For those who don't know, they're a popular site for WoW UI addons. And they have some other stuff too.
I have mixed feelings about them.
On one hand, I really don't have any respect for their attitude towards wowmatrix (basically unforgiving - I understand they wronged Curse, I don't understand they were given no chance to right the wrong), or how much they cripple their client when you're not a premium member or addon author.
On the other hand, they are one of the best sites for finding and installing WoW UI addons, and I do use them for finding most of my addons.
Dunno what this relationship means, but I hope Curse is a bit more mature today than when they got into the whole curse vs wowmatrix fight.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When all is said and done, Will you have said more than you have done?
Hi everyone, i'm the founder and ceo of Curse.
I want to clarify a few things that catched my attention.
Ok, lets rumble.
Quote from netcurse »
-Virus, etc in Addons
We approve every single file uploaded to Curse mannually. We scan them with more than 20 different AVs, and look for anything suspicious before approving something.
So you publicly admit you don't check source code and have f*cking no clue what these things are actually doing on your customers computers? You admit that all you do is scan with a few possibly broken anti-virus programs that may be unable to detect "bad stuff" (To paraphrase for the technically illiterate here) due to common virus development practices like obfuscated code, polymorphic self editing code, and other things I doubt most people here would understand? Oh, btw I am a professional developer and I work at the big name software companies when I feel like it. Be as technical as you like.
Quote from netcurse »
We have had 3 virus approved in 5 years, last being early 2008, if i remember correctly about 100 people downloaded the files before we took it down.
My younger brother was one of the people hit in 2008 or so. I honestly cant remember when exactly, but that seems about right. The fact that your methods are not perfect hits really close to home for me.
Quote from netcurse »
We had 0 virus ever hitting the Curse client, it can not execute .exe
What about "marketing statistics" and other forms of tracking? Are you going to tell us publicly that your client does contain marketing/tracking code that users may not want or agree to?
Quote from netcurse »
We have 2.3 millions active curse client users that logged the last 30 days, that's more users than minecraft itself.
The fact that you know that PROVES that you track users data without consent, and PROVES that you are watching people who may not want to be watched. This is unethical, and violates some state laws - I know it violates mine - if the people you re tracking are underage or do not consent in writing. What you just stated is in my opinion like admitting to pedophilia.
Quote from netcurse »
If we were spreading virus with the CC you would hear it everywhere, trust me.
The main issue is the tracking, and the fact that you publicly admit that you don't know what the code does but let your users access un-trustable code. If a mod contains compiled or obfuscated code, that does nothing but look for passwords and account details, then deletes itself, your users wouldn't know given that the "bad code" has had enough QA done to it. Ironic enough, Viruses typically get more QA then most retail software, so this is not a distinct impossibility.
Quote from netcurse »
-We 100% respect the terms of use of game developers. If Notch doesn't like addons, we will never support them. As simple as that!
Notch has publicly spoken out against mods, and yet the forum still "supports" them by allowing links to and data on their use. That doesn't seem very "respectful of the terms of the game developer" to me. How can you say one thing and do another, and then expect us to believe you in your word or otherwise trust you?
Quote from netcurse »
-We have no affiliation with gold farmers. One of the big gold farming corporate that you all know that i won't name here offered me enough cash to retire my whole life,i told them to @#@$$ off.
Since you did not mention them, I will not either, but its well known that they use your marketing data, advertisements, and guides/etc to to help them ramp up gold farming accounts, much like their own sites. And you do nothing to do anything against them, yet you support them in your actions. Its very symbiotic, and the fact remains that its very difficult to objectively look at that you do and think "oh no, they are not related to isk/gold/platinum/etc farming" because the fact remains you DO do things that a gold farming company does. You are effectively, a very good source for user data in the RMT trade community. Yet you don't distance yourself from them, you haven't spoken out against them, you accept money from RMT companies for advertisements and so forth, so you CAN NOT say you don't support them because your companies actions say otherwise, and as noted above, your terms of use even explicitly states you give up users data to "trusted third parties". So yes, as a customer I take that to mean that your own website states you give users data to RMT companies who are on your good list.
