Dumped in an inconvenient situation

[Spinball]

Originally Posted by Dean C

Look, your point is mute. It's been stated umpteen times in this thread, by myself and others. Modifications are copyrighted to their owner. Not you, not anyone else is allowed to modify that code and distribute it. Simple as that. Nothing you say or do here will change that, unless they implement a checkbox where modification owners can choose to exempt their modification from that copyright.

It's not my problem if you're dependent on my mod and I abandon it and it's not vBulletin.org's. It's yours. I'm not saying it's right, and I certainly would never abandon my users, and I completely understand where you're coming from.

No matter how much you complain about it, there's only one solution to the problem and that's adding the checkbox. And even then, I personally won't opt in. And I think a lot of hack authors would feel the same way. There's a lot of intellectual property involved in big modifications such as the arcade hack you use in your example, so I doubt John would want anyone taking over his code should he disappear for whatever reason. And you must also remember that some people disappear for reasons out of their control. A member here a few years ago disappeared, and last I heard he was kicked out of his home, and living without a computer in one-bedroom flat in a bad area. These circumstances were out of his control. Once he sorts himself out, I think he'd be pretty annoyed that all the hard work he'd put in was out of his control. This is why copyright is there, to protect people like this

On a completely unrelated note, some of the links on your homepage are broken. I was trying to view your home cinema

You're missing my point completely.
I fixed the issue on my site, thanks.

--------------- Added at 08:50 ---------------

Originally Posted by towermatt

I just read this whole thread because it was bumped.

I can't believe this sense of "entitlement" that some people seem to have.

On the one hand, we have a forum that is staffed by volunteers to help us organize and find answers to our problems. They don't write stuff, they just provide a place for it to gather.

Then we have the coders/designers that spend 100's of man hours of their personal time to create free add ons and hacks for vbulletin.

But wait...that is not enough. The staff of this site not only has to keep things running smoothly, they also have to police the codes that are being put on the site to make sure everyone is cozy as a kitten. And that is without any legal right to the hack.

Too much to ask if you want my opinion (and even if you didn't)

It is our own responsibility, as members, to make sure if we have hacks or addons that we love, we keep in close contact with the developer outside vbulletin.org

Don't relax in the shade provided by this tree and then talk about how it isn't enough. Its selfish.

Also, don't speak like any of this stuff is a right to you.

**gets off soapbox**

I'm glad you got off your soapbox. You are also missing my point completely.
My point is that the vB.org team could excel by going the extra mile.
And anyone who things that forum admin don't become dependent upon hacks freely published in here is an idiot. It's that dependency on hacks which is a factor in the success of this forum and vBulletin in general. The popularity of this community and the number of useful (invaluable) free mods is something the vBulletin.com team probably (certainly ought to) consider to be very, very important to the success of their product.
I guess my gripe was mainly at the slapdash way that the vb.org team dealt with the removal of the hacks.

[MRGTB]

were is this soapbox you all keep talking about

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by Spinball

I guess my gripe was mainly at the slapdash way that the vb.org team dealt with the removal of the hacks.

Modifications are only removed because of:
- Request of the author. We can do nothing but comply to such a request.
- A vulnerability is found. In this case it is (temporary) removed to protect our members.
- The thread breaks our rules. Not much to add to this.

[towermatt]

I'm glad you got off your soapbox. You are also missing my point completely.
My point is that the vB.org team could excel by going the extra mile.
And anyone who things that forum admin don't become dependent upon hacks freely published in here is an idiot. It's that dependency on hacks which is a factor in the success of this forum and vBulletin in general. The popularity of this community and the number of useful (invaluable) free mods is something the vBulletin.com team probably (certainly ought to) consider to be very, very important to the success of their product.
I guess my gripe was mainly at the slapdash way that the vb.org team dealt with the removal of the hacks.

I only got off because I had a few beers and was starting to feel woozy.

You seem to have missed my point so I will drag my poor tired self up there again. I am not arguing that Admin of boards don't depend on the mods and hacks they get here, that would be crazy.

What I am saying is that vbulletin.org is not responsible (imo) for making sure that your site runs smoothly. They are here providing a free service and you have to give a bit on your end.

If you like the hack, get close with the developer and then you won't have to depend on this site to get your updates.

All I meant is that here we are with a very useful and free service provided by the good people at vbulletin.org and while there may be problems (I received an infraction for something I didn't agree with here), it is still not something we can act like is a right of ours by being licensed vbulletin software owners.

[DivisionByZero]

Originally Posted by towermatt

All I meant is that here we are with a very useful and free service provided by the good people at vbulletin.org and while there may be problems (I received an infraction for something I didn't agree with here), it is still not something we can act like is a right of ours by being licensed vbulletin software owners.

just wait until they start censoring or deleting your posts, closing your threads, and refusing to allow you to respond when someone posts something completely false and retaliatory about you.

