Add-on XenReviews [CrowdFund]

[Stuart Wright]

@Mike Edge FYI I talked about the reviews addon with @Daniel Hood before starting the classifieds addon.
I can appreciate your frustration, especially if you have invested money. Has Daniel received all that money, though? Or did the other developer who quit keep some of it? It's messy to get into the financials but it's that which fires people up and it sounds to me like the other developer walking away has left the situation in a mess. And he had promised the investors a significantly larger product. Though I don't think all the investors appreciate it, I think Daniel is doing the morally correct thing by sticking with the project, even if he is out of pocket.
My fear before I knew the situation was that people might think it was unfair that he not complete the reviews addon first. However he then explained the situation to me (as he has explained above) and I am happy that neither of us are doing anything which reflects badly on either of us. If anything, sales of the classifieds addon will supplement Daniels income which will facilitate him finishing the reviews addon.
I have been working with Daniel on a number of projects (e.g. Tag Essentials) and found him to be diligent and professional, which is why I had no hesitation in starting the classifieds project with him. Incidentally development on the classifieds project is proceeding quickly, which bodes well for the reviews addon.

 

[Mike Edge]

Clearly my last post was a waste of time. Going to bed, have a nice night Mike. I'll let you know when there's news.

No, you edited it and I didn't see it til after you replied.. Which I just did, now... I didn't quote anything on the DA reply as that's not my intention.. Was just a general statement that your lucky no one has by this point.

 

[Mike Edge]

My fear before I knew the situation was that people might think it was unfair that he not complete the reviews addon first. *snip* If anything, sales of the classifieds addon will supplement Daniels income which will facilitate him finishing the reviews addon. Incidentally development on this project is proceeding quickly, which bodes well for the reviews addon.

Even as a customer of many of his addons, I still feel it is unfair how all this panned out, It's been over a year.... We been waiting over a year, which considering as you said how fast your project is proceeding only bodes how much our investment was blown off as it was already received. Completing xenReviews first also could have supplemented the same income to complete classifieds, not to mention there has been no mention of using said income to complete the other, as it's been stated xenReviews is at his leasure.. As far as how the money was split, or who got what really isn't our business, that's between Jeff and Daniel, though iirc, it was said at one point Daniel received the full 5 grand.. But all said and done regardless who got what, a year has passed and we are still waiting.. If the money was kept in escrow like many of us were lead to believe it would be til completed, this project would had been completed long ago... We all know it's much harder to stay motivated on something you already received a large sump of cash for and spent and long gone, vs knowing there is a big lump cash reward awaiting you when you complete it.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I'm not just mad at you, I'm fed up with a lot of the bs, smoke and mirrors and broken promises to out right lies from several developers within the community as of late. I try to be nice and patient with everyone.. but at a point yo reach that boiling point where you just have to say enough is enough..

Maybe try giving someone else a hard time instead of me now? I feel like I've had my turn. Since you have a list, can you go down to the next name, come back to me later if you want?

It's been over a year....

I was involved in the project when it started, for a short time. Then I was tossed the project after it was a mess. You act like I've just been sitting idle.

We been waiting over a year, which considering as you said how fast your project is proceeding only bodes how much our investment was blown off as it was already received.

Classifieds has significantly less done on it then XenReviews does. You're acting like Classifieds is nearly complete.

Completing xenReviews first also could have supplemented the same income to complete classifieds,

False. There is no money coming in from XenReviews whereas Classifieds has milestone payments being made which are generally no more than three weeks apart. Granted, I know XenReviews already had money contributed, I'm not ignoring that. But there's not money coming in that could float another project.

not to mention there has been no mention of using said income to complete the other

What do you think I pay Liam for his time with? Generally money from add-ons he works on and the sponsored jobs he does. If he's working on XenReviews though, it's coming from my pocket.

Daniel received the full 5 grand..

False. Unless you're referring to when the project first started and I didn't want to distribute any of the funds but then I got kicked out of the project and kind of had to?

If the money was kept in escrow like many of us were lead to believe it would be til completed, this project would had been completed long ago...

Not by me though. You somehow keep skipping over the fact that I was removed from the project. Why?

We all know it's much harder to stay motivated on something you already received a large sump of cash for and spent and long gone, vs knowing there is a big lump cash reward awaiting you when you complete it.

Well, I don't really struggle with that. However, it's extremely hard to get motivated to work on a project that is 99% someone elses code, a long time after it was supposed to be released, while everyone is pissed off about the fact it's not done yet. I'm still doing it though but I must admit, taking time to repeat myself and remind people of history isn't really productive.