Quote from netcurse »
If you guys want me to answer any questions, shoot.
Wait, what? Can you shorten it up for me? My attention span
LOL SUCKS
...Nevermind. Sounds awesome!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Proudly wanting Classic Alpha to truly become Survival Alpha. Mobs killing blocks, ridiculously powerful beasts, and insanely unfair gameplay. Classic Alpha is boring. I want SURVIVAL alpha! Eh? Eh? ***** all you want.
Oh, btw I am a professional developer and I work at the big name software companies when I feel like it.
My profession is doomed :Zombie:.
The fact that your methods are not perfect hits really close to home for me.
You have any idea the number of addons hosted on that website, or how many are updated every day?
netcurse wrote:We had 0 virus ever hitting the Curse client, it can not execute .exe
What about "marketing statistics" and other forms of tracking? Are you going to tell us publicly that your client does contain marketing/tracking code that users may not want or agree to?
. . . so you start by changing the subject (virus argument didn't work, try marketing stats argument).
The fact that you know that PROVES that you track users data without consent, and PROVES that you are watching people who may not want to be watched. This is unethical, and violates some state laws - I know it violates mine - if the people you re tracking are underage. What you just stated is in my opinion like admitting to pedophilia.
. . . and accuse them of criminal behavior (where your only "proof" is a single aggregate statistic and a law that only some states adopt).
Are you really looking for answers to your questions, or are you just using them as a way to vent your anger?
Notch has publicly spoken out against mods, and yet the forum still "supports" them by allowing links to and data on their use.
Last I checked, this was announced - oh, yesterday (in my time zone), and you're already blaming Curse for the mod forums?
I dunno if he's the real CEO (anybody can get a name on a forum and pretend to be somebody else), but I dunno if it was really necessary to start rattling off accusations, especially accusations of criminal behavior. I may see Curse as a bit juvenile, but not criminal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When all is said and done, Will you have said more than you have done?
So you publicly admit you don't check source code and have f*cking no clue what these things are actually doing on your customers computers?
Not 1 SINGLE addon site does - the fact that you don't know this, invalidates every that you say - not that any of it made any sense.
Quote from Feverdream »
You admit that all you do is scan with a few possibly broken anti-virus programs that may be unable to detect "bad stuff" (To paraphrase for the technically illiterate here) due to common virus development practices like obfuscated code, polymorphic self editing code, and other things I doubt most people here would understand?
I doubt you understand - I also doubt that you've ever looked at an addon developed for any curse game. Obfuscated code and Polymorphic self editing code (lol) are NOT terms that can be used to describe addons - I'll give you a clue - this is part of an addon for WoW
function HealBot_RetMyBuffTime(hbGUID,buffName)
if not HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID] or not HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName] then return end
if HealBot_ShortBuffs[buffName] then
return HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName]+HealBot_Config.ShortBuffTimer
else
return HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName]+HealBot_Config.LongBuffTimer
end
end
function HealBot_retHealBot_MainTanks()
return HealBot_MainTanks
end
function HealBot_retHealBot_CTRATanks()
return HealBot_CTRATanks
end
function HealBot_retHealBot_MainAssists()
return HealBot_MainAssists
end
function HealBot_retHealBot_UseCrashProtection()
return HealBot_luVars["UseCrashProtection"]
end
You let me know where Polymorphic code can hide in that. This is not decompiled - this is the addon as it is installed. Its called LUA.
Quote from Feverdream »
Oh, btw I am a professional developer and I work at the big name software companies when I feel like it. Be as technical as you like.
That explains the **** games then.
Quote from Feverdream »
What about "marketing statistics" and other forms of tracking? Are you going to tell us publicly that your client does contain marketing/tracking code that users may not want or agree to?
Hate to tell you, but you'd be hard pressed to find a site that DIDN'T have trackers - in fact the very site your on has them. What dirty rotten people they are. Did you give written consent?
Quote from Feverdream »
The fact that you know that PROVES that you track users data without consent, and PROVES that you are watching people who may not want to be watched.
