alongview, There is a difference, You would have to hunt down an admin (and maybe in some cases hope you got the right one) and the PM boxes have a 'limit' to the # of messages they hold. PMing is also not the easiest thing here on WC and I'm sure not very easy for a newbie. Now a 'button' might be abused as I stated above, hell it probably would. This whole thing is just to discuss the possibilities of what could be done as a regular feature. Maybe such a button should only be visible to the skinners themselves who created the upload. I don't know to be honest. I was just thinking that a regular and easy way to do such a thing could be put into place.

Maybe I should also state that personally I have had to deal very little (if at all) with such comments. I have also had my fair share of negative comments about this skin or that (take a look at my Psycho skin, plenty of "the color stinks" comments) and those have never bothered me. They are fine and I don't discourage that nor would I ever. But, others have and it puts a bad taste in my mouth that skinners have had to put up with non-skin related comments. Granted they are not very common but they do exist.

I did too...





Feb 1st (as well you know)


However... as far as iTROLLs go... open season.




I got it. I'm not a skinner, but I understand that negative comments towards a skin if looked at with the right slant can be viewed as poorly worded constructive criticism, as long as there enough info given. "This color scheme is unusable" is not as helpful as "this color scheme is unusable, there's not enough contrast between the avocado gold background and the golden green font"

SIR Bichur :

Trolling or Insightful that's the question




psst: mine is a troll's comment

SK.. seems your wasting your time. It's apparent that WC's desire to protect free speech surpasses its abilty to protect it's users. I've made a point to complain at the highest levels about certain users.. to no avail. If I personally continue to be harrassed by the same people who seem to be unimpuned regardless of obvious selective trolling of my work and comments..I'll just get fed up with it and leave. Its getting REALLY old, REALLY quick

The comment in my master skin was nothing more than another in a long stream of criticism from the same user about things that frankly are none of his business, everything that was mentioned in the critique are things that had been brought up before and answered by me. It was just one more pathetic attempt to bismirch my reputation and work. Why? I don't know, but it seems obvious to me that it is someone who has been resentful of my success and bent on making it his personal cause to knock me down. Perhaps another skinner using an alias, perhaps a friend of one. Either way i am not the only person who maintains this view of him. Several other people have approached me, unsolicited, with the same opinion. Curious eh?

To alongview..or whoever you are.. you found three comments of mine.. out of thousands? (none of which I would take back and still view as bona fide criticism) Wow.. real good, you have proved that my negative comments were not only..far back, but in comparison ..a miniscule percentage of my positive ones. You will also find that I have not at any time singled anyone out and continued to harrass them. I have also made it a point to temper my responses. btw I looked at your profile, what a surprise, you just recently joined. Zero downloads, zero uploads, non-customer, non-subscriber.. why are you so entrenched in this debate may i ask? An alias perhaps? I would almost bet my life you are the same person harrassing me.. you don't disguise yourself very well, anyone with any sense can compare your commenting style\use of language and see your the same person. How else could you POSSIBLY have found those comments of mine amid thousands of comments.. so quickly? Haha.. see you have bitten off a litle more than you can chew..I told you a while back if you continued I would expose you and I'm about to. You picked on the wrong skinner bud   


For those of you that doubt me, take the time to look through my submission threads and my comments and look for a common denominator.. then compare to this thread.

Admins, I ask someone to step in here.

I will say that in the past I have been very critical of Master Skinner's themes and have maybe even flamed them myself, however, they are the best of the best, and should be challenged the most when creating skins. When it comes to charging for themes as well, the bar should be even higher than the free themes, and so should the judging. When the first Vista-charge theme came out, I was very critical of it because in many ways it was incomplete, and they were charging people to have a "Vista-compatible" theme when in many ways it wasn't compatible.

I am a fan of vStyler's work and it shows throughout my posting here at wincustomize. I was strongly critical of other Masters' work, especially when vStyler wasn't a Master yet, and his themes were of a caliber higher than the other themers at the time (in my opinion). However, now that he is a Master, I am judging the Masters' work a little bit differently. We know the fiasco that is Vista themeing, and until WB6/SK6 is out, we will not have 100% feature complete Vista skins. With that said, I'll go back to the topic.

Everyone has opinions on what is bad and good about a theme, but nitpicking someones theme because it is 1MB bigger is ridiculous. How many Stardock users are even on 56k? How many of Stardock users have small hard drives? This is 2007, and I'm sorry, but if a megabyte is your only complaint, it shouldn't be a complaint. Whoever Nicholasworld/alongview is, he is someone who is jaded to vStyler, for whatever reason. His opinions are nothing more than tireless banter and he is usually the only person complaining.

A lot of the top Master Skinners haven't made themes in months, and yet vStyler is constantly banging them out. And then he gets flamed for it? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I do think you, vStyler, should calm down a little though. If you directly attack someone, even if he is attacking you, it shows your character as well. Let him continue to look like a moron, and eventually the entire community will not even listen to his complaints. Many have already seen that he complains about every theme you create. Eventually, he will mess up and will be exposed.

On the internet, everyone is a critique, and people have to realize that. Whether or not their reasoning is good however, is left up to the users and the creators. Just remember though...just because you post on a profile that has no data, doesn't mean you don't know what you are talking about. *cough*hint hint*me*.

I've been calm thus far, when it starts affecting my income, it affects not only me but my family too... and that I will not stand for.

Yep,negative comments about the skin are fine...its every users right to critique.

But a campaign to slander a skinner is another thing entirely.While we are at it...whe can do without Pixel Punk using every mastertheme comment section as his personal anti-Stardock skin sales podium.He dosnt really comment on the skin except in some lame backhanded fashion to justify his 'why aint this free?'bitching.

If he wants to complain,thats fine...do it in the forums.  

The Wincustomize admins/mods DO keep an eye on things, particularly potential sources of friction.

It is unfortunate that some members will use a skin's comment area to pursue an agenda, but, if there is actual genuine relevance to the skin then it really should stay [not be removed].

What is NOT acceptable though is the instance of religious vilification on one person's works, or, in the case of vStyler's an apparent vendetta against him by another member.

The Admin intervention in the former instance appeared to 'work' without need for follow-up.

That in the latter clearly did not, so the person has now been removed.

If anyone has an issue with a skin comment then any mod, or myself or Zoomba would be suitable to contact....as even if they are not the 'ideal' person it will be passed on to someone who can act on it.

I believe the feature of 'report this comment' button is in the works for WC2K8...so 'all should be good'...

 

Like Jafo said above, we do keep an eye out for problem users, and do intervene behind the scenes when things go over the line.  However, we almost always do this privately, and don't hash it out on the forums for everyone to see.  The result is that sometimes people can get the impression that we're not doing anything to respond.

Our preference is to deal with problems and problematic users one-on-one.  The results are pretty much universally better than going through the steps in front of everyone.  And if a user chooses to not heed warnings issued (and we give many warnings and opportunities), then they're pulled.

Thanks for responding on this, I appreciate it. Sorry it had to be escalated to this point, I attempted to avoid it.

~

Did someone say trolls?

Where are they?

I'm hungry.

~

eat me

gotta new troll on my skin wednesdays nightmare......go there just for a laugh if you want, its that rediculous, the stupid gutterslag has a campaign about me copyrighting a 'cross with wings' of all stupid things to pick about...and its not even copyrighted, either way ive reported the matter to zoomba, and something will be done pronto im sure...

especially when people work so hard on their work and to have just stupid rubbish like that thrown at them, either way, im over it.....another nicolasworld to me, just a pain in the ass with nothin better to do with their time then try to piss off someone in the win community........