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

[Kaelten]

I was just quoting fight club in response to the delicate snowflake :P

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 Originally Posted by Kaelten I am jack's raging bile duct. Please, please, please, don't make yourself an easy target. I like taking pot-shots... *spends two willpower dots not engaging his vices, and shakes his head...*

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Kaelten I was just quoting fight club in response to the delicate snowflake :P

You're cute. By "cute", I mean the soft, furry, teensy weensy, adorable kind of cute.

I like to shoot cute with my .22 and make stew out of it.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by MMcCroskey Someone asked in answer to my previous post if I would be willing to use WoWI for my updating . . . SURE!! I am so stupid about all this, that I have zero understanding of all this talk of "loyalty" to one site over another. I am your standard consumer - please give me a good product that functions well and serves my needs, and I will pay you if the price is reasonable to the functions. That said, I would like to point out that when I press the link to go to the WoWI updater, I am directed to a post with a HUGE warning that states the updater used here is out of date and might not work properly. This is hardly a reasonable substitute to WoWMatrix's ease of use. < snip > I TOTALLY get it that WoWI and Curse should not put up with someone using their site to profit, but it just seems we are all caught in the midst of a negotiation of some sort . . . and I am just STRONGLY hoping they come to some reasonable solution. < snip >

We agree with you completely. We are just as frustrated, believe me. I’d ask that you please consider reading points 14, 15 & 16 of our new updater faq. They explain why things are the way they are for us right now, as well as give you suggestions on how to deal with your updates on our site until our new updater is ready.

We wish it hadn’t been necessary either. This really was a case of last resort. We’ve tried to talk to WowMatrix, we’ve tried other less drastic measures, nothing we’ve done worked. They never responded to us (they apparently talked to Curse, but never to us), they worked around everything else we’ve ever put in place, etc. And we've been trying to come up with some other solution for almost 2 years now. There comes a point where we have to just throw our hands up in the air and take steps to protect ourselves.

Originally Posted by Slilialumen While I understand the annoyance at WOWMATRIX for sucking bandwidth, and I agree author information should have always been included and accessable, it does not change the facts. BLIZZ addon developement rules require: 1) Add-ons must be free of charge. a. All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. b. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on. So if someone comes up with a better client (i.e. WOWMATRIX) for people to use to update their addons, they have every right in the world to do it. If you block them you are violating 1) a. Free Distribution. In addition the Curse Client, with its Pay for version clearly violates the underlined section of 1) b. no charges for additional services (updating). Don't be shocked when Blizz invokes rule 8. 8) Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit. To maintain the integrity World of Warcraft and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to disable any add-on functionality within World of Warcraft at its sole discretion. For more information...

Two things here. One, you are misunderstanding the point of the policy. Regardless of point one (whether you are or aren’t misunderstanding it), point two is that any problems you have with what Curse is doing should rightfully be brought up on the Curse site.

[MMcCroskey]

Just for the clear record, there is NO DOUBT that I would WELCOME a working addon updater that will let me do as much of the folowing as possible:

1) see a detailed description of the addon and its intended use,

2) see the authors name and link to their website (that seems only fair, just in case they have some direct communication they want to impart)

3) allows me to donate directly to the author (I personally LIKE being able to contribute to useful work - its the only way to insure it keeps on coming lol),

4) gives me a date that the addon was last updated by the author,

5) allows some sort of user rating ability (its nice to know how it is working for others),

6) allows me to donate to the site that is hosting the updater (the internet may be free, but hosting isn't).

Why the hell WoWMatrix wouldn't be negotiating is beyond me, but I suspect they are talking to someone, because the current situation is not helping anyone that I can see - all sites are currently "wounded/lacking" in some way.

I promise if you help poor dumb souls like me, at least this poor dumb soul is willing to pay - and I can't believe I'm that alone in this attitude.

I appreciate efforts by people WAY more talented than me in this field to help make my WoW experience more pleasant (I'm not kissin' ass here, I'm serious).

Is simple fairness and understanding that rare?

[Vis]

Originally Posted by MMcCroskey Is simple fairness and understanding that rare?

Unfortunately yes

[Cairenn]

Hang in there MMcCroskey. As the FAQ I directed you to says, we're working on it as quickly as we can.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by MMcCroskey 5) allows some sort of user rating ability (its nice to know how it is working for others), 6) allows me to donate to the site that is hosting the updater (the internet may be free, but hosting isn't).

