FA's new support site

[Conan]

Durp.  Beta testing does not find security holes.

As long as it works it's good enough amirite?

[Conan]

Bumping this thread with something I just found.

Remember how they bought this to replace their wiki? Guess what! KnowledgeBase Manager PRO is, in fact, a wiki! They're paying $50/mo for something that can be done for free with ten minutes of installing mods on MediaWiki. From a company that has a poor grasp on the english language and refers to Wikis as "Wikipedia Software".

You can also take a look at all the big-name clients that use this software.  Big names like "Highland Community Colledge", a secondlife sex furniture store and one of their BIG customers is "Laser Printer Help".

:I

[Jim Demintia]

I'm imagining Dragoneer found this by clicking on something like this:

MediaWiki Admins Hate Him!
Local digimon discovers $60 trick for porn site support.

[ProvincialTwit]

"I set up a knowledgebase for my fetish porn site using this one weird old tip!"

[Eaglebird]

It was probably a little more professional than that, e.g.:

Need a support solution for your growing business, but only have a SOHO budget? Click here!

With that said, I don't think it's a monthly subscription sort of thing. If you go to "Buy" on the website you can see the costs, and as I interpret it there is a one-time licensing fee and a one-time fee for support, if it's added to the ~package~. Even so, it's a pretty interesting thing to take into account when considering Neer, because, in a fandom filled with geeks and gurus and a world turning toward open-source software, what benefit is there with a licensed software?

[Jim Demintia]

I thought this started when everyone was outraged about him spending $2,000 on this damn thing and then his "defense" was he was doing the monthly $60. Or was that a different system?

a fandom filled with geeks and gurus and a world turning toward open-source software, what benefit is there with a licensed software?

This fandom is full of helpdesk burnouts who think that because they can install Windows and/or Ubuntu that they "know computers" and thus know absolutely everything. I can probably count on one hand the people I know who are "in computers" whom I really respect their talent. They tend to work for big names in software and hardware that most of us have heard of.

Open source is great for problems that are a known quantity- and a support site sure as hell is that. Start thinking outside the box though and things get a little less clear.

[Eaglebird]

I can install Windows!


Granted, many people with any inkling of technical know-how in the fandom are likely to exaggerate it to a critical point, I have no doubt there is someone or a handful of someones familiar enough with that sort of software to help implement it for FA. I could agree with you about people "in computers" < 5, but we both know the keywords in that statement are "the people I know". Besides, what makes you think that an obligation to provide support (e.g. the paid support subscription) implies the ability to provide support? For all I know the people behind the help desk over at web-site-scripts.com are those that become the burnouts.


It just seems to me like the cost of the software (not solely monetary either) is high enough to make something that's free a lot more appealing. I imagine paid support of the software might be useful when critical problems arise that need immediate attention, but the knowledgebase probably isn't necessarily important enough to warrant paid support. Right?

[ProvincialTwit]

It's a porn site, for cryin' out loud.  How much 'support' and 'knowledge base' does something like that even require?

Though I suppose you could say if the site were more intuitive and not built/run by idiots, it either wouldn't need a knowledge base or could integrate help documentation in a contextual way.  Even the cheapo forum software we use here has context-sensitive help provided by simple HTML 'alt' tags.

[Jim Demintia]

Let's be clear here. I guess I should have looked back at the beginning of this thread before now but here's what I'm referring to. When this thing came out as help.furaffinity.net, folks did research on it and realized it cost $1,000 to buy it outright. That starts to get around and people are muttering about how FA bought a thousand-dollar wiki. So at some point the site went away, and came back as a $50/mo. option. This isn't for support. Maybe support is included, but I think it's a hosted instance of the software that Piche pays $50 a month to have branded as help.furaffinity.net. Now, it's only gonna take them just shy of 2 years to rack up $1,000 at that rate- so it's really an even shittier deal than buying it outright. That plus the entirely unprofessional nature of the sales site basically makes you wonder how Piche found this stupid thing in the first place.

This thing basically exists to get market share. It's like smartphone apps in a way, there's just so much demand for Internet related stuff that there's room in the market right now for cynics to put out a crap product and rubes like Piche will buy it. They don't have any compelling new feature or advantage over anyone else, and they sure as hell can't justify that price tag for a MediaWiki clone. But things being what they are right now they get away with it.

I'm personally looking forward to the day when these operations crash and burn.

It's a porn site, for cryin' out loud.  How much 'support' and 'knowledge base' does something like that even require?

I'm sure 90% of FA's userbase has no idea it exists, and had no idea the old MediaWiki instance existed, useless as it was. It's one of those things Piche really has no justification/need for, but he thinks when you run a website/computer system this is what you do, so he has it.

Sure, you have a point, but you're also applying critical thinking skills to the situation at hand.

[Conan]

It's a porn site, for cryin' out loud.  How much 'support' and 'knowledge base' does something like that even require?

This was purchased following the hacking, when Dragoneer was taking suggestions about how to make the site better and one of those was that they needed better interaction with the members or "better support". Using his patented Furry Logic, he came to the conclusion this must mean they need to offer a help website that people could submit questions to. Of course, this requires people actually update the site and answer the questions, something that hasn't happened since shortly after it launched in February.

With that said, I don't think it's a monthly subscription sort of thing. If you go to "Buy" on the website you can see the costs, and as I interpret it there is a one-time licensing fee and a one-time fee for support, if it's added to the ~package~. Even so, it's a pretty interesting thing to take into account when considering Neer, because, in a fandom filled with geeks and gurus and a world turning toward open-source software, what benefit is there with a licensed software?

See this page for the hosted prices.

[Eaglebird]

See this page for the hosted prices.

Welp, my bad; I didn't realize it was actually being hosted until I looked at the dns for help.furaffinity.net again. :/


Still not worth it, in my opinion.

[Spip]

Though I suppose you could say if the site were more intuitive and not built/run by idiots, it either wouldn't need a knowledge base or could integrate help documentation in a contextual way.

Speaking non-idiot-built sites, has anyone anywhere managed to accomplish anything with the Ferrox codebase? How usable was it when it went dead?