Is xenForo Dying?

Maybe so however it becomes a grind after a while when there are only two all the time.Imagine having to keep up with the bugs,update the software and develop new code for new features that comes along.This goes on and on for two years and maybe they are getting tired trying to keep up?

UBB.threads currently has ONE devloper and he has already taken 6 months to work on the next version update.He replaces a THREE developer team that fell apart after Rick baker left and one died.This is why UBB.threads has fallen far behind despite the determined effort of Rick Baker.

Meanwhile myBB updates every 2-3 months and add a new feature or two in the process.It is nice to have such a large developer team.

I see Xenforo going down the UBB.thread road over time since there are only two of them developing.

 

Well, I hope your right! Because I think with the decline in forum usage across the web as a whole by people now, which I've always felt could maybe have been the reason vBulletin was floated and sold previously to IB (when it was). You know, before things started getting any worse and vBulletin became worth "much less" as a company for sale years later. That XenForo from the very start was entering a hard (sales market) on the decline, not the up and up. That's just my personal view and when XenForo first went for sale, I said back then things was going to be tough. Less people are likely to shell out now buying forum software compared to 2-3 years ago because it's not worth doing anymore, more will go with FREE solutions.

You'll also get more starting a new forum and closing it down 12 months later as a result, that's extra lost yearly license renewals unless they can sell on to another person. And simply because not as many people are interested in using forums for discussion now, think Twitter and Facebook. All this will have a negative knock on effect with sales figures, and things are NOT getting any better for forum boards today.

These days it's case of "spot the active forum", not spot the inactive one. You can find them littered all over the show with ease!

 

If you get tired of this... then you picked a wrong way to put food on your table. I dont belive Kier and Mike would just give up like this, thats something os-coding kids do when they get bored, but not veterans who are in business for years.

 

Gary you do get a bee in your bonnet about "forums dying" and it's just not true.

Ten years ago I could find any number of silly free-software forums started by teenagers that died and got abandoned after less than a year. It's always been like that. I can remember advising people a decade ago "you can't just open a forum and expect people to turn up". it's never been like that.

I visit a number of forums, eg Paul M's Cableform, and NONE of them are dying. All that's happened is, the silly kids who want to post smilies to each other or tell each other to f**k off, have gone to Facebook, meaning overall post count is a bit lower, but it was all fluff and you should never measure a forum by post count alone.

You seem to take the fact that YOU failed to get a forum to work as proof that forums don't work for ANYONE. I can assure you they do.

Just as web forums supposedly killed Usenet - which they didn't - so Facebook will not kill forums.

Much as I despise Facebook, proper use of it by a forum can actually INCREASE traffic, not decrease it. Phact!

 

Just received a PM from another person informing me that Brogan is currently online at his own "Clip The Apex" forum right now, just checked and can confirm it. Yet, he's not been seen on XenForo since Monday, that's the last time he posted anything there. Hmm, is he also just having a well earned break from XenForo, or what? :shrug:

Seriouslly, this is turning into a blockbuster "Where Did They Vanish To" mystery ghost movie. :ghost:

 

Mark, it wasn't that long ago "YOU" posted yourself that Facebook and Twitter had killed forums now. Not exactly sure were you posted it anymore, but it was either here or at XenForo. Otherwise I'd link to it and quote what you said, which was words similar to the effect off: "you didn't know why you bother running a forum anymore, you might as through the towel in". But you did say it, and not that long ago! Which I thought seemed odd coming from you at the time, seeing as you've always stated otherwise. I even posted a reply in it saying you'd "had a sudden change of heart", or something similar like that.

Make your mind-up one way or the other, please? Because all you doing now is completely contradicting yourself. But anyway, like I said before that's my personal view and one shared also by many others on the web if you spend time and Google around. If you've changed your "mind again", or agree with me or not matters little. I'm just telling you what I think, everyone is entitled to their own view!

 

I don't agree that forums are dying but I do think FB etc. have taken over the social aspect - in that respect, it makes it harder for people to establish new forums unless they have a good subject, a gap in the market or a very good idea. This is what I am seeing more of - new forums running for a bit and then stopping due to lack of traffic, because their idea was rubbish, they were in a saturated market (forum admin forums are a good example!) or could not get established. And "paid for" or swapping posts with other forums looks so obvious as a fake means of boosting traffic - how many "What are you listening to?" threads do we need?

