My Feelings on xenForo

Removed, posts are taking ages to load and thought this wasn't posted

 

I don't think it has anything to do with the XenForo court case myself, everyone seems to jump on that as an excuse for things being pretty quite. I think these days not as many people, sure not like in the vBulletin hay-day are as interested in running forums now. Many have moved on away after seeing their own do nothing and everyone using Facebook or Twitter instead, or some are using other things like that and followed the masses and new web trends. It's hard to explain to other forum owners, because they always go on the defensive like: Mark.B. Just can't accept that's the way it is today!

Most people I know, which includes my sister and daughter using the web. They don't use forums ever, period! They don't mention them, they don't come into their daily internet usage at all. That goes for just about all the people I know personally on the web. As for XenForo, I think it came along at a bad time when forums are no longer "the thing" anymore.

 

Just to add, if it wasn't for the fact it's Kier and Mike and many followed them over from vBulletin to XenForo. I very much doubt it would have received the kind of success it has this past year or more. It probably would have flopped within 6 months, just like that "forum motion" one has created by those from vBSEO. Question now is moving on to today, I think XenForo has lost that same kind of attention it first had, you can tell that just looking at the forums now. Many bought a license that first year to support them, but I just wonder how many will carry on renewing or not later. How many running XenForo forums this past year (have failed on them), so will choose not to carry on? This next year will be a very important one for them, very much so I'd say, not so much the first year when getting off to a flying start. Especially with them still needing funds to continue fighting the court case against IB still.

I think the main problem for XenForo, there are lots of quality free forums out there to use than before, and running a community is not as popular like it once was with many people. Mainly because most that do run them "Fail" now, so they give up on running them anymore and go use Twitter or Facebook for free instead. You have to be a real hardcore forum geek to continue running one, because they hardly get any posts anymore to warrant keeping one going. Most people will not continue running something - if can see it's not working!

 

Without doubt a lot of things went in their favour at the time. Most vBulletin users we're disillusioned and unhappy with vBulletin software in general - the direction it was heading in under Internet Brands, who you have to say are NOT forum developers really and most knew that. Been a great start for XenForo, the timing was perfect for it to come along at vBulletin's expense. Better than they could ever have hoped for! Now you can see they're creating more "paid scripts" in Elastic Search and Resource Manager to help bring in revenue from other sources, not just rely on forum sales and renewals alone. Which would probably be a bad idea now if they did that, I suspect forum sales won't be as good this year as previous, plus many won't renew.

But, elastic search is mainly only for Big Boards using VPS or better, you can't use it on Shared Hosting for example. So sales of that will be hit and miss, the Resource Manager will sell much better because all can use it from what I gather. Be you on Shared hosting or not. From a business point of view it fascinates me a little, things could swing both ways this year, they will either grow well or find many stop using XenForo after a bad first year running a forum with it. Without the forum software running, they won't buy any add-ons either - obviously!

Couldn't agree more though, had it not been Kier and Mike and them being so well known from vBulletin. They wouldn't have stood a chance that first year I think! The guys from vBSEO tried the same with that forum software they created soon after, it's been a disaster for them.

Not trying to put XenForo down or anything here, just that I watched how they've done so far.

 

I'm running XenForo locahost still, in fact if I put it "online live", you should be able to access it here over the web. http://xenforo.com/community/threads/testing-localhost-live-online.27824/#post-327330

 

I went back to using vBulletin 3.7 myself before, but that was because of shared hosting problems I encountered using XF really. I like both, I'm against using vBulletin 3 because it's still very good and has a proven track record, but XF does have the better look and more modern feel about it. Both have their Pro and Cons.

 

Problem though with vBulletin 3.8 is it's not moving forward now anymore. Great to use still if you control what's installed on your server. But if you use Shared Hosting and have no control over MySQL, PHP and Apache versions getting updated all the time - only a matter of when it breaks on you. Always knew that when using vBulletin 3.7 before selling domain on and closing site, seems pointless putting work into site, then one day it will break on you because your using shared hosting. Same happened with the MyBB forum I ran, one day they updated everything on server and got loads of incompatibility errors with community. All that time spend on it down the drain, over a years worth of posts and many hours work!

