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04-15-09, 01:58 AM   #341
NSDragon
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Originally Posted by downset View Post
Glad we agree on this one thing, i wonder why WOWI and Curse can't deliver.
We don't quite agree, because as far as I'm concerned they do deliver.

Honestly, what's so hard about doing manual updates?

Finding them? Well, you have to start somewhere. Not even auto-updaters can read your mind; you have to tell them what to get, and for that you have to know yourself, and for that you have to search for the addons.

Downloading them all one-by-one? Use a download manager like downThemAll to add to it from the favourites page's quick-download column, then just hit the start button to get them all at once.

Extracting them all one-by-one to the correct directory? This I can agree with, but usually I just download them all to a single directory, then do
Code:
unzip -d /path/to/my/addon/dir *.zip
I'm on Linux so this is kinda second nature to me, but I'm pretty sure Windows can do this as well by simply right-click drag-and-dropping. I know WinRAR can do this.

Maybe it is that you can't just do a single-button update anymore?

Plus, manual updating gives you greater control over what's updated and what isn't. Maybe the newer version introduces bugs or something, or is more complicated, or just plain uglier. Or maybe the author just decides to upload a dummied-out version for no reason and discontinues his addon (this actually happened to me; I had to track the author down and personally ask for a previous version).

If v2.0 of an addon breaks your UI, you can always skip it on the WoWI listing and not upgrade. But if your automatic updater grabs it and screws your UI up, who are you going to blame?
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04-15-09, 02:08 AM   #342
Tekkub
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Originally Posted by downset View Post
As i said before, WOWi and curse are not obliged to do anything, its certainly not unlawful, i am just explaining why people are upset, and i have a hard time believing the we are more righteous than you (or WM) mantra.
I think I for one haven't been spouting anything righteous. Who knows, things did get a bit hot. Either way, I try to back my stuff with facts.

Originally Posted by downset View Post
I don't blame them for trying to turn a profit, i blame them for wanting to make a profit and offering no service up to par, instead trying to strong man everyone into using there site/clients.

I understand its a proven business model, first you get the content by letting the add-on makers have everything for free, and when everyone (or an important majority) is on your site you start charging for the content you suddenly own. It might even work in the short run, but it will backfire in the long.
But the thing is, they are not trying to turn a profit currently, they are trying to break even and keep the existing model afloat... a model which has worked up until the bandwidth spike caused by WM. Many of the pro-WM people, or even simply the "you broke my toy" whiners have tried to twist this into "they just want to line their pockets with more money."

Here, I'll say this plain and simple, IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY. However, it isn't about rolling in it, it's about covering bandwidth expenses.

Originally Posted by downset View Post
To reverse the argument, was wm doing anything unlawful, they coded a nice lean, friendly, unobtrusive client that got links of the internet. They got blocked out of spite and with a misplaced rhetoric about ethics. As i sated before WM was the only reason a lot of people came here in the first place. And besides all the hyperbole used against them there client is a pretty normal practise on the internet, it collects links, much like google, rss readers, and many other things like that. It gives credit, provided links here and donation links for the authors.

So WOWI is not unlawful or doesn't has to do or provide anything, but i can not imagine anyone here thought this move would make them popular?
Well, frankly, it's hard to say that what they did was illegal without bringing in lawyers and the courts, but it's certainly an ethical debate. Using a site's bandwidth without seeing the ads that pay for the bandwidth may or may not be theft, but enabling users to do it en-masse with a heavy-bandwidth situation is rough waters at best. You don't have a leg to stand on if the site that's providing your content pulls it out from under you, and that's exactly what happened here.

Users of WM and users of WoWI are both going to enrage over the situation for different reasons, and both have. But the move wasn't made to drive business or to gain popularity, it was made to remove an unwanted and harmful drain on the sites' resources. And I really don't think you can argue that, even if you don't like that it happened.
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04-15-09, 02:36 AM   #343
Tristanian
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Originally Posted by downset View Post
I don't blame them for trying to turn a profit, i blame them for wanting to make a profit and offering no service up to par, instead trying to strong man everyone into using there site/clients.
You know, this 'profit' is being used (let's say even partially, since you are so keen to question everything) to keep the site running, keep the SVN running, so when I want to commit a fix, a feature, a new project, I won't get greeted with a "FU" screen, but I will be able to do it and so will other authors, so that YOU and others like you, can get your free stuff, that you so strongly feel entitled to. This is the main difference between sites like WoWI and WM. They aren't simply hosting but are providing a lot more tools for authors, a fact that you do not want to acknowledge because apparently you don't care.

