I personally don't see a problem if they are honestly doing their job the way they are expected to, without letting their own desires ruining their needed contributions etc.
| 1. | i.e. people needing help and not 'how to customise my shit' |
Don't go there, really. I would rather go to SMF For Free, knowing who owns it, than that.
The idea is that it is a hosted forum, and you don't have to deal with the usual crap. Except not full admin control and you have to pay to get your data out to move elsewhere, which as you grow, becomes necessary.
I agreed - while its annoying, his paid mods isn't any different from others selling themes(..) or other mods. But support being exchanged for money IN the boards..that sounds quite questionable. I am sure he/theya re then motivated by the money first, and the voluntary bit after(long after)
The team should not allow that. its not fair for those that do just free. I too spent time doing free support on themes, even if I sold themes off-site. IMHO thats a good balance...although I am sure others saw thats a slighlty questionable as well lol.
oh k@ my friend they are reading well i just messaged on msn about this post from a team member other than me lol
In some ways, I think the SMF setup would benefit from having a "Top Dog", as you put it....
A Customizer should be a Customizer, a Developer should be a Developer and a Support Specialist should be a Support Specialist. None of these positions should be handed Moderator rights simply because they are team positions. Although not all SMF team members abuse their authority, many of them do in an open and often disrespectful manner.
Until they decide to take on a standard Moderating crew and stop letting the rests of the staff do the dirty work, I see no improvements anytime soon.
support for the product may not be an obligation but should be offered at no cost out of respect for the user
In short, no customer should ever be obligated to pay for support for any default program.
One of SMF's big problems today is allowing the general support staff to moderate and on many occasions it has proven to be nothing but trouble.
| 1. | This happened at arantormods.com and has happened on Noisen even in reply to a thread entitled 'No support!' |
Some people think that you owe them something simply because they are using your product and have no problems displaying their tempers.
Well as you know, I can no longer log into my account at SMF due to one simple disagreement with a "Customizer" so I guess it's not my problem anymore either.
| 1. | Specifically the last person I understood to have received a full ban was ccbtimewiz. Yeah, don't go there. Oh, and me, at one point as a last-ditch attempt to keep me instead of account deletion of my original account last summer. But that's it. |
One simple disagreement in a support topic and then no longer able to log in. Either the "lower ranking" one I had an issue with has access to alter accounts or he has a very good friend at SMF that does.
Here is my simple take on this issue.
Well as you know, I can no longer log into my account at SMF due to one simple disagreement with a "Customizer" so I guess it's not my problem anymore either.
Keeping with the topic, I wonder who I have to pay at SMF to regain access. :mdr:
Hmm. I understood that the team leads were able to modify accounts to the point of being able to alter groups (for SHOTM for example) but that there is something else at work.
Mind you, something to chew on: I was briefly involved with one of the efforts to work on the Cust site. And in doing that, I had access to FTP for the site and potential database access - so perhaps there is something amiss there...
Then they modified log account information to show I was loged in while I was in hospital.
Why is a bully a bully?
Why do normally calm and rational people swarm a victim while others assist?
So yeah who knows? With logs and records that can be easily altered or deleted without leaving a trace there is no clear answer.
Arantor ive seen the logs, the last ip to change ARG's account was ARG. The last email change in his account was by ARG in January and changed the username of the account not the domain. No standard team members on SMF have access to change the accounts. ARG is BULLSHITTING and knows that he will get sympathy on here. ARG if you want it sorted email info@simplemachines.org and stop spreading bullshit around and claiming a team member banned you!
ARG who you claiming altered your account? I see nothing that will prevent you from logging in, and I can assure you the Labradoodle has no power to alter your account in anyway except give you a warning, so do me a favor and stop the bullshit, honestly, you last logged in on 24 July your issue with Labradoodle was 23rd, im sure if he was that malice he would have done it on the 23rd but he couldnt as he doesnt have the power to. Now if you wanna argue that I am a team member at SMF and of course ill defend the team, you should ask Arantor, Nao, K@ etc how honest I am, and then look at the history of the team and I.
6000 post? Wow.
Can anyone with an account look into my login data and tell us whether it predates their mod page edit?
All you really need to do is surf the SMF sites support topics. You will sooner or later get the overall feel of dictatorship and experience censorship at it's finest. It will be very easy to distinguish the good from the power hungry.
You know as well as I do that once you signed the CLA you no longer had the right to remove your own posts as I proved a short while ago.
Best decision I ever made was removing my account for a second time. In hindsight I shouldn't even have bothered setting up that account because it hasn't brought me anything but hassle.
