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

[Rhaethe]

As an aside, I can sympathize with those who feel the need to do daily updates (even though I do not do so myself). I'm strongly in the realm of "if its not broke, don't fix it". Even to the extent of me not upgrading the OS on my machine to XP from 2000 until mid last year. And I'd probably not have if a particular game didn't require XP and above.

That being said, I spend a lot of time browsing the interwebs for a variety of things technical, just reading help forums and whatnot. I was also in a Tech Support job for a good piece of time.

And a lot of the time, if not most of the time, the advice given by the tech-savvy to the non-tech-savvy is "Keep your stuff updated." Adding caveats and situationals is not helpful. The non-tech-savvy just want their things to work. They don't wish to deal with something broken, so at least they practice what is considered by many to be good preventative maintenance ... by updating whenever a given update is available.

They use the maxim drilled into them for as long as they've owned a computer ... "Keep stuff updated or it will break eventually. And sometimes in a bad way." A maxim drilled into them by Microsoft, driver companies, other people on the Interwebs, etc etc ad infinitum.

So many times I have seen the following in Tech Support forums:

User: This isn't working anymore
Response: Make sure you're using latest version, then come back

Or variations along the same. Sometimes polite, sometimes not so much.

I know for a fact that on certain forums, if I happen to mention that I'm not using the latest and greatest NVidia drivers (even though I have no reason to ... the ones I have work just fine) I'll get branded as newb/scrub/dumb. I'm still not on the mutli-core platform. My single core works just fine. In certain places on the interwebs that is heresy. In the gaming demographics this behaviour is particularly prevelant ... having the latest and greatest and being cutting edge "is the only way to be".

In the end, you have masses of people conditioned by our own culture to be obssessive about making sure they have the latest version of everything.

Not saying it's right. Or wrong. It is what it is.

Of course, if only said people would have that attitude when it comes to updating IE, I'd be happier. I just want IE6 to die. Horribly. Forever. Of course, I'm only saying this because this morning I'm having to fix page code that works in every other browser *but* IE6. Again.

But I digress.

[ihartsnape]

As someone who formerly used WoWMatrix and truly did not know what WoWMatrix was doing, I thank you for educating me about it. I am now proudly getting my addons from their proper sources and know I'm supporting the addon authors and their web sites as I should be. Thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this site and the hard work from the addon authors that literally makes my game bearable.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Rhaethe And a lot of the time, if not most of the time, the advice given by the tech-savvy to the non-tech-savvy is "Keep your stuff updated." Adding caveats and situationals is not helpful. The non-tech-savvy just want their things to work. They don't wish to deal with something broken, so at least they practice what is considered by many to be good preventative maintenance ... by updating whenever a given update is available.

Updates are generally good one the updates to the software brings vital bug fixes , improvements and enchancements. That's a given.

But here's the thing here Rhaethe.

We aren't talking here of Outlook or Word or any video drivers or anything.

We're talking about addons that if there is something wrong with them it usually doesn't have any adverse effects on your gameplay. It may give you a big red error. It may not work correctly. It may even bug out by spamming guild chat. Nothing that has any lasting harm on any of your characters (not that I've heard of).

You work in Tech support correct ? People usually only come to you when somethings wrong right ? So before you even find out what the problem is you know something is wrong.

My point was that if absolutely nothing is wrong with your UI you should not need to update.

User downloads an addon to move their tooltip onto their mouse. After a patch they login with that addon enabled (and the L.O.D.A. option). It still works for them. It does everything they want it to do and lives in around 4k of memory.

Through out subsequent patchs it still works , just needs a TOC bump after a little bit of user testing. And it still works fine. BTW the addon is one I'm current;y using right now. Tool tip on mouse. Hasn't received a major author update since sometime in 2006.

So yes If the addon is broken in some ways a very important diagnostic step is Updating that addon. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you *must* update every day. Don't fix what ain't broken

[thevoices]

Ok I have lurked through this thread......

At first when I accessed this thread I was upset! angry! Hulk smash... then within the first half of the first page I understood it was like an epiphany.

I too was hooked, there were many times I wouldnt play... but I ran wm to make sure my whistle was clean! oh it was good times living high enjoying the rush of updating 185 addons "sadly that includes the multipacks" ie auc, dbm, atlas, alphamap... you get the idea. But it would take a few minutes and lo there always seemed to be an update... But I noticed something the nothing was ever out of date... or even showed as dependancy failed... and even stranger these stupid lua errors with prat, and a few others... I was like cant these guys who are doing this as a hobby get it right the nerve of them giving something out for free and making it buggy!

