Add-on Update Notifier 1.1.8 Patch Level 1

[smallwheels]

If XenForo went by their own rules for their own code, then XenForo core software would be marked as unmaintained 99.9% of the time.

While I agree that the responsiveness of the XF team leaves a lot to be desired when looking at the sections for bugs and suggestions the housekeeping rules focus on "has been logged into the forum within the last 30 respectively 45 days". This is typically the case with the XF devs, they are not even close to that limit. What could apply however is the myserious last sentence of the housekeeping rules:

In addition, if the author is simply logging in but not providing any support, action will be taken.

This would indeed apply to the XF crew. However: As there is no clear action tied to this case your statement lacks foundation. Still I agree that the housekeeping rules may be good in theory but lack in practice and also that they feel like double standards when you look at how the XF crew (not) reacts to bugs and problems reported in this forum w/o any consequences or improvements.

 

[Moshe1010]

I'm still checking in from time to time, but less due to additions to the family.

Anyway, there have been no support tickets or bugs to be fixed, so no reason for new releases either...

XF has marked the AMPXF addon as unmaintained several times, and now deleted it for some reason without warning...

TBH, not feeling like I want to bother doing more here unless some mods reach out and explain why they keep marking my resources as unmaintained and removing them without reaching out first.

My addon(s) were 2 of the top 5 most-used add-ons for XF (and one will be incorporated into XF Core in 2.4), so not even reaching out before deleting things is just silly.

Cheers
//Jonathan

True. Devs should have less strict policy than not logging in for 45 days. Maybe increasing it to 90-120 days would make more sense...

 

[smallwheels]

Devs should have less strict policy than not logging in for 45 days. Maybe increasing it to 90-120 days would make more sense...

I'd assume those rules have a history. 90-120 days would be way to much in my opinion anyway: With free add ons there is no huge issue anyway: They are marked as "unmaintained" but keep bing available. With paid add ons one would assume that there's something like support and clearly the resource section of this forum is a show front that will create revenue. 90 -120 of no reaction or login tolerated would equal 3-4 months. Imagine you bought an (possilbly expennsive) add on, instal it happily on your forum, get a problem and for four month no reaction from the developer - would you consider this to be ok? I would not.

Still I think the current way is pretty drastic. For one a dev should get a warning via mail a couple of days before a status change of the add on is made. Plus there should be the opportunity for a dev to set an add on on hold if he is not available for some time or i.e. on a longer holiday or busy with other things. Also, I would not delete paid add ons after only 45 days - the status "unmaintained" is enough of a warning flag in my opinion. So much room for improvement through tiny steps that would make the situation possibly better. Another open end with XF that would need some love.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I'd assume those rules have a history. 90-120 days would be way to much in my opinion anyway:

But what if there are no support issues or questions during that time?

 

[smallwheels]

But what if there are no support issues or questions during that time?

How would they know that if they had not been in the forums? Sure, they could have email-notifications turned on but people that do that are weird.
Honestly: There is a huge interest to mark and get rid of abandoned add ons, especially if they are commercial / not free. We see continuously that a lot of devs are not really responsive, even when bugs are found - it can take months with some before there's even an answer, let alone a fix. So how would XF determine if an add on must be considered abandoned? They don't have many options, so the current one seems kind of ok to me. On top of that: These are the rules for commercial offerings on the marketplace and they are transparent and clear. If a dev does not agree with them he should not offer paid add ons here (and lose the biggest store front for XF add ons there is). The main issue is that developing and selling add ons is not a real business case in most cases, so in some cases the rules do not make sense due to lack of traffic and sales volume. The question is: What would work reliably better?

 

[Mr Lucky]

How would they know that if they had not been in the forums?

Email notifications

Sure, they could have email-notifications turned on but people that do that are weird

I have email notifications turned on.

 

[Paul]

@mazzly

I seem to be getting the following over the last week :

The callbacks for add-on updates seem to be blocked​

Something seems to be blocking the callbacks about new add-on updates and API key changes. This prevents faster updates about new versions.
Instructions on how to unblock it with e.g. Cloudflare
(This message can be disabled from the add-on's options)

Is there any way for me to be able to easilly diagnose why this is happening?

I have installed the following : https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xtr-ip-threat-monitor-paid.234352/ however this tend to affect inbound traffic only, and also has been installed since mid-november, so i would have thought i would have seen something before this week.

I've also posted in that thread to see if they have any idea as to why..

Thanks