When a Boonex Upper Level Admin Conspires With A Modder, IT'S BAD!!! Investigation Please Andrew.

I've been a member of Unity now for a little while.  When I came in, like all the others, I depended on the Unity Forums & Expertzzz as a way of learning my way around Dolphin, how the script was built and how to customize it.  What I found to be absolutely the most useful, and saved me from making the vast majority of mistakes, was the reviews.  Yes, I made a couple mistakes here and there, but for the most part tings went incredibly useful.

Over the time that I have been here on Unity I have repaid this community with helpful tips & support in the forums & blogs.  In fact, I often spend a large amount of time when I have it in providing answers for free to almost anyone who asks, with very few exceptions.  I've made suggestions for improvement of Unity, posted useful tips on how to search, how to resolve certain issues and have even posted blogs on how to do some customizations. 

What was discovered early in is that Expertzzz was filled with some scammers.  The infamous Mod-Packs for the ridiculously low price of $20 or something, of course until you never get it it's a ridiculously low price.  I have watched what some of us thought were good developers get banned from Expertzzz and presumably the New Unity Market for what Boonex has determined to be good and just cause.  Only once have I questioned this.  I have also watched as other developers have blatantly ripped off customers with bad code, slipping malicious code inside of mods and doing overall shoddy work and ONE (1) upper level admin inside of Boonex appears to protect them.  Follow me for a moment please here, and keep in mind this pattern is only apply in 1 case, not numerous that we can see.

1.  About a year ago a modder got caught and was revealed for placing their Adsense Code inside of Mods.  (I"m not stating the developer/modder name here and I ask that noone else says it publicly.)  This developer was temporarily suspended, the profile completely blocked out and then they were allowed by a specific person to create a new profile and start selling again, openly admitting this was permitted.

2.  At that time when it was revealed, Forum Posts were made on Expertzzz.com and Unity.  The specific Admin chose to delete them from Unity, it was one forum post and one blog post on Unity, and lock the thread on Expertzzz to cause it to roll all the way into never find it again land unless you know exactly what your looking for and where to look.  This Admin clearly stated that it was only necessary to have 1 post on the topic and the others were useless.  I beg to differ as are (were) 2 diffferent sites and those searching in one may not very well find it in the other and vice versa.  Beyond that, those who frequent Unity often know nothing about expertzzz and some on expertzzz very rarely come to Unity.

3.  When a blog was posted question suspension of one and allowing of the other to exist I was advised to not get involved if I don't know the entire story.  I politely bowed out on that one and allowed Boonex to do what Boonex felt was best for the Community which was to permanently ban someone over a question of fraud/unhappy customer.  It made no difference as to whether I agreed or disagreed with the decision made, it was not my decision to make.

4.  I have found my Google Adsense Mod on the site of another modder who appears to be protected by a certain Boonex Admin, when Boonex has been advised of this, with  proof showing that is blatantly obvious and unarguable, nothing happens to the developer/modder who obviously has stolen the item and chosen to re-sell something that should be and was free. 

5.  Others have made serious allegations against a certain modder who appears to be protected and again, this one individual at Boonex appears to cause these complaints to disappear and make them difficult/impossible to locate. 

6.  This developer has a habit/history when someone complains about one mod of cancelling all their sales of all their mods that person has made from them, delete the mod & reposting it to dump the negative comments and so on.  No refunds are issued, no attempts to make up for it are made and it's ignored.

7.  We have been promised an investigation of things in the past by you, Andrew, and you seem to assign one person to do it.  This individual never takes any steps or provides any feedback as to why no steps are taken on the investigation.

Now, I'd like to make a few things clear here.  This is not about a developer sub-contracting with 1 or more developers to provide services to a site that a client requests.  Just about all of us do this, as it's smart business when a client wants something that another developer owns the rights to.  We will often set the contract, make the arrangements for the additional work with the original developer and handle making the payments to the appropriate individuals from the General Contract.  That is not by most frowned upon, it ensures the item is installed properly and support can be obtained if needed from the original mod creator. 