The losers are their users --
but taking a guess when the issue is right in your face isnt something that is right
As for my leaving places, it's not just any one place in particular; I actively feel tainted pretty much everywhere, so I've removed my account from Bryan's site, closed my account as best as I am able on Meaningles, stated the situation as far as SD is concerned (I'm going to finish what I've started, which is one converter, the plugins that I've started so far, and issue the release build of SD itself) then remove my account there.
Funny how this thread's turned into an SMF slag-fest.
Pity, really, because it rather detracts from what my original post was about.
I felt pretty strongly about the ol' "Paid-for support" thing and I was hoping to see whether my opinions were total bollox, tiz all...
For the record, though, I was (Maybe even still am!) Vice-President of SMF. Even I didn't have the ability to change people's avatars and all that shit.
Support team members and even the lead(s) can't either. Unless, of course, something pretty dramatic has changed, there, since I left. Which I, somehow, doubt.
Although removing all of your posts will throw a lot of conversations off course and deem them pretty much meaningless,
Isn't that the point of your site? :PQuote from ARG on July 31st, 2011, 05:30 PM Although removing all of your posts will throw a lot of conversations off course and deem them pretty much meaningless,
Hopefully it will help discourage bringing more of the SMF drama here because frankly I'm fed up to the back teeth of every little thing that need not be a problem then being blown out of proportion by people who have demonstrated every possible way to fuck up a community of people who were happy to contribute their time and energy.
(are you French then?)
Nah. English is way easier.
French is crazy. Even Japanese is a bit easier.
So. Anyone interested in knowing the names of the cowards who censored the AeMe page and won't even admit it?
Name your thoughts now :lol:
Pete, you're still feeling too concerned about SMF.
After 45k+ posts at SM, whether he is a member or not and even after being treated like a twat, he will still have a place in his heart for the software,Quote from Nao/Gilles on July 31st, 2011, 11:03 PM Pete, you're still feeling too concerned about SMF.
Its a bit like a wayward child.......... whatever it does, you will still love it.
| 1. | Don't get me wrong, I have a certain amount of respect for that, because it means they know what they want and they want to keep it as a pure forum, so that they focus on that. |
| 2. | Note that I'm not trying to disparage them here; that response is a valid if not entirely desirable one, and it falls very much under the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" mentality, even though it is my considered opinion that it is broken. |
I know, I know, pick me, pick me!
Here's a couple of clues:
The person who reported it was very adamant that he wasn't going to adhere to being told he couldn't use SMG on his site. And a very, very long, pointless and stupid argument ensued, and it was public too.
The person who I understand to have changed it is not the project manager and not a Customizer, and therefore should have had nothing the hell to do with it. That said, the Customizer team are the ones charged with maintaining the mod site and we all know how up to the task they are at present...
I'm not even surprised that either of the individuals involved are actually involved. I'm more annoyed that they won't 'fess up to it or at the very least bother to tell either of us what's going on. (Interesting point, then, why haven't they censored AeMe itself since last I saw of it, it had an active link here...)
Does ANYONE here think that I'm abusing my 'rights' by putting a link to wedge.org in my WEBSITE LINK? Which, as far as I know, is used by everyone to link to THEIR website? And does anyone here think that my website is anything else than wedge.org, considering I'm blogging here and I'm spending all of my days here?
Why are they not removing links to IPB, vBulletin or xenForo then?
To be fair to them,
the only times I've seen a link to the competition sites, are:
1. In adverts, so that they can be banned via Google AdSense.
2. Pointing out something the competition have done, that's cool or neat, or stupid.
any posts about wedge will not appear on this forum as we do not allow advertising for other forums here.
You're not abusing your rights: it's your website after all. But at the same time it is always going to be controversial - even if we'd ended up a totally friendly fork, I doubt they'd have let links be in there.
You know them: they'll make the rules to suit themselves, because that's what's always been done.
Do we really NEED to be fair to them? Why do we always have to be the good guys, the ones that don't ban anyone, the ones that don't fight back?
Like xenForo being an existing competitive software that was just about to be released...............
.........Tell me, isn't that what Wedge is about?
Interesteding how it isn't allowed to discussing the upcoming Wedge when the up and coming xenForo was all the right over there?
http://www.simplemachines.org/…unity/index.php?topic=394724.0
http://www.simplemachines.org/…unity/index.php?topic=404068.0
In contrast, no one seems to be bothered with Illori's outstanding post:
http://www.simplemachines.org/…sg3104124;topicseen#msg3104124
I don't mind if they remove our links, yes it's their website, yes they dictate the rules, like we do.
