New forum guidelines -- what do you think?

[Admin]

Hello all,

For quite some time now we have been thinking about re-designing the forum structure here, to make both your and our life here easier.
As you probably know, a large number of forums here are closed to non-licensed members. These include:
Full Releases
Hacking Hints and Tips
Requests
Help!
Support
Template Modifications
Buttons and Graphics
Language Packs
Currently, the General Discussion forum is open for everyone, which causes a large number of unlicensed users to post there. We, of course, would like that to stop.

Would you like to see the General Discussion forum closed to non-licensed users, and a Pre-Sales forum opened for users to ask their questions prior to buying vBulletin?

Please vote as your heart tells you in this poll, and post all your comments below. We will review the results in few days and do what we find right. The results will be (privately) split to licensed and unlicensed voters, so we can estimate how sincere the voter was. :)

On a small side-note, I've just taken a look at the statistics of the board, and I'm truly amazed. Over 600 hacks are released here (626, to be exact)! That's a great figure and I thank all of you for this. :)

Cheers!

[TECK]

personally, i think the best way is to restrict everywhere the access to non-licensed users, except the pre-sales area.

i don't know how, but i noticed an increased demand from tyro hackers stating: "why i cant download the hacks? can you email me the hack?? pleaseeeeee..." i would pin in the pre-sales forum what you need to access the protected areas..

the forums layout is good. people can see the hacks, but they cannot read the thread content.

[Andy Z]

Great!!!! I completely agree with nakkid.
Restricting unlicensed members to a Pre-Sales Questions forum would be wonderful.
I use the View New Posts Search when I visit, so it would be nice to know that I would only have to worry about stumbling on the please e-mail me this...... type threads in Pre-Sales forum an I'd only look at Pre-Sales after browsing everything else. Can't wait to see what happens. :D :D

[Scott MacVicar]

Yeah, restrict to a pre-sales forum, though let them see the hack database so they can see descriptions of the hacks available but not the threads.

[Bop2Bop]

what dey said ^ :supwink:

[Lesane]

Complete agree with above

[slideboxer]

At the risk of sounding redundant... ditto :D

[TECK]

6 NO votes.. where are the comments?

[Xelation]

I would like to see this happen. :D

[cditty]

I agree with nakkid.

[Dalius]

Quite frankly, I think that people without a lisence do NOT need to use this site, only .com. Therefore, I think your username should be on the priority list to acess the SITE ITSELF.

[Scott MacVicar]

Yeah, but we can encourage people to get a vBulletin liscence by showing them what hacks are available. For example vB might lack a feature that this person requires and they could look here for it.

[Andy Z]

PPN, exactly what I was gonna say!

[Arsenik]

Sounds good but keep this in mind... I for one decided to buy vb after reading the vb.org forums and all that could be added and modified.

[Reeve of shinra]

I agree with PPN here ... only I feel that potential buyers should be able to view demo shots of the hack in question via the hacks database.

One more thing, can our information be hidden from non-liscenced users so we cut down the amount of IM's asking for VB.

[Reeve of shinra]

One more thing, this tight nit community is a strong selling point.... perhaps there is some way to convey this? Maybe take an occasional screen shot of a forum and cencor out info? dunno ..

[Soma]

One of the reasons many ppl go with vB are for da hax. So it only makes sense someone like to ask some questions here first. But the general forum contains more then before you buy questions. So I suggest a seperate forum catagory for those questions and delete anything else in them.

[TECK]

Soma, it was mentioned by FireFly in the start thread. the Pre-Sale Questions forum.

regards,
nakkid.

[SaintDog]

I agree with one of Nakkid's posts, I believe you should restrict access to everything but the pre-sales forum to those that are not licensed (after all, what reason do they have to be posting in most of the forums in the first place?).

I also think that non-licensed members should not be able to view licensed memebrs profiles. I have had many people contact me in the past via AIM asking me if I would download hacks for them and send them the hacks via aim, e-mail, ect. Personally, I find that anoying and my blocked list is piling up ;). (not sure if it has been done, since I am licensed, I can not tell.)

SaintDog

[Floris]

Put pre-sales open, and be strict to requests for templates etc, explain their options, do not go into explaining how it is done.

Let them browse the hacks database, so they can see the description, but do not allow them to surf the forum. That way they can not get the info from the forum.

Users who are registered, might be able to browse the forum, some might not have a license, but know PHP or otherwise and could be of assistence (weak argument here). If they want to download anything or get support, they should be a licensed user, let them enter the legal license information as required now for downloading anything.

As a guest, I can browse through the hack database and I can request some additional info in the pre-sales section. One thread in that pre-sales section explains that the hacks are free to licences vBulletin users, and that the PS-board is only for investigating about vBulletin, not for assistence or anything for those hacks. And the guest-tour ends here. They are required to register if they need more.
When they register, they have access to the other boards, but.. if they enter their license information, they have access to the boards where they can get hacks/styles/modifications/graphics and download them.
So, unlicenced registered users can get access to boards like Help, Buttons and Graphics and/or Language Packs .. I can imagine users from vBulletin.com hearing they can find that here ..

