WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users

[Tekkub]

ACe's forum has the single case where someone (who admitted they were) from WM talked to the community. When they were asked to remove addons, their reply was "why?", when they were asked to stop scraping ace, they stopped replying.

I'm still trying to find the goddamn thread, ugh, shoulda bookmarked it.

[voodoodad]

Was I insulting, and if so, in what post?

[silentdabeast]

Originally Posted by Tekkub I've not been paying close attention to the others, but I'm not throwing out any insults, and you really haven't been either. You've presented your arguments for WM, and I've rebutted (huh huh butt) with my reason why I disagree. Can you give us hard numbers of their users and the addons which were NOT added to their hosting because they were GPL or similar? They've been scraping (literally) for every last addon they can add, but how many AUTHORS have they won over? If you want to read the little bit they said on ace, the links are on the second page of this here thread we're in: http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...2&postcount=51 *edit* wait I don't think that's the right thread... ugh.

No I can't I was looking on the net to see if I could find a stat on hits, but...

As far as addons/authors....I will say that there are well over a thousand addons, MANY of which I have used or am using (bagnon, omen, etc.). Keep in mind though, there were many authors who supported and used WM themselves, and continue to do so. WM still pulls a few addons from 3rd parties, but not many, most are hosted on their servers.

I'm reading the Wowace thing as I type.

[Tekkub]

Ah found it... http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix

The post here with all the links is http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...&postcount=833

[silentdabeast]

Just wanted to say that the user on wowace named "Torhal" need a hair cut...back to my reading...

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Cairenn (emphasis mine, so you understand what I'm replying to) They weren't ignorant of it at all. From our site: http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ight=wowmatrix http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ight=wowmatrix http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ight=wowmatrix http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ight=wowmatrix http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ight=wowmatrix From WowAce: http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....ight=wowmatrix You'll notice that there are posts going back to Oct '07. You'll notice that there were actual WowMatrix people involved in the discussions. If you keep going through the searches on either site using "WowMatrix" as the key-word, you'll see that we've been warning users for ages that they were going to get cut off sooner or later. They never tried to become legit until after we slammed the door on them. And where are they getting the money to become legit with? Oh right, all the ads they served up both on their site and on their updater, while using our resources to serve the files. And even now, they are only doing the bare minimum that they are being forced to do, as has been shown over and over by individual authors, etc. /edit I'm not mad at anyone here except WowMatrix, and those that now know the truth but still don't give a flying **** because it's "convenient for me".