I understand its a proven business model, first you get the content by letting the add-on makers have everything for free, and when everyone (or an important majority) is on your site you start charging for the content you suddenly own. It might even work in the short run, but it will backfire in the long.
In 4 years, I haven't noticed WoWI asking anyone for a single dollar, for the right to download addons or any client they may have had. I don't see a reason for them to start doing it now and rest assured the moment they do, a lot of us may reconsider where we want our stuff to be hosted. Your assumptions are simply preposterous.

They got blocked out of spite and with a misplaced rhetoric about ethics.
No, they were blocked because the site had a right to want to operate, without been forced to deal with downtimes because of the absurd added strain from WM scrapping.

So WOWI is not unlawful or doesn't has to do or provide anything, but i can not imagine anyone here thought this move would make them popular?
It makes them popular to those that have been following the argument since October 2008 and know for a fact wth was going on. They know how WM started out, they know how they have been ignoring the authors requests at first, they know how they have been deceiving authors by seemingly removing links to addons from their site but not from within the application, they know how they have been tampering with donation code (don't take my word for it, ask Maul or Zorba, the author of QH), they know how they've only given credit to sites and authors after we've exposed their shady practices. I'm sorry but to me, it doesn't matter if at the end of the day they complied or not. Their actions over the course of time clearly prove that they never valued authors or the websites that were providing content, to begin with. This is precisely why many authors are pissed with them. They spat on our faces when we tried to contact them, they do not provide anything to make our life easier and on top of that they cause massive strain on the websites we have willingly authorized to host our work. Why should we care about them ? Give me one good reason. Because of 'our' users ? Give me a break. Most of us do not see this as a job or even an obligation. If the users truly care, they will use our stuff from legitimate providers. If they do not, so be it. We'll live.

Ultimately, I'm sorry to be the one to have to break this to you but...welcome to 6 months ago. This site's stance has never changed since that time. Somewhere at the beginning of this thread I posted a few links. People are of course skipping them because like I said, no matter what I say, the only thing that matters to users like yourself at the end of day is : I want an easy way to get my FREE stuff, without getting inconvenienced.
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04-15-09, 02:38 AM   #344
Tekkub
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Originally Posted by Tristanian View Post
You know, this 'profit' is being used (let's say even partially, since you are so keen to question everything) to keep the site running, keep the SVN running, ...
That's not profit. Profit (or loss) is what's left over after expenses have been paid. As far as we are to understand (and I don't question Dolby or Cair's honesty), WoWI is either bearly pulling a profit which they do not foresee maintaining, or are currently running at a loss due primarily to bandwidth bills... which is what Monday's actions are trying to correct and put them back in the black.
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Last edited by Tekkub : 04-15-09 at 02:41 AM.
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04-15-09, 02:57 AM   #345
Tristanian
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This is correct, guess I misinterpreted the term profit there.
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04-15-09, 03:22 AM   #346
Neuro
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As a (minor) addon author, I'd like to give you the author's PoV on the whole "We'll just boycott your addons, and adblock your site, and use the default UI!" comments that keep cropping up:

I don't care.


I couldn't give a fart in the wind for you being inconvenienced. Upset because you have to manually update 80 addons? Don't care. Not gonna download addons anymore? Don't care. Gonna use Adblocker on WoWI and Curse? I just don't care.

Granted, there are a few of you out there who have contributed to various addons via donations, and are inconvenienced, and to you I say this: I sincerely appreciate your efforts to support the addon author of your choice, but a better method of support would be to not enable rip-offs like WoWMatrix.

To the rest: You contribute nothing to the add-on community, and you never gave support to WoWI before while draining their resources, so your loss will be a positive influence on the fortunes of the addon community, if only for you not leeching resources that would otherwise go towards keeping this and other legitimate sites up and running.

