WinCustomize Upload Guidelines

Overview

We understand that you have put quite a bit of time and effort into creating your artwork/skins/themes and wish to show it off to the world.  It has been our mission to only show the best of the best so we do not accept every submission.  However, we do want to show off your talents so our moderators have written this guide to help you understand what qualities it takes for your submission to get accepted into the WinCustomize Library.  Please review these guidelines and if you follow them you should not have any problems in getting your work accepted.  If you have any questions please feel free to email us and we will be glad to try and answer your question.  Thanks and have fun!

Functionality

First of all, your submission must be complete and functional. Please test it before you submit it. We regularly receive empty or incomplete zip files. Preview images must be at least 1024x768 in dimensions. Please do not scale down the Preview screenshot, and don't worry about the thumbnail. Our server will automatically generate the smaller image for quick preview. There is little more aggravating than pressing the "zoom" link and to only have the same tiny preview.

Ripping/Art Theft

Also to be referred to as copyright theft. No uploads containing in part or in totality another artist's work will be accepted without a written authorization from the original author.  Permissions for use must be included in a .zip file with your upload.  Repeated offenses can result in removal of uploading privelages.

Copyrights/Trademarks

Images taken from other sources cannot be accepted without permission, including but not limited to pictures taken from movies, television shows, games, web sites, magazines, celebrity pictures. However, although they are theoretically also copyrighted, we will be lenient concerning corporate logos and OS ports, unless we are approached by the companies and asked to remove them. An exception: sports logos. Sport organization make money selling the right to use their logos and explicitly forbid the distribution of art containing their logo unless a license is purchased.

Advertisements

Our skins, themes and wallpaper sections are no place for advertisement. There is no problem if your name and web site URL is subtly inserted in your artwork (for example in small at the bottom right of your wallpaper), but if your logo or web site address is occupying the main part of the artwork, it will be rejected.

Nudity, Violence and Pornography

This is a slightly difficult topic, but as a general rules artwork containing male or female frontal nudity will be not accepted. We can occasionally bend this rule if the artwork is truly exceptional and if the nudity it contains is only an element of the artwork, not the subject in itself. No artwork making the promotion of violence or explicitly representing images of death, blood or physical harm will be accepted. Will also be rejected any artwork promoting discrimination, prejudice or any form of disrespect to any ethnic, religious or gender group.

Wallpaper Moderation

WinCustomize has a moderated wallpaper gallery.  That means all submissions, with the exception of Journeyman and above, are placed in moderation and selected submissions will be made available in the public gallery.  If a wallpaper is not accepted into the public gallery, it will be placed on your personal site on WinCustomize.  Rejections will only occur if the piece violates any of the said rules such as ripping, copyrights, etc.

Our guidelines for judging wallpapers on aesthetic grounds are difficult to be specific about. The prime directive for wallpapers is that they must WORK as a wallpaper, in other words the design should be an effective desktop background, which includes: The background is not too busy and icons are easy to see against it, Colors are not too bright to be distracting, and colors work well together. There are many subjective design related preferences we all have and some objective qualifications as well, such as the quality of the rendering and the resolution size offered. And then there is the composition, the subject matter, the overall balance of the design, etc.

Probably the best way to decide what we like to see in a wallpaper would be to browse through the section and look at what has been accepted. We recommend to everyone submitting wallpapers to try to only send a piece after living with it on their own desktop for a while first. Put as much work and critical evaluation into the piece as you can before sending it to us.

A few examples of what will never get through moderation:

  • Britney Spears or other celebrity wallpapers (see note about copyright above)
  • Bryce art, unless the result is so astonishing that one could never tell it was done in Bryce.
  • Dolphins, palm trees, metal spheres or other over-used elements
  • XP-related walls, unless really innovative/original.
  • Copyrighted photos/images
  • Confused composition...e.g....3D artwork with conflicting light-sources belying the form.
  • A ground-swell of negativity from a significant number of admins.

Rejections:

Items rejected are called exiled.  Exiling means the item is being removed from the site for infractions of the sites guidelines

If an item is rejected please refrain from posting questions about as to why in the forums, as generally these types of posts and answers can be embarrassing for all involved. You may PM a Mod and request a reason or help if you did not already receive an email detailing the cause of the rejection.

Tips on uploading can be found here.

Gallery Specific Guidelines

**The Guidelines that follow are in addition to the above guidelines set for all submissions.**

Wallpapers:

  • Wallpaper previews must be at least 1024x768.
  • Wallpapers of the same design with slight variations must be bundled into a .zip file.

DesktopX Gadgets, Widgets, Objects, Themes:

  • Items must be in working order. Incomplete skins or damaged uploads will be rejected until repairs are made. Skins that work on only one Version of OS will typically not merit as high of a rating as if it had worked on multiple operating systems.

BootSkins

  • No personal photos.
  • No game screens/movie & tv stills etc.
  • Uploads of bootskins are restricted to 5 per day, all overages will be rejected.

Logons

  • No personal photos.
  • No game screens/movie & tv stills etc.
  • Uploads of Logons are restricted to 5 per day, all overages will be rejected.
  • Vista and Windows 7 logons are currently moderated Like wallpapers.

Dreams

Being video files have a slightly modified set of fair use rules.  Fair Use allows for the limited reuse of copyrighted material so long as it is not done for financial gain of the person reusing the work, nor does it financially harm the original author by denying them sales etc.

In the case of Dream animated wallpapers, users can make limited use of video files created by other authors provided they meet the following requirements:

  • The animations used in the .Dream file is either 15 seconds in length of shorter OR less than 25% of the original video file in length (whichever is shorter).  So if you found a 20 second video you want to use in a Dream, you can use no more than 5 seconds of that video.  Anything else, you are limited to 15 seconds.
  • You must provide credit to the original author in the skin comments AND provide a link to your original source.  Understand that if the original owner of the work asks us to take it down, provided proof of ownership, we will comply immediately.

Sound Schemes

  • Fair use sound files must be 15 seconds in length of shorter OR less than 25% of the original file in length (whichever is shorter). You provide credit to the original author in the skin comments AND provide a link to your original source. Understand that if the original owner of the work asks us to take it down, provided proof of ownership, we will comply immediately.
  • Original sound files also must be 15 seconds or less in length.

ScreenShots

  • ScreenShots must have the main portion of the wallpaper obscured. The wallpaper needs to be covered enough to make extracting it from the SS extremely difficult. * placing Icons in the black areas of a wall, do not keep one from painting over them and using the wall unfettered.*
  • ScreenShots must be at least 1024x768.



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