*takes out marker and adds*

7) The ability to submit a ticket straight from the client. Cause I'm lazy like that. Or even just to open the apporiate ticketing system via a "report a problem" link. Would encourage people to submit tickets/comments

Originally Posted by MMcCroskey Why the hell WoWMatrix wouldn't be negotiating is beyond me, but I suspect they are talking to someone, because the current situation is not helping anyone that I can see - all sites are currently "wounded/lacking" in some way.

As stated before. Both sites would love to work through negotiations. If only Wow matrix would come to the table. They've ignored any emails from this site. They also don't have a very good track record with the authors - in some cases it's taken DMCA Cease & Desist letters before they've stopped hosting certain addons.

In the case of Curse they offered to buy the rights for all the wow addons off Curse (rights Curse doesn't own btw). At a price that was a fraction of the costs they were incurring. Curse then offered to buy Wow matrix out. The WM "crew' offered up a price that was ridiculously high

Personally I'ld like them to put up some form of Forums in which the admins of that site (wowmatrix) answered threads regularly but that's just dreaming

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by honem In the case of Curse they offered to buy the rights for all the wow addons off Curse (rights Curse doesn't own btw). At a price that was a fraction of the costs they were incurring. Curse then offered to buy Wow matrix out. The WM "crew' offered up a price that was ridiculously high

Actually, it was for bandwidth costs, not rights to addons, iirc. But, yes - it was a ridiculously low amount.

[Elesarr]

I've spent the last 1.5 hours reading through this thread.

I use ad blocking extension for Firefox, I do not click nor have I ever clicked on any kind of ad on any website. Nor do I ever click on the ads on any ad powered app.

I understand and must respect what WoWI has done - I do not have a lot of respect for Curse but that is not the concern of this community.

I have played WoW for over 4 years now and have always found the addons by the authors here to be outstanding and useful and am grateful they share their programming knowledge with the rest of us - while I am very computer savvy I have no desire atm to learn a new language (LUA). So I tip my hat to the ones who have the time to do such and share their effort and time with the rest of us.

This brings me to the point of my post.

I have seen a lot of "WM refuses to work with us" and "WM refuses to host addons on their site" - and a lot of implied "they are not willing in anyway to work with us" comments. Please excuse me if I have missed anything or appear to be a complete idiot, but I'm a little confused on these comments and hateful posts from both sides of the fence, as it seems to me not to be the case anymore:



It is not clear to me if any of the negative posters of WM have even looked at the WM client. They have direct links to the pages of each addon, they have links and popups for each of the addons that ask for donations to the author of the mod, it is clearly indicated who the author of the mod is, etc.

I am not taking either side of an argument so please do not misunderstand me or this post.

I am asking for Cairenn or someone of the upper echelon to respond to my question why nothing has been said of the apparent attempts of WM to work with addon authors, host addons on their servers, etc.

Everything that has been posted about WM has been negative.

And yet the image I posted is taken from their current WM client.

As I read through this very long thread, there were several comments made in the vein of "mod authors would host their addons with WM if they would let us - we would have no problem with that" and "it would be a moot point if WM would let us just host addons there and help carry the bandwidth burden" and at least one addon author outright said he would host his addons there if they allowed it.

Well, they do allow it, they are asking authors to let them host their addons, however 90% of everything said in this entire thread is nothing but mud slinging on both sides.

I ask Cairenn graciously to reply to my post as she is not in the mud-slinging 90% - and from what I have read I am assured of a calm, non-biased, intelligent and mature response.

I thank the community for allowing me to post my question.

with respect,

Elesarr
Guild Master Arcane Dawn

[Cairenn]

My apologies for it taking so long for me to actually get this post put together, got called away to deal with a few other things. Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by Elesarr I've spent the last 1.5 hours reading through this thread. I use ad blocking extension for Firefox, I do not click nor have I ever clicked on any kind of ad on any website. Nor do I ever click on the ads on any ad powered app. I understand and must respect what WoWI has done - I do not have a lot of respect for Curse but that is not the concern of this community. I have played WoW for over 4 years now and have always found the addons by the authors here to be outstanding and useful and am grateful they share their programming knowledge with the rest of us - while I am very computer savvy I have no desire atm to learn a new language (LUA). So I tip my hat to the ones who have the time to do such and share their effort and time with the rest of us. < snip > I am not taking either side of an argument so please do not misunderstand me or this post. I am asking for Cairenn or someone of the upper echelon to respond to my question why nothing has been said of the apparent attempts of WM to work with addon authors, host addons on their servers, etc. < snip > I ask Cairenn graciously to reply to my post as she is not in the mud-slinging 90% - and from what I have read I am assured of a calm, non-biased, intelligent and mature response. I thank the community for allowing me to post my question. with respect, Elesarr Guild Master Arcane Dawn

