Congrats patrick24, hard to compete with such a great dream.

As for my eligibility, I think people who know me personally would agree that I have no friends.

Now thats funny.  

Congratulations to all of you.  

Congratulations to all the winners  

Sorry guys don't take me wrong I'm not complaining at all I think the winners are great and I'm fine with it, I was just asking because it seemed weird that's all.

Wow, that was a random image, so here's another.


Now, down to buisness.

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I make the following statements without direct offense towards the winners of this competition and the admins judging it.

As far as the previous affiliations regarding Stardock members and participation in the contest, the rules clearly used to state (before they were suddenly changed a couple of hours ago) that "friends of friends" were prohibited from entering the competition, and I think that MasterBarron would quality under that category.

I also find it slightly peculiar that the winners of this competition also had the highest status as customers of Stardock. Both patrick24 and MasterBarron are direct members of Stardock (and while this may not be considered employment, they are definitely affiliated with Stardock and the admins). The 3rd place winner is not a subscriber, but is considered customer level 4. Doesn't it seem a little strange that all the winners of this competition have had extensive contact with Stardock?

The dreams were also unsatisfactorily judged in my opinion. Patrick24's UFO dream (again, no offense) seemed quite simple and his star field dream was clearly superior to this his winning one. MasterBarron's color scheme was slightly unusual (yet I do admit the volumetric ship was pretty cool). As for the 3rd place dream, I don't think that a "first time dream" should warrant a higher status in the judging lineup. I, have personally only created three dreams, yet I didn't mention my status as a beginner dream designer. If I had, would I have had a better chance of winning? That doesn't seem very fair.

This whole contest has lacked professionalism; the results were delayed and there were several judging miscommunications. The lack of entries was almost appalling and honestly, I am dissatisfied with the performance of the judging. The dreams were not judged based on the four categories stated in the rulebook,


Image/Video Quality
Seamlessness of loop
Originality of Animated Wallpaper
How well it uses the alien theme.


These dreams were obviously judged on additional categories that were not mentioned here and if it were up to me, there were more preferable candidates for winning. Although I admit that my entry still might not have placed (and that I am by no means envious of the winners), I believe that some of the other entries should have won, for example, AlienRig had great detail / lighting effects and Patrick’s star field is just awesome (I use it as my own current dream). The ufo dream is almost too subtle as a dream. The AlienWhere dream is too plainly colored. And the last dream: the 1st time dream, I would never use that as an actual dream for my desktop since there is too much rotation. A dream where every pixel changes is WAY too distracting for actual use and shouldn't be actually considered.

By stating all these flaws in the competition, I am not opting for a change in the results, but hopefully, these suggestions can be used to avoid future problems with future contests hosted by Wincustomize.

Congratulations to all of the people that did manage to win fairly or otherwise,
and I hope that Wincustomize's next dream competition is more successful and judged better than this one.

This was not a random image the first time I used it, nor is it intended to be one this time. This is the losers of this contest beating a dead horse.

The contest is over, winners were announced. If you weren't one of them it's not because you weren't a Master Skinner, or even a member or current customer......it's because the judges thought there were better dreams than yours.

I hate to come across so harshly, but sometimes the best truth is the ugly truth. Sorry to offend anyone, but that's the way I see it.....

Mostly, I find whingers talk a load of bollocks... But that's me plain talking again

When judging this contest, I didn't give a monkey's nuts who the entrants were.

This was a great contest with worthy winners who created the best dreams.   to them for making this a fine contest.

I, too did not vote.

It's curious how often people complain about the running of a contest. [I was piqued [as I am often] over the limitation on many Internet-based contests as 'US citizens only']

I'd be interested to see the detractors pool their resources and stage a contest of their own...though I'm not sure how popular a first prize of 'a bunch of sour grapes' would really be...

No 'skinning' contest is going to ever be held by any Public access website AND at the same time prohibiting ANY AND ALL community members of that site aka 'skinners'.  It is an impossibility, particularly when it is noted that many/most, if not all are members of several/all skinning sites.

Think about it.  It's a bit like staging a Marathon...but prohibiting any actual runners from entering....and to be sure only allow amputees/paraplegics.....without wheelchairs.

This shouldn't be a debate about the semantics of 'friends'.  The contest complied with the rules as stated.  No-one linked to Stardock, Microsoft, Alienware, et al. was accepted as an entrant...

 

SmartpointsDreams,

That entire post was wild conjecture, and false.

The ONLY issue with the contest was that the judging took place one week late.  In fact, the rules NEVER said the results would be announced, just that the winners would be notified and the announcement was contingent upon them responding and confirming their elligibility.  We were a week late on that, which was my fault.

But the "friends" rule was never rewritten.  Not once.  If you interpreted it differently, that's not my problem.

Customer status had nothing to do with it.

The dreams were judged on the stated criteria and rules for elligibility.

t2wave's status as a new Dream artist had nothing to do with his placement.  I made comment of it in the announcement because *I* thought it was interesting.

As dreams is a fairly new skinning area, I didn't know anyone and only knew of the Master Skinner so when I judged, they were all equal.  I judged on the criteria and as a tie breaker on personel preference.  

Night Train -

I can understand why Stardock, Alienware,and possibly Microsoft employees would not be eligible but how was Dell involved in this contest? Also, why would the friends be excluded?  
I am just curious, so it's not a big deal if this goes unanswerd.

It's a pretty standard line in most contest rules.  It's to avoid giving conspiracy theorists further fuel to their "it's rigged" claims.