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

[voodoodad]

This is not a personal attack on anyone in any way.

/PUSH DA BUTTONS!
/MOVE DA MOUSEY!
/PUSH SOME MORE BUTTONS!
/UPDATE DA ADDONS!

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Republic]

Originally Posted by ashes11 Without getting into any sort of technical discussion about how WM may or may not have worked and how much bandwidth it used, how was using it different in principle than manually downloading add-ons from WoWI while running a browser ad blocker? Doing so consumes WoWI's bandwidth while denying them ad revenues. I'll bet many of the people celebrating WM's demise have AdBlock installed. I'll bet all of those that do don't or won't admit to their own raving hypocrisy. Aside from that, I agree with some earlier poster that regardless of how evil WM was, WoWI and Curse have been extremely inconsiderate towards their non-author end users. In particular, Mac users are pretty much screwed. I just had the misfortune of installing the Mac curse client, which seems stuck in perpetual beta. After a forced sign-up for a curse account that I don't want and a half dozen cryptic error assertion alerts, I now have the displeasure of looking at a really ugly application that's slow, extremely cryptic to use and extremely un-Mac-like, and doesn't seem to notice about half of my add-ons (including many that I know are on Curse). WM was no paragon of good Mac UI, but it was simple, functional, fast, and had no strings attached. So if the curse client is the good way of doing things, then I'd rather be evil. Beyond Mac-specific issues, there was a right way to go about cutting off WM, and WoWI/curse didn't do it: 1. Wait until WoWI/curse had clients on all WoW platforms that were out of beta, fully functional, and relatively bug-free. 2. Wait until the current version of WoW had been stable and out for a while, so that there would be little need for end-users to update their add-ons while they transitioned off of WM to something else. 3. Once they decided to pull the plug on WM, they should have given at least two weeks of warning before doing so. Instead of working to make users' transitions off of WM painless, WoW/curse decided to pull this stunt when it would be maximally inconvenient. All I can ask is, WTF were they thinking? I'm now educated on why WM is evil. That's great. I'm also really, really irritated at WoWI/curse, because they chose to make my life more inconvenient solely for the juvenile satisfaction of giving WM a big virtual middle finger. That's their right, I suppose, but I hope they understand that their EffU is pointed at all the casual users of WM, too. They could have accomplished their goal of cutting off WM and getting people to use their clients without nearly so much large-scale annoyance.

Legitimate sites are not obligated to cater to thieves. You're actually wrong on many points, but I'll address one - advertising revenue is not impacted by ad blockers. From a server perspective, the ads are still considered "viewed" because of the hit on their hosted page. Again, it's similar to a TV viewer ignoring the commercials and going to the bathroom or getting a snack. You are not obligated to view the ad in order for the network to have already been compensated for running the ad.

What is hard about this concept? Why can't any of you 1 post guys see this? You have no idea what you are talking about. Incidentally, it is not a big virtual middle finger given. They began protecting themselves from thieves. In what way does that harm ANY users of their site(s)? If anything, it makes this site more secure and safe to use. The fact you and so many other 1 post wonders fail to acknowledge this point leads anyone with at least half a brain to know what you're trying to do here.

WM should be glad they aren't facing criminal charges. Period.

[Shirik]

Originally Posted by voodoodad2000 This is not a personal attack on anyone in any way. /PUSH DA BUTTONS! /MOVE DA MOUSEY! /PUSH SOME MORE BUTTONS! /UPDATE DA ADDONS! Thank you. Thank you very much.

SlashCmdList can't work right with slash commands that have spaces, so your commands would have to be closer to

/PUSHDABUTTONS
/MOVEDAMOUSEY
/PUSHSOMEMOREBUTTONS
/UPDATEDAAADONS

unless you want to generalize it, perhaps you could implement /PUSHDA and /UPDATEDA so it would be

/PUSHDA BUTTONS
/PUSHDA MOUSEY
/PUSHDA MORE BUTTONS
/UPDATEDA ADDONS

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Maul Originally Posted by ashes11 Instead of working to make users' transitions off of WM painless, WoW/curse decided to pull this stunt when it would be maximally inconvenient. All I can ask is, WTF were they thinking Patch days tend to be high bandwidth usage days. The more bandwidth the addon sites need, the more money they have to shovel out. WM was not footing for any of the additional cost they added to the sites on patch day. We are probably talking about additional costs in the thousands of dollars for sites that are already running on shoe-string budgets. I think there were other reasons (good ones), but I shall keep that speculation to myself.

