I think that has improved a lot recently and hopefully will be worked on more, but no amount of learning resources can make up for lazy skinning or bad design choices. That's where better moderation and more standardized qualifying plays the significant role.

X2 post.

Master, yes; I think that's earned. But I don't think we should start segregating the galleries by rank...a rating or whatever would be enough, I think. You can't really say every skin a Journeyman, MA, etc, makes would be of a higher quality than a citizen who's worked on his/her first blind for a year, fine tooth-combing it before uploading; 'tis too much of a rubber stamp, I say.

I will agree that one does not cancel out the other. There needs to be a balance, but as k10w3 said, how does rejecting help? (To be clear, I am in favor of rejecting blatant crap...but it's still subjective.) So you kick an honest skinner to the curb (yes, that's a bit of an exaggeration ) What do they do then? I'd suspect they'd scratch their head and wonder what they did wrong. How do they find out what went wrong: 1. Check other skins ("Oh, cool. How'd they do that?") 2. Look for tuts explaining how to make good stuff (see my previous post) 3. Ask for help (see k10w3's previous post on that experience)

So the question remains, how does rejection help? I don't think asking the moderators to explain everything is the answer--that would be time-consuming. Perhaps if there was a resource that they could direct the rejected skinner to for tips and tricks....(hmm, that sounds like the wiki.)

Again, there are two sides to the coin. We can look at how to deal with the lazy skinners, but we also have to look at how to deal with honest newbies who need a little more help. I suspect there are more honest skinners than lazy ones and if we encourage enough of the honest ones the lazy ones will cease to be a factor.

I'm all for that.

But in general their work , for the most part is going to be much better, sure there may be some reverse instances, but in reality, there is usually quite a jump from new skinners and experienced ones. If you don't think of it as a 'right' then getting to the main gallery to me.. seems like a superb incentive for some skinners.

I call it pride.

So whether your lazy, or just not far enough along yet, the challenge is still there to improve. Ive suggested before, A WIP area where beta skins can be posted, tested, ripped apart, feedback given, perhaps some kind of feedback system driven by multiple choice checkboxes and small comment areas.

A. Is it missing sections - Yes \ No  - which?

B - Does it have noticable buggy areas that hinder ease of use - where.

etc...

Heck, the replies in those posts could even be anonymous, would help people speak their true mind on a work in progress as opposed to saying "this skin sucks" in the main gallery Or a new, potential customizer downloading it and thinking

There are all kinds of ways to provide feedback, foster up and coming honest skinners. That wa just the first that springs to mind.

Group the skins in categories on the creators originality,experience, etc all the way up to master skins, i am not a skinner, spent a day trying it, (with bad results) so i have a huge amount of respect to anyone that creates one, so if i download one from say "amateur" category, i will already know kind of what to expect, little bugs here and there,(expected) again i am throwing in 2 cents but now it is up to 6 cents now

Personal Page Elite Gallery?

An excellent idea.

By and large very few 'new' skinners' works match the 'standard' of long-established skinners.... but there have been notable exceptions....one that springs instantly to mind was Tiggz.  First upload I saw prompted some superlatives [from me] like 'gosh' and 'wow'...

But mostly there are oddities/bugs/inconsistencies ...that are only bypassed/overcome with time/experience/third party input.

Do what u want to do. You have big mind... Use that... Although u havn't asked but let me say I have no suggestions for you hehehe....

DONT LET THE NEW SKINNERS FEEL FRUSTATED....

New skinners are your customers too and its good if u can retain your customers.... first rule of marketing may be second i dont remember but important one....

Its all upon users to download.. they can see the rating which is already a good guide...

And I don't think WC has bad skins so u r worried about the variety and bugs...

If you find a bug simply reject it and please give you precious time  for guiding them..... If u wont nurture them then skinning will die because most of us do it as hobby.... it has mostly no relation to their profession in case of new skinners.... so please let the artist in them groom...

Oh sorry I have given u suggestions but I know u won't listen to it....

Thanks sViz for supporting new skinners........

This seems like a good idea in principle, but I think k10w3 was saying that she's posted a skin WIP specifically in order to elicit critiques from the skilled and experienced subset of users here and she's gotten very little feedback. If that's the case, it's hard to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the new skinner--we need to also look at whether the journeyman/master-level users are offering constructive feedback. (If a WIP gallery were to be made along these lines, I think moderators should immediately delete any comments along the lines of "this skin sucks" on the grounds of being blatantly unhelpful.)

Incidentally, you can already sort galleries by star rating, which in large measure, is a way of separating new and experienced skinners' works, because, as Jafo's comments illustrated, the more experienced skinners tend to have higher-rated skins.

Sorting by star rating is helpful but some people have a fan club and always get 5 stars, so that sometimes isn't all that helpful.  I have skins on my puter that only have 2-3 stars that are good but they didn't get any backing, people didn't rate.  So I look at all uploads and if it catches my eye, then I try it.  Of course I have my favorite skinners and download most of what they do.

Lets face it , most people dont bother to sort the galleries, hell, I didnt even know you could until recently, they just look at page 1 in the gallery every few days.

Secondly, about critique, that's why I suggest a WIP area, specifically for feedback, via some kind of webform written for it. It could be anonymous, as we all know as soon as anyone says anything negative about a skin they are labelled troll or, "I dont see you submitting anything" So as it stands people are leary of speaking their mind without fear of reprisal.

I truly believe the best way to improve is to be told the truth.

This all sounds like I need to renew my sub at Deviante Art...

Makes me feel like I've been ripped or something?

Hum - this is not very good reading for any part as I see it here at the community...

What the hell is going on?

As long as the Forums are maintained and New Skinners are encouraged it should be OK.  Stardock and Wincustomize have become so interwined, it might as well be formalized.

Or the old ones! But we won't go there. 

If authors titled their uploads as "[WIP] - name of skin" they could be searched for and handled that way.

One question no one has asked, that I know will be of special interest to Zubaz:  What will happen to our Karma points?!!!! 

Another one Jim would be will there be a speel chker?

That's not going to help anything. The whole idea was to provide a centralized tutoring\feedback area where users could receive honest feedback on bugs, usabilty issues, get suggestions and most importantly have the folks doing the critiquing remain anonymous if they so chose to.

I didn't expect anything to change on the WIP front anyway  and everyone wonders why a lot of new skinners give up or produce low qual skins.

The process certainly isn't working right now.

Hopefully the karma idea will be rethought or nixed, its turned into a bad idea imo, folks running around giving out karma for really no valid reason at all, I guess it's some fun to some folks, I'm not totally against it but given the choice I could reset mine or have it not show at all.

I think it polarizes.

To me it's mostly just for fun, and just one more way to give Zu a hard time.

The webform/template idea vStyler suggests is the best idea to promote coherent, constructive critiques. I'm a member of a writing site that does this, and it could be easily implemented for WBs, since there is a standard for what things should be skinned (buttons, window, start menu, taskbar, etc.)

The reason a WIP area is be needed is to distinguish the lazy from the honest skinner...sometimes a skinner who posts in the gallery is not looking for or open to any crits, whereas we know someone posting in a WIP area will listen to what others have to say; this encourages Journeymen and Masters to put in their time as they know their advice isn't falling on deaf ears.

Further still, and recalling my experience on the writing site, I think you should get credits or karma points for submitting a critique as another incentive to help (of course,the points would actually have to be WORTH something )