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

[rdsully]

Originally Posted by Chulamal While I agree he was out of line, and stupid, aren't you the guy who said that you don't care about the community who uses the add-ons and that they don't deserve to get support when they have issues, all because they use WM?

he might be, but this is exactly the kind of user that he was referring to. One that demands and expects to be able to use what the community has to offer but refuses to do anything (however minor like viewing ads) to help support the community he's demanding the service from.

Originally Posted by g5pwnage First: there's an old adage in the computer security community, and it goes something like this: "Security by obscurity is no security at all". The fact that you hide your methods must mean you think they aren't very strong. Okay, so maybe that's not the best way to deal with it, but the reason people use WoWMatrix is becuase it is a lightweight way to keep track of addons, WITHOUT having to open a site, and WITHOUT having to install anything. It is completely portable, and uses NO resources when you don't have it open. Now, before you start ranting and telling me that "Curse's addon manager does the same thing!" It doesn't. It runs in the background, is a MASSIVE resource hog, and I would consider it a form of spyware. It also will not go through your interface folder searching for addons you have already installed, unlike WoWMatrix. Why don't you learn something from the WoWMatrix authors, maybe uncompile their program and reverse engineer one of your own, or, better yet, take these suggestions and MAKE one better! You have a much better selection of addons, and combine your database with Curse's, with a full featured downloader to boot, and you will be a force to be reckoned with. So, instead of complaining that "WoWMatrix 'steals' your bandwidth" (so does every other user who downloads from your site by the way), DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT... My two cents... Yours etc, William J. Knickerbocker III, Esq. P. S. I am registered on curse, and have been since '06, I don't use this site often.

AAMMMEENN!!! I am also registered @ curse, and I have filed complaints about ads and such on their site...they have done nothing but told me "check out our new addon manager..It's better now!"

I have never liked curse.com, I am impartial to wowinterface.com, I did use allakazam (sp.) once in a while, and wowace, but none of them beat WM! It's easy, it's clean, it's simple, it's FAST (it used to be until all of this banning business came about), and it gets the job done. the last time i used Curse's manager, it kept overriding addons and installing things that I didn't want, recommending addons that, descriptively seemed fine, but ended up screwing up wow, and even minimized wow a time or two to tell me that a new addon was available. the one time I used the wowi manager I just shook my head and uninstalled it. WowAce has or had an addon manager, which i kind of like, but they have so many addons - and it didn't do a good job of saying if an addon was part of a bigger package or if it was a stand-alone. WM is the only manager that does it well. but now i can't even get 3 basic addons (lightheaded, cartographer, and onebag/bank3) because curse is being stupid. I can't wait till Blizz kicks in and tells these addon companies to shove off. I don't know how many people work at curse.com or here at wowi, but I guarantee there are too many, and they're all making way too much money from these ads (though I will confess, wowi is not that bad...curse is like going to hell on the net!).

I have an idea...

Perhaps it's time for us, the users, to get our heads together and develop a torrent-version of an addon manager. We could make it function a lot like wowmatrix, but instead of addons being hosted on a particular site and "stealing" someones precious bandwidth, addons could be hosted across the globe on and shared through a torrent or gnutela network. It would be easy enough to filter out non-addon type files, a rudimentary file scanner could be built in to scan for common wow exploits and infested addons...Because see, i don't personally mind if someone takes a little bit of my bandwidth in order to download an addon from me, or a part of an addon.

I think that the actual application would have to somehow manage a client-side database of addons, to make it easy for users to search for and manage their installed addons. This database could be updated, just like wowmatrix's, when the application is run. But instead of the database pointing to curse.com or some other money-driven company, it would simply throw out a torrent or other request and receive the addon from the network, scan it, and install it. Authors wold have to help, in that they would have to submit addon update to...someplace...in order to get their information added to the database AND to "get the ball rolling" as it were with the addon.

I dunno, just a thought. Hey most of us use utorrent or limewire or other such downloaders anyway for...stuff...so why not use the same technology for our WoWing? If a lot of people used it, sites like curse, wowi, wowace, and others would be crying for WM to work with them then!

In fact, if I wasn't living on a firewalled college campus, i would STRONGLY look into developing something like this. I would even host addos for people, and allow wowmatrix to access my server to get them!