Don't talk to us about quitting, and how you will never use another addon again. You think you are hurting us? Before, you gave nothing while taking. At least now, you won't be taking anything.
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04-15-09, 04:56 AM   #347
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This "WoWI and Curse did this to get people to use their updaters" conspiracy theory, which WoWInsider is apparently feeding, just doesn't make sense to me.
WoWInsider with wild conspiracy theories? never!

edit: just read some of the comments on WoWInsider, and I can't help but chuckle :P.

Last edited by Slakah : 04-15-09 at 05:10 AM.
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04-15-09, 05:22 AM   #348
fnurgel
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How about WoWI and Curse actually united on some usability then?

Here's a small note from a pure-user-non-caring-about-the-rest perspective:

WoWI exposes a fav RSS and has Quick Download right there in the list. Getting each addon is a matter of one click per addon and I can monitor updates thru the RSS. VERY nice. Site is kept non-intrusive. 5/5

Curse does not have RSS (well except for announces and crap which most people care less about) and downloading an addon from the favorites list is four (4!) clicks away (because the last button is now a flash application and I use flashblock). I'm asked twice on every download to use the Curse client for no reason whatsoever.
Curse is also screaming GIVE ME CLICKS AND MONEY everytime I go there, thats what the UI feels (I'm guessing it's because of the ad positioning).
Not nice. 2/5 (2 only because they actually have the addons).

Wowmatrix solved the lack of usability for a lot of people and while an updater program might be nice, some small changes on the actual webpages can make a huge difference.
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04-15-09, 05:26 AM   #349
Zyonin
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Originally Posted by Neuro View Post
As a (minor) addon author, I'd like to give you the author's PoV on the whole "We'll just boycott your addons, and adblock your site, and use the default UI!" comments that keep cropping up:

I don't care.


I couldn't give a fart in the wind for you being inconvenienced. Upset because you have to manually update 80 addons? Don't care. Not gonna download addons anymore? Don't care. Gonna use Adblocker on WoWI and Curse? I just don't care.
I agree entirely. As an AddOn author and artist, I code AddOns and create digital art for myself. Because I want to. NOT because some whiny "user" expects me to. I know out of the 50+ AddOns that I use, almost all of them were created because the author of that AddOn saw something that annoyed them/had a need for/or thought was good idea and coded the AddOn for themselves. Then the author shared the resulting work with others.

I frankly don't care if "users" decide to use the default interface and never grab a file hosted on Curse or WoWInterface. In fact, I will thank you if you boycott either site. You are not consuming bandwidth. Thus when I go to download something, update a file, post a comment, or just chit chat, I don't have the freeloaders wasting bandwidth and slowing the site down.

For the record, I totally support the blocking of WoWMatrix. I have always thought it was shady every since it crossed my radar screen sometime last summer on WoWAce. My stance on the issue is the same as WoWInterface and Curse's.

At this point, I will now bow out of this thread and watch the carnage from the sidelines.
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04-15-09, 05:28 AM   #350
Meldas
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Originally Posted by Neuro View Post
To the rest: You contribute nothing to the add-on community, and you never gave support to WoWI before while draining their resources, so your loss will be a positive influence on the fortunes of the addon community, if only for you not leeching resources that would otherwise go towards keeping this and other legitimate sites up and running.
Aahh... leechers and 'resource drainers' everywhere!

The problem in this ethical argumentation is:
If you use ads as a business model for your website you are in fact leeching the bandwidth of the user which visits the site. This costs bandwidth, time (did you ever look at this 'contacting ...ads server' line below?) and you are making money with an unsuspecting user which didn't give you approval to do so.

In this way, websites like WoWI and Curse are in no way better (from an ethical point of view) than WoWMatrix.

You as a user can protect yourself from this leeching by using Firefox addons like AdBlockPlus and NoScript (best is to combine them).

Well, this will result in WoWI not generating any money and ultimately the site will go down. But we will be finally free of leechers. And this is the ultimate goal. The goal to end all goals. Right? Hurrraaayyy!
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04-15-09, 05:31 AM   #351
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I just do not get it how anyone can not understand that the cost of the bandwidth was slowly bankrupting these sites and if it continued they would be gone.

Then what would everyone do? Instead of a couple of places to get all their addons there would be 100s of places to have to go to.

How can they invest in a solution when all their funds are going toward paying for WM's bandwidth. WM is not paying for it.

