I'm throwing in the towel here.. - part 2

@newton27: You can't purchase derartmedia's stuff, because I hid them after his account was restored. Hopefully BoonEx will implement a better system where I can simply pull items from sale without using the hide feature.

 OK, thanks.

"newton27' 'In the picture, Deartmedia is there, yet I purchased so many modules from him and yet cannot get them from the market."

Nathan - is it possible to say open accounts like YouNet & Deartmedia for like a one/two day window then anyone who brought their modules would get a last chance to download them as they can be got working in 7.1.4 with a little tweaking. then hide them, close them down or whatever you wish!

Also in my shopping history when I click on over half the modules I bought, I get 404. Page Not Found, it would by nice if the customer had the option to delete these modules.

And there I am on the popular list.. even though I don't have the level of account that allows me to sell mods lol.

 I think it would be logical to leave modules downloadable while vendor's profile is removed/suspended.

From other hand, on some other websites you have 24 hours-active download link, then you keep it safe like on double copies CD.

Also what to do when I'm selling a modules special bundle for a short time, how they will download it when this bundle is not active anymore? Adding such customer to each module download is not practical.

By the way, does anybody else noticed the problem of # in the forum links that causing "400 Bad request"?

 I totally agree! I have many modules sitting there that I have purchased and that I am not able to download ... hate that!

Andrew Boon stated, "There're some layout nuances that we need to fix as well, obviously, so patience is much appreciated."

Thanks Andrew for coming in and talking with us; it would be nice if more of that can occur because it prevents us from reacting in panic.

Now I hope you will take the opportunity to listen to us on the layout; we can help with the design and usability of the market; something that many companies will hire to have done, you get our work for free.  Already in our testing of the market we see that many users will not know of the top bar search, having that search link on the market page is better.  Another big issue we saw was the three column layout, it just does not work, modules names are cut off and the page looks cluttered instead of nice and clean.  Even if you reduce the size of the icons and text, it still would look cluttered.  There have been some layout examples presented already; this community is full of web developers, take advantage of the free work they are offering.

Andrew, I don't know if you notice that some of the comments mentioned that it appears that Boonex does not listen to its customers.  It seems that once a decision has been made it becomes written in stone.  Here is a chance with the Market to show that Boonex does listen to its customers.  In fact, make a blog post on the Market changes.  In that post, ask us what is working and what is not working.  We have an interest in Boonex too and want to see Boonex succeed; we will be happy to help.

I don't know about anyone else but I've heard these promises before..... anything to keep the ship afloat a little longer... When you have people paying out money for stuff that no longer exists or has been banned, the cut needs to be immediate and swift to prevent financial loss, not "We're getting to it, please be patient". To me that is just ridiculous. That problem should take precedence over all others until the bloodletting is stopped..... If it were my site and I couldn't create an immediate fix, I would completely remove access to it until I could resolve it, not leave it up so people keep throwing their hard earned money down the rat hole.

Just a customers view - 

I have a simple solution to this: It should be a condition of selling modules on Boonex, should the module fail to be supported or the vendor disappears for a period (say six (6) months) or the vendor is banned, the particular module(s) may be moved in to the FREE section for all to access. I guess if you done that there would not be many left in the Paid section - so that will never happen.

Their is some excellent vendors here and their products are good and well supported, there are also some up and coming developers with great foresight, but there are some vendors take your money and supply not working and unsupported crap or disappear and turn up as a new vendor selling the exactly same product with 3 changes in the config (but I forgot, I have just come up a river on a bicycle).

I look at he market nearly every day and feel ill, when see these money grabbers on the front page of the new Staff Picks and on the second page of Noteworthy, I used to buy practically everything, now I am very cautious, often not buying great modules or additions. I also wish customers had an option to withdraw or upgrade/downgrade their feedback at anytime. 

I read the Boonex forums every day and with great concern reading that highly respected vendors and members having to put a case why the may have to move on to other mediums. Also i find it unbelievable that members have to suggest other mediums to try in the forums (I consider it the same as a GMC salesman telling me buy a Ford).  I personally do not care how the market home page looks once it has the Latest, Updated and a visible Search function ( I know Andrew said this was in hand) but I have enough common sense to look at the description, test the module (if available) and contact the vendor if I have a question and if the price is right buy it.

Boonex listen and react to your people (If lots of people are telling me I go a problem, then I surely must have a problem, I can try to hide it, brush it off, but I still have a problem) - It's a good product that has come a long way, lets not lose focus, I do fully understand you will never please everyone, but if it was easy everyone would be doing it!.

