefully the visibility will encourage people to comment and rate more often.

What will be done:

3) Comments and Ratings will be merged into one form, so one submit can handle them both. BUT it will NOT be required to comment if you rate a skin. But by virtue of having them in the same form the likeness of someone rating a skin when the comment should increase.

What may be done:

4) We may add the submission of rating on all skin views. This would help increase ratings because you don't have to click on a link to get to the "comments/rating" page. Again, more visibility would probably mean more ratings.

So we have done some work to improve the rating system. We have not implemented every idea out there simply because we don't agree on everything. So we are trying to approach a happy middle ground that will make everyone happy. And I think by the changes above that we taken a few steps closer to reaching a common ground.

Now in regards to the rating system as a whole lets look at it another way, there are several ways that a person can judge a skin.

1) by the number of downloads
2) by the user rating
3) by the comments people put
4) by the screenshot

Not any one single one of them will be the BEST way or PROPER way because Everyone has a different view and opinion. The rating system is just one of serveral in which you can use to filter skins. It also just happens to be main part of Wincustomize's filtering. If you are looking at the rating and asking "How can I make my skin better based on this rating?" then yes, it wont work for you because it does not provide that type of information nor is it supposed to. Thats what the comments are for. But if you want to find a skin that is good based on what other people think then yes, the system works. Even if there is only 1 vote.

Well, I'm starting to lose focus so I'm going to end it here.

Griffinme - take it from somebody who knows, ratings are over rated. Comments are what counts. Besides, you're a registered user, you should be able to see your ratings. Check out the "About" link https://www.wincustomize.com/about.asp its clear on that point. Only Visitors can't see the ratings.

T-Man > "First off, the skins are rated by my fellow administrators, who I think do an awesome job."

Is it this sites policy for admins to make a point of rating and commenting on submissions?

If that is the case, then in my experience it's not being done. Obviously my experience is mostly limited to Windowblinds/XP Skins, but I see very few comments from admins. I see very few comments from admins. I also see many many skins that have no ratings at all therefore preventing those skins from being seen by visitors. I've personally submitted just about as many WB skins as anyone on this site since the beginning of the year, and I could probably count on one hand the number of comments from admins/wizops.

It seems that almost everyone agrees that there is a problem with a lack of comments being made. Therefore, why don't the admins/wizops here take the lead and start setting an example for the rest of us?

While it is true that if you sort skins by rating (descending) you will see pretty much all good skins, if you resort them going from the bottom up you will also find some good skins. Try it and you will be amazed at the number of quality works that have been bombed.

I was kinda peeved a few weeks back when a particular skin of mine was Daily Deviation at DA and Featured Skin, but was rated a 4 here at WC. Obviously different people and have different tastes, but it was a bit disturbing to know that my skin was probably now even being seen by many members here due to the rating.

I know that this discussion will not lead to much, just as it hasn't the numerous times it's been discussed before. However, it would be nice for once though if the "wish" of the many artists was respected as opposed to the "will" of the few.

I've heard the argument several times in the past year that...."...it's Brad/Stardock's choice to do as they please because they're footing the bill."

My question is this, will this change once we all switch from community members/contributors to paying customers/subscribers?

Listen to Davad70

Any way, I don't believe that the ratings are having any effect on downloads and the bandwidth in general, the only effect that they have, are on authors feelings, but who cares...

WiseOldMan are you suggesting "Taxation without Representation", that's the stuff Tea parties are born from. I don't think the idea was that the $20 would be payment for a membership, membership for basic access is free. If I understand it correctly your money would be for a subscription which would allow greater access and goodies. Sounds like a bargain to me. I pay $27 dollars a year for PC Mag, I see it as a similar thing. I would hope though that if subscriptions are enough to pay for this site that it wouldn't be solely controlled by Stardock but rather by the Admin's.

Each day, within the 24 hours that we get in Australia for a day [not sure about the real world], I spend usually about one and a half to two hours here at Wincustomize - checking messages on the board [part admin, part social] and looking at [moderating] uploads....for me, it's mostly walls, screenshots, WinAMP, LiteSTEP - stuff I know and use.
By the time you have downloaded screenshots or checked inside zips, maybe emailed people about faulty uploads, moderated walls, etc, the burden [on a 56k modem] of ALSO commenting on skins as well would basically mean giving up 'Real Life'[tm] totally...

This essentially goes for all the admins/wizops....and is why you won't see too many comments directly from us on the uploads.

When the janitor gets the coding in place to simplify access to the comments and ratings you 'should' see more input/comments from the admins...

i guess i'm curious why some have the impression that people are giving undeservedly low ratings. are there some specific examples? and how do you know?

also, virtually everything should have at least one rating. i personally rated the entire back catalogue when wc went online. every skin. (i stand behind every last one, by the way) and when a new submission is put online, it gets rated. if you've found any zeroes, please point them out to me

I guess I should be careful what I ask for ....got plently of ratings here the last couple days. I got a nice 5 for one of my best skins I've done. Thanks everyone!