Welp fast forward to now I have weaned myself off WM, i used it initially to find the individual pages for the addons, ... then I tried curse's client as well as wowi's and yes they arent perfect but as i see it now neither was WM with its TOC changes...well short story long, I have started pruning down the addons, found quite a few that either dont work or dont need. For instance the base cosmosui stuff. I have to admit though curse did some strange stuff initially... though it could be it trying to clean up wm ... it detected that I had titan installed which i hadnt... but I kinda like it... I'll get a count of how many addons 215 with titan... which again isnt accurate. Wish blizzard allowed items to work through nested ie xperl/ and auc and its massive suite..


Oh well I digress I just wanted to say thanks to the authors and admins for helping me through rehab and showing me the light of day.


PS yes it took hours to update the addons but hey its all good.


PPS I hope none take offence for my sarcasm.... about buggy code... It was really my issue and WM jacking the toc's... oh and btw since doing it this way i have cleared out my lua errors.

Now for those that want nana's

[Rhaethe]

Originally Posted by honem Updates are generally good one the updates to the software brings vital bug fixes , improvements and enchancements. That's a given. But here's the thing here Rhaethe. We aren't talking here of Outlook or Word or any video drivers or anything. We're talking about addons that if there is something wrong with them it usually doesn't have any adverse effects on your gameplay. It may give you a big red error. It may not work correctly. It may even bug out by spamming guild chat. Nothing that has any lasting harm on any of your characters (not that I've heard of).

Oh, I'd agree. However, I was referring more to how I imagine the behaviour of the non-tech-savvy came to be. To the non-tech-savvy, software is software and computer stuff is computer stuff ... it's all "stuff" and you should always keep your stuff updated because Those Who Know Say So.

You work in Tech support correct ? People usually only come to you when somethings wrong right ? So before you even find out what the problem is you know something is wrong. My point was that if absolutely nothing is wrong with your UI you should not need to update. So yes If the addon is broken in some ways a very important diagnostic step is Updating that addon. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you *must* update every day. Don't fix what ain't broken

My stint in Support is some years past, actually. I've went on to other things, but, I do see what you're saying. However, my point was that for many non-technical users out there, they have been conditioned to "keep their stuff updated" to prevent having to go to Support to begin with. To prevent it breaking. Tech savvy people say that "things" will keep running if they are updated regularly. It's conditioning.

It's also human nature to a certain degree. I've known quite a few brilliant people with excellent minds capable of deductive reasoning that simply freeze like a rabbit and start speaking in monotone gibberish when presented with the concept of computer /application repair. IT professionals, especially at the beginning of the IT Age reinforced the mystery and woojoo of All Things Computing. Over time, as IT and computing becomes more and more and more accessible, this may eventually fade out of our culture.

I, and others, take the stance of, "No touchie until it breaks." If it does indeed break, we then are confident of our ability to get it fixed either by updating, or doing some troubleshooting, etc. Oft times, this stance is born of the horrible experiences of updating something that didn't need it, and then it not only breaking horribly, but it also breaking other things horribly.

The other camp of folks don't even want to get to the "broken" stage, however. The concept of something broken is scary (and I don't say this in a derogatory way at all), and the only way given to them to prevent such that is easy to understand and grasp onto is ... regular updating.

One stance is reactive, the other proactive. Neither is wrong. Neither is right. They are differing viewpoints conditioned from our personal experiences. Some times, as evidenced here, they clash and one side doesn't see how the other can function.

I wasn't attempting, in my post, to argue that either side is right or wrong ... merely discuss on how I think both attitudes came to be.

[gelukelu]

Originally Posted by honem Really should read more of this thread my friend before posting my friend ... . But we don't like to personally attack people here so I'm going to be nice. I believe I am the guy you are talking about. I do update my 89 or so addons by hand. The method I use is in my sig. And you know what ? After removing minor updates , tagging updates and localisation changes I am really only downloading updates for my mods at the rate of 4 a week. Even that's too much.

You are right sir, we should be nice. I feel bad now that my post offended you. I admit half of my post was a-la-carte trolling.

Curse and WoWI have all the rights to shut down WowMatrix access to their website. I just got extremely pissed off by the "official" arguments they come up with: to help end-users and protect the authors, stop the bandwith theft, etc. We all know why they did it, we don't need to be insulted and treated as retards.

