Jared Ritchey and Open Realty

Posted on October 16, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News |

Almost three days now I’ve received back to back questions and emails about the reason behind the ban in the Open Realty forums and this has prompted me to just post a small blurb on the reason so there is no confusion or speculation.

I was removed from active membership in the Open Realty forums for one simple reason according to the email I received (still have saved) from Ryan the forums owner. The link in my signature use to go to www.jaredsdesigns.com which I had sold to a large national jewelery company and redirected the traffic to my new blog. It was the blog that caused the issue apparently.

According to Ryan I was banned because I changed the link in my signature to point to this very blog and apparently something in my posts offended them to such a degree that my account was closed. What exactly was so offensive is still a bit of a mystery to me as my blog tends to favor Open Realty with bias. I’ve been told by associates who are still members in the Open Realty forums that the motive centered around the issue of me offering competing products to Transparent Technologies and to this day I’ve yet to discover what those competing products are. Where I once had more than 880 posts in the forums I notice massive editing of my posts and outright deletions where the current number lingers about 730+. I don’t have an issue with Open Realty, Open Realty’s administrators have an issue with me.

I’m a visual design professional and photoshop instructor, Period! IDX / MLS / PHP / MySQL / and all else are the realm of my partner whom of which does accept commissions for such projects for Realtors no fewer than two to three times a week. The last time I looked, Transparent Technologies was a hosting company and developer of Open Realty and they do offer some sort of IDX products which I’m not entirely clear on the scope or depth of the products. I’m not sure how exactly we are competitors based on the forum rules which seem to have changed since the last time I saved a copy. But regardless of the semantics of this issue, Its interesting to note that today I visited Open Realty only to discover links in signatures to hosting companies and other third party vendors clearly in direct competition with Transparent Tech. So its anyones guess as to the mysteries of this.

As far as the questions regarding resentment and forking of Open Realty, its important to note that the entire notion of a fork was the result of chat session with Ryan Bonham and Mick (the administrator) where I was instructed that a fork is legal but they “REQUIRED” and “MADE CLEAR” they do not want “Open Realty” anywhere in the forks name. Obviously they did not want to support it which stands to reason. The forked version was to be created only because I work so frequently with MLS’s that I wanted to create an integrated solution to a few other products instead of using the Open Realty Addon system. It was not an endeavor to challenge or create conflict with Open Realty but rather a fork specifically designed to accommodate automated updates to the inventory via a live feed from an MLS.

I speak highly of Transparent Technologies and of Open Realty in all posts and in all correspondence so it amazes me that anyone could interpret ill intent toward either. I still have a forked version of Open Realty I use in nearly all projects that substantially alters three primary files in Open Realty but I’ll likely never release it as a fork. Patch ins for vTiger and our Joomla menu manager are likely never to be released either as I tend to just include them in all projects I work with.

In the past I’ve had but two tiny complaints or should I say observations about Open Realty and that was centered about the DB structure and the non compliant XHTML markup persistent from the beginning. Open Realty is a great product and I highly suggest it to anyone in pursuit of a rapid development platform for any type of listing gallery.

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4 Comments so far
  1. Roger Dacter October 16, 2007 5:02 pm

    Wow that sucks, I remember you being such an active member on the forums. It does seem strange that you were banned because of a signature link.

    I’m glad to see you still active with open-realty. I notice you haven’t posted in any of the forums you have been in for more than a month. Is everything ok?

  2. Jared Ritchey October 16, 2007 5:07 pm

    Yep everyone says that and if it wasn’t for Ryans email I’d have to question it myself. Banned because my signature link lead to this blog. Nothing else mentioned in his email other than butting heads with the admins in the past but unrelated to the ban.

    Thanks for your visit and comments.

  3. Jebb October 18, 2007 4:03 pm

    I’m a member in the joomla forums and I see you in there alot with real good and positive advise. Have you thought about asking for your reinstatement on Open Realty?

    I use Open Realty and visit your site almost daily in hopes your templates are published but I’ll patiently wait.

  4. Jared Ritchey October 18, 2007 4:24 pm

    I’ve thought about asking for re inclusion but figure if they wanted any of my feedback or support help they would take it upon themselves to re activate the account.

    As stated the issue apparently is one that is a bit illusive. None the less, now that I have my own forums I’ll likely setup a section for Open-Realty.


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