[Cairenn]

Okay, armed with a break and a fresh, hopefully-fully-stocked, supply of patience, Imma wading in again. If I miss something along the way, don’t get upset with me, just point it out to me again and I’ll try to respond to your concern. Also, because I’m trying to keep this as short as possible, many of my responses may be summarized. If you want a more detailed response to something you’ve said, please ask me to do so and I will.

Again this may be TL : DR … you’ve been warned

Originally Posted by thevoices Heh i guess the unsqueaky wheel doesnt get a greeting, I used some good sarcasm in my virgin post here :/.

Sorry about that thevoices, we usually try to say hi to any new people. Things have just been scrolling too fast, between here and everywhere else we are trying to keep an eye on, to keep up with everything, so some stuff gets missed. Welcome to the site! /hug

Originally Posted by gelukelu "WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users", who are you trying to fool here? Do you think we are all retarded? < snip > Cheers, Gelu Kelu

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. 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

The “official” arguments you are saying we made up to make ourselves sound better aren’t made up at all. They are factual statements. Yes, we are helping to protect authors. Their copyright and intellectual property rights, not to mention their wishes, were/are being ignored. Yes, we are helping to protect users. What if we had had to shut down because trying to pay the bills that WowMatrix was racking up without the offsetting remuneration? As far as WowMatrix users would be concerned, it would have the same end result. They wouldn’t be able to get the mods that WM was getting from here. As far as anyone that comes to the site would be concerned, it wouldn’t be the same end result at all. They wouldn’t be able to come here because we were shut down. And for that matter, it actually protects the WM users as well, since they do still have the option of coming here as well. How is us protecting our resources so that we stay open not protecting users?

The difference in bandwidth usage between using WM versus using our own sites’ updaters is also very real. Using our own, we are still getting the remuneration necessary to pay for the resources. Using WM, we aren’t.

As for the updater here on WoWI, please read the FAQ I posted about it, here.

Originally Posted by ShadowForces Like it or not WoWMatrix is THE BEST addon updater atm! Updaters are a very good place for ppl to get to know that this or that addon exist (anyone remembers UIC "Addon of the day"?) -*First* there was Cosmos updater and "everyone" used cosmos addons.. -Then there was a time were UICentral was the best (and was never matched imo) addon updater out there, so guess what?! most ppl used wowui site and database and the site was prosperous.. -Then WoWAce came along with a cross platform updater and I, as many others I bet, started using Ace addons simply cos of that. -WoWAce died but started pointing out to curse as the 'official ace repository', Ace died but curse was prosperous.. -Curse updater was TERRIBLE compared to WoWAce so wen ppl saw that nice simple WoWMatrix updater they changed in a heart beat! -Curse Updater is now not as bad as b4 but now it feels a step back wen you already used WM. Now you forced the hand, and WoW Matrix has started to host their own copy of the addons, and in a few weeks whenever you click on the WM link to the addon page (that used to point the user to curse, this site, wowui or the authors own page) you will allways go to the WM web page, and curse will have the same destiny has wowui. And were does WOWI fits in this?! well on patch days this is simply the most reliable site. I cant speak for all the other users of WM but I have the habit o coming to the site (using the WM direct link) to look at the addon's change log before updating it using WM, if WM starts hosting (since it seems to be the problem here) I will go there instead to see the change log, thus providing less page views to your site and curse. I honestly understand your point, I can even agree with it, BUT still I thinks its a bad move since neither site has a reliable alternative. P.S.: The argument is that you don't have page views to pay for the site, but your updater's are more of the same, they also bypass the page view thing.

We have said over and over and over again that we agree that from an end user’s perspective, the way WM worked was (mostly) nice. We haven’t disputed it yet. (I say mostly because there were/are things it is doing that actually aren’t to the user’s benefit, whether they are aware of it or not. It’s been posted about enough already, I’m not going to repeat it unless specifically asked to).

No, our updaters won’t cause the same problem for us, as explained above.

For the rest of it, I’d ask that you go read the FAQ I posted about our new updater, here.

Originally Posted by chaissos Right....first post. Yes, I joined yesterday. No, it's NOT the first time I've been to this site, nor is it the first time I trolled through the posts. < snip > So flame away. I won't read it. Chase

You aren’t going to get flamed, and I hope you do read the responses.

For the majority of what you’ve said, please see point #15 in the FAQ I posted about our new updater, here.

For your suggestions, thank you, we do appreciate them and will look into their feasibility for our new updater, if they aren’t already dealt with by it.

