ragtek addons

[digitalpoint]

Lol... honestly, who cares why someone is selling their site or shutting it down? It's their site, and they are free to do whatever they please. If I felt so inclined, I could just turn off digitalpoint.com tomorrow, and I wouldn't owe an explanation to anyone.

In the end, the reason, "Because he wanted to." should be perfectly acceptable.

What I want to know is where in the galaxy Ragtek is right now.

Hopefully it's on an alien planet where the aliens look like Victoria's Secret models and not an alien planet where they look like... well... aliens.

 

[mrGTB]

Lol... honestly, who cares why someone is selling their site or shutting it down? It's their site, and they are free to do whatever they please. If I felt so inclined, I could just turn off digitalpoint.com tomorrow, and I wouldn't owe an explanation to anyone.

In the end, the reason, "Because he wanted to." should be perfectly acceptable.

What I want to know is where in the galaxy Ragtek is right now.

Hopefully it's on an alien planet where the aliens look like Victoria's Secret models and not an alien planet where they look like... well... aliens.

 

[mrGTB]

Here!

 

[Miko]

Apology to the thread starter...
I'm replying here to stop the vivid imagination of some users and the fake rumors spreading.

Bob and I are selling due to our everyday works and family commitments taking most of our time.
We simply can't commit enough time to the site to be fair to our users.

Selling it is currently the correct thing to do in hope that the new owner will have more time to dedicate to the site and making new themes.

No other sinister reasons, nothing to do with other sites or developers closing down, just pure coincidence.

If anyone want to further discuss, you know were to find me. Please don't do it here as it's not right the place.

Thank you,
- Miko

 

[bogus]

Well. i feel a bit cheated. Many donated or payed or whatever you want to call it. For me it looks like, at the end, he tooked the money and vanished... At least he could let an info what he´s going to plan.... I send a few ppl i know because his addons for vb where always quality stuff... This way he was going is anything else then to be fair.

 

[RobParker]

It's a bit rubbish but there's not much we can do. If for example, Jaxel were to ever give up supporting his addons then it'd cause serious problems to the majority of sites running XF as that functionality just doesn't exist in the core (not that I'm advocating putting everything into the core).

Recently it seems that lots of people have left and it's all a bit mysterious as we're not allowed to talk about the reasons.

What would be nice would be if we could somehow have "official" 3rd party addons where if the author were ever to leave, there could still be support for the addon. To get something like that working I'd happily buy the addon (via XF, itunes style with the author and XF both getting a cut) but I can imagine there'd be too many logistical problems to get that working :-(

 

[Paul B]

we're not allowed to talk about the reasons.

That's simply to stop unfounded rumour and speculation, which is exactly what would happen if it was permitted.

Only the individuals in question can offer any information so there is little point in letting the rumour mill go into overdrive - we've already seen it in this thread and it benefits no-one.

 

[RobParker]

Yeah I understand but the "wait to see what they say" as Mike suggested doesn't really work when the posters back on here, posting but refusing to explain what's gone on. Yeah it's their prerogative not to tell but once it's clear that they're not going to explain then what do we do? People (rightly or wrongly) feel like they're owed an explanation (and in the case of those who donated, bought premium accounts, etc) then I can see why they think that.

Similarly with ragtek, people have alluded to knowing "something" but that it's all a big secret and no one will discuss it.

At the end of the day this all damages XF as the 3rd party addons are far less likely to be trusted than they were.

 

[Paul B]

At the end of the day this all damages XF as the 3rd party addons are far less likely to be trusted than they were.

Third party add-ons, styles or anything else have nothing to do with XenForo.com.

I would hope most people are able to make the distinction.

 

[RobParker]

Third party add-ons, styles or anything else have nothing to do with XenForo.com.

I would hope most people are able to make the distinction.

I think you misunderstood my point, I wasn't suggesting that they were.

People need functionality for their site. The XF core is quite lean so they look to 3rd party addons. If XF starts to get a reputation of having an unreliable developer community it will only damage the uptake of XF.

 

[Paul B]

There really is nothing which XenForo Ltd can do about developers abandoning projects, so to place the blame on XenForo Ltd is misguided.

Essentially you're saying that to avoid being blamed, XenForo.com should not allow any third party add-ons, styles or anything else to be hosted here.

It's up to each individual to carefully assess whether to install an add-on or not, taking into account all factors.

 

[RobParker]

There really is nothing which XenForo Ltd can do about developers abandoning projects, so to place the blame on XenForo Ltd is misguided.

