2 years ago? Try 6.

I can not tell you when people started leaving as I really did not start
paying attention until 3.8 went to 4.0 then i noticed a big change, and
lots of 4.0 coding complaints, still do. I could find a 3.8 coder/designer
just about at anyturn, now it is hard to find a coder for 4.0, and if you
do, then they are really expensive, and in the end...the code isnt the
same, the design just is not as cool as it was for 3.8...and I bet you
a number of people left around that time frame also...if VB lost support,
then this would have been the time to have lost the great number
of vb fans, and I could see people just moving on at this time...
design for v4.x just isnt cool for the most part...

Are you hitting <enter>
because you're worried
about falling off the edge
of the monitor?


;)

I'm moderately sure I've said this a few times in the past so I am repeating myself but Its always good to remind people how things work.

vBulletin.org, like all communities goes though cycles, there are ups and downs, new people in and old people out.

There have always been shifts in coders here, coders leaving vB.org (or vBulletin even) for their own reasons. Some of these reasons were dislike of jelsoft policy, or vB.org policy. But everytime someone leaves, one or two new people showup to start their own work.

My only gripe is with how people leave, not why. If you want to leave for whatever reason, you shouldn't punish the users who have supported you by removing your addons. It only hurts them.

The reason for the decline as a whole in vBulletin.org is a gimmie gimmie attitude many users today have. Users today demand, instead of ask. Instead of trying they expect everything to be done for them when it comes to modifications. In the past it was a two way system. The users today outnumber the coders by a long shot. vBulletin.org used to be about coders, getting together, talking about and dicussing modifications. How they could do x y and z, etc. In the years after the plugin system, this drasticly changed. Users no longer had to get dirty with php code. They could upload a file and be done. The forced learning was gone. Now anyone who could download a file could use an addon. Before the plugin system, you had to at least be willing to look, read, copy, and paste and follow the instructions to the last letter. Other addon authors would use others addons, find problems and report them (high querys, bad practices, etc).

As great as the plugin system and everything that came with it is, its also hurt the community as a whole.

Sorry for the rant.

I am glad to see that it is not only me who noticed the gimmie gimmie attitude many users have.

Just out of curiosity, when was the plugin system introduced in vb?

3.5

to the OP, I just answered your question about the facebook buttons ;)

No apology needed, much of what you ranted about I agree with. Todays members are vastly different to when I joined, and I know youve been here a few years longer.

I agree 100% with Zachery. Good assessment. It's just not the same as it once was.

The plugin system changed a lot. Good and Bad... ;)

I personally think the plugin system is better than sex! ;)

It does make everything a lot easier to code things for, but it also has made us lazy in some ways. More good than bad, though.

Thanks :)

Its great from an administrator standpoint, its horrible for the community at large.

When I started modding vBulletin in 02, I had to know how to do the following:
Edit html
Edit vBulletin php files
Debug my own html/php if I fubared an edit.
Run SQL queries.
Keep backups of my files/dbs before I started editing incase things went south.

If I knew how to use the tracker on vbulletin.com I would put in the suggestion the plugin and hooks system be dropped for the betterment of the modding community.

That was fine when there were fewer mods, but it made upgrading a royal pain. The one mod that makes full use of the products/plugins is probably the best mod that was ever written. You'd be surprised how many people still don't know about the Advanced Product Management mod. Everything is all in one place. That should be vb default as it would make getting around things a lot easier for the average user.
That will never happen. Everyone seems to be going in the plugin direction now.

I honestly believe there were more addons in the vB2 days due to less features. Sure upgrades weren't easy but it FORCED you to learn and understand what you were doing.

I must disagree. I well remember the days of having to edit files manually to accomplish the littlest thing. But this didn't teach me PHP or anything else.

When I heard vbulletin had a nice plugin system in place, I switched to it. True, that leaves vb.org with a lot of members like myself that can't code their way out of a paper bag. But I'm not sure that's such a terrible thing. I mean, what's wrong with a user base that's willing to spend money for the features they want?

Thats not the core idea behind this website. In the past even if it didnt teach you PHP, you were willing to TRY and get your hands dirty. The important point here is try. There were still lots of users who didnt learn php, I am more or less one of them. I did learn basics, how to troubleshoot errors, repair my mysql tables, run queries.

