Should XF take a more active role in add-on 'retirement'?

[Digital Jedi]

There is a difference between legal and moral responsibility - which clearly does not rest with XF, and the impression of responsibility, which does attach to XF.
Many times I answer newcomer questions to reassure them about buying XF. A major area they want to know about is whether addons are good quality and well supported. This is something that directly increases XF sales. Marketing and sales is about how things seem, not necessarily how they are.

So if addons slowly become a minefield where users have to pick their way through by checking this that and the other it WILL reflect back on XF. Of course experienced admin s will do those checks. But there are plenty who are less experienced who will not. Then they will complain both here and elsewhere. XF reputation will suffer.

This is the down side of hosting addons here on the main XF site. There are many advantages which outweigh this. But it makes addons look as if they are part of the XF service more than they are.

It wouldn't be a big deal to run a labelling system to mark addons which don't get developer attention for a set period. That's a crude warning system alerting admins to look further.

I think we grossly overestimate the level to which third-party add-ons are used. We always use these boards as if they're a microcosm of the admin community at large. But I'm willing to bet that boards with even just 1 add-on or more account for a much smaller group of people than who've actually bought forum software and are using it default out the box, or who already knew how to modify it themselves. Very few admins, by comparisons to all admins out there, are browsing the add-on sections like a grocery store. Most will be looking for something in particular, and if they don't find it, they'll move on.

 

[Deebs]

There is a difference between legal and moral responsibility - which clearly does not rest with XF, and the impression of responsibility, which does attach to XF.
Many times I answer newcomer questions to reassure them about buying XF. A major area they want to know about is whether addons are good quality and well supported. This is something that directly increases XF sales. Marketing and sales is about how things seem, not necessarily how they are.

So if addons slowly become a minefield where users have to pick their way through by checking this that and the other it WILL reflect back on XF. Of course experienced admin s will do those checks. But there are plenty who are less experienced who will not. Then they will complain both here and elsewhere. XF reputation will suffer.

This is the down side of hosting addons here on the main XF site. There are many advantages which outweigh this. But it makes addons look as if they are part of the XF service more than they are.

It wouldn't be a big deal to run a labelling system to mark addons which don't get developer attention for a set period. That's a crude warning system alerting admins to look further.

Christ, this response reminds me of corporate ********.

 

[Sheldon]

So let's take this one for example. Very last page in Add-ON thread, no new posts, no replies, no updates:

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/schmitzit-user-searches.22/

Nothing for over a year. Now using the criteria listed, this should be marked as "No longer developed".

Although the resource author is here, is active, etc... but yet, list it as dead.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Biker]

Again, a notice in the RM that addons are developed by 3rd parties and XF takes no responsibility about the overall quality of the addon would suffice.

And any admin who isn't going to educate themselves before modifying their site deserves the breakage. Guarantee they'll do their homework the next time around.

 

[MagnusB]

Coming from phpBB, I am used to the community taking active involvement in the mods. The mods were actually vetted before they were released, and had to conform to a certain standard before being accepted. I never read about the actual standard, and what was involved (IIRC, they installed it on localhost and checked if it did what it was supposed to do). Also, mods were labelled with versions they were released for, and clear warnings if they haven't been updated or mark for compatibility of newer versions.

I actually think it is a good idea to keep inactive stuff or label stuff that are dated. Also have compatibility fields in the resource description would be good. I would think allot of it could be automated (e.g. marking a mod as potentially incompatible based on the version of xF it was originally made for, or based on authors last sign in date). No matter how you want to twist it, the resource manager is hosted on xenforo.com, people see submissions there differently from what they would on a unaffiliated website.

 

[Forsaken]

XF should bare no responsibility for the actions (or inactions in this case) of resource providers.

Perhaps they should implement something to show if the product has gone unsupported, or has been abandoned, but other than that they should not need to be responsible for other peoples products.

It might slightly reflect badly on XF if there is a large portion of abandonment however most of which is done by people who release only one or two resources, or people who are now at odds with the community here. Neither of those will reflect badly on XF and it's mostly paranoia to think otherwise.

WBB2 had a huge amount of mod/style abandonment, however it didn't look badly on Woltlab or the third party site they were part of (Woltlab looked badly due to their hands off approach to non-German developers). vBulletin has always had as much resource abandonment as XenForo, however it has more available there so it isn't as apparent.

 

[Deepmartini]

Seems like a lot of developers simply expect a mountainload of cash to pour in, get bored or simply move on. And others take money upfront, then don't want to deal with support issues or fixing their products. Others get into fights with customers, get mad and take their toys out of the sandbox so no one can play with them anymore. And then they are the excellent developers who know how to run business and are in it for the long term so reap the rewards.

 

[DRE]

Really? OK, lets use an example. There is a paid ($40 US) blog add-on in the RM that has effectively been abandoned by it's developer (whom otherwise has a good reputation). The developer has elsewhere (outside this add-on) said that he is no longer developing for XF until it's legal scenario has been resolved, and has not participated in discussion or bug reports for his blog add-on in some time. As we know, the legal issues were resolved a few weeks ago and despite being asked directly, the developer has failed to respond to provide any information on picking up development. In fact, he has been active in posting in the RM discussion for a competing add-on, seemingly encouraging development of an import from his blog add-on. The add-on is still available for purchase though.

This scenario is nothing something that XF, or its mods, feel is an issue? The 'pollution' of their official resources repository with add-ons that are defunct and unsupported.

I'm in the same boat as you but I don't expect Xenforo as a company to care. The best we can do as consumers of paid add-ons is to review, rate and complain (which I've done my part so far).

