. What did you expect, everyone to agree with you? You offered up your email in this thread so why take exception to Chas for (somewhat satirically) following that up as a possible "solution?"

sig101, I think you have me confused with DesignCaddy, who is the one who actually made the original post and offered his e-mail. )
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hmmmmmm... why is this emoticon not working? )

The emoticon for the wink seems to be deleting the semicolon when posting, at least for me.
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Ah, you're correct. Sorry. I sit corrected on that count. ) And clearly you're also correct about the winky as well.



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)
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No problem. And my post was intended to be a bit sardonic as well, btw.

And it appears I am not the only one whose wink emoticon has been blinded. p

It appears to be eating semicolons period. Or is it just my computer?


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how does a ->< semi colon vanish....too weird. There's supposed to be a semi-colon between the arrows

Thanks Stephen... thought I was going crazy.

Well, technically that's still a possibility, I guess.

could it be: servers are going through change???

)

i had the green apple theme and when i logged on i have the universal metal theme...

I agree with Chas. Aside from the admins, no one here at the forum or the skinning community can review a design and give some input or suggestion that will make the design acceptable, especially after that design was declined.
If an author has made a design and needs some sort of critique before uploading, then as Pictoratus suggested, it will be a good idea to seek this type of opinion via email from artists that you think can give you the best advice. Keep in mind that no matter what suggestion anyone gives you, it won’t guarantee the approval of the design.
Making public a work that was declined and ask why wasn’t accepted and ask for a critique about the work wont help much and it will draw mix responses that usually fall off the track.
That is why the best approach to get a good input to better your work is directly to and from an admin. I know this by experience, when some of my work got declined I would address it to an admin and ask for suggestions. For the most part I did some re-work and got accepted, some others I just decided not to re-work them.

Rather than clutter the sticky thread, it seems sensible to have a discussion about the issue separately...the sticky thread will be better to refer people to if it's kept as "pristine" as possible.

I'd like to offer some observations as someone who's been coming here for years to grab the odd skin, and since Christmas trying to contribute.

My first efforts to upload anything here were wallpapers, and were rejected. Quite rightly in hindsight. The process though was confusing.

Most other sites will take any ol' junk (they took some of mine! ).

This place is different though, and that means rejection is likely - especially as people learn what sort of thing is acceptable and what makes them of a good enough standard.

I've had many years experience of submitting things to various sites, and so when the "awaiting approval" wallpapers just vanished, I could guess what had happened and went hunting through the small print and forums to confirm my suspicions.

The point is that I hadn't realised what the process would be in advance, and I could easily have been confused enough to look for a forum to ask "has my wallpaper been rejected, and if so, why?"

This wouldn't have been prompted by arrogance, but by ignorance of the quirks of this particular process.

It should be remembered that it is only with experience that people will appreciate why some of their efforts don't meet the grade. It should also be remembered that someone's work may be artistic and very skillfully done, but it can get rejected just because of it's unsuitability as a wallpaper.

I agree that pre-discussion of a submission with people prepared to give useful constructive critisism (even in the face of possible rebukes) would be very useful to increase the standard of submissions before the moderators ever have to cast judgement.

The Skinning Discussion forum could be used for this, but from my experience, people won't tend to look there until they've already tried to submit something. Besides, I don't think most people contributing a wallpaper would think of it as "skinning".

So, what I would suggest is that the upload for wallpapers is treated differently in the following ways:

1 - when clicking on the "upload and then wallpaper" option, if someone hasn't contributed in the past, they should be guided to a page with BIG TEXT saying "This site maintains the highest standards for wallpapers and hence a great many have to be declined. Please ensure you read the guidlines and the tips about what to avoid (here 0). If you would like someone to offer constructive comments on your contribution in advance of submitting it for concideration, please go (here 1). Once you are sure your work is as good as you can possibly make it, then go (here 2)"
2 - the screen then says "Please do not be offended if the kind offer of your work is declined to be included on this site. This should not be taken as an insult as the moderators taste may just differ from your own. If you're work is taken for inclusion, you will hear from with a confirmatory e-mail. If you do not hear from us, and the submission has stopped being listed as "awaiting approval" then it means that it has not been accepted. You are welcome to submit future works." and then people can upload.

The constructive comments bit could be a thread on the skinning board, or a board all to itself which only people who are prepared to suffer any abuse from the newbies need ever look at, and which could have a restricted access to to prevent people who just want to say "it sucks!" from annoying everyone.


.....This is sort of how I managed to muddle through on my own, as I figured that my first efforts were substandard so I determined to make sure I made something good enough next time. I then looked to the forums to ask if there were a place to ask for feedback on the things which were still being rejected...I'd missed wherever it might suggest asking the admins, as I thought that would be needlessly bothering them. A kind admin offered some feedback which was really simple: "this is not an art site, it's a skinning site", and that has hopefully guided things I've done since....somewhat

So...what I'm suggesting is that people should be guided a little more into only submitting the right sort of things, and to help them improve, guiding people to some place to ask for polite feedback would be useful.

So...I agree with a number of the people above

Sorry...thats too long! I only realised when I posted it