Wedge

vbgamer?

Bloc.... That means a lot, to me. I'm grateful. :)

When I first joined, you WERE SMF, for me, rightly or wrongly.

Now, it would appear that some, at SMF, are seeing my posts, here, as "Complaining".

I hope that, if they re-read what I've said, that they'll reconsider and see that what I've done is ask for opinions.

I'm humble enough to realise that I'm about a far from "Perfect" as it's possible for a person to be.

I was curious as to what others felt, about things. I've never been too proud to admit it, when I'm wrong, or misguided.

THAT IS ALL.

oh k@ my friend they are reading well i just messaged on msn about this post from a team member other than me lol

For folks like me that just want to put up a board for people we already have in mind, the S part of Simple Machines is all we need, and basic support/customizations makes it attractive. People who want something slicker far beyond the basics with a commercial site which demands a higher level of slickness should indeed pay for your services.  Just sayin'.

I don't have a problem, with that, mate. Don't forget that I'm one of the "Get it all out in the open" advocates and always have been.

Let me reiterate, though...

These aren't complaints, although I know some have taken them that way. They were more me trying to find out if I'd made some HUGE mistakes.
 
I'm not so proud that I can't admit it, when I've made mistakes.
 
But, unless you know you've made mistakes, you can't try to put them right, can you?
 
Please, trust me, with this. "Drama" was the least of my intentions.

Now, don't get me wrong, here. Although it kinda goes against the grain, for me, I don't, really, have a problem with "Paid-for" mods and themes. If people want to pay for that kinda stuff, that's their problem.
 
It's the support.
 
Advertising from teamies, for that, is like them saying "SMF's support team's crap. You'll need to pay for PROPER support!"
 
It feels like they're slapping the other support team members, a bit. Like they're saying that they're not good enough.
 
Plus, certain members (We all know who they are) spend so much time doing the paid stuff, that they rarely even go to the forum and do the usual support stuff. They're blatantly using (abusing) their team position to make some money. That's not working, voluntarily, for SMF! That's working for themselves!
 
Also, the fact that they're making money from it makes the "normal" support team members feel like they're being taken the piss out of, because they're doing it in the true "Volunteer" way.
 
The problem with that kinda thing going on, from where I'm seeing it, is that it's going to cause rivalry between team members.
 
Rather than them all pulling in the same direction, it's going to create (Already has created) competition, suspicion and animosity.
 
Teams thrive on togetherness and unity and that's being lost, sadly. (Unless me throwing my toys out of my pram has helped, with that. In which case, I'm kinda happy, oddly enough)

If it was down to me, I think I'd try to nip this in the bud and put a stop to it, completely.

But, obviously, it's not down to me.

The official position of the team on this was set out last October when I had an active complaint going, that initially the team decided not to intervene because it was nothing to do with them, followed by offering terms of mediation, except that the terms offered weren't exactly the most fair I've ever come across... by which I could only conclude that the team, as a collective unit, had agreed that the behaviour of certain individuals was acceptable.

It was at this point I declared the team, as a single unit, as being morally bankrupt - I knew that there were individuals like yourself who kept themselves to a higher standard, but that since the collective direction the team was taking was the road taken, I could only conclude that it was an agreement made collectively by the people in power rather than an individual acting alone - since it's a democracy now, right?


You know what? Fuck this shit. I have bigger things to worry about right now, like dealing with petty family politics after an ashes scattering than trying to figure out if the collective decision of a bunch of bureaucrats is more or less morally bankrupt than it was most of a year ago, especially when all evidence points to the fact that it isn't.

I have to say that I don't see it, like that.

The bureaucracy thing, I mean.

Democracy has it's advantages, I s'pose.

The problem with democracies, though, is that sometimes a lot of talking goes on, which can often get bogged down so that nothing, actually, gets done, sadly.

