Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Hi Everyone!

I want to inform you about a very important change in X-Cart forums.

The change is related to development of the new X-Cart&LiteCommerce platform and is a part of our developments in 2011, actually.

We are going to pay much more attention to X-Cart forum than we did. This means we dedicate one of our team members to become the only X-Cart forum moderator. User qualiteam, a member of our staff, is responsible for helping X-Cart forum members, maintaining threads structure/signatures/i.e. forum rules in order since this very moment.

Balinor, Carpeperdiem, PaulDodman and Shan won't be X-Cart forum moderators any more, but despite of that they are still important forum members and they are welcome to contribute on the forum. I contacted them a week ago to inform them about the change in advance.

I want to thank them personally and on behalf of X-Cart team for everything they did for X-Cart community and for X-Cart. Without your support X-Cart wouldn't become what it is now (despite of everything all of us have done and not done).

User "Qualiteam" (Alex Soloviev) is now the X-Cart forum moderator. Don't forget to press "Thank you" button each time he helps you ;)

Thank you,
Alex

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Glad that someone from X-Cart is listening to the forum too. Hope this will give more things sorted out.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Good to hear that finally QT will monitor the forum. Let's hope that Alex will not only help and enforce forum rules but also pass to QT all pros and cons post in here so they are taken care of better and faster.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Fingers crossed on the new direction - sad to see that the old moderators are being removed. It will be interesting to see how ONE person (who has limited time in the forum) will do replacing 4 veterns of the forum for support. In fact the name "Soloviev" only shows on ONE result - this thread - Has Alex been active in the forum before?

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

"Qualiteam" is a new account, but it has these stats to the moment:

http://forum.x-cart.com/member.php?u=24083
Total Posts: 30 (2.17 posts per day)
Thanked 7 Times in 4 Posts

Alex is going to do more every day :)

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I agree! Nearly 30,000 posts by balinor (as of now...almost all of them helping users who need help) has been invaluable. I don't think I would have become an XC customer without some of those posts on this forum. Actually I hope you compensated him. He deserves it.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

He got a t-shirt that says I love X-Cart!!! ;)

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

He also got a $1200 amazon gift card.
http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=47624

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

QT can be appreciative yes. I hope even though not moderators these guys will continue their support in here, helps a lot, thank you to all of them

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I, for one, am excited to see Qualiteam finally begin to take an active role in this forum. Perhaps they will get a better feel for how we are using their software, how to better improve on it, and just be more in touch with their user base. It is very easy to see what people love, and hate, about X-Cart by simply looking at the number and types of posts that happen on a daily basis. Looking at the completed custom mods forum for example, they can easily tell what features are needed, and try to add them to the cart. The third party developers have been doing exactly that for years.

I just hope the new moderator realizes how much work it takes to keep this forum running smoothly. Yes, I have put a lot of time into this place over the years, on average about 10 hours a week. I did it not for monetary gain (although the gift certificate was nice) but to have a better feel for the software, how people are using it, what improvements I could make to my clients' carts, and just because I enjoy helping people when I can. I remember how difficult it was to learn this software when I first started! I'm sure the new mod will do the same.

While I will still contribute when I can, this comes at a good time as I will now be developing the majority of my sites on a different cart platform. I'll be keeping tabs on the place for sure, and still checking in for tweaks to the X-Cart sites we maintain, but most of my energy is now going to go into the new cart.

It has been a pleasure working with all of your over the past 7 years, I wish you all the best of luck.

See you around :)

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Thanks for your support in here Padriac. Care to PM me the cart name? Just curious.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Me too.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Kudos for balinor :-).

Thank you very much for your support .

I always amazed with his post count.8O

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

This could be a fatal shot to the forum. Lets look at this a little closer. You are removing multiple people as MODs and replacing them with one. Most of the folks that MOD this forum spend much more than an eight hour shift would allow.

I agree that QT needs to take an active roll on here but I wonder if we will get the same service we currently get with QT Tech support. The time zone is a major killer.

To the folks that have been working as a MOD on here and to Padriac:
Thank you so much for your time and sharing of information. You folks are very responsible for making X-cart what it is today and I hope that QT values that as much as we do. I hope that you will continue to participate.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone.
Mike

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

IMO it was a dark, dark, day when I re-read the finality in the above quoted statement. Speaking for myself balinor's contribution's will be missed in this forum. Mr. Ryan always projected a sense of "to the point" direction and helped instill confidence in many of us who are not that technical.

He directed the forum traffic well and did it with a sense of urgency. He always seemed to play by the rules of the forum.

I wish the QT forum representative(s) the best in their efforts to fill in the void.