And the fact that is was "maximally inconvenient" and that there's been such an uproar drives the point home. Every one of those users was hitting the sites and not even potentially seeing the ads that pay for the bandwidth.

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by Shirik SlashCmdList can't work right with slash commands that have spaces, so your commands would have to be closer to /PUSHDABUTTONS /MOVEDAMOUSEY /PUSHSOMEMOREBUTTONS /UPDATEDAAADONS unless you want to generalize it, perhaps you could implement /PUSHDA and /UPDATEDA so it would be /PUSHDA BUTTONS /PUSHDA MOUSEY /PUSHDA MORE BUTTONS /UPDATEDA ADDONS

I knew that macro wasn't working! Thanks for the timely tech support Shirik!

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by ashes11 Instead of working to make users' transitions off of WM painless, WoW/curse decided to pull this stunt when it would be maximally inconvenient. All I can ask is, WTF were they thinking? I'm now educated on why WM is evil. That's great...

If you have read through this thread to educate yourself, I hope that you did not skip over the parts answering your question...

[Yhor]

Dammit, Tek always takes away my nerd rage.

In my last build, I had 76 addons. Since WAU went away, I have not installed an auto updater, and I faired very well. It looks like people will get the opportunity to get some practice in with manual updates. I recommend getting a nifty stopwatch and making a game out of it, it might be fun.


I'm of the opinion that auto <insert anything> is evil. I just hope that auto reproduction never comes into play for human procreation, especially after reading replies over the last month or so regarding this issue and the UI policy issue. We are all doomed.

[segma]

er.. Curse's updater on last launch spawned 200+ windows before I had to hard shut down Vista to get it to stop. And WowInterface has an updater? I don't recall ever seeing such a thing, or anyone making mention of it for that matter.

While this may "protect" site authors, I don't see it being anything other than additional trouble for users. Are there plans for a Wowinterface updater or a unified curse/wowinterface updater that doesn't explode? Or is the website the only option?

[voodoodad]

This, also, should in no way shape or form be construed as a personal attack on anyone...

/gasp!
/pant!
/groan!

I just... <gulp>.... updated five addons... using nothing... <wheeze>... but my mouse.... <moan>... keyboard... <arrrgghh> and fingers.... Somebody please.... dial... 911!

/faint

[ashes11]

Originally Posted by Republic You are not obligated to view the ad in order for the network to have already been compensated for running the ad.

Interesting to know! Astonishingly, internet advertisers are even dumber than I thought.

Originally Posted by Republic They began protecting themselves from thieves. In what way does that harm ANY users of their site(s)?

I didn't say "harm"... I said inconvenience. Look, I understand completely that WM is malevolent. What I'm arguing is that WoWI/curse cutting them off shouldn't have been surprise to anyone, and that the best thing for everyone would have been for them to have solutions in place for me and everyone else to get off of WM. If, two weeks ago, I'd read WoWInsider or Massively.com and seen a nice article on how WM would stop working on 3.1 patch day because WoWI/curse are tired of their crap, but WoWI/curse have great new clients of their own for me to use, then... I would be happy!

I acknowledge, though, that it would have taken a lot to make me completely happy. Clients are no doubt a lot of work, and Maul is likely right that peak bandwidth costs inflicted on WoWI/curse as a result of a major WoW patch are a huge expense to them. But... there's still no excuse for the lack of warning. We've known 3.1 was coming for how many weeks now? This "WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users" announcement could have been posted a month ago, with a mention that WM would be cutoff patch day or the day before. Given that WoWI/curse know better than anyone that there are thousands of people using WM that they would be cutting off, you'd think that they'd give plenty of warning, as a matter of courtesy and to get people visiting their sites for mods ahead of time.

Instead, they added to the already huge clusterfrak that is a WoW patch day by springing this as a surprise on everyone. That's not harmful, but it is rude.