 

[SelfSufficientMe]

I helped fund this over two years ago and as one of the shareholders had slightly more incite than most other investors.

@Daniel Hood started XR then introduced Jeff as a second dev to help the project along.

Several months later it became apparent that Jeff was actually doing most of the work. It was obvious to me Daniel wasn't doing much because the main person fixing bugs and interacting on the XR site was Jeff.

Jeff explained to me that Daniel had slowly retracted from developing XR so he was practically doing it on his own.

As I understand it, Jeff then negotiated a separation with Daniel to take on the full project because he was doing most of the work anyway - it seemed to everyone Daniel had lost interest in XR.

So that's what happened, and at the time I don't recall Daniel arguing to stay with XR at all. I should stress I certainly had nothing to do with Daniel departing that was between him and Jeff so to insinuate he was "kicked off " or something by investors is overdramatising the story because by his own actions Daniel wanted out.

In the end, XR just drags on and on until Jeff gives up also and with little explanation (except some piss weak excuse that he found a better life) simply buggers off and handballs it back to Daniel in a bloated mess.

I'm glad Daniel decided to regain the project it was the right thing to do and he should be given credit for that but it's taking a long time to get a head of steam back up.

Just like taking a bandaid off a hairy inner thigh, the faster you do it the less painful it is but peel slowly and it's torture.

The only way to stop the banter is to get XR done.

Personally, I definitely will never fund any dev project in advance again; although, if XR does eventually get up it still could be a good addon.

I've moved on myself and found other means to support the main project I initially required XR for, but I'm still interested to see how it turns out and hopeful the people who invested in the project finally get a reviews addon they can use.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I helped fund this over two years ago and as one of the shareholders had slightly more incite than most other investors.

@Daniel Hood started XR then introduced Jeff as a second dev to help the project along.

Several months later it became apparent that Jeff was actually doing most of the work. It was obvious to me Daniel wasn't doing much because the main person fixing bugs and interacting on the XR site was Jeff.

Jeff explained to me that Daniel had slowly retracted from developing XR so he was practically doing it on his own.

As I understand it, Jeff then negotiated a separation with Daniel to take on the full project because he was doing most of the work anyway - it seemed to everyone Daniel had lost interest in XR.

I get that from your perspective. However, despite seeing more, you still missed more. Jeff and I had a terrible working arrangement. I never denied he was doing more but he always painted it as I was doing nothing. At the end, I had coded the entire Question and Answer system as a separate add-on in a week. Jeff packaged XenReviews build with the things he worked on, posted stats of his changes, ignored my Q&A system, said I had contributed 0 lines to the build. So, after a week of contributing a good portion to still be told I did nothing, after months of being told I was doing nothing despite contributing the amount I said I could. After that, I decided to take a week off, rebuilt my hashtagging add-on. Figured if I was told I was doing nothing, I may as well do nothing for a short time. Jeff responded by removing me as staff and told everyone he was going alone which was no different because I wasn't doing anything to begin with.

I didn't fight it because a) everyone was happy about it, it seemed and b) I didn't want to bring a ton of negative attention to the project and felt Jeff would actually go through with it because he was making tremendous progress at the time.

 

[Mike Edge]

Thanks for a little more insight on it all @SelfSufficientMe I'm an "investor" but wasn't a share holder to know much more of the insights other then the project being bounced back and forth, though iirc Jeff came on board a few months after the project had started as the extra help Like Liam is now. I obtained my license via one of Daniel's trade in's as I had paid for a copy of https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenmods-advertising-paid.60139/ back when it was still a concept and not released yet to the public as a beta, which then became a stand still due to lack of time and then lack of interest in developing it after that.. Rather then a refund of my purchase, I received a investor level membership for xenReviews. Which I was ok with as I was getting ready within the next few days to donate towards the crowd funding too.. But yes I sadly take the same stance now as you, between the roller coaster ride of xenReviews and the never delivered gallery from Robbo, I will not help crowd fund any future xenforo addon projects.

 

[Daniel Hood]

became a stand still due to lack of time and then lack of interest in developing it after that..

You're relentless. It wasn't a lack of interest. It was the fact that only two people seemed interested in the project and I wasn't building a product for two people. It was usable though it wasn't farther developed and I swapped your license for something else.

I'm done with this thread until I have updates unless someone has actual questions rather than just attacks.