I read your update addon plan and you know what? you are right! I don't need to update twice-a-week. Hell, I guess I don't even need half of my addons, I only kept 19 of them. 5 of them are also hosted on googlecode so I'll update from there to help curse and wowui save some bandwith (me trolling again )

Cheers

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by gelukelu You are right sir, we should be nice. I feel bad now that my post offended you. I admit half of my post was a-la-carte trolling.

Oh you didn't insult or offend me in any way. I've read a lot of posts on this over the last 2 weeks and believe me I've seen worse. Much much worse. I'm just suprised that guy Sarge? i think his name is from wow ace hasn't posted anything on this. That guy could tear strips off a drill sergant (kidding just kidding )

Originally Posted by gelukelu I read your update addon plan and you know what? you are right!

I keep telling people it doesn't take me that long to do. They don't believe me

Its like this : it turns updating your addons from a chore to yet another mailbox to clear. For me it's an excuse to go a bit slow , make myself a killer cup of Jo and have a bagel while I leisurely sort through them. I'm a dab hand what with the find function in mail and tabbed browser so it really doesn't take me that long. I usaully do an AH scan at the same time so I can efficiently use my idle time in wow while I do this.

PS Yes mr Nui author. 1 cup of Jo. 1 Cup of bagel.

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by gelukelu You are right sir, we should be nice. I feel bad now that my post offended you. I admit half of my post was a-la-carte trolling.

Incidentally, when I first saw that WM was getting kicked to the curb by what I inferred to be bigger, meaner bullies on the playground, my knee-jerk reaction was to hunt down these bullies and troll the h*ll out of their forums. Gods be praised for the rational thought that there are two sides to every story (in this case, three actually). I did some research, and the need to ravenously troll began to wane. I'm in the process of organizing a blog about the incident. (I have some really juicy statements from WoWI, Curse, and WM, and I look forward to presenting them. No worries, Cairenn. You have represented this site well, and you should look forward to my blog without apprehension. ~_^) Most of my need to troll is gone at this point, though not entirely.

Originally Posted by gelukelu Curse and WoWI have all the rights to shut down WowMatrix access to their website. I just got extremely pissed off by the "official" arguments they come up with: to help end-users and protect the authors, stop the bandwith theft, etc. We all know why they did it, we don't need to be insulted and treated as retards.

You hand me a glorious segway to my next point. I would not doubt that at the heart of WoWI's intentions is the need to protect authors and limit bandwidth. If Cairenn is any representation of the site (and I believe she is), WoWI isn't so concerned with eliminating any perceived competition. Without spending too much time on negativity, much of the feel I get from Curse is something entirely different, and in their case, I'm greatly inclined to agree with you that they don't need to be wearing the mask of good intentions. It is for them that I have let loose my troll. It is likely not necessary, and it is far less likely to have any kind of impact on the situation positively or negatively, but from what I've seen on Curse, it'll satiate my need for personal justice.

Originally Posted by gelukelu Hell, I guess I don't even need half of my addons, I only kept 19 of them. 5 of them are also hosted on googlecode so I'll update from there to help curse and wowui save some bandwith (me trolling again )

I do need all 3,127.6 (not really; I have 13 or 41 if you count the individual modules of things like FuBar, Cartographer, or CT) of my add-ons. The game is so much better when I can organize my screen in such a way that I can see everything at a glance. I was concerned that this change was going to keep me out of my ability to update my mods every day as every novice compy-user should (/poke Raethe). I don't think it will. When you decide to let go of your need to challenge the fidelity of CC's and WI's statements about bandwidth, feel free to take a look at WI's mod manager when they get it out. If the expectations I feel I've been given are accurate, it'll be just as efficient as WM, and 20x more legal. :P

I think your GoogleCode troll-line makes a good point, though, and I can't ignore it. I think some of the mod authors (I love you, authors, so please don't misunderstand my statement for hate; I know it isn't all of you who are behaving this way) have gotten a little elitist in their attitudes about Curse and WoWI. If I were a mod developer, and I produced an open-source piece of software for everyone to use, I wouldn't really care how someone got a hold of it. It's open source. Isn't that kind of the point? With that said, I can also see why they would want to offer WoWI and Curse some kind of exclusivity. As it has already been stated in this thread, both sites offer amazing developer tools that aren't available anywhere else. As a developer, at that point, I would be more than happy to point people back to those sites as often as possible. I wouldn't mind, however, making my mod available to WoWMatrix directly so they could host my code themselves without having to suck bandwidth from other sites. I know WoWMatrix has done things to alienate a lot of developers, so I guess I can see it from all sides.

