Add-on XenReviews [CrowdFund]

Would you buy this add on?

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I know you're defending Jeff here, but people are kinda right.

Nobody should rush you on this, I mean it's not going to be a one day thing alone and the more you rush someone the poorer the end product ends up being. That said, you defended Jeff saying he's getting paid more. That's fine, personally if I was being paid £25,000 a year and got offered a job for £60,000 a year, I'd take it, but I also realise I can't stop working and change jobs the next day, you need to provide notice, clear up your duties in your job and then move. Jeff can't just abandon a project (that if I read correctly, you got booted off) saying he's busy and can't provide for it when he's already taken rather expensive payments from a lot of people. He's involved in the obligation to get this to full release in an acceptable standard as people expected when they paid for it in an alpha version. I'm not one of those people, but if I was I'd surely be pretty mad. So yeah, good on you for feeling an obligation to get it done, but he's just backing away from responsibilities and leaving you to clean up the mess and get it done. I hope this project sees a new developer if you're just wanting to push for an initial release, someone to carry it on and update it. Activities like this make people lose trust in purchasing alpha products, and XR looked like it was going to be successful after the huge delay and disappearance of XP2 and some other one where the guy disappeared.

Wish you the best in getting this done, I'm sure your customers will appreciate it. Take your time too :P
 
Sam agrees to build me a tree house for $5000 and gets his money in advance. Sam is working on it for a six months in my backyard. It's 90% done, then someone else offers to pay Sam $15,000 to build them a treehouse. So Sam takes their money and just stops building my tree house and works on the other's person's tree house. I'm left with nothing but a non-functioning partially built tree house in my backyard, a lot of time waiting, and am out all that money. Sam doesn't even offer to refund my money and takes important pieces that were needed to finish it to his new job, doesn't answer my calls, etc. Sound familiar?

In the USA at least, Sam could be sued big time for money/time/fraud, and possibly even put in Jail if he took parts that were needed to finish it and wouldn't return those parts.
 
Robust said:
he's already taken rather expensive payments from a lot of people. He's involved in the obligation to get this to full release in an acceptable standard as people expected when they paid for it in an alpha version. I'm not one of those people, but if I was I'd surely be pretty mad. So yeah, good on you for feeling an obligation to get it done,
Click to expand...

Robust said:
Take your time too :p
Click to expand...

It's easy for you to say "Take your time" when you haven't been waiting for over a year for a workable version after paying for it.

We need a workable version relatively soon. To build faith in the product again at the very least.
 
I promised this to my readers and forum members 12 months ago (it was supposed to be functional by last Xmas) recently I purchased an off the shelf reviews extension for my Blog and am currently in the process of building that as my reviews base instead of using my XF forum - it's proceeding very well actually.

I also, do have other reviews projects (and domains) on hold for now in hope XR will move forward but my main project (and the reason for sponsoring XR in the first place) couldn't wait any longer unfortunately... As Ned Kelly said, "such is life" :)
 
@Robust, I've mentioned that I understand everyone's point of view. I don't blame anyone for being upset with the situation. I can just place myself in Jeff's shoes and understand why he made the choice he did. Not saying it's fair, right, or anything else but I can understand it.

@popr, I get the point but I don't really understand the 'stealing materials' part. Assuming you're referring to the droplet (because I don't know of anything else), it's not fair to say he stole it. It was his droplet and he isn't even using it for anything else. What happened is that he ran out of money on his DigitalOcean account and it got powered off. He added money but they didn't automatically boot it back up and he hasn't been online since that day for me to point the issue out to him. If you're referring to something else, enlighten me. Aside from that, I understand the rest of your post and really have no counter argument. The best I can do is say that it took him longer than he expected and he had to move onto something else to survive (though that might be a bit of a stretch and also isn't a valid excuse). We're also talking about far more than 3x the amount.

To be honest, and this isn't me saying he was underpaid or that it's someone else fault or anything like that, XenReviews has generated less than a minimum wage income to this point. XenForo add-ons in general take a long time to generate significant money (in most cases). That's nobody else's fault though. We should have asked for money up front, we should have stuck to the original project scope, we should have done a lot of things differently.

@cdub, @Mike Edge, @SelfSufficientMe (I know there's others, @Alfa1 is a huge one too, and there's many others that have just stopped posting or caring -- sadly), I know you guys are and have been waiting and have projects (and even businesses) waiting on this. I have apologized to you guys and will continue to do so. There's not much more I can do. Part of me wishes I could just refund everyone, I don't even know everyone that bought a license after I left the project originally, I just can't do it though. I don't have the money and that is my fault. There's several things that should have been done differently and I carry most of the blame for that. I shouldn't have followed somebody's lead on a project I started, I shouldn't have given up control, I shouldn't have made promises on another person's behalf.. I own that.