 

[Ozzy47]

Personally, I definitely will never fund any dev project in advance again

I will not help crowd fund any future xenforo addon projects.

And the community suffers because of some undesirable experiences.

 

[Mike Edge]

And the community suffers because of some undesirable experiences.

It is sadly.. but fool me once, shame on me.. fool me twice shame on you.. But who knows, if a crowd funding ever turns out positive here, maybe that will ake me reconsider for future ones beyond that one with that said developer.

 

[Alpha1]

A total of $6000.00 was paid to both @Daniel Hood and @Jeff Berry for them to develop XenReviews on full-time basis and deliver it in 2014. Both developers received about half. So $3000 each. Payment was made based upon these assurances in 2013:

I would like to crowd fund it but use an escrow account to insure both sides. In case something happens to me and I can't continue I don't want the community to get burned.

If it gets crowd-funded, all the funds will remain in my paypal until completion, as I mentioned before. Until a product is delivered the funds, in my mind, may as well be locked in a CD account for however long this project takes (meaning they can't be touched, by anyone).

I look forward to starting this project with you guys, and of course offer my guarantee that we will continue to support and upgrade the project as long as it is still being used!

we would be able to start full-time development ASAP

This is how I feel, I know this is not fact, please understand this is just how I feel: In essence, no matter where the funds are all $3000 will in a way be tied up in escrow, because if we do not deliver it is Daniel and I's responsibility to refund the monies to you and the other contributors.

Developers are no longer on speaking terms and @Jeff Berry transferred a half done project to @Daniel Hood July 2015. Since then very little was done. Daniel suffered from writers block as he admitted and found it hard to work on xenreviews. Everyone has seen him spend a lot of time in discussions here and other websites. Meanwhile Xenmods addons received regular updates. We see Daniel asking for new projects while the project we paid for is up in the air. I shared my frustration about this with Daniel.

Last month I received the latest package of xenreviews beta 6.2 and used beyond compare to see what the difference is to beta 6. There is very little difference. Most of the package is unchanged and the few files that have changes have a few lines added and a few lines removed. As far as I can see very little has been done in the last 7 months. Unfortunately none of the beta releases by Daniel were usable.

So here we are in 2016, with a project we paid thousands for and it is not realistic to expect that xenreviews will be delivered by either developer. At least not until the classifieds addon came along. Call me an optimist or dreamer but...

While it surely is aggravating as can be to see the rapid pace of development for classifieds and XenReviews development almost non-existent, there may be some positive side to this. XenReviews is very similar in functionality to Classifieds. Daniel is developing many things that we paid him to develop. For example the packages functionality that is marked implemented is part of the xenreviews functionality we paid for.

Asides from the legal and copyright issues that this could pose, there could well be a way to make the classifieds development resolve the issue. Because much of the functionality is similar and if classifieds and xenreviews would be developed in tandem, then I could see that happen. However, if xenreviews is put on the back burner again then it is not realistic to expect that the contract between the developers and the investors will be fulfilled by the developers. In that scenario the developers are obliged to refund the investors. Daniel did offer a credit to those who have use for this, so this resolves it for a lot of investors. Just not all of us.

I am fully open to solutions, as I still want a reviews addon if this can be delivered in the very near future. I would like to keep open communication about this. If there is no solution then there will have to be claims to both developers which could well affect xenmods property.

 

[Daniel Hood]

For example the packages functionality that is marked implemented is part of the xenreviews functionality we paid for.

The packages functionality that is marked as completed is in regards to managing the packages, not actual payment processing yet. I think people are thinking that Classifieds is farther along than it really is.

Meanwhile Xenmods addons received regular updates.

From April 2015 until September 2015 (when I hired Liam and start focusing on XenMods more). My add-ons were receiving little updates. There were 23 in that 5 month span (just looked in my database by comparing version timestamps), most of which were simple bug fixes. I was focusing almost exclusively on overtime at my day job and XenMods was getting done in the time slot that XenReviews is now getting done in. Since September, I started to work on XenMods and sponsored jobs completely in that allotted time that I was previously doing overtime at my job. XenReviews took over the XenMods time slot. Since Jan 1 2016, I have clocked 2 hours of overtime. It was replaced by XenMods (you can see almost every update is a sponsored job and every new add-on except ElasticSearch Essentials was sponsored by Stuart or someone else).

Daniel did offer a credit to those who have use for this, so this resolves it for a lot of investors. Just not all of us.

