Complaint !!!

[Tristan Perry]

My apologies, I didn't know they were in the public domain

[forumnoob]

no, you are just being silly.
If there was proper communication (and status display) in the first place, there wouldnt have been a need for a bloody PM, that saps your precious time, Oh Master!


Put a proper status screen in place, that lists the queue, a submitters position in the line and any responses or status messages/queries.

make it public so that EVERYONE can see whats happening (or not happening as the case may be.)

People can see the queue and judge for themselves how capable the 'judges' are. ( or are you now saying that the judges are beyond question?)

again, it shouldn't be difficult to have proper SLA (Service Level Agreement) for the work you do - free or not.

All templates submitted seen within 2 days of submission, final status (approval/denial) within 6 days

(how MANY templates are submitted for approval anyway?? 10/week? 20? 1,000??

who the hell knows? )

How hard is it to be recruit more workers for this thankless task? perhaps there should be 'term limits' so that nobody approves (or is forced to) approve stuff after a say, a 6 month term?

are there specific (perhaps unwritten) guidelines?

[CmptrWz]

The people doing the approving are doing it in their free time, for free. They have been chosen because they are trusted enough to not approve things that shouldn't be approved. You can't just grab anyone and trust them that way, and those that are doing it may not be able to guarantee specific timeframes. It is their FREE time that they are giving, after all, and very few people can guarantee HAVING free time any given day.

Personally, from what I know of the entire process, I feel there is plenty of communication, and no need for more time to be wasted coding things to display more. They already allow you to respond without penalty if two weeks have gone by, which from my understanding almost never happens unless you are constantly PMing them, or have yet to correct issues.

As for how capable the 'judges' are, they are following fairly strict guidelines for what they will and will not approve based on several things, including testing if I am not mistaken. They do not judge worthiness, just if the proper guidelines were followed.

The guidelines are posted in the appropriate areas for coding and approval, for example you may wish to view this topic.

[Deaks]

The people doing the approving are doing it in their free time, for free. They have been chosen because they are trusted enough to not approve things that shouldn't be approved. You can't just grab anyone and trust them that way, and those that are doing it may not be able to guarantee specific timeframes. It is their FREE time that they are giving, after all, and very few people can guarantee HAVING free time any given day.

Personally, from what I know of the entire process, I feel there is plenty of communication, and no need for more time to be wasted coding things to display more. They already allow you to respond without penalty if two weeks have gone by, which from my understanding almost never happens unless you are constantly PMing them, or have yet to correct issues.

As for how capable the 'judges' are, they are following fairly strict guidelines for what they will and will not approve based on several things, including testing if I am not mistaken. They do not judge worthiness, just if the proper guidelines were followed.

The guidelines are posted in the appropriate areas for coding and approval, for example you may wish to view this topic.

thank you

forumnoob

as its previously been said an attack is not always physical your previous post could be considered an attack on me, depending how I took it.  A non physocal attack can do more damage in the long term than a physical, yet this depends on who is being attacked.  It takes alot for me to be offended and the comment Hoochie said to me in pm was beyond the fine line beween a post and attack.  I would be grateful if you could do research on this topic so you would understand and not attack others. (this is a suggestion)

End of the day, the rule is now in the guidelines if anyone has a problem then do say otherwise this topic is closed.  Due to the attack by Hoochie and his continuing of beaking the rules he is on vacation.  I would be happy if we could let this topic die.

[Eliana Tamerin]

While I agree that there can be some improvements put in place, I think the attitude and tone which some here are using is not the best way to go about getting them. The more yelling and demands that are made in here, the more you are going to be ignored. Would you care to be yelled at, told that your system doesn't work and that you must comply with every inch of the complaintant's demands?

forumnoob, I would suggest that you calm down and stop yelling, for one. Your tone and attitude are not going to achieve much beyond flame attacks, and they don't seem to be getting good results so far. While I can understand some of your concerns, I would suggest you present them in a way that points out the benefits of such a system, and explain why they're necessary. Perhaps someone would be more willing to listen, and improve things, if they see points being intelligently suggested and explained.

Which would be more likely to get a good result? Someone saying "FIX MY PHOREM PLZ!!1!!1" or "Could someone help me with a problem on my forum. I'm experiencing this, this and this, which started this time ago, and this is my forum version. I have these mods installed, by the way, and we're using this theme"?

