Paid Mods - Xenforo Verified Designation

[DieselMinded]

Can you guys hire someone who knows what they are doing to "review" paid mods to make sure they do what they say?

Maybe have a "xenforo verified" designation

 

[James]

This was discussed many times in great depths and while I'm not sure a definitive answer was ever given it definitely erred towards the side of "no" as the costs aren't there nor the time.

edit: see one example here
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/resource-quality-review-standards-future-development.107851/

 

[DieselMinded]

Im tired of buying things that don't work, Add $10 to the cost of all add ons that are xenforo verified , that will pay the person you choose to review them

 

[James]

So for people who build huge addons (galleries, portals, review systems, etc) a developer is expected to review them for $10?

There are pros and cons for all. XF won't put their seal of approval on any addons reviewed by non-employed staff and they do not have the time or money to afford to review them themselves.

If you're sceptical about an addon check the reviews and the discussions and check the addon out on the demo site if one is provided. Maybe even PM a person using the addon.

 

[DieselMinded]

So for people who build huge addons (galleries, portals, review systems, etc) a developer is expected to review them for $10?

There are pros and cons for all. XF won't put their seal of approval on any addons reviewed by non-employed staff and they do not have the time or money to afford to review them themselves.

If you're sceptical about an addon check the reviews and the discussions and check the addon out on the demo site if one is provided. Maybe even PM a person using the addon.

I said Add $10 to the cost of the add-on to pay the official xenforo verifier , so if the items only sells 1 time then i guess it would be only $10 but if the add-on sells 500 times then thats $5000 for the "verifier" , the developer will get more sales because the add-on is verified too EVERYONE WINS especially site owners!

 

[James]

So essentially take a cut of the sale price? Adding $10 on an addon priced at $5 now pays the verifier double what the addon developer is paid? Or are you saying every paid addon should be $10 or more regardless of functionality to account for verifier regardless of developer income?

I also don't believe a "verified" addon will sell more than one that isn't. Sales are based on demand and most people have either trusted developers or take the punt based on existing data.

 

[DieselMinded]

So essentially take a cut of the sale price? Adding $10 on an addon priced at $5 now pays the verifier double what the addon developer paid? Or are you saying every paid addon should be $10 or more regardless of functionality to account for verifier regardless of developer income?

I also don't believe a "verified" addon will sell more than one that isn't. Sales are based on demand and most people have either trusted developers or take the punt based on existing data.

Unverified Add-ons are used at your own risk
Verified Add-ons have the xenforo seal of approval and come with a premium cost

Its time to get off the Google Play everything goes half the stuff works business plan and onto Apple where the stuff works 100%

yes i will pay extra for the piece of mind that my money is being well spent and so will others,

I think a billion apple users is a pretty good example

I want quality and will pay for it , same reason i buy Oakley Sunglasses and BMW cars its piece of mind and 0% buyer remorse

 

[James]

Addon developers very rarely sell their addons at the value they're worth on this site simply because the market isn't here. Developers have left as a result. You tack $10 on the price of every verified addon and you're going to be severely limited in developers which will cause a price hike anyway due to no competition.

You also introduce a system whereby addons that do not want (or cannot afford) to get verified are considered second-best despite being some of the most well-coded addons out there, all because they haven't paid the official verifier their share.

 

[DieselMinded]

I sold my vBulletin site for nearly six figures when Facebook started taking over, i seen it as the DOOM of forums.

Now years later,

Due to "social engineering" i seen a use for forums so i started up a new site.

i don't know how some of these forums still keep grinding but I'm glad they have, but still Facebook takes so much away from them and we all know it.

i have ran forums on every platform. Plain and simple I follow innovation and i feel thats what xenforo is.

It must transform into the "premium" forum software by not accepting 2nd rate, open source, unregulated money grabs.

Once it obtains this persona it will dominate.

 

[James]

It must transform into the "premium" forum software by not accepting 2nd rate, open source, unregulated money grabs.

Which addons have you had in particular that did not work as described? Who have you been burned off?

