I know this is a tenuous topic, but it needs to be be raised.

I'm finding more and more clientele have been 'burned' by cowboy operators, operating in Joomla, both here and overseas. I'm finding that more and more the Joomla brand is being self-destructed because of this. Less work for legitimate businesses in the Australian market exists because people no longer trust the software brand.

How to identify a cowboy:
1. Claims an understanding of Joomla, but does not have the appropriate credentials
(one of my latest clientele 'war stories' as heard of on Whirlpool, the Australian broadband community forum)

2. Claims an understanding of the technology, but fails to deliver on it (Rockettheme and their templates being accessible fit here).

This means, thanks to the lack of quality standards associated with the Joomla brand, we have fly-by-night cowboys fleecing users of their hard earned cash and failing to deliver on the projects.

I very much doubt the Core wants to know this is happening, especially since they have been in part trying to venture capitalise themselves on the brand in various ways.

So what are the effective solutions to this? Certification won't work - it'd simply turn into a cash cow for the Core and the cowboys would simply sign up for the certs. Approved 'bodies' won't work, as Shayne Barlett told me previously the Core does not want control over other bodies associated with Joomla (i.e. the user groups).

Added into this mix is the piracy issue that the Joint Commercial Developers Association have been investigating with encryption and other measures. Most, if not all, commercial software for Joomla has ended up on warez sites at some point or another. Having it there has meant the cowboys can exploit for their financial gain (I've heard a war story where a client of another company had a pirated version of a J! commercial package installed and was then held to ransom by that company to complete the site / \"get the non-pirated version\"). Unfortunately, thanks to the Core's insistence on GPL-compatible licences for all extensions (according to their 'legal' opinion.. aka telling the FSF what to do), they opened the flood gates to this mentality that users/clients can be scammed.. i.e. \"after all, the GPL means giving stuff away free, right ?\" and then charging users for that.

The only strategy I can see that will work is that the user groups and approved translation bodies with Joomla work with the JCD-A to 'name and shame' these cowboys out of the industry (kind of like \"Pirated Sites\", but for all things Joomla)

Can anyone think of any other strategies that might work?

More news at 11 as it comes to hand..

Ive been scammed myself before with asking for a custom build to end up getting gigcalendar or ijoomla components that are hacked in the most terrible ways.

I think a certification would actually be really good and is really the best solution here.

If a cowboy goes and gets a cert and then screws a client then he is just running a bad business.

Certification wouldn't meet the mark. Certification doesn't guarantee a code of ethics or a professional standard to follow.

See, bad businesses would just get a cert, and continue doing what they do now - screwing the clients for all their worth (mainly in part due to the 90% of web-focussed design firms not being up with standards/ISO, and a vested interest in keeping their clients in the dark). At which point, the cert body become culpable and liable for suit for letting them get the cert in the first place.

I've heard war story after war story from clients who have been kept in the dark regarding 'business practices' of web firms, especially associated with the Mambo family of products (more often than not, close or conflicting interest with the Core Team, too).

Well I certainly agree on that. There is alot of web developers who dont know what they are doing.

Lets look at Microsoft, they cant even make their browser standards compliant.

So when we have Microsoft failing to adhere to standards what can we do about a freelancer in Australia not adhering to standards ?

\"The Joomla Wild West Shooting Gallery\".. name 'em and shame 'em. Reputation matters online, especially with the corporate media being more 'socially' minded these days, so you can pretty much be hung out to dry for scams (e.g. Logomaid stealing designs/logos off businesses and reselling them).

Not really sure that would work because it would be abused way to easily.

How would you moderate it?

Who's side of the story etc ? Seems like it would cause alot of problems.

You would also get people reporting because they thought they paid to much etc.

The only way I could see it working would be a blog from someone who is respected in the industry and they would investigate case's.

It's happened before. The Lone Mamber and all that..

This is a internet industry issue not just Joomla!.

Personally I'm not sure if I would want to go down the name and shame route although I have no idea on an alternative.

I think certification can have an effect if its coupled with the ability to be lost for poor performance.

My preference would be a locally formed (informal) body for people to be registered as Joomla! developers/designers but with the ability to be struck off for infringements. Obviously there would need to be rules and guideline and a process by which a person both gained and lost registration.

This could easily be done under the auspices of this site.

Further more there is the ability for a formal Joomal! usergroup to be formed as a legal entity (I would suggest national rather than city by city or state by state) which could handle this process.

Cheers
Shayne

There's already an international body of Joomla developers/designers with rules and guidelines. That's the JCD-A, of which OSM/the Core doesn't seem to want to give creedence to (at least from the discussions I've seen).

Duplicating a localised version is inefficient and double handling.

The other problem is that a Joomla user group formed as a legal entity faces the same legal suit levelled against them by the Core Team/OSM for use of the name \"Joomla\" in a legal entity. It's happened before, and it may well happen again.

The problem (and this is strictly a personal view) is that the JCD-A has rules that place caveats on membership beyond the ability to produce commercial grade products and solutions.That comes from its own background in reference to the GPL debate (which I will not be getting into here!).

A body that is there to encourage/acknowledge proficiency in Joomla! would need to be open to anyone irrespective of their view on that topic.

For me, that brings things around full circle. I also think that there are good reasons for accreditation to be on a national level as there are different standards in place around the world that require a level of understanding. For example an AU designer would most likely place less emphasis on RTL than say an Arabic designer. These are little things but shouldn't be over looked.

