JoomlArt Forums 32,862 posts

[ralley Friend ralleyJoin date: October 2006Posts: 56Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 9]

#134906

Is there any reason why former paid members do not have access to the support forums? I can understand not being able to post new questions, but it seems overly restrictive that as a two-time paid member that I can’t search for solutions to bugs and other questions that come up in the course of site maintenance.

I especially feel like restricting forum access is unfair because some of the templates, such as JA Teline II, which I use on my main site, had so many bugs, that user submitted solutions in the forums represent the primary means of support.

As a middle ground, I can understand not being able to post questions to the forum, if one is no longer a paid member, and I understand not being able to download updates, but read access to the forums seems very reasonable. In fact, the inability to at least read the forum posts seems unusual among paid Joomla developer sites.

[mfcphil Friend mfcphilJoin date: September 2007Posts: 2866Downloads:3Uploads:218 Thanks: 211 Thanked: 388 times in 133 posts]

#277462

Unfortunately not everyone is honest like your good self, a lot of people get their template via some dodgy means, they also can come to the forum as an Unlicensed Member…this is why only paid up Licensed Members are allowed to see all the solution.

I agree you should be able to view templates, which you had when you were a member, but I can also see why they won’t allow it.
Unless they can come up with a system that recognises you as a former member and not an unlicensed one.

[bennitos Friend bennitosJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1717Downloads:0Uploads:39 Thanks: 39 Thanked: 474 times in 407 posts]

#277463

It should be easy for JA to see if you used to be a licenced member, cant be hard to keep/use a profile history.

But they would run into some other things aswell, like said above not everyone is as honest as you are. Result also would be that you would be able to access parts of the forum from templates who came out later than you had your subscribtion.

People could get a subscribtion for 3 months, and after that have free support for all JA templates and all future ones while they get the templates at another “source”

Can imagine your frustration, but i can think of a lot of reasons why JA is doing it like this.

[ralley Friend ralleyJoin date: October 2006Posts: 56Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 9]

#277470

I guess my thinking is that if the product that I purchased – in this case Teline II – worked perfectly out of the box then I could go on my merry way and not worry about renewing a membership with Joomlart until I was interested in updating or replacing my template. But to pay $70 only so I can have access to support for a product that everyone here knows has significant bugs that still exist (as far as I know) in the most recently published version, seems a bit unfair.

I honestly can’t think of another software product that I use that prohibits access to support forums after a set period of time – not even another Joomla related product. Paying money for a product seems reasonable, but paying money for access to to publicly supported forums for a product that I have already purchased seems unfair.

[jeff21up Friend jeff21upJoin date: December 2006Posts: 11Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#284330

I agree with you ralley, I am using teline ii and am stuck with lots of errors for a product i have paid for, come on joomlart let’s be fair
Jeff

[mj1256 Friend mj1256Join date: June 2007Posts: 1473Downloads:10Uploads:35 Thanks: 84 Thanked: 225 times in 118 posts]

#284334

I agree with JA on this one

part of paying for the template is access to customer support for the duration of your membership, and part of that customer support is the use of the forum. The time period you perchased is up, the access is up. Why is this so diffcult to understand. This company (and they are not always right) gives an inch and you guys want a foot. They offer a freebie and you guys want 10 freebies. They don’t just provide customer support, they actually will go into your website and fix the issue you are having, and that is way beyond the level of cutomer support that others offer. And still that is not good enough. If they offered everything for free, and built your websites for you for free, and gave you free coffee every morning and breakfast in bed, you guys would want more. If they offered a free honda accord with every template you guys would complain and want lexus’s.

If you filled your cars gas tank once, does the gas station provide free refills for life?

When you buy that one year warranty on your computer, what happened on the 366th day?

Customer support is specified for a specific period of time, when its up, buy more.

$70.00 bought you one year of support, that gave you 365 days to build your website and get the bugs fixed, thats more than a reasonable period of time.

You got what you paid for.

