Does anyone else have a minor obsession with adding features and addons?

You know, they always want to add PHP scripts and add ons and modules and what not to their site despite already having everything their members want already?

I seem to, I always want to add more gimmicks and additions. It's apparently quite a common thing if you go to vBulletin.org and the like.

 

Yes.

I'm constantly coding something for my forums.

Even now I have about three major features in development for my forum.

And yes, it sucks being the only developer. But someone's gotta do it.

 

I'm in the same boat. I'm always intrigued on what the next feature/mod can bring to my communities.

I'm always combing support sites for ideas and check out other sites for what I could do to my sites

 

Same with me. Although to me, it's literally adding new scripts not particularly connected to the forum because I like the features. And combing support sites for any free images or what not.

 

very very simple answer.



Yes.
:yes:

 

I'm in that boat too. I like roaming through .org and similar sites seeing what's out there. I admire the work that goes into custom plug'ins. It's one thing to be able to code and it's another thing having the creativity to be able to come up with a unique idea, but to have the skillset to bring those two together...it's something I have really found some respect for.
For my site though, I am very careful on which ones I introduce. 1. When I roll them out, I generally don't like to uninstall them (for one reason or another) community members generally don't like that. 2. I approach add-ons the same as moddin' my bike, if it's going to slow me down (performance wise) it has to add something with equal value.

 

No absolutely not. I want the software as plain and simple as possible.

Simpler the better because there is less to go wrong and much much easier to recover from in the event of a serious incident.

No ads apart from Google syndicated ads so I am not beholden to anyone. (also that means no clutter and easier to read and fewer potential "nasty" carriers).

What makes the forum are the posts and the wording and the concentration is on that rather than what I consider distractions (maybe that is a bit strong) such as say a Christmas or Easter banner. Over 3 or 4 years we have expanded from 45 members to 1225 now. Between 5 and 40 posts per day. Most posters I would say are over 40 so a different demographic to the majority here I think. No payments, no pressure and a forum style that suits us

I'm not saying that is the right way, just that it works for us. There are other reasons but you get the drift

 

/me raises his hand as well

 

I get really bad sometimes, and go through all of the mod pages, and end up adding all the ones I think will be useful...

...Than remove them a few weeks later.

 

To give you an idea....While others have 3 to 5 "must have" mods, I have about 30 on my sites! LOL

 

*raises hand far in the stratosphere*

On my local server I have about 4 installs of each forum. In any given one I have from 5 to 20. So I can see how well the kids play with each other and how well I can play and kill them.

 

Oh man, I can't even describe how much I love going to vB.org to find the newest modifications to add to my forums. :lol:

At one point I had 75+ modifications installed on one forum. I eventually went through and uninstalled the ones that weren't used or needed.
Now it's back up to a total of 63 modifications. I'm addicted. :o

According to this site, this addiction makes up one of the top six reasons for website un-usability:
The Top Six Reasons Why Websites End Up Unusable! WhatsWanted Website Design, Sussex

 

The first three reasons are pretty much responsible for design problems in vBulletin and other forum software, since what's easy for their developers isn't exactly intuitive for the standard user. And Media Wiki. Actually, it seems most software for websites seems to assume the user is a tech geek and makes it pretty hard to use.

And the fourth reason... yeah, that's a problem for me personally.

 

I'm always looking for new features to give to my members.
When I started I wanted reviews to separate me from the other 2 main boards in my niche. It was received incredibly well.
Next I did something as simple as better smilies. I had a super size thread of people using and commenting on the smilies and how much they enjoyed them.

Then I started adding another thing or two here and there.

I wouldn't say I'm out of control but it wouldn't take much to push me over the edge.

On the down side it is all of these addons which have kept me from jumping ship away from vb.

 

I subscribe to every versions modification RSS feed .

I check maybe once a week, to see if theres anything that I would install, but I've toned down a bit.

My problem now is coercing one of my staff members to do in house mods. He's been complaining about lack of sleep due to all the work I've been asking him to do.

 

I have around 65 mods installed on vb. I usually install 1 at a time and wait if any bugs or slowness arise. If not, then I keep it.

With vb4 gold coming sometime this year it will be much worse, because my site its needs has grown way beyond what vb can offer. I will use either vb4 CMS or an alternative as a foundation to build hundreds of functions and addons upon.

 

That's what I used to do, too. But then the vB.org feed seemed messed up, or maybe it was something on my end.

I should try it again though. It saves me the hassle of having to manually scour vB.org.

 

I'm dedicated to my obsession, so I do both when I have time...

I actually stopped lurking the modification boards as much because their generally useless modifications.

I miss most of the 3.5 or 3.6 mods .

 

I remember my newbie-times within vbulletin, when I suspected to crash the forum by installing a simple modification...
But I turned out to be a irremediably addon-addict. I frequently checked vb.org and was outstanding grateful to all the precious work of the coders. I learned a lot from scratch about the inner functionality of vbulletin, although being far below any kind of expertism as a pure user.
My forum-members loved many of the addons and they are providing attractiveness and some round edges of functionality.
Now this addiction of handicrafting here and there is more a curse than a temptation. It keeps me stuck with vb38 - not willing to move to vb4 for some common reasons and not being able to switch to another forum-soft without loosing a good deal of the accustomed features.

 

Not any more. When I first started I tried lots of mods, but lately I haven't been interested in installing anything unless it's needed. In fact we've been making some of our own customizations you can't find mods for already on the org.