I've told you guys since day one of being back that I will be transparent with you guys, answer your questions, and try my hardest to please everyone. I've gone as far as offering 150% refunds in the form of credit on XenMods.com, I'm not accepting new sales on XenReviews (not sure there'd even be any), I've started paying someone else to work on my add-ons in order spend more time on XenReviews which costs me money, I'm taking time away from projects that pay a much higher rate to work on XenReviews which costs me money (in terms of opportunity cost), every hour that I spend working on this project is costing me money. I do it though because I know I started this, even if I haven't been apart of it for over a year, even if shortly in to the project it was made clear people didn't want me there or think I was contributing. I do this without complaining. I accept that everyone feels that I owe them (including people that I didn't actually even get money from, such as the people that bought a license after I was no longer a part of it). I've never gone more than like 12 hours without responding to a question or post, no matter how negative. I'm trying to make things right but I have a very large up hill battle. I do this all without complaining. I don't complain that I essentially had this tossed in my lap despite me already working 50+ hours a week. I don't complain that at this stage I may as well be doing community service. I'm owning up to the mistakes that I made over a year ago. I just don't need it to continue to be thrown in my face.
 
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@Daniel Hood Mate, you've explained yourself several times and the main thing is you've accepted responsibility and been man enough to take back the project in order to make things right - this is what good honest people do.

You'll have to see off some of the criticism (I don't mean ignore it completely) but I'm sure you expected some blowback and people will settle down I'm sure as soon as they see a new release of the addon - whenever that might eventually be. If we can get over this hump she'll be sweet.

In the meantime, get back to work :p... I'm just kidding!
 
Daniel Hood said:
@cdub, @Mike Edge, @SelfSufficientMe (I know there's others, @Alfa1 is a huge one too, and there's many others that have just stopped posting or caring -- sadly), I know you guys are and have been waiting and have projects (and even businesses) waiting on this. I have apologized to you guys and will continue to do so. There's not much more I can do. Part of me wishes I could just refund everyone, I don't even know everyone that bought a license after I left the project originally, I just can't do it though. I don't have the money and that is my fault. There's several things that should have been done differently and I carry most of the blame for that. I shouldn't have followed somebody's lead on a project I started, I shouldn't have given up control, I shouldn't have made promises on another person's behalf.. I own that.
Click to expand...

Not blaming you, you kept it alive. The main fustration is Jeff leaving without a RC product. You got the short end of the stick.. Jeff got the money and you got the headache.
 
Daniel Hood said:
@Robust, I've mentioned that I understand everyone's point of view. I don't blame anyone for being upset with the situation. I can just place myself in Jeff's shoes and understand why he made the choice he did. Not saying it's fair, right, or anything else but I can understand it.

@popr, I get the point but I don't really understand the 'stealing materials' part. Assuming you're referring to the droplet (because I don't know of anything else), it's not fair to say he stole it. It was his droplet and he isn't even using it for anything else. What happened is that he ran out of money on his DigitalOcean account and it got powered off. He added money but they didn't automatically boot it back up and he hasn't been online since that day for me to point the issue out to him. If you're referring to something else, enlighten me. Aside from that, I understand the rest of your post and really have no counter argument. The best I can do is say that it took him longer than he expected and he had to move onto something else to survive (though that might be a bit of a stretch and also isn't a valid excuse). We're also talking about far more than 3x the amount.

To be honest, and this isn't me saying he was underpaid or that it's someone else fault or anything like that, XenReviews has generated less than a minimum wage income to this point. XenForo add-ons in general take a long time to generate significant money (in most cases). That's nobody else's fault though. We should have asked for money up front, we should have stuck to the original project scope, we should have done a lot of things differently.

@cdub, @Mike Edge, @SelfSufficientMe (I know there's others, @Alfa1 is a huge one too, and there's many others that have just stopped posting or caring -- sadly), I know you guys are and have been waiting and have projects (and even businesses) waiting on this. I have apologized to you guys and will continue to do so. There's not much more I can do. Part of me wishes I could just refund everyone, I don't even know everyone that bought a license after I left the project originally, I just can't do it though. I don't have the money and that is my fault. There's several things that should have been done differently and I carry most of the blame for that. I shouldn't have followed somebody's lead on a project I started, I shouldn't have given up control, I shouldn't have made promises on another person's behalf.. I own that.