[jeff21up Friend jeff21upJoin date: December 2006Posts: 11Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#284343

Mj with respect you are wrong. I paid for a working template, teline ii has never worked, any fixes now if they exist have come since my membership expired and now i cannot see them!
FYI I don’t want anything for free, you simply cannot generalise like that.
To answer your anologies, if i bought gas that didn’t propel my car it would be replaced or fixed.
Teline has never worked script free from day one never mind day 366
When i join a club to use the templates i expect them to work out of the box, i don’t expect to have to fix them for the supplier who takes my money for the broken template.
However having said all of that i don’t expect miracles and have never asked for anything during the life of my membership and in fact was only agreeing with someone elses statement.
On many occasions I have sorted out problems myself because it is part of the enjoyment of working with joomla.
To sum up i agree with you totally if the templates work properly in the first place
Much Love
Jeff

[jeff21up Friend jeff21upJoin date: December 2006Posts: 11Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#284344

Also MJ just a quickie, you say that joomlart go the extra mile in customer support even to the extent of fixing websites personally. Why then are there hundreds of unanswered help requests as per example.
Just one random help request (from 2nd Nov 08) from hundreds left unanswered
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/direct-access-to-this-location-is-not-allowed-in-ja-newsflash/

[scotty Friend scottyJoin date: March 2008Posts: 2339Downloads:0Uploads:13 Thanks: 76 Thanked: 827 times in 595 posts]

#284353

jeff21up;102594Also MJ just a quickie, you say that joomlart go the extra mile in customer support even to the extent of fixing websites personally. Why then are there hundreds of unanswered help requests as per example.
Just one random help request (from 2nd Nov 08) from hundreds left unanswered
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/direct-access-to-this-location-is-not-allowed-in-ja-newsflash/

Part of the reason is most of the questions have already been answered in other threads if only the poster bothered to do a search first then they would realise this.

The example you give above has a whole thread detailing the problem and how to fix it.

Most of the unanswered posts are small CSS tweaks, other customisation requests, or simply nothing to do with Joomlart. A very small % are template specific problems.

I understand where you are coming from but if Joomart were to give indefinte support for their templates to ‘expired’ memberships then they would (and should) charge a lot more than $70 a year.

1 user says Thank You to scotty for this useful post

1. mj1256

[mj1256 Friend mj1256Join date: June 2007Posts: 1473Downloads:10Uploads:35 Thanks: 84 Thanked: 225 times in 118 posts]

#284361

fact is, as a registered member, i have telene II in use, and they personally went into the site and fixed every issue and either identified the issues as coming from third party modules and components or fixed what was theirs, they even gave suggestions and explained the fixes. I call that pretty good support. And they did it fast.

I also know where you are coming from, but did you ask them for help during that year you had the membership?

also, if I search the forums, I can usually find the answers to the issues myself. several people here are extremely helpful.

[deva Friend devaJoin date: May 2007Posts: 33Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 3]

#284547

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote>I agree with JA on this one

part of paying for the template is access to customer support for the duration of your membership, and part of that customer support is the use of the forum. The time period you perchased is up, the access is up. Why is this so diffcult to understand. </blockquote>

First of all you are not a staff member from JA so don’t do that kind of arguments, i mention you that this problem is addressed to the JA Staff members.

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote>This company (and they are not always right) gives an inch and you guys want a foot. They offer a freebie and you guys want 10 freebies. They don’t just provide customer support, they actually will go into your website and fix the issue you are having, and that is way beyond the level of cutomer support that others offer. And still that is not good enough. If they offered everything for free, and built your websites for you for free, and gave you free coffee every morning and breakfast in bed, you guys would want more. If they offered a free honda accord with every template you guys would complain and want lexus’s. </blockquote>

again your arguments here are totally hopeless

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote> If you filled your cars gas tank once, does the gas station provide free refills for life? </blockquote>

Same again

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote> When you buy that one year warranty on your computer, what happened on the 366th day?</blockquote>

on 366 day the manufacture don’t come to our home to take it back to the factory, nor they stop us installing the new software on it

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote>Customer support is specified for a specific period of time, when its up, buy more.</blockquote>

Again let this kind of reply for staff member

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote>$70.00 bought you one year of support, that gave you 365 days to build your website and get the bugs fixed, that’s more than a reasonable period of time.</blockquote>

what about myself i was a standard member with as you say paid 70 $, then i bought Developer membership for one year and made more than 1 site some of them will need to update from joomla 1.x to joomla 1.5x in that case i have not even touched the template for 1.5 x i dont even know if it is going to work. i did some modification to the 1.x template i will apply them to new 1.5x template may be there will be some miner bugs, where i should post to get the answers ??

on other hand lets say my member ship going to over 31 of Jan i started to make a website on 1st Jan and finished it on 30 Jan on 1st FEB i found there are bugs in template with IE 8 what i do in that case ??

