The fact that we can still read that thread sums up the problem - I can't believe that no action was taken on those posts, I would have removed the posts, and/or severely warned the poster. Just no need for such ignorance, esp in such large bold letters.

problems with such posts is that the moderators here are not numerous enough to make follow ups on bad-attitude members, and they can't ban only for a single sentence that was stupid or so...

this is a community for supporting and sharing... maybe some guys think they can play like on a off topic forum, and i hate that myself... they all forget that we're here for fun, not for fight.

EDIT:

i have a point about why this site have problems actually: the main goal of this community was to share codes and hacks... but as the members count grown, the sharing was transformed in support and had a "branch-like" of a friendship community...

this is not a code-repository anymore, and by that, we have to face other kinds of discussions, other languages with sometimes a lot of differences in the education of the participants...

I agree....I have no issue with that. The problem is that many of the hacks haven't been ported.

Yours all have - for which I am eternally grateful. But there are many that haven't and one is met with derision when requesting them.

This issue *urgently* needs sorted, so that people like me can perform our upgrade without losing dozens of features.

Wow...and he purports to be a Christian...yeh.

My two cents and it's not meant to offend or anything, but not much in life is free...why not learn to code and port things on your own...that's what I did and I'm no genius by any means.

Now that gets very close to the main reason for a lot of attitude problems around here lately in my opinion.

I've learned as much as I physically can. I have to work for a living and I don't have the time to learn everything I'd need to know. Running my forum takes several hours a day as it is. There just isn't enough time.

Here's another good example:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....79&postcount=2

Is there really any need for all that crap about ignore lists?

What the hell is happening to this place?

I saved the following quoted text from a group management forum some six years ago, or so... Back then, we all managed a maillist... but as you can see, the same dynamics hold true for our online forum communities today.

I always thought it was helpful for new admins/mods to be aware how groups continue to evolve and change over time. So I always kept this with a few other resources for new staff members to read through.

What's described as a problem stage for long-running communities seems to apply to us here, as well.

LOL.. Psionic's banlist grow day by day... each time someone make fun of that thread actually.. lol (i suppose Mark.B is now in.. lol)

and yes, offending posts by coders that are bored of answering questions have to be dropped... i think that if a coder is bored of answering questions does NOT have to release a thing... this is not a coder's community, but a place to share... on all levels.

Quite right...nothing against Psionic, but I neither know nor care whether he has me on ignore, since with an attitude like he has, I wouldn't install his hack anyhow.

I currently use vBStatistik, forgot the author but he hasn't ported it to 3.5...never mind.

... using the hacks from someone that have a bad attitude is not wrong, not-using it for the attitude IS wrong... these codes are made to be available, support given or not...

i don't support my hacks anymore, due to the fact that i'm a father at home... i can't code and hug my kids at the same time...

but when people are asking for support and the guy released a code and is giving support, answering with a frustrated attitude is never good, because it gives a bad idea of the entire community, AND give a bad image of the product itself...

Maybe all forum users should view this before posting here. :cheeky:

Forum Etiquette

I know the feeling...I work a RL job as well and my online site takes up way too much time also. But I found that I could get it done quicker the less dependent I was on others...that and I got tired of the condescending attitudes as well.

I thought the same thing when I read that post.

Freaking rediculous ... why is he worried that others may pay for a similar addon?

[back to topic]

I agree, vB doesn't provide a lot of hands-on support; they just treat you like you know a lot about their software, and I don't.. this is just my opinion.

What ? Jellsoft has one of the best support team. What do you expect ? Do you expect support team to teach you how to read , readme.txt or installation instructions ?

Just to chip in, I am firmly in the 'tell your members to get real...' camp on this issue.

The statement that 'most 3.0 hacks will eventually by ported' statement was frankly wrong. You have to sort out porting the major hacks before upgrading, not after.