Originally Posted by Cairenn < snip > The “official” arguments you are saying we made up to make ourselves sound better aren’t made up at all. They are factual statements. Yes, we are helping to protect authors. Their copyright and intellectual property rights, not to mention their wishes, were/are being ignored. Yes, we are helping to protect users. What if we had had to shut down because trying to pay the bills that WowMatrix was racking up without the offsetting remuneration? As far as WowMatrix users would be concerned, it would have the same end result. They wouldn’t be able to get the mods that WM was getting from here. As far as anyone that comes to the site would be concerned, it wouldn’t be the same end result at all. They wouldn’t be able to come here because we were shut down. And for that matter, it actually protects the WM users as well, since they do still have the option of coming here as well. How is us protecting our resources so that we stay open not protecting users? The difference in bandwidth usage between using WM versus using our own sites’ updaters is also very real. Using our own, we are still getting the remuneration necessary to pay for the resources. Using WM, we aren’t. < snip > We have said over and over and over again that we agree that from an end user’s perspective, the way WM worked was (mostly) nice. We haven’t disputed it yet. (I say mostly because there were/are things it is doing that actually aren’t to the user’s benefit, whether they are aware of it or not. It’s been posted about enough already, I’m not going to repeat it unless specifically asked to). < snip > If you would like another interesting read, I would point you to this post and the one immediately following it (it’s a continuation). Hopefully you can read code a bit. Please note, I did not ask them to do it and I’m not commenting one way or another on whether they should have or not. But since they did … have a read. [Edit] Also this post and the one immediately following it. Thanks for pointing them out, thevoices, I'd forgotten that there was more in that thread. < snip > Had they come to us originally, I’m sure something could have been worked out. In fact, and while most people probably won’t remember this it was so long ago, we did actually work with another site once on something very similar. This other site came to us, said they had an updater, and wondered if we would be willing to let them show mods that were hosted on our site. What we did was put an option in for authors to decide whether they wanted to allow this other updater to show their mod or not. It was a simple check box the author saw whenever they updated their mod on our site and allowed the authors to decide “yes” or “no”, thus leaving the proper control of who they wanted distributing their mods completely in their hands. Had we not be willing to try to work something out with them, why would we have bothered trying to get in touch with them? I say attempted, because they never, not once, responded to our attempts to talk to them. We were good enough for them to use our resources, but not good enough for them to talk to us. The only site they ever spoke to was Curse. The results of those conversations have been alluded to, but I can’t say for sure exactly what was said on either side, we weren’t included in the conversation. You’ll have to talk to Curse and WM directly about that. But, they didn’t once speak to us, even though we tried to initate the conversation. You say you are talking to them? Congrats, I’m pleased for you that you are important enough in their eyes that they are willing to respond to you. If you are willing, would you mind asking them some questions for us? 1) Why didn’t they ever respond to us? 2) Why haven’t they publicly responded to any of this over the last two weeks? You see the rest of us repeatedly responding publicly, where are they? 3) Why don’t they have forums so there can be meaningful conversation between their users, us, authors, whoever and them? 4) They say they are trying to go legit now. Oh really? a. Then why are they now scraping wowui.incgamers, amongst other places? b. They say they aren’t hosting any mods any more unless they are GPL’d (or similar). Then why do I know of more than one author who has had to send their host (ThePlanet.com) a DMCA take-down request before they will remove those authors’ mods? c. They claim that they are serving their users the latest versions of mods. Then how can they explain the code I pointed out in the link on the Blizz forum? Equally, how can they claim that when they are hosting mods that are proven out-of-date? (The answer to the second part of that, btw, is because they know they can’t host the updated versions, because the authors have gone in and removed their GPL (or similar), thus they aren’t actually allowed to host the most recent and will get DMCA’d if they try). 5) They say they are trying to go legit now. I say again, "Oh really?" Where are the offers to redress the wrongs? I haven’t heard of them offering to compensate anyone for the costs they have incurred. No authors are being offered any sort of redress for the hours upon hours upon hours of “bugs” they’ve had to “fix” that weren’t actually there because they had fixed them but WM was serving up outdated versions. I sure haven’t heard of them offering to pay us back for all the resources of ours that they used without proper remuneration. I haven’t heard of them offering it to Curse. Hell, I haven’t even heard an apology. 6) They say they are trying to go legit now. Again with the “Oh really? If they are trying to go legit and become respectable, responsible members of the community then why are they lying? From their updater, when trying to update a mod that is only hosted on WoWI or Curse: http://s.wowinterface.com/storage/ne.../wm-notice.png (You can also find that image somewhere on the Blizz forums in one of the many threads about it, that's where I actually got the image from). Notice how it says that we put this block in place on the day of the patch? We didn’t, we put it in place the day before and posted about it when we did. Notice how it doesn’t point out all the other blocks we have tried in the past that they deliberately figured out how to circumvent? Notice how it says they respect us? Yeah ….. that’s why we’re at this point in the first place, because of all of the respect they’ve shown us. 7) Darnit, there was a 7, I don’t remember what it was now, will have to edit the post when I do.

You say you want me to post the attempts we made to contact them. To what point? The minute I do, you'll say it's a spoofed up email that never actually existed. So why bother?

[silentdabeast]

I read all of

http://forums.wowace.com/showthread....wmatrix&page=1

and nothing bad or questionable seemed to be going on. The person named "carrie" from wowmatrix was answering everyone questions and abiding by their requests. I believe I read this back in 08 when WM first came out (I used to use wowace's ui to get addons cause it was so cool, but when WM came out I stopped).

There were a few people asking about bandwidth issues, and the WM person said that they take very little. I would be interested in knowing, also, just HOW MUCH bandwidth WM was using, vs. how much was being used from site visitors.

[Tekkub]

You should note that the user originally posted as "ocean" then sometime later renamed to "carrie18", so quotes don't match up. I'm trying to figure out if ace's forum shows when a post was edited, because I distinctly remember their initial reply to Clad was one word, "why?", but after he explained they gave in and removed them.

[voodoodad]

Just wanted to say that the user on wowace named "Torhal" need a hair cut

Wow, you really need to put in a few hours in Insults 101, or you're never gonna graduate on time!

[Verissi]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I 'may' be able to, with regard to WM, but that will depend on what I can and cannot do, and on what additional info they are willing to share. But right now at this moment, the only reason people are supporting WoWI is because of...faith.