There are some good people on here, but look at the attachments in the following thread, and then tell me that the admins here are always helpful and polite!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=157665

I used to have about 30 or so hacks on here, but I removed them all when this site became a dictatorship.

Originally Posted by Spank

Maybe someone should start an 'open source' hack community.

absolutely!

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by MisterPopularity

just wait until they start censoring or deleting your posts, closing your threads, and refusing to allow you to respond when someone posts something completely false and retaliatory about you.

There are some good people on here, but look at the attachments in the following thread, and then tell me that the admins here are always helpful and polite!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=157665

I used to have about 30 or so hacks on here, but I removed them all when this site became a dictatorship.


absolutely!

You just never noticed it always ways Just because the names change, the site is no different from when it used to be back in the day. I've been on staff for a considerable ammount of time now, longer than some of our administrators. Realisticly everything is the same management wise. I'd tell you that if you treated chen, or xenon the same way, they'd do the same thing the current staff is doing now.

I'm glad you got off your soapbox. You are also missing my point completely.
My point is that the vB.org team could excel by going the extra mile.
And anyone who things that forum admin don't become dependent upon hacks freely published in here is an idiot. It's that dependency on hacks which is a factor in the success of this forum and vBulletin in general. The popularity of this community and the number of useful (invaluable) free mods is something the vBulletin.com team probably (certainly ought to) consider to be very, very important to the success of their product.
I guess my gripe was mainly at the slapdash way that the vb.org team dealt with the removal of the hacks.

No, he is perfectly correct, it is your responsability for your site, not ours. If you are going to go adding modifications to your site you should well be able to write and fix the code if it causes problems. I'm not the most gifted programmer in the world but I still check releases before installing them and if a problem occurs attempt to fix it myself before coming back to the author. I've never let a single site I run become wholeheartedly dependatnt on a modification. If it disapeared overtime I'd just keep making sure the current one works and if no replacement came, phase it out.

vBulletin.org/vBT was a place once about coders sharing ideas and working together, lately I've noticted its moving away from this, and it deeply saddens me.

We provide the place for you to come and discuss modifications, what you want to discuss and how you use the resource is up to you.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by MisterPopularity

look at the attachments in the following thread, and then tell me that the admins here are always helpful and polite

Perhaps your posts get edited or deleted because they are just as inaccurate as this latest post by you. Neither Floris or Fewyn are Administrators of vbulletin.org - at least try and get your facts straight before making accusations.

Spinball,

You are using very vague terms in your arguments: "go the extra mile", "encourage coders"...etc...etc...

There is really nothing concrete that we can evaluate here. (Which is probably why you feel people are failing to get your point.)

How do you suggest we go the extra mile?

How do you suggest we encourage coders to tick an checkbox indicating that, in their absence, their code can be modified by the community?

This is what the staff is interested in, because we can evaluate these kinds of suggestions (that also comply with copyright laws).

We understand it is frustrating as a forum owner to have a modification that your board is dependent on and then witness the mod suddenly stop development, but we have a whole user base to keep in mind here (especially the coders who own the code.)

Also things to wonder about - what determines "absence" ? This is also another vague term that needs to be discussed! We don't want a coder going on vacation with this option ticked and for him to come back and see his modification has now be modified by the community.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by MisterPopularity

just wait until they start censoring or deleting your posts, closing your threads, and refusing to allow you to respond when someone posts something completely false and retaliatory about you.

I have no problem with members providing feedback, even if it is negative. But please do not try to manipulate things by telling only half of the truth.

Yes it is true that we declined the feedback you provided as it included many things that had nothing to do with feedback on the work you offered. You where however given the option to provide a new text as feedback, as long as it complies to our rules and guidelines.

If you do not want to provide such feedback, then don't go blame the staff for this.

Originally Posted by MisterPopularity

I used to have about 30 or so hacks on here, but I removed them all when this site became a dictatorship.

yeah... maybe it is a dictatorship... but a good one... someone have to lead here or it will not be a dictatorship but the complete hell... what do you prefer?!

reading your own attitude accross this site for long, i ask myself why you continue to visit... you told me once that you were having your own private business, but it looks like not. you continue to complain even if you said a time ago that you had enough of vb.org...

you had 30+ hacks here... yeah... good... maybe... fun. i had more than 25000 lines of codes released here in the last 3 years, and i dropped them for a lot of reasons - mainly because my hacks are now integrated in the latest versions in some ways... are yours ?!

when you complain about dictatorship, i think it is just because you are frustrated that people are not listening to you anymore... or why would you keep living in below this dictator ?! in countries where there are dictators, people tend to quit, flee, suicide, die to not have to live in that horror.. do you plan this?
(and no, Paul M is not the dictator... lol)