Back to the subject at hand. If it is true what is said above about Brogan this will be bad news. Why would someone so prolific there stop posting too? But I would caution against dragging Brogan into this. He is on our side, he also has a busy XF community so he needs this software to work too, he's probably between a rock and a hard place as far as moderating goes (you can't blame him for locking posts, if the staff there won't give him any meaningful news to pass on); although I strongly disagree with the post locking I see this as the fault of XenForo in not being open and transparent with us customers. It is Kier, Mike or Ashley who should be posting meaningul news about why Kier is MIA, why Mike is now MIA and if Brogan is the latest poster to go MIA, some kind of "rescue plan" for their business reputation needs to be put in place. And without Brogan I think things could unravel pretty quickly, unless they are all already abandoning ship.

One post... that is all it will take... one single post saying why staff activity there has dropped off as it has.

I have read through some old posts on XF and agree the "fanboi" mafia is shameful. Why? Because it's OK saying that Kier's personal life is his own (as Mike put it) if Kier is not posting or being active AT ALL. But he keeps logging in and not posting. He also tweeted not so long ago and it was directly related to XenForo. So why then if he is logging into the forum for his business is he not posting at least something to say why he is not active? Or maybe even some form of gratitude to all those poeple genuinely asking after him.

 

It's true, even have a screen-shot ready to hand. I didn't want to post it, which is why I didn't before. But will post it now just to prove things.

I'm not blaming Brogan for anything, I'm simply pointing out (as was PM'd to me). That's he's not been online at XenForo, well not posted there since Monday. Like it not, that is indeed odd seeing as he was a very prolific daily poster there, he didn't get the nickname "Ninja" for nothing in beating Bruce answering questions. We all know that, I'm not telling you or anyone else something you don't already know. Yet, he's been spotted on his own forum proving that he's still around. So obviously, he's avoiding XenForo for some reason.

What I'm wondering now, as might you? Has he maybe been told to take a break away from XenForo and stop answering questions? Or, has he maybe decided himself that he's had enough after the recent thread locking he's been having to do, along with lack of information he's been unable to give customers? Brogan, did say once that he moderates on XenForo for free, he doesn't get paid for doing it.

Couldn't agree more with you on that one, he's been a corner stone for XenForo support. If Brogan doesn't show his face again "very soon", it won't be long before Word War 3 breaks out on XenForo. He's played a "major vital role", and one many will spot missing quickly indeed questioning were the heck as he suddenly gone missing to also? This whole thing is turning fast into a bit of a pantomime show now!

 

Unusually I agree with GTB here. There's something afoot at XenForo, but I do not know what.

I think the damage has already been done, whatever happens now. For all it's faults, I am sticking with vBulletin.

I won't speculate because people will see it as fact, but I think it's game over at XenForo in one form or another.

 

Incidentally we don't know if Brogan has been online in XF or not...we only know he hasn't posted. Has he posted on his own forums? He may just be away and looking in by phone or something. (Phones remain notoriously horrible to post to forums with).
His profile is not giving a last visit time, which means, just like Mike, he's gone invisible.

That possibly implies they are both logging in but don't want to be seen.

 

Interesting, I didn't know that's how you can tell a person is logging-in using ANON mode. So your saying then it looks like he's still logging-in there, along with Mike as well. But both are using ANON mode instead now. Well, I think Kier is doing the very same thing also, spotted him yesterday login and show-up in "staff box" for a few seconds only before suddenly going off-line again. Now usually, if you close your browser or leave a forum you'll still show up as being online for a while after still (if not using ANON mode), the "Who's Online" refresh time thing setup! The way Kier showed-up, then suddenly went off-line only seconds later is a clear indication he must have quickly switched over to using ANON mode, otherwise he wouldn't have expired (been removed) from the who's online in just a matter of seconds. Most experienced forum owners know that one!

You don't miss a trick you Mark!

