Trusted Vendors - Andrew that is for us to decide

I just saw this from Andrew Boon's blog:

- List of "Trusted Vendors" has been updated. The list depends on our impression of Vendor's reliability - response rates, feedback, reports, disputes, etc. It would also normally take at least a year of dedicated work to attain this status. 

- Trusted Vendors now have special fields in their profiles, which they must fill ASAP: * Skills * Timezone * Working hours * Availability * Spoken languages * Country location. This information should help clients to further understand services of Trusted Vendors and establish more efficient client-vendor connection.

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Click on the Trusted Vendors link and you will find vendors that have had constant complaints, won't answer emails, put encrypted modules on the market without clearly stating so, and on and on.  Andrew, we, the customers of the vendors should be the one deciding who is a trusted member, NOT YOU.  Andrew, you don't run a social network, you have not purchased modules from vendors only to have to deal with modules that don't work, vendors that won't fix them, and vendors that won't answer their emails.  We know the vendors that are trustworthy, vendors that stand behind their products, vendors that update and add features requested by us when they don't have to add them.  Andrew, you just slapped, and slapped hard, many vendors that have contributed to Boonex.  I think it is time you apologised to them and fix this.

He used to have 2 or 3, did he get rid of them?

Andrew, inform us on how you guys are basing your decisions of who is TRUSTED or not?

I don't know, maybe I was in error, that is not the point.  The point is that we the customers that are buying the bleeding modules know how the vendors treat us.

It is 2:26 pm in Sydney.  Andrew, I assume you are awake at this time of day and therefore should be seeing our postings.  Why are you not answering?

Because it is also Saturday Jan 11 there. The weekend. They do not pay any attention to this site on the weekends.

Yes, I know it is Saturday.  I guess Andrew is so successful that he doesn't have to pay any attention to his customers; that he can just close shop on the weekend.  Most smart business people know you can not do that.  Even when I am on holiday, I am available but then again, maybe what I know and many other businesses in the world know Andrew doesn't.  Or maybe he just doesn't care about his customers.  Even in rain and snow and sleet I see the local cable companies out fixing problems on Saturday and Sunday because they know that if their customers can't watch the NFL playoffs or the Super Bowl, there will be hell to pay.

I am well aware of that. I did not need a bleeping leture. I work practically 24/7. I have not had a vacation in 18+ years.

I as a person who sells on websites also knows something apparently everyone else here does not. Sales drop when people post dozens of topics with nothing but negative content. And not just for boonex. It hurts all the vendors here. It's scares the living daylights out of potential new customers.

People should be spamming the hell out of his email, skype and anything else but the public forums.

Anyone here has his address?  I'd like to start there...perhaps his phone number?

But on another note, its ironic how they are creating dolphin which suppose to be an alternative to facebook (and others) but yet he is doing almost the same exact thing that Mark Z is doing, ignoring his members.  When my sites become big and successful, somebody slap me if I begin to display the same behavior.

Deano, as far as these negative rants & complaint post having an effect on the vendors, I will cease and desist.  
Boonex, see how simple that was, I just demonstrated how to "listen" to the members.  

 I did, he came online on Skype twice today.

I sent the following. I hope he does not remove me from his list...

I know he got the post.

 Are you serious? I've been coming to this site (and expertzzz.com before they moved everything here) for 7 years and I can tell you for the last year or two the only time anyone from Boonex looks at this forum is when a moderator emails them and tells them they need to see something. 

Also I don't know if anyone else has noticed but I seriously think half the Boonex staff are gone. If they are still around they certainly aren't posting here.

 Andrew just popped in again on Skype... still no response.

 This is very true Deano, but I (personally) think that if we kept our complaints & rants private (spamming his skype, email, ect.,), then they will be really ignored.   Prime example, with some of those bad vendors who should not be on that list.  Customer buys product, have a ton of issues with it, tries to get in touch with bad vendor to address the issues, bad vendor completely ignores them, only thing next to do is to come here and publicly address the issue to get the bad vendor attention.  They will more than likely respond back because it will affect their wallets/purses.

 Deano, I say this with the utmost respect for you (and I do see your point) but because ranting on a public forum could have a negative effect on vendors as well, is all the more reason why we all should be ranting publicly.   Because everything effects everyone.  I believe this is how to fix the real problem, and not just put a bandaid over it.  

Even the bad vendors will at least come and address the issues once they have been called out publicly, Andrew doesnt even do that, so what does that say? 