Originally Posted by Republic If anything, it makes this site more secure and safe to use. The fact you and so many other 1 post wonders fail to acknowledge this point leads anyone with at least half a brain to know what you're trying to do here.

Umm, "secure and safe" from what? I wasn't aware that I was in any danger from this website, or any other.

[deke913]

Originally Posted by duckilama I tried the CurseClient and got burned. I spent a good 2 hours fixing my UI after that, so no thanks. Add to my personal experience, the bad name CC has on the internet as a vector for malware and it's not a great option. (Edit: really? You're injecting an ad into my comment? I'll have to check some IP law, but I wonder if you're not in violation by making money off my creative writing.) (Edit2: and now it's gone while I edit? WTH?) WoWI apparently doesn't have a "supported" add-on manager, and the only other one is in Alpha. I love you guys, but I don't think you planned the timing of this very well. So here's the net result FOR ME: I will use fewer add-ons. (read less ad impressions for WoWI) I will try out fewer new add-ons. (read less ad impressions for WoWI) If hand-managing the 192 items I have in my Add-on folder becomes too painful, I'll just write my own script to update my own mods. (guess what? Yep, less ad impressions for WoWI) The only part of the rhetoric flowing on this issue that really bugs me is the "stealing bandwidth" spiel. If WoWI can provide a slim, sleek, low-resource, clean, easy-to-use, "supported" client, I'll gladly use it. I really wish you guys had planned your timing better by waiting until you had an alternative. As it is, now I'm just annoyed at WoWI, unwilling to even visit Curse, much less install their client, and about ready to start blocking ads all over again. Well played, WoWI. Well played.

Same here, I love the authors here and at curse but everyone knows that your addon managers just aren't competent alternatives to WM.

If you make an addon that you are so confident about that gives you an extra sentence in your resume then create your own site (carbonite?) and charge people to use it. If on the other hand you create an addon and upload it to a site that allows users to download for free then get used to the fact that someone somewhere will find a better way to download it.

How many millions of users used your addons due primarily to WM and looked you up to find more of your stuff?

I will go back to the default interface before I ever set foot back at curse as I got a nasty virus there that shut me down for days. Screw them.

Heres to hoping you see that making a manager like WM should be top priority.

[Ashton]

Like many other disenchanted former WM users, I'm only now learning about the WI/WM feud because of the spot on WoW Insider. That article pretty much sums up my feelings--sure, it's mildly inconvenient to go back to manual updates, but no reason to pitch a fit (for those interested, I have 186 items in my Addons folder). Yes, it would be nice if Curse or WI were able to offer a functional update tool for everyone to migrate to, but for whatever reason, they aren't, so let's put that horse to rest and move on.

The bit that bothers me is the moral spin that people try to put on it, as if WM were a product of malicious hackers and thieves, as if there is something inherently base about automating the process of fetching links from pages, or--laughably--that the authors of WM could be held legally culpable for doing so. They've been uncooperative douchebags, yes, but it takes a certain degree of self-righteous indignation to vilify them to the level of being criminally depraved.

I absolutely understand the frustration of a webadmin whose site has been taken down on account of thoughtless users misusing provided resources. I can also empathize with the irritation of a developer who is being bothered again about bugs that were fixed two patches ago why don't you people ever check for updates before filing redundant bug reports ARGH. However, it would have made a much more positive impression on the WoW community, particularly the vast majority like me who previously had no inkling of what has apparently been going on behind the scenes for quite awhile now, to see an objective, professional explanation of what transpired up to this point, minus the bile-laced amateur character profiling. Most WM users are pretty annoyed right now, and by making this a personal ordeal, you incite them against you, making yourselves the object of that annoyance. By making it personal, you make yourselves seem petty and short-sighted. You can try to explain that the service was being abused (which it clearly was), but when you try to say that it was being abused by thieves and hackers, people are only going to hear you calling names.

That's my 2c. Other than that, business is business; shutting down WM was necessary, and WI/Curse can't be faulted for it. I appreciate the WI mods taking the time to acknowledge feedback in this thread.

[guice]

Originally Posted by Cairenn If you were previously using WowMatrix to keep your addons updated, please use our official updaters (WoWInterface, Curse). You may also mark addons as favorites on both WoWInterface and Curse in order to be alerted when they are updated.

