@LouisGac: I think the ":facepalm:" was unnecessary for this so far pretty civilized discussion. You don't need to agree with Tpartner's view, but at least respect him as a longstanding member of the community that is helping with incredible patiences and great solutions and workarounds for features that LS doesn't have (and that are pretty standard in other packages). Now you can call me a troll again.

@everyone: Unfortunately I must admit that I somehow agree with Louis. We are giving support here to all kind of users, we never know what is behind them. This might be a student doing their survey for uni, it might be a market research company or big corporating that is running thousands of surveys a year or it might eben be a developer that is building their own tool on top of Limesurvey. We have a few people here recently, that ask quite a few questions and I think they make good money with what they are doing but are not giving back. But, this is a risk any open source software has. Unfortunately there will be many that only take and don't give.

So for general Limesurvey issues, how to use, work arounds, etc. I don't see any problem here. What is a problem are installation related topics and topics that require access to the installation. But these problems we not only have with Limesurvey GmbH installations, but with any installation that is administred by someone else than the person asking (Limesurvey hosting company, university, it provider set it up, etc.). Before it was simple. Tell the user that this is a Limeservice problem and send them there. Today it gets more complicated, because people have the impression that they are paying money to Limesurvey.org and thus we in the forum must be able to help, which we sometimes can't. Over the time this will cause some problems, when the structure of the website will not be changed to reflect this seperation of professional services provided by the Limesurvey GmbH and the community. This is really my only concern.

LouisGac wrote: Sure, better that you help OVH or Gandhi to make money. Makes a lot of sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but for me there is the same difference between a hosting provider (OVH or Gandhi) & a SAAS provider (limeservice like) than between to rent a flat and to stay in a hotel.

It merely depends on what you want to do and if you accept/can or not do some maintenance tasks.

Fees not really matter since there are nowadays good & reliable offers both side.

I agree.

holch wrote: Today it gets more complicated, because people have the impression that they are paying money to Limesurvey.org and thus we in the forum must be able to help, which we sometimes can't. Over the time this will cause some problems, when the structure of the website will not be changed to reflect this seperation of professional services provided by the Limesurvey GmbH and the community. This is really my only concern.

Perhaps it is possible to put every new professional LS hosting user into a different user group in Joomla/Kunena.
Or an additional badge like for the donators. That way the miscommunication could be reduced.

Last resort is to change you own posting behavior.
Why no answer a topic with "Go to www.limesurvey.org/support first" and see what happens.

jelo wrote: Perhaps it is possible to put every new professional LS hosting user into a different user group in Joomla/Kunena.
Or an additional badge like for the donators. That way the miscommunication could be reduced.

I had thought of this as well. A badge that shows who has LS hosting / comfort update would help to avoid discuss things that the respondent can't even influence.

Last resort is to change you own posting behavior.
Why no answer a topic with "Go to www.limesurvey.org/support first" and see what happens.

This is not an option for me I think. I'd rather not answer at all. I don't think it is a bad thing that Limesurvey GmbH is making money with professional hosting and comfort update. As Louis says, it helps more programmers getting paid which in theory should help LS to go forward quicker. As long as the community is not forgotten and ignored I am fine with this. So I guess we have to see how this develops.

jelo wrote: Perhaps it is possible to put every new professional LS hosting user into a different user group in Joomla/Kunena.
Or an additional badge like for the donators.

+1, great idea

And more : i think 'Donor' badge can be gain with ComfortUpdate : we see a lot of new "Donor Badge" since ComortUpdate.

Can have:
- Donor Badge (for real donation only)
- Limesurvey gmbh hosted
- Contributor badge if able (code / manual / translation / forum / Bug reporter can have each different badge)
- other ?


PS : see me , i'm "Moderator Lime" , but not a LS team or other think but github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/commits/master?author=Shnoulle

Yeah, I saw that now Denis. It is not very consistent with the titles. Once upon a time they made me "Limesurvey team", but I am "only" a moderator here actually. I don't know how this is decided. Not too clear to me.

Seems like this has been heard: My status has changed from "Limesurvey Team" to "Limesurvey Community Team" (just like Tpartner and Denis).