- their pseudo 'Core Values' page. They never stop violating most of them. As soon as a flame war erupts, they just don't give a shit about these 'values' anymore. I'm tempted to think no one in the team ever read them. If you're going to edict a series of rules to convince people you're so cool, then either live by them or die with them!
- all links to all other forum packages, including friendly forks and paid-for competitors. Otherwise it's clearly an attack against us.
But they don't acknowledge that.
I didn't say that we don't have to fight back, per se, but that if there is retaliation of any kind, it is done with the best information available, and that we do it as ethically as possible - which includes acknowledging their side to the situation.
It comes under the category of what the opposition is doing, which is naturally allowed. The caveat of course is that 'as long as the competition isn't Wedge.'
Yup. It's all fine for the team to go 'hey, look at what that other system is doing' to indicate how awesome it is, but all bets are off if it happens to be us, and that's always been, and always likely to be, the case.
There's a difference between having rules, enforcing rules and telling your users about said rules. Like I said, there weren't any rules I'd been advised about prior to the message from Oldiesmann asking me to remove Wedge from my signature.
I'd have been fine to comply with rules if I'd seen a shred of evidence to validate the fact that this was a rule that applied equally to everyone, as opposed to what feels like it was made up on the spot.
Oh, don't even get me started about the Core Values bullshit. I demonstrated that vbgamer had broken just about every single core value on the list, but every single point was argued - by Kindred, no less - as being not important.
After the January 2010 drama+BS, every returning and every new team member was supposed to electronically sign an agreement, including promising to adhere to the Core Values. You can obviously see how well that worked out.
If you did that, would you openly admit it?Quote But they don't acknowledge that.
Here, the only way I can see it is that they've taken a rule that was never fully explained, broadened its horizons to suit, and applied it to us. The best bit was that when I argued this originally, Kindred explained to me that the 'no competition' rule was something I should have known about at the time, because of the no-competitive-ads rule. At that point, I actually gave up trying to argue with him because the rules don't seem to apply in his brain properly.
Then you have things like: http://www.bryandeakin.com/index.php/topic,941.msg9346.html#msg9346 going on.
I'll let you make of that what you will, but for someone who hasn't told any actual lies, per se, I'd say he's done a decent bit of skirting the truth on occasion, and he has actually implicated RR in libel, on the basis of claiming that Les (ARG) was actually RR being a troll under another name. (Which means, if you're going to call someone out like that, you really, really should be able to back up your assertion especially when it doesn't take much to refute it.)
They don't communicate at all.
The only thing I know is that they censor our stuff.
If that's their way of sharing their feelings.....
Then they should make it clear.
It's as if it were Jan' 10 again. This time it's 'them' versus Nao, Pete, and all of our ex-teamie friends who felt that Wedge was the only future for SMF. Difference being, at the time the exes were working Jaelta but it never worked out. This time it's called Wedge and it's a real threat to SMF.
They only forgot one thing in this.
In both situations, Jan 10 and Aug 11, the splits happened because the SMF team abused some people (either by forcing them to sign a stupid paper, or exploiting them over and over again), so the SMF team only has ITSELF to blame for.
Actually, the simple fact that they're censoring the Wedge links right now, shouldn't be compared to their relationship with competitors -- it should be compared to how they used to ban people on a whim during the Jan/Feb flame war.
In three words: step back, guys.
But you at least had the courtesy of being contacted about it.
I was not. All of my stuff was always erased behind my back. My signature ---- multiple times --- my website link and my AeMe links.
Basically, they WANT AeMe in SMF because it gives their software an edge over the competition. But they don't want to compete with Wedge, which is actually the future of both AeMe and SMF.
Fuck. I don't even know why I still have AeMe online over there...
Even my posts. They're not contributions. Give that to a lawyer, anyone will laugh at them.
Remove my 6000 posts, guys. It's my right. I wrote them, I own them. I don't owe you shit.
Fuck. I don't even know why I still have AeMe online over there...
Fuck. I don't even know why I still have AeMe online over there...
I thought it was because you were enjoying watching Kindred's support responses :niark:Quote Fuck. I don't even know why I still have AeMe online over there...
Interesteding how it isn't allowed to discussing the upcoming Wedge when the up and coming xenForo was all the right over there?
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=394724.0
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=404068.0
He already was a shameless backstabbing jerk last year. He still is.
There was communication for a while. I did spend a while trying to talk Kindred round, far, far more than was ever really known.
