POOL/REQUEST:
Prohibit advertising for third-party components that have not been tested first, or recommended, by MikroTik staff.
The reason is very simple:
Anyone can advertise things here on the official forum,
but there's no quality control to see if the components are malicious or fraudulent,
and publishing them here on the official forum is tantamount to tacit approval from the MikroTik staff.
I myself have reported issues with some components that could be used to create other botnets and other things.
So, either the MikroTik staff checks them individually before approving them, or advertising here should be banned.
If a fraudulent component isn't detected in time,
it doesn't take long to infect thousands of machines just because someone (foolishly) trusted the component posted on this official forum, trusting, without verifying, just because it is the official user forum.
Do you agree or not?
I agree
I do NOT agree
I hadn't thought about it
It's irrelevant, everyone is responsible for themselves
Do you want to transfer responsibility for someone else's product to Mikrotik employees? Your request is meaningless as is. What you want should look like this: prohibit publishing third-party tools altogether, yes or no.
yes. nobody can take that responsibility so we should block it.
Just like we lost the blank password default because you guys could not be bothered to set the admin password properly (forced by law). Just like we got device mode because some of you could not set a proper password again! now we all have to suffer. why should we allow some random ai post with some ai coded trash or 3 letter agencies to be used on networks by the same people who can't even change the password on the devices they have!
What if a forum category for those is created? Something like "Showcase", where no only tools, but scripts, custom apps configs, etc could be placed (even I would say you thread about the firewall fixes/updates fits there).
A big diclaimer in that section stating everything under there it's not endorsed. But I don't see a point in hiding good scripts or stuff that could be useful for some people (at their own risk). That will make them move to alternative channels (like Reddit), stagnating this forums little.
But more generally: Forum rules should not allow advertising AI generated tools. AKA "vibe coded" apps. Even though these apps have their source available it is still unreviewed code that can do anything.
If we were in the middle age or even renaissance, keeping this kind of information handwritten in a wizard's own notes and sparsely shared to the few wizard's apprentices would have gone a long way.
In the (deprecated by me, personally) case that in this poll the "I agree" would win (possible) AND that Mikrotik will actually do something along the poll results (very unlikely), what would happen?
The SAME tools will be published (on own sites or github or similar) and publicized on Rediit, Facebook and what not, with the added message "the stupid administrator/moderators on the official forum don't allow publishing this useful tool on the official Mikrotik Forum".
"Showcase" comes to my mind and I think it's a better fit. That way, there's also room for people showing their setups, how they solved an specific networking problem in a remote area, how Mikrotik gear is used in the wild, etc...
People don't read, otherwise help topics would be better.
The main problem is the preconception: If it's posted on the official MikroTik forum, it safe for sure.
People also get there from external links; they don't necessarily have to follow all the steps and read all the warnings.
Most people want results right away, and they don't care about reading the instructions or warnings...
I would say that tools made for easing management and so on fall into the category of "showcase" of users.
To be honest, I wasn't aware of the 3rd party tools subcategory before writing, but that reaffirms more my vote: it's crystal clear for me that anything under "3rd party" doesn't have anything to do with Mikrotik.
What I'm saying is that perhaps we could rename that category to "User Showcase" (because where are those installation pictures and showcases going right now?) and make the 3rd Party tools a subcategory of it.
If it is genuine, non sponsored, user review of a third party attachmentsx accessories, or software I think we should keep it. Manufacturers direct advertisements should NOT be allowed UNLESS it is a high effort post with measurements and compatibility list. Anyone who read this forum and look into gears will most certainly gave updates if they got problems.
If we're talking specifically about software, OSS only. The “F” can be optional because if people make something that's objectively helpful and isn't provided by Mikrotik it is within their rights to offer something else.
Not really, that is in the generic Forum Rules (the thread that noone reads).
I meant a disclaimer in the form of a footnote automatically added to each first post in a new thread in the 3rd party tool category and in the category "about" main post (that now has still the generic Discourse text and is not made sticky): About the 3rd party tools category
I don't think anyone here likes spam postings. Or links to malware. But how can MikroTik police what is posted?
And what about the useful topics like Rextended Fragments of Snippets that may contain techniques that could be used in a malicious way.
What about posting links to github repositories that may be totally safe (but how can anyone really know)? A recent example: Export config in a readable format
What about posting links to external sites (like the one I recently discovered from this post) that is to a site that looks very useful to me http://mikrotikdocs.fyi/, but it seems to have disappeared, and isn't on the wayback machine. That's a shame, it was useful.
So, I can't vote for blocking advertisements, without knowing exactly what you mean by advertising.
And at least on the forum, if someone does post a link to something that is malicious, it is likely to get responses and will probably be "reported/flagged" for moderators to deal with.