There's a lot to be considered, and hopefully, you'll make the most effective and stress free decision to enhance your gameplay. After all, I think the thing we've most forgotten in the midst of all this is that it's just a game. Who decided to trade in the fun for politics?

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by gelukelu Curse and WoWI have all the rights to shut down WowMatrix access to their website. I just got extremely pissed off by the "official" arguments they come up with: to help end-users and protect the authors, stop the bandwith theft, etc. We all know why they did it, we don't need to be insulted and treated as retards.

We all know and understand it's about the money. The bandwidth theft (or "unauthorized use" if you don't want to call it theft) was something the sites could not handle monetarily. No one here is denying that it's about ad money. People are just trying to make it out like they're just out to make their profit margins bigger, which isn't the case.

And if you do read this thread, you'll find that the authors are behind WoWI on this. We've been trying to get our stuff taken off WM just as WoWI has. The ones (one?) that want their stuff on WM have already taken the steps needed with WM. The simple fact of the matter is that WM just took it upon themselves to add content, instead of seeking permission. I'd bet you a year of WoW that if, way back in the beginning, they had come to the sites and advertised their product and ASKED the authors to submit their addons for distribution through it, many authors would have given them their addons. Same goes for the sites, had they come to WoWI and Curse and asked for permission to redistribute, both sites would have worked with authors, likely via a simple "publish my addon to WoWMatrix" checkbox on submission. The point being, WM never did seek permission, and they still don't. They just leech addons from any source they can find and hope that the owners of those sites don't notice.

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Tekkub The point being, WM never did seek permission, and they still don't. They just leech addons from any source they can find and hope that the owners of those sites don't notice.

That isn't wholely true. That may have been some of their practice early on when they were ignorant of how much their actions were angering their posterity, but that isn't how they've behaved most recently. Their behavior early on gave them a bad rap, and after they couldn't get anything legitimately even though they were trying, their response in some fashion was, "Well, we've been getting by as is, so why change it now? It isn't like we have much of a choice. No one's going to let us do this legitimately now." So, now it's been changed for them, and they can't do it either way.

Really, we're caught in a bad catch 22: if WM would be willing to behave themselves, everyone would be more likely to invite them to the playground; if everyone would invite WM to the playground, WM would quit misbehaving. I think there should be accountability on both sides to work out a compromise. Unfortunately, it looks like this situation has progressed way beyond that, and we're really just experiencing the fall-out at this point. Too many toes have been stepped on, and nobody wants to play nice anymore.

[Bouvi]

The only beef I really have is the use of bandwidth simply because I would hate it if WoWi shut down. That is my bottom line.

I can see other authors issues with them serving old versions and having to deal with the support or the fact they use WoWi as an exclusive area to keep everything in one place. But my main concern was losing a valuable resource. WoWi is way more than an addon store to me.

Member since June 2005 and darn proud of it.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 I think some of the mod authors (I love you, authors, so please don't misunderstand my statement for hate; I know it isn't all of you who are behaving this way) have gotten a little elitist in their attitudes about Curse and WoWI. If I were a mod developer, and I produced an open-source piece of software for everyone to use, I wouldn't really care how someone got a hold of it. It's open source. Isn't that kind of the point?

I'll try to be quick us2006027321 as I've come to the end of a 11.30pm to 8am shift. So be aware I may not be able to respond for a while I must sleep.

Thing is most addons you see in use today are not open source. They all have specific licenses they use. Open source software has to adhere certain conditions for distribution and use. Just because you can read the code doesn't mean that code is open source. Have a read of http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php its very enlighting.

You say "if I was an author". That's the thing. If you were an author you should have the right to say how you want it distributed. If it's an open source license that's fine. If it's a GPL license that's fine . After all it would be your creation therefore you get to say what license you put it on it.

As for the "elitist" attitude it think could stem from the recent discussions about the UI policy. We often forget that the addon authors work pretty hard on developing and updating our addons and spend a lot of their free time doing this. I won't point fingers or paint anyone with any particular brush as I want this discussion to stay reasonable here. It's just that a lot of posters here still have the bad memory of the discussions about the UI policy and they like "Oh great here we go again". I don't think it's anything personal they just a little tired of answering the same questions to the same sort of users again again.