I've told you guys since day one of being back that I will be transparent with you guys, answer your questions, and try my hardest to please everyone. I've gone as far as offering 150% refunds in the form of credit on XenMods.com, I'm not accepting new sales on XenReviews (not sure there'd even be any), I've started paying someone else to work on my add-ons in order spend more time on XenReviews which costs me money, I'm taking time away from projects that pay a much higher rate to work on XenReviews which costs me money (in terms of opportunity cost), every hour that I spend working on this project is costing me money. I do it though because I know I started this, even if I haven't been apart of it for over a year, even if shortly in to the project it was made clear people didn't want me there or think I was contributing. I do this without complaining. I accept that everyone feels that I owe them (including people that I didn't actually even get money from, such as the people that bought a license after I was no longer a part of it). I've never gone more than like 12 hours without responding to a question or post, no matter how negative. I'm trying to make things right but I have a very large up hill battle. I do this all without complaining. I don't complain that I essentially had this tossed in my lap despite me already working 50+ hours a week. I don't complain that at this stage I may as well be doing community service. I'm owning up to the mistakes that I made over a year ago. I just don't need it to continue to be thrown in my face.
Click to expand...

My comments weren't directed at you, but at the person that left it in your lap. I never used the word "steal" or "stole." Yes I was making an imperfect analogy to the delay caused by the ongoing droplet issue. That is really an unforgivable delay. This isn't just the case of someone taking a better job. They basically seem to have decided to ignore everyone at the same time (or at least put everyone on ultra low priority). It doesn't take that much time for him to answer his messages and fix the droplet issue -- he owes people and should show a little humility and respect. As for future purchases, if this is completed this year, I can guarantee you at least 3 additional purchases, and I'm sure there are many others. I don't consider it working for free because there will be sales, I consider your additional hours an investment (but also fulfilling a responsibility when you took it over) and I commend you for that. I just hope it sees the light of day sometime soon.
 
cdub said:
It's easy for you to say "Take your time" when you haven't been waiting for over a year for a workable version after paying for it.

We need a workable version relatively soon. To build faith in the product again at the very least.
Click to expand...
I said that's it is unacceptable for the customers and I'm glad I'm not one, however if you want him to push out to stable today it's going to be buggy. It's harder to fix a buggy thing than to make it right from the start. Just look at Battlefield 4, they wanted to release before COD and it was terrible for a year because it was rushed. Another few months and it'd be perfect, but it's buggy to this day.
 
It will be a nice milestone to see a semi-stable release forthcoming.

However, this project needs to have a senior developer added to it sooner than later. The project is commercially very attractive because the addon can generate income for its users and therefore is highly attractive and very valuable to webmasters. Any trustworthy developer who is able to produce high quality code should consider contacting Daniel to discuss the possibilities.

@Daniel Hood I think you are doing a very good job at open communication and giving us honest answers about what we can expect. It just needs more development time than you have to provide us with the paid functionality within a reasonable time frame.
 
I hardly think it's fair to claim that I'm stealing the project or "blocking access". The issue of the server being down simply went unnoticed by myself as visiting that domain is not in my daily routine anymore. I booted up the server last night the second I noticed it was down, and have already sent Daniel what he needs to take control of the server. My apologies for the occurrence.

What I didn't like reading here was the lot of you are saying I abandoned the project overnight, ran off with the money, etc.. I can tell you I certainly did not run off with any money. Most of the money collected was split between Daniel and myself when the project started. That was nearly two years ago, and it wasn't much, so I'm not going to debate it or discuss it. What I took more offense to was that I "abandoned" the project. I am not denying that I left the project -- but I did what I could to make sure there was somebody there (and that somebody being the co-founder) to keep the project moving forward. It obviously wasn't the smoothest transition, but I don't think it ever could've been. My real world just consumed me with real business, and I simply did not have the time to dedicate to making a plugin for a software I do not even use anymore. I certainly did not get scared or run away from my own code. I wish success to the project and hope to see it finally gain its ground. Good luck to you all.
 
Jeff Berry said:
That was nearly two years ago, and it wasn't much
Click to expand...

You should not have started, if you were not satisfied with the money.

I do not doubt that you worked very hard, very long and in the end very unpaid for this job. But you suddenly left, leaving your paying customers with nothing usable behind!

It was your responsibility to plan and manage the project in a way to be able to finish it. You could have coded the whole thing much simpler for example. You did not and left just before the RC (announced by yourself!) was released.

What you have done is not okay, even if someone could understand it. I do not understand it.

All my respects are with Daniel, who took this sudden burden even with his already very heavy work load.
 
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