Is it the software or their attitude?

Hi Gang,

With a few months now passing by and with everyone having time to calm down and think a bit, I was wondering what your lingering issues are with vB4.

I realize some love people love it - so this thread is really for the people who are ticked off.

So what I'm wondering at this point is this....

At this point, what are your issues with vB4. Are your issues with the actual software and it's design or lack-there-of?

Or is the software good enough for you, but you remain irritated by how you feel you've been treated as a customer with the license changes etc?

Or perhaps you feel another way?

I'd like to hear where the group's head is at, now some months after the official details of vB 4 being released.

 

Well, I guess I'll go first.

For me, I am seriously ticked off at IB as a company - I won't detail the issues in full, as I think you all know what they are.

But suffice to say, the licensing changes, censorship, their breach of my trust and their decision to break the spirit of their past agreements and finally a poor product in vB4, are all part of "it".

And for those reasons, what I would really like to do is, never give IB another dime, EVER again. EVER! Basically, I've got the hate on for them now I must admint. And so far, I haven't given them a dime I'm happy to report.

What I did do, was purchase a IPB Suite and I imported one of my smaller boards into it and continue to work with the software in learning it etc. On my largest site, I continue to run vBulletin 3.8.4, (which I like) and I only wish I could continue to run. The obvious problem being, that at some point in the future, vB3 will no longer be supported and I'll be forced into doing something.

So my current mind-set is that at that point, I'll have to look at the current state of vB4 and either plug my nose and hit the PayPal button, or else, I'll have to move to IPB which to me at least, is currently a step down from vB 3.8.

Decisions, decisions!

Perhaps I'll be lucky and Kier will come to the rescue, just in time. :yes:

 

For me, it's pretty much near solely their attitude. vBulletin 4 as a software release isn't quite horrible, unlike what most people will say, it's based off a solid foundation (the vB 3 series), has a fair amount of features and doesn't look quite as bad style wise as people make out. Indeed, if the old vB management released vBulletin 4, I don't think many people would care as much, because the price would be the same, the management would be open to feedback and things would improve.

However, as a company... I'm not sure I can trust Internet Brands at all. They've got some good people working there, I'll give them that (read the CMS articles and developer blogs, some of them are actually well written and generally care for the customers), and they seem more comitted to the software than they do to any other product or community they've bought. No offence on this part to anyone who's ripped off, but vBulletin is treated like it's weight in gold compared to many of the car forums IB have purchased. Remember Audi World? Remember many of their other forums? IB buying those and managing them literally killed them stone dead. vB is coming off well at the moment.

But I don't like many aspects of their company. Despite only slightly better communication than Jelsoft, they still rush releases for quick cash rather than spend time and effort improving them, meaning that many vB 4 versions have been nigh unusable. Good intentions in some cases, sure, but there seems to be a definite UBB like mentality at the company, or the mentality of many video game software companies which release first, then release a patch to fix the problems later. A lot like the mentality at EA Games or Activision really, obsession with constantly trying to get money from consumers without trying much that's new or original.

I'm also not fond of their attempts to try and raise prices every time there's a new version of the software (indeed, who are they trying to aim for as customers? They're neither as expensive as so called 'enterprise' solutions nor as cheap as 'hobbyist' solutions). Or their attempts at trying to basically either ignore or censor the support forums. Okay, not as bad as other companies I've seen here, otherwise Licensed Customer Discussions or whatever would basically be empty, and they don't go as far as Nintendo at deciding to scrap the community forums outright and only allow technical support discussions, but hey, that might be next.

I will however admit they seem to... well, be adding less new features per release than they used to. Indeed, it's becoming questionable whether they even answer the suggestions forum sometimes.

I guess that puts them on the same general ground as vBulletin.org, heh. Which seems to... not do a whole lot when it comes to making the site better.

 

It's mostly their attitude and poor management practices that have turned me away. The failure that is vBulletin 4 is just icing on the cake, and makes the decision to stay away much easier. Simple as that, for me.