Most times if an addon does not work as described then a simple dialog with the developer can solve many issues. You appear to want to throw money at a situation where, in fact, the answer is in either communicating with the developer or reading discussions surrounding the resource.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

By my count there are 727 paid add ons, each in there own right seem to work as expected with Xenforo. The problem I think you encounter is when one add on does not play well with another. To do as you suggest some one or group will have to sit down and validate every line of add on code to ensure it plays nice with each and every other add on. Estimated time of validation might well reach beyond the expected life of anyone here today.

 

[DieselMinded]

I can think of 5 add ons I've paid for that I'm not happy with, all from different developers and i have some add ons from the same developers i am happy with.

One developer acted like i was the only one with the problem i asked him if he was going to help me and he flat out said NO, then 3 days later he spawned a *hot fix* and didn't have a list of changes but it fixed my problem so he just didn't want to admit the problem.

I personally strive for perfection , so i hold my site and my purchases to the same regard, if they don't meet my expectations someones going to know it.

The reviews don't work on the resources here because of the character limit on the comment , many times I've scored something and been hit with the minimal character thing and just click back page and left it at that

 

[vbresults]

Its time to get off the Google Play everything goes half the stuff works business plan and onto Apple where the stuff works 100%

There is no way the $99/yr Apple charges app developers covers their fixed costs up front -- supporting developers by telephone, reviewing apps, and providing the infrastructure -- for running the app store. But they do have a pretty slick back-end.

To use their app development tools, you need to buy a Mac. And an iPhone. And an iPad. They probably allocate profits from these sales towards said expenses. Then the developer is highly motivated to refer people into (or deeper into) Apple's ecosystem.

Comparing with XenForo in this specific context doesn't make sense. Traditional commercial forum software is a very small market on the way out (probably being outlived by the actual forums), and of that, XenForo itself is a slice of that pie.

I have noticed in the recent weeks that Google's developer support has been changing due to the logistical burden that their non-recurring $25 developer fee incurs -- and honestly they should charge more if it's necessary, even if it was 8x yearly; people would pay.

The 'Apple 100% strategy' cannot work here. And it wouldn't even for WordPress, as the problem is inverted (huge market, but free-to-use). That said, I do understand where you are coming from. This is simply not Apple's business ecosystem, and the RM is not the app store.

 

[Sadik B]

What you are saying has merit. No doubt about that. The problem is simply that the xenforo market is too small for an overhead like that. Verifying all addons is simply not possible.

What can be done, if the xenforo developers want, is to charge a small developer's fee for listing addons and publish general guidelines which must be adhered to. If there are complaints or suspicion, a commercial addon can then be looked into if it meets the guidelines or not. The addon can be unpublished until it meets the requirements.

Having said that, what it seems to me is that the XF developers are fully focussed on the upcoming XF 2.0. Given the small market size for online forums, administrative expansions like this are very very unlikely.

 

[wang]

What you are saying has merit. No doubt about that. The problem is simply that the xenforo market is too small for an overhead like that. Verifying all addons is simply not possible.

Ipb 's add ons and styles market is no bigger than Xenforo 's, and they do this. All add ons and styles, free or paid, when being submited they are checked by their Marketplace Moderators before being shown for the public.

 

[Sadik B]

Ipb 's add ons and styles market is no bigger than Xenforo 's, and they do this. All add ons and styles, free or paid, when being submited they are checked by their Marketplace Moderators before being shown for the public.

I see. I know nothing about IPB, but from a developer's point of view, it seems very unlikely to me that an addon's code can be QA'ed for all addons. I have an addon which is several thousand lines of code, which has functionalities which only execute under certain conditions. For someone to review my addon to ensure every aspect works, every coding standard is adhered to would take at least 2 weeks of full dev time. And I am being generous.

If IPB do this, hats off to them and their code reviewers. But what is most likely, is that they simply install the addon and ensure there are no php errors etc. That is perhaps a workable alternative, but still nothing near to what the original poster was asking for.