This means service requests.

vBulletin is very simple to setup if you read the install docs. They don't support the mods and hacks, because they'd have to pay someone to do said support, which would drive up the price of their product quite a bit.

this site is dedicated to Hacks and coding... if you don't know this environment, you can find a coder that will help you to deal with this. vbulletin.com is the official site where all clients can have support...

the difference between the two is that ALL clients are at the same level on vb.com, because Jelsoft is dealing with all clients... on vb.org, all members are on different levels because we have coders that participate, and clients/regular users that have requests for tools they will not be able to write from themselves...

if you evaluate that you are on the same level as the coder, then you have to face the situation where you will be talked to the same way as you'd be a coder... if you don't understand this, ask for help... nobody will drag you to the bottom of your life if you are not a coder...

and as said before, vBulletin is a paid software that is a bit complicated to code in, because it is programming, not playing... if you are not fluent with codes, you will face a lot of difficulties to deal with our codes... that's why you find complicated to install hacks that you don't know nothing about...

I think that some restructing could really help.

Again, I really think the hack database can help.
- Interface for mod developers to post their hacks
- Allow users to post add ons
- Tips / Tricks/ customizations and FAQ section
- Bug tracker to make life easier

On the forums, ... there needs to be a seperate place where people unfamiliar to coding can post help requests. Either help in fixing something, help in installing it, or even just help in modifying a function to add a little something. Yeah, maybe one of the existing forums can serve this function but there really needs to be that dividing line between "release - no chat" and "general questions on it".

Hmm, well, this place isn't exactly "unfriendly". I just see people getting tired of answering the same questions over and over, and especially when their support is completly free of charge, I don't see why they have to hide behind a smiley face. Because if they do this, a particular member will never learn to search before asking.

And frankly, this place is not what it was a few years ago. There are far less supporters, far less hack makers, so what's this going to result in? Requests for hacks not being fuffiled. Some are too big or complicated for some coders, others have lives etc. You need to understand that.

And as a few people have said, most unfriendliness comes from members basically teasing and flaming people who post things in the wrong forum. And it's never one member, sometimes it can be a whole page thread with "zomg idiot posting wrong thread I HATE YOU" and so forth. That really has to stop and I have told members several times to cut that out. There's only so much I can do in that situation.

What I'm going to end this with is - never complain about a free service. It will never be perfect, but it's still decent. Be patient, and people will respond. Bump responsibly, too. If nobody answers your support thread - it's not that people are ignorning you, it's that they might not know how to solve a problem. Not everyone here knows every nook and cranny of vB.

/me know nook and cranny... they are in vacation 'til the Hacks dB is out!

In which case, they go to another board. There are plenty about.
That's what I've tried to do. But there are far too many that haven't been ported and clearly aren't going to be. Service requests are now pointless, they are either ignored, or else someone charges you, takes the money and clears off without doing anything.

If you're referring to vBulletin official support on the vBulletin.com website or via the support ticket system, I couldn't disagree more. They are spot on. And there's plenty of user-to-user support there too.

Sorry, but I take exception to that. I respond to a small number of service requests, and do not rip off anybody.

I'll chime in with a possibly "fresh" outlook on this. I've been admin for several boards over the years, seen one (with over 15,000 members) rise to the top of it's area of interest in the world, peak, then become a haven for negative attitudes, started my own board that has taken off dramatically, etc etc.

At some point, things get old for the senior members, answering the same questions time/time again and they either move on or stick around and make bitter posts. (happened on elementownersclub.com in recent history)

I'm not sure how to correct it honestly except for possibly staying on the attitude of the board from day one.

However, I've recently switched from phpbb to vb and so far love it, including vb.org. I've been able to FIND all the info I needed to install hacks just by reading/searching/using my knowledge&experience except for https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=187 !

I don't see an attitude here yet, but then again I haven't been around long either.

And a well spent .2c it is.
Theres nothing that pisses me off more than people typing in "i no u guyz no dis, LOL". Also, it's highly annoying to see a post with nothing like "Edit: fixed the problem".

