noisen

Nao => Aeva Media => Topic started by: Nao/Gilles on 8 October 2010 à 0h37

Title: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 8 October 2010 à 0h37
A few weeks ago I caught a post from Akyhne that was insulting to me. I wouldn't usually mind, but he posted it in a place he thought I couldn't read, and he was always very polite with me. I don't mind having enemies, but hypocrits are the worst kind, so I revoked his license to use SMF Media Gallery on his website, worldofgt.com, to which he replied with a "fuck you!", and he made the fight public. I just want you to be aware that the next time Akyhne gives you a lesson on anything (he loves giving people a lesson), you can tell him to fuck off, because he's willingly breaking his license agreement. That is, until I get bored and properly ask his host to take down his website. For now, this notice will suffice.

Now, some like Akyhne love my mods so much, that they are willing to insult me and get ridiculed in public, just to avoid uninstalling it from their website (or downgrading to a version I didn't make.)

But there are people who, on the contrary, don't like Aeva Media, for whatever reason. I'm absolutely fine with that. I wrote AeMe for myself, not for anyone else. It does what I want it to do. If it doesn't suit you, well...

Well, until today I used to say "use SMF Gallery, then. It sucks even more, but there are probably people who'll enjoy it more."

Now I won't even say that.

Arantor purchased vbgamer45's "Community Suite" package at $250 back in August.

He never was able to download it. After months of sending e-mails to vbgamer and asking him to give him access to his software suite, he was simply banned from his forum, and his license was revoked (whatever that means -- he was never able to download that in the first place.)

What's interesting is that not only did vbgamer NEVER tell Arantor why he banned him.
But he actually kept the $250 for himself.

Now, I've always been quite patient with that capitalist pig of an incompetent pseudo-dev, and never even mentioned him here even after all he's done to me in the shadows, but a point needs to be made because he went too far.

vbgamer45 is a lying bastard and a thief!

Thanks for your attention. (And Pete, I hope you won't mind that I posted this here. I just can't stand still and watch my friends be treated like shit.)
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: spoogs on 8 October 2010 à 1h12
Holy shit... I read bits and pieces of this but didnt know it went that far.

No way in hell I wouldnt be seeking legal action.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: CJ Jackson on 8 October 2010 à 20h47
Don't mind me saying, sound like vbgamer45 needs to get a proper job rather then sitting at the computer and scamming people out of their money.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 8 October 2010 à 21h14
I bought it in April, didn't download it as I had other things going on, and I figured, rightly, that I had a year's licence to download.

I came to download them in August, found I couldn't, posted a message on SMF Hacks indicating that it seemed odd but that it could have been an honest issue. That was 17th August.

vbgamer replied same day to advise he was moving everything to his Download Suite (as I'd pointed out it didn't look good for him to be selling various things that he wasn't even using himself), so I asked where I could download the software in the meantime.

After several more posts - without reply, and PMs to him, I still got nowhere. So I took it to the semi-private board on simplemachines.org, whereupon it was pointed out to me that it should have remained private. I agreed, but if I can't get satisfaction from the man, what else am I supposed to do? In any case, I felt that the team should be aware how one of their number is treated.

I even posted a copy of the thread from vbgamer's forum before he removed it. I was accused of stirring up drama, when I hadn't received something I had legitimately paid for.

I let this settle in the Friends board for a couple of days, hoping for some kind of sane resolution, but I guess I was hoping too far - because subsequently once I suggested that if I couldn't get resolution any other way I'd have to look into taking it to court - and sure enough I was banned shortly thereafter with 'License terminated' as the reason.

I was theoretically able to download way back in April when I pointed out that he was serving his software as attachments, however I never downloaded them, on the basis I'd download them as and when I was ready. Either way, I'm out $250 and have nothing to show for it, especially since the licence was otherwise good until April 2011.

At this point, I'm fed up to the back teeth with the entire SMF team and they can go whistle.

The only reason I don't just repost both threads is because I foolishly agreed not to disclose anything else from the private boards.