 

[wang]

I see. I know nothing about IPB, but from a developer's point of view, it seems very unlikely to me that an addon's code can be QA'ed for all addons. I have an addon which is several thousand lines of code, which has functionalities which only execute under certain conditions. For someone to review my addon to ensure every aspect works, every coding standard is adhered to would take at least 2 weeks of full dev time. And I am being generous.

If IPB do this, hats off to them and their code reviewers. But what is most likely, is that they simply install the addon and ensure there are no php errors etc. That is perhaps a workable alternative, but still nothing near to what the original poster was asking for.

To be honest sir, I do not know the specifics of what they check and how they check them. But I do agree with you, that to check big add ons is a very time consuming task. And xenforo 's staff is much smaller than that of Ipb and I do not think that they can spare the manpower, or the time for this, when their focus is on xenforo 2.0.

However, their checking of the add ons helps a lot especially when one claims that a certain add on is not working and files a charge back. Ipb gets involved, checks the add on in question and if the claim is false, that person that does the charge back for nothing gets banned from their Marketplace. Whereas xenforo does not seem to do this. I read an add on developer a few hours ago, who said that someone did a false review for one of this add on because it was personal, he reported it to xenforo but no action was taken.

For example, last year I had someone there claiming that my add on that he purchased was not working. he posted to the support topic and then immediately filed a charge back and left a nasty review. I asked that person to give me access so I could look into his claims, because the add on had been purchased by dozens of users and there was not a single person who had a problem with it. Anyways, to cut a long story short, I reported his review to the staff there and they got involved. They re-checked the add on and it worked fine. Asked that user for access and the issue was, believe it or not, he had not enabled the setting for it to work. Which was explained very clearly in the description, read me file and with screenshots too. Because that user filed a false claim with paypal, he was not allowed to purchase from their Marketplace again. That policy, has cut down fraudulent purchases a lot, which was a big help to us developers. My point is, if xenforo would take an interest in this to protect both, the developers/stylers and buyers too, would have been great.

 

[Sadik B]

That is a very valid point. And I fully support you in this.

But what you are saying is actually different from what the original poster said. He wanted a guarantee of sorts from XenForo, that addons work, provided by a verified Badge or whatever. Whereas what you are referring to is for XenForo to act as an arbitrator. The two are related but very different things.

If XenForo decided to charge a percentage of sales and act as an arbitrator of complaints and disputes it would no doubt immensely help the marketplace. The trouble again is that as things stand currently, there is zero chance of this happening. For starters, you would need xenforo to implement a payment solution where payments go through them. And They would need additional staff. And how much profit is there really in spending two hours on arbitration of a $10 addon sale?

 

[DieselMinded]

The whole thing of clicking buy on xenforo and being forwarded to some shady 3rd world website to complete your purchase just seems wrong and non-professional, i don't think thats how things worked on vb.org.

and when you downloaded some thing on vb.org it changed the designation of that resource by adding a notation that you have downloaded this and asks you to leave a review and you can also search by things you have downloaded and go threw and review more than one at a time.

i forget half the add ons i installed and deleted because i feel they didn't work for me.

vb.org does sort of have "seal of approval" by having a Add-on of the month program... if an Add-on wins there a pretty good chance that it works as is described. and the add-on is branded with Mod of the Month Banner ,

so how do we do an un bias stand off of all the Add-ons here and help xenforo grow by insuring the quality of its Add-ons and lifting the best ones to the top and having the rift raft removed or buried ?

This will also help xenforo on 1st party add-on ideas.

I submit the BD-Widget Framework for the First Ever Award

Maybe we do Mod of the Week in order to get caught up

 

[Snog]

The whole thing of clicking buy on xenforo and being forwarded to some shady 3rd world website to complete your purchase just seems wrong and non-professional, i don't think thats how things worked on vb.org.

Any purchases of premium add-ons on vb.org are done on the add-on author's web site. They are not done on the vb.org site. So it's generally the same thing as being sent to the author's site like you are here.

Free add-ons are downloaded from vb.org, and they are also done that way here.

Add-on of the month on vb.org is a user voted system where the add-on with the most votes wins.