Sandbox

First I apologize to Brad and the other mods on this forum for misposting a question for help with an extension last night. Thank you, Brad for seeing my edit to remove the post and deleting it.

Now onward and upward.  I saw the announcement in the extension directory about the unprofessional action of getting buddies to inflate reviews and ratings with empty votes and the warning about what would happen if someone did that, and I can understand. Really.

Unfortunately, people like me are the ones who will pay the ultimate price when a developer is punished. I now have an extension - the only one in its category that has worked out for my particular situation between server issues and skill level (and I've tried more than one) - that I can't get to any documentation on or even find any reference to where I can look for contact information.

Evidently when the JED team was forced to make its decision to pull the plug, the developer(s) pulled their plug, too. Their site is gone right along with their listing in JED.

I understand the policy, really, but misbehaving developers are not the only ones who end up being punished.

I would like to request the JED management team continue to work on this policy and amend it to protect innocent bystanders.

NativePages wrote:I would like to request the JED management team continue to work on this policy and amend it to protect innocent bystanders.

What do you propose we do?

I don't know, Vimes. I'm not a developer. I have a limited understanding of how the backend works, so I don't know what is possible and what is not. Some thoughts (most probably not doable) would be to

• Create a "buyer beware" warning that stated "Evidence exists to show that all/some of the reviews/ratings for this developer and/or their extensions are false. Use at your own risk."
• Create a new permission level that doesn't allow any developer given that level to upload any new extensions, automatically inserts that buyer beware warning on ALL of their existing extensions, and removes review/rating creation options from ALL their existing extensions.
• LEAVE the listing name and details, but disable any kind of access to the extension itself including demos, active links to the developer beyond his/her Joomla.org UserID, and put the buyer beware or an editor's note explaining why the extension listing doesn't go anywhere.

I don't know. I just know I'm stuck now with no way to get support for an extension I need. I'm just thankful the extension was for my own website and not for a client site.

If a developer was so thoughtless they got their buddies to inflate their ratings or write phony reviews, they sure weren't thinking about the repurcussions of their actions on the users of their extensions.

I think the buyer beware warning is a non-starter, but the limited listing option might have some merit. I'll make sure that other mods see this and see if they have any input.

Thank you. Like I said, I understand the policy and the need for some way to maintain a professional level of integrity in the JED listings. It's just that it impacts those of us who had nothing to do with the problem and are using the extensions.

I understand your issues and I'll see if there's something we can do in regards to this. Thanks for taking the time to come up with the suggestions.