I'm not sure I understand what it is you're trying to say.

I thought the point was that people can no longer download modules they bought in the past, now that developer is banned/suspended. I believe this means that new people can't buy these products anymore, to prevent financial loss.

So, if I'm not mistaken you suggest to close the market until there is a working solution for the banned/suspended vendors...

When I started the topic about "what is happening to the market?", of which this is a spin-off, the only thing I wanted was for Boonex to bring out some sort of statement about the market. Boonex has done so and  for me that is sufficient. I will wait to see what Boonex comes up with and so should everyone else. If you feel you have some input then please be constructive in your critisism, rather then insinuating the worse.

It was never my intention to tell people how to run their business, neither to give anyone else an outlet to do so. None of us have the information to judge if correct decissions are made. Yes, we can like or dislike these decissions and see if there is some way our voices get heard by Boonex, but this is not that way.

The negativity of some people here is more damaging then anything else. People reading this must think it's a pile of sh*t, but the truth is far from that. Dophin 7.1.4 is by far the best release we have seen. It outperformce every predesessor and my site is running well on it. I spent about $800 on modules and licenses (this includes a Prime Dolphin license and the cost of my own and others modules, but excludes the flashchat license I already had). I do not think that is a lot of money for what I've got, actually it was a bargain and saved me years of coding!

I think the main thing learned from all this is that good communications are important. Lets leave it by that.

@eva1: If the account is not still suspended (I can't unsuspend accounts), send me a PM with a link to the market items, and I'll unhide them for a bit to let you download everything. Same offer applies to everyone else.

 In fact, a lot of companies paying money to independent testers for testing their software and give a feedback. If most people are talking about the same thing, it must be worth to talk about.

Some time ago I was working on customer's website with $15k/month income and I've learn some technics that targeted to make people pay money, not just come in and out. There was a couple options to pay for memberships, so people can afford it. I think with such knowledge now I can offer my five cents for Boonex usability.

By the way, there's not too much nulled initially-affordable-priced stuff on the Internet. But you can find a lot of hacked expensive stuff like Photoshop or AfterEffects, just because people need it anyhow, but can't afford for different reasons. If some student decided to make a website for his college, most likely he's not gonna spend $400+ on it, plus modules, plus mobile to make it really cool. He will go with another CMS like WP or will find nulled Dolphin somewhere else.

Recap: if two cars - expensive and cheap one - are staying next to each other, guess which one a thief gonna prefer?

 Paid software testers ... Where ?! ;)

I am a beta-tester for WHMCS and this is not paid ... plus you are not allowed to use the beta software for production with the Developer license.

 I saw a lot of offers over the Internet, when I'll see next time, I'll let you know if you are interested.

My friend used to work as a software tester, was getting good income for that.

 I often wondered why BoonEx would not allow a few good developers from here to help with Dolphin. Seems like there are only 2-3 developers that actually do any development looking at the tickets.

There are a few times I have seen members here actually post the resolution to the bug for Dolphin.. Just a thought.

Yeah cool! I don't really enjoy stuff like this for the $$ even though that is nice too, but I just like getting hold of and testing the software etc before everyone else ;)

 Damn, the amount of times I have fixed / solved own bugs :/

I am sure there are developers here that would be interested in some freelance work with Boonex.  They know Dolphin well and anyone else coming in cold won't have the knowledge of the code base.

PHP Blocks is a basic building block of Dolphin.  Yet, the code base does not include that in the builders.  Perhaps the decision was that it would cause support issues.  However, being able to add PHP blocks easily should be in the builders.  Deano created that feature and offered it freely to Boonex; there is a ticket on it.  So why doesn't 7.1.x ship with the feature to add PHP blocks?  It works, it has been tested by those adding it.  It is in the Market as a free module.   Why it isn't included only Andrew knows, or AlexT perhaps.

 This is exactly the absolute biggest problem with boonex.  They built something that, for most, requires more than a basic knowledge of code.  And, at times, the code is so confused/complicated that even good coders need hours/days/weeks to work out the problem/fix/solution.

The next big problem is that Boonex leaves it to the community to support itself, with little to no support from the Boonex people themselves.  

This is EXACTLY why I never paid for a license and will not.  