Anyway, I vote yes ..

[Daniel P]

yeah xiphoid, you are right... i totally agree. CYAZ !!!

[Rose]

I like the idea of keeping the non-licensed members limited very much. *nods* Less hassles and headaches. And, hopefully, less pirating. Pre-sales forum is definately the way to go.

One question, non-licensed members can't vote and see in here, can they? ;) Might skew the poll a bit.

[nuno]

yes

[exodus]

good idea. get rid of the non-licensed users! BUY vB damnit. :)

[Lazerus]

I think this is silly, what about the people who can't afford vb? the internet is all about sharing information for free, how many of you have accesed plenty of free things on the internet that you hav used for your own personnal benefit, i agree vb should charge for their board, but maybe shouldn't e so tight on the old restrictions, otherwise 1 day everything u do, u will hav to pay for, u r just helping rich companies get richer, and poor people get poorer. then again i spose most people with illegal copies of vb wont be that bothered about hacking it, but warez makes the web turn. did u pay for the explorer ur viewing this with? or the ukebox u r listening to ur mp3s on? or ur mp3s u got playin?

[neal]

Originally posted by Arsenik
Sounds good but keep this in mind... I for one decided to buy vb after reading the vb.org forums and all that could be added and modified.

I agree with this. This forum was an extremely strong selling point for me with vBulletin. Be careful about limiting them TOO much.

[Admin]

Originally posted by Lazerus
I think this is silly, what about the people who can't afford vb? the internet is all about sharing information for free, how many of you have accesed plenty of free things on the internet that you hav used for your own personnal benefit, i agree vb should charge for their board, but maybe shouldn't e so tight on the old restrictions, otherwise 1 day everything u do, u will hav to pay for, u r just helping rich companies get richer, and poor people get poorer. then again i spose most people with illegal copies of vb wont be that bothered about hacking it, but warez makes the web turn. did u pay for the explorer ur viewing this with? or the ukebox u r listening to ur mp3s on? or ur mp3s u got playin?
I didn't pay for the Internet Explorer I'm using for one simple reason -- it doesn't cost money and it's free for all to use. I did pay for my computer, my graphics card, my sound card, my monitor, my radio, my mouse, my keyboard, my scanner, my cellphone, my microphone, my camera, my chair, and my vBulletin, because all of these cost money -- and getting it for free is illegal and just like stealing candy from a kiosk.

[Lazerus]

but those are all material things, and wasnt built specifically for the internet, how can we as humans advance in anything if we keep charging for it, if companies wasnt so greedy we would have ultra fast mental quantum computers that download things in no time, but everyone just wants to make money, you are just helping these people.

[Lazerus]

ill also add, like any other company if vb start making descent money their next board vb3 will not be as advanced as you would of hoped, because they would wanna cut costs and get it out as quick as possible i.e. ubb. soon another board will come along, that will be more advanced and cheaper, i think phpbb is looking very impressive and its free, do you see the point im tyring to make? by making vb more money, by trying to stop the warez, you are just pushing future vb hackers into cheaper things i.e. phpbb, lets face it, your a very clever person, but there are cleverer people out there than you, and they are young, and still learning, im 18, how am i supposed to learn how to hack a board, and learn php if everyong is trying to charge me all the time? i just wanna learn, for my own benefit.

[Reeve of shinra]

Lazerus, your arguements are all well and good but if someone has enough money to pay for the server required to host VB, then they should have enough money to purchase the board. 2 - 3 months of server costs is all it would take really.

Also - if your only interest is in VB is educational - then you might be better off reviewing the open souce code available on the net.

[Lazerus]

yeh ok thanks, i am gonna purchase vB, hopefully very soon, im just saying that right now this second, i would love to be installing hacks and testing em, but i got to save up, and that aint easy when your 18 and a student.

[Admin]

If you are 18 and don't make money, don't run a board. If you can't afford a car, will you go stealing one? And it doesn't matter if vBulletin is material or not. Everything in the world is material. Go burn your computer then try to find vBulletin. You won't, because it was stored on a material hard disk. And when you download vBulletin from your favoriate Warez site, it gets to you using material fibres and wires. So don't go the 'material' route, you will get nowhere.

[Daniel P]

Yeah FireFly, ya got a point there. I will buy vBB soon and as i saw this Forums, the vBB software is great. If you will limit users to the Pre-Sales Forums, we won't be able to see the feautures of vBB. Just don't let us access the hacks 'n' stuff. That's why i'm gonna buy vBB.

[powerkills]

I think the poll numbers speak for themselves. I was especially compelled to vote when I saw posts from someone like this:

Originally posted by Lazerus
yeh ok thanks, i am gonna purchase vB, hopefully very soon, im just saying that right now this second, i would love to be installing hacks and testing em, but i got to save up, and that aint easy when your 18 and a student.