Consider your mindset if you thought the former would get better results.

[forumnoob]

"End of the day, the rule is now in the guidelines if anyone has a problem then do say otherwise this topic is closed. Due to the attack by Hoochie and his continuing of beaking the rules he is on vacation.  I would be happy if we could let this topic die."

(raised eyebrow)

While I dont condone Hoochie's juvenile behaviour, I sympathize fully with the frustration that may have triggered it, and am somewhat taken aback by the surprisingly less than stellar attitudes coming from your team.

I took the liberty of reading the link you sent

(Why is my mod /theme taking so long to be approved)
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=154647.0

Rather than being a clear dissertation of the process and methodology, it was SIX PAGES OF SADNESS and "mightier than thou behaviour" - sadder still, is the fact that the post is over a YEAR OLD and, obviously is nowhere closer to satisfaction than before.

many of the ideas I postulated in this thread, I was surprised to see them (in one form or another) in that 6 page epistle, again, no closer to fruition.

what has grown however, is this arrogant cliqueism and for what?

Isnt SMF about 'community'??

then why this "Lords vs Serfs" approach, this arrogant inflexibility?

Here is where I think SMF (as an institution) has its issues with mods/themes.

1. Maintain the quality of the 'brand name'  and 'reputation' by limiting the modifications and extensions allowed to prevent a flood of 'me-too' and overly similar mods, that, via poor coding practices reflect poorly on SMF.


With that said, I dont see how making the approval process more transparent affects those goals, on the contrary it would aid the learning process the same way I learn, by downloading a mod and looking at the code.

People would learn how to write better mods (and how to navigate the submission process) by first taking a look at the "PENDING MODS Boards"

Some of the suggestions in that thread are quite good, how about this for a modification? (no pun intended)

Pending mods are still made available, but only to  those listed in the group SMF DEVELOPERS (semi public)
anyone in that group can view the queue,download 'pending mods' and comment on it/offer feedback.

In fact, that peer review will be one of the initial 1st steps that allow a mod to be accepted.

this would be the best of both worlds I think, more visibility to the process, but little risk of 'raw code escaping into the wild'


lol
@Eliana Tamerin
.... ??


I dont understand your point(s) -what yelling?

confused.

[CmptrWz]

You moron, making the approval process more transparent would make it harder to provide support in the long run, as people attempt to install badly coded mods and themes just because they can get at them. In the long run it would probably cause people to write WORSE code as they grab the stuff that wouldn't have been approved as examples of how to write code. If that is how you learn, then YOU would actually become a worse coder as a result.

Although based on your posts, I assume you suck to begin with. But I digress...

If you make it so that only those that are in a specific group can get at things that haven't been approved then you will just be making.......

No, wait, that is already the case. Only the team members authorized to approve can get at them. And making a group that you can jump into seemingly at will will not help. Why have any approval at all then?

Peer review, for the record, only works when the peers doing the reviewing know what they are doing. From my own experience JUST TODAY, the vast majority of people that would be looking at the stuff don't know enough about what they are doing to provide good review.

So, no, it wouldn't be the best of anything. It would be the worst of everything.

* CmptrWz writes 'forumnoob' on a piece of paper and tapes it to his dartboard

[capabmx]

@forumnoob,

if everyone could see the code this could lead to even more work for the approvers. Here are some instances:

1. Someone could make a mod with basically the same code, and then the approvers would have that to worry about.

2. The fact that some people could try to use the mods and then have no support for when they don't work or mess up their forum.

3. The fact that the approvers know exactly what to look for in the mods. Can you say that you know enough about mods/themes to look for security loop holes? Most people would just see a cool mod, and just want it to be approved so they could use it. So then when a mod/theme wouldn't get approved, where do all of the angry people who wanted it right then and there go? They would complain. More work, and seeing as to how the smf team are volunteers, everyone should just be happy to have someone help them.

Without the smf team there would be no simple machines software. Also, everyone should be thankful that they made is as flexible as it is. Would you rather have to wait a couple weeks for your theme to be approved, or there be no smf software and you have to use the very annoying phpbb software,  or the paid forums such as invision, or vbulletin? In this situation Hoochie seems to have been very impatient, and also attacking in the sense that just because he didn't get exactly what he wanted and when he wanted it everyone should stop what they are doing.

