Haku2

This I agree with and this is how it used to be before IPS got greedy. When security patches were released, most of the time it was just one file that you would just easily download and replace on your environment. However, I expect them to come back with some cover-up excuses about why it shouldn't be that way anymore, but hopefully they will surprise me.

I hope this will be fixed in the future. We need this feature working this way.
This flaw is the reason why the "Flag as spammer" feature is completely disabled on my communities. It's too dangerous since its irreversible.

Hi,
IPB has an option to flag a user as spammer from the front end through user profile. This hides all user posts/topics. However, when unflagging the user as spammer the topics/posts are still hidden and need to be manually approved again.
Is this a bug or can anything be done to fix this?
 
Thank you.

Everywhere if you buy something with license = you get files to download on your computer - but not here because someone think that we customers are stupid. Renewal costs for 6 months is only here what is more than stupid and IPS shoulod shame about that.
If i buy something and paid - i want those files on my PC - that is legal and works everywhere - but not here after 4.5.
My decision is what i will do with my paid files - delete or use it - if filies is ok i do not need support.
 

I agree, I developed my apps for my own website, decided to share in marketplace if other find any use
I didn't develop in intention to sell lot of copies
marketplace already has filter for each minor releases, if i and IPS following best practices, then almost all cases patch update of system shouldn't break it
it's been more than a year since last minor release, if I have to keep my license active just for other to be able to download it, I will be deep net negative
this hurts the customer who purchase the plugin won't be able to install it or update it, it also hurts my reputation

This is it in a nutshell. Those of us with significant investments and commitments in ongoing support of our communities understand that it is wholly unwise to leave ourselves at the mercy of individuals who may or may not continue supporting something critical, or continue maintaining an active license, or to assume that they have plans in place should they, for whatever reason, no longer be able to continue developing their resource.
We have historically looked at marketplace offerings as springboards that help us minimize our resources on getting new, needed functionality, yet with the understanding that anytime we add things to our installation, we now own the responsibility to ensure that we can take over continued support and development should the original developer no longer be available. In our plans for 4.4 to 4.5 migration, we've had to do this very thing and recreate functionality for marketplace purchases that are simply not being updated or where the developer has since left the building. Having access to those 4.4 files that we had previously stored in our code repositories made this compatibility task easier for our developers. Having dependencies like a need to integrate IPS extensions with Laravel or other frameworks or platforms is exactly the sort of thing that helps define how you should consider what and how you add things to IPS.
As I've shared before, we have found Not Good Things(tm) in the past from the resources we've downloaded, and have purchased resources only to find that the developer's implementation did not meet best practice guidelines and/or took steps that would put our community at risk by installing. That knowledge comes from having our developers audit those resources, install them in local development environments, and through our identifying and anticipating problems before they become incidents. The IPS folks here doing their absolute best to audit new resources should be commended for their efforts and talents, and it's great that they're increasing that effort. Yet it is fool hearty to think that they, or any small group of developers, would be well positioned to test for conflicts with a seemingly infinite number of configurations, back end systems, dependencies, and resources, and would not make errors in judgement or mistakes. We are all, after all, human.
Hobbyists and up and coming communities aren't worried about this. IPS' core market isn't worried about this. IPS sees this as a fringe case, where the benefits of turning off the ability to extract files from Marketplace in a downloadable format outweigh the incentives to turn it off. I understand their approach, and the business reasons for doing so.
Yet that understanding comes with the knowledge that the Marketplace we had in 4.4 is no more, and instead has been converted to some sort of imagined "Applesque" app store that caters to the lowest common denominator and that no longer meets the needs of customers like ourselves. If the equivalent of Steam Integration stops working for the local book club's forum, oh well. They'll survive and adapt. That's okay, and the change works for the people that comprise the core customer here. If integrating with Steam is the core of your community, you don't want to find yourself in that position.
It would have been nice to have had that shift in strategy and functionality communicated to us in some capacity in advance instead of finding out about it by surprise so we could have planned and anticipated for increases in budgeting for development time. When you consider simple things like IPS not maintaining a transparent versioning system, and instead favoring nebulous patches that only appear if you think to click the "something's wrong" button, we should remain cognizant that the focus of IPS right now seems to be on CIC and building their SaaS model and making things look as stable, magical, and seamless as possible for that market. From that vantage point, this all makes sense.
If your goal is to expand upon what others make available, or to maintain a solid operational continuity plan, or to understand what you're adding onto your installation, the understanding that purchasing something from 4.5's Marketplace is akin to "it will attempt to install and does whatever it does right now and that's your only guarantee, no looking under the hood, trust us, good luck in the future, not our problem" is something that should most definitely be informing how you use IPS' Marketplace.
Communities that are worried about these things would be wise to purchase resources directly from developers or create their own and bypass the new marketplace entirely, ensuring that they have the tools to pickup where that developer left off should the developer no longer be able to provide needed updates, stop renewing their license, become incapacitated in some way, or just have new interests.

