To the PQR Community, From Soapbox

[Soapbox]

but it should not be done in a way which subjugates the user and harms the community.

Give some good justification behind this on how the act of selling profiles harms the community. How my actions and others negatively impacts it. Give me some facts this time, i'm a bit tired of the opinions you think are fact.

[Guinness]

I like how people think they HAVE to pay for profiles. There are plenty of free alternatives and you are also FREE to make your own? I don't expect any of my employees to come to work and not get paid. Just as if a profile writer wants to charge for his time I am okay with that. It's there time and work they've put into the profile. Especially when Xelper has NO problem with paid profiles with his software. It all comes down to how Xelper feels about it in my opinion. Every profile is based on using his work. If he's okay with it then the high and mighty around here need to get off their horses.

[vitalic]

People have access to the free profiles. they have the option to pay for the others if they do so please. I have to pay in order to put links in my signature amongst other things. So no, it is not "erronous" its spot on.

It does not harm the community at all. In fact, the only thing affeting it is the mentality that YOU bring. I am not forcing anyone to buy anything, you do realize that right? You do realize all of these people do it out of their own free will AND (based on like 75% of my stuff is returning customers) they are VERY pleased with what they get. Simple as that, if you want it for free then go put all of the time and detail into it yourself, and unless you have already done that, then all you are bringing to this is a VERY narrow minded opinion.

Sorry, but it does harm the community, for all of the reasons I have listed. What you are doing is setting a precedent of which others are very likely to follow, such that eventually all of the good profiles could become subscription based and closed source, which would completely stifle development and progress and result in the absurd situation where the base program is completely free but the user can't actually utilise the software without paying third party developers for profiles.

Yes, it is erroneous because I cannot access your profiles at all, but I can post on this forum. Charging for addons or perks or "elite versions" still enters into murky waters, but it's a whole lot better than forcing users to pay an up front subscription fee, before they even know what it is they are buying (and it is a subscription fee, not a donation, no matter how you try to pervert the word).

And, as I just said, there are plenty of good ways to make money from your time investment without creating the disconnect or divide that others have mentioned, one of which is to charge individual users for the development of features they personally want added, people will be willing to do this because otherwise they would just have to hope that you happen to add that feature at some point down the line, but paying you to do it means they could have that feature added more quickly.

The fact people buy your profiles is not an argument for whether the practice is ethical. Lots of people buy Microsoft Windows but Microsoft still engage in unethical practices. All it means is there are a lot of people that don't care about their freedoms being stripped away or whether their actions harm the community.

Vitalic, I have a hard time seeing how paid profiles would affect the community negatively. Could you ellaborate a little on that?

Because since more ppl have arrived here and started to make profiles you can pay for, I've noticed the quality of all profiles released has just become better wether free or paid. I really think a new paid profile-section would benefit the community in large and give people more options as well.

I don't imagine that the emergence of paid profiles has increased the overall quality of profiles. What I suspect you are seeing is the natural increase in quality that comes with experience and an ever increasing pool of authors, but what you are not seeing is the detrimental effects that the paid profiles are having on that natural increase in quality, which will likely only become apparent later in time when the divide in quality between free and paid profiles starts to widen and more and more authors jump on the paid profile bandwagon.

[Ninjaderp]

I think you're jumping the gun a little about all profiles in the future will be subscription-based, out of all profile-releasers I can think of, only 3 out of all sell their work. And on top of that, people have repeatedly joined the subject and stated they will keep their profiles free, so I dont think you should worry that much about it (even less so since you apparently dont play wow anymore).

Bottom line is the PQR-community keeps growing and to give a paid profile-subforum would just benefit the evolution and make it easier for those people who want to get paid for their work.

[nilrem2004]

I'm not a user of the software since I quit WoW a while back, so I don't particularly care whether the software itself is unethical, which it may well be as it gives players an unfair advantage. I'm talking specifically about the practice of demanding mandatory donations to use an extension of a piece of free software (and by free I mean free as in freedom). To claim there is a double standard in play is to not understand the issue at hand.

Sorry but I didn't see you complaining to many companies that charge for "extensions" a.k.a. addons for Wordpress which is free software also? again....having a bit of a double standards?

[TehVoyager]

~snip~

good Profile creators are compensated for there time and hard work. they receive +rep to get access to the other sections of the site.

as Gabbz said, a lot of the paid profiles use event handling designed in free profiles. so you would be (or are, idk) profiting "your" time because someone else gave there time and effort away, to make a community.

want to ask for donations via Paypal for your work? i got no problem with that..... as long as its ASKING for donations, and not demanding donations for access to what should be free, and incorporates free code.

Give some good justification behind this on how the act of selling profiles harms the community

Pretty easy. for example: what if team NOVA, or Gabbz had been pay only, and you diddnt have access to the nova frame, or gabbz event handling code?


another example: how would the community do if firepong, NOVA, Gabbz and Rubim all suddenly made all new versions of there code pay only, and stopped providing help for new profile writers, because now there profiles and any coding tricks they used in them were making them money?

OR:

why would established profile writers help new people trying to learn, if those peoples profiles would directly compete with there source of income?