I seriously wonder where on earth do he get these ideas?  Like there are tons of other things to do, more important stuff that needs to be fixed, instead of conjuring up these silly ideas. 

http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/What-did-I-do-to-lose-my-Trusted-Vendor-Status-.htm#228586

It's a shame ... I have BIG love for Dolphin and even Boonex itself but as a seasoned member here I can really see this community being effected in a bad way lately with all the different issues coming to light ... Too many issues with bad vendors and the good vendors like Deano and Modzzz suffering ultimately as a result ... Too many people bringing issues up in public forums ...

All day everyday is a working day for me and in-fact every every night ... My children and partner would love for me to take more time out with them BUT this is how I put food on the table and keep everything going ...

 I was in such a hurry that i did not elaborate on the "bandaid" part.  What I meant is that us complaining is not the main problem, boonex actions that causes us to complain is the real problem.  If they did not do that (preferably at all) or as much as they do, then it would be less to complain about. 

 Bad publicity usually helps address the problem and get results.

 Try looking at it this way.  You go buy a car, the seat belts do not work, and the wheels was not properly installed.  Due to this, you crash into a tree, and become injured badly.  You complain to the maker of the car, they do nothing.  You keep complaining, they do nothing.  
Now by complaining publicly, and the story makes the front pages of newspapers and tv, more than likely you will prevent others from buying the same car and possibly having a far worse accident than you did.  It will also more than likely cause the manufacturer to actually FIX the problem (if they truly cared about safety and to stay in business) 

Thank you for your patience in waiting for response. This gave me a chance to spend most of the Saturday with family, taking a long walk in a park, meditating and thinking of all the beautiful people that you and we all are.

Now, to the issue...

- I agree that clients should have the first say in deciding which Vendors are the best. This is why you can see how "Top Rated" is the default browsing method in Vendors block and page. Note, that Modzzz, for example, is at position #2 there, which is really respectable.

- "Trusted" is more like "Staff Picks". This is what we decide internally. We receive feedback from other members, moderators, share our own impressions and make a decision. Most of this feedback is private and can not be publicised to support our choice. For example, we once had an incident when after internal investigation we've come across gross violation of policies and "etiquette" by one of the Vendors. That Vendor was among the top rated, but the nature of the violation called for urgent action - we've suspended them for a while and deleted their points. The incident caused an uproar in which we couldn't quite effectively defend our decision due to the nature of the violation and privacy of communication that preceded it. Then, we released that we need an additional, Boonex-controlled metric. 

- There is no conspiracy agains Modzzz or in favour of somebody else. We haven't personally met with any of the non-BoonEx members and don't have favourites. Decisions are made according to the incoming feedback, that's all. In this round of the list update we discussed Modzzz and leaned towards not continuing their promotion for now. Yes, we may be wrong in doing so, and welcome Modzzz to contact us directly (uno@boonex.com) and discuss it. We are looking at the case with open mind and good faith. 

- Finally, "Trusted Vendors" thing is not about excluding everyone else. It's about gradual selection of those who has earned extra promotion and those who can be promoted by BoonEx in full trust. We would be very happy to include every Vendor into this list eventually, and just somehow part with those who don't make it. For now, we're in rather "transitional" stage, learning and trying different ways of curating content and providers, finding the most effective balance between interests of clients and vendors. It is important for us to figure it out, because future updates of Dolphin will give this curation methods a lot more meaning and relevance. 

There is a certain point of balance that needs to be considered. Since our product/service is not tangible, it is often possible to fix an issue without significant material (time/effort) expense. In fact, sometimes it would take less time to fix it than to sort out a public dispute and alleviate accompanying damage. This is especially likely to happen in individual/isolated issues. 

In some cases, however, we actually NEED public uproar to be able to realise significance or even the nature of a problem. As it happens in software development, some issues need certain circumstances and a number of reports to be located. Other issues may not seem significant until we realise how many people are affected.

So, it depends :) 

 Ok,I understand.  Now could you please be so kind to put that on the list and remove TRUSTED Vendors.  This will minimize confusion and complaints in the future.  This way some newbie such as myself will not come in the future and buy from ceratin guys (that I have never even knew existed until they made that list....if they have updated modules) and become upset with you Andrew and publicly rant & rave such as I have been doing.  I would have been even angrier if I had of actually bought from (some of those) guys, and I wouldve had a whole lot more to say about it. 

 This is so true and Im going to see if you are going to stick to your own words.  I will have you to know that Im going to create a Members Trusted Vendors List, which also contains Members Trusted Host Section (yes, Nathan & Zarconia are going on that list because you have failed to acknowledge them too) and I will contact these members because I have no vested interest whatsoever (to attain that "point of balance" you just spoke of).  This will allow the other newbies/people who come here to get a real quick scoop and more useful and accurate information so that they can make better informed and intelligent decisions when they are seeking to shell out their hard earned cash for a product/service, because apparently some of us are not seeing eye to eye with this issue Andrew.