Hi Elesarr,

If I miss something or if you want further clarification please just point it out and I’ll try to answer or elaborate further. Also, please forgive me if it seems like I’m quoting from previous posts a lot but after three weeks a lot of this stuff has been answered already. Finally, I’m sorry but there is no way I can give you an un-biased opinion on any of this. By the very nature of the situation I can’t not be biased. I try to remain calm and rational, and I try to see it from other people’s point of view, which is actually fairly easy for me to do for most reasonable end users. But when it comes to WowMatrix themselves I can’t help but be very very angry and very biased against them. So, any anger in this response, please realize it isn’t directed at you personally.

I have seen a lot of "WM refuses to work with us" and "WM refuses to host addons on their site" - and a lot of implied "they are not willing in anyway to work with us" comments. Please excuse me if I have missed anything or appear to be a complete idiot, but I'm a little confused on these comments and hateful posts from both sides of the fence, as it seems to me not to be the case anymore:

Yes, we said that they have refused to work with us, because that is absolute fact. We (WoWI) have tried to talk to them more than once in the 1.5 – 2 years since they (WowMatrix) started up. They have never once responded to us. They talked to Curse some, the details of which I don’t know any more than what the folks at Curse have said since I wasn’t privvy to those conversations, but they never once responded to WoWI.

It is not clear to me if any of the negative posters of WM have even looked at the WM client. They have direct links to the pages of each addon, they have links and popups for each of the addons that ask for donations to the author of the mod, it is clearly indicated who the author of the mod is, etc.

Oh, trust me, we know what their client shows. The problem here is the battle it has taken for that to happen. The first we got to know about WowMatrix was in this thread, over on the Ace forums. The date on that thread is Oct 2007. It’s now almost the middle of 2009. We (the entire UI community, ie Authors and AddOn hosting sites) have been fighting with them since then. I can’t find the post immediately to hand, but do you know when they finally stopped stripping out the authors names? Sometime within the last three months. When they added links back to the authors’ prefered site? Within the last three months. We (Authors, WoWI, WowAce, Curse, wowui.incgamers) have been fighting to get that stuff added since Oct 2007. The donation popup? WowMatrix has only put theirs in since after the UI policy was put in place, and it required multiple authors basically begging them to do it. WoWI, Curse, WowAce (I’m not sure about wowui.incgamers) have allowed authors to have donation links on their pages for years now.

I am asking for Cairenn or someone of the upper echelon to respond to my question why nothing has been said of the apparent attempts of WM to work with addon authors, host addons on their servers, etc.

Everything that has been posted about WM has been negative.

Not everything posted has been negative. Many of us have said, repeatedly, that it mostly is a very nice little program for end users. We do qualify that statement for reasons that have already been posted, but if you want I can go dig them up again.

As I read through this very long thread, there were several comments made in the vein of "mod authors would host their addons with WM if they would let us - we would have no problem with that" and "it would be a moot point if WM would let us just host addons there and help carry the bandwidth burden" and at least one addon author outright said he would host his addons there if they allowed it.

Well, they do allow it, they are asking authors to let them host their addons, however 90% of everything said in this entire thread is nothing but mud slinging on both sides.

Actually, what most of the authors are saying isn’t “if they will host our mods for us”, it is “if they had come and talked to us in the first place and asked us to upload them way back then” … The problem at this point is that they (WowMatrix) have burned so many bridges, and the fact that they still aren’t providing any way for people to talk to them publicly, that they still haven’t offered even so much as an apology to the community, that they are still doing what has everyone so upset (just not to WoWI and Curse any more), that …

And yet the image I posted is taken from their current WM client.

