X-Cart forums

[clearwat]

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.

[Santorelli]

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.

[gravel]

Originally Posted by Santorelli

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.

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.

[Santorelli]

Originally Posted by gravel

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.

I stand corrected, I agree and ouch.

[ARW VISIONS]

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.

[balinor]

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

[ARW VISIONS]

I understand.

[Duramax 6.6L]

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.

[groovico]

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!

[ambal]

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!