Despite all the license holders that have bought XenMods add-ons in the past year, only 3 people have accepted the 'store credit'. I'm mildly interested as to how many people would want a cash refund (the tricky part is, I wouldn't be able to refund licenses sold after my departure).

A total of $6000.00 was paid to both @Daniel Hood and @Jeff Berry for them to develop XenReviews on full-time basis and deliver it in 2014. Both developers received about half. So $3000 each.

I received much less than $3,000. I'd be surprised if after fees I got even $2,000. I'm not looking to dispute financials or even really interested in digging up my financials from that time period. I'm just saying, I also didn't get any money after Christmas of 2013.

Last month I received the latest package of xenreviews beta 6.2 and used beyond compare to see what the difference is to beta 6. There is very little difference. Most of the package is unchanged and the few files that have changes have a few lines added and a few lines removed. As far as I can see very little has been done in the last 7 months. Unfortunately none of the beta releases by Daniel were usable.

Just to highlight again that I was out of the project for 18+ months. That's 3 months in, 18 months out, 7 months in. That's a lot of time and a lot of code to wrap my head around. It took some time. Like I said, I was attempting to force things like XenGrid, XenFields, etc to work this requires a lot of time tracking down issues and modifying individual lines, etc. I understand the file comparison thing but debugging someone elses code is a lot more time consuming than just building something. When you're trying to debug something, you can't just be writing 100 line functions and stuff. Yes, I should have had more done though. I'm switching strategies and introducing Liam to the project. I'll be building bd widget framework widgets soon. I'm really hoping by fixing XenFields and using widgets, most of the issues should be resolved and a functional build will be done. It's easy to say I should have done this from the start. It's easier to go back and say I should have never transferred the project to Jeff or included him at all. Hindsight is 20/20. Just have to keep moving forward and try a new plan of attack.

 

[SelfSufficientMe]

I didn't fight it because a) everyone was happy about it, it seemed and b) I didn't want to bring a ton of negative attention to the project and felt Jeff would actually go through with it because he was making tremendous progress at the time.

That's a fair enough explanation I suppose - at least you have been prepared to answer everyone's questions and griefs about the failure to deliver.

As @Alfa1 mentioned keeping communications open on a reviews addon is important if this is to eventually get up and if it does, the past negatives will be history.

 

[borbole]

Hi @Daniel Hood, all I am seeing here is you making one excuse after the other,while you give the impression that you are communication. But in the reality is all bla bla and no action at all. You should do less of talking and more of action. Either refund the money you took, or make good on your promo\ise. I remember when Jaxel was in the exact same situation, you were on his case all the time. Now you are singing a different tune.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I was that way about jaxel because he left and didn't respond to anyone or anything. The whole time, all I commented on was him ignoring everyone. It's not the same.

 

[borbole]

I was that way about jaxel because he left and didn't respond to anyone or anything. The whole time, all I commented on was him ignoring everyone. It's not the same.

You are not communicating either. I mean really communicating. All you are saying is excuses. Better to not communicate at all than doing what you are doing. But let us you that you are really communicating, what is the point of it when nothing happens. The fact is and remains that you took the money and didn''t make good on your promise. At least Jaxel did good on his in the end. You shouldn''t reallyy get other projects until you fix this mess first. Because it is a slap on the face to all those folks that trusted you with their money.

 

[Daniel Hood]

What are you trying to accomplish right now? You have no involvement in this project and all your posts are going to do is make me repeat myself. Do you have something worthwhile to contribute to this conversation?

 

[Ozzy47]

What are you trying to accomplish right now? You have no involvement in this project and all your posts are going to do is make me repeat myself. Do you have something worthwhile to contribute to this conversation?

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here. I see it as he wants you to not take on any other paid work till you finish something you already got paid for.

Just a guess.

 

[Chris D]

While I somewhat agree that a certain level of commitment ought to be demonstrated towards completing this project, I have to point out that the constant labouring of the same point is likely going to be counter intuitive.

Daniel, please start demonstrating some real progress on this.

Everyone else please be mindful that the past can't be changed and if Daniel spends his future going over the same points then it certainly is likely to hinder him making progress.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I am simply asking a legit question. As to why you are taking on other projects when you have taken money from people for something that you didn''t deliever like you promissed. That is all I am doing.

Which I have answered on at least one occasion.

Daniel, please start demonstrating some real progress on this.

I've been attempting to explain that that's the plan. Thanks for stepping in. I'd like for this thread to be productive. I was close to asking for it to be locked which I'd hate because I want lines of communication to remain open.