So, does anyone in the vBulletin 5 discussions actually own/run a forum?

I still own one site running on vBulletin 4.2.0 and manage another running on 4.2.2. All of the rest have been moved to other platforms. I have performed a couple of test 4.2 > 5.x upgrades but they were quickly abandoned. You can't really run an iOS orientated forum on a platform that won't allow post edits on any iOS device, something that still persists to this day.

I don't know if I'd go as far as describing the vBulletin developers as 'retarded' but I would certainly would not want my name associated with such rotten piece of work. I do however think the QA department must be somewhat challenged because the stuff they let though is amazing.

 

I remember the exact incident that happened right before I posted that. It had to do with me having to explain to some of their senior developers some basic concepts about how HTTP headers and how they work. And they just weren't grasping it at all and I had to keep explaining it over and over on Skype. Lol

 

LOL! Yeah, that would exactly inspire confidence

 

I hope your not serious, but i suspect that you really needed to explain.

 

Well, if it inspires confidence, from my experience not everyone who's good at web development/design/support quite understands stuff like headers and server set up related things.

But given that these were senior developers, and not say... Mark B, doesn't inspire confidence.

 

I think there might be a small typo in there

 

Being "incompetent" isn't really a totally life or business threatening problem, as long as you know you are incompetent and do something about it. A lot of mistakes in life and business are made because of incompetence (like zapping a whole live database with the wrong command. hehehe ) and some of these mistakes in business are actually made purposely, but in a controlled environment behind closed doors. It is called research and development, where trial and error is very much common place.

If you want to be different and stand out as a company, you have to especially move yourself into places, where your people might not be the most knowledgeable about those new technologies you want to conquer, especially if they are really new. You just can't say you are competent about those technologies, until you really are and even then, you don't really say you are completely competent, because you can always learn more. The biggest trick is to basically own the competence.

And of course, in a well run business, the things that need to be done on a regular basis should be done very professionally, which also means those tasks should become basically second nature. For a PHP dev and a PHP dev team, well, working with HTTP headers should be one of those kind of things. That is actually quite sad to hear that was the case, but seems to fit the bill of the quality delivered at IB over the years. I knew about the "not too competent" factor too, but from other sources.

And let's talk about the real issue in a company that let's this kind of thing happen. One of the absolutely necessary skills a leader must have is knowing when you have A players or B or C players on your team and doing something about the B and C players (like never hiring them), quickly and efficiently. And the other very important skill is expecting and getting great performance from your A players. I think this is something IB management doesn't even know even exists.

It is just like knowing who your A customers are and who aren't. It's knowing who are the few, from the vocal minority, you'd actually take advice from and who you shouldn't, which brings me back on topic. phew....

This is a great group of A customers.

Scott

 

Although it is most unlikely that I will ever get VB5. I cannot seem to find in their blurb whether one has to continue paying annually or if it is an "Owned" one?

 

vB5 licenses are similar to vB4, insofar as you pay once for "lifetime" updates. There's no annual fee.

 

vB5 licenses are dissimilar to vB4, insofar as you pay mega-bucks for a bug ridden pile of poo and only get 30-days ticket support, that is highly likely to expire before you can even take the plunge and install this bug ridden pile of poo, whereas vB4 came with 'lifetime' ticket support.

Worst still you can't even buy vB4 with its 'lifetime' ticket support any more, you can buy vB5 in order to get vB4, but your ticket support will be limited to just 30-days.

Great reasons to avoid vB and go with xF or IPB, which are customer friendly & focused, unlike vB.

BTW, Mark, good to see you still can't post on third party admins sites.

 

Another thing, when they say vB5 comes with 'lifetime' updates, what they mean is that you'll have to wait a lifetime before those updates actually make it something close to usable.

 

VB4 Forum Only licenses had the same 30 day ticket support window. Only VB4 Suite licenses had the lifetime ticket support.

 

Is there a vB5 forum only option?

Only I was comparing what I thought were supposed to be like-for-like products.

Isn't vB5 [dis]Connect supposed to be a replacement for the vB4 suite?

But, without the lifetime ticket support?

*awaits to be corrected*

 

You're 100% right because they couldn't do it right the first time.