Even mentioning that another Xojo forum exists (in a thread about Xojo blogs and presumably Xojo resources in general) will get your post deleted post-haste.
https://forum.xojo.com/58434-xojo-blog-post-notifications
Would have been interesting to know who thought that breached forum rules … because as far as I know mentioning other blogs and forums was not forbidden. Seems Xojo really is trying hard to control the narrative …
Let me see if mine gets deleted…
I posted this:
I hadn’t come across XoPro before Anthony. Nice.
There are a ton of resources available for Xojo users if you know where to look. Unfortunately there isn’t a good collated resource that is up to date.
Anthony, if you control XoPro, can you add the topics and posts made on my Xojo resource site please to your scraper, it’s https://ifnotnil.com.
I do hope they stop being so heavy handed with the moderating. It has become excessive in my opinion over the last 12 months or so. How do they expect to grow the community if they keep smashing down every resource that pops up if it’s not entirely glowing about Xojo?
Yours and mine removed 
And yes they do not want other places mentioned - even if you mention they exist the post may get removed
But it doesnt violate any specific rule - they get removed on the “moderators may remove any post at their discretion” rule
Much happier here. Thank you for creating this, @Garry!
I prefer forums (I run a couple myself) over chat rooms, and ANYTHING over facebook groups. (the WORST!)
and now JUST to apparently mess with us both your and my posts are once again back and visible
Its been said to me that they were held for moderation under the assumption they violated some rule.
And once it was determined they didnt they were made visible again
Funny since I was replying to a post that wasnt moderated but also mentioned other off forums resources
That they seem to have unequal treatment does Xojo, the MVP’s (who appear to be moderators) & the forums as much harm as anything. The end result is NOT the only criteria.
The perception of equal treatment is as important as actually treating people equally.
Trust me, I understand that forums need moderation. You can’t have them fill up with spam and hatred for example but I also believe that for a community to remain interesting and relevant it needs to develop on its own.
There seems to be a great deal of paranoia from Xojo Inc around the forum. Frankly I don’t understand where it comes from. We’d all agree that Xojo has a great product that people preferentially choose Xojo over other tools because it’s better (despite its warts). The idea that because I see a link for B4X or Java or Corona Labs or one of a hundred over programming tools on the Xojo forums that I’ll jump ship is ridiculous.
I honestly dont know what caused that
But even the old PHPBB ones had similar rules (see http://forums.realsoftware.com/faq.php?sid=7bdf60be43a65c4d07f4404230b2f007#f00)
I dont have any old NUG emails to see if that prohibition existed there
I tend to agree that IF people are mentioning other tools its often in the vein of “hey if you want to do X that Xojo cant you could try Y” and not “Hey you should drop Xojo for Y”
I tend to think that IF people are mentioning other tools that Xojo might see the context and adopt other good ideas from other places (wasnt it Jobs that said great artists steal?)
But they seem rather inclined to make this kind of reference disappear as if it might lure users away. Bob’s blog post on why people leave and the responses that gathered is probably more instructive there.
But the forums are Xojos playground so they can have whatever rules they see fit.
And if that drives folks off so be it
That is where my opinion differs. Maybe I read too many Spiderman comics as a kid, but “with great power comes great responsibility”. That is best encapsulated in the saying “I might disagree with you, but I will defend your right to your own opinion”.
Running a forum brings (among other things) the responsibility of fairness with it. It should never be “My house, my rules” because if you think you can then do whatever you want then you should be allowed to mistreat animals or even murder people in your own home (and you aren’t). [and yes, I’m fully aware that this is exaggeration but that allows to make the point that even on your own forum or in your own home you need to follow common standards. Current politics, Facebook, etc show what happens when these standards get discarded].
While I understand the point you are making the forums are considered, under US law, to be Xojo’s “property” and they can administer it how they see fit - like a private club which they can allow or deny people entry for whatever reasons they want, when they want, and how they want and the can police that club as they see fit.
They certainly cannot break the law while doing so - but I doubt they have ever come anywhere close to that.
Should they be fair since customers use this ? I would think it would be a good idea for them to be.
But there is no requirement for them to be.
Yes, the forum is Xojo’s property. And yes, it’s silly how they censor the forum.
I also find it funny that so far the job of the MVPs (what did that mean again?) is to moderate the forum.
I don’t know much about the subject, but why is it that US laws are the only applied ones for an international forum, in the first place? (well, I know the forum is stored there, but it’s still viewable on locations outside of that country).
I would expect it is precisely because the servers it runs on reside in the US.
And probably because the company itself is US based and has no international offices which might make it subject to other countries laws - like Apple, Google etc that all have offices in Ireland , France etc. Where it can be viewed is quite likely irrelevant.
For instance here in Canada if you live close enough to the US border you can listen to US radio stations but they are not subject to Canadian laws, as far as I know, even though you can listen to them in Canada.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest that Xojo has even come close to breaking any form of law, certainly not by UK standards.
I just think that overt paranoia is harmful. It’s not only stifling to the community but it implies a hidden agenda. I think Xojo as a product stands up to scrutiny for many tasks - they should let the product speak for itself and not squash any mention of other tools which may be a better fit for certain individuals.
As people have said however, it’s their forum and they are perfectly entitled to moderate it as they see fit.
I definitely sense some kind of history rewrite going on. Which is never a good sign.
One of the things that attracted me to Xojo was the philosophical approach Geoff presented. About which I am more and more pondering how true it has been. Missing it a lot today.
http://docs.xojo.com/index.php?title=User:Npalardy&curid=5103&diff=69020&oldid=49428
Come on… if you were running a business and your public forum as outward-looking place for newbies and interesting parties, then you would try to keep it clean, friendly and marketing-friendly aswell.
This is quite true. But if there is unrest then the best strategy surely is not to hide the unrest.
I can agree that they want to keep the forum looking good, perhaps they could have shown that they’re listening to customers and taking their feedback seriously, while apologizing for the mistakes that were made.
Personally if I saw a forum where people where complaining, and it showed the company was clearly working to address the complaints, maybe even prompting customers to update the thread when issue X was resolved, I wouldn’t see it as a sign of weakness, I’d see it as investing in a company that cares and wants to do better. A company where they admit that there are problems, but also show that they’re working to keep their customers happy.
Apple’s developer forums are downright depressing, you can find people have asked the same question or raised the same issue (some time years ago) and 9 times out 10, there is simply no answer. Which indicates that Apple just simply doesn’t care.
Is Xojo hiding these negative topics a bad thing, maybe not, but they could turn them into a positive thing. If they wanted.
It is easy to understand, when a CEO is blindly sure of his desitions, no mater how stupid they are, or how many users complain about, he needs to blame something else.
“Mi vision for my product is perfect! So if the product has a decline in users it must be caused by rants on the forum”