[Scalebane]

Originally Posted by petrakid I have an idea... Perhaps it's time for us, the users, to get our heads together and develop a torrent-version of an addon manager. We could make it function a lot like wowmatrix, but instead of addons being hosted on a particular site and "stealing" someones precious bandwidth, addons could be hosted across the globe on and shared through a torrent or gnutela network. It would be easy enough to filter out non-addon type files, a rudimentary file scanner could be built in to scan for common wow exploits and infested addons...Because see, i don't personally mind if someone takes a little bit of my bandwidth in order to download an addon from me, or a part of an addon. I think that the actual application would have to somehow manage a client-side database of addons, to make it easy for users to search for and manage their installed addons. This database could be updated, just like wowmatrix's, when the application is run. But instead of the database pointing to curse.com or some other money-driven company, it would simply throw out a torrent or other request and receive the addon from the network, scan it, and install it. Authors wold have to help, in that they would have to submit addon update to...someplace...in order to get their information added to the database AND to "get the ball rolling" as it were with the addon. I dunno, just a thought. Hey most of us use utorrent or limewire or other such downloaders anyway for...stuff...so why not use the same technology for our WoWing? If a lot of people used it, sites like curse, wowi, wowace, and others would be crying for WM to work with them then! In fact, if I wasn't living on a firewalled college campus, i would STRONGLY look into developing something like this. I would even host addos for people, and allow wowmatrix to access my server to get them!

[rdsully]

Originally Posted by petrakid I have an idea... Perhaps it's time for us, the users, to get our heads together and develop a torrent-version of an addon manager. We could make it function a lot like wowmatrix, but instead of addons being hosted on a particular site and "stealing" someones precious bandwidth, addons could be hosted across the globe on and shared through a torrent or gnutela network. It would be easy enough to filter out non-addon type files, a rudimentary file scanner could be built in to scan for common wow exploits and infested addons...Because see, i don't personally mind if someone takes a little bit of my bandwidth in order to download an addon from me, or a part of an addon.

You're overlooking 2 major factors that make your idea a problem, and more than a little bit illegal.

First, by doing so, you would be openly violating the copyright and license of many of the authors. This is one of the major issues the authors have with WM to start with.

Second, how are you going to provide the authors with the development tools they need this way? One of the reasons curse and wowinterface are the most popular hosts for addons among authors is because of the tools (repositories, version control, packaging, bug reporting, etc). If you can't provide that you won't get many authors to buy in to your plan at all.


A lot of you tend to muddle a number of very different issues related to this matter. Curse and WowInterface have an issue with their resources being used without their permission, among other issues.

The authors have issues with WM distributing their addons at all without consent, modifying addons, distributing old versions that cause them support issues, along with the problems it causes Curse and WowInterface from a bandwidth issue since the authors LIKE the tools and services provided the their chosen hosts and want to see them continue to be able to provide them.

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Scalebane

I know I'm totally wasting post space here, but Scalebane is a big pile of win for everything his post implied.

Scalebane has Arcane Brilliance active, and it shows.

[Spookie455]

Originally Posted by rdsully You're overlooking 2 major factors that make your idea a problem, and more than a little bit illegal. First, by doing so, you would be openly violating the copyright and license of many of the authors. This is one of the major issues the authors have with WM to start with. Second, how are you going to provide the authors with the development tools they need this way? One of the reasons curse and wowinterface are the most popular hosts for addons among authors is because of the tools (repositories, version control, packaging, bug reporting, etc). If you can't provide that you won't get many authors to buy in to your plan at all.

Add a third.

Many addons these days require you to actively modify the .lua (PhanxChat off the top of my head). Or come part of compilations already heavily modified. You would have people spreading many diffrent builds of the same addon and since they most likely wouldn't be titled would cause chaos for the end user and the author.

Edit: How would you push out updates too? Would you just introduce the file to a new torrent and hope the old one dies out?

[Conclusion]

Ok...I'm quite surprised that this is still going on at this point...

Eh...well...here's a

[Cairenn]

The last double handful of posts since I went out for a walk have me scratching my head and not knowing what to say about them. Thus, the only thing I will say is my usual "keep it civil folks".

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by petrakid I have an idea... Perhaps it's time for us, the users, to get our heads together and develop a torrent-version of an addon manager. We could make it function a lot like wowmatrix, but instead of addons being hosted on a particular site and "stealing" someones precious bandwidth, addons could be hosted across the globe on and shared through a torrent or gnutela network.

I think Arrowmaster posted on the official forums about this idea. They (the team at wowace/curse) actually spoke with the designers of the torrent protocol. The designers of the torrent protocol told them it was a really bad idea for them to do so since a torrent is designed to share large files efficiently. Addons are too small for them to use the bandwidth effectively

[Donnaterassi]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Hi Donna, The comment that you have been edited bothers me greatly. Could you please show me where any of the staff edited your posts, I can't find them myself. If any of my staff has edited your posts, I will want to know why they did so. So, please link me to the offending posts.