Only other thing Im going to ask you, is that you do not modify my list, and grant me the option to place that list somewhere more useful other than "fun & foo"  I would like for it to be a sticky somewhere as well (so that I wont have to bump it to the top every time I log in, because I will)  
This will also practically cut down on the ranting, even from myself, because other users will not be mislead/misguided and have a real choice before hand.

Andrew Boon will say no.  Why do you think Andrew Boon keeps those three hosting companies on the list of recommended hosting when you can not host a real Dolphin site on them?  Junior, the reason that Andrew Boon keeps those recommended hosts listed is because he makes money from them, not because of helping his customers to find real hosts for Dolphin.  So do you really think he will allow you to place your list in a prominent place on Boonex's site?

Andrew, may I point out that half the "Trusted Vendor" list, accounts for about a dozen products.  No offense to those vendors, but most of their corresponding products are either free or something fairly simple.  Some have zero products listed.   What is the point of calling someone a Trusted Vendor, if they don't actually vend?  In some cases, it's like saying, "This person is trusted by Boonex to provide absolutely nothing". Does that really make any sense?

Now take  Modzzz.  He currently has 177 products listed and has sold to a lot of customers.  Of course he's going to piss off a few people now and then.... you can't do business on that scale without rubbing people the wrong way once in a while.  Then take one of those "Trusted Vendors" with zero products listed.  Of course you won't ever get any complaints about them.... there's nothing to complain about! 

Whatever criteria you are using to hand out those trusted vendor badges needs to be adjusted a bit to take into account the amount of work that vendor has put into providing extensions that add depth to YOUR product, Dolphin.

I just realized that I'm on the list of vendors under "top rated", but I don't even have the account that allows me to sell things lol.

'Trusted Vendors' - is misleading and not needed.

Top Rated, is more accurate, although it should be checked as at least 1 vendor on there was banned some time ago for the landslide of negative interaction with customers they produced... his products still available to buy and still do not work (plus zero support!)

I have purchased dozens of products on market, admittedly, I don't use anything like the 'top rated' or 'trusted' stuff in order to evaluate a developer... I look at what I need, who supplies it then look at any forum support the module has to get an idea of what the after market experience is like for that vendor. 

I buy from Modzzz now without having to do this process as he has built up my trust in his services. 

However, there is at least one vendor who did make the 'trusted' status, who supplies some modules that perform the same function as some that Modzzz sells. With these, I have purchased BOTH when first using them, the other vendor I bought from provided very bad after market support, shrugged off updating the modules to 7.1, and is generally very short in any replies (if at all) to questions. He lost my 'trust'.

I then purchased the 'same' mod function from Modzzz and support was excellent.

This tells me that the 'trusted vendors' status just doesnt make sense and is misleading for new buyers. 

My suggestion, scrap it and just stick with top rated. This way we - the buyers - know that it is other buyers who are leaving the ratings, not inside decisions from boonex developers who probably have never even had the privilege of installing the mods by the developers they say are 'trusted' so have no way at all of having a first hand experience of interaction with them 'as a customer would'. 

Things like this just make boonex look a little childish still, then again, we are now 'in our teenage years'!..

Hear Hear

If you are going to remove someone like Modzzz, that not only has good customer support for his modules but comes into the forum and helps for free and leave someone on there like ESASE who has a defective module and refuses to fix it then the Trusted Vendor list just needs to disappear altogether.

 Good point, ESASE is one of the biggest problem vendors to me...

Im quite disappointed what vendors have now Trusted status and who not. It can be really very misleading for many new incomers who come here. Call that badge" Vendors who have Andrew sympathy" and than I think all will be allright but not call it "Trusted Vendors" or call it "Trusted Vendors" but than include there real trusted vendors who you removed and we all know they are trusted and remove vendors who we all know provide bad support and selling defective modules or are totally uncommunicative. When I saw some vendors who gained trusted and who loosed it I didnt know if I should start laugh or cry .Still hope this is only kind of new year joke or something..

what a 'Trusted Vendor' means to me:-

1) Someone who releases modules to the public that work as described.

2) Someone that fully supports their modules and makes real efforts to support buyers via the dedicated module support forum.

3) Someone that updates their modules to meet past / current Dolphin versions 

I could add more to this list but for me these should be the 3 main areas that make a vendor a 'Trusted Vendor'

 Nice!