On another note, I am pretty sure this topic is going to be marked closed.

I agree whole heartedly with cmptyrwz

[forumnoob]

You moron, making the approval process more transparent would make it harder to provide support in the long run, as people attempt to install badly coded mods and themes just because they can get at them. In the long run it would probably cause people to write WORSE code as they grab the stuff that wouldn't have been approved as examples of how to write code. If that is how you learn, then YOU would actually become a worse coder as a result.

Although based on your posts, I assume you suck to begin with. But I digress...

If you make it so that only those that are in a specific group can get at things that haven't been approved then you will just be making.......

No, wait, that is already the case. Only the team members authorized to approve can get at them. And making a group that you can jump into seemingly at will will not help. Why have any approval at all then?

Peer review, for the record, only works when the peers doing the reviewing know what they are doing. From my own experience JUST TODAY, the vast majority of people that would be looking at the stuff don't know enough about what they are doing to provide good review.

So, no, it wouldn't be the best of anything. It would be the worst of everything.

* CmptrWz writes 'forumnoob' on a piece of paper and tapes it to his dartboard

??

lol

@capabmx your post, like that of the aptly named "CmptrWz" is bereft of logic.

"1. Someone could make a mod with basically the same code, and then the approvers would have that to worry about.

2. The fact that some people could try to use the mods and then have no support for when they don't work or mess up their forum."

what do either of those statements have to do with ANYTHING??

Since the approvers dont support mods now, none of your statements in your post have any validity or even relevance to the discussion.

If you Capabmx and CmptrWz are examples of the 'approval class' at SMF, Lord have mercy on us all!


(Looks up knee jerk,reactionary sycophants in dictionary*)



*for no particular reason. <wink>

[CmptrWz]

I am sorry forumnoob, I apparently went too far above your head.

Let me see if I can dumb it down for you.

1 - The vast majority of the population are idiots outside of their fields of expertice.
2 - Most people visiting these forums are operating outside of their field of expertice.
3 - Allowing people to learn from those that have not been verified as having at least a partial clue is a bad idea, as it promotes cluelessness. Hiding such items from those people and showing them to those that have proven to the SMF staff that they DO have a clue for verification is the best way to ensure that mistakes are not duplicated by idiots.
4 - Allowing people to install things that were made by those without a clue would increase the load on the support end of things, as those SAME people would be highly unlikely to ask the mod author for help, but would instead go to the support areas for SMF itself to ask for help. This is a bad thing, if you didn't figure that out already.
5 - Letting idiots review idiots makes all the idiots feel better about themselves. That is all it accomplishes.

On a side note, I don't think you HAVE a field of expertice. Unless being an idiot IS your field of expertice.

[Gary]

"1. Someone could make a mod with basically the same code, and then the approvers would have that to worry about.

2. The fact that some people could try to use the mods and then have no support for when they don't work or mess up their forum."

what do either of those statements have to do with ANYTHING??

They have a lot to do with something actually.

Lets say you were us, and you allowed people to download unapproved customisations, and then a five hundred users downloaded those customisations and they all messed up their forums due to how badly coded it was, and then had to deal with five hundred complaints of people moaning because their forum was messed up.

Since the approvers dont support mods now

How do you know that? Actually we do still support CUSTOMISATIONS. Dont make assumptions and do some research.

[SleePy]

Having a public list of unapproved customizations would only make things worse. I would only see people complaining because a customization was approved that was behind them in the line. For a fact as well, nobody is treated special. Any team member who submits a customization, follows the same approval process as everyone else. In fact, I am more strict with team members. I do not let anything go at all on a team members mod that is against our coding guidelines.

There is no "line" in the approval process. When I am approving mods, I click the unapproved mods link (only visible to team members) and then start down the list. I look at the mod for what needs to be fixed or changed. If anything needs fixed or change, A personal message is sent out asking for these to be fixed. If I find nothing wrong, the mod is tested to ensure it does what it says it does and without errors. If everything is still good then it is approved. Finally its onto the next mod to repeat the process.
Yes some mods do get approved before others, but I am not going to hold somebodys mod against approval just because the first persons mod is not ready to be approved. How would you like to have your mod not approved yet because somebody in the "line" before you had a mod that wasn't ready to be approved? I bet most of you would be very angered by this.

