The new support system feels more like blackmail

Wow. I emailed the Boonex team for help and I was given a link to pay for premium support instead of getting an answer. Bloody lovely!!!!

for the record us premium members get lousy support too.

i paid and still get the run around

this  is  true 

i get some anwser like in the new  version the problem is  fix 

but  after  upgrad  i get more mistake on my site and now i need to pay  to to fix  the  problem.

that should have been resolved after upgrade

Actually, that's not blackmail.  It's extortion.  However, I don't know of many web application vendors that offer free support.  It's impossible.  I own a number of paid commercial scripts, and have to pay annual support fees for all of them.  Some of them, I have to pay just to be able to post in their support forums.  It's just the way the world works.

Usually, you'll find helpful people in the forums, unless you're some self-centered prima donna that likes to bitch about how sarcasitic everyone on this site is.

What was the issue you needed Boonex's help with?

I stand corrected. Extortion is the word I meant to use. Thank you HoustonLively!

Hear is an extract from the Boonex home page;

Dolphin 7 - open-source, downloadable, scalable, customizable, full-featured, independent and free software package for building social networks, dating sites and niche communities. Dolphin is the only "all-in-one" bundle of PHP community scripts, Flash apps and Mobile apps that provide full control, freedom and flexibility. Launch your site, customize it and watch it grow!

The word free should have a little asterisk next to it with a note at the bottom of the page saying "but the support is not".

The question I was hoping to get help with was about something that occurred after the 7.0.4 upgrade. Some of the internal emails seem to be sent in gobledeeeeeeee-gook.

Here is a sample:

%3Cp%3Ewent%20to%20the%20giles%20hotel%20with%20everyone%2C%20then%20got%20told%20to%

Red Hat Linux is free as are an enormous number of programs, support however (professional) most definitely is not.

Support on these forums is free and supported by Boonex staff.

Dolphin is also free unless you choose to purchase a license. This just removes the Boonex Logo's etc. But the product is the same in functionality.

Boonex has to pay for R&D plus staff wages, servers and premises etc. etc., If you want one of their staff to address your concerns directly (other than the forums) you should expect to have to pay something.

If you don't agree, please explain how you would expect them to earn a living?

Stuart

To compare the Dolphin platform to Redhat Linux is slightly misleading.

Yes one on one support with Redhat will understandably incur a charge but for those that wish to avoid this is be it for whatever financial reason they may have, Redhat has an abundance of documentation that one can search through to find the solution themself.

The documenation behind Dolphin has only just recently started but is in no way sufficient to provide a viable alternative to paying for support. I have been using Dolphin since the days of V5.4 and if it wasn't for the kindness of many a knowledgeable Unity member, my site would have collapsed long ago.

Of course I can understand that Boonex has wages to pay but look at the all the negative feedback that SO MANY Premium members have left about the support they have paid for.

All I am saying is its fine to charge  for support provided it is backed by a well documented alternative.

I totally agree!!

if  you  compar  with some other cms  program 

like Drupal joomla typo3  all of  them are free you dont  need  to buy  a  licence   key 

all extanche  are free all so.

All this  platform he need  to pay for R&D but  is  Free

Just because it's open source, doesn't mean everything about it is free. I'm not going to dive into this, because it's been discussed hundreds of times and people still don't get a grasp of it.

Drupal and other open source scripts offer free support through their forums and paid support through a team of professionals who know what they're talking about. If you don't want to pay for support, stick to the forums. BoonEx developers and other staff members frequently post here and provide support free of charge, but not in a dedicated manner.

All of you are really missing the point. It was never intended by the developers to build a free product. The reality is they figured out a way to MAXIMIZE the profits from this project. You only need to look at what's being offered in the market to realize that.

Having said that, Dolphin is a very good script and it has endless possibilities for those with the resources to follow through with it. Most of the naysayers I find on the web that talk bad about Dolphin (and there are many!) always get back to the issue that the base product is not and may never be, strong enough to put straight into a live site without extensive modification.

Do they answer?  I asked a support question, got that link asking for money, paid and resent the support question - but they never answered.

You should post the problem you're having in the forums.  First , someone else may be able to answer it.  Secondly, it becomes part of the archive of solutions, so that if someone else has the same problem they can find it.  E-mailing support directly bypasses these two important pieces.

Mail is a can of worms, and the problem is just as likely to be the server or email client configuration.  Especially when you're sending a message using anything besides the standard western language characters.

If you post the exact problem you're having (in a different thread, one that's titled something like "Garbled Email in User Notifications in Russian" or something like that, and describe everything you can about it, I'm pretty sure you'll either get a solution or something that puts you on the right path.  If you give the URL to the site, some people may even sign up to get the email in question: maybe it works in Gmail but not Outlook Express, or something like that.

Tac