vB Bashing at a new low!

Why don't you get your facts straight?!? Ray Morgan, Steve and Wayne Luke on many occassions advised all members who licenses were expiring, or those who weren't interested in the vb4 to upgrade now in numerous posts, threads, blog posts.

So why not use that handy little search option and actually read what the staff have said over the months.

So before you go off ranting maybe you should get your little facts straight and jump back on the Doomsday Bus - sure everyone has the right to be mad but carrying on with it for 6 months like some have is immature and childish.

 

Which he didn't.

I agree that the original poster's comments on that are a bit....unusual. Many people were caught out by the license changes. Some did well, some didn't, but in most cases, those who didn't, it's not really their fault and many have valid concerns.

To clarify here....I bought the upgrade, THEN had a bit of a ranty couple of days on the forums, and got a bit carried away fighting other people's battles. THEN I got banned, THEN Wayne fixed my vb.org access through here, THEN I "had my little talk with Ray Morgan" which was actually very productive. Nothing he said persuaded me to buy the upgrade, since I'd already bought it, but the conversation did reassure me as to where the company was going. Since I benefited from the license changes, and since after speaking with Ray I became convinced that vB4 was going to be very worthwhile, I decided it was time to stop complaining, and move forward. So I did. I don't beat a drum for vBulletin, I'm still perfectly at liberty to criticise if needed, but I if I need to I shall do so in a constructive way that doesn't disrupt their forums.

 

Sadly i have to put in my .02 as well.

I totally agree with merk_aus and people being tired of all the bashing, but, People do have a right to be upset with the way things are STILL being handled. Steve machol is being an internet bully (not sure if he is being told to). Ray Morgan is still running the site by not saying anything or acknowledging loyal customers. As far as my personal post's over there at vb.com, I kept all of mine in the licensed customer feedback forum and felt that was the correct place to keep it. I did not one time, take my thoughts of what was going on to any other forum section of vb.com. I realize it is a business and my being upset (in my mind), may one day be of a help to new customers, by helping vb.com see that they should offer choices. I still can't understand why that seems so hard for people to understand, vb management included.

But kudos to you merk_aus, i completely respect your views and thoughts on this entire fiasco.

 

What? Are you kidding me? "i shall do so in a constructive way that doesn't disrupt their forums!"
Mark, they should be kissing your butt and thanking you for continuing to purchase their software. You are the customer and you have/had every right to speak your mind. I have no idea what lead to your being banned, but i assure you, you don't have to kiss their butts with statements like that. I respected you for speaking your mind when i read your posts over there. I too realize you don't want to be banned because you want to use their software, but wow....(i am not bashing you, i am just shocked to see people bending that far forward.)

 

Eh? In what way am I "kissing their butt"?

If they do something I disagree with I will say so, just like before, but instead of disrupting their forums with endless rants, like I did before, I shall post my feedback in a constructive way.

I certainly have every right to speak my mind, but not to disrupt the forum by posting pointless snipey rants in every other thread, which is where I'd ended up to be honest.

Besides, latterly my *main* gripe had not been the licensing issue but the lack of a public beta, which they have rectified anyway - what am I meant do do, carry on ranting even though they solved all my issues?

 

I gotcha friend, it just caught me off guard when i first read that wording. I personally thought you input over there was awesome, i know it made some mad, but i firmly believe you had the right to state your opinion. But that is just me.

 

Hardly personal abuse.. more like, grow some balls Mark and act like a man, instead of the suck up you have been ever since your access to VB.COM has been restored. Seriously dude, you lost a LOT of respect by many people now.

If you want to see the line between abuse and acting like a man, you need to visit my forum sometime. I literally FRY a vendor for trying to pass off shady parts to the mazdaspeed community... I also influence larger companies to give us what we want... and i abuse them while doing it to boot!

 

The tone and attitude are the issue. Some people are quite upset about the whole situation. We know that cause they have now told us many times in no uncertain terms. How many times does the same argument need to be stated.

Whats even more interesting as a student of how people post to a forum is how simple civility has been tossed out the window by a few. If you note, some posts by some of those most incensed have degraded in quality. Capitalization and punctuation is going missing. Entire posts are created in this manner now. You can follow the decent.

 

Sadly i am not a good typer and most of the technique i have behind my typing comes from the days of IRC chatrooms. You had to type really fast and use allot of .......to say something. At times the chats went really quickly and it was hard to keep up.