Ms Cairenn, Please do not worry, my concern with editing is more in principle than anything else, as I have explained elsewhere. If any of your staff are unhappy with content I have posted, It will ALWAYS be my preference that I be deleted rather than edited.
The edit to which I refer was done by Shirik.
I put up my first big post in this color and he changed it back to white to keep people's eyeballs from bleeding (his words). As I have trouble with monochrome I worked through the available choices and settled on seagreen. You should find my edit comment saying is this better? Unfortunately, my edit trumped his edit so no one (except Shirik) really knew what I was talking about (until now.)

[Chulamal]

Cairenn, do you know if yourself, as WI, and Curse will be working together to make it so your updaters have access to each other's add-on directory or will we have to download both?

[Cairenn]

Ah, okay, I understand now, thank you for explaining. As you say, what had actually occurred was obscured, so I was concerned. I agree, in fact we all do, that editing the content of a user's post isn't something to be done lightly, and it isn't something we have a habit of doing. But as others have pointed out, technically our word censor "edits" your posts, so we have to have that comment in there to cover things like that. See, if I wanted to say **** you you stupid mother****ing *******, you're a ****sucking **** *****, our word censor is going to change all of those to pretty asteriks. That is, in effect, editing my post. It's mostly a CYA. If we feel the need to manually edit the content of someone's post, it's much more likely that we're going to just delete it outright and, possibly, send the person a PM as to why it was deleted and, again possibly, give them a vacation from the site if they are way over the line or choose to continue ignoring the rules of the site. Hope that helps explain it from our side some?

[Yhor]

Originally Posted by Cairenn See, if I wanted to say **** you you stupid mother****ing *******, you're a ****sucking **** *****

Now, you knew -someone- would find it necessary to quote you on this, right?

*hugs*

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Yhor Now, you knew -someone- would find it necessary to quote you on this, right? *hugs*

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by Cairenn See, if I wanted to say **** you you stupid mother****ing *******, you're a ****sucking **** *****

Here's how bad I am; I'm still trying to figure out the last **** *****!

[g5pwnage]

Originally Posted by petrakid AAMMMEENN!!! I am also registered @ curse, and I have filed complaints about ads and such on their site...they have done nothing but told me "check out our new addon manager..It's better now!" I have never liked curse.com, I am impartial to wowinterface.com, I did use allakazam (sp.) once in a while, and wowace, but none of them beat WM! It's easy, it's clean, it's simple, it's FAST (it used to be until all of this banning business came about), and it gets the job done. the last time i used Curse's manager, it kept overriding addons and installing things that I didn't want, recommending addons that, descriptively seemed fine, but ended up screwing up wow, and even minimized wow a time or two to tell me that a new addon was available. the one time I used the wowi manager I just shook my head and uninstalled it. WowAce has or had an addon manager, which i kind of like, but they have so many addons - and it didn't do a good job of saying if an addon was part of a bigger package or if it was a stand-alone. WM is the only manager that does it well. but now i can't even get 3 basic addons (lightheaded, cartographer, and onebag/bank3) because curse is being stupid. I can't wait till Blizz kicks in and tells these addon companies to shove off. I don't know how many people work at curse.com or here at wowi, but I guarantee there are too many, and they're all making way too much money from these ads (though I will confess, wowi is not that bad...curse is like going to hell on the net!).

Okay, so I guess what I've said has been taken a mite out of context. I don't have a problem with what WI and Curse did, it's quite understandable, and I have since stopped using WM (I do have a problem with Curse and their "customer service", but that's another story). What I had a problem with, and as Cairenn so nicely explained (no flaming, that's why I prefer this over Curse), was a lack of a decent addon manager (the Curse one is terribad, and any attempt to request a change brings out the standard programmer defensive shell), however, at WI they are working on their own version of an addon manager.

On a side note, I'm checking the MMOUI forum, and all I can find is some code... Am I missing something here?

I'll give you some bread =)

WM was just nice because I could open the program and grab any addons I wanted straight from there. I don't know how feasable this is with a legitimate program, but meh. /shrug. It worked well, was nice and simple, and very user and time friendly.

I want to thank Cair for being so patient on here too. Also, for keeping things moderately civil.

[Seerah]

o.O @ Cairenn

Originally Posted by voodoodad2000 Here's how bad I am; I'm still trying to figure out the last **** *****!

Don't you know? It's **** *****.

Originally Posted by g5pwnage On a side note, I'm checking the MMOUI forum, and all I can find is some code... Am I missing something here?

Nope - it's still in Alpha.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Cairenn **** you you stupid mother****ing *******, you're a ****sucking **** *****

You did nawt!

Actually, that would be fantastic as a sig tag

[Cairenn]

Please don't.