fillerup wrote:it's easy to recognize the rhetoric in those situations
You know why? Because I deal with the same rhetoric over and over myself. Here we are, pouring every day of our lives into trying to provide
what we can to you in our respective visions. Including all these extra things we provide alongside the browser that is, dare I say, not far removed from what a large corporation provides. And what do I get in return? Nothing but complaints if we don't dance exactly to the pipes of users who don't want to ever help out with the bigger things this project can use so much: help with larger issues in the code base, help with additional services, and dare I say pretty inflexible attitudes from people who want to push their opinion not realizing how thin we are already spread.
So excuse me for getting "snippy". All I ever suggest here is that if you think you can do a better job providing these services, then please do so. It's not meant to be dismissive, it is 100% sincere. I would
welcome others actually taking over some of these tasks, but yes, it
is a responsibility and requires an investment not unlike we already make. And I'll make clear here too that if someone
does take over such a task they can shape it as they see fit with whatever features they think belong or not belong in it; if you do a better job that serves users better, all the better and I would rejoice!
When push comes to shove, I've not seen that effort made, though. Even with freedom offered. So, I hope people understand we have to make practical decisions to reduce the workload, and that some design decisions will always be personal and people will not like some of those decisions. We always try to balance things out. The design decision was made to keep the addons site free of developer or user bias to the extent we can. If you don't like the design decisions made there then the offer is open to do it in our stead with a different design. We'll provide limited help to set things up but it'd become your project, your task under your control.
Tobin has been writing a full database system to move extensions to, from the ground up. It is not meant to be a social platform, it's not meant to cater to comments, ratings, feedback or sorting that other software might. It is meant to present extensions to multiple applications and streamline discovery and updates of them. We have to draw the line what features go in it somewhere and no, it will never be a full management platform as a result.
Going full AMO might be more user-friendly but it is also something that requires
dedicated governance, moderation and maintenance that
can't be provided without help (and I personally can't stand the AMO software and don't have the required knowledge to run it). If you want to get more, more will have to be put in. Our time, skill and energy isn't limitless.
EDIT: I do hope that I made myself clear
this time. I've tried before and it apparently didn't come across and has as a result been seen as throwaway rhetoric. It isn't. If it's still not clear then I'm sorry -- either way I'm pretty well done with this topic at this point. The extensions site is not really my responsibility anymore.
Let's not make it worse by introducing user- or developer-instigated favoritism. I'm very strongly opposed to this.
