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09-12-12, 04:49 PM   #1
juztcallmepapi
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Doesn't WI Have Quality Control?

I really thought WI had quality control of the content that was placed on their website? How can Carbonite Addon remain a featured addon while the developers don't take their product seriously? Because of the amount of downloads? Because they want new users to donate? I know it once was a great addon when it worked flawlessly, but when the developers abandoned the addon and only gave minor updates to keep the donation flowing, WI should have interjected. Carbonite, I'm sorry to say, doesn't deserve to be featured anymore, nor do the developers.

It amuses me that WI will let you download utter crap as an addon. What happened to standards? What happened to the players best interest?
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09-12-12, 04:51 PM   #2
Cairenn
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Yes we still have 'quality control'. We've been talking (internally) about how to deal with this project for a while now.
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09-12-12, 04:53 PM   #3
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We dont just make snap decisions, we take time to review things first and give authors a chance if they have fallen. The last thing we want to do is discourage a come back based from all the feedback from all the users. I'm sure its being read by them. Hopefully that realize their mistake and we like to give that chance to correct it.

We also can't just remove them as FA's because there is now a large community using the forums setup for them which is a feature for FA's. Removing those forums would make every one angry even people who dont use carbonite because they will no longer be able to filter out that content if it was just mixed into our general forums. So there are many things to consider here, and thats just a little part.

I have no idea what kind of donations carbonite is getting but I seriously doubt any one is donating at the moment. We dont record or even get any part of donations. That is all directly to the author and not tracked in anyway by us.

I think the community has already started coming together for an answer and with Rythal leading the charge we really want to help any way we can.

Last edited by Dolby : 09-12-12 at 05:14 PM.
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09-12-12, 05:26 PM   #4
juztcallmepapi
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Yes we still have 'quality control'. We've been talking (internally) about how to deal with this project for a while now.
Then you guys are obvious to the headache this is causing the player base. I mean, I understand they can't fix every bug over night, but also only fixing the addon so it pops up in-game (and not actually fixing bugs), disappearing for months at a time and not addressing the community's concerns is a big no no. Especially if it's an FA.

Originally Posted by Dolby View Post
We dont just make snap decisions, we take time to review things first and give authors a chance if they have fallen.

We also can't just remove them as FA's because there is now a large community using the forums setup for them which is a feature for FA's. Removing those forums would make every one angry even people who dont use carbonite because they will no longer be able to filter out that content if it was just mixed into our general forums. So there are many things to consider here, and thats just a little part.
No offense, but a decent look at the developer's forum can give you an obvious gimps that they don't even play the game anymore. They've admitted that fact themselves. I never said to remove the content entirely. I only said that they shouldn't be a FA. It's a donation deathtrap. While new users are going to your site, checking on the FA list, they see Carbonite. They are being mislead thinking that the add-on is being well maintained. Possibly even donating to for the cause.

FA should be reserved for well respected, well maintained and well deserving add-ons. You don't see car dealerships showcasing old model cars ... why should WI showcase an add-on that's being held together by strings and band-aids?
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09-12-12, 11:48 PM   #5
MidgetMage55
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Originally Posted by juztcallmepapi View Post
Then you guys are obvious to the headache this is causing the player base. I mean, I understand they can't fix every bug over night, but also only fixing the addon so it pops up in-game (and not actually fixing bugs), disappearing for months at a time and not addressing the community's concerns is a big no no. Especially if it's an FA.



No offense, but a decent look at the developer's forum can give you an obvious gimps that they don't even play the game anymore. They've admitted that fact themselves. I never said to remove the content entirely. I only said that they shouldn't be a FA. It's a donation deathtrap. While new users are going to your site, checking on the FA list, they see Carbonite. They are being mislead thinking that the add-on is being well maintained. Possibly even donating to for the cause.

FA should be reserved for well respected, well maintained and well deserving add-ons. You don't see car dealerships showcasing old model cars ... why should WI showcase an add-on that's being held together by strings and band-aids?
Being that Cairenn and Dolby have many years experience in this field I sincerely doubt they are oblivious to any headaches this may be causing. If you are watching the forums closely you can see they are active but restrained in the events.

As for forum activity as a measure for eligibility for FA status. That is fairly silly. If you look many FA's have long periods of silence due to any number of reasons. Should the Mods round them all up and give them a stern talking to? Perhaps run them out of town on a rail? Half of any FA's forum section are partially maintained by fans of said addon(s) which is part of the community aspect of this site. Those that know tend to help when they can by answering questions. In some cases the FA's have granted limited ability to patch the aforementioned addon. This however is NOT a requirement.

Nor does it matter if they even play the game. Programmers at say Adobe do not need to be photographers to help coding photoshop. You don't need to use the items you create.

As to what should be, that is ultimately decided by Cairenn and Dolby. Their reasoning was given as to why they are holding off for now. I would think a little respect is in order. Making this a witch-hunt and trying to wipe out their existence doesn't solve anything just alleviate some hurt on one side.

