I was referring to (hired) staff, not consultants. I thought that was obvious but I guess not. Next time I'll post with more clarity.

vBulletin (as far as I know) is paying for the site's upkeep/maintanence, not the hacks. Unless you know something that I don't, vB.org is not a commercial site and authors of mods that were submitted here have not received a dime.

I'm just saying Jelsoft can support whatever they want. There's no law saying "you contributed to this project, you have to support it".

/me scratches head in disbelief...

We're not on the same page, Cap'n Steve. You continue to argue points that I have not made.

This is a free site, with free mods/hacks.
unlike those companies that sell hacks, they don't have payed staff to take care of things.

If alot of people want to have more help, what abt small fee per download.
Say.. 2$ paypal-donation per download.
Where of 50% could go to the hack-maker, if (s)he whishes.

Officially supporting hacks makes no sense on any level that I can think of. But that's not to say that they couldn't put some serious professional Jelsoft-employed development into the .org site itself. They will be fully aware that the community contributions of third party developers increases their sales and makes them more money, how much I couldn't guess but I'll bet it's a figure that wouldn't be sneezed at. I'm sure the costs of running this site are not insubstantial but is that enough?

I wonder.

As for threads going unanswered, people do their best. I've had some answered some not, my last by an Admin no less on an entirely trivial coding question. Ultimately there's for more requests for help than answers given because the expertise can't keep up with inexpertise (not to mention that it's a good deal easier to ask a question than answer it ;)) and there's no real way to avoid that. Best thing you can do is remember that you get what you paid for and be grateful that there is such a resource as this forum and the internet in general.

Then explain to me what this means:

Rather than taking my posts out of context quote them in its entirety; only then will it make sense.

I reread it and I'm still not seeing it. Regardless of whether Jelsoft pays hack authors, moderators, or whoever, they still have no obligation to support hacks. They don't even have to support vBulletin if they don't feel like it.

/me is tired...

1. Jelsoft is obligated to vBulletin, their staff members, investors (if applicable) and any other business-related associates until they relinquish ownership of the company or product.

2. Hired (in-house staff) is different than hired consultants (third-party); here's where you've been mixing the two. I've been referring to the former; you, the latter. In business there are protocols and laws to follow. I've listed a few in post #20.

A good idea and afforadable to most people. The other option would be to make some of the forums subscription based and charge a low fee of $12 or $24 a year - banking on the hope that a lot of people will go for this as it's really affordable they'll hopefully have more than enough money to take on another person that would be able to answer our forum posts and maybe take on a bit of coding.