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I made the mistake of purchasing the so-called Advanced Profile Control component for Community Builder on the day it was released. It was listed as a commercial component though the author made it clear that it was a Beta. The component has been one of the most expensive components I have bought, yet definitely the most unproductive. I was never able to get any of the first three versions sent to me to install or work.

Being a supporter of indie programmers, I patiently waited a week hoping to see some improvement. As noted, I received several "fixed" versions" however, it STILL is not working.

I finally posted a review in the extensions directory, then waited two weeks for it to show up. It never did.

However, a very positive review that was posted just yesterday did appear. Baiting someone elese to fork over their hard earned $40+.
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... Itemid,35/

Someone please explain...What's going on, are programmer politics controlling the extensions? Why was my review rejected and I was never notified yet this fake positive review is posted?

This is a disservice to all of us, as customers and programmers committed to offering mature products.

Why oh why does everybody assume that there's some sort of conspiracy?

Some reviews are easy to approve, others need to be pondered a little. Your review has now been approved.

Hi Vimes,

Thank you for posting my review that I submitted over two weeks ago.

Unfortunately your comments only amplify the concern over this matter and demonstrate the unobjective nature of this process. I understand editorial control, but what exactly needed to be "pondered" in our two week old review? And why was there no investigation into my comments during this pondering period?

My interest and nature is to support and encourage indie programmers and artists, which is why I did not press the issue until I saw a glowing review of a project that I have not been able to get to work. How many other people purchased this component without warning and have had the same issues.

To be fair, Mikko emailed me yet another copy, which I am now preparing to install. If it works, then I will report accurately... however this fickle review process has a flaw in allowing editors to control whether or not their friend's component receives a a poor review.

Again, thank you for your attention to this matter. I do truly wish Mikko the best. And this is not the only "commercia" product that I ahve had this experience. There must be some standards for commercial releases before more people get burned and the growing commercialization of Joomla components and services are tarnished

Read this thread for an idea of some of the difficulties we face as editors:

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,153365.30.html

I pondered your review purely because some are more 'grey' than others, and yours was a bit grey. The editors only have a finite amount of time available to them, and there are typically at least 100 reviews every couple of days to go through. What with a day job and everything, I generally bang out the ones that are easy to approve and leave the others for a while to think about.

a flaw in allowing editors to control whether or not their friend's component receives a a poor review

Tsk tsk. Speak not about that which you know nothing about.

Thinks for the reply and the insight. And I do appreciate it.

I imagine that most of us who are developing any sort of creative endeavor that requires time as the greatest investment also understand the challenges of juggling income generating activities and our true passions.

I believe a better policy than pondering grey matter for weeks would be to either reject or submit stock questions to gain more information.

RE: the reference link, that is really funny because XE-Media is also on my list of developers never to buy from again.

The stock questions thing, or something quite similar, is currently under development, so we're ahead of the game with that one.

We've all been in that sticky stage where we release a bit of code (or an update to code) and something doesn't work as expected. It sometimes takes a few iterations to resolve niggly problems so if a dev' gets one or two bad comments about service on a new component I'm generally inclined to hold off doing anything about it because it takes time to iron them out. If the bad comments continue however then we'll look closer at the dev', but I think everybody deserves time to get things right.

When. How long. If. These are all things that don't have hard and fast rules, and are really down to the intuition of the editors.

Yes... these "niggly" problems can be very unmanageable.

BTW, I continue to encourage indie programmers in their efforts... all of our efforts. Milkko, best of luck. Which is why I never raised this issue in a public forum. However, just as the Joomla and the major OS teams have standards, we indie developers and commercial service providers must develop standards that help advance our products and the OS supplementary markets among our current and potential users.