A Honest to Good Aggravated Criticism of Paid Modifications for vBulletin (Essay)

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

The point still stands. You don't need 'expertise' to criticise anything. It's a very similar argument to saying 'only a scientist can criticise scientific knowledge' or what not. Saying 'I'd like to see you do better' and expecting that because someone cannot do better at whatever means they're wrong is a fallacy. You don't need to know how to make movies to say how a movie sucks, or know economics to say that there are unfair business decisions or various other stuff. Sometimes I really wish vBulletin would have a 'no use of code in paid deriative works' addition to their terms of service to stop much of this.

This is an applicable argument to criticise entertainment, but not someones work. For instance, I would need some level of scientific background to criticise Einsteins theory of relativity if I wanted to come off as something other than an ignorant schmuck. Criticise a movie because you paid for entertainment and didn't get it. Criticise a book because you bought it and did not enjoy the ending. But saying that vB shouldn't allow people to charge for their modifications because you don't want to buy them is truly silly. How about... you just don't buy them? Why on Earth would you insist that since you don't want to buy them 'no one can'?!?

Saying 'lets see you do better' is to totally miss the mark (not sure if this is on purpose). What is being said is: If you want functionality that is only present in a paid mod, then code a free version. That is the beauty of freedom.

that's why film critics are written by critics, not fans... fans are biased, critics are educated to the movies market.

you can become a critic if you've been a fan one day, but basically you will need to study all the aspects of filmmaking before having a social impact... saying "i love this film because the actress have big boobs" is frm a fan... saying "i think this film have an impact because the actress and big boobs and the fans like big boobs" IS a critic...

Cheat, you are actually trying to critic the market but you are just a fan... sorry.

[SEOvB]

Originally Posted by nexialys

you can become a critic if you've been a fan one day, but basically you will need to study all the aspects of filmmaking before having a social impact... saying "i love this film because the actress have big boobs" is frm a fan... saying "i think this film have an impact because the actress and big boobs and the fans like big boobs" IS a critic...

When will your releases have big boobs included with them!

Originally Posted by FRDS

When will your releases have big boobs included with them!

i knew you'd be interested by our "Master of All Joys and Pleasures for Moderators" hack ....

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by The Geek

This is an applicable argument to criticise entertainment, but not someones work. For instance, I would need some level of scientific background to criticise Einsteins theory of relativity if I wanted to come off as something other than an ignorant schmuck.

Again, kind of misses another point. Scientific knowledge is most probably not needed to criticise science (I will likely get flamed for this). That's why various philosophers and even various religious people with varying knowledge of science state quite boldly various opinions about science and what not. Not exactly the best example, especially with how multiple fields often critique various things. Take a lot of what is given in psychology. Then take how various philosophers for example completely disagree with it and their method.

And I'm not criticising for my own purposes. I have no need for most of the paid modifications I've mentioned, it's just a lot of people most obviously do (see how often requests for them come up here?) and how there's obviously a gap where competition should exist but doesn't.

[Lizard King]

As i stated before i will really like to know your age because i dont want to discuss things with a 12 year old teenage.

[The Geek]

There is a difference between criticising something and offering your uneducated opinion.

There is no competition. If you think a paid for mod should be free... go write a free version. Stop insisting that others do it for you.

[SEOvB]

I wonder if he'll ever get the hint you want him to learn to code Geek?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

By that, I mean REALLY light version. As in for your ambulance example, no driver, three wheels and no brakes. As in, I understand fully the whole idea of no support, just that in these cases there's no just no support, the product is so lacking it's basically:

1. Nearly completely unusable for the purpose of the modification. Lite enough to make even the basic 3.7 album system that's constantly been criticised for this look as feature rich as vBulletin itself.
2. It's basically a great big advertisement saying 'buy the paid product' on a free website that doesn't allow paid products. Think of it like those people who might post three lines from a paid article and then say underneath 'to read the rest of this article go to mysite.com and pay ?999.99'.

Seriously, these kinds of mods are really pushing the rules here to the limit in terms of near uselessness. At this rate, it'd wouldn't surprise me to see time limited 'Lite versions' now and people getting moderated for it.

I agree. Modifications which are so light they will fail any serious test are about the worst examples of publishing, and unfortunately quite a lot, including also unwillingly introduced "Light" versions of starters.

Starters are often encouraged by their family and friends to show what they can do, and this is what we get. I'm not against starters, but I would like to see a Kid Corner where approaching coders and designers try their best to become famous .

[Netunt]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

3. Lite does not equal feature non existant

The only reason people make "lite" editions of their product is to advertise the full version.