As for that notice they have on their patcher, let me just say this (so I don’t disappoint you by being anything other than reasonable and rational): It has more than one blatant lie in it.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Elesarr I have seen a lot of "WM refuses to work with us" and "WM refuses to host addons on their site" - and a lot of implied "they are not willing in anyway to work with us" comments. Please excuse me if I have missed anything or appear to be a complete idiot, but I'm a little confused on these comments and hateful posts from both sides of the fence, as it seems to me not to be the case anymore:

That popup is just their way of trying to turn their userbase to the athors and get us to love them, frankly. It's a moot point, the authors that do support WM have made their addons available on it.

Originally Posted by Elesarr It is not clear to me if any of the negative posters of WM have even looked at the WM client.

We're programmers... trust me, we've ripped their code apart, we know quite a bit about what it does.

Originally Posted by Elesarr They have direct links to the pages of each addon, they have links and popups for each of the addons that ask for donations to the author of the mod, it is clearly indicated who the author of the mod is, etc.

None of which they did out of the kindness of their hearts. Much *****ing had to be done to even get that out of them. They used to change addons, remove links and author names, and not link to anything at all.

Originally Posted by Elesarr I am asking for Cairenn or someone of the upper echelon to respond to my question why nothing has been said of the apparent attempts of WM to work with addon authors, host addons on their servers, etc. Everything that has been posted about WM has been negative.

Why does anything need to be said? The authors that wish to pursue that have done so. The point was that they didn't solicit authors to submit their mods to them, they just took whatever they could.

Not everything has been negative. I doubt you'll find anyone here that WON'T agree that the program was done well. The ***** is, and always has been, how they get their content.

Originally Posted by Elesarr As I read through this very long thread, there were several comments made in the vein of "mod authors would host their addons with WM if they would let us - we would have no problem with that" and "it would be a moot point if WM would let us just host addons there and help carry the bandwidth burden" and at least one addon author outright said he would host his addons there if they allowed it.

Ye got that backwards... many authors would have gone with them had they come to us first and offered hosting. What they did was NOT come to us, and just take our work and redistribute it without permission. And to make matters worse, they DIDN'T host that themselves, instead leeching bandwidth. It's not a matter of "if they gave us permission" but rather, "if they came to us and asked for permission"


You call out Cairenn a few times, you realize that comes across like begging for a blue response? :P What I've said is what she'll say, or what she's thinking at least, she's usually not as blunt as I am. Point being, it's been said many times already, and I'm sure it'll be said many more times before this crap blows over... you don't *need* to hear it from Cair

*edit* then she posts... damnit... she better just agree with me.

[Elesarr]

I did not ask for a "blue post" - as I said in my OP I knew I could get a calm, non-biased, intelligent and mature response from Cairenn having read her posts here and in other threads.

You my friend only gave me an intelligent response.

I did not come here to argue and my question is valid.

I apologize for upsetting the community as I originally stated that was never my intent.

[Tekkub]

I admit I am biased because I don't put my addons on WM, but what I said is what has gone down. WM has never worked with authors, and on many points they've worked against us. Case in point, some days after "the end" my addons started showing up on WM again. They never contacted me. Where did they get them? They began scraping my repo host (i.e. alpha-quality code). Did they ever contact them? No, I work for them. It's just the same damn thing over and over again with them.

They had their chance to win me over and get me to put my addons on their service. They failed, over and over again. Through all that they've never once approached me and asked permission.

*edit* and if you knew me, you'd know that this IS me being calm. "Mature"? Well I don't know how you define that, but I'm not calling names, and I'm presenting to you what has gone down as seen from an author's POV. I certainly welcome WM to come make a statement... but, oh, right... they've never said a damn thing since the first site asked them not to scrape their content.

[Tristanian]

Originally Posted by Elesarr It is not clear to me if any of the negative posters of WM have even looked at the WM client. They have direct links to the pages of each addon, they have links and popups for each of the addons that ask for donations to the author of the mod, it is clearly indicated who the author of the mod is, etc.

Trust me, when I say, we have been following the progress of the WM client back to more than a year when they were redistributing addons via scraping the legitimate websites without providing any links, or author names, or donation buttons or anything for that matter. It is regrettable really that no one thought of keeping a screenshot If you have read the entire thread carefully as you claim, you might notice a link on page 3 I believe of a discussion back in October 2008 concerning this issue. At some point in the discussion, a user noticed that they had actually changed the client to do all the things you described because we basically "called them out". Convenient isn't it ?

