[funkboy]

I was in the process of revising my application's web page today, and I changed some information to reflect the upcoming 1.0 release of my program. It has been version 0.79 for a long time, but I'm finally getting it ready to be released.

So I changed some information on the website to show 1.0 features, and I briefly had "1.0" on the website; I figure it said 1.0 for about 40 minutes, no longer.

Lo and behold, I get an email out of the blue from MacUpdate, saying my listing on MacUpdate has been changed from 0.79 to 1.0. Now, I have not changed the zip file, nor have I submitted any update to the website. It just said, "thanks, KTA Tennis [my program] has its listing updated to 1.0." But there was no 1.0 program!

To make matters worse, VersionTracker apparently followed MacUpdate's lead and put my game as 1.0 on their front page, too.

What in the world happened here? I did not submit *any* information to them, and had only changed a little text on my page's website - and for a limited time, just to see what it would look like!

Needless to say, I'm a bit miffed, especially since MacUpdate has not reversed the file's listing back to 0.79. I had to post and apologize for something I hadn't even done! (since a few people had posted, "hmmm, the download link goes to 0.79, not 1.0")
Thankfully, VersionTracker has reversed it after I made the appropriate changes.

What happened? Has this happened to anyone else? How can I get MacUpdate to change their listing?

[Angus_D]

Have you tried, uh, e-mailing them?

[funkboy]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Have you tried, uh, e-mailing them?

Yes, immediately after I noticed the problem. I used VersionTracker's web-based administration tool, and it was changed, much to my delight.

I did the same with MacUpdate, though, and I also emailed them, but no response at all.

[Angus_D]

Odd, I always had quick responses from Joel (MacUpdate person).

[wadesworld]

I've always had quick response too.

The moral of the story is, test your new web pages in some place other than the public front page.

MacUpdate checks automatically for updates of your software. While you can run into a problem like you did - it's also nice to not have to manually resubmit your application for every release.

Wade

[Kristoff]

That's not the moral.

What if he wanted to inform the public of new features to expect in 1.0?

The real moral is for the users of the services. Examine what you download for validity, and always get it directly from the source, unless you have MD5s to compare it with.

[alephnull]

I think Wade is right about the moral here. Sure it may come as a surprise that VT and MU go out looking for updates, but you have to know that your public pages are being crawled all the time by the search engines. If you put something up on a public page, especially the default page for a site, there is a good chance it will be seen and used. Build your test pages somewhere else -- any page that is not the default page for the site or linked to by any page reachable from the default page.

[Kristoff]

No, he's not and you're not.

READ WHAT I SAID.

It's perfectly normal for a product web page to have a section that says:

COMING IN VERSION 1.0 (see roadmap for release date)
-Spell check
-New windowing system
-Web Services Support

If the stupid crawlers parse that and assume that 1.0 is released, then they are at fault.
The real burden lies with the users to check what they have against the official source.

check it out for your self

The following is really no longer valid, as he made the official change today, but here is what was in my post before:


You'll see an info section about 1.0 and a link that clearly states "Download 0.79". Nowhere does it say that 1.0 is release or available for download.

His page is fine and his content is valid. It's not his fault that some moron wrote a crawler that jumps to assumptions.

[alephnull]

Kristoff, I see you have strong feelings on this subject, but I find your argument unpersuasive.

I actually did read what you wrote, and what the original poster wrote. He clearly said that he made changes to his sight to reflect the new version for a short period of time to see what it looked like. These are not the changes you saw on his page, because the original changes had been removed, as he said. I stand by my opinion that it is a mistake to use your main web page as a testing ground for new designs.

As far as I can tell from the content of this exchange, you never saw the web page in question -- and neither did I -- so we are forced to base our opinions on his account of what happened.

I think his account clearly indicates an oversight on his part. You disagree, I know. It still sounds to me as though he posted essentially what I see on the site today: text that indicates that 1.0 has been released. You think he posted what you saw yesterday. But he said clearly that he had already taken it down by the time he posted his original message, so how could you have seen it? If I thought you were interpreting his message correctly, I might agree with your conclusions. But I think you misread the original post.

[mekentosj]

About a week ago we posted an update to our app Disctop (http://www.mekentosj.com/disctop), which we decided to rename to Disctop Pro. We also decided to bump the version number to 2.0 on our website as the Pro thing was just a joke more or less. Stupid enough, I registered the update as "Disctop Pro 1.0" as it was the first "Pro" version. All fine, but about 10 minutes ago I received an emai from MacUpdate that they have updated automatically the version to 2.0 without asking us, so now we're again on the front page, and probably everyone is asking what's new? Well there isn't anything.
I emailed the macupdate team to remove us a.s.a.p. from the main page, I hope they will react soon before the emails start to pour in...
Cheers,
Mekentosj

[funkboy]

Thanks for all the feedback.

These are not the changes you saw on his page, because the original changes had been removed, as he said. I stand by my opinion that it is a mistake to use your main web page as a testing ground for new designs.

I would have to agree with you, except for the fact that there was no checking to see if the file itself had changed or was labeled as 1.0. I think if the developer has not specifically sent a request to the updating website, someone at the update web site should download the program and see if it truly is a new release. It would be very easy for someone to see my game was 0.79, since that version had it in the application's name.

What if someone accidentally uploads something you weren't intending to put on the website? Same principle, I think the update web site should check.

There's mutual responsibility here.

(And MacUpdate did revert my listing back to 0.79, and I got two personal responses from someone there, so that situation was dealt with well.)

[mekentosj]

(And MacUpdate did revert my listing back to 0.79, and I got two personal responses from someone there, so that situation was dealt with well.) [/B]

Same here, they changed it back very soon after emailing them, very nice...