Reposted making it more general, http://arantor.org/index.php?topic=160.0
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 9 October 2010 à 10h03
Don't mind me saying, sound like vbgamer45 needs to get a proper job rather then sitting at the computer and scamming people out of their money.
Can't really happen until people start to realize that they deserve for themselves what they accept for others... Then, maybe he'll be kicked out.
Because what strikes me as the most shocking, is not that he's a scammer. It's that he's a prominent community member and a longtime SMF team member. Yet, he's also the symbol of what most of their team has been so far: a shameful act.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: CJ Jackson on 16 October 2010 à 1h16
Because what strikes me as the most shocking, is not that he's a scammer. It's that he's a prominent community member and a longtime SMF team member. Yet, he's also the symbol of what most of their team has been so far: a shameful act.
I'm not really surprised, a lot of people mostly in the western society choose to think that "sometime you have to be evil to be good," it just sad really and what make it worse is that often result in good reputation/karma, so therefore I ended up losing faith in karma and all I believe in now is role model.  I once got defamed and disturbed by a deluded person on MySpace who claims to be a musician but really his guitar playing was just shit (he posted video of his guitar playing), I should know I listen to good rock music all the time which not many people listen to nowadays.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Artur on 17 October 2010 à 14h31
Wow. Another reason to not use SMF.... Joke? :mouais:

250$ are a lot. Can you get your money back, Arantor?

@Topic:

Seems like the whole smf team seems to fall apart...
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 17 October 2010 à 20h50
Wow. Another reason to not use SMF.... Joke? :mouais:
vbgamer45 isn't SMF.
It just goes to show that the SMF team has management issues. There's a list of rules that each SMF teamie must follow and vbgamer has broken most of them several times over. This puts the software project in jeopardy because it's doubtful they can handle it properly if they can't handle their members' behavior.
Quote
250$ are a lot. Can you get your money back, Arantor?
vbgamer45 won't reply to him, won't refund, SMF team doesn't want to hear about it either.
So, basically, vbgamer45 is using these $250 to further his grip onto the SMF community. Nice.
Quote
Seems like the whole smf team seems to fall apart...
Like every empire, it will crumble one day. But will it last as long as Alexander's, or as the Romans'?
Posted on 17 October 2010 à 20h49
I should know I listen to good rock music all the time which not many people listen to nowadays.
Give Foxprog a try, then :P
http://fox.noisen.com
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 17 October 2010 à 22h43
Considering that vbgamer hasn't spoken to me since August when I first, politely, inquired about my downloads, and hasn't replied to me since that one brief message, I doubt I'll get anything back.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: CJ Jackson on 21 October 2010 à 1h19
I should know I listen to good rock music all the time which not many *young* people listen to nowadays.
Give Foxprog a try, then :P
http://fox.noisen.com
Pink Floyd  :gnehe:

Anyway, I missed out the word "young," oops  :mdr:
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 21 October 2010 à 1h31
Don't know about you, but I'm 27 - and given the demographic of the folks that look after forums that I met over on simplemachines.org, that puts me over the peak of the bell curve :/

/me likes Pink Floyd though :)
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: LHW on 21 October 2010 à 5h59
If you're over the hill, I must be nearing the bottom of said hill.  LOL
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 21 October 2010 à 9h39
:mdr:
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: CJ Jackson on 21 October 2010 à 12h24
Don't know about you, but I'm 27 - and given the demographic of the folks that look after forums that I met over on simplemachines.org.
What about the demographic of the World Wide Web population?  :D

Anyway I'm 23.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: t34 on 29 October 2010 à 23h45
It is amazing that something like this would happen.  You all young pups.  I've gone over five hills. 

Has anybody tried Buddypress on Wordpress?  There's a plugin that will import the SMF forums to Buddypress.  I haven't got the plugin to work because I keep getting this error:

SELECT ID_BOARD, name, description, boardOrder, numTopics, numPosts FROM smf_boards

Unknown column 'boardOrder' in 'field list'

Maybe I should change my user name to error.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 30 October 2010 à 22h02
That's because it's only good for SMF 1 forums... won't work on SMF 2.0 where the structure has changed.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 30 October 2010 à 22h34
Who would use Buddypress, anyway...?
I don't really see what it has, that would justify the move from SMF.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: t34 on 1er November 2010 à 5h59
Thanks Arantor.  The reason I'm looking into Buddypress is because I was having a very hard time getting my forum back up after I upgraded to 2RC3. At first, it upgraded fine.  However, when I started installing the mods, it crashed and I got a funky error.  The only way I was able to fix it was to delete all the files and install the old files and upgrade again.  The weird part was the next time I went to install the mods, a mod that had installed correctly the first go around crashed the site.  This happened multiple times and I was totally frustrated.  I am not a programmer and it was getting to the point where I wanted trash SMF because I wasn't sure I could get it to function properly.  I was hoping that I could use BP as a backup to the forum. That's when I started looking at WP and BP.  I would also like to have users be able to upload their videos directly to the site, which BP offers. 