Originally Posted by silvermeteor I am sorry to say that I am not a happy camper when it comes to the current situation between a number of addon developers, WOW Interface, Curse and WOWMatrix. The funny part is that I understand the problem. As I see it, WOWMatrix has been generating advertising revenue by using the bandwidth of a number of addon developers. By doing this WOWMatrix makes a profit and the developers pay the overhead. This situation also short circuits the efforts of the various developers to financially subsidise their efforts by soliciting donations. Having said that I still must say that I find the options being offered here as a poor substitute and question the move to cut off WOWMatrix before either WOW Interface or Curse had a viable and comprable upgrade option available. It seems to me that you may have made your point at the expense of the player. I have just spent a frustrating 30 minutes trying to locate and D/L a number of upgrades that are no longer available at WOWMatrix. I have completed four because I have to hunt and search for each and every one, many of which are burried in groups of files by developer, subject, etc. All 30 of my addons would have been updated in a matter of moments previously. I would rather be playing the game than visiting this site or any other and spending and hour or so checking for upgrades. It will not take much more of this before I commence dumping addons. When I do that everyone loses. The sad thing is that I understand and support your cause. I helped run a Virtual Railroad that utilized Microsoft Train Simulator. We updated the physics of all the equipment for more realistic operations and were always worried about people joining our group, utilizing our bandwidth to D/L our equipment and then not doing anything else to meet their commitments. Now if you are generating this type of feeling from a supporter what do you think will be happening among the less informed?

We do understand your frustration fully. We’re frustrated too, to be brutually honest. But we really didn’t have any other options left to us. Between the fact that WM was going to drive us completely out of business with the bills they were costing us without the offsetting remuneration, and the fact that Curse was going ahead with it whether we were ready or not, we had to do it too. Please see points #14, 15 and 16 of our Updater FAQ, for both explanations of where things stand and for suggestions on how to deal with it until our new updater is ready to go. No, the suggestions aren’t perfect, but we’re doing what we can.

Originally Posted by us2006027321 It's my pleasure to respond, Honem. Good morning, I hope you rested well, and I hope my response is worth the wait. >< LoL That read (among others, scroll down) was extremely enlightening. Ultimately, you've drawn a bottom line with which I've always agreed. It is the author's choice where to publish his work. Before this, my raised eyebrow was at the fact that it seemed like authors were just being picky or emotionally devoted to their site choices. Now (and you can thank Cairenn for this), I have an entirely different perspective. < snip > I'm sorry you, the authors, keep answering the same questions over and over. So many of us who are fresh to the issue want one of two things: validation or a better understanding. Most who are asking come here seeking the former while I've come in pursuit of the latter. I suppose that's why I'm not getting beat in the face with the hate bat in this debate like many former WM users have. (Thanks to this community for that, btw. ~_^)

By and large I would say that most of the WM users have not been getting beat in the face with a hate bat, at least not on this site. We haven’t actually had to delete that many posts (from either side). There are a bunch (from either side) we have left that are, in our opinion, walking a very fine line or even slightly over it, of what we will allow on our site, but for the most part people have been mostly civil, if heated. I can’t speak for other sites, that’s their business.

Originally Posted by us2006027321 Originally Posted by Cairenn {Link Wall} 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. Originally Posted by Vyper You have statements from WoWMatrix? I for one would love to hear them. WoWMatrix is notorious for not communicating with anyone. I'm choosing to respond to both of these in the same paragraph. That was another very enlightening read. I don't know that it was WM's intention to misrepresent themselves to me in the e-mails I have been exchanging with them, but I have a few more questions I get to go ask them before I produce my blog. Btw, yes, I have been communicating with them. They seem fairly happy to communicate with someone who wants to hear what they have to say and is willing to offer the community their perspective. I'm not going to give away the whole game before I make my post, but I'm sure it will make a very interesting read for all parties.

If you would like another interesting read, I would point you to this post and the one immediately following it (it’s a continuation). Hopefully you can read code a bit. Please note, I did not ask them to do it and I’m not commenting one way or another on whether they should have or not. But since they did … have a read.

[Edit] Also this post and the one immediately following it. Thanks for pointing them out, thevoices, I'd forgotten that there was more in that thread.

Originally Posted by us2006027321 Originally Posted by Cairenn 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. I'm hearing and reading that the biggest grouse anyone has with WM is that they didn't ask first. I think it fair to ask: had they asked first, would WoWI have been willing to share? I'm sure there would have been terms and conditions on that, but I'm asking strictly about the presence of willingness. I'm also not asking rhetorically; I'd like to know. Would it have been there?

Had they come to us originally, I’m sure something could have been worked out. In fact, and while most people probably won’t remember this it was so long ago, we did actually work with another site once on something very similar. This other site came to us, said they had an updater, and wondered if we would be willing to let them show mods that were hosted on our site. What we did was put an option in for authors to decide whether they wanted to allow this other updater to show their mod or not. It was a simple check box the author saw whenever they updated their mod on our site and allowed the authors to decide “yes” or “no”, thus leaving the proper control of who they wanted distributing their mods completely in their hands.