:lol: This is the SMF team we're talking about here. Making rules clear? The only time I ever saw clarity in the rules are when there was a fuss made about mods that had adult site links, and Unknown understandably got very annoyed with it.
I have nothing to disagree with here, except what we should do about it. Instead of any further retaliation, let's instead do the one thing they can't prevent from doing: making Wedge better and better.
I think the difference is, because you'd been post-banned, you wouldn't have been able to reply to a message, so they figured they wouldn't bother.
Of course it does. It also means there is a free competitor to vbgamer's paid stuff. I wonder whether he will be encouraged to make it free once AeMe disappears.
Neither do I.Quote Fuck. I don't even know why I still have AeMe online over there...
1. It's not a piece of crap because of its feature list, which is actually pretty much on par with SMG/AeMe when it comes to SMF Gallery Pro, but because of the crappy code. Erk. An abomination.
The team will argue that they are contributions under the CLA. I already had this argument with them.Quote Even my posts. They're not contributions. Give that to a lawyer, anyone will laugh at them.
Remove my 6000 posts, guys. It's my right. I wrote them, I own them. I don't owe you shit.
I would suggest to remove the files, blank the page, then delete, no,sorry, remove it from the list. Possibly even wipe the actual post, if a post-ban didn't remove that ability. So as to maximise the damage, so to speak.
Yeah, I remember all of that...
But these discussions came into a dead-end.
I don't see WHERE exactly he put much effort into helping us. To me, it seems like he never planned to help, and decided to hide behind the 'SMF team majority' crap to justify not helping.
Which reminds me that we should discuss this matter for Wedge Media... I could care less about these links really. But were I to provide them as mods, hmm... That would overwrite the custom list or something.
SMF flames are just an aside for me, eh
I can reply in plenty of places -- Bryan's place, SMF-friends, etc...
Nope. SMF Gallery has been around from 2006 to 2008 without any competition (except external bridges), it already had both free and paid versions, the addition of SMG didn't change that.
Anyway---- SMG was out, and quickly surpassed the 'quality' level of SMF Gallery Pro -- we saved SMF users a grand total of $80 by giving them an alternative to that piece of crap
That's one of the major strengths of SMF, and they're not willing to lose it. Otherwise I'd have been perm-banned all the same...
Because it raises awereness of Wedge.
What do you think! They can keep Aeva Media as long as they also give me free reigns to advertise its upcoming upgrade. What I've been doing on that page is totally legal, heck. *AND* it breaks absolutely none of their Core Values (to which they could pretend I'm tied to, even though I never was made an official teamie), and none of their written rules.
They can own my posts written on the dev boards, my posts on the beta page, all of my posts related to SMF's development, no problem. But posts related to Aeva Media and stuff? No thanks. I own them. And if I ever take down AeMe from their page, I don't see why these posts should remain online.
I have no ability to edit or delete any of my own posts. I can't reply to PMs either, and I can't even read the PMs I sent in the past... (Because of a beautiful SMF bug that I fixed in Wedge. Uh.)
but it is my understanding that the CLA covers only contributions made knowingly and on purpose for the benefit of the project
I'd say anyone who has contributed to the community discussions, perhaps in thousands of support posts, knowingly doing that to help the users, would be / is an ass if they demand those posts removed later... Doing so does nothing but hurt the users.
| 1. | I don't have any other definition that suits. |
I don't honestly care what his actual intentions were, but it seemed to me for much of the time as though it were lip-service.
On the subject of the sitelist, I'm inclined to agree with you; while it could be folded into the scheduled tasks, it seems like it should just be removed.
Just a case of keeping eyes on the prize, you know?Quote SMF flames are just an aside for me, eh
Sure you can, we both know that.Quote I can reply in plenty of places -- Bryan's place, SMF-friends, etc...
True enough. I half wonder if someone else will take up the mantle of a new gallery mod as, if and when Aeva Media disappears from SMF's ecosystem, but realise it isn't my problem.
Is it $80 when you include the video addon module?
So it being over there only benefits them, then?
I know there's an argument about promoting Wedge, but you know as well as I do that they're only going to continue censoring.
Sure it does. But only if the team doesn't keep censoring it. Most people don't leave sm.org, heck I'm not even that sure how many of them visited Noisen or here to be honest...
What you've been doing isn't "totally legal" - that's the point. It's fallen foul of several of the unwritten laws of SMF, for which the penalty is censure. Just because it doesn't fall foul of their published and public laws, doesn't mean it is legal, you know how good they are at reinventing and reinterpreting their own rules.
They can and will argue that the posts document an extension to the SMF project and thus fall under the CLA.