I still find glitches to the forum.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 1er November 2010 à 6h51
Upload their videos to the site? Doesn't AeMe do this too?

Forum -> wait for 2.0 Final and check back here for a special celebrating version of AeMe!
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Dismal Shadow on 1er November 2010 à 15h44
Upload their videos to the site? Doesn't AeMe do this too?

Forum -> wait for 2.0 Final and check back here for a special celebrating version of AeMe!
Cookies?
Are you Darth?
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: hartiberlin on 11 November 2010 à 0h08
Hmm,
what I don´t understand,
Arantor, you paid 250 US$ for the download and then waited half a year before you tried to download it ?

Sounds unlogical to me...

What was the reason for it ?
Normally I would at least download it a few days later, if not the next day ?

I also bought a MOD from VBGamer and he deliver on time and I was satiesfied.

Why doesn´t he just send you now the download link again ?
Doesn´t he sell anymore the package ?

Regards, Stefan.

Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 11 November 2010 à 0h36
As it happens, the project I originally purchased them for fell through a couple of weeks later so I didn't need them but kept it in case something else came along.

You see, there's the problem. He could have done that. He could have just spoken to me and tried to resolve it like a normal, decent person. But no. He terminated the licence.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: sharks on 11 November 2010 à 16h28
Wow.... I had installed Aeva a few days ago... and just checked in here to see what's what about this really fat (and beautifully coded) modification.

To put it simply, i am SHOCKED! to read all of this. I have been using SMF for my forums since 5 years now. That's half a decade long of upgrading through the various versions, and the endless waiting for 2.0

I have to say that i knew that something was wrong with the SMF team, as phpBB 3.0 olympus was released and then other forum softwares kept climbing and releasing better versions. All the time, SMF was stuck at releasing RC of SMF 2.0 in very wide intervals. I am not a coder (unfortunately, but in the coming years i have the intention of working my way into learning how to code mods for SMF and to help the community) but as an avid user of the SMF software, it does not require an insider's point of view, to know that something is really off with the development, and hence the SMF team. It is a very sad and regrettable thing.

Anyway, to think that vbgamer (he created some of the most popular mods that i enjoy using) would steal... Destroying his reputation that took so many years to build. Not worth $250 if you ask me. Probably for a few hundred million dollars. :D jk
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: YogiBear on 11 November 2010 à 16h37
I should think more than a few of us over on SMF felt something was wrong, sharks. As you say, v2.0 taking forever, SMF Team comings and goings, sudden disappearances of key members, news of bannings and so on.

It's only since I came over to Noisen things have finally made sense.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Arantor on 11 November 2010 à 17h46
The thing is, and let me be blunt: none of this is new. It's just going round the block - January confirmed that there were issues, but everyone just wanted to step back and hope it got sorted out.

Forking SMF was inevitable as soon as it became known that it would change to a BSD licence. We're just proactively doing it ahead of the curve, so to speak.

I've had the dubious pleasure of seeing it more from the inside than outside and I gotta say, it's never been overly positive in that regard.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: CJ Jackson on 15 November 2010 à 2h51
Who would use Buddypress, anyway...?
I would say not many, I find the concept of a group-based bulletin board harder to get my head round when compared to a forum-based one like SMF, to post in a bulletin board with buddypress not only a new account is required, group membership is required as well.  I find that pretty silly.

I currently use buddypress on rockforums.tk, I'm planning on replacing buddypress with a tag-based bulletin board, one tag can have many topics and one topic can have many tags.
Title: Re: A cautionary tale for Aeva haters...
Post by: Nao/Gilles on 17 November 2010 à 16h39
Yeah, the tag concept is something we discussed at yourasoft.org a year ago, when we started building the software that was supposed to rock... (And which quickly went into oblivion because the team was trying too hard to avoid doing things the SMF way. Uh.)
I actually considered adding that to our fork, because, well, I have a tag system here on noisen, and it's easy enough to implement. We have a feature (not currently implemented, so much to do!) where topics are no longer linked to boards, but can be linked to other node types. A tag would be a good (and easy) node type, obviously.