The fact that you think this proves anything PROVES how little you know. You find it unethical that a website know how many people logged in, in a given month? That what every servers logs are for. Or that a client that requires you to log in keeps a record of you logging in? Are you retarded?
Quote from Feverdream »
This is unethical, and violates some state laws - I know it violates mine - if the people you re tracking are underage or do not consent in writing.
It doesn't violate ANY state law to record the IP address of site visitors or login information when required to enter the site.
Quote from Feverdream »
The main issue is the tracking,
No, it's not - and until you can show me that the curse client is sniffing through my browser history, the only tracking information they are getting is my ip address - same as ANYWHERE else you go - the fact that they 'know' what you're downloading is incidental to running a server and keeping logs.
Quote from Feverdream »
...and the fact that you publicly admit that you don't know what the code does but let your users access un-trustable code...
If only you realized how silly you sound - Billions of lines of code for dozens of games... 1 addon a month if you're lucky.
Quote from Feverdream »
If a mod contains compiled or obfuscated code, that does nothing but look for passwords and account details, then deletes itself, your users wouldn't know given that the "bad code" has had enough QA done to it. Ironic enough, Viruses typically get more QA then most retail software, so this is not a distinct impossibility.
Again, if you knew how addons that curse supports were written...
Quote from Feverdream »
Notch has publicly spoken out against mods, and yet the forum still "supports" them by allowing links to and data on their use. That doesn't seem very "respectful of the terms of the game developer" to me. How can you say one thing and do another, and then expect us to believe you in your word or otherwise trust you?
I guess 'professionals' don't need to have reading comprehension skills. The CURSE CLIENT will not support addons if Notch doesn't want it to. Notch doesn't own the forums (more reading you missed) nor has ANY control over its content.
Quote from Feverdream »
Since you did not mention them, I will not either, but its well known that they use your marketing data, advertisements, and guides/etc to to help them ramp up gold farming accounts, much like their own sites. ******** <snip>
I spent more time then it was worth trying to find some data to back up this claim - I found nothing. Enlighten me with some creditable sources.
Whatever you think Curse is doing - I promise you, half the sites you visit are doing the same and more. Curse is a file host at best, and as such is no different then RapidShare - the day I can sue RS for getting a virus or collecting info on what I'm downloading or where I'm downloading from is the day I'll quit the internet.
Alright guys this got way out of hand, let me explain some things for you all. Firstly, netcuse is the real account of the curse founder.
Adverts
I'm not sure how much you've noticed, but we have a lot of scaling problems. As WedTM previously mentioned last month we had almost 70,000,000 page views, at peak times we had over 200 requests to our servers PER SECOND and that is a huge amount. As you can see we don't always handle that load well, that's because we have a very limited budget, we relied entirely on the advert revenue and that is not (and never will be) a maintainable way of running a popular website.
Nobody "likes" adverts, but they are a necessary evil, they are required to pay for servers and the time put in by the people who work on the site, without them this site would not be here.
curse are evil!!
We worked extensively with curse on explaining what we are, what our goals are and finding out about theirs. We are sufficiently happy with how they view the forum and where they want to take it in the future, we've looked at other sites they've worked on and spoken to people they've worked with, sure we heard a few negative things (wowmatrix) but when investigating them we found out that actually, curse acted exactly how we would have done.
We have signed contracts with curse that state myself, WedTM and aera are placed in charge of the forum and wiki, unlike before where we were focused on keeping the sites JUST online, we're now in a position where we can have the servers up and running 100% with people paid to focus on keeping them online, this means that we can focus on improving the forum usability, including fixing that bug that loses posts.
This deal won't change much at all, you guys have seen all the changes already. If you have any genuine concerns I really do encourage you to email me and we can discuss it privately, if it's something that curse should have input on then I'll get them talking too, we want to make this as best for you guys as possible. We took this deal because we were struggling with keeping the forums running and keeping them usable, we could have taken a different deal and each become very rich but instead we went with a deal that guaranteed the forum and communities future.