If you cannot understand the basics then you have no business posting. That is it in a nutshell. For all of those that do not understand this please give me your address so I can send my internet bill to you to pay. Or just open your router so people can leech your internet.
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04-15-09, 05:33 AM   #352
Zyonin
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Originally Posted by fnurgel View Post
How about WoWI and Curse actually united on some usability then?

Here's a small note from a pure-user-non-caring-about-the-rest perspective:

WoWI exposes a fav RSS and has Quick Download right there in the list. Getting each addon is a matter of one click per addon and I can monitor updates thru the RSS. VERY nice. Site is kept non-intrusive. 5/5

Curse does not have RSS (well except for announces and crap which most people care less about) and downloading an addon from the favorites list is four (4!) clicks away (because the last button is now a flash application and I use flashblock). I'm asked twice on every download to use the Curse client for no reason whatsoever.
Curse is also screaming GIVE ME CLICKS AND MONEY everytime I go there, thats what the UI feels (I'm guessing it's because of the ad positioning).
Not nice. 2/5 (2 only because they actually have the addons).

Wowmatrix solved the lack of usability for a lot of people and while an updater program might be nice, some small changes on the actual webpages can make a huge difference.
OK I was going to bow out of this thread, however I will say this regarding Curse. The coders that hacked together the current Curse website is no longer there. The current coders HATE the way Curse is put together. However its an enormous job to code a completely new site especially as one as large as Curse. The Curse devs are starting with the newest parts of Curse, CurseForge and WoWAce.

If you want to see something on either Curse or WoWInterface, then post a well written, detailed suggestion. State why you think your suggestion is a good idea. However be aware that neither Curse nor WoWInterface have an army of code monkeys. We are not talking about Microsoft or Google here.
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04-15-09, 05:47 AM   #353
whatson
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lazyness

Hi guys,

All i read about this is "i or my friends are too lazy to search for updates".
Your lazyness is NOT the problem of WoWI, Curse or any author.
They are just protecting what's their right to protect..
Now get over yourself and don't defend people that steal bandwidth or claim copyright on addons they didn't write.

There just is no excuse to support stuff like that.
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04-15-09, 06:42 AM   #354
AnrDaemon
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Let me say, I always do my updates manually.
My very first reason is that I want to know what i'm installing, and where, and what it does, to be prepared for any predictable casualties. No less is my curiosity about ongoing changes in addons, why am I running diff on selected addons to see what's going on.
But now this change just ****ed up all my working scheme. If single addon update was taking no more than a few minutes, now I don't even know, where to save it in first place. I can no longer use ReGet to place downloaded archives in proper folders by category, save description with link back to originating source and run AV check after downloading.
This change made my life seriously harder without any visible advantage.

(Forgot to add - no one browser preserve file date when downloading)

And your promise that installed Java would help in avoiding guesswork on captch just not true.

Code:
About Opera
Version information
Version: 9.63
Build: 10476
Platform: Win32
System: Windows XP
Java: Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.6

Last edited by AnrDaemon : 04-15-09 at 06:47 AM.
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04-15-09, 06:57 AM   #355
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First off, let me say that I do agree that WoWMatrix should work with authors and site hosts more. The addition of donation links (like they had for Questhelper, at least until this recently fiasco) was a good move in that direction. More can be done in this regard. But to be clear, by working with more, I do NOT mean paying them.....

Next, if bandwidth is really the concern, then WoWMatrix can do like they did before and download the packages and rehost them, where that is appropriate. Of course, most of you complaining about them now using bandwidth also complained when they were doing this, accusing them of illegal redistribution.

Or as an alternative, Addon authors can create a code.google.com site for their addons, and host the files on there. Let google host it, and let users decide to use the updater of their choice, update client authors can configure to download the addons from the Google Code site. Downside? None, except that the mods must be released under some kind of open source license (But I see that as a plus, myself, and resolves the questions of illegal redistribution).

The advantage to the authors is that they are still getting their addons distributed via methods that are popular with the user base (obviously so), and hopefully WoWMatrix would work with them on things like more obvious donation buttons, and the chance for author configuration "addon statements" that can be shown in a possibly larger description frame.

Last edited by Jalandar : 04-15-09 at 07:00 AM. Reason: adding statement about wowmatrix paying
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04-15-09, 07:43 AM   #356
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Originally Posted by Jalandar View Post
First off, let me say that I do agree that WoWMatrix should work with authors and site hosts more. The addition of donation links (like they had for Questhelper, at least until this recently fiasco) was a good move in that direction. More can be done in this regard. But to be clear, by working with more, I do NOT mean paying them.....