 One last post about this and I'm done. But ESASE should respond better.

http://www.boonex.com/SashaE this is his other profile and as you see he is works for Boonex.

If they really wanted to be straight forward about it they should just change the "trusted vendor" title to "Boonex Staff".

ESASE profile was started by BoonEx Employee. This, to some extent prompted the "Trusted" status, even if for the only reason of us being able to contact them directly and somehow negotiate any serious issue. 

At this moment, however, I can not confirm how and by whom the account is operated exactly and it will be treated pretty much as any other vendor account. This means that we are looking at reports and issues very carefully. 

The SashaE account was old, unused, and is now deleted.

 Thanks, this really is cutting out some confusion for us.

I have been mostly lurking here- still trying to fix that train wreck from the 7.1 upgrade.   I don't feel all that passionate about this issue, but as one who has also been here for years I find it sad that Boonex seems to have lost its "spirit of open source".  I still think the software is very good - I wouldn't be here if I didn't, but this community is just a shadow of what it once was.  I do think it is likely that they blew it with their price increase while at the same time dumping most of the support issues here, where they usually aren't addressed.  It seems to me there are only a dozen or so real "experts" left here who sometimes try to help, but many of them have their own things going - so really why should they?   I'm not saying I have the answers, but I do know why most people come to this forum - they come to get technical support and while some people try, the community isn't even all that good at anymore.  This community is as important as the software and it is unfortunate that it has been going downhill.   One thing they might consider is getting a paid community manager - not a "moderator" for here.  The emphasis should be on helping everyone be a success - not selling more product. 

Oh - also - any implications that Geek Girl did something inappropriate by making this post is just wrong - and that we should all just post "happy thoughts" is wrong and harmful to all of us.   She is one of the people who has been keeping this community going and we owe her a debt of gratitude. 

Stop calling it "Trusted Vendor" and start calling it what it is... "Staff Picks".  Many active members on the forum have made it very clear that your so called list of "Trusted Vendor" does not come close enough to matching their list.  Personally, as long as I see a certain vendor with lots of disputes against him on your list as a "Trusted Vendor", I will have zero confidence in your rating system and that will spill over into other areas you're trying to make claims about.  With "Staff Picks" you can reward your buddies all you want... those of us in the know will realize it's your team's opinion only.  Better to drop the term "Trusted Vendor" and instead use "Top Seller" based on the volume of sales relative to the number of modules the vendor has... and limit the calculation to the last 12 months... to exclude older modules and keep the number relatively current.

I wasn't able to read the whole topic (too many letters lol), sorry, but....

Here's my five cents...

 First of all, I still can't find the place where to fill these new special fields.

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Secondly, I have no idea what does "Trusted vendor" label appeared on my account means and how it will help me to increase sales. "Trusted" by Boonex or my customers or who else? My customers knows that i'm trusted even without this note. New customers don't even care go to vendor's profile (because they think - "why?"). So this label is kind of just two nice words for my own ego to know that I'm "trusted" by somebody. :) No more.

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Thirdly, I think doesn't matter how you call "Trusted Vendor": it's a matter of how often it has to be updated and on what kind of criteria.  

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>>> Andrew, you don't run a social network, you have not purchased modules from vendors only to have to deal with modules that don't work

Maybe I'm wrong, but boonex.com is his own social network. :)  And I'm sure he used to deal with non-working purchased code earlier, even not on boonex.com, but on many other sites.

>>   Or maybe he just doesn't care about his customers.

Not to defend Boonex or Andrew, but If something happens, it happens for a reason. We can't judge him or anybody else whatever happens: we have no idea about his own life and what he is doing at this moment or gonna do tomorrow. He could be totally wrong and doing bad things or he could be doing something really awesome for all of us. We don't know. Usually we can only see what we want to see.

They are clearly saying in their terms: 

1 Recap: BoonEx is not responsible for any issues between Vendors and Customers.

2 Recap: If anything goes wrong, we are not responsible.

I would suggest guys let's concentrate more attention on providing the best support to our customers and not waste time judging Boonex or somebody else: it's just not efficient.

In support to these vendors who have lost their label "Trusted vendor": I don't really care what label I have or do not have on my profile: "Trusted vendor", "Wearing red socks" or "Communist's Party Member". The only things I really care are my customers, my products/services and my weekends.

Stay awesome guys!

Well, this discussion, although rather heated, helped to bring up some good suggestions and ideas. We are reevaluating the "Trusted Vendors" idea. There will be a change of name and likely method as well, so stay tuned.