Marketplace should be Airplace - because we buy air (space = nothing) without files is nothing at all!
And yes buying on developers site is only solution for me in future - never - never buying here because do not want buy air.
renewing after 6 months is shame should be better to call that like donation for pure developers!

So, is the 20% commission that you are earning off the Marketplace purchases just an exaggerated number from some of the developers?

This I agree with and this is how it used to be before IPS got greedy. When security patches were released, most of the time it was just one file that you would just easily download and replace on your environment. However, I expect them to come back with some cover-up excuses about why it shouldn't be that way anymore, but hopefully they will surprise me.

Sorry to say this is what I think as well. With that and marketplace time approval I am thinking of changing to something else.

revoking access to marketplace when license expire even if user has active subscriptions
and removing existing item from marketplace listing if dev's license expire (not sure about this, please confirm)
sounds overkill to me

This is a frustration that has irked us since 4.0. The gallery uploader for images needs to have a confirmation dialogue before it can be closed. Along the lines of 'Are you sure you want to close the uploader? All progress will be lost." It is annoying to accidentally hit escape or click outside of the box and have it close.

You are correct, I did not include elastic search.
I'm not trying to argue with anyone, just expressing my frustration.
Every now and then there is a thread with many responses and a title like "Formus are dead" or "Facebook is taking over".
I run three sites.  I make almost no money and spend a lot of time keeping the sites active.  This is one more financial hit.
It's no wonder "Forums are dying", it's really hard for them to survive.

I think it's great that the apps are available through the ACP, I don't agree with the requirement to have an active license.  For me, there have not been any updates in a very long time.  I was looking forward to upgrading to 4.5, now that is soured by the requirement to have an active license moving forward.  I have looked at other options.  Does IPS care?  It would seem not as they indicate I am the in the minority in not maintaining my license, even though there have not been updates in a very long time.
It is true I do not understand the business reason for you doing this, but as one of the (I suspect) many people running hobby sites that don't make money, this is really hard to take.  @Lindy, you mentioned XF, as you are aware, their upgrade fees are significantly less (85 a year if you buy everything - not every 6 months, but a full year), and you do not need an active license to purchase add-ons.  The license fees here are nearly triple that if you buy most products.
I understand IPS won't be bothered by losing a small customer like me, 3 licenses, and that makes me sad.  The culture felt more welcoming when I joined 13 years ago.

I know how you feel. It is ridiculous to have to pay so much money just to access the marketplace files you have already paid for. You now have to renew all of your suite's app licenses just to access one marketplace update. And, if you try to get around paying for all of your suite's apps renewals by cancelling some, you then have to pay full price if you ever want them back. I've been holding off on renewing for this reason.

I know how you feel. It is ridiculous to have to pay so much money just to access the marketplace files you have already paid for. You now have to renew all of your suite's app licenses just to access one marketplace update. And, if you try to get around paying for all of your suite's apps renewals by cancelling some, you then have to pay full price if you ever want them back. I've been holding off on renewing for this reason.

