Service Provider Listing Moderation?? Topic is solved

[3by400Inc]

I know this forum is meant for the JED but we’re desperately trying to reach anyone that moderates or has access to moderate Service Provider listings. Is the service provider listing dead? Did the moderators leave to never return again? Our listing expired about 8+months ago and we promptly went through the steps to renew our listing. For 8+ months our listing has been awaiting moderation to be published again. We’ve tried submitting support tickets multiple times but those have gone unanswered also. Help? Anyone out there?

[webgobe]

Sorry but JED team has no control or has no insider info about what's happening in Service Provider's part of Joomla community. Will share the request across the internal Joomla channels, that's the most I can do here.

[webgobe]

BTW, did you tried to use their support ticket system?
https://community.joomla.org/helpdesk/s ... pport.html

[sozzled]

@3by400Inc: I doubt that the Service Providers Directory has been maintained for years of if anyone even cares.

The team responsible for maintaining the Service Providers Directory is the Community Sites Team. Good luck using their contact form to get an answer.

[3by400Inc]

BTW, did you tried to use their support ticket system?
https://community.joomla.org/helpdesk/s ... pport.html

Yes, multiple times. If you could attempt to get the word to someone we would be most grateful. The Service Provider Directory was a descent source of leads for us. It’s sad that whoever is responsible for moderation of those doesn’t take it seriously enough to support those companies that are trying to keep the use of Joomla alive.

[3by400Inc]

@3by400Inc: I doubt that the Service Providers Directory has been maintained for years of if anyone even cares.

The team responsible for maintaining the Service Providers Directory is the Community Sites Team. Good luck using their contact form to get an answer.

That’s what we’ve come to understand in our own experience, unfortunately.

[pe7er]

The Service Provider Directory was a descent source of leads for us. It’s sad that whoever is responsible for moderation of those doesn’t take it seriously enough to support those companies that are trying to keep the use of Joomla alive.

The whole Joomla project is managed by volunteers. I suppose that the Service Provider Directory does not have enough volunteers at the moment.

Are you willing to help out as volunteer to improve that directory? If so, please contact me via the private messages and I'll bring you in contact with the Operations Department (under which the Service Provider Directory resides)

[3by400Inc]

Are you willing to help out as volunteer to improve that directory? If so, please contact me via the private messages and I'll bring you in contact with the Operations Department (under which the Service Provider Directory resides)

I was expecting this response eventually, since it’s the response I sometimes give for other organizations I volunteer with. We are happy to volunteer and have done so in various ways in the past.

However, a Service Provider Directory listing waiting for 8+ months to be moderated and support tickets never even being assigned to anyone tells me there are bigger issues than just more team members needed.

[pe7er]

I was expecting this response eventually, since it’s the response I sometimes give for other organizations I volunteer with. We are happy to volunteer and have done so in various ways in the past.

Great! Having volunteers to help is the only way in a voluntary organisation to get things working.

However, a Service Provider Directory listing waiting for 8+ months to be moderated and support tickets never even being assigned to anyone tells me there are bigger issues than just more team members needed.

I understand your feeling but I don't know of any bigger issues than lack of volunteers.

[3by400Inc]

So, given the support methods in place are not working, how does one contact a person that has access to moderate a Service Provider listing? Attempts to login to the volunteer portal to contact a team member only result in a message that says “authentication aborted”.

[pe7er]

So, given the support methods in place are not working, how does one contact a person that has access to moderate a Service Provider listing? Attempts to login to the volunteer portal to contact a team member only result in a message that says “authentication aborted”.

Sorry, I don't know. I have not seen that “authentication aborted” before.
I am able to login into the front-end (and yes, my company listing is also still labeled as expired).

[webgobe]

Well, there is 1 - one - ogyin - eine - egy - un - uno volunteer in the whole Service Providers Directory. (I can spell it on couple of more languages, if you need to understand the drama of the situation) And that single person is working in many fronts here. So yeah, let's blame him a bit more, then probably will resign from SPD, and then the whole SPD thing can be shut down definitively.
Problem solved.
I have many bright ideas how this should work, but as was aforementioned: the volunteer based enterprises are working until enough volunteers are found to keep the ball rolling. It is that simple. You need to have enough "givers" for this. Seemingly we have left (mostly) with "takers".

[sozzled]

Good. If it’s too much work, get rid of the SPD. No-one needs it.

Just like getting rid of the JTD (if anyone remembers what that was and how long it took for OSM to eventually bury it): no-one needed that either.

If people need a service they can “look up the Yellow Pages”, ask someone who knows someone and take their chances like everyone else.

[webgobe]

The SPD was a dead horse years ago. It’s time to stop flogging it.

Could not agree more. And not only with this sentence - but with most of your ideas.

[pe7er]

The Community Sites Team is responsible for “Events Directory, User Groups Directory, Service Providers Directory, Newsletters, Sponsoring”. The “team” doesn’t do that! There’s absolutely no reason to suspect that “contacting” the team will affect whatever’s contained in the SPD. It’s not what you know that gets things done in OSM: it’s who you know and whether you’re on friendly terms with them. In my opinion, the SPD is a waste of people’s time; I’ve spoken with hundreds of people about J! over the years and I can’t remember anyone saying they’ve used the SPD.

