A potential opportunity? (@Dolby)

[kkot]

Originally Posted by StormFX In the case of Amazon/Twitch's acquisition of Curse, absolutely. But I'm fairly certain CF's rewards program was in place prior to that. Your claim that rewards programs are "exploitative", etc, was made with no qualifiers so is inherently false.

It doesn't matter if it was introduced with good intentions - that's what it inevitably leads to. An Overwolf employee recently described the rewards programme as a 'carrot' and shared his dream of consolidation - on their platform, one would assume.

Additionally, any information that an author includes in their project's description, etc, needs to be readily available to the user. That is why this information exists.

The information is readily available to the user at the source. I'm not really sure what you're suggesting here. I have a short description (where a short description can be obtained) and a button which leads directly to the add-on page. Would you want me to embed the add-on page in full? The UX is similar to performing a search on Google - there's a title, a link, and an extract or description from the page.

Most users already have an account with WoWI.

I rather doubt that's true. In any case, having to log in to every host that AOMs might interface with would be (a) very tedious and (b) unwelcome from the AOM's perspective. Handling user data is I think something all of us would want to avoid because of the security (and legal) implications and the concomitant maintenance cost.

On the contrary, it's more beneficial for everyone to work together. I'll happily promote any host or AOM that is willing to work with the community to get this all sorted out amicably. But ranting about "capitalists", etc, isn't helping anyone.

I'm not ranting about capitalists. I'm critical of the negative connotations attached to 'scraping' and broadly attribute them to capitalist thought.

[StormFX]

Originally Posted by kkot It doesn't matter if it was introduced with good intentions - that's what it inevitably leads to.

Something is only as malicious as it is in its current state. Rewards programs are only exploitative if used in an exploitative manner. Generalizing them all as such is hyperbolic.

An Overwolf employee recently described the rewards programme as a 'carrot' and shared his dream of consolidation - on their platform, one would assume.

If true, another reason the community should come together. Not to sound like I'm doubting your claim, but I would like to see a source on this.

The information is readily available to the user at the source. I'm not really sure what you're suggesting here. I have a short description (where a short description can be obtained) and a button which leads directly to the add-on page. Would you want me to embed the add-on page in full? The UX is similar to performing a search on Google - there's a title, a link, and an extract or description from the page.

Given that I haven't used your program, I wouldn't know that. I was simply going off what you said about giving users as little information as possible.

In any case, having to log in to every host that AOMs might interface with would be (a) very tedious and (b) unwelcome from the AOM's perspective.

That's a fair point.

Handling user data is I think something all of us would want to avoid because of the security (and legal) implications and the concomitant maintenance cost.

Also a fair point.

I'm not ranting about capitalists. I'm critical of the negative connotations attached to 'scraping' and broadly attribute them to capitalist thought.

And yet you keep bringing it up. This isn't a political discussion, so keep that sort of crap out of it, please.

[myrroddin]

Originally Posted by kkot An Overwolf employee recently described the rewards programme as a 'carrot' and shared his dream of consolidation - on their platform, one would assume.

Well, duh. Every company that exists wants to be the biggest, most profitable, business in their field, even the biggest, most profitable, business in the world.

Yes, the CF rewards programme is a "carrot", and it is a tasty "carrot". But you know what I like more than carrots? Steak and lobster. For me, I upload my addons to Wowinterface, sure, but my development repository is Curseforge, because I like and understand their repo system, and they have this nifty localization system for addons. Wowinterface does not have a localization system, and I do not understand their repo system, and cannot begin to fathom their Addon Packager Proxy tool.

I manually upload to Wowinterface as a convenience to users, not a convenience to myself. I gain nothing from having Wowinterface host my addons, and while it would be great if they offered a reward system, I won't ever lose sleep if they never offer one. If Curseforge/Overwolf ever took their rewards system away, I wouldn't lose sleep over that either.

You are blowing both points completely out of proportion, and since you have stated that you do not wish to offer any constructive ideas, perhaps you should stop replying to this thread. The idea here is to talk about a potential opportunity, and you have been nothing but negative and dismissive.

[StormFX]

Originally Posted by myrroddin But you know what I like more than carrots? Steak and lobster. For me, I upload my addons to Wowinterface, sure, but my development repository is Curseforge, because I like and understand their repo system, and they have this nifty localization system for addons. Wowinterface does not have a localization system, and I do not understand their repo system, and cannot begin to fathom their Addon Packager Proxy tool.

I, too, was manually updating my files here on WoWI until I decided to use the BigWigs pakager. Like kkot said, it supports uploading to both CF/WAce and WoWI. It's fairly easy to use and it allows you to centralize your code base at GitHub. They've even implemented a GitHub action that makes setting it up even easier. It works off the same .pkgmeta that CF does and it has pretty good documentation. It also supports packing for both retail and classic. I highly recommend it.

P.S. You can take a look at Masque's repo to see an example (.pkgmeta and .github\workflows).

Originally Posted by kkot On rereading my posts, I did come across as abrasive on occasion; I apologise for that.

Thanks for that. I did check out the CF Discord and found the comment you mentioned. It's definitely a sketchy thing to say, especially considering the data-selling debacle. And while I'd generally tend to agree with Myrroddin about businesses doing business-type things, that comment doesn't lend much in terms of confidence on them getting their shit together. As much as I'd like their whole, "for the authors", bit to be true, they're going to have to prove it.