Official Guidelines for XenForo 3rd Party Resources

[Pete]

As it stands it give the appearance of do it our way or get out.

You mean the very behaviour people here were complaining XF didn’t do?

 

[Pete]

Positive reviews do not inherently indicate good quality, nor compatibility with other addons.

 

[Alpha1]

I hope that we are going to see a lot more resource quality standards enforced and highly appreciate any action by the xenforo staff to raise quality.
I don't see what's so difficult about writing a normal title. That should be the bare minimum. I don't see why that should even be a point of discussion.

 

[Slavik]

I hope that we are going to see a lot more resource quality standards enforced and highly appreciate any action by the xenforo staff to raise quality.
I don't see what's so difficult about writing a normal title. That should be the bare minimum. I don't see why that should even be a point of discussion.

Only on taz can we end up with 2 pages of people complaining about a 10 second name change that hurts nobody and benefits everyone.

 

[Neutral Singh]

a 10 second name change that hurts nobody and benefits everyone.

Agreed... if somebody's code has vulnerabilities, it should be definitely addressed at a top priority... the fact that someone's add-ons are still up for grabs at xF.com suggests that those issues were addressed... hopefully...

However, out of 31 expected standards from Devs, the Title Naming convention would rank as the least important standard to warrant a deletion of an add-on... Deleting add-ons for such a trivial reason would definitely hurt the xF community. I think, support staff should be able to deal with such a trivial issue at their own level rather than taking such a drastic decision.

 

[djbaxter]

Positive reviews do not inherently indicate good quality, nor compatibility with other addons.

Positive reviews mean they work.

Compatibility with other add-ons is always a trial and error process, unless they are issued as part of the core software. Do you seriously expect the author of an add-on to test that add-on against every other one in the catalogue?

But thank you for posting under your member name and not hiding behind Anonymous. I respect that.

 

[djbaxter]

Agreed... if somebody's code has vulnerabilities, it should be definitely addressed at a top priority... the fact that someone's add-ons are still up for grabs at xF.com suggests that those issues were addressed... hopefully...

However, out of 31 expected standards from Devs, the Title Naming convention would rank as the least important standard to warrant a deletion of an add-on... Deleting add-ons for such a trivial reason would definitely hurt the xF community. I think, support staff should be able to deal with such a trivial issues at their own level rather than taking such a drastic decision.

Exactly. I agree totally.

 

[Deleted 106708]

It's not their job to determine the name for someone's product.

Exactly, my product my name. Spot on, Andy's product Andy's right to name it whatever he likes.
Names are names, many products may have the same name that's why there is a description field...

 

[Deleted 106708]

Not sure what point you're trying to make, but they made a guideline stating that resource titles must be descriptive, they asked him (I'm sure quite nicely) to change the name, and he refused. It's simple as that.

Point was quite simple. His add-on his choice to name it whatever he wants . This is why I pointed out that there is a description field that goes more in depth about what his add-ons do .

I believe developers are upset that he releases a ton of add-ons for the for a fraction of the price of other single add-ons. Some developers are taking "years" to rewrite their add-ons .
My point was made he can name his products whatever he wants. I understand it's XF RM so they ultimately have the final say. However, I think they should focus more on other critical issues vs simple names.

 

[Deleted 106708]

I don't think any developer is upset by the number of add-ons he's released, lol

Once again you missed the point lol. The number of add-ons for the fraction of the price of a single add-on from a other developer. You keep missing the point so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Alpha1]

All of the following pertains to reviews on xenforo in general and not to any particular developer:

Positive reviews mean they work.

No. It may mean that. But not by definition. In general it just means that the person installing the addon was happy about something and did not notice any significant problems. Nothing more than that.

It may mean that the person was happy about the kind service or the price. It may mean that there was a problem that was not noticed. It may mean that the addon was installed on a small site with only a few active members where performance issues do not manifest. A good review may also mean that there is actually nothing wrong. But IMHO its not so black and white as you assume.

Also mind that its not easy to post code audits or negative review as it generally causes a lot of pushback and fallout. And often people are dependent upon the support & services of addon developers. So posting a negative review can mean shooting yourself in the foot. Therefore you will see less negative reviews than positive reviews. On xenforo.com by far most reviews are positive.

 

[djbaxter]

No. It may mean that. But not by definition. In general it just means that the person installing the addon was happy about something and did not notice any significant problems. Nothing more than that.

Does that not mean that for them the add-on worked as advertised, the way they wanted it to work?

Also mind that its not easy to post code audits or negative review as it generally causes a lot of pushback and fallout. And often people are dependent upon the support & services of addon developers. So posting a negative review can mean shooting yourself in the foot. Therefore you will see less negative reviews than positive reviews. On xenforo.com by far most reviews are positive.