[Captncrunch]

I use mostly paid profiles because when they need to be updated that's exactly what happens. When people are getting paid they have an incentive to update. To demand updates on free profiles is self-centered . I want top notch and I'm willing to pay. I don't see the problem. $10 bucks for a good profile is cheap, I can probably find that in loose change in my car ffs.

[Soapbox]

another example: how would the community do if firepong, NOVA, Gabbz and Rubim all suddenly made all new versions of there code pay only, and stopped providing help for new profile writers, because now there profiles and any coding tricks they used in them were making them money?

So thats what happens with you start selling profiles? You no longer provide help to the community? Last I checked, before i even started selling Nilrem was, and WHEN he was he was providing me with help as well as others. Since I have been here i have not withheld my knowledge when approached or I saw a problem I could help someone with.

So you actual question should be "how would the community do if firepong, NOVA, Gabbz and Rubim all suddenly made all new versions of there code pay only" since the rest of that sentence is completely irrelevant.

Features like Nova Frame, and now the new PQI have been made free to the public, they are conveniences. Did PQR profiles run before them? They sure did, they ran just fine in fact. They are here to give the users the ability to customize without having to get into the code if they don't know what they are doing. Paid profiles functioned perfectly before Nova Frame, it is a utility feature and does nothing for functionality (Don't take it the wrong way it is AMAZING and I am glad it is available, but is it required? no). So what would happen if they didnt release it? Life would go on, great profiles would still be created and thats the end of it.

PQR is based off of support and it has, and will always be here. People come, people go but it doesn't matter of Joe Schmoe is selling profiles or giving them away for free we all still share information between each other and the community. When I put someone out in one of my profiles that is new and no one else has, it will eventually get suggested to another Dev, and they will either add their own version in, or not. Every thing still happens, full cycle. So this doom and gloom theory that you have that the damn PQR community is going to fall apart because some people choose to sell profiles is completely ridiculous.

Authors like Nova and Rubim etc have claimed hey will stay free, and hell they have since profiles have been sold. So again, you putting words in their mouths OR creating false worst-case scenarios does not make or prove a point.

[Aegeus]

That comment goes both ways, if that's how you intended it then great. If not, think about what you are saying for a second.

Yes, it was intended as you read it. I have no personal distaste for the debate of free vs paid profile support and human nature is just that, but a lot of people will never understand the concept.

I did disagree to begin with, but then Xelper said he didn't care about people charging, so what was there left to disagree with? The only thing that irks me is the attitude of some people towards the subject e.g. Failroad/BGreen12


Edit: Also forgot to add I am actually going to 'donate' for the seperate Mage profiles when it's leveled in a few days.

[jpoplive]

Soap You make some of the best, if not the best, profiles out there. I 100% support you in what you do. I have bought two of your profiles and would buy them all if I had all the classes at 90. I hope you get what you are asking for here.

[KuRIoS]

I will not read every comment in here, but I will single some quotes out. This is going to touch a few nerves on some people but so be it.

Now, as irrelevant as it is(I have been quiet about it long enough, I can at least give my 2c on it) the fact that I had Donators, and a administrator arguing for me to not use the word "Donate" when referring to a certain dollar amount when they not only support it, but in the case of a administrator, USE it blew my mind. While I know this was just one more thing to complain about to the guy who is going against what the spoken majority wants, it still is very low when you promote and support the same concept on a different operation.

We do not allow the use of our members to put "donate to me" or other things on our forum, you can put "buy this profile for any amount you deem fair" if you want, but only in the trade section. This will not be changed - The donation bit in threads. I said that you can put it in a readme, but no crap about "Donate to get this profile" but, "Buy this profile" and in Trade section.

The amount of negative feedback I have received from me selling profiles has dropped dramatically. Perhaps I did go about it the wrong way, out of the gates full speed. I have quite a large base of supporters (most of which don't comment on my threads, hell most i don't even know their OC names, just the amount of emails I have received after sending them profiles). Though every day I feel measures are being taken to slowly weed me out of the forums. I don't understand why I(and others) are being outcast to the trade forums where our profiles get swallowed by the account, powerleveling, goldselling threads. Can we not make a paid profile section? They are out there, not just PQR, and they are not going away. People like them, people hate them, but people buy them, LOTS of people buy them.

Why am i asking for this? a few reasons. I don't like being treated as a outcast because I choose to ask for something in return for the time i put into my profiles. Not everyone is the same. I also want to be able to better support my buyers, but when they post in the one place they know of (because they are human and don't read every fine detail before posting) I am unable to support them in the thread because I will get a infraction for TALKING about paid profiles.

You can talk about paid profiles in the TRADE SECTION, you have been told this many times and I receive complaints about you FROM OTHER PQR PROFILE DEVS very often. And no, they are not from the little brat.

I have devloped great relationships with a lot of the OC contributors and Devs, I really enjoy working with you guys and seeing some great ideas come to life. Things have changed, and I would just really like if instead of putting so much effort into creating ways and rules to push us out of the forums you would just give it a chance and see where it goes.