 

i'm not trying to be insulting but your answer is childish. I work with professionals in fortune companies and small 2-3 man shops all over silicon valley and not one of them would ever think or have the time to hang out in the adobe forums, the microsoft forums, the oracle forums or any other customers support forum to get rumors about what you need to do in order to upgrade properly or any other important business information about a product.

do you know what a mailing list is? every company uses the customer mailing list to send out important news and updates. see those checkmarks next to every legitimate company you ever register for about notifying the customer about important updates? it seems that internet brands new how to use that mailing list when it came to selling their presale but it somehow didn't know how to use it when it came to giving us notice BEFORE the presale that a presale would only be extended to customers with a maintenance that was active? this coincidentally resulted in many people paying a lot more in the aggregate than it should have. for those of you who worked out your differences, you want to turn a blind eye about what many of us are still left with and make comments as if we are just crying over nothing.

mark b - you're wrong. the ceo said specifically that pricing was intended to push all users to use the vbulletin suite because that is the 'flagship product' they want to have appearing on every site. vbulletin no longer wants to be a forum and options but to be a higher priced forum that is the full content management solution so they screwed all the users who just needed the forum. its totally clear.

anyways, the original posters comments really got me upset. for people who may have more than 7 or 8 licenses that recently expired this midnight upgrade is cost us in the thousands. if you had your one forum then you might have been upset about the tactics but you hope it pays off if they can ever pull off this upgrade. but for the rest of us, vbulletin has still left us in a hole. we cant upgrade our version 3 forums to the latest version and keep it there and upgrading forums only doesnt make pricing sense either.

so i'm sorry that i called the ceo a dirt bag and that some of you find this to be an almost criminal behavior. i have to travel back and perhaps just as well. i'll leave all of you to talk about vbulletin the way you want and how youd like things to be. it was fun and i hold no personal grudges against anyone. see you around guys. (ps - i apologize about the capitalization and punctuation as my laptop's keyboard is going, which apparently is another very serious thing to complain about.)

 

I think your posts, views etc have been consistent which is more than I can say for some people.

If "dirt bag" is offending and considered rude I don't think the internet is for you. Heck, I've been called worse from these employees and it's water off a ducks back though i prefer to say arse.

Hopefully, that isn't to offending to anyone who may consider my post as trolling or otherwise.

 

No, you didn't.

Do me a favor, can you please copy that and bold the parts that talk about how their communication is better now than before... because, I keep scouring the above for any sign of that, but, gosh darnit, I can't seem to find anything. You reference my statement about not budging, which I'm talking about bans, and indirectly about their statements to the press... but somehow people are supposed to think that you saying they should be applauded for not budging is about their communication?

So, I'm gonna call bullshit on that. Don't try and backpeddle after you've said something.

And people haven't been complaining 6-7 months. As countless other people have said, the vast majority of vBulletin's customer's do not go on the forums very often let alone scour it for information about upcoming updates. Is there anyone here that has been complaining that long? Links?

 

ptwiggens - i am still awake and got the subscription on this. it's my last night here so why not make a comment or two more. don't worry, no more comments people don't want to hear - but for the record, merk_aus opened up this can of worms.

i understand guys like merk_aus and he won't have any real answers. i'm leaving this forum because people like merk_aus and mark made their investments in vbulletin 4 and it scares the willies out of them that they may have made a deal with an evil empire and just accept it for what it is. i had to make my decisions too. but it's too painful for them to continue developing if they have to see and accept that the company is still screwing many of its customers this badly and without any justifiable reason other than they want the money and bonuses and know they will probably get away with this. this is why my harmless comment sent them over the edge and running to the report button.

when i reviewed the vbulletin.com forums last week, the only messages were about proposed changes, nothing official. i also couldn't find any of ray's official warnings about maintenance like he said in his announcement. and if keeping your license current was so important, why wasn't it even a sticky announcement in the forum? the presale was a sticky announcement and if customers didn't know about maintenance, it would cost much more to upgrade. this entire presale was bull bleep. i don't know but am guessing they knew what they were doing. they are probably 'not budging' because they are challenging the customers to fight a big company in court and know the chance of that is small. it's the way it works in big business.