 

I love VB4, and VB3, and it like the look of IPB but haven't tested or demo'd it yet because of their stupid queue system to have a demo account.

You can see a couple of my threads regarding my VB4 experience throughout this site, one of them is in the VB forum on here.

 

I think "attitude" is the wrong word to use. When you say attitude, I think of them being just completely nasty to have a discussion with. Which is hardly the case, in my experience.

I've spoken with several IB employees (more specifically, Andrew Elkins, Michael Henretty, Ray Morgan, and IBxAnders) and they've been nothing but a joy to talk too.

I think the term you were looking for was "direction."

The direction they took with vBulletin 4's beta process was all wrong. Granted, the product has actually improved with each release, and I only expect it to keep improving.

I would hope, that they learned from this, and not repeat the same mistakes in the future. But, neither myself, nor anyone else, can predict the future.

 

To be honest, vBulletin has done nothing against me personally.

I have chosen to purchase a product that is put out by the company. If the company decides to switch gears, pricing plans and lessen the quality output of their product, then it is up to me to make a decision to change or stay put.

Now, I agree that it's very poor judgement to put a product out with all of the bugs that vB4 has and release it as 'gold'. I'd expect MUCH more from the company. Especially given the fact that there are price changes and such going on.

I voted for "wait and see" because I have not made a decision to switch all of my licenses just yet. But, it's looking like IPB (from a paid perspective), myBB or phpBB or something along those lines will get most/some of my business if the bugs and quality of the product are not addressed quickly.

 

Nope, I didn't mean their "direction" - I could have perhaps used the term "approach" maybe.

To me at least, I think IB's attitude towards their customers comes across to me quite clearly.

And that attitude is, if you don't like it, then lump it. We really don't care enough about what you think to listen. Heck, want proof? IB even has a rule, that a user can't debate company policy on the licensed customer feedback forum.

If IB's "attitude" was different, then their "direction" would have been too.

Steve M. warned management way in advance that they had better be careful - to me at least, they should have listened.

Bad "attitude" leads to bad "direction".

 

I had a 20 minute chat on the phone with Ray Morgan to resolve the issues behind my earlier ban, and he was very pleasant with me. We got talking about the product and I have to say he demonstrated an obvious enthusiasm for what they were doing and was determined that they'd turn out a great product worthy of the vBulletin name. I came away confident it was all safe in his hands, to be fair.

Then he leaves shortly before the Gold release comes out clearly unfinished. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if HIM leaving was actually in similar vein to the original developers leaving - was he being pushed from above to release an unfinished product, and had something else lined up to generate an income and thought "sod this - I'm off!".

Unlikely? Who knows? But speaking to him did not leave me the impression of someone who would be happy to release an unfinished product.

 

Didn't Ray only join IB and vBulletin in early '09?

If I had to guess, I would think things went really poorly under his leadership and he was told to leave.

 

Well it's not as if they've come in and made sweeping changes since he left! So I doubt that.

 

Here ya go.

Appointment of Ray Morgan as General Manager - vBulletin.org Forum

The release, certainly doesn't read like it's about a guy that was contracted to work for only 11 months.

And I would find it hard to believe, that Ray told upper management when he was hired, that he was planning on building a house in Central America and would therefore only be staying for 11 months. If that is the case, I would imagine they weren't too impressed when he dropped that bomb during the release of 4.0

My guess is that he was on contract on a year to year basis and was told it wouldn't be renewed and that he could therefore go.

 

Both software and attitude. I think I represent a lot of people when I say that either of those is bearable but not both.

If the product is good you can put up with bad attitude and ripoff unfair pricing. Like buying a "permanent" license which only 2 years later is worthless.

If the product is not quite right you can handle it if they're good about it, charge moderate prices, keep you informed and help you understand WHY there are problems.

But a clunky product AND ripoff?

Nah.

 

They will not commit to how long each series will be supported with bug fixes and security patches - tied to a calender.