<em>@mj1256 102569 wrote:</em><blockquote>You got what you paid for.</blockquote>
I hope Joomla will not paid solution in future cause like this mentality the open source will never have existed

for your information joomla cost 99000 $ which is totally free to use their forum is also free to use there are 3400 approx extensions for joomla most of them (ex. the best extensions like virtual mart or joomfish) are totally free….their forum is totally free to use, the developer from those extension reply to user problem without asking any thanks in back

i have so much respect for these peoples i have also done donation in past and will do in future

don’t be that rude we are asking just the access to the forum that is not so much ask, i am verified member for last 2 years, if i wanted to pirated or misuse those templates i could have done that in past just by not buying the developer membership and using the templates which i got from standard membership

so please keep the reply for the the staff members

thanks for your understanding

[scotty Friend scottyJoin date: March 2008Posts: 2339Downloads:0Uploads:13 Thanks: 76 Thanked: 827 times in 595 posts]

#284553

The fact of the matter is you were asked to agree to certain Terms & Conditions when you signed up to Joomlart and you did agree to these.

You should have raised your issues BEFORE agreeing to the T&C’s.

It’s only $0.19 a day – hardly a lot of money and money well spent in my opinion so I am quiet happy to renew and avail of the ongoing support.

However…..

If I buy something and then find that what I have bought is faulty, then I expect the product fixed or a full refund. That goes for any purchase I make and is a reasonable expectation IMO.

The problem for Joomlart (and the rest of us) is it would mean that they would have far less renewals and therefor would have to charge a lot more than $70. Maybe $400-$500 to make it worth their while. For that you would still get your two domain licenses but with lifetime support. Templates would be more basic with fewer extensions and simpler menu systems, to avoid having as many bugs.

Hmm I prefer the $70 system myself.:)

[wooohanetworks Friend wooohanetworksJoin date: September 2008Posts: 1239Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 148 Thanked: 138 times in 41 posts]

#284612

“That’s only 19cents per day…” You really sound like the top notch marketing guys from the US, but it is right in this case…

I have seen the prior post, and also the priior prior post the poster posted about, the time spent for all those post, could one spend into postage and send Santa a wishlist for a new type of membership at Joomlart.com, the free all inclusive for around 50$…. Oh, that is existing already but hey….

Christmas is by far over now, but Happy Christmas!

[skewered Friend skeweredJoin date: October 2007Posts: 14Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 3]

#284651

Its interesting to note not a single JA staff member has bothered to respond to this…

So My 2 cents:

I believe expired members should have access to the forums.

why?
Because of the lack of interaction and support via the forums, I view them as a community forum NOT a support forum. Many problems go unanswered, and those that are answered in a helpful way (i.e. not ‘its a joomla problem, see the joomla forum/ just use a module class suffix/ pm’d you and fixed it ) are mostly provided by other members. The fact that there is now a thanks system in place further supports my view that this is a community forum

Should JA staff decide to use these forums as a proper support forum, where a high percentage of posts were responded to in an indepth, clear and thorough manner, I would be willing to accept that former members should no longer have access.

I also believe this policy on not allowing access does JA no help either – where is the benefit to limiting access?

My membership is up soon, and at this point, I highly doubt I’ll bother renewing it. Too many of my queries have been left unanswered, support have not been helpful and as nice as the templates look on the demos, its too much of my time wasted nutting out answers. So when my forum access ends, I have the option of keeping the template up and continue to nut out answers myself (therefore saving myself the cost of a membership which will make me happy, whilst having no more work that I currently have when working on design changes) OR I will join another template club with better support and switch to one of their templates.

If JA want to encourage me to renew my membership, providing better support in the first place is going to work better than forcing me to pay for a membership just to access forums that generally dont give me the information Im asking for.

[wooohanetworks Friend wooohanetworksJoin date: September 2008Posts: 1239Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 148 Thanked: 138 times in 41 posts]

#284658

I always saw the membership as “3 templates I can use on 3 domains” and compared those, ones that include some extensions etc with other sites like templatemonster.com where one Joomla Template cost a lot more and this is what I was here paying for. At this point of time, I wasn’t so much in forum use at all but is was very useful all the time.

So when you do not need a few more templates, it is your decision to not renew it, as you base it nearly solely on customer support.

When you need support, than submit a help ticket, mark you need assistance from the staff when posting a question…

I do not understand this “renew not or renew” based on something that is not even referring to the actual changes in the support system and still the main thing should be the templates and the use of them not the support only. When you look a Rockettheme.com, people say “the support is excellent”, but the products are whacky….so for what excellent support.

In my case, I solved maybe 90% of my question with the forum or the staff, the rest was Joomla Stuff and not template related. From my standpoint I see there no real problem with support, one has to use the support tickets or the other options including JA Developer.:D

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