There's not much more to say really, if you're hell bent on seeing curse as the devil then so be it, but we're happy with the deal and we believe in the long run it'll be better for everyone. How about you wait a month and report back with your feelings then, when we have a prettier more functional and more stable forum?
sure we heard a few negative things (wowmatrix) but when investigating them we found out that actually, curse acted exactly how we would have done.
Eh, I think they could've use a bit more tact, and should've had more communications with the author of wowmatrix. I still stand by my opinion that their handling of it wasn't exactly a shining example of maturity.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When all is said and done, Will you have said more than you have done?
I understand wowmatrix made a mistake. But it was basically treated as an unforgivable sin.
Another POV is that of an addon author: Authors generally like to reach as many people as possible, and the split means we need to do more work to get addons available on all systems. We're left having to deal with two businesses with vendettas between them, and honestly, I don't like having to deal with that type of situation. I feel like I'm dealing with stubborn children.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When all is said and done, Will you have said more than you have done?
TLDR: Curse will be good, but I trust them about as far as I can throw a bus full of nuns; WowMatrix deserves no sympathy.
I stopped using Curse (this was in early 2008) because they had a really, really abusive terms of use that basically stripped developers of all ownership of their AddOns. It would be a bit like if the owners of this forum changed their terms of use such that they owned all texture packs, skins and mods linked to from the forums by their authors.
Curse did subsequently change their ToU to excise this part of the agreement, but only after the community raised a stink about it. For me, personally, once a company crosses the line into "evil" territory, I don't tend to trust them ever again.
Now, it's been nearly three years since then, and Curse seems fairly well respected. Looking around, it seems they brought WowAce (a community-driven framework of WoW AddOn code) and WoWWiki under their wing. Good on them!
I really like these forums and the wiki, even though I don't post here. I think this change will be good for both, especially in the "surviving massive traffic spikes" department, not to mention giving some measure of financial security. Doesn't mean I trust Curse, mind you. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
As an aside: as an ex-AddOn author, I was happy to see WowMatrix blocked. WowMatrix stole bandwidth and advertising revenue from the AddOn sites, ignored repeated requests from authors to remove their works, refused to even give credit to the authors and in some cases were even illegally distributing AddOns. I understand some authors had to resort to DMCA takedown notices that still didn't work. Whatever might be said about how Curse and WowInterface reacted afterwards, the situation was entirely WowMatrix's own fault.
I have an adblocker, and use noscript, so whatever soothes your soul.
I'd be careful about mentioning AdBlocker. I got banned from a WoW fansite for even mentioning that I used one at one point. I no longer use ANY form of AdBlocker.
Quote from Feverdream »
Quote from netcurse »
We had 0 virus ever hitting the Curse client, it can not execute .exe
What about "marketing statistics" and other forms of tracking? Are you going to tell us publicly that your client does contain marketing/tracking code that users may not want or agree to?
Quote from netcurse »
We have 2.3 millions active curse client users that logged the last 30 days, that's more users than minecraft itself.
The fact that you know that PROVES that you track users data without consent, and PROVES that you are watching people who may not want to be watched. This is unethical, and violates some state laws - I know it violates mine - if the people you re tracking are underage or do not consent in writing. What you just stated is in my opinion like admitting to pedophilia.
Look at the Minecraft.net stats page. Notch logs every single game created. He logs how many buy the game. He tracks user data. So why do you use Minecraft then?
I have an adblocker, and use noscript, so whatever soothes your soul.
I'd be careful about mentioning AdBlocker. I got banned from a WoW fansite for even mentioning that I used one at one point. I no longer use ANY form of AdBlocker.
I was going to mention something in my earlier post how I never understood the argument that using an adblocker is stealing.
OH YEAH BECAUSE YOU'RE TOTALLY GOING TO MISS THE WHOLE CENTS YOU'D GET FROM MY NOT-EVEN-LOOKING-AT-YOUR-ADS.
But I decided against it since I was worried someone would see it as a personal attack, somehow.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
We won't ban people for ad blocking, but you should understand that you're only hurting us, ad revenue is used to cover hosting costs. Last month we spent $2,300 on the forum, once we transition to the servers ran by Curse it'll be even more, ad revenue covers these costs.