Joe O'Malley

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I been sitting here for weeks asking why would you get rid of moderators. You don▓t need to get rid of the moderators, to add Qualiteam moderator. If I owned a forum, my team would be in there all the time. There is a wealth of information why people are having problems with a product. You don▓t a survey to find out what customer think of your product, the answer are in the forum. I thinking you want people to use paid support and not a free forum.

Qualiteam Total Posts: 44 (1.68 posts per day)
Balinor Total Posts: 29,386 (11.20 posts per day)
Pauldodman Total Posts: 2,301 (0.84 posts per day)
Cflsystems Total Posts: 3,825 (2.80 posts per day)

Which brings me to why would you have support points expire. I pay $34.50 for 64 points and don▓t use then. You use the money to pay your bills or employees. Or stick the money in the bank and earn 2% interest, and in 2 year my money is worthless?

For an American, I don▓t think foreign companies understand good will or customer service. After they have your money they don▓t give you customer service. Here in California we have many foreign born nationals businesses and anytime you have a problem with the product, then return to the store, they point to the sign ⌠No Returns or Exchange■ in the window.

My second point is why would you give only one license per user, for x-payments to existing customer, when most people with multipliable license is someone reselling your product. I can understand it not being transferable.

Balinor
⌠While I will still contribute when I can, this comes at a good time as I will now be developing the majority of my sites on a different cart platform.■

I love X-cart after two years. I used a free cart for a couple of years and every time I need to upgrade to new features, I could not upgrade with my products and customers. The best $200.00 I ever spend. I▓m not paying a monthly fee or have limit number products.

One of my suppliers asks me all the time about the cart. They spend thousands of dollars on theirs and it does not do half the thing as x-cart.

Spreading good will is the best way to grow.

Just my two cents

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Eddy,
I agree, it's seems to me that the wheel wasn't broken in the forums, so why did we need to fix it? X-cart has one of the most vibrant, and by far efficient forum. There was nothing stopping QT from becoming more involve-which by all mean they should be- Hope this is for the better.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I've been back and forth about whether to say the following comment. But I think open feedback to QT and transparency is best. I might piss off some folks here, but I also think you'll agree with part of it.

Here's a quote from my post here: http://www.shoppingcart-program.com/2010/11/shopping-cart-comparison/#idc-container
The rest of that blog post also describes my feelings about XCart. I've spent hundreds of hours on it so far. I still am confident in my choice, and would not want to be with any other cart at this point.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I agree Mr. G. When I first started my jaunt with x-cart I got a price to develop the cart I wanted. $20,000 for another cart. I easily made my printing store for under $1,500. Thank you X-Cart!!!

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Part of the reason for that post was in response to that idiot who just posted in the Rants and you dealt with, Ashley. But I have no desire to engage an idiot.
Now that I got all that off my chest, I see I'm somewhat off topic. But, I already did express my thanks to the four former mods. I did not express this:

QT's premise for discontinuing the four mods was from Ambal's post that "User qualiteam" would replace them. That was posted on 12/20/10, so I'm going to give them a holiday pass for a few more days. (The Russians/Ukrainians do celebrate this time of year heavily.) But after that, if User qualiteam doesn't do at least 20 posts a day to support users (especially new ones like me) who really need it, I'm going to be screaming that this was a massive mistake and to kick it in to prove otherwise.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I have given X-Cart a good try for a couple months, but I too am dismayed by their recent "firing" of the excellent moderators. The high activity in this forum was a major incentive to my purchase.

My previous cart had been going through growing pains in a major rewrite and adoption of complete PA-DSS certification. They now seem to be getting it back together.

Though I am guilty of the "grass is greener" temptation in trying X-Cart, it was good to learn some new tech stuff, and to see that the problems experienced with the other cart are shared by this platform.

One huge advantage of the other cart now is their commitment to PA-DSS. From all accounts, X-Cart has abandoned their previous statement to develop a compliant cart in favor of the buggy X-Payments...and adding another step to the checkout process in doing so.

So I will soon be returning to my previous cart - it is in fact, the same one that balinor now recommends.

Good luck to you all.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: say it aint so...
 

I dont see the logic in this move. On paper it looks like a bonehead move. Why on earth would you replace the EXCELLENT forum moderation that you already have in place? The most significant factor I use in determining which software to go with is activity in community forums. You can directly attribute my decision to go with xcart to balinor in particular and others like him. These forum moderators work for free, contribute thoughtfully and receive no compensation except for an occasional "thanks". Granted balinor did get a 1,200 Amazon.com gift card from you, but put in perceptive that comes out to a less then twenty five cent per post thanks.
Now more then ever, considering the slew of bugs inherent in 4.4 this move to replace the existing moderators with a qualiteam moderator is scary at best. Statistically, you're replacing a 20 post per day team, with a 1.68 post per day employee. With over 30,000 combined posts by the exiting team, the new forum moderator has a little catching up to do in the experience department as well. If im not mistaken qt is at 44 posts. Additionally, im assuming that since I live and work in California, I can wave goodbye to the fast response that Ive been accustomed to.
With that aside, I would like to welcome the new forum moderator by saying congratulations on your new position, you have tall shoes to fill, and PLEASE prove me wrong.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: say it aint so...
 