I'm sorry but that's not true. Please do not make false accusations!

The SPD is not about "who you know and whether you’re on friendly terms with them". I am active as volunteer in the Joomla community since the beginning. I know a lot of people in the Joomla community. My company listing is also still labeled as expired.

Maybe you have spoken with the wrong "hundreds of people about J! over the years". As you can read in this topic, the topic starter stated "The Service Provider Directory was a descent source of leads for us."

[3by400Inc]

Thank you, @sozzled for your spirited response. And, I appreciate you marking my typo.

As I said, we've received many great leads from the Service Provider Directory over the years, when our listing was published of course, which is why we hate to see it fall by the wayside.

It was once a great resource for anyone in search of assistance with an existing Joomla site or the development of a new Joomla site, among other various Joomla-related services. While I'm sure more could be done to vet the listings, it's not true that there is zero vetting.

And contrary to what was stated, I did not claim that it was the responsibility of those listed in the SPD to keep the Joomla Project alive. We do, however, heavily promote Joomla and primarily build websites in Joomla, and financially support others that are making Joomla better through the development of extensions.

We've been around since the beginning when Joomla forked from Mambo - bug squashing, helping to facilitate and manage a local JUG, assisting with the planning and execution of a Joomla! Day, voluntarily providing support in the forums, developing and supporting several extensions, and so on and so forth.

We always pay for professional versions of extensions and never simply use a free version to save a buck or two. We want to support the developers that have put their time and energy into the development of said extension, because we've been there too, and we only trust and rely upon extensions we find in the JED and explain the same to our clients.

I will say, though, that since there is no supported 'updates management' extension that easily allows a Joomla extension to use the Joomla! Updater, we've been prevented from being able to update our JED listings. When the decision was made to force JED listings to use the Joomla Updater there should have been an easy way provided to make that possible rather than forcing developers to additionally develop a mechanism. The only extension out there with potential is not supported by the developer.

In many ways, the Joomla! Project has worked against some of their greatest allies.

[sozzled]

@pe7er: What part of what I wrote was a false accusation?

I made no accusation about the “team” responsible for the SPD. I quoted from the team’s own page:

The Joomla Community site (CJO) is the website which holds various services and information for the community.
Topics like; News, Events Directory, User Groups Directory, Service Providers Directory, Newsletters, Sponsoring and many other things.

This team is responsible for all assets within this website as well for the www.joomla.org site.
The team consists of direct members and from other teams, who use a part of the different sites.

You don’t like me as a person, Peter, so I take your personal criticism of me with a grain of salt.

The problem with making impassioned criticism—rightly or wrongly—in this forum is that those who criticism are usually the ones who are punished. I fear that my remarks will earn yet another three months in the sin-bin.

[sozzled]

When the decision was made to force JED listings to use the [automated update notification system] there should have been an easy way provided to make that possible rather than forcing developers to additionally develop a mechanism.

… and that happened several years ago. Many of us were forced into an expensive learning curve. I actually paid about $80 for a book, learnt the process by carefully applying the lessons printed in two pages. It took me about eight months before I modified my extensions listed in the JED to use the automated update mechanism so that I could update my JED listings.

I haven’t received enough income from the sale of my extensions to recover the cost of those two pages in that book.

I’m not worried. J! Is pretty much a hobby for me.

Yes, there was some pain involved in making changes to the JED but it was necessary pain. I believe, however, that the SPD is unnecessary and that the pain of its loss will barely cause a murmur in the Joomlaverse.

[3by400Inc]

When the decision was made to force JED listings to use the [automated update notification system] there should have been an easy way provided to make that possible rather than forcing developers to additionally develop a mechanism.

… and that happened several years ago. Many of us were forced into an expensive learning curve. I actually paid about $80 for a book, learnt [sic ] the process by carefully applying the lessons printed in two pages. It took me about eight months before I modified my extensions listed in the JED to use the automated update mechanism so that I could update my JED listings.

Yes, there was some pain involved but it was necessary pain. I believe, however, that the SPD is unnecessary and that the pain of its loss will barely cause a murmur in the Joomlaverse.

Yep, several years ago. Which is how long it's been since we've been able to update our extension listings. And, we know other developers in the same predicament. We have not had that time to pour into the additional development. Everyone is reinventing the wheel over and over again. What I'm saying is the pain infliction could have been avoided, and was not necessary, if an approach was taken to work with developers instead of against developers.

I understand your opinion about the SPD, but we disagree.

[sozzled]

Fair enough. At least we're having a respectful discussion even if we may disagree.

Best of luck with contacting the team.

Cheers.

[3by400Inc]

I'm delighted to report that word reached the team that manages the Service Provider Directory moderation and our listing was reinstated about 5 hours ago. Thank you to whoever was able to pass on our plight to the powers that be!