I am not taking either side of an argument so please do not misunderstand me or this post.

We don't. We have just been following this for enough time to know the whole story and thus have a better and clear picture of what is going on.

I am asking for Cairenn or someone of the upper echelon to respond to my question why nothing has been said of the apparent attempts of WM to work with addon authors, host addons on their servers, etc.

What attempts ? Have they bothered to contact any of us for permission, instead of putting their users forward and trying to get them to do it (lol) ? What are they offering to us, to entice us to host there ? A web page ? A Subversion repository ? A bug tracking system ? A comment system ? Forums ? An opt-in hosting method ? No. So why should we host there and support people that are only into this, obviously to make a profit and not willing to give a dime to support this community. All they have is an updater and a few addons they could get away hosting by taking advantage of open licenses or a few authors. In some cases they are hosting outdated versions of addons, because the new ones are either blocked or under a license that prevents them from hosting it. Installing these versions is very dangerous, since it can (and will) break said addons. Did you even know that their client automatically bumps the .toc version of any addon to the latest one, effectively taking away version control tagging by authors ? Did you know that their client is in certain cases editing code inside addons (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...45&sid=1#251)?

Everything that has been posted about WM has been negative.

Not everything. Most people (including myself) recognize the fact that have a working and easy to use client but at the end of the day that's immaterial, since they chose to operate in a way that can be described as "shady" at best.

Well, they do allow it, they are asking authors to let them host their addons, however 90% of everything said in this entire thread is nothing but mud slinging on both sides.

Yes, they allow it now, since they were forced into the situation. Had they not been forced into it, I seriously doubt they would bother. At the very least they could make some kind of statement, but they won't even bother to do that. They've burned too many bridges.

[rdsully]

Originally Posted by Tristanian What attempts ? Have they bothered to contact any of us for permission, instead of putting their users forward and trying to get them to do it (lol) ? What are they offering to us, to entice us to host there ? A web page ? A Subversion repository ? A bug tracking system ? A comment system ? Forums ? An opt-in hosting method

This is one of the big issues, from my point of view, and from what I understand the point of view of a lot of authors, after you get past the bandwidth/linking methods they used that were harming WoWI/Curse. All WM wants to do is put the packaged file on there server, and not offer any of the development tools that make pushing out releases, tracking versions, tracking bugs, or interacting with the people that actually appreciate the authors work and want to help by providing information to help track down bugs, or suggest features.

As a software developer (no, I don't do AddOns, I do mobile phone UI's) I know it would really suck if I had to manually package every change into a new release and then send it to a server to be hosted so people could get at it.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Tristanian Yes, they allow it now, since they were forced into the situation. Had they not been forced into it, I seriously doubt they would bother. At the very least they could make some kind of statement, but they won't even bother to do that. They've burned too many bridges.

Just FYI, (as I'm sure you know by now I'm not a WM supporter), for at least several months (if not longer) WoWM has had the open offer of hosting mods on their servers. It was buried in their FAQs, but it was there.

It doesn't change much, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Cairenn]

Elesarr, my apologies that it took so long for my response, it's there now, though.

[Elesarr]

No worries Careinn - I truly appreciate the time you took to answer my question.

I hope no one saw my post as a total idiot blundering around a china closet. I tried and hopefully succeeded in asking something I felt had not been answered for me clearly.

Like I said in my OP, I understand and respect your decision. /bow

I would also like to thank the others who responded with infos as well - the time you took for me is deeply appreciated.

If I have unintentionally offended or upset anyone I do apologize and was never my intent.

I now feel I have a much clearer picture of the "whole story" and for that I thank you all.

with respect,

Elesarr

[Cairenn]

You haven't offended or upset anyone, at least to my knowledge. The reason many people are sounding frustrated is because we've been answering this stuff over and over again for three weeks now (not counting the whole issue of trying to deal with the situation in the previous year and a half leading up to this), so sometimes people's patience isn't what it might normally be. I do hope that you haven't felt like you were being personally attacked or anything, because I know my community well enough to know that they wouldn't normally do that to someone who is being reasonable and rational as well. If anyone did upset you, please accept my apologies, I really doubt that it was either intentional or personal.

If you do want me to go into further detail on any of it, I'm more than willing to do so. I ended up cutting it short because I didn't want it taking any longer than it already had to get it posted.