We as the customize team, try our hardest to ensure that customizations work, have no errors, will work with multiple languages installed, and hopefully change as little as needed, so as to not cause issues with other customiations. Its a hard process, there is so much to look at and do. It sometimes is hundreds of lines of code we are reading, just to ensure it works and is not a risk to use. We do all of this, in our free time. I know lots of things I could use my more wisely with instead of spending about 80% of it here. But yet, here I sit typing a message. I love SMF, its a very slick, sweet and powerful software. The greatest feeling I get, is when I see another user happy with SMF. It makes me proud to know that as not just a team, but a whole community, have put togethor such a software.

A community is the foundation of any project, without out the community a project would just fall into the bits of darkness. Thats why this sort of feedback, wether it be negative or positive is good for us to know. When you start attacking the team (in what ever method it may be), this isn't feedback, it is just insult to the team.

I hope that this discussion may bring up some good ideas, I would like to hear how we could change things. It is always good to hear ideas.

[Dannii]

The basic point is if you submit a theme please understand we are volunteers none of us not even amacythe recieves financial gain from this, we get the enjoyment of helping a great project and working with a great team, aswell as a buzz in helping others whom also enjoy the product.

Mmm... I consider MOTM a financial gain. Not that I'd hold it against you.

I think the solution to all of this would be a better forge-like system.

[forumnoob]

I am sorry forumnoob, I apparently went too far above your head.

Let me see if I can dumb it down for you.

1 - The vast majority of the population are idiots outside of their fields of expertice.
2 - Most people visiting these forums are operating outside of their field of expertice.
3 - Allowing people to learn from those that have not been verified as having at least a partial clue is a bad idea, as it promotes cluelessness. Hiding such items from those people and showing them to those that have proven to the SMF staff that they DO have a clue for verification is the best way to ensure that mistakes are not duplicated by idiots.
4 - Allowing people to install things that were made by those without a clue would increase the load on the support end of things, as those SAME people would be highly unlikely to ask the mod author for help, but would instead go to the support areas for SMF itself to ask for help. This is a bad thing, if you didn't figure that out already.
5 - Letting idiots review idiots makes all the idiots feel better about themselves. That is all it accomplishes.

On a side note, I don't think you HAVE a field of expertice. Unless being an idiot IS your field of expertice.

^ lmao  ( A prospective Simplemachines moderator in the making?? hahahahaha)
spoken like a frustrated $15/hr tech support phone guy, half an hour away from losing his job to Ramish in Bangladesh

"Having a public list of unapproved customizations would only make things worse. I would only see people complaining because a customization was approved that was behind them in the line. For a fact as well, nobody is treated special. Any team member who submits a customization, follows the same approval process as everyone else. In fact, I am more strict with team members. I do not let anything go at all on a team members mod that is against our coding guidelines.
"

For one thing all mods are NOT created equal, so people wont get bent too far out of shape if one gets through a little quicker. It's natural when having a list of tasks, to pick quickly the ones you can do in a 1/2 hr vs doing one that will take 1/2 all by itself.

I believe that its more a fear of losing some hard gained "elitist status" thats speaking here more than anything else.

Not everything needs to be a community function, but opening up the approval process can only be a good thing.

"We as the customize team, try our hardest to ensure that customizations work, have no errors, will work with multiple languages installed, and hopefully change as little as needed, so as to not cause issues with other customiations. Its a hard process, there is so much to look at and do. It sometimes is hundreds of lines of code we are reading, just to ensure it works and is not a risk to use. We do all of this, in our free time. I know lots of things I could use my more wisely with instead of spending about 80% of it here. But yet, here I sit typing a message. I love SMF, its a very slick, sweet and powerful software. The greatest feeling I get, is when I see another user happy with SMF. It makes me proud to know that as not just a team, but a whole community, have put togethor such a software.
"
I got such a warm feeling reading that!*



* time to change my Depends(tm)!

[TheWrath!]

I am sorry forumnoob, I apparently went too far above your head.

Let me see if I can dumb it down for you.