Understand this, and I was thinking yesterday how hard it would be now for some to run a nulled community with addons, however I’m sure they will find a way. So I hope they get dealt with. 😈
 
We’ve seen a few replies from staff saying this was a recent change, especially over the years regarding the marketplace. However, was it officially announced? Unless I missed something (which does happen), can you show us where it was announced? And if it hasn’t, could you please think about changing that making it very clear somewhere on the site. Maybe within the marketplace with a message?

Is there not a way that good standing customers could be in a tier system? This would allow us to download from the market place still. As someone pointed out earlier, there have been times that no updates have been done for 4/6 months, and if a licence runs out just before or during, why would I renew? Obviously I would wait until an update is released to renew.
I don’t want to have to go outside of the marketplace if I can help it. So the way forward is to play it smart and only renew when apps/plugs need renewing when software updates are released and time it all together, instead of waiting for one or the other.

Join our other topic:
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/458218-removal-of-15-domain-change/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-2828512

I m quiting IPB. They are acting like beggars now.

I know how you feel. It is ridiculous to have to pay so much money just to access the marketplace files you have already paid for. You now have to renew all of your suite's app licenses just to access one marketplace update. And, if you try to get around paying for all of your suite's apps renewals by cancelling some, you then have to pay full price if you ever want them back. I've been holding off on renewing for this reason. Furthermore, as a developer, who wants to have to pay over $100 on renewals (if you own almost all of the official apps) to release one app that maybe has integration with one official app at best?

so if my license expires in a week, and i just paid renewal of marketplace items for another half / full year
that means I only have access to them for a week? this on top of 20% commission you're charging developer while also require active license just to have access to marketplace
for real?

I know how you feel. It is ridiculous to have to pay so much money just to access the marketplace files you have already paid for. You now have to renew all of your suite's app licenses just to access one marketplace update. And, if you try to get around paying for all of your suite's apps renewals by cancelling some, you then have to pay full price if you ever want them back. I've been holding off on renewing for this reason. Furthermore, as a developer, who wants to have to pay over $100 on renewals (if you own almost all of the official apps) to release one app that maybe has integration with one official app at best?

It's a bit unfair to skip over my points just to attack @Ptilly's only point as mine counteract most of your arguments. If we're going to play around with the analogy of the Cadillac, the maintenance costs should be fairly average if you only bring it in for maintenance when it really needs it and not premature oil changes or transmission flushes. And, even then, you could save quite alot by doing it yourself or hiring someone else to do it. The same could be said for software. Not everyone needs every bug fix or new feature as soon as it's available. There are bugs you may never notice unless you regularly work within a certain realm of the software. You could even fix some bugs easily yourself. If the software has a good security record, you shouldn't have to upgrade frequently to get the security patch. I've kind of already went over this before, but most security flaws aren't even that complicated and can be fixed with a few lines of code. There actually used to be one-file patches you could easily download and apply before IPS got greedy and refrained from doing this. Furthermore, Cadillacs are basically just an overpriced American car so their parts shouldn't be anything special.
To get to your point on how businesses have to make money, there are plenty of ways companies can make money without unfairly charging people for every little aspect they can think of. I'd be renewing more frequently if I didn't have to pay for renewals on apps I'm not currently using in addition to other shady business decisions IPS has implemented. Would you give into your refrigerator charging a monthly fee to cool if it meant keeping the brand in business? 🙂

Since it’s only been implemented for a few months already, I’ll give it a couple more months to settle in. When people start to realize the issue this causes, Invision Power Board will remove this requirement. You can mark my words :).
This type of business won’t last long.

"Popular drummers forum". While I'm here running a forum for a small Garry's Mod gaming community. I spend $2500.00 on Garry's Mod Server Add-ons and $1000+ on XenForo add-ons and themes. Want to know what the cool thing about that is? I own every single bit of it and I can download it at any time I please.
So don't come 'Barneys Girlfriend'ing at me about what forums software I should and shouldn't use; I've ran my community model with the mindset of being able to survive without donations, but with Invision Power Board's team being greedy, and being laid off from work due to COVID, that possiblity has just now become alot slimmer. Unless you have the money to give me to spend on $200 a month for both the Garry's Mod Server, web server, and license divided up into the six month period on a month-per-month basis, I suggest you stick to your little drummers forum.