Push you out of the forums, we created a PQR profile devs section which is invite only, where the other devs didn't want you in, because in THEIR EYES, from what they told me, you and your attitude on this forum and all your "buy my profiles for the open source software" is what is making issues arrise all the time.
As far as infractions go, you have received infractions for going against what we told you. And making threads where they dont belong, like this one.. This is not a profile release or anything and I dont get what this thread is about, if it is a suggestion for the site, shouldn't it be in "suggestions" forum? Yeah it should.

All i wanted was the division to stop. there are a few who are going out of their way to segregate us, and it would be nice to have a sub-forum where people who choose to pay for profiles can go get access to them and support instead of having to dig through trade or bookmarks/history. Its just easier.

Edit: my site is still up, we just can no longer provide any links to non-commercial sites on the OC forums.

If you want to stop the segregation, then stop charging for your profiles and make them free as Xelper intended back when he created PQR....

So thats what happens with you start selling profiles? You no longer provide help to the community? Last I checked, before i even started selling Nilrem was, and WHEN he was he was providing me with help as well as others. Since I have been here i have not withheld my knowledge when approached or I saw a problem I could help someone with.

So you actual question should be "how would the community do if firepong, NOVA, Gabbz and Rubim all suddenly made all new versions of there code pay only" since the rest of that sentence is completely irrelevant.

Features like Nova Frame, and now the new PQI have been made free to the public, they are conveniences. Did PQR profiles run before them? They sure did, they ran just fine in fact. They are here to give the users the ability to customize without having to get into the code if they don't know what they are doing. Paid profiles functioned perfectly before Nova Frame, it is a utility feature and does nothing for functionality (Don't take it the wrong way it is AMAZING and I am glad it is available, but is it required? no). So what would happen if they didnt release it? Life would go on, great profiles would still be created and thats the end of it.

PQR is based off of support and it has, and will always be here. People come, people go but it doesn't matter of Joe Schmoe is selling profiles or giving them away for free we all still share information between each other and the community. When I put someone out in one of my profiles that is new and no one else has, it will eventually get suggested to another Dev, and they will either add their own version in, or not. Every thing still happens, full cycle. So this doom and gloom theory that you have that the damn PQR community is going to fall apart because some people choose to sell profiles is completely ridiculous.

Authors like Nova and Rubim etc have claimed hey will stay free, and hell they have since profiles have been sold. So again, you putting words in their mouths OR creating false worst-case scenarios does not make or prove a point.

You can sell your profiles in TRADE SECTION where you are on equal grounds with all others, it is as simple as that. You can give feedback in those threads or maybe we could talk about you giving feedback here. We will not create a trade forum solely for PQR profiles, why? Because we dont create one for every new fling that comes along. You will notice that we dont have a "paid combat routines" either, nor do we have "paid farming paths" or "paid D3 gold profiles" etc etc.
The solution to all of this could be to offer your profiles free as Xelper intented in the beginning.

From what I see and from what I hear (and remember I get the reports and I was the one that created the PQR devs invite only forum - so I do talk to a lot of them) the issue is that the general attitude is that SELLING profiles is frowned upon. Allowing members to donate if they like the profile is okay. This can still be done, we just dont want to see donations asked for in signatures or posts on OC. IF a member is asking if he can donate to you, just reply with "Sure I will send you a pm with my paypal addy" and that will be fine. IF you are selling stuff, it will have to go into trade section that is a sidewide rule and we wont bend it, sorry.

Last but not least I will repeat myself. You are not treated any different than other groups on OC.. NO ONE are allowed to have "Donate to me" in their signatures or threads, not even staff. So since you ARE SELLING things, you can use the trade section, like everyone else who wish to sell things on OC

[Ninjaderp]

The thing is Kur, that the current trade-section is WAY to cluttered to even get noticed in its current state. Thats why a separate Trade-section for profiles would be good.

[KuRIoS]

The thing is Kur, that the current trade-section is WAY to cluttered to even get noticed in its current state. Thats why a separate Trade-section for profiles would be good.

too bad, that is the way it is, we dont have a seperate trade forum for every little niche. sorry, but it is nowhere near big enough to demand a sepperate trade forum. We do not have a trade forum for seperate profiles for HB and one for lazy bot and one for private bots and one for pocketgnome and one for mmolazy and one for .... get the picture?

IF you want to solve this, stop producing "paid profiles" and just rely on donations.. You are allowed to put "You can donate to me here " in your README file, just not on OC...

[Soapbox]

That is failroad Kur..

I don't agree with you, and I feel you are overly biased which a not so good trait to have as an administrator. But what you say goes.

[KuRIoS]

That is failroad Kur..

I don't agree with you, and I feel you are overly biased which a not so good trait to have as an administrator. But what you say goes.

I am biased how? Let's check shall we?!?
We do not allow a donation link in your signature - Rule is the same for everyone else
We do not allow a donation link in your threads/posts - Rule is the same for everyone else
We do not allow the asking for donations anywhere on the site - Rule is the same for everyone else
I received more than 15 reports on you in one week where people complained that you broke the rules of PQR section and the site - I approached you and told you what I felt was the best way for you to handle it (Yes I was biased, I helped you!!)
We do not allow trade threads outside of trade forum - Rule is the same for everyone else.