With an organisation such as SMF, there's always going to be a conflict, insofar as the true volunteers will always be used and abused by those who are out to make a fast buck.

People such Angelina, Relyana, Sinan, Illori, Norv, myself and, yes, Kindred were/are volunteers in the real sense of the word.

My own feeling is that certain other members are taking advantage of them.

I have been through this discussion about democracy and bureaucracy many times and frequently both have taken a bum rap due to misunderstandings and mismanagement.

Think of both being a tool, that are designed and defined to proform a function and they both work well. However if the user does not understand the purpose, concept and proper use of the tool, when they use it inappropriately, it fails and it gets a bad reputation.

The failure is not the tool, but the person using it. In all cases of organizations and businesses this falls on the person (whether self appointed or elected) that is the top dog.
In this world, physics works in reverse, shit rolls up hill no matter how we try to redirect it, and the buck stops at the top.

Sometimes when the discussion or job is stalled the top person either gives direction to conclude or they take the role of benevolent dictator making the decision and direction.
Ultimately, if the leadership is inexperienced and weak, so it is down the line.
Incompetence does roll downhill and when it builds enough pressure at the bottleneck, shit starts to flow uphill.

In some ways, I think the SMF setup would benefit from having a "Top Dog", as you put it.

Someone, who, when the plebs can't come to a decision, can make that decision.

Trouble with any democracy, is that people are more likely to do things in a way that will get them votes, rather than what they actually believe to be right.

For an "e.g.", Obama may be a div. He may not be. But, to me, he seems to be doing what he believes to be right, even though it's unpopular.

Here is my simple take on this issue. If a product is offered for free use, support for the product may not be an obligation but should be offered at no cost out of respect for the user. This can benefit the product creator in the long run. If not then it should be stipulated that the product is offered "As Is", without warranty and no support will be offered.
If the product is offered for a price then support should be an obligation at no cost to the user. That's just good business.

In short, no customer should ever be obligated to pay for support for any default program. If support is desired for custom work that is not part of the original product but instead an addition to the original product, then and only then should payment for support be considered.

I personally do take payment for certain custom products but usually only if it is a big project that will be very time consuming. Most of these projects are complete theme redesigns. Of course support for the finished project is always offered and always at no extra cost. However, there have been many occasions when I was offered payment for simple custom work and completed the job without accepting payment. If the job is not going to consume much time or effort there really is no reason to demand payment.This has been my opinion for the past few years. This would benefit the SMF users in a big way. Either that or they should consider taking on a moderating crew and leave all forum moderating to them. A crew that is not obligated to offer support but their only task is to moderate. 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.

This is one of the things that usually trips my anger trigger. I have no problem offering support out of respect - when I get that respect in the first place; all the mods I published on sm.org got support until I gave them away. When people cross the line from asking for support to expecting it, especially in cases where it was made clear that it was given away 'as is', then I lose my temper about it - there are plenty of people who don't seem to understand what 'no support' means, and still ask or even demand it as though they think they're entitled to it.[1]The way I played arantormods.com was that out of a sense of community, I did actually charge for support. The way I looked at it, if I was helping one person instead of writing something for lots of people, I'd rather that that one person understood that they were getting priority and I felt that they should be prepared to put something of their own in too.You've only seen part of it. Imagine a board that is only accessible by the team and former team members - and the former team members don't have moderation powers, but the team does. Now imagine it's not a friendly board but at times akin to a warzone... Been there, done that.

1.	This happened at arantormods.com and has happened on Noisen even in reply to a thread entitled 'No support!'

I understand that. Some people not only demand support but can be very nasty and rude when requesting support. If they ask a simple "How do i do this" I am more than glad to offer my assistance.
But when they ask "Why don't this work? I downloaded your product and it f****ed up my website!" I am more against offering support and simply move on.
Some people think that you owe them something simply because they are using your product and have no problems displaying their tempers.

As for your comment about the team boards, I can only imagine how nasty that place can get.