do any of you wonder why scott m. is now being called a disgruntled employee? scott of all people!!!! how come you dont see hordes of former employees rushing to the side of internet brands to defend them? they are all doubtless embarrassed beyond their wildest dreams that something like this would ever happen and now realize that they may have made good money but their reputations and legacy will be forever tarnished thanks to this whole fiasco. the jelsoft people ALWAYS gave customers the info they needed in email. did they not?

internet brands sent at least 2 emails about the pre-sale reminding everybody the price would never be lower. do you think it was a mistake that they didn't send out emails to customers that if their maintenance wasn't renewed they'd have to pay even more than they expected? yes sir, the same coincidence as not posting any sticky announcement in the forum (if you even went there.) was it coincidence this oversight made them a ton of more money by creating a panicking community? do you think it was a coincidence that internet brands keeps on writing press releases about record vbulletin sales numbers?

i'm tired. i won't incite you any more. many of you just run your forums, dont want to know much about what is going on around you and your great little forum development. but vbulletin just got bought by BIG business. it's clear many of you don't know what that means. they have quarterly reports to meet and many press releases to release. for now you might have skated by a little but the moment they need something, you'll be shafted and then be screaming. if you think that vbulletin 5 is coming out in 2012 (20-24 months from the probable release) then you are smoking crack. when the company needs revenue, it will use the 'change this license at any time' provision and the 'we never made any commitments to x, y and z' to get what they want. they know you will have sunk yourself on vbulletin suite software and powerless to go anywhere else without serious pain. it's another reason i'm sticking with my cms with joomla. good luck to all of you but i just hope you use your software and keep your eyes open at all times.

 

I am keeping my eyes open banger.......that's for sue.

 

And your point is? Its all part of life, deal with it.

If you have enough free time to worry about what other people are doing, get a second job or something.

Personally, I do not care about what is going on at vbulletin.com or .org, because I have a real life, with real things to do, and my own real problems that I have to deal with.

Friday, I have to work on a 4-wheeler and move a satellite dish for my parents. Why cant the trees stop growing so they do not block the satellite signal? Now I have to move it from one side of their house to the other. Stupid trees, stupid TV signal, stupid rain and sunlight for making the trees grow, stupid TV company for even making the thing,,,,,,.

Did I even mention my daughters braces? Those things are costing a fortune.

Did I mention the dent in the side of my truck the insurance is dragging its butt about fixing?

Did I mention my throat is sore from sinus drainage?

Did I mention that my parents are having christmas in their new house after getting 9 feet of floodwater from Hurricane Ike?

Watch this video, skip to 1:00 and start from there.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0mqh6U82YI"]YouTube - Ode to Bridge City - Hurricane Ike[/ame]

 

Stop kissing ass, it's disgusting. If you don't have anything real to add to the thread, don't post.
Trying to censor people like IB have done isn't going to get you anywhere. Yes, they're censoring people, and it's sickening.

It can't. He's just tired of hearing people actually talk and wants them to shut up. That's what the ignore function is for... Use it.

Nothing that was said there was offensive to anyone who is a mature, responsible, free thinking adult. Of course if you're going to be one sided about it, there is.
Pick a side, stick with it, there is no middle of the road in this debate. Your constant side switching is annoying as all hell.

And what, pray tell does the leak have to do with things? Oh, nothing, just you wanting people to shut up again.

You've been kissing Ray's ass, and vB's ass since they gave you back access to their forums. It's quite disgusting actually

Damnit, would you quit being right. I hate that
Seriously, though, "dirt bag" is the best thing that can be used to describe RM at this point.

 

dang twhiting9275, well said..........

 

Those who think it's ok to call people "dirt bag" on a site of this nature are wrong, it's as simple as that. And I'm pretty sure the site owners will agree with me.

It's got NOTHING to do with sticking up for vB, it's about making the point in a civilised way.

 

And it's okay to call people a troll?

 

It's never "wrong" to tell the truth. Ray Morgan is in fact just that.

At some point, you have to get your head out of your ass and realize that that's not going to happen. Civility only works when you're dealing with companies who have reasonable people behind them. Ray Morgan is not reasonable, he's as clueless as they come with this company, and has no place doing his job.

People have been trying the civilized approach since May. Has it worked? No.
So, you have two choices there:
#1: Roll over, kiss the company's ass and do as you're told like a good little automaton

#2: Act like a human and proceed to the next level

You've chosen to have no voice and take the first approach. Hope that works out for you, but you're going to be taking it for quite a while.