Lets combine funds for a Reviews CMS with business/product directory

[Delazar]

Originally Posted by ForumsMods

I am currently working in Beta 3 version, which is planned to be the last version before gold release.
For this reason a lot of new features were added, specially paid features like pay to publish, pay to stick, pay to bump, pay for new fields and pay for a different style for listing.

GARS importer is done and will be released with ACS Beta 3.

Super. We have May and so far no Beta 3. Money paid for a beta version and now the forum is offline for 1 week. I think our money is gone or has anyone information about what's going on


Greetings from a very disgruntled customer

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by Delazar

Super. We have May and so far no Beta 3. Money paid for a beta version and now the forum is offline for 1 week. I think our money is gone or has anyone information about what's going on


Greetings from a very disgruntled customer

It looks like we've spent the money for nothing...

[Alfa1]

It does look like forumsmods has fallen through completely.
Never pay for a product unless its fully functional.

[Christos Teriakis]

Hello all,

Even if I'm sure that my post will "moves the water", and most probably it will takes negative comments, I dare to make this post, as I'm sure that some users will understand my point of view, and will agree with me.

First of all, I want you to know that, except coder, I'm also client just like you. I've spent a lot of money buying 10+ vB addons, and over than 100 PHP scripts. I believe that I've the biggest collection.

I don't know if forumsmods gone offline for ever, and I don't wish it. Maybe the coder, just felt broken, and wanted some days of relax. Happen to me too.

But if he really adopted the project and the site at all, what's the real reason for it? I believe that most of the reasons below are enought for him to get such a decision:

1. @Alpha1 : With all the respection to you and to your rights to ask the best value for your money, don't you think that your feature list is extremely long even for a standalone script? Have you ever wonder how many of the opther members who participated this thread, are really needing all these exotic features?
2. According to that list I don't think that should be someone who will gets the decision to code it for public use, but only as a custom work. Yes, I can code a mod having 100% of the requested features. But it will takes me more than 100 days which means (according to my rates for custom work), around 25,000 Euros. Are you willing to pay such amount? Or are you able to guarantee that you'll find 1000 clients to pay 250 Euros each? I don't think so.
3. That famous "GARS" compatibility. I wrote it in a previous post here. It can be done, but only by copying the database structure and work the mod on this structure. Why? Because the analysis of this mod is totally wrong. Have you ever find any reviews site where category "A" has rating scale 1-10, but category "B" can have rating scale 1-5 and so on? Is this normal? This is the best way to confuse your members. Everybody can accept 5 stars as best, ot 10 stars as best, but to all products. I'm nearly 100% sure that forumsmods, stoped at that point. To copy something wrong just to be able to release an importer.
4. Now the critical point... Lets forget my own proposal above, and lets think realistic. Even if the original post and the first ones are showing a passion to have such a mod, how many do you believe that are ready to buy it? Reading the posts an unexperiant coder maybe thinks ..."Ochhh, there are 1,000s who will buy it". Wrong. I can guarantee that there are no more 30-40. Lets say 50. 50 Sales X $50 = $2,500. Who of use will waste 100+ days of hard work for $2,500 ???????????

As a last word, I'll use Alpha1's suggestion "Never pay for a product unless its fully functional" is a different way: "Never ask for new features, before you have the 10 most important ready".

As for me, I adopted the project just for this reason. Because every day a new feature was added in the lists. I prefer to adopt one month's work, than to add daily headcaches in my head.

PS: A last comment for BigTree and his bad experiance with Lionel. I had the same bad experiance with iCart and vBMultipages. But I have to admit that Lionel is doing the best (from business side view). He has a dozen of commercial mods, but none free. Even the simple ones (eg vBMultipages) he is selling it. But he comes here very often just for asking. Never to give. And by having ALL the files 100% encrypted is sure that for every custom change, you have to pay him for it, even if its something that you can do free on your own.


Thank you for reading
Chris

[Ramsesx]

On many points you're right Chris, that was the reason I asked first for a basic functional working product instead of implementing all this extra stuff only a few people may need.
And I'm sure if he would have done it this way we may have it right now.
All what I've seen on my install but especially on his test site was the proof of a great product.
He only had to make it bug free, write more instructions how to use it and the importer.
Then the sales would be way more than only 50. I would have bought at least 2 licenses.
Basically there should be a volume of > 500 sales.
But as I said, it needs more than just throwing out a non finished product without any instructions.
Don't know why he shut down his site but as I could read he was working on some custom stuff and couldn't deliver.
Maybe he expected more sales in the beginning and was confused about all this extra feature wishes he wanted to implement, don't know it...
I just can hope he can get his act together and finally present a working product.

[Christos Teriakis]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

On many points you're right Chris, that was the reason I asked first for a basic functional working product instead of implementing all this extra stuff only a few people may need..

This is the right (and most fair) way for both sides. For the coder and for the Clients. By giving the basic functionality, the coder is not investing a lot of time. So it can sell it for a low price eg $30-35. That price covers for sure his work as should be many users who will buy it, just to have a simple reviews system in their site.

From that point, everything can be done right based on a fair agreement between the coder and all those clients who want something more. eg "I can add these 10 extra features" but I want $500. If the clients who want those additions are 20, then its just $25 for each one. I reasonable amount for something specific.

But even if the coder does not want to add more features, you're always free to hire another coder to add the extra functionalities. The most important is to have the main script.

By giving a list with 100 features since the first release:
1.- It will cost a lot of money
2.- It will never be finished,
3.- (...worst of all...) as it will be coded in rush, it will be full of bugs.

That's my opinion. As for forumsmods. To be honest I was following his site aftre his first release. Nothing bad at all. I was just seeing the incremental of user registrations. When, after a month, I seen that he has only 20 new members, which means 10 (at least) spam registrations and 10 real members, I understand his feeling. I bet that he hasn't more than 6-7 sales. So he spent a really long time on coding, expecting the thousands of porential clients, and finally he got nothing.

But I'm also feeling you as client. I've also payed eg for AWC Donation Pro, Subscription PRO and other mods, and I seen recently that forumcoding.com is actually not operated.

Chris

[BirdOPrey5]

This thread is getting close to seeming like price negotiation. That is not going to be allowed here.

The original post was to get a list of people willing to pledge money to get this mod created.

Please select someone to speak for the group and they can negotiate with a coder in private, via PM, email, or other means.

Please do not turn this into a negotiation or it will be locked.

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

Please do not turn this into a negotiation or it will be locked.

Don't see this happen, but it's your decision.

[Jirinex]

Originally Posted by ChrisTERiS

[*]That famous "GARS" compatibility. I wrote it in a previous post here. It can be done, but only by copying the database structure and work the mod on this structure. Why? Because the analysis of this mod is totally wrong. Have you ever find any reviews site where category "A" has rating scale 1-10, but category "B" can have rating scale 1-5 and so on? Is this normal? This is the best way to confuse your members. Everybody can accept 5 stars as best, ot 10 stars as best, but to all products. I'm nearly 100% sure that forumsmods, stoped at that point. To copy something wrong just to be able to release an importer.

This thread was started because we are a BIG bunch of people still stuck in 3.8 due to being tied with Gars. So regardless of what you think is right or wrong in that code, at least an importer/converter (tell it what you like) must appear if you like your product to be in any way sort of helpful for us in this thread. If you can't provide that, then don't waste our time, it's been too long again waiting for nothing to happen and it's getting quite a frustrating situation.

[Christos Teriakis]

No, I'm not wasting your time. I've wrote since my first post here that I don't plan to release any importer. So, I'm not saying something new now. I post my comments trying to make clear why none coder released anything 11 months now.

Chris