I've spent tons of money fixing problems and making the thing work right.  The forum is a great example (You have to go into the code to do something as basic as adding Adsense for Pete's sake!!). Groups is another i-dont-know-what-that-is module.  The store is so limited that only a few can actually use it and admin can't even take a commission on sales!!!??   And what is that mobile version about?? Its about promoting Boonex!!  I'll never use that.

You need knowledge, tons of time and heavy pockets to work with Boonex.

As a free Boonex member, I'm spending tons of money fixing my site and promoting my site while that annoying blue Boonex button sticks out like a sore thumb on my site.  I feel Boonex gets more out of me than I get out of Boonex.

I believed in Boonex and built my community with it.  I can't simply leave it or move to something else.  But I will if things don't change.

Get your act together.  You had something great going years ago before you went stingy.  There were 1000's of people here sharing ideas, tips and tricks. 

Release an update where people can have more freedom to build a site THEY want.  Not a site YOU want.  

Update your HOW TO sections, damn it!!!

Then offer to pay some of the likes of Deano to provide support, tips, tricks.  The kind who know the code.  Providing robust support in the forum is imperative or will be Boonex's ultimate doom.

And you might find people will flock back to Boonex.

 But spending $249 on a license is too much?

Maybe if more people would buy a license they would spent less overall. With the extra money from licenses Boonex can hire extra coders to solve more isssus in a shorter time frame. And...This way it becomes a collective thing again, rather then you fixing issues with your own site.

You make money with your site, using someone else's software for free, and still you're complaining?

Number is not the same as Quality. 

Well, Boonex has some of us for free, but nobody use this opportunity.

 Very true, but quality coders cost even more

 hahhahahahaaa.. i spent 800 on my chat alone!.. When I first decided to go with Dolphin I was moving a site over from ning, was right when nings video chat "blendaps" ,, same thing as userplane but scaled down,, it was right when the chat went from allowing you to view 4 cams to just being about to dock one. I seen Rayz chat and it looked like what I needed and what i was looking for, plus I had been on the forums here for about a year by then. I wanted to "own" my site, not rent a site, i wanted to own my content and have it able to be taken away by a 3rd party at any time, you couldn't even block ips, you have no server access with Ning, you have nothing so the chat was the straw that broke the camels back. I got my site setup, bought a million modules  and got people over to test the new site,, only to quickly find the problems with chat,, the same problems that exist YEARS later,, but by then I was already dug in "way more then 250 btw" too deep to turn back, so I was forced to by a 3rd party chat that WORKED ,, and that is the one that bugs me over everything else here at Boonex,, the chat is trash, has been for years, we have complained till we are blue in the face, still no fix,, so if you come over and get setup wanting a chat site you will quickly learn that you picked the wrong platform if you want it to function right, out of the box. Nope to get that you have to go over to a 3rd party and blow several hundred dollars. 250 for a licenses of a platform that had a proper chat, I would pay twice that even and be happy if it worked right from day one!

 This is obvious. But even a million turtles will not replace one horse.

 dont know about that,, my 2 red eared sliders are huge and strong,, you times that by a million and you would have yoru hands full thats for sure!

 Are they fast like a horse as well? :)

 in the water they are! lol

I wondered how long it would take for people to start jumping ship. It was a year ago when I though 'enough was enough'. I was wasting my time creating templates.

Dolphin 6 was awesome, simple and flexible (to me anyway). And then came the announcement of Dolphin 7, sales dipped and it was never the same again no matter how hard I tried.

There was a nice buzz in the forums and people were using the software, now, it's so hard install on servers, people just bail. Why don't you fix those issues? I had SOO many requests to install the lump.

In my opinion (which is the same as last years), make it open source and find another way to charge, the growth is never going to happen otherwise.

My prediction is that unless Andrew and the team think about where they want this product to be in 2 to 3 years time it will die slowly. 

Clean browser's cookies, it should solve the problem. 

 For you to make such an assumption, you should first ask :

• How much time it took me to set up a Boonex site. You know time is money.
• How much money I have spent all these years in the Boonex marketplace.
• How much money I spend on hosting the damn thing each month.  Its heavy!
• How much money I spend on advertising the site to reach a profit.

If you knew the answer to the above, you would not have made such a remark.

Meantime, Boonex gets their due - free promo.

 This wasn't an assumption, you are complaining while using adsense to monetise your website, using software without buying a license. You could try SocialEngine for example. Less options, one month demo license and then you buy or die.