You know what, I'm tired of seeing people say they have "proof, but am waiting for permission". You're not the first one to say this and I'm sure you won't be the last. I applaud your ethics, but if you can't show your proof, then don't throw it around like stating that it exists is going to somehow change minds. As my mother used to say, "put up or shut up". Frankly, neither side has to prove anything to anyone since it's not going to solve anything. People will always choose who to support/believe even in the face of undeniable proof...as has been proven time and time again throughout history in matters much more important than this.

As for faith, you're misinformed in at least my case. The reason that I've chosen to "side" with WoWInterface in this is simply their track record. I don't have to believe them (I do, but that's beside the point) to know that the community and tools they provide to me, an author, are valuable to me. Compare that to WM...and what have they done exactly for me or any other author out there? I'm sure some don't care and choose to distribute through them...more power to them, that's their choice, but it isn't mine. Fortunately, the one addon that I've chosen to distribute here is not widely used so most end-users wouldn't care, but if they did, oh well.

There are more rewards for authors at sites like WoWInterface and Curse that have nothing to do with money. I don't get why so many people seem to think that this isn't true. Revision control, bug tracking systems, easier means to "release" new versions, forums, and places to receive feedback and get help from others are intangibles that make life easier on authors who are already doing this work for no compensation. Anything they can do to save some "maintenance" time means more time that they can do other things. WM has done nothing to "woo" authors over to host with them, nor provided much in the way of convenience. Add that on top of their past history of being parasitic of both sites like WoWI/Curse/WoWAce and the authors' works, I don't need faith to know which people I want to stand with.

Side note: People from Atlantis killed JFK. Also, if you look very closely at the footage of the assassination, you'll see a blurry figure behind the crowds that resembles Bigfoot. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

[silentdabeast]

I'll only say this didn't exist IF they didn't/don't exist. If they DO exist, then you have just won a new and converted WowI supporter (perhaps financially, we'll see).

Look, I can write addons, so why should I really care? I guess it's because of the principle of the matter. Like I said a long time ago, I'll go to where ever the best and most convenient service (and cheapest) is offered. WM had it since 07, and they still do. If Minion can be as good or better (which I am pretty sure it could be with a little more work), then I'll go there.

A month ago minion was just a thought being tossed around. When I finally used it, I at least saw its potential, in spite of the ad.

No one has answered me this though: If WM can do with small less conspicuous ads, why can't minion?

[silentdabeast]

Originally Posted by Verissi You know what, I'm tired of seeing people say they have "proof, but am waiting for permission". You're not the first one to say this and I'm sure you won't be the last. I applaud your ethics, but if you can't show your proof, then don't throw it around like stating that it exists is going to somehow change minds. As my mother used to say, "put up or shut up". Frankly, neither side has to prove anything to anyone since it's not going to solve anything. People will always choose who to support/believe even in the face of undeniable proof...as has been proven time and time again throughout history in matters much more important than this. As for faith, you're misinformed in at least my case. The reason that I've chosen to "side" with WoWInterface in this is simply their track record. I don't have to believe them (I do, but that's beside the point) to know that the community and tools they provide to me, an author, are valuable to me. Compare that to WM...and what have they done exactly for me or any other author out there? I'm sure some don't care and choose to distribute through them...more power to them, that's their choice, but it isn't mine. Fortunately, the one addon that I've chosen to distribute here is not widely used so most end-users wouldn't care, but if they did, oh well. There are more rewards for authors at sites like WoWInterface and Curse that have nothing to do with money. I don't get why so many people seem to think that this isn't true. Revision control, bug tracking systems, easier means to "release" new versions, forums, and places to receive feedback and get help from others are intangibles that make life easier on authors who are already doing this work for no compensation. Anything they can do to save some "maintenance" time means more time that they can do other things. WM has done nothing to "woo" authors over to host with them, nor provided much in the way of convenience. Add that on top of their past history of being parasitic of both sites like WoWI/Curse/WoWAce and the authors' works, I don't need faith to know which people I want to stand with. Side note: People from Atlantis killed JFK. Also, if you look very closely at the footage of the assassination, you'll see a blurry figure behind the crowds that resembles Bigfoot. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

But see I'm not coming at this from the author's position. I'm coming at this from an enduser's position. I mean, what's the point of having a kitchen with a bunch of cooks who all like the kitchen, but with no one to eat the food? You can say "the food is for the other cooks", but then what's the point of a publicly accessible site? No one opens a restaurant and says "this restaurant is only for the staff and cooks." You open it for customers, and you cook because, hopefully, you love to cook.


IT WAS NOT BIGFOOT! How dare you throw that lie out to try and deceive!

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast There were a few people asking about bandwidth issues, and the WM person said that they take very little. I would be interested in knowing, also, just HOW MUCH bandwidth WM was using, vs. how much was being used from site visitors.