Anyways I look forward to your response when I wake up

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 That isn't wholely true. That may have been some of their practice early on when they were ignorant of how much their actions were angering their posterity, but that isn't how they've behaved most recently. Their behavior early on gave them a bad rap, and after they couldn't get anything legitimately even though they were trying, their response in some fashion was, "Well, we've been getting by as is, so why change it now? It isn't like we have much of a choice. No one's going to let us do this legitimately now." So, now it's been changed for them, and they can't do it either way.

(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".

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 That isn't wholely true. That may have been some of their practice early on when they were ignorant of how much their actions were angering their posterity, but that isn't how they've behaved most recently.

It most certainly is. After the WoWI/Curse thing my addons were not available (as those are the only places I push releases). Earlier this week, they showed up again. WM added a scraper to find tags on my repos on github and pull those. They never contacted me or github for permission (I know, I work for github). I took some actions of my own, and WM removed the github scraper as quietly as they had added it.

I'm certain they've added other site scrapers in since the fallout as well, I think they're just not going to try to push the matter when those sites discover them and take actions.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 I have some really juicy statements from WoWI, Curse, and WM

You have statements from WoWMatrix? I for one would love to hear them. WoWMatrix is notorious for not communicating with anyone.

Originally Posted by us2006027321 I think your GoogleCode troll-line makes a good point, though, and I can't ignore it. I think some of the mod authors (I love you, authors, so please don't misunderstand my statement for hate; I know it isn't all of you who are behaving this way) have gotten a little elitist in their attitudes about Curse and WoWI. If I were a mod developer, and I produced an open-source piece of software for everyone to use, I wouldn't really care how someone got a hold of it. It's open source. Isn't that kind of the point?

The key here you are missing is an addon is not neccesarily open source. While it is required to be provided in a clear and redable format, it is not required to use an OSS liscense such as the GPL or BSD liscense. There are reasons why some authors don't like distrubuting under OSS liscenses, but I won't go into them here, as they have no bearing on the fact that it is the authors choice. Had WoWMatrix only started mirroring OSS addons, there would never have been a problem.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Vyper Had WoWMatrix only started mirroring OSS addons, there would never have been a problem.

Had they only asked authors for their permission in the first place;
Had they only been paying for the bandwidth and other infrastructure;
Had they only been ....

I'm sorry, I know, I'm starting to lose my cool here. Sorry guys. I think maybe it's time for me to go for a walk.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Had they only asked authors for their permission in the first place; Had they only been paying for the bandwidth and other infrastructure; Had they only been .... I'm sorry, I know, I'm starting to lose my cool here. Sorry guys. I think maybe it's time for me to go for a walk.

Heh you'll notice I said mirror. That was meant to imply they should have been hosting themselves.

Maybe this will make you feel better.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Sorry guys. I think maybe it's time for me to go for a walk.

No.

Run.

Screaming.

[Cairenn]

I know. I'm just adding to what you were saying.

If only they had been legit about it all in the first place, none of this would be what it is. We (hosts and authors) have been dealing with all of it for over a year and a half now, coming quickly up on two years. And our users have been dealing with it too, whether they were aware of it or not: because they couldn't get to our sites so easily on patch days; because authors were busy trying to solve bugs that had already been solved, so they weren't able to devote their time to other things; because ...

I'm just getting very tired of it all. I simply can't fathom how anyone can still possibly defend them at this point. Every single thing we have posted has been fact. We have said over and over that yes, for the end users, it was (mostly) nice in how it worked. (I say mostly because of all the things it was doing wrong that were actually causing those users problems, although they didn't blame it on WowMatrix). We have said over and over that we wish none of this had been necessary. We have said over and over that if they had been legit all along, there wouldn't be a problem. I'm just getting very tired of it all.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Vyper The key here you are missing is an addon is not neccesarily open source. While it is required to be provided in a clear and redable format, it is not required to use an OSS liscense such as the GPL or BSD liscense. There are reasons why some authors don't like distrubuting under OSS liscenses, but I won't go into them here, as they have no bearing on the fact that it is the authors choice. Had WoWMatrix only started mirroring OSS addons, there would never have been a problem.

Google Code tries to force people into a few specific licenses. I had a big ol' disclaimer up there that my addons were not in fact using the license gcode reported because I could not pick "none of the above"... back when I used gcode.