Sorry, I couldn't let this slide by: $1200 divided by 29400 posts comes to 4 pennies per post.

I don't even want to imagine how that translates into an hourly wage. Then you throw into the mix the quality factor - the fact that the 'typical helpfulness' of Balinor's posts are consistently first class. I am glad that I'm not the paid employee who is supposed to fill those shoes.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: say it aint so...
 

I stand corrected, I agree and ouch.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Most of the mods still post here, and really Balinor left because of the pci dss compliance issues.

Even if he wasn't a mod he would still be posting, if x-cart hadn't dropped the ball on pci dss compliance.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

That's just the straw that broke the camel's back Ashley - my reasons for leaving go a lot deeper than that.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I understand.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

The way I see it, with Xcart handling the forums, they amount of post on here on how to alter Xcart to make it do what you want will decrease, I see that the post by Qualiteam is nearly non existent.

First, Now what I do see happening is a cart that that people will slowly be moving away from.

Second, I think that Xcart had a motive behind taking the forum over and posting fixes for them selfs. If the help is not here from the moderators that use to post, They will see more business in clients asking for paid help from Xcart. Profits will go up.

It has been a month almost and only 76 post from Qualiteam, That is pretty pitiful if you ask me. Of the post some of the total post are multiple post to the same problem.

I would like to see Qualiteam spend the amount of time on the forum that other moderators did. Posting help after hours on their own time. That probably will not happen, they can not make money that way.

As I said, it appears that the changes that they have made will only increase the profits, not the actual cart or support.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

I for one would like to thank all the moderators, they were one of founding reasons we became involved in x-cart. This forum and it's really are community are the roots of x-cart and the reason why it grew the way it did.

Qualiteam does an excellent job up to a point, but you should at least consider "hiring" some of the older moderators as their contribution to the forum is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the x-cart business and really shouldn't be something you guys should take lightly.

The difference betwee your paid staff and no disrespect intended I'm sure they all do a valiant job. However, the people who gave up their time for free have a REAL passion for x-cart and helping the community.

And you've just undervalued that in a very poor manner with announcements like this.

If you would like an eye opener, go to google insights and take a look at the "x-cart" graph map since 2004, it's shockingly bad with the interest that's been lost.

It's been purely due to a loss of customer confidence, erratic branch announcements and diversifying your team into doing things like the litecommerce, salesnstats etc etc.

The alarm bells should be ringing very loudly especially when you compare the google trend map it to other carts out there.

Other community supported carts both commercial and freeware out there have been on rocket boosters in recent years.

X-cart is brilliant, you just have to be careful you don't carry on in the direction it's going as the stats speak for themselves. (food for thought, dropping a complete code base in favour of another may just be the final nail for many people)

I've been around since 2003 on the x-cart scene so like many of the moderators and other developers I've seen and followed many changes at x-cart.

Sometimes it honestly feels like someone at Qualtieam doesn't actually like X-cart and is deliberately trying to kill it off! Which to me is insanity. X-cart should be growing, not declining both in sales and community enthusiasm and support.

Come on guys start Encouraging it, don't stifle it!

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Thank you, folks, for sharing your opinions here. I personally believe that there is no value someone can measure ex-mods' help for X-Cart. It's invaluable IMO.

I just want to add that we do not ban ex-moderators and we still consider them as vital part of X-Cart community. They are welcome to keep contributing as they did earlier.

We just want to pay much more attention to X-Cart forum and dedicate a person from our team to do the job. If time shows our moderator doesn't do it well we will certainly re-consider our point of view. But let's give some time (several months) for Alex (user "qualiteam") to start doing the job well before making any conclusions.

PS:
Don't forget to press "Thank you" button when Alex helps you!

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

The forums are the best interface between the company and the customer in an online business.

How about giving all the employees a couple of hours a week where they stop whatever they are currently working on to spend some time on the forums either just reading or answering questions. Five minutes of a developers time can save many hours of a customers.

I recently made the choice to stick with X-cart after seeing many unanswered questions in another products forum. I also recently chose a PHP framework based on the level of support offered in their forums.

Re: Important change in X-Cart forums: welcome the new mod
 

Alex это Александр или Алексей?

Guys, sorry for my bad russian. ;)