Not to be a wrench here, but this is not a proper solution. You really expect people to list favorites for 60+ add-ons. Download each one *individually*, and manually update them every time? Oh, lets also not forget the 60+ emails they'll be *spammed* with every time a mass update of add-ons happen....

The proper solution would be to work WITH not again WoWMatrix. Asking them to stop is not with. Blocking them is not with.
WoWMatrix filled a void that neither Curse nor WoWInterface is able to or up to filling. The curse client is absolutely horrendious and causes more problems than it solves.

I can understand the upload of player's add-ons to W-M's own servers; thats bad. However, I don't believe that's the case. I also don't believe they've been filtering out donation code. But, if they had - GOOD!. It's against TOS now. Add-ons are not your job, it's your hobby. If you can get a few hand-ins from it, great! But to spam users for donations? Are you f'ing human?

Deep linking is *not* illegal and should be encouraged. Pointing people to the direct download links is also not illegal and should be encouraged. It gets your links out there. It gets people talking about WoWInterface. That chatter will actually *increase* your traffic. It's a common fact, FULL RSS Feeds increase traffic, even though you're giving everything away through a simple text only interface.

If W-M is having problems with version numbers, how about supply them with an API capable of better reading and understanding version numbers?
If you don't want them to remotely host physical add-ons, ask them not to. You can't prove they do, so that's all you can do.
If authors don't want to be included, for some only selfish reasons, then how about in your API you supply the authors an option not to be included in the checks?
You can tell W-M to use that API, and filter (for god knows why... dumb authors?) what's displayed.

W-M filled a void neither site is able to do on its own. It allowed users to have *ONE* central source for auto-updating their add-ons. It was a *blessing!* and you apparently are unable to see it. Banning it simply because you can't complete isn't a proper solution. It's not a user-friendly solution. It's not a community-friendly solution. It's a pure envious solution. Users found a great application that can update across three sites (Ace, Curse, WoWInterface). Curse and WoWI are so introverted in their perceptions, they don't understand what they truly did.

I'm sad to see WoWI, a great resource which I was even apart in during the up-most earliest of days [eq side], stoop to this level. It's very anti-user.


PS: Curse client is a piece of s*. I'll never use their client ever again -- I've tried using it 3 times, every time it f* everything up.

[guice]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Okay, I have a lot of catching up to do (d@mn that need for sleep), so give me some time here. Couple things right off the top, though: a) Some of you are really pushing it with the personal attacks. You know very well and good that we don't allow that on this site. Don't make me give you a vacation; and b) You're right, we do wish we were able to have our updater ready before we had to block WowMatrix. But as I have said other places, Shirik is doing this voluntarily around his school work, and as far as we are concerned, his school work is more important. He has been busting his @ss trying to get it ready, but he does have to sleep some times. He's d@mn near put himself in the hospital a few times, he's skimping so much on his sleep, etc. I don't remember many people offering to step up to the plate to help us get it ready. We don't have the budget to pay someone. Think about this next part really hard: Why would we take this action against WowMatrix if we weren't ready? If you follow the bouncing ball, you should be able to figure that one out.

Volunteer work is just that. That's why there is a community. W-M was another "community" that could have been hooked into. Building your own client that works with only your site is short-sighted.

Now, if your client works with Curse, Ace and WoWI. I'll sit back and watch. However, if it doesn't ... again ... t's short-sighted. It's the new DRM of Add-On sites...

And I prey to god it's better than the Curse client which is horrendous, unstable, *ad crazy* and, worst off, it does not "just update my add-ons."

*Edit:
Oh, I have the perfectly idea:
How about building an API capable of checking and linking to the downloads for add-ons and then let the community build their own updater apps?
Supply a EULA that states "you may not modify add-ons. You may not remotely store add-ons."
Done. Everybody is happy and Shirik doesn't have to kill himself to build a client (I'm assuming it's not as bad as Curse's).
This will build a true competitive market for add-on applications, which will drive the sites and community to out-do each other. Eg: improving the user experience immensely!