People (not referring to anybody in particular) can complain all they want about coders being the bad guys (or vBGals), but I for one get a genuine smile on my face when I can see a thread that goes on like this: "Hello, Im having a problem here. I tried to do x and this error happened: y. I tried searching about but nothing turned up. Got any idea?" which ends up with me WANTING to help this user. I don't ask for $500 through Paypal nor do I want him to kiss my anuses, but I do want more than "I hvae prb. [error message solved in the FAQ .5 inches further up]."

I however got the hacks ported.
You should have evaluated this before upgrading.

Not everyone rips you off Paul, but a significant minority do.

You only have to look at the number of threads about this, or the number of people with comments in their sig about "never pay anyone til they've done the work".

There's clearly a hardcore of dodgy people who are sullying the name of genuine types such as yourself.

I *haven't* upgraded!

I've got a test board running, on which I ran the upgrade and am now gradually trying to get as many hacks as I can ported across, with a *view* to upgrading the live site.

But as yet this is some way off, and only because of silly minor things, like smilies in quick reply. Major stuff like arcades and the like are all done, bar a few minor tweaks I can do myself.

But as yet my live site remains firmly on 3.0.X because I cannot justify the upgrade at present.

I am becoming tempted to leave it until vB4 eventually comes along.

I couldn't agree more.
That and lack of time are the reasons why I don't get involved much lately.
I read through my Hack threads, but I don't answer "This does not work!" for the 10th time when the user just didn't upload the files properly, forget to make settings, etc.

I'll chip in a few cents too :)

I've been running vBulletin for about three years now.
The support on Vb.com is excellent. Bugreports are always attended within a few hours and you'll always get an answer.
It's pretty recent that I wanted to upgrade my board with a few of the hacks that hang around here. I started lurking here about 1,5 years ago and it's just recently that I post a bit more. Help where I can or just be amused by some threads.

As for coders go: there are some that are extremely helpfull, but there are some that never look in one of their hackthreads ever. Mostly that is solved because someone else posts the sollution for a problem. Sometimes it's not and did I have to uninstall an otherwise nice hack, because I couldn't get it running.
There are also some coders who have, as we say in the Netherlands, "long toes". They get agrevated when there are to many complaints. Well it's only human, but to place people on a ingnorelist in stead of finding a sollution is a bit brute, isn't it?

As for people that are asking questions, they realy should read a thread or use the "Search in thread function". To many time I see the question "Does this work on vB 3.5.3". Answer, "Yes it does". Than three posts further on someone else asks "Does this work on 3.5.3?" Shoot! The answer is just above his post, but he clearly didn't make an effort to read the thread before asking. That tips me off, sorry :)

So I think it's something both sides have to work on. I myself think this is an excellent forum with excellent hacks and reasonable support. Just what I could aspect from people who are doing this for a hobby ;)

Seconded, I also never take payment until the work is completed. And then I support the work undertaken for a period of time suitable to the work done. The minimum support time I provide is a week, and that's for a simple minor modification install.

:p I'll never use that expression again

here is something that would pee me off if i was a member for so long and see things get this bad..

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=106154

he has seen it done, but doesnt want to search.. wants it to come to him.. not cool at all .. :(

Lenny

I took it to mean he had seen it done on another site, not necessarily the 'hack' on this site? I dunno,seemed like a pretty innocent exchange...

you have to remember that many clients that bought vBulletin think that this community owe them something because they invested 160$ on the product that make this site lives...

until we charge for the visits on vb.org, we will have such lazy requests, and we will have bored coders that will answer them (with comments like "use the search function"...)

i even got some PM lately from people that come to me in pm just to ask me what i was referring to in a post... shit, why can't they just ask in the follow up of the thread...

i also receive a lot of requests from new users about hacks they want to have on their site... why bother me with that, this is not a freelancer website where you can contact any guy and ask for a job...

sometimes i wonder why the pm system is available for new members...

anyway... this is my rant!

Perhaps some members are more polite to people who PM them with questions ....