SE Support... I was trying to get some information about their database structure and was told to buy a license first. Never seen anything like that on Boonex.

I know all about the cost of running websites. I have done so for the past 9 years and still run my own socialnetwork (using Dolphin), some wordpress sites and several websites build on my own framework.

Boonex does not take commission on products bought in the market and you only support the developer selling the product (and of course paypal). Neither does Boonex take money for your hosting (unless you use a "recommended hosting company"), or take money for your advertisement.

All the time and money you spent did not contribute in any form or shape to Dolphin but still you blame Boonex for something that no one forced you in to and that you can use in return for a link and a blue dolphin icon. Just imagine how much time was spent writing all that code, maintaining it and hosting it.

I followed the project for a long time and it wasn't until Dolphin 7.1.x that I thought Dolphin was going in the right direction for me and bought a license. I had a free license already but decided to buy a Prime license, just to support the product. It also gave me the option to sell products and get discounts in the market.

If you spent that much already, the 10% discount people get when they own a Prime license should have paid for your license by it self. I mean if you spent $5,000 in the market, your Prime license would have been free. You also could have sold your own developed products, getting some return on the time invested, I do. The advantage of my business model is that I can sell my products at very competitive rates.

So before you start making assumptions about me, you should ask yourself:

- Do I have the technical skills it takes to run such a website

- Do I know how to market my site to my target group

- Does my business model work

 Uhhhh dont forget that Boonex developers and employees sell modules on the market too!  ... so Boonex does make money off the market, not to mention I always wondered of ot was a developer or employee of Boonex that came up with the mod shouldn't that mod go included in Boonex instead of to the market?.. just seems strange to me like conflict of interest or two bites at the apple,,,,, dunno

 a. I made no assumptions of you.  You made assumptions of me without knowing who i am, what business I run, how much dedication ,time and money I have spent on it.

b. The last 2 questions you ask : what in hell does that have anything to do with it?  That's my business.

As for the "technical skills" - No. I had to learn. the hard way. and when I couldn't figure it out, I had to pay for someone to do it.  You're basically telling people not to use Boonex unless you have technical skills.  And that is very true.  Not like Joomla or Wordpress or so many other malleable platforms who stick to open source and make money from their own marketplace.  Successfully, I might add.

I implemented Boonex way back when this forum was alive with people sharing their knowledge, trading tips and tricks.  The marketplace was oozing with incredible ideas and it was money well spent.  It looked like something that was going places and I invested in it by implementing it and investing in it.  Boonex DOES get something out of the freebie members!  Every single one of us are an example of what Boonex can do.  And that, depending on how successful you are, is priceless for a brand name like Boonex.

How about you spend a little time and look through the forum now. Look at the links people put up of their Boonex sites, and see for yourself how many of them are still live sites.  You might be surprised at the number who no longer exist.

Don't you or anyone dare talk down anyone who opted for the free license.  

If there were support from the coders here, I would happily have paid the license because it would have saved me a LOT of time and a LOT of money!!  

And, yes, Boonex does make money from the marketplace and from recommending hosts.

You are right, Boonex developers and employees sell modules in the market, but I don't know if this goes in to the pocket of Boonex and/or the developer/employee.

I don't think more modules should be included in the package. I actually believe Dolphin could do with less. My reason for this is that more time can be made available on core development, rather then supporting another ton of modules. On top of that, people tend to install all modules without realising what this means for the available resources (and then complain it doesn't work).

I'm sure crappy hosting and packages is also a big factor ... You can't run a working Dolphin site let alone Dolphin site with just a few active members on some $1.99 special plan with little resources that's for sure, yet I have seen many people think they can get away with it and blame Dolphin and Boonex before realizing otherwise.

 Agreed.  I'm on a cloud hosting package at $90+ per month and will probably have to up the ante again this year.  Not cheap.

 Just one of my servers that powers my most popular network is $300 /mo ...

Yep.  I've 'shut down' a few modules to allow my $90 cloud account to work well-ish while I decide this week whether to throw in the towel and transfer to another platform.  If I choose to stay with Boonex, I'll have to be looking at your price-range too...

 No one is doubting your time and dedication and I only asked you to answer these questions to yourself.

"What in the hell" those last two questions have to do with it... Well, you're saying you spent lots of money on advertisement to reach a profit. This could either mean that you're not (just) reaching your target audience or that your businessmodel is not working. You don't have to tell me, but I would ask myself that question if I were you.