If you value not seeing the adverts more than you value our site, maybe you shouldn't use it?
Quote from Avnas »
OH YEAH BECAUSE YOU'RE TOTALLY GOING TO MISS THE WHOLE CENTS YOU'D GET FROM MY NOT-EVEN-LOOKING-AT-YOUR-ADS.
because 1 person blocking is of little consequence, 1 person blocking telling their friend it's okay who tells their friend it's okay etc etc isn't, because most websites have over 30% blocking their adverts. See how it can be an issue?
The only reason we're still here today is because of people who donated.
Are we still able to donate and get the Sponsor titles?
We'll discuss it with curse, but we don't need them any more so we'd be hesitant about accepting money. If something does happen it'll most likely integrate with curse premium, http://www.curse.com/Premium
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Curse PremiumFor those who don't know, they're a popular site for WoW UI addons. And they have some other stuff too.
I have mixed feelings about them.
On one hand, I really don't have any respect for their attitude towards wowmatrix (basically unforgiving - I understand they wronged Curse, I don't understand they were given no chance to right the wrong), or how much they cripple their client when you're not a premium member or addon author.
On the other hand, they are one of the best sites for finding and installing WoW UI addons, and I do use them for finding most of my addons.
Dunno what this relationship means, but I hope Curse is a bit more mature today than when they got into the whole curse vs wowmatrix fight.
Ok, lets rumble.
So you publicly admit you don't check source code and have f*cking no clue what these things are actually doing on your customers computers? You admit that all you do is scan with a few possibly broken anti-virus programs that may be unable to detect "bad stuff" (To paraphrase for the technically illiterate here) due to common virus development practices like obfuscated code, polymorphic self editing code, and other things I doubt most people here would understand? Oh, btw I am a professional developer and I work at the big name software companies when I feel like it. Be as technical as you like.
My younger brother was one of the people hit in 2008 or so. I honestly cant remember when exactly, but that seems about right. The fact that your methods are not perfect hits really close to home for me.
What about "marketing statistics" and other forms of tracking? Are you going to tell us publicly that your client does contain marketing/tracking code that users may not want or agree to?
The fact that you know that PROVES that you track users data without consent, and PROVES that you are watching people who may not want to be watched. This is unethical, and violates some state laws - I know it violates mine - if the people you re tracking are underage or do not consent in writing. What you just stated is in my opinion like admitting to pedophilia.
The main issue is the tracking, and the fact that you publicly admit that you don't know what the code does but let your users access un-trustable code. If a mod contains compiled or obfuscated code, that does nothing but look for passwords and account details, then deletes itself, your users wouldn't know given that the "bad code" has had enough QA done to it. Ironic enough, Viruses typically get more QA then most retail software, so this is not a distinct impossibility.
Notch has publicly spoken out against mods, and yet the forum still "supports" them by allowing links to and data on their use. That doesn't seem very "respectful of the terms of the game developer" to me. How can you say one thing and do another, and then expect us to believe you in your word or otherwise trust you?
Since you did not mention them, I will not either, but its well known that they use your marketing data, advertisements, and guides/etc to to help them ramp up gold farming accounts, much like their own sites. And you do nothing to do anything against them, yet you support them in your actions. Its very symbiotic, and the fact remains that its very difficult to objectively look at that you do and think "oh no, they are not related to isk/gold/platinum/etc farming" because the fact remains you DO do things that a gold farming company does. You are effectively, a very good source for user data in the RMT trade community. Yet you don't distance yourself from them, you haven't spoken out against them, you accept money from RMT companies for advertisements and so forth, so you CAN NOT say you don't support them because your companies actions say otherwise, and as noted above, your terms of use even explicitly states you give up users data to "trusted third parties". So yes, as a customer I take that to mean that your own website states you give users data to RMT companies who are on your good list.
I did, so I am now waiting for a response.
Wait, what? Can you shorten it up for me? My attention span
LOL SUCKS
...Nevermind. Sounds awesome!
The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
Old Default | Minecraft with an old flavour
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Curse PremiumMy profession is doomed :Zombie:.