We have to agree on something at some point, sooner or later. :lol2:

 

Well Kier is NOT invisible, if he disappeared then that means he logged out:

View attachment 2146

Note the "Last seen" section, which is NOT present for Mike or Brogan:

View attachment 2147

View attachment 2148

Same thing happens in vBulletin actually. If there's no last active date and time, then they are probably invisible.

 

Well in that case, they must use a short online refresh time at XenForo, or maybe it works very differently from vBulletin. Because I did see Kier login for around 10-20 seconds, then he just seemed to go off-line more or less 20-30 seconds later not showing up anymore. Which I got wrong before, losing track of days here! it would have been last Sunday gone listed in his profile.

I've just looked at my localhost XenForo install now, I can see NO setting for online refresh times to be setup, unless I've missed it? So maybe it does work very differently then, once you leave forum you vanish from online list right away.

 

Chances are he simply logged out.

 

This just isn't right though. Ever since I've been on Xenforo Brogan has been online 24x7, racking up near 20k posts. 2 days without a post :o

Something is going on, and I hope its nothing bad personal life wise. I wonder if its anything legal related. I thought of all of that was handled.

 

Well of course something isn't right, or they're just playing silly mind games with customers. Mike and Brogan - now using ANON mode to hide themselves online. Kier - logging in only last Sunday, yet still can't find time to post anything at all explaining things. They'll be reading this thread and having a good laugh over it, that much I'll guarantee you! Think I'll nip out for some popcorn later, rent that new movie starring XenForo called "Where did they all vanish too"? :shrug:

Joking aside, it wouldn't surprise me to see XenForo 1.2 released soon and all the staff back online at that same time. It really wouldn't at all!

 

Yes it *could* just be a release is imminent but somehow I don't think so.

Something's going wrong, that much is patently obvious, time will tell.

I hope it all works out. I'm a great fan of Kier and Mike and really wanted their venture to succeed and do to vBulletin what vBulletin did to UBB Threads all those years ago. But it's starting to look like that isn't going to be the case.

 

The question I cannot answer is that if there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, why someone has not posted it? As an example, if Kier is just taking a back seat for the time being, or on holiday, or unwell, why not just post to say this? People (like Mike) will say Kier's personal life is exactly that and I agree up to a point. But not when paying customers start getting jittery and worried. Not when people start threads like this in other forums. Where is the customer care in that? Here's another thing to consider too. If they're sitting on a new release and this (as in, this sort of thread) is becoming some big joke for them, do they understand this will make customers who voiced a legitimate dissenting voice look like d*** heads? Now THAT would be a serious misjudgement to make.

You can't play about with paying customers, no matter what their opinion. As Mark proves, this has already gone beyond the point now where any action will rescue the lost goodwill of some customers. And if some big release comes out tomorrow and Kier pops up saying "ONLY JOKING!" you know what? I'm going to bill him for the time and money wasted on my part exploring a fall back plan (IPB).

 

Whatever it turns out to be, the outcome now is beyond the point of rescue.

Either it's all a bit of fun, in which case, bye bye, I don't have time for commercial companies playing silly games.
Or it's genuine and there's a serious problem - be it in someone's personal life or the business itself - in which case, the fact they haven't at least said something makes future trust very difficult.

You can't take someone like Kier, make them "centre stage" and very much the "public face" of the product, then have them disappear and brutally silence all questions as to his whereabouts.

It's a bad scenario all round, I don't feel comfortable on the XF forums any more and as a paying customer that's not a good thing.

It's easier to get answers on future product direction from vBulletin at the moment - a real turnaround. Lord knows what's happened, I can only hope it's nothing catastrophic for Kier and Mike, they are good people.

 

Is anyone else starting the get the impression. Hmm, that they might have given up their court case fight against Internet Brands?

1: Lack of interest in XenForo as a whole the past month, one after the other going AWOL without any reason given.
2: They don't seem the slightest bit bothered what people think of them going missing, nor the bad press it's giving them.
3: Keeping very quiet saying nothing at all, possibly avoiding answering questions because of certain things going on.

Sorry, but it's all starting to sound a little ominous to me. Won't be surprised to read next announcement posted saying XenForo is now owned by Internet Brands, they've given up their fight and settled. Really hope I'm wrong here, what a total disaster if that turns out the case!