Some time back I too thought that this place was becoming more unfriendly, but then later I gave some thought to the fact that since my time here there have been over 75,000 new members. Now I just counted 13 master coders and 43 advanced coders in about 20 pages of the member list before I got bored.

At last check there were 112,131 members, and if we make the assumption that there are 100 'experienced' coders here, the numbers show that (112,131 members - 100 'experienced' coders) / 100 'experienced' coders => 1 'experienced' coder for every 1,120 members.

Even if we assume that, of the 365 pages currently in the member list, there are (13 + 43) = 56 'experienced' coders every 20 pages, that'd be a total of 1,022 'experienced' coders so (112,131 members - 1,022 'experienced' coders) / 1,022 'experienced' coders => 1 'experienced' coder for every 108 members.

Caveat: 'experienced' coder is based on 'master coder' or 'advanced coder' title alone, so please don't feel offended if you are experienced but have a different user title.

While it's not an excuse to be rude, the point is that this site is growing, and in the time it took to compose this message, there have been 15 new members.

maybe, but when you state in your signature that you don't code anymore, and you continue to receive unique requests in PM... not funny...

when you state in your releases that you are available for questions in PM, no trouble, this is correct... but new members that send you 2 or 3 pm just to say they are not happy with your attitude because they want you to code for them, i think it's enough for some guys to be really annoyed by new members that know nothing of the rules of life.

lol.. you think too slowly, or you are sleeping on your keyboard calorie.. lol

i think that if this site becomes a Support Forum for any kind of vBulletin related codes/requests, the site needs a solid technical team... there is actually none... moderators for forums are not tech guys... a forum like "ask the tech" is not built, so people ask anybody about anykind of questions...

new edit:the problem i also that on vbulletin.com, when a client ask for a modification of the forum, he is redirected here right away... this is illogical... vbulletin.com is the first line of service, and they offer none if you want to edit even a single line...

there is no Frontline Support Forum here, nobody paid by Jelsoft to answer all requests redirected from vb.com... this is a major lack in the Public communications... people think that when they come here, they will have all the support and codes they need because the company said that...

this need to be fixed... even if the vb.org guys think that's not the goal of this site.

There is a flip side to this though. One could argue that if a hack is released as "un-supported" right from the start and then quite a few bugs are quickly found with no fixes coming forward from the author becuase he advertised from the start it's un-supported.

Why should that hack remain on the site? Should it not be removed as a problem hack with no support at all. To avoid members installing it and causing problems with there site, only to find there has been no help and support with that hack right from the very word go. And when they try and get help from others they get a door slammed in there face saying things like: "Read the title - It says Un-Supported".

I would have thought the main aim of vB.org is quality, not quantity.

From my point of view, while I understand that people have real lives out there that take up there time. If a person knows when he releases a hack he simply doesn't have the time to add at least "some support" to it. I think he should think twice about even releasing it until he can at least add some limited support to it. As 99 times out of 100. Bugs are found in most hacks sooner or later.

on the longer threads where people ask a question no page 75 i dont expect a response... i wouldnt type a response either.

i would assume we are all admins and we sortof know how vbulletin works. u can always do a 'search this thread' and find the answer to your problem instead of waiting for someone to cut the fruit into little squares and put it in your mouth.

[/search nazi]

p.s. i know squat about 'coding' yet i always find my answers by searching, and yes i do have unanswered hack requests, but then again if everyone here is on my level which i assume they are, working 40+ hours a week then its hard to get to do stuff on the side for total strangers. just my 2 cents.

I think the majority of that blame falls on the part of the buyer that failed to do their research before sending money. If members would do some research on the prospective person they want to hire it would eliminate 99% of the problems. Mind you there will still be the occasional person with great reputation that scams someone, but in most cases it comes down to poor judgement calls. Would you give a complete stranger $10,000 up front to let's say redo your roof ? Of course not. It defies common logic to do so. If anything you give a much smaller deposit, and then you give the final percentage when the job is finished. I guess I just don't get how people fail to understand that the same logic applies to online dealings ?