Reason I never went VPS or Dedicated to have control over that side of things, is because forum activity didn't warrant paying the cost for it. Not so bad if your getting some income from the site towards the cost of running it, such as selling a service or what ever? Floris tried that to keep his VPS going still, don't blame him trying it either. But it didn't work out for him.

I even this time opened up most forums for "Guests Posting". I mean seriously, if you can't even get activity going when 3/4 of your forums are allowing guest to post freely, then what's the hell is the point? You can't make things any easier than that to try and boost your forum posts being made. But even that didn't work, so what chance do most new forums have requiring registration to post?

Depends what you want really from a forum? My idea of running a forum is not getting 7-10 posts per day paying for VPS. Like you, seeing as your of a similar age group to me. Been running sites for over 20 years and today my heart isn't in it anymore. I don't have the enthusiasm for it like I once did have. Even reading people talking about running forums generally bores me to tears now!

 

Hate to say it, but looks like underhanded post deleting on the quite is still going on at XenForo. Just read a post there by HowardS (the man who ran Pirate Reports) for vBulletin. Saying he's no longer taking part in discussion there after spotting two of his post were deleted. Do a search for this very recent thread "I Am No Longer Posting On The Forum".

What on earth are they playing at there at all?

 

There is a beautiful comedy moment in that thread when one of the fanbois says "I've not seen any censorship here", which reminds me of the famous "I see no ships".

Apparently, it is completely normal to have posts deleted for no reason, even if they have likes (ie. support) and if you post about it, you're deemed the village idiot who should be ashamed of bringing it up.

As I said before, the new moderators are not there to moderate, they are there to censor in order to distract from what's really going on.

 

I've read some of HowardsS posts and from what I've seen he's no troll with his comments made. What amazes me is how they keep letting people posts abuse about vBulletin (one after the other) that should be getting removed. They don't letting it stand and delete others instead like this now. I hope "KA?" realise XenForo now looks and reads like a hate campaign against vBulletin. The place is awash with trash posted about them and they need to WAKE UP, because the community has become a big turn off because of it posted there - every single day!

 

They arent going to wake up.

Some people love to trash on vBulletin for the lawsuit, for not doing this or that, etc. Dont even bring up the possibility of an alternative possibility of what happend, you'll get trashed huge.

Has anyone considered that maybe Kier's a spoiled brat who wants everything his way or else? And that maybe IB wasnt interested in putting up with that attitude from its lead developer and that might be why the split happened in the first place? Its just specualtion, but what makes that any less possibile then IB being supressive and evil?

Here is another thought... Lets say I want to hire a developer to build me a product and support it, build future versions, etc. When does he start working for me? When the product is ready for release or when he starts developing the product? Most people would say the latter. Well Kier & Co by their own admission, started developing Xenforo immediately upon leaving IB. SO the whole year they werent suppose to be working for a competitor was spent developing the competitor. Nobody seems to see a problem with that.


There is always more then 1 side to a story. A smart person knows this and tries to learn both sides, realizing the truth is in the middle somewhere...

 

I think the fact he keeps letting abuse after abuse aimed the way of vBulletin posted all across the forums tells you a story, that he's pretty much using XenForo to wage a one man personal war against Internet Brands. Now I'm fine with that if we're talking about a general discussion forum here, or whatever else he runs. But we're not, instead it's happening on his XenForo company forums selling a product and that's why he must be nuts letting it take place and remain standing.

Recently, I've seen people there jumping to conclusion about why vBulletin don't allow XenForo ranting threads anymore. What a load of TOSH I'm reading coming from some people I expected better off. Have they not stopped and thought for one second, they've decided not to allow it anymore because it just plain wrong happening on a professional company forum, and does them no good in the long-run with the bad impression it gives off.

Kier doesn't have to say anything himself on XenForo, the simple fact he lets it all stand says enough in itself without him having to post a single world against them. He lets others do it all for him (MUGS) for reading openly. And they are MUGS because they don't see it!

It's like Kier is holding a piece sticky fly paper up, and they just willingly fly head first into it. Amusing really seeing it happen!

 

Funny you should say that, crossed my mind that one. Does he maybe not care either way anymore and there's method behind his madness? Hmm, time will tell soon enough. It's only 5 weeks away now from end of Q2, very soon people will start bursting blood vessels asking were XenForo 1.2 is and they might be told? :shrug:

 

One thing I see... Kier & Co are almost certainly learning being on the business end isnt so easy.