Essentially you're saying that to avoid being blamed, XenForo.com should not allow any third party add-ons, styles or anything else to be hosted here.

It's up to each individual to carefully assess whether to install an add-on or not, taking into account all factors.

No I'm not and it's nothing to do with blame. I don't think anyone blames Kier et al. for this (and I certainly don't).

What I was suggesting was that having a more formal link between 3rd party addons and XF might be beneficial. For example, if something was abandoned XF could choose to take it over and continue the development (if it was deemed that enough users would benefit from that). To finance all of this, there'd need to be some sort of iTunes-esque revenue sharing and it probably gets far too complicated to be workable but something to give users more confidence that an author isn't just going to disappear and abandon all his addons would help a great deal.

 

[mrGTB]

There really is nothing which XenForo Ltd can do about developers abandoning projects, so to place the blame on XenForo Ltd is misguided.

Essentially you're saying that to avoid being blamed, XenForo.com should not allow any third party add-ons, styles or anything else to be hosted here.

It's up to each individual to carefully assess whether to install an add-on or not, taking into account all factors.

Interestingly, what you said there is pretty much the reason why vbulletin.com never allowed it. Instead keeping it all limited to other people's forums or posted on vB.org. Not saying anything by that, just something I thought worth mentioning. That was always their point at vBulletin.com, they didn't want to get dragged into mod releasers arguments by allowing it there, which they felt if they did would only make matters worse.

I read somebody mention before about running a separate XenForo Mod (sister) site, done to keep the two things separate from one another like vB.org does. I think that was a good idea looking at what happened recently with a ton of mods getting removed here. Your also going to have quite a few links posted here from Ragtek over time now leading to dead links seeing as he's pulled his forum board down.

 

[Mike]

No I'm not and it's nothing to do with blame. I don't think anyone blames Kier et al. for this (and I certainly don't).

What I was suggesting was that having a more formal link between 3rd party addons and XF might be beneficial. For example, if something was abandoned XF could choose to take it over and continue the development (if it was deemed that enough users would benefit from that). To finance all of this, there'd need to be some sort of iTunes-esque revenue sharing and it probably gets far too complicated to be workable but something to give users more confidence that an author isn't just going to disappear and abandon all his addons would help a great deal.

To be fair, that's not even needed. If someone writes an add-on and releases it with an open source license (say, BSD) or explicitly gives permission to create and distribute derivative versions, then anyone could pick it up. But that's really there prerogative.

They don't have to do it initially either. If they don't want to continue maintaining something, they can change the license whenever they want.

 

[Morgain]

You really need to be extra careful in what your saying.

Mr GTB I am always VERY careful about such matters.
I am a connoisseur of the sweetest most powerful delicate and mystical ...

 

[RobParker]

Yeah but I don't see that as being that likely without some incentive. I thought that was maybe where you were going with the change in rules to grant more control over "Content" but I guess not.

Any sort of reassurance that users won't randomly lose (what is to them) key functionality to their site would be great but I appreciate how difficult that is for you to do much about.

 

[mrGTB]

I side with the staff on this one. Never run a forum that depends on other peoples mods always being supported, unless you have the skill to update them yourself if need be. It never ends well that story! Go take a look how many mods on vB.org have been sent to the graveyard area because the creators of them either went AWOL or just plain stopped supporting them.

 

[MilesDB]

Either way, people have their reasons for what they do. People don't (or at least they shouldn't) revolve their life around any software... XF included.

Simple "my life priorities have changes; wife said no; got a new job; .... and I won't be coming back. Sorry." would be nice for those dependent on their once ongoing works instead of afk and awol.

 

[MilesDB]

Go take a look how many mods on vB.org have been sent to the graveyard area because the creators of them either went AWOL or just plain stopped supporting them.

Makes you think if, in case of "Powered by XenForo", forum only site is the way to go unless developers adopt IPS's approach to officially offer gallery, blog, etc as add-ons.

 

[mrGTB]

You'll always get people using mods, no matter what. But they should keep mind they are not part of the core forum product and as a result might not be updated in the near future by the developers of them. It's a risk anyone takes "on their own shoulders" using them, and why they should think twice about using 3rd party member mod being offered.

Both Floris and Ragtek are prime examples here why. Nobody would have expected this to happen with Ragtek, it just goes to show you can never depend on anyone using their 3rd party mods. Always the same story, new forum owners get carried away installing mod after mod, then later they come unstuck when they update the forum software and find a mod no longer works right they have installed, then find the mod owner did a runner ages ago.