You have any idea the number of addons hosted on that website, or how many are updated every day?
. . . so you start by changing the subject (virus argument didn't work, try marketing stats argument).
. . . and accuse them of criminal behavior (where your only "proof" is a single aggregate statistic and a law that only some states adopt).
Are you really looking for answers to your questions, or are you just using them as a way to vent your anger?
Last I checked, this was announced - oh, yesterday (in my time zone), and you're already blaming Curse for the mod forums?
I dunno if he's the real CEO (anybody can get a name on a forum and pretend to be somebody else), but I dunno if it was really necessary to start rattling off accusations, especially accusations of criminal behavior. I may see Curse as a bit juvenile, but not criminal.
Old Default | Minecraft with an old flavour
Not 1 SINGLE addon site does - the fact that you don't know this, invalidates every that you say - not that any of it made any sense.
I doubt you understand - I also doubt that you've ever looked at an addon developed for any curse game. Obfuscated code and Polymorphic self editing code (lol) are NOT terms that can be used to describe addons - I'll give you a clue - this is part of an addon for WoW
function HealBot_RetMyBuffTime(hbGUID,buffName) if not HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID] or not HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName] then return end if HealBot_ShortBuffs[buffName] then return HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName]+HealBot_Config.ShortBuffTimer else return HealBot_PlayerBuff[hbGUID][buffName]+HealBot_Config.LongBuffTimer end end function HealBot_retHealBot_MainTanks() return HealBot_MainTanks end function HealBot_retHealBot_CTRATanks() return HealBot_CTRATanks end function HealBot_retHealBot_MainAssists() return HealBot_MainAssists end function HealBot_retHealBot_UseCrashProtection() return HealBot_luVars["UseCrashProtection"] endYou let me know where Polymorphic code can hide in that. This is not decompiled - this is the addon as it is installed. Its called LUA.
That explains the **** games then.
Hate to tell you, but you'd be hard pressed to find a site that DIDN'T have trackers - in fact the very site your on has them. What dirty rotten people they are. Did you give written consent?
The fact that you think this proves anything PROVES how little you know. You find it unethical that a website know how many people logged in, in a given month? That what every servers logs are for. Or that a client that requires you to log in keeps a record of you logging in? Are you retarded?
It doesn't violate ANY state law to record the IP address of site visitors or login information when required to enter the site.
No, it's not - and until you can show me that the curse client is sniffing through my browser history, the only tracking information they are getting is my ip address - same as ANYWHERE else you go - the fact that they 'know' what you're downloading is incidental to running a server and keeping logs.
If only you realized how silly you sound - Billions of lines of code for dozens of games... 1 addon a month if you're lucky.
Again, if you knew how addons that curse supports were written...
I guess 'professionals' don't need to have reading comprehension skills. The CURSE CLIENT will not support addons if Notch doesn't want it to. Notch doesn't own the forums (more reading you missed) nor has ANY control over its content.
I spent more time then it was worth trying to find some data to back up this claim - I found nothing. Enlighten me with some creditable sources.
Whatever you think Curse is doing - I promise you, half the sites you visit are doing the same and more. Curse is a file host at best, and as such is no different then RapidShare - the day I can sue RS for getting a virus or collecting info on what I'm downloading or where I'm downloading from is the day I'll quit the internet.
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AdminAdverts
I'm not sure how much you've noticed, but we have a lot of scaling problems. As WedTM previously mentioned last month we had almost 70,000,000 page views, at peak times we had over 200 requests to our servers PER SECOND and that is a huge amount. As you can see we don't always handle that load well, that's because we have a very limited budget, we relied entirely on the advert revenue and that is not (and never will be) a maintainable way of running a popular website.
Nobody "likes" adverts, but they are a necessary evil, they are required to pay for servers and the time put in by the people who work on the site, without them this site would not be here.
curse are evil!!
We worked extensively with curse on explaining what we are, what our goals are and finding out about theirs. We are sufficiently happy with how they view the forum and where they want to take it in the future, we've looked at other sites they've worked on and spoken to people they've worked with, sure we heard a few negative things (wowmatrix) but when investigating them we found out that actually, curse acted exactly how we would have done.
