So, does anyone in the vBulletin 5 discussions actually own/run a forum?

Because while some of the people I've known from the vBulletin 'scene' for years obviously run at least one website (like say Brandon or AWS or even the vBulletin staff clowns) and a couple of other regulars clearly own/manage at least one site (Big Al), I swear at least half the people discussing vB 5 and vB 5 hosted never seem to actually make it clear whether they actually had any real involvement in community management.

So, people who like arguing about vBulletin 5 and Internet Brands! What actual sites/forums do you actually own/run?

 

I own a number of vB based sites --

 

I see it like this. vB 3/4 works for me and my members. They know how to use it. I would gain nothing at this point by moving to another platform, but it would cost me a lot to have mods recreated, skins made, the software itself, etc. On top of that my members having to learn how to use a different software.

I stand to gain little or nothing at this point.

For much of the same reason I have no expectation that I will ever get to vb5. I have a vb5 license that sits unused.

 

I've been involved since the early 80's and started with Atredes BBS later to be Skyline BBS. Then about 10 years ago upgraded to vB. About a year ago, disillusioned with the failed promises and misleading marketing, fanned by the abuse of staff, I pulled the plug on everything. Have dabbled with free forums software such as SMF, phpBB and the like but have yet to find one that peeked my interest though xenforo may be worth future investment. It at least looks like it has a bright future. Time will tell.

 

I've been working with vBulletin forums as the German rep for about 13 years and I am still working on certain forums to this day. I've done I don't know how many upgrades, server moves and migrations for customers over the years. Most of my time is now devoted to our own community platform project and I am also currently working on migrations of two big forums to XF.

I think I have the experience and the right to chime in on any community software topic and I hope people find what I have to say informative and helpful. That is my purpose for saying anything, believe it or not.

Scott

 

I used to run vBulletin 4 on my community, but I switched to Xenforo a few months ago.

 

I run vb5 in my 2 forums

 

I run a vB3 forum, and am responsible for another two (1 x vB3 & 1 x vB5).

 

My main VB 3.x forum, several 4.x forums, and my test VB5 forum.

 

I own 1 vb forum running 4.2.2 and operate another vb site still on 3 something...

 

I converted my vB4 site to xF.

My vB4 licence is not for sale, I wouldn't want to inflict anything to do with IB on anyone, as Mark B. is on record as saying, correctly, they are morally corrupt.

 

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/

Opened our doors with a vBulletin 3.0.0 RC4

One of the first "big" sites to migrate to vBulletin 4 (version 4.0.2), installed and used every version after that until 4.1.8.

October 16, 2011 (long before I knew anything about vB5), I couldn't take it anymore and started the process of rewriting everything I had built on top of vBulletin for XenForo.

The first sentence in the migration planning thread summed up my feelings that day.



Not coincidentally, it was also the week Lawrence Cole was brought on board. I just didn't like the direction he wanted to take vBulletin.

I was probably one of the biggest non-employee reporters of vBulletin bugs through the years (344 in their bug tracker)...



I also created the search engine that most of the large vB4 sites use... https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/sphinx-search-for-vbulletin-4.870/item

So yeah, I know a lot about vBulletin (and to answer the original question, I've been involved in community management for awhile).

 

I run a vbulletin 3 big board which receives 3.5 million unique readers per month. I was a major vbulletin advocate until IB started ruining the software and buying up competing websites.

 

I think the trend is very clear here. It seems everyone, who is chiming in on vBulletin topics (be it vB5 or otherwise) on the bigger admin forum sites and who are the most critical of vBulletin, are very much experienced online community managers.

I remember a manager of vB saying to support staff (at the time I was still working for vB, but now consider myself a part of this group) these critics are just "the vocal minority" and thus don't have the complete say in much of what they considered right for the direction of vBulletin. At that time I just about flipped out (and still do, when I think about it) and I bet this stupid, idiotic ideology still prevails. I'd love for "them" to prove me wrong.

The group of people chiming in on vBulletin issues are a very influential group of people for the market. We know best how to use their product as a means to communicate, when many of the targets for our criticism don't (which is abominable). We know what is right and are a main defining source for most of the forum software direction in the industry as a group, certainly for what is known and if asked properly, also for what is unknown or completely new. Because we know how to communicate in forums, our judgements do carry a lot of weight, because we must stand behind them and we will defend them to the death, if they are followed and also when they aren't. Whether anything produced in this industry is good or not will be judged by us and we have every right to be judgmental too. Especially those who base a livelihood on such software. That is where the passion, the competence and even the motives can and should be found to do what is right for the industry. Most software companies know this. One seems to think they can deny it completely. That my friends, is a serious joke.

I think the message this thread is trying to determine is true and I agree with it. Anyone who might deny our voice in the industry in any manner, is an incompetent fool. And even worse, the numbers of people being critical of vBulletin is also shrinking along with its market share. When the criticism stops is when it is finally over for vBulletin, because then there is no caring left at all for the brand. We are mighty close to it now. It is also well known that it is very, very hard to sell much product, without that special caring for the brand.

This group of community managers are definitely NOT the enemy and definitely do have a purpose, when being critical or even supportive of vBulletin or any other online community software. It is the job of others to use the weight of this group's concerns, for themselves properly. I certainly will.

Scott

 

Your referring to this I think Scott:

http://archive.is/OgLyt

 

You mean the statement about "vocal minority"? Actually, this was said a lot later after the "leak" and I'd say the mentality holds true to this day and why IB doesn't take any time to mix it up with this group of people. They know they are shooting duds and we have all the real ammunition. And the fault in their mentality is they are worried about this ammunition being shot at them, whereas, if they made just the smallest of efforts in a continuous fashion, much like the short spurt Allen Lin had towards the end of the vB4 development, they could get the real ammunition back for themselves.

Scott

 

Well, I've said it before... What does it take for them to realize they have gone down the wrong path and need to rethink the plan. Do they think they are doing well? I just don't get it.

 

I ran two sites and one guild website i used vBulletin 3 and 4 for this closed them and sold them to make money back (read my story on this site about that). Why did i sell everything well its apperant that vBulletin can't keep up with current development and have no idea's to bring the software to the next level after long thinking i sold most of my licenses because even if i wanted to start a new site (and i want a new site) i know that vBulletin is not up to the task of providing what i need or the needs later on of my users. The idea is that software can provide basic functions and keep up with current development on the internet but vBulletin can't even fix bugs in a timely fashion.

What did i do to help vBulletin i offered my self multiple times to do a bug run to reconfirm issues so that Jira was cleaned out, but that never happened it was not really needed. The first time i did this i reconfirmed around 600 issues, so i have/had knowledge of the inner workings of settings and so on. I can follow PHP to a certain point but can't write it.