This is instead about the fact that VictorT has in the past and still appears to be censoring posts directed at a certain individual that bring up any of the discretions that have been committed in the past and/or might still do damage to this specific developers reputation.  This is creating a huge sense of impropriety within the Unity Community as we look at this and begin to connect dots that may or may not actually be connected.  But when you look at the above it does not become hard to arrive at a level of potential conspiracy here.  The community has spoken up on this in a very vocal voice in the past, continues to do it right now on a recent blog post by VictorT and it has been noted that comments are being deleted from that blog.  Now we all know that currently on a Boonex Admin can delete comments from a blog post (unless new powers came to the mods over the weekends, but even a moderator is complaining about this) and they are being ignored.

My request to you Andrew Boonex:  Open an investigation into the matter of the relationship between your employee VictorT and this specific modder/developer. It can be as follows:

• Utilize a group of Boonex Admins to review this along with a group of unbiased, Premium Members.  Please note, I will not volunteer for this as I am not unbiased in my own opinion. 
• Enable a special section of Unity for those who have had positive and/or negative experiences on Expertzzz.com to post whatever information they feel is pertinent to the investigation without fear of reprisal.  Keep this open for a set time period as to ensure all who have information can come forward and then it can be closed to prevent it from being search engine indexed once that time frame passes.  I would recommend 60 Days for this.
• Enable this section to allow individuals to upload files, post screen shots where necessary and provide some information that may be sensitive such as proof of payments and so on to help either prove or disprove what is going on.
• Prevent VictorT from participating in this investigation.  Considering the initial evidence is displaying a potential issue, it is best that he stay out of this. 
• Take the final findings of the committee, which should be a majority decision and consist of at least an equal number of Premium Members to Boonex Administrative Members, if not a higher number of Premium Members on the committee. 
• Report the findings of the investigation back to the community.  If all is found to be true or false, we as a community need to know so that we can react in the appropriate manner.

I've done my best here to not make this a rant, and as I stated, I will not name the developer in this.  A large number of people here on Unity know exactly who I'm talking about and if many of you look back, you will also see the connections that are blatantly in plain view that have lead me to this conclusion.  I do believe that as a member of this community, which is based upon Unity, that I have the right to raise this question.  We we're promised in Unity a Market that would be much better moderated, an ability to post comments and all instances of impartiality would be taken care of, the scammers/spammers would be gone and we would as members of Unity be able to identify the truly ethical developers from the less than ethical.  At any time however, that within a community, a person who is in a position of authority makes decision that establishes a pattern that causes the community to question their motives, then that community will begin to degrade as the trust of the community in those who are appointed to govern it is diminished. 

Andrew, you've done an amazing job on creating a truly workable CMS, offering it at a more than fair price and trying to create a community styled support system that is the number one reason the price is reasonable.  As a member of Unity and one who has worked many hours, both in the forums & blogs and on my own test servers to help with that support, one who has discovered and assisted Boonex in identifying scripts that null the licensing of Dolphin without ever asking for compensation, I am now requesting that compensation in the form of this investigation.  I will not state or even ponder on what the consequences will be if what I am suggesting is found to be true, as that is your place and your place only to decide.  I do pray that it is not true, and it is instead only coincidences that cause this to appear to be what it is not.

To you VictorT, if this is in fact found to be untrue I offer my apologies to you as I recognize being in a position of authority requires one to make decisions that will always make others unhappy.  In this instance I am attempting to look at the facts of this situation and remove as much of my personal thoughts as possible. 

UPDATE:  It has taken a strong position on the part of the veteran members of Unity to get permission to discuss this topic.  Please, let's follow the rules and no naming names.  Boonex does know who we're talking about and this is a compromise given by them on this topic which we previously could not discuss here.  The purpose of this is to reach a true resolution by proving or disproving accusation which have been made.  Keep in mind this does have an effect on the business of at least one person, so let's keep it as professional as we can and attempt to keep emotion out of it, I know that is hard for many, but please try.  No name calling or bashing please.  Yes, the strike is now over.