Next, if bandwidth is really the concern, then WoWMatrix can do like they did before and download the packages and rehost them, where that is appropriate. Of course, most of you complaining about them now using bandwidth also complained when they were doing this, accusing them of illegal redistribution.

Or as an alternative, Addon authors can create a code.google.com site for their addons, and host the files on there. Let google host it, and let users decide to use the updater of their choice, update client authors can configure to download the addons from the Google Code site. Downside? None, except that the mods must be released under some kind of open source license (But I see that as a plus, myself, and resolves the questions of illegal redistribution).

The advantage to the authors is that they are still getting their addons distributed via methods that are popular with the user base (obviously so), and hopefully WoWMatrix would work with them on things like more obvious donation buttons, and the chance for author configuration "addon statements" that can be shown in a possibly larger description frame.
Wow thats pretty arrogant, why should I have to jump through google hoops to accommodate some updater or user? I host my repos on wowace cause its easier for ME to work on my addons, as a curtesy I update wowinterface with release copies on my mods. IF I had 0 users, guess what .. I wouldnt care. I code for MYSELF for fun.
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04-15-09, 08:05 AM   #357
Gorebag
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Originally Posted by NSDragon View Post
Extracting them all one-by-one to the correct directory? This I can agree with, but usually I just download them all to a single directory, then do
Code:
unzip -d /path/to/my/addon/dir *.zip
I'm on Linux so this is kinda second nature to me, but I'm pretty sure Windows can do this as well by simply right-click drag-and-dropping. I know WinRAR can do this.
I'm on windows, and I do something similar... I have 7-zip installed (http://www.7-zip.org) (because it is free, WinRAR isn't). I go looking for updated addons every so often (using the My Favorites list on WoWI) and download the ones I want (I use Chrome, so there is no confirmation box, directory selection, etc... I can click each of the direct download buttons in the My Favorites list).

When I have everything downloaded, this 2-line batch file (extract.bat) lives in the folder I download my addons to:

Code:
"c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" x -y -o"C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons" *.zip 
"c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" x -y -o"C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons" *.rar
I don't know if anything like the Favorites list even exists on Curse... there are only a couple of addons I get from there, and I only really go looking when something breaks.
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04-15-09, 08:07 AM   #358
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Attention, WM users! After the patch, I updated a total of 12 addons. One more addon seems to be completely broken with no sign of an update (autobar) and therefore was deleted. I counted mouse-clicks on each of the valid manual updates and it came to a total of 12 clicks per update. So, 144 mouseclicks later, I don't feel as if I've been violated too much by WoWI's new policy of blocking WM. I currently use 83 seperate addons, btw. 12 out of 83 isn't that bad. My point is, is it really all that nerve racking and painful to do manual updates until WoWI gets their updater,,, ummm,,, updated?

P.S. My right index finger is starting to hurt... maybe I should see a doctor,,,
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04-15-09, 08:23 AM   #359
lycanther
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"protecting" authors and users? rofl!

"WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users" is a lie...they are not protecting authors, or users, all that they are protecting is their advertising revenue stream.

When WoWMatrix was hosting their own repositories, WoWI and Curse called that evil, and when WoWMatrix no longer used their own repositories, they called that evil as well. It's just that WoWI and Curse are trying to form a cartel and force every user's eyeballs past those same banner ads.
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04-15-09, 08:30 AM   #360
Bouvi
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Originally Posted by lycanther View Post
"WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users" is a lie...they are not protecting authors, or users, all that they are protecting is their advertising revenue stream.

When WoWMatrix was hosting their own repositories, WoWI and Curse called that evil, and when WoWMatrix no longer used their own repositories, they called that evil as well. It's just that WoWI and Curse are trying to form a cartel and force every user's eyeballs past those same banner ads.
Yeah I cannot believe WoWI and Curse won't keep paying for the bandwidth that WM used. Oh I need your address so you can start paying for my internet. I bet you won't give it to me since paying for someone elses bandwidth would not sit right with you. Oh wait that means you are as bad as WoWI and Curse.

Something to ponder there.
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