 

[Morgain]

As I said while XF is not strictly responsible either legally or morally for what developers do /don't do with addons, addons are crucially important to XF success.
That's the way XF was deliberately designed, to integrate with addons in an easy and varied way.

If new admins discover that a lot of XF addons are not up to date, and not well supported, it will detract from XF.
Doesn't matter that Xf is not legally or morally responsible. People just won't like it. For a business that's what matters and for one like XF which strives to be trustworthy, even more so.

I remember looking at IPB and being disappointed at how the addon list was actually a mess because of this. Far too many were out of date and my queries went unanswered.I chose XF instead.

I don't want that to happen here.

 

[Deepmartini]

If the addons were open source like Wordpress then anyone could take the free abandoned ones and make them better.

 

[samo]

I like the concept except let it be moderated by us, just like we do via the up to 5 star review, just add something in place where we can personally rate and grade the support and development of an addon and perhaps a developer rating similar to something like codecanyon.net has, possible ex:

addon rating: 5 stars

development rating: 2 stars - last update 12/12/2012

developer rating: 4 stars

By having something like this in place users can have a better overall feel/experience for an addon because you can get a quick look and feel for the quality, support, and quality of the developer w/o having to read though pages (for extra Du-diligence you should) of discussion notes.

 

[Digital Jedi]

As I said while XF is not strictly responsible either legally or morally for what developers do /don't do with addons, addons are crucially important to XF success.
That's the way XF was deliberately designed, to integrate with addons in an easy and varied way.

If new admins discover that a lot of XF addons are not up to date, and not well supported, it will detract from XF.
Doesn't matter that Xf is not legally or morally responsible. People just won't like it. For a business that's what matters and for one like XF which strives to be trustworthy, even more so.

I remember looking at IPB and being disappointed at how the addon list was actually a mess because of this. Far too many were out of date and my queries went unanswered.I chose XF instead.

I don't want that to happen here.

But like I said, I think you grossly overestimate the importance of add-ons to the success of the overall product. New admins might not even know such a thing as add-ons even exist until after buying the core product.

 

[Alpha1]

I think it would be beneficial to have an i-trader like feedback system so that positive and negative feedback reflects on coder and client. This stimulates developers to provide updates and support, as positive feedback can result in paid work.

I also think its needed to add a bug tracker tab to the RM, like I suggested here:

Add a bug tracker tab to the RM

 

[AndyB]

From what I understand, the vast majority of forums don't use any addons.

 

[Mike Edge]

As xF grows, I can see the same policies coming into effect of paid mods only being purchasable on the developers site and mention of paid mod in the release thread if only a free "lite" version exists here for download as vBorg does now.

Personally, I think the selling of mods on this site was a bad idea. There are several great mods, well worth the money.. But things like the Meme smiles for 199.00, joke or not can make new consumers second guess on xF if that sort of thing is allowed in what is suppose to be the official 3rd party repo. Honestly, all those joke releases are just a way to get around the rules of advertising your forum in more then one thread.. 199.00 here or free on our site.. Why not just release it free here?

 

[DRE]

The only people stupid enough to think meme smilies are really being sold for $199 are on vBulletin 5.

 

[Mike Edge]

The only people stupid enough to think meme smilies are really being sold for $199 are on vBulletin 5.

Exactly.. So why even do it? It can steer big board owners away too from allowing that sort of stupidity in the first place. Now that all the lawsuit mumble jumbo is over, more and more big boards are looking to make the switch.. This is the official company forum.. Things like releases should be taken seriously and in a professional manner.. He wants to do things like that.. he has his own site to do it on.. Not to mention. It's been more then just one of his add-on's doing it. Any other professional level software, would have removed it as it just simply reflects on the community poorly.

 

[Forsaken]

Exactly.. So why even do it? It can steer big board owners away too from allowing that sort of stupidity in the first place. Now that all the lawsuit mumble jumbo is over, more and more big boards are looking to make the switch.. This is the official company forum.. Things like releases should be taken seriously and in a professional manner.. He wants to do things like that.. he has his own site to do it on.. Not to mention. It's been more then just one of his add-on's doing it. Any other professional level software, would have removed it as it just simply reflects on the community poorly.

Truthfully this is sounding more like you're targeting a specific person rather than an issue as a whole.

 

[Mike Edge]

Truthfully this is sounding more like you're targeting a specific person rather than an issue as a whole.

I was giving an example of an issue that exists currently the way RM is maintained. After all that is what this thread is about, issues with how RM handles add-ons now, correct? Maybe It needs to be like phpBB where releases are moderated and approved.

 

[Morgain]

As xF grows, I can see the same policies coming into effect of paid mods only being purchasable on the developers site and mention of paid mod in the release thread if only a free "lite" version exists here for download as vBorg does now.
Personally, I think the selling of mods on this site was a bad idea.

Apart from one bad example I would like to know more why you think so Mike. I think I remember a vigorous dbeate when the RM was first set up whether to include paid addons or not. I was on the include side as I wanted the RM to represent the strength and range of the XF addon library. Sending people off to other sites is not my preference. Keepo us here, keep this community strong, not splintered.
One of the things |I like very much is how many people here know the addons, both moderators and active members. That means recommendations on which to use, and help with decisions on them, and issues of compatibility and integration get sorted out fast and efficiently. That would be much slower and clumsier if addons were spread about a lot more. We'd keep coming up against - dunno have to ask on the developer's site - ask there - return here - ping pong.
Also developers get ideas from each other. I want something like an XF College to develop!

I could see a case for requiring a paid addon here to release a Lite free version, as well.