Had we not be willing to try to work something out with them, why would we have bothered trying to get in touch with them? I say attempted, because they never, not once, responded to our attempts to talk to them. We were good enough for them to use our resources, but not good enough for them to talk to us. The only site they ever spoke to was Curse. The results of those conversations have been alluded to, but I can’t say for sure exactly what was said on either side, we weren’t included in the conversation. You’ll have to talk to Curse and WM directly about that. But, they didn’t once speak to us, even though we tried to initate the conversation.

You say you are talking to them? Congrats, I’m pleased for you that you are important enough in their eyes that they are willing to respond to you. If you are willing, would you mind asking them some questions for us?

1) Why didn’t they ever respond to us?

2) Why haven’t they publicly responded to any of this over the last two weeks? You see the rest of us repeatedly responding publicly, where are they?

3) Why don’t they have forums so there can be meaningful conversation between their users, us, authors, whoever and them?

4) They say they are trying to go legit now. Oh really?

a. Then why are they now scraping wowui.incgamers, amongst other places?

b. They say they aren’t hosting any mods any more unless they are GPL’d (or similar). Then why do I know of more than one author who has had to send their host (ThePlanet.com) a DMCA take-down request before they will remove those authors’ mods?

c. They claim that they are serving their users the latest versions of mods. Then how can they explain the code I pointed out in the link on the Blizz forum? Equally, how can they claim that when they are hosting mods that are proven out-of-date?
(The answer to the second part of that, btw, is because they know they can’t host the updated versions, because the authors have gone in and removed their GPL (or similar), thus they aren’t actually allowed to host the most recent and will get DMCA’d if they try).

5) They say they are trying to go legit now. I say again, "Oh really?" Where are the offers to redress the wrongs? I haven’t heard of them offering to compensate anyone for the costs they have incurred. No authors are being offered any sort of redress for the hours upon hours upon hours of “bugs” they’ve had to “fix” that weren’t actually there because they had fixed them but WM was serving up outdated versions. I sure haven’t heard of them offering to pay us back for all the resources of ours that they used without proper remuneration. I haven’t heard of them offering it to Curse? Hell, I haven’t even heard an apology.

6) They say they are trying to go legit now. Again with the “Oh really? If they are trying to go legit and become respectable, responsible members of the community then why are they lying? From their updater, when trying to update a mod that is only hosted on WoWI or Curse: http://s.wowinterface.com/storage/ne.../wm-notice.png (You can also find that image somewhere on the Blizz forums in one of the many threads about it, that's where I actually got the image from). Notice how it says that we put this block in place on the day of the patch? We didn’t, we put it in place the day before and posted about it when we did. Notice how it doesn’t point out all the other blocks we have tried in the past that they deliberately figured out how to circumvent? Notice how it says they respect us? Yeah ….. that’s why we’re at this point in the first place, because of all of the respect they’ve shown us.

7) Darnit, there was a 7, I don’t remember what it was now, will have to edit the post when I do.

Originally Posted by Tristanian We forced their hand ? What reality are you from ? If they wanted to be a legitimate member of this community and gain the author's trust/respect, they should have been hosting their own copy of the addons in the first place, by securing permission from the authors, thus paying for their own expenses and not burdening anyone else without giving anything back. If they had come to us and said "Hey guys, you know what, we are <name of site/organization here> and we are providing this cool updater that pulls addons from our website. We would appreciate if you would agree to host or at least consider hosting your addons in our website.", then everything would be fine, in fact a lot of us would have given them said permission (I know I would at least) and none of this charade would have taken place. Instead they chose to move along and deep-link to addons from other websites, by taking advantage of legal technicalities without asking anyone. Despite whether their action was legal or not (which it was), they set a bad precedent by disrespecting authors and totally screwing up websites (I won't go into the trouble to explain how again), even forcing many of us to issue or change addon licenses to protect ourselves. Now that the major hosting sites decided to block them and using the money they have earned all this time, they choose to try and play ball by actually doing the right thing, yet they still provide no other incentive for authors to host addons there, other than a damn good updater, which does nothing for authors but it is more of a convenience for users. So, in all honesty why should we support them now ? Are we in the wrong to still doubt their intentions, especially after they have repeatedly refused to talk to the other major hosting sites and come up with a mutually beneficial solution, as has been stated all along by even users ? I have brought up this question many times in this thread and yet have not seen any reasonable responses to it (if any at all). Probably because one does not exist.

Actually Tristanian, I have to disagree with you on one part of this. Please note as I have said before and I’ll no doubt say again, I am not a lawyer. I’ve never claimed to be. But there is no way anyone can tell me that the courts would uphold one site using the resources of another site while not paying for those resources at all and while deliberately and maliciously bypassing all blocks the first site has put in place to try to stop the second site from using those resources. It’s completely ludicrious to think that any court would allow that.