And yes, you are right. I'm telling people not to use Dolphin or any other script without having the needed technical skills available. I don't think (and this is an assumption) that you realise the complexity of Joomla and wordpress. When things do go wrong, what it takes to fix it.

Any successful website has the technical knowledge available to run a website, or the funds to buy the knowledge needed to be successful. There are also many joomla and wp sites setup that were not successful and do no longer exist, probably even more.

Uhh I totally agree with you on sites not around no more that where big time back couple years ago,,  I know when I first started i wanted to one day be as big as USU that was my goal, and people were swearing i was to late and would never reach that level, .. well that was when we was all back on 6,,, here we are today USU IS A GHOST TOWN,, and I am right where I wanted to be :D   but so many others are totally gone.

Far as me saying modules and work that should be included I'm not necessarily talking modules in the modules sense,  I totally agree Dolphin is too over packed as it is,, but im talking things like needed things that are being sold on the market that we been asking to be fixed for years,, like why should we have to pay for an anti flood module for the chat,, anti flood should be included!!... things like that is what i am talking about should be put in ,, not anymore full sized modules but things that fix known issues.

Boonex gets referral fees for ever server package sold,, in some cases 50 dollars for just selling a shared package ;) .. I wonder how much dosdawg was kicking back to them when everyone was yelling "TERABYTE!" .. only to have "the best server packages offered for Dolphin"  just fold up and leave with people sites, money, AND IN SOME CASES DOMAIN NAMES!.. you forgot to mention that we lost alot of good people and sites that were nice when John did his royal screw job last year.

Think Denre is missing the point of the discussion here.  Tussery is getting it.

One last time, Denre, discussion has nothing to do with the 'business model' of the individual user.  

No and Yes.

1. No. Vendors who sell in the Market do NOT share any profits with BoonEx.

2. Yes. To become a 'Recommended Host', you must comply to an affiliate type program of some sort that does include 'payment' for being listed on the hosting page as a 'BoonEx Certified Recommended Host'.

People who fall for the old hook and line gimmick of low priced 'unlimited' hosting are just asking for trouble. Think about it for a minute. Normally these giant hosters are all about ''quantity' and not 'quality'. Cramming 100+ shared accounts on a server thats probably not as good as your own home computer, what makes you think that you have unlimited anything? That's why you see so many posts here about people's account being suspended or getting an email that you have no choice but to upgrade to a more expensive package.

I have consulted with Andrew about having Zarconia listed as a recommended host, but as of right now, Nathan and myself have decided to hold off on making a decision. So far, the people that have made the switch to us is doing a great job of 'recommending' us without being on that page. Posting about Zarconia in the forums, adding us to their forum signatures, etc.

I have a copy of my sites available and could setup a new site in no time. Also my domainnames are registered in my name and I could transfer these at any time. All part of my businessplan, that includes my business risk.

Don't get me wrong, it it terrible that this happened and it should never happen again, but it once again shows that people start things without knowing what they are getting themselves in to. Everyone wants everything for free, or for the lowest price possible, but guess what... If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!

 LOL, this is so true! :)

Yes that was completely a disaster that should have never been. You are also right that a lot of people (including myself) were forced to move to another host, if you were lucky enough to get your files, without warning.

I swore I would never go through that again, so Zarconia was born just days after that happened. I pulled Nathan as my partner because I knew that he had no control of what John was doing and was completely in the dark as to what was about to happen. Outside of that, my personal experiences with him proved he is a top notch administrator when it comes to hosting. Enough about Nathan though. I don't want him getting the 'big head'..haha

I definitely agree that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.. BUT... That also doesn't mean that you have to pay 100's of dollars a month for good quality hosting either.

 Boonex EMPLOYEES sell in the market,, so yes, BOONEX dos make money off of the market ;)

 Do you have an example? Just curious...

 I felt horrible watching that unfold and I was not even involved in it at all!... Some people lost EVERYTHING thousands and thousands of dollars in cost just gone. I did however try to help what I could, i got hold of a rep at hostforweb and they went and offered anyone affected in that disaster a free month of cloud hosting so they could at least move stuff over if they managed to get access and at least try to get back up.  That man knew damn good and well that was coming and could had swallowed his pride a little an at least warned people so they could save what they could then he could had ran off like a rat, like he did.

If you want to get 'technical', that is true.. haha. However, it becomes an individual's profit and not a 'boonex' profit. :)

BTW, and example would be AntonLV.