We have signed contracts with curse that state myself, WedTM and aera are placed in charge of the forum and wiki, unlike before where we were focused on keeping the sites JUST online, we're now in a position where we can have the servers up and running 100% with people paid to focus on keeping them online, this means that we can focus on improving the forum usability, including fixing that bug that loses posts.
This deal won't change much at all, you guys have seen all the changes already. If you have any genuine concerns I really do encourage you to email me and we can discuss it privately, if it's something that curse should have input on then I'll get them talking too, we want to make this as best for you guys as possible. We took this deal because we were struggling with keeping the forums running and keeping them usable, we could have taken a different deal and each become very rich but instead we went with a deal that guaranteed the forum and communities future.
There's not much more to say really, if you're hell bent on seeing curse as the devil then so be it, but we're happy with the deal and we believe in the long run it'll be better for everyone. How about you wait a month and report back with your feelings then, when we have a prettier more functional and more stable forum?
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Curse PremiumEh, I think they could've use a bit more tact, and should've had more communications with the author of wowmatrix. I still stand by my opinion that their handling of it wasn't exactly a shining example of maturity.
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Curse PremiumAnother POV is that of an addon author: Authors generally like to reach as many people as possible, and the split means we need to do more work to get addons available on all systems. We're left having to deal with two businesses with vendettas between them, and honestly, I don't like having to deal with that type of situation. I feel like I'm dealing with stubborn children.
I stopped using Curse (this was in early 2008) because they had a really, really abusive terms of use that basically stripped developers of all ownership of their AddOns. It would be a bit like if the owners of this forum changed their terms of use such that they owned all texture packs, skins and mods linked to from the forums by their authors.
Curse did subsequently change their ToU to excise this part of the agreement, but only after the community raised a stink about it. For me, personally, once a company crosses the line into "evil" territory, I don't tend to trust them ever again.
Now, it's been nearly three years since then, and Curse seems fairly well respected. Looking around, it seems they brought WowAce (a community-driven framework of WoW AddOn code) and WoWWiki under their wing. Good on them!
I really like these forums and the wiki, even though I don't post here. I think this change will be good for both, especially in the "surviving massive traffic spikes" department, not to mention giving some measure of financial security. Doesn't mean I trust Curse, mind you. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
As an aside: as an ex-AddOn author, I was happy to see WowMatrix blocked. WowMatrix stole bandwidth and advertising revenue from the AddOn sites, ignored repeated requests from authors to remove their works, refused to even give credit to the authors and in some cases were even illegally distributing AddOns. I understand some authors had to resort to DMCA takedown notices that still didn't work. Whatever might be said about how Curse and WowInterface reacted afterwards, the situation was entirely WowMatrix's own fault.
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Curse PremiumI'd be careful about mentioning AdBlocker. I got banned from a WoW fansite for even mentioning that I used one at one point. I no longer use ANY form of AdBlocker.
Look at the Minecraft.net stats page. Notch logs every single game created. He logs how many buy the game. He tracks user data. So why do you use Minecraft then?
So I don't really have any objections other than the ads and links to other sites, but I guess they're necessary.
I was going to mention something in my earlier post how I never understood the argument that using an adblocker is stealing.
OH YEAH BECAUSE YOU'RE TOTALLY GOING TO MISS THE WHOLE CENTS YOU'D GET FROM MY NOT-EVEN-LOOKING-AT-YOUR-ADS.
But I decided against it since I was worried someone would see it as a personal attack, somehow.
The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
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AdminIf you value not seeing the adverts more than you value our site, maybe you shouldn't use it?
because 1 person blocking is of little consequence, 1 person blocking telling their friend it's okay who tells their friend it's okay etc etc isn't, because most websites have over 30% blocking their adverts. See how it can be an issue?
The only reason we're still here today is because of people who donated.
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AdminWe'll discuss it with curse, but we don't need them any more so we'd be hesitant about accepting money. If something does happen it'll most likely integrate with curse premium, http://www.curse.com/Premium