Finally I would be placing far greater weight on commercial ethics that design/development ability. I know of a large number of commercial web business's where the individuals running them are marketing/project managing there process with outsourced technical expertise. These people would be excluded from any kind of accreditation that produced overly technical biased requirements. This also follows on from many of the complaints I see and I might add receive in my official capacities where the issue is not the quality of work but the practices of the web developers and designers in respect to communication, targets, billing and ownership of the completed work.

I guess thats more than two cents worth, lets call it 10 cents worth.

Cheers
Shayne

Shayne, I take it you've been living under a rock (or being Borged by the Core Team so much that resistance is futile regarding what the JCD-A actually stands for) that you failed to read or even notice the Core Principles of the JCD-A?

Such principles do encourage/acknowledge proficiency in Joomla! and provide an impartial developer community in which to discuss these sorts of issues. Those principles do not place any bearing on the GPL debate, since they don't even mention ther GPL vs non-GPL licence issues, and I think it's only sour grapes on the part of the Core Team that would even suggest there are caveats inside the Core Principles of the JCD-A. Not the first time, either, people being.. well.. stupid, eh?

If you believe there are caveats, I would recommend you approach the JCD-A publically (they do have a public forum you know) and attempt to talk this thing out. However, I would suggest your perspective may be coloured by the negative (dare I say.. hostile?) view of developers outside the Core by the Core Team. If you believe such a perspective is right and have quantifiable proof to back up such a perspective, you'd have no qualms justifying it on the JCD-A forums, instead of a backhand, fly by night comment here.

I agree with you that ethics weigh more than code or design ninja status. This is why I've asked you to take your claim of caveats to the JCD-A forums themselves. As you say you value ethics, the best way to demonstrate those ethics is to explain yourself and your claim against the JCD-A there.

Accreditation and legal status of that accreditation can't happen until OSM and the Core Team give assurances they won't start suing national user groups after they started suing a business trying to start up a Joomla training body. So that's definitely in your court to fix, not mine.

Also in regards to the accreditation issue:

I regularly get clientele through managers/BA's who expect me to micromanage the Joomla process for their clients, yet that does not make their proficient in the Mambo family of products, of which Joomla is one. It would seem like a farce to have them accredited when the people actually doing the groundwork may not be.

Now for a customer service tangent:

If you feel the complaints are warranted against the 3PD, do you at least inform them of this ? Sure, you may get a lot of complaints being official and all, but it's up to you how to manage that effectively. Cutting off the feedback cycle back to the original designer/dev/implementor only ends up with you looking bad. While such action may create a great 'war chest' for Johan to justify his view of 'all outside the Core' are leeching and sucking off the 'good work' they've done, it just doesn't help anyone at the end of the day.

In your official capacity, help the 3PD to grow some ethics/design principles. If you treat them well, even when they may fail, you will gain respect from all involved. A pissed off client actually respects you if you do something positive about it.. because you're acting on behalf of them.

I'm happy to stand corrected, but I'll show you why I believed what I stated. If I'm wrong I'll most happily withdraw what I said...

Third bullet point here... jcd-a.org/index.php?option=com_content&a...;id=13&Itemid=30

The position statement being...
jcd-a.org/content/view/15/33/index.php?o...;id=15&Itemid=33

Sorry but to me that reads that I must agree with the JCD-A position on the GPL.

As I said its my own interpretation of whats there, I would imagine many other people would read it the same way so if its not correct you may want to adjust the wording a little.

Cheers
Shaynd

I do believe you're taking the server rules and assuming the principles are subservient to said rules.

Let's turn this around with another example of server rules, namely the Joomla forum moderation rules.

Let's say Brad or Jenny banned people on the Joomla forums for talking about the GPL issue. Let's say there was untoward censorship. Let's say for 3 months the only thing the Core Team could parrot was "go talk to a lawyer" as a response to the topic of the GPL and what it actually meant for business. Let's say Louis Landry broke the store and foward copyright rules regarding email communications resulting in copyright infringement.

Now Joomla has a stated Code of Conduct. That Code of Conduct either overrules or is subservient to whatever behaviour undertaken by the various members of the Core.

If you wish ethics to be more valuable (and you state you do consider them more valuable), I would recommend you enact the Code of Conduct based on established evidence. You say you have ethics - then I expect you to demonstrate it by showing me the Joomla Code of Conduct holds more authority and respect within the Core and Mods than whatever behaviour has transpired on part of the Core Team.

That sounds fair, and adequately demonstrates the disparity between forum rules and a business code of conduct. Which also demonstrates my point that the JCD-A Core Principles overrules the forum rules, and is in no way subservient to them.

The fun begins when we see what is more valuable to you..

As a complete noob to the website development side, only being concerned with end user functionality, I experienced a problem pretty much identical to that outlined regarding overly optimistic advice about the flexibility of a recommended template choice (rockettheme). While it hasn't made me regret going with joomla it did lead to considerable frustration.

I agree that certification is problematic and naming and shaming is also fraught, but perhaps a similar result could be achieved though the power of positive feedback - where people really happy with their developer could give them a good rating (Dinah come on down!). An eBay-type system with a list of good developers in different cities, that could be found through a key word search, would be useful both to prospective clients and website development providers. No negativity needed: people can read between the lines.