On 3.1's release, WoWI's bandwidth dropped I believe it was 50%. At that point, WM was still hammering addon pages to try to scrape the version number, but it could not do that here, nor could it download the zip files.

Another side of the story you may be missing is what WM did in the time between the block and their "FAQ" announcement. With their two primary sources out of the picture, they turned on the smaller author-hosted sites. Their client racked up ~$450 worth of bandwidth for Auctioneer in the matter of a few days. The auc guys made a change so that WM wouldn't download from them, and WM circumvented their change. You can see Auc's announcement here: http://forums.norganna.org/discussio...raffic/#Item_0

As for me, they started scraping my addons off of GitHub. They never contacted me or GitHub (I work for them, so I would have known). I "poisoned" the downloads there in a way that would only effect WM users, and within an hour WM disable that scraper. But they left the code in place so that they could see the moment I removed the bad versions.

So, when they turned around and started saying they "respect the decision to block them even if they disagree", especially considering what they did to Auc AFTER the big block, many of us here don't trust what they say on that simple point alone.

[silentdabeast]

Originally Posted by voodoodad Wow, you really need to put in a few hours in Insults 101, or you're never gonna graduate on time!

I was actually serious...he's gonna trip on that!

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast No one has answered me this though: If WM can do with small less conspicuous ads, why can't minion?

I thought someone had hit on this, but it's actually fairly obvious.

WoWMatrix did not have to cover bandwidth costs of hosting addons, Minion does.

Even now, while WoWmatrix hosts some addons, most are pulled from other sites which are not blocking them, such as http://wowui.incgamers.com/.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast No one has answered me this though: If WM can do with small less conspicuous ads, why can't minion?

As I said, up until recently they did not have to foot the bill for the majority of the bandwidth their client was using. Now that they do (they still scrape other sites, BTW), they may not be well in the black. But if they were "raking it in" it may take them a while to burn through that money before they truly feel the cost of the bandwidth they're using. Either way it'll certainly take some time before they're realizing the full cost their software incurs.

[Shirik]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast No one has answered me this though: If WM can do with small less conspicuous ads, why can't minion?

This question has already been answered millions of times, you just refuse to accept the answer.

If you haven't gotten it by now, there is no hope in me explaining it to you anyway.

EDIT: Tekkub, you suck :P
EDIT2: Vyper, you too

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I was actually serious...he's gonna trip on that!

That's not helping...

Jeez, at least come up with a "Rapunzel called..." comment or something for god's sake! You gotta get your GPA back up, I'm tellin ya!

[silentdabeast]

Originally Posted by Tekkub On 3.1's release, WoWI's bandwidth dropped I believe it was 50%. At that point, WM was still hammering addon pages to try to scrape the version number, but it could not do that here, nor could it download the zip files. Another side of the story you may be missing is what WM did in the time between the block and their "FAQ" announcement. With their two primary sources out of the picture, they turned on the smaller author-hosted sites. Their client racked up ~$450 worth of bandwidth for Auctioneer in the matter of a few days. The auc guys made a change so that WM wouldn't download from them, and WM circumvented their change. You can see Auc's announcement here: http://forums.norganna.org/discussio...raffic/#Item_0 As for me, they started scraping my addons off of GitHub. They never contacted me or GitHub (I work for them, so I would have known). I "poisoned" the downloads there in a way that would only effect WM users, and within an hour WM disable that scraper. But they left the code in place so that they could see the moment I removed the bad versions. So, when they turned around and started saying they "respect the decision to block them even if they disagree", especially considering what they did to Auc AFTER the big block, many of us here don't trust what they say on that simple point alone.

Ok...I don't know why, but the whole thing about auctioneer pretty much hit me hard...I'm not even asking for proof on that one. If I had the 450 I'd pay them back (not that I use auctioneer, but as a grad student, i know what 450 bucks is).

I'm not throwing WM out, but you've given me good reason to once a stable final or RC version of Minion shows up...I REALLY don't want to put up with that ad - and I'm not paying to get it removed...if I endorsed hacking I'd take the ad out myself (I don't do stuff like that).

I suppose if, after reading the auctioneer site's post, I grow to hate WM, I can just put my hand over the ad.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Shirik If you haven't gotten it by now, there is no hope in me explaining it to you anyway.

Great, now I have this image in my head of my ex-girlfriend waggling her finger at me saying

Originally Posted by Vyper's Ex If you don't know why I'm mad I'm certainly not going to tell you