1 - The vast majority of the population are idiots outside of their fields of expertice.
2 - Most people visiting these forums are operating outside of their field of expertice.
3 - Allowing people to learn from those that have not been verified as having at least a partial clue is a bad idea, as it promotes cluelessness. Hiding such items from those people and showing them to those that have proven to the SMF staff that they DO have a clue for verification is the best way to ensure that mistakes are not duplicated by idiots.
4 - Allowing people to install things that were made by those without a clue would increase the load on the support end of things, as those SAME people would be highly unlikely to ask the mod author for help, but would instead go to the support areas for SMF itself to ask for help. This is a bad thing, if you didn't figure that out already.
5 - Letting idiots review idiots makes all the idiots feel better about themselves. That is all it accomplishes.

On a side note, I don't think you HAVE a field of expertice. Unless being an idiot IS your field of expertice.

^ lmao  ( A prospective Simplemachines moderator in the making?? hahahahaha)
spoken like a frustrated $15/hr tech support phone guy, half an hour away from losing his job to Ramish in Bangladesh

"Having a public list of unapproved customizations would only make things worse. I would only see people complaining because a customization was approved that was behind them in the line. For a fact as well, nobody is treated special. Any team member who submits a customization, follows the same approval process as everyone else. In fact, I am more strict with team members. I do not let anything go at all on a team members mod that is against our coding guidelines.
"

For one thing all mods are NOT created equal, so people wont get bent too far out of shape if one gets through a little quicker. It's natural when having a list of tasks, to pick quickly the ones you can do in a 1/2 hr vs doing one that will take 1/2 all by itself.

I believe that its more a fear of losing some hard gained "elitist status" thats speaking here more than anything else.

Not everything needs to be a community function, but opening up the approval process can only be a good thing.

"We as the customize team, try our hardest to ensure that customizations work, have no errors, will work with multiple languages installed, and hopefully change as little as needed, so as to not cause issues with other customiations. Its a hard process, there is so much to look at and do. It sometimes is hundreds of lines of code we are reading, just to ensure it works and is not a risk to use. We do all of this, in our free time. I know lots of things I could use my more wisely with instead of spending about 80% of it here. But yet, here I sit typing a message. I love SMF, its a very slick, sweet and powerful software. The greatest feeling I get, is when I see another user happy with SMF. It makes me proud to know that as not just a team, but a whole community, have put togethor such a software.
"
I got such a warm feeling reading that!*



* time to change my Depends(tm)!

I have been AFK from the SMF world for a while due to many reasons. I am not associated with the SMF Team in any way. I would love to help out and maybe this can be it. Coming back after a several week hiatus due to personal reasons, and school I find this comment posted on one of the best forum systems out there. I have recommended this forum system to the vast number of people I have talked to about web design. They have in turn posted here or had me post on their behalf.

The rules are as is. If you want to append them make an official post and be professional about it. I find this post less than professional. I am a junior almost a senior in college majoring in Tech Support and Computer Networking. I am just saying this since I am in the middle of several projects for some of my classes. If you have someone doing a job for you and you treat them the way you are treating the team. You are not going to get your work. They are going to leave you out to dry, no questions asked. I have been on both sides of this.

forumnewb, you need to get your head out of your butt. They have stated that if you send a personal message to the team then your theme approval request goes to the bottom. Be a man and live with it. Is it really that hard? Please sometime let me know if I have step out of my bounds by saying anything. If I have offended anyone including the SMF Team please notify me and I will make a public apology.

I think I have said enough already. I hope forumnewb you will be able to understand what these guys go through. I speak with them all the time on the IRC chat. The IRC Chat is strictly for non support. We talk about really anything and joke around.

Do you know how it is to do this and have a full time job? It is not that easy. I am not yellling at the SMF members for doing this. I thank them and will continue to thank them. Depending on a team members calendar dictates what they have to get done.

Also, may I request that this post get closed. I believe enough bashing has been done by people.

All right.

Thank You!!!!!
TheWrath

Thank you

[metallica48423]

I have read enough. 

This post has turned into a flamewar.  In line with the guidelines of common sense I am locking this thread.

If comments and ideas can be made in a mature fashion, without the argument or cries of elitism, then we can discuss and its very possible for something to come of them.  But at this point it seems to be a lost cause. 

Point in case: losing your temper immediately ruins any chance you had of getting a point across.  This is with anything and anybody, from tech support to sewage disposal.

No warnings will be applied (by me) from this topic as it stands now, but do not let the arguing continue.