And best of all, it would build yourself as the key centralized add-on site, potentially eclipsing Curse (who remains closed-minded, short-sited).

[Tuhljin]

Originally Posted by Ashton The bit that bothers me is the moral spin that people try to put on it

What bothers me is people not understanding what morality even is any more. Using your own words, WM acted like "douchebags" and caused sites to go down due to thoughtless misuse of resources.... and you don't find that to be unethical?

[Dolby]

I would have liked to wait longer until our new updater was ready or a better community solution was ready but truth is we cant handle the load of WM alone. We can hardly handle the load now.

[guice]

Originally Posted by Dolby I would have liked to wait longer until our new updater was ready but truth is we cant handle the load of WM alone. We can hardly handle the load now.

Hey Dobly. Long time no chat. So, why not use a CDN? Their soul purpose on the web is to host files and distribute them. The three major ones I know of are Akamai, Amazon S3 and Nirvanix. I think S3 does a lot of lower level based CDN hosting -- as I see "sole developer" apps using it for their media data (images mostly). I've personally worked with Nirvanix and Amakai. Nirvanix has an awesome developer API allowing full manipulation of files on their server, while supplying direct download access to the files.

Just a thought. There's no need to carry the full burden on your own anymore. That's what the internet is for!

Using a CDN would offload a good 90% of your traffic right off the bat. It would also make W-M's traffic moot.

[Cairenn]

You guys didn't follow the bouncing ball I alluded to. Let me say it in straight out terms, then.

We didn't want to go here (breaking WowMatrix) yet. We wanted to wait until after our new updater was ready. But:

We.
Didn't.
Have.
A.
Choice.

Why would we not have a choice? Because other sites were going to be implementing theirs today, whether we did or not. If we didn't go ahead with ours today as well, we wouldn't be running at all today. They (WowMatrix) would have jumped from splitting their scraping of both sites to scraping only one site, our site, since they couldn't access the other one. We'd be down today, completely and totally, no one would be able to get to our site at all. How does that help anyone?

We are truly sorry that we had to do this today when we couldn't offer another alternative. We really would have preferred to wait. We're sorry that it had to happen this way. I don't know what else to say beyond that.

[Shirik]

Originally Posted by guice Hey Dobly. Long time no chat. So, why not use a CDN? Their soul purpose on the web is to host files and distribute them. The three major ones I know of are Akamai, Amazon S3 and Nirvanix. I think S3 does a lot of lower level based CDN hosting -- as I see "sole developer" apps using it for their media data (images mostly). I've personally worked with Nirvanix and Amakai. Nirvanix has an awesome developer API allowing full manipulation of files on their server, while supplying direct download access to the files. Just a thought. There's no need to carry the full burden on your own anymore. That's what the internet is for! Using a CDN would offload a good 90% of your traffic right off the bat. It would also make W-M's traffic moot.

CDNs are not free. Would you like to front the money for it?

For those of you that are unaware: WoWI is run through very few servers. In fact, there is no rotation. We'd love to have a massive server farm, but that costs money. Money that, quite frankly, WoWMatrix is cutting into.

[Dolby]

Who would pay for the CDN? I can't say I've reserched it but bandwidth is bandwidth and I'm sure its expensive.

Its actually our php server not able to keep up with them scraping our pages for every addon a user has. Its basically like a ddos right now. I wouldnt have had much of a problem giving them an xml feed if they contacted us and removed the ads from their patcher.

Keep in mind what we have done is only a temporary solution to try and stay a float.

Everything you said is easier said then done and takes time.

I'm sure a solution can be found though.

Originally Posted by guice Hey Dobly. Long time no chat. So, why not use a CDN? Their soul purpose on the web is to host files and distribute them. The three major ones I know of are Akamai, Amazon S3 and Nirvanix. I think S3 does a lot of lower level based CDN hosting -- as I see "sole developer" apps using it for their media data (images mostly). I've personally worked with Nirvanix and Amakai. Nirvanix has an awesome developer API allowing full manipulation of files on their server, while supplying direct download access to the files. Just a thought. There's no need to carry the full burden on your own anymore. That's what the internet is for! Using a CDN would offload a good 90% of your traffic right off the bat. It would also make W-M's traffic moot.