

Thanks Microsoft - shaydoc

Thanks Microsoft.<p>In my spare time in an attempt to learn something new, I built a little Hacker News Reader for the Windows Store called "Hacker 8 News", I thought it would be cool to implement the share and search charms. I ran the certification checks app and it passed fine so :<p>I submitted it to the store to be approved, was taking ages waiting on approval ( more than the 7 days advertised ), finally received a message saying :<p>Failed Certification : Your app doesn't meet requirement 5.3.<p>"5.3 Your app must not contain content or functionality that encourages, facilitates or glamorizes illegal activity"<p>The irony of it all, is that there are a couple of Hacker News Readers on the store already!<p>http://www.stionasoftware.com/Blogs/post/2012/11/05/Hacker-8-News.aspx
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ghshephard
You should try creating a roughly equivalent app for the Mac App Store, see
what type of response you get there. It would be interesting to do a compare
and contrast based on your experience writing (and submitting) to each of the
stores.

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shaydoc
Yeah, maybe, I think the Win8 approval process probably leaves alot to be
desired at the moment, all things considered.

I am surprised by the crassness of the failure reason, the app evaluation
obviously has no "context", very production line!

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shaydoc
Turns out the failure reason is quite funny, they pointed me to a screenshot I
had created of the application for advertising in the store, it is basically a
point in time image of what's trending,

one of the articles trending was : I amlost feel obligated to pirate Office
for Mac ! [http://rys.sommefeldt.com/2012/10/01/i-almost-feel-
obligated...](http://rys.sommefeldt.com/2012/10/01/i-almost-feel-obligated-to-
pirate-office-for-mac.html)

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runjake
What App Store hasn't something like this occurred on? The Play Store _maybe_?

You signed up to play the game, so go with the flow, appeal it. Posting a
relatively substance-free Ask HN topic about it isn't going to accomplish
anything.

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shaydoc
I am appealing it, furthermore, there is a little Substance to this in that it
demonstrate s the absurdity of the current approval mechanism.

I am a member of this community and I wanted to share an experience, so please
lay off with the antagonism.

P.S. I am not bothered one way or another with 'the game', just trying it out
for fun!

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shaydoc
Thanks Microsoft, after fixing the image/screenshot, to remove the alleged
"offensive" image/news item, "Hacker8News" is officially live in the windows
store...it implements both search and share charm functions!

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mtgx
So now they censor apps based on the word hacker? What about the word "drugs"?
"homosexual"? "terrorist"? I really don't like this Microsoft that tries so
hard to become the walled garden that is Apple.

