Adni, I'm not going to start to list them because I don't want to give anybody any idea, but there are indeed many ways to cheat the system to increase the download count if you're not logged in.

I have to say that someone must be brave to post in the Message Board, he or she, is in great danger to be accused, if you know what I mean.

adni,

That is a trend I've noticed but I think its because there has been an unnatural number of posts recently that are accusatory in nature and directed at the admins or at least directed at some of the things they are trying to do. In many cases I think its a natural defensive response.

Everyone's nerves are becoming a little raw and I think it would do everyone good to step back and just let the admins do their job. If then there is evidence of abuse, hank-panky or whatever that is the time to make the case. It is unfair to suggest abuse or unfairness before the system is given a chance.

I think that if you log-on a cookie is placed. I never logoff...So when I go to the site I am automatically logged on....

But it is easy to log off, delete the cookie, and return unnoticed. I never log off either, but I have some idea how the mechanism works, I've had enough HD crashes to know.

#55 by pictoratus,
"In other words, there wouldn't be a raw and WC count, they would all be WC counts and people could stop the speculation and arguing and so forth and get back to skinning and all the other good things this community provides."


I think this is a great idea, simple and clear!

Personally we do not want to require people to create accounts in order to download skins.  Only after bandwidth and costs became an issue did we start requiring accounts after x number of bytes downloaded.    We really did not want to do that but it became a necessity.

In has been our position that we want new comers to the site to be able to freely navigate  and try out skins without having to jump through the necessary hoops of creating accounts. 

Can you imagine how many accounts we would have now.  Instead of 600,000 plus it would probably be more like 20,000,000 accounts.  We would be storing information for people who will most likely never come back. Then that opens up another can of worms.

The suggestion is appreciated but is not practical and goes against some of the ideals that we are trying to put forth.

I have to agree with #58 by Janitor T-Man , it is another point of view and very reasonable.

"T-Man and the Admins".....

What's the bet I'd end up as the roadie?....

Yes, as T-Man said.

But pictoratus, don't forget that the WC downloads are only used for the top 10 lists. The regular overall downloads are still counted when you look at the downloads your skins got.  Don't forget that the top 10 list only features 10 authors. The other thousands of authors I'm sure appreciate to know how many downloads they got overall. It's quite more encouraging to see you got 5,000 downloads than 500 (the difference is about 10 to 1).

KarmaGirl reads this entire thread...

KarmaGirl smacks head on desk repeatedly

I will never understand this obsession with the Top whogivesa Lists........................ Just skin something damnit, and pour me another mug of coffee! 

Sugar & milk?