That is not acceptable.

In addition, v4 in it's present forum is not usable for my forum.

 

For me it's how IB has gone about everything. From the time of the leak I started feeling very iffy about them and it was maybe a month after that when I moved my first forum away from vB. The communication is starting to go back Jelsoft's ways and is getting worse IMO. I look at the licensed customers forum and the lack of staff replies just isn't sitting good with me. It's like they just don't care what anyone has to say. It's like pulling teeth to get a reply from them.

vBulletin 3

vB3 I personally like and if I pick up an owned license that's for sale then I'd use that. I don't have any problems with vB3, to this day it's still my favorite forum software. I have no problems with this version, it's stable a lot of sites still run it. The only reason I moved from vB is because I was running all leased licenses at the time and I wasn't going to invest money into a vB4 license when it wasn't going to offer me anything I needed. I also won't buy software that isn't released and has proven to be run stable (and the gold release isn't what I call stable).

vBulletin 4

At this stage of the game, vB4 is still vB3 in my eyes but less stable and more buggy. I would have rather waited for a full rewrite and it go through the betas, RCs and become a stable product before being named Gold. At this time vB4 doesn't offer anything that I can't already do with vB3. I don't need a CMS, didn't like the blog so the suite can count me out. Until vB4 offers me something that really jumps out at me, even on new project I would stick with vB3 IF I even install vBulletin.

An I worried about vB3 getting EOL?

Nah I still see forums running vB2 and the last version to be release was (that I remember) 2.3.11 back in Nov 06. I strongly feel someone will release patches for vB3 after IB stops supporting it.

 

The problem isn't the software or the attitude, it is the management. It sucks serious ass.

Management should support the efforts of the developers in executing the company vision for the brand. Unless that vision is to ensure only IB sites are running vB then I can say that based on the past 6 weeks, a vision does not exist or the vision is being executed by a management team staffed almost solely by chimpanzees.

Jelsoft were like many small entrepreneurial teams, galvanised and incentivised largely by being 'front of house' and getting immediate first hand feedback on the good (and bad) of each members direct efforts. In fact, they were the A-Typical speedboat.

Transpose that into a Oil Tanker like corporate environment where the developers are merely cogs in the machine, you MUST have strong leadership to achieve the same level of motivation, drive and responsiveness. That isn't happening. Instead, there are a number of largely faceless employees widdling away what appears to be a 9 to 5. They have no emotion vested in the success of the product so why pull out all the stops? Should they really give a shit if half the community is in uproar? Let the devs develop and the customer service people deal with the community. That is how Oil Tankers work: compartmentalise and systematise. Not a bad thing, just a different thing.

Please don't think I am 'getting down' on the vBS team because I am not. The point is that they are far removed from the community and the entrepreneurial spirit that Jelsoft had and some of their competitors have. That doesn't mean they will fail, however it does mean they are in desperate need of better management. Because simply put, speedboats are fast, agile and responsive to change while oil tankers are slow to react and move.

Saying all of that, I don't really see it happening. Looks to me like INETs shares have almost doubled in value over since bottoming out in February. Unless radical change takes place and soon, I honestly feel its all downhill from here for vB. vB will be a casualty and failed footnote in the history of IB, but I doubt a successful vB or failed vB is going to be central to IB's future.

IMO all the more reason to start the leg work now.

 

In my opinion it's both. I can take the attitude if the software warrants it. But with this latest release and the problems I'm still personally seeing I really think they 'rushed' the release. Put that with the fact they aren't listening to the majority feedback or even addressing it concerns me as a customer. As what I see also influences who I buy from.

So I'll wait and see where the software is going by ver 5. In the mean time I'm doing research to transfer my business elsewhere.

 

Why are you grouping invision and vbulletin into the same thing?

 

Who?

 

The person that started the thread -

I do not understand why the two were grouped together? I personally do not use IPB, but have heard good things about their customer service.