When just back in November 2001 the same person posted with this question:
Originally posted by Lazerus
Hey im new here, great site by the way, anyway im trying to put background images behind the forum selections of the home page(if you can understand whati mean) but i don't want background images on them all, so i went into the forum description, and added some html which would normanlly work, but it didn;t. the html btw was <td background="img src"> anyone got any other suggestions on ways to accomplish this? thanx in advance.

Being a software developer by trade, I have some pretty strong feelings about warez and it's derivatives. Now I am not trying to say anyone in particular is a software pirate looking for a weakness to exploit. Just showing an example of the kind of things that make people like me that payed hard-earned cash for vB go "hmmmmm.... Shoot them!". ;)

I saw several very good suggestions in this thread as to how to accomplish this. I am sure I will be pleased with whatever is decided upon. :)

[LiquidWorm]

Well I understand the want to close the board down to registered users only. But as a possible purchaser of the product in the very near future I would like to point out something.

Currently I am in the market to possibly purchase vbulletin but before buying would like to know if it will be able to do what i want it to do. Simply put I feel you should at least leave one forum without code in it for folks like myself to ask qquestions about mods which they are looking for and may point them in a direction towards purchasing your product. I going over the posts on mods in the general discussion forum I have narrowed down my selection on which board to run down to three with vbulletin on top. If I did not have access to knowing whether or not vbulletin could do what I wish for it to do I would probily have scrapped it from the list.

Just my 2 cents...

See you all soon in the registered user section :)

BTW:
By saying I need to know if it will do what i want it to do doesnt mean im going to pirate the software install the hacks then buy them. Its just nice to know that after spending the money on the board for a site that makes no money and is just a hobby that i will be able to do what i want to do and before hand ask questions on how well a hack works, if its available and so on.

Maybe if you keep open a forum for only mod listing (not distributing) and commenting and questions maybe a few demos and so on and nuke the how do i do this posts...

[Admin]

LiquidWorm - That's why we will open a Pre Sales forum if we do go this route. And when we say closed we mean it will be closed for posting (but open for viewing). :)

[LiquidWorm]

wow that was fast was adding to a comment :)

One question though if I have a question as to what i need to run a mod and so on.

I honestly see where you guys are coming from aas far as not wanting to distribute mods to non registered users but as a shopper a place to ask questions such as can this product do this would be great.

Before buying a car to soup up its nice to know there is a supercharger able to fit the engine :)

--------------------------------------------------------
Ahh ok cool move then miss read your post
--------------------------------------------------------

A forum to ask questions but not download hacks would be great to see a list of hacks but not be able to download would be a good selling point.

[Andy Z]

I believe that the hacks database would be open for viewing as well if they do choose the option of closing everything else.

[UltimaKing]

Originally posted by nakkid
personally, i think the best way is to restrict everywhere the access to non-licensed users, except the pre-sales area.

i don't know how, but i noticed an increased demand from tyro hackers stating: "why i cant download the hacks? can you email me the hack?? pleaseeeeee..." i would pin in the pre-sales forum what you need to access the protected areas..

the forums layout is good. people can see the hacks, but they cannot read the thread content.


What he said :D

[Lionel]

You should be able to find a way to restrict registered members who are not licenced to send PM. In a couple of occasions, I got people requesting me to send them hacks. Why would they if they have access to them? Non licenced registered members should not bother licenced registered members.

In both cases I simply instructed them to make a search, knowing that they will not be able to access the hacks... but you will eventually find some naive guy who will want to be helpful.

[Admin]

The problem is sometimes people need help with getting their account activated, so they PM a moderator or admin.

[Lionel]

Originally posted by FireFly
The problem is sometimes people need help with getting their account activated, so they PM a moderator or admin.
can't believe that is coming from a master hacker like you. :surprised:

you should be able to easily modify that group to be able to PM only admin and mod.

[Admin]

Originally posted by Lionel
you should be able to easily modify that group to be able to PM only admin and mod.
That's not a problem, actually.
But I still think that if people are stupid enough to send others hacks because "the zip is corrupted", there's nothing we can do about it.

[vjspeedy1200]

okay so here's the first comment from the no side......

first of i find it ridicoulous that you have to buy vbulletin to be able to acces a part of this site that has cracks and such for it since hacks are open source and open source is always distributed freely so keep it on your own site (no distribution) or let ppl be able to get it free.

second i myself am a hacker/modifier and i am thinking of buying vbulletin but not before i understand how it works so i can make hacks/modifications for it myself and since the free version is soooo limited compared to the other version there's not that much i can get from that.
and the hacks taken away from non licence owners will only result in illegal distribution of hacks and VB itself and btw. what are non VB owners gona do with hacks ecept maybe midify it more?

[Admin]

vjspeedy1200, while I understand your logic, let me remind you we have no way of knowing who is a non-vB-owner and who is a vB-pirate, and I think you understand why.
And regarding the other point, that doing this will only make people pirate hacks too, well that's obvious and I already know that. In fact, I know of at least 3-4 sites that were doing exactly this and Jelsoft shut them down.

[Admin]

Alright, I think we got enough input on this matter, so I'll close this thread now. According to the results of this community poll, you should expect some changes in a short time. :)

Thank you for all your comments!