Probably for good reason, including with Andy's add-ons.

But I can assure you, if I do have a complaint about an add-on, I don't hesitate to state that, as I have done more than once at vB.org.

 

[Alpha1]

Does that not mean that for them the add-on worked as advertised, the way they wanted it to work?

No, it doesn't.
I have written glowing reviews for addons that seemed to work perfectly. Unfortunately I later found out that the addons wrecked havoc on my site content.
The fact that something seems to be working well does not by definition mean that it is.

For example: waindigo friends seemed to be working well for people. But when I installed it on my big board, all hell broke loose. Simply because the activity and size of my site exacerbated the coding issues that others did not instantly see. Once it was on my site it brought my site to a grinding halt. Others just dealt with minor performance issues that were not noticed under normal circumstance. And yes, there were glowing reviews. Consider that if such minor performance issues are combined with other factors like an attack, other addons, server issues, than the minor performance issues can also exacerbate.

In fact, he went years with loads of positive reviews before XenForo identified that a solid 70% of his add-ons had SQL injection vulnerabilities.

Andy has 430 addons. 70% is 300 addons. Surely 300 addons with SQL injection is an exaggeration?
Could you please explain how its possible to get SQL injection vulnerabilities in 300+ addons??? Was this all the same issue or different SQL injection vulnerabilities in 300 addons?

 

[djbaxter]

If he pulls all of them for simply being asked to place a more descriptive name on them than what they currently have - then I don't know if I would want to rely on an add-on by someone who decided to act that childish.

If the product works and does what you want it to do, do you really care what he names it?

I don't think this is about titles at all.

 

[Deleted 106708]

But there are RULES in place that say he has to use a descriptive naming convention. If he chose to flaunt the rules (especially after being asked to comply) then there is a price for that.

Thanks for taking the time to read the thread and my post where I clearly acknowledge that "I understand it's XF RM so they ultimately have the final say."
We're allowing something petty (my opinion) like names turn developers like Andy off and chase them away from the community.

I love how rumors start that 70% of Andy's add-ons were vulnerable.

 

[MarkFL]

I would ask that we keep this discussion on track. TAZ provides a means of posting anonymously, and while we may choose to personally dismiss anything posted anonymously, we should refrain from insulting language.

 

[Maddox]

At present this is all one-sided; no one other than the XF team knows what discussions took place between them and Andyb. I have doubts that Andyb would just simply say 'no' without his reasons and we are not privy to those reasons, so I think it is very unfair to favour one side without hearing the other side.

As for his past mistakes regarding the SQL injection issue, he quickly put that right when he was informed of it and updated all of his addons. I still believe the description of addon functionality is more important in the body than it is in the title and as long as that takes place then the initial title is just a guideline. How many topic titles on TAZ do not actually reflect the content or basis of the discussion taking place?

I also understand that XF is attempting to bring in (albeit at a late date) some quality standards, but are those standards best applied to the quality of the addon rather than the name? The name is only an indicator, what happens after that is more important in terms of understanding what an addon does in the detailed description and that is where a potential customer will make their decision as to whether it's what they need.

I will reiterate that I am not an advocate of Andyb's work, but much of his work is appreciated by a lot of people and the reviews he receives are generally positive; I think XF will lose a valuable onsite developer if they cannot come to an amicable agreement with Andyb. When budding developers are slapped down it doesn't exactly give them the encouragement to learn more and potentially produce something significant and exciting when their experience grows.

 

[we_are_borg]

Read post #75 again no personal attacks. Cleaned up thread.

 

[Pete]

Positive reviews mean they work.

Compatibility with other add-ons is always a trial and error process, unless they are issued as part of the core software. Do you seriously expect the author of an add-on to test that add-on against every other one in the catalogue?

But thank you for posting under your member name and not hiding behind Anonymous. I respect that.

Firstly, I have never posted here anonymously.

Secondly, positive reviews only reinforce that they work for a certain bare minimum standard. It asserts nothing about quality... see previous comments about positively rated mods with major security holes.

 

[we_are_borg]

Exactly, my product my name. Spot on, Andy's product Andy's right to name it whatever he likes.
Names are names, many products may have the same name that's why there is a description field...

If the product works and does what you want it to do, do you really care what he names it?

I don't think this is about titles at all.

The issue is not the other fields but the naming of the add-on. XF made some rules when you publish on their site, the rules are not hard to follow in my eye. If you are a guest on some ones site and asked to correct something you can do two things one is complying with the request the other one is removing your stuff and move away from the site.

If i was XF i would do a full review of AndyB his code XF 1 and XF 2 and make a detailed analysis and report it. I have bad feeling about the outcome.