Does xenForo get communities?

Might I just point out that vb 4 was developed by Kier and Mike... Is it any wonder that some of the things that started with vb4 carried over to Xenforo?

I don't ever remember those two being particularly engaging in forums, even back to the earlier vB days.

 

Nope; the same problem existed in the 3.x days. There were just less decent alternatives at the time.

Now, despite the official staff not directly helping, (and please correct my history here), they took over the third party modifications site that already had an established community around modifying the forums.

Without that important requirement met, and way more alternatives, it's a bit harder to rely on people to do your hard work for you.

 

THIS!

In the old days Kier and Mike where really active in the xf developer forums, and now they're ignoring them most of the time!
Yes we have http://xenforo.com/community/resources/categories/development-tutorials.36/ but i don't give a shit about this, because 1/3 of them is IMO useless or doesn't show the best practice.
Instead of helping the community, they're just ignoring it.

Just compare the resources and their quality at http://www.invisionpower.com/support/guides/_/advanced-and-developers/ and http://xenforo.com/community/resources/categories/development-tutorials.36/

BUT IPB is also not the best place for coders

In http://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-development-discussions.34/ AND in http://community.invisionpower.com/forum/370-developers-help-with-creating-modifications/ you'll "never" see a official reply
And who, if not the core devs is in the position, to provide the best reply?
At least at IPB you'll see more users trying to help you.

 

Honestly, I do agree with what Bamastangguy is saying, but that said, if I was planning to use the software this wouldn't really be a consideration. I'd be more interested in, does it work, is it supported, is it stable. If those three things match up then that's enough at a high level. Having a good community feel is important but it's not absolutely essential. Would Kier talking about bare feet make any difference to the use and effectiveness of the software? I would say not.

 

Speaking specifically about the cake thread there may be legal reasons they didn't comment- besides the fact it was the celebrate the end of the lawsuit the details of which they are forbidden of speaking of- there also might be an issue if they provide any type of "endorsement" to what was really improper use of the XenForo trademark without permission (the cake itself) and any kind of positive comment could weaken any future cases where they need to protect their trademark. I know at my old job we were always flattered when customers used our brands in their personal creations but we weren't allowed to give official encouragement without legal signing off on it- more pain than it was usually worth.

 

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Kier was always very particular about the need to protect trademarks and the legal reasons why.

 

Some of you do make valid points about "what really matters" when choosing to use one software over another and I'm sure the majority of XF customers couldn't care less about Kier and Mike's interaction/lack of when making their decisions. I think Brent's reasons for bringing this up are more in line with Adrian's observations in his first reply in this thread. Scott also makes a valid point about burn out, and it may have something to do with it but I observed the silent treatment kicked in at the beginning of the lawsuit and never really went away, especially when you consider it was a complete 180 from how they had been interacting...so I'm not so sure I would agree that is the reason for the continued lack of interaction with their community.

It's a tough balancing act, I'm sure, as the forum community can be a very fickle and demanding lot. I guess what is disappointing to me is if there were two people who could pull it all off successfully, it's Kier and Mike. They proved it in the early days of XF and I hope they can find their way back to it...I really do.

 

As company you need interaction between customers you develop the software for them. You can have the best of ideas in the world but if you do not develop the ideas they have and ask questions about the ideas your software loses interest of your customers. Look at vBulletin for example you see what i mean and people moving on. In the end you work your customers keep them happy or start losing them.

 

For once I have to agree with you saying that. As nice as it is they might be more friendly and join in with things. Bottom line, what matters most is that what you said right there. I didn't buy vBulletin 3 before to be Kier and Mikes best friend, I bought it because it was the best and got supported well as a product. Don't think I ever replied to Kier or Mike on vBulletin forums in all the years I was a customers their, in fact I knew very little of who they even was. Never thought twice about them at vBulletin at all.

Also, it's been mentioned that Mike and Kier was a lot more talkative at first when Xenforo was new. Well that was going to happen because they wanted to promote it more at that time across to people (because is was new), but now time has moved on and XenForo has become much more established as a forum product, they don't need to do that as much now. Probably why they don't feel the need to be that vocal on the XF forums anymore these days.

 

Mike & Kier are business people. They need to make a profit and you can be sure EVERY decision they make is ultimately with that in mind.

People who talk about "good customer service" like it's the only reason to be in business, don't grasp the fact that companies who do that, ONLY do it because they see it as part of their strategy to generate profits.
They do not do it because they are some sort of evangelist.

Business are NOT your friend. They are there to make money, and that is it.

Your local food store chain doesn't reduce prices because it wants to help customers. It reduces prices because it wants to get more people through the door and thus make more profits.
Your local Dominos pizza doesn't do "buy one get free" deals because it is feeling generous, it does it to increase turnover and profits.

 

Ours does it to get rid of left over ingredients.

 

LMAO

 

As I see it, this site and others like it ARE COMMUNITY based forums. Sites like Xenforo, vBull, are business based forums for customers to learn about the product and get support when problems arise. They are not meant to be COMMUNITY BASED nor should they be considered such.

 

Businesses that do make friends and build communities are much more resilient than those who don't.

Some of us have been around for 5, 10, or 15 years. I'd hope that we have earned more respect and friendship than those just passing by on the street. If you are mistreating your loyal customers, then they leave. And many have.

 

Maybe they should rename it from XenForo Community to XenForo Executive Business Discussion and remove any off-topic areas. Yes, it's a business forum, but what better way to showcase the product than to demonstrate how it can engage a community? Plus, it started off as a community-based forum when the owners actively engaged with the community.

 

I am glad that the XenForo team recovered from the stress of the lawsuit in the sense that it has managed to get xenforo back on track regardless of the damage done. I can only hope that we will see more updates as massive as xf 1.2 was.
Having the developers active on the forums is great and works wonders for the community, but it may be realistic to be happy with the way things are going.

 

Yeah, to be honest I was expecting a bit more from 1.3. It did give us some cool things, but didn't have the pizzazz of 1.2, IMHO.

 

Shooting the shit with your users in a community unfortunately just doesn't scale well. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg was more personally engaging with individual Facebook users when they had less than 1,000 or even 10,000.

While it's nice and makes you feel good, it just becomes less humanly possible the bigger your community gets. I've run across users with 10,000 posts on my forum that I've never seen before that.

 

A company that talks and make friends with customers will sell more and people will stick with them, because they feel welcome. In the end the company needs to make money but when they do it correctly by making feel people more then welcome and see them as friends they can make more proffit. The community that you build needs to be cared for if you do not engage with them on a requiler basis they will think there not being taken seriously. When customers feel that they are not being taken seriously in what they say or ask people will leave that company and seek out other solutions and go where they feel welcome. You can ignore customers only for so long in the end they will leave even if you are good as company, if you are barly maintaining a product people will flee faster.

 

True, but XenForo is no Facebook. Facebook has millions of users compared to XenForo's 50,000ish. But you're right. Engaging with everyone is just not possible.