Let them run their site and in the end everything will be ok.
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09-13-12, 01:00 AM   #6
Rythal
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Originally Posted by Dolby View Post
I think the community has already started coming together for an answer and with Rythal leading the charge we really want to help any way we can.
If only I could of seen where things would go just from trying to be helpful :| Now i'm the head of a revolution
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09-13-12, 08:11 AM   #7
Othgar
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Originally Posted by Rythal View Post
If only I could of seen where things would go just from trying to be helpful :| Now i'm the head of a revolution
Great men never choose to be great, instead greatness is thrust upon them, and they become great by choosing to do the right things with that greatness.
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09-13-12, 09:38 PM   #8
schizophrena
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Might as well post here as well. :-) I could care less if Carbonite keeps its featured Addon title. But in terms of stirring the roost - I have to ask a couple of questions. Is there a more active forum right now than Carbonite? Has any other 5 (10, 20, or even 50) addons combined created the amount of new registered users that Carbonite has in the past month for WI?

Now, that has to do something for WI .

Do I think those should be the reasons Carbonite is a FA, no... but it is an amusing thought.
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09-14-12, 06:34 AM   #9
Phanx
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Originally Posted by schizophrena View Post
But in terms of stirring the roost - I have to ask a couple of questions. Is there a more active forum right now than Carbonite? Has any other 5 (10, 20, or even 50) addons combined created the amount of new registered users that Carbonite has in the past month for WI?
There are lots of reasons why addons get featured. Popularity is one of them. When Carbonite got its featured status, it was hugely popular and actively developed. Featured addons get their own forums, and this benefits everyone -- people who use the addon have a dedicated area for getting help, and people who don't use it don't have to wade through piles of useless threads for things they don't care about.

However, even if Carbonite wasn't featured and didn't have its own forums, it's still hosted on WoWI, and people are still going to come here to download it, get help with it, and talk about it. Making it a featured project doesn't magically increase traffic. It just improves how the traffic gets routed.
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09-14-12, 09:18 PM   #10
Rythal
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Originally Posted by schizophrena View Post
But in terms of stirring the roost - I have to ask a couple of questions. Is there a more active forum right now than Carbonite? Has any other 5 (10, 20, or even 50) addons combined created the amount of new registered users that Carbonite has in the past month for WI?
kinda wishy-washy on this one... yes, carbonite brought in a lot of new users in the last month... yes it's one of the more active forums in the last month, but was it a good thing? is it something to point out? 90% of it (guestimate) was due to myself not the real developers before the sept 10th v5 release, people signing up to thank, or to ask questions about it since here was the only place to find the link. After the patch the majority of it is people looking to express anger, or ask where to get my no longer supplied version, so traffic was generated by controversy not the addon itself.

Tho you could say the controversy is the addon so it is all related.
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09-16-12, 03:58 PM   #11
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Ok, not that i'm trying to stir things, or really question how/why things are done.... but I do find myself extremely curious of the fact WI features an addon that so blatently breaks the blizzard ToS for addons... I never realized until just now that code obfuscation was not permitted, nor is hidden code and carbonite contains both.
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09-16-12, 04:00 PM   #12
Dolby
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We have great communication with blizzard (being an official fan site) and this was cleared with them before we even allowed the addon on the site.

I'm sure Cairenn can go into more detail as she was more involved.

Last edited by Dolby : 09-16-12 at 04:05 PM.
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09-16-12, 04:07 PM   #13
Vlad
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The code isn't strictly obfuscated like it was though, it's only hard to read because of weird variable names, and that's sadly not breaking any ToS, hehe.

*Edit* Well, when I think about it, obfuscation in short "making things hard to understand" and that still stands, but is it enough to do anything about it? What can WI administrators do? :P
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09-16-12, 04:09 PM   #14
Dolby
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Yeah looking at the code again now. It's not using any obfuscation. I know when it was a paid for addon it did use it and it wasn't readable at all, right now it is readable but just difficult to follow. What they are doing now is allowed by Blizzard.

Last edited by Dolby : 09-16-12 at 04:12 PM.
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09-16-12, 04:13 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Dolby View Post
Yeah looking at the code again now. It's not using any obfuscation. I know when it was a paid for addon it did use it. What they are doing now is allowed by Blizzard.
popcapgames used the same method of running the source through luasrcdiet to make it near impossible to read, and they had to send each version to blizzard unobfuscated to verify the code was not doing anything bad (or so popcap claimed at the time). Plus if you look at the questing variables it's clearly encoded and unreadable.
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09-16-12, 04:21 PM   #16
Vlad
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Originally Posted by Rythal View Post
Plus if you look at the questing variables it's clearly encoded and unreadable.
I am not sure why, but I think they try to compress the filesize by doing that, again it's kind of unnecessary.
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09-16-12, 04:31 PM   #17
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We'll have a talk with the Blizzard UI dev team again about it incase their stance has changed. I just know it was approved by them in the past.
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