The plugin system is amazing, in almost every way for administrators and sites. Its bad for vbulletin.org though.

Given the total lack of hooks being added to new code these days, you may get your wish sooner than you think.

Favorite Hack:
Plug-in System / Hooks

Been in my profile since vb 3.5, and still is :)

I must agree with Zachery's point and also say that the decline of coders lies in the fact that most essential functions are already present in the default vBulletin product. This means that usually only specialized add-ons can be released and that not everyone is able to make use of that. This applies to the paid section as well. Before there used to be loads of request for a reasonable amount of money involved, which was beneficial for both sides. Now you rarely find such offers and it mostly consist of either very large projects (for which I don't usually have time) or smaller projects which are not worth the money that is offered. It's a shame but the plugin system really made people believe that coding is extremely simple and easy, so naturally, the actual price of your work went down as well. So coders leaving after this, is not really that surprising when you cannot make a living out of it.

I don't blame the plugin system at all, I love it, I blame today's society, thinking that the consumer can get everything for nothing nowdays.

Not all of us that code are out to make a buck. If that is how you want to look at the org, then so be it. I think of the org a like a high school, where you go to learn before you make it out into the world.

Sorry, guess that came out like that :) .No I don't look at vb.org that way, after all, I learned my first steps here as well :). All I wanted to say is that it's pretty hard to be fully active in coding while managing everything in real life, so being paid for it time to time, makes it more worth the while.

I made up my mind a long time ago that if I ever coded anything for money, it would be too much like as regular job and then it wouldn't be fun anymore. Don't get me wrong, a donation here and there is a nice way for the masses to show their appreciation. I have yet to see that from anyone here as I think we have spoiled them with freebies for way too long. That is also part of the reason that some of the coders from the past have left, there was no appreciation from users, only expectations, and sometimes, out-right demands.

Well yes, that was pretty much what I was trying to say. I don't agree with the first part though, I usually only apply for projects that actually seem like something I would be interested in doing, which in the end is kind of fun because you actually get appreciated for doing it :)

Anytime money enters the coding equation here on the org, it is usually a preclude to trouble. Getting paid != appreciation, by the way.

I didn't necessarily mean getting paid but that you know that someone will actually benefit out of it.

Then we should keep money out of it and just got for the appreciation, right?

I've only been around a year or so, so I guess I probably don't understand what changes happened from the non-plugin version to the plugin system. Because it kind of seems to me like it shouldn't make that much difference - I think you still have to understand something about the code around the hook locations to do anything other than a few trivial things. When I try to figure out how to do something, I look at the code then look for hooks in the right places. To me it actually makes it harder than if you were to just insert code wherever you needed. Of course it makes it much easier to apply the mods and to upgrade, but that's not the same as making it easier to figure out how to code mods.

Oh come on, now you're just turning everything I say against me :p.

My current situation is that I do not have enough time during studying to code for free, so I usually only do paid jobs. It wasn't like that before and I hope to get back to doing new mods after graduation. But I guess I started a bit different topic here...

I too have seen many times members coming here and get down right rude to coders because they can't get whatever mod they downloaded to work the way they want & more or less demand that the coder make it the way they want...I think I would mark my mods Not Supported just for this reason.
Without this site & the coders that create the addons for vbulletin.....vbulletin would be ugly & empty.
Many people here need to realize this site is a gift.
I am not a coder, never went to school for any type of coding..hell, I didn't even know how to turn on a computer before 04'. I learned from this site & learn everyday. I do appreciate every coder here for the hard work they do for this community.
There is not enough money to cover the time each of you have spent creating add on's for vbulletin...:up: :up:

Sorry I should've made it more clear. I wasn't saying Chen left because of IB.

He left before it, but when he left it was really the turning point of many great coders slowly moving on too.

Agreed.. those days were some of the best for vBorg

--------------- Added [DATE]1298947401[/DATE] at [TIME]1298947401[/TIME] ---------------

Couldn't agree more.

I am personally a bit sicken when I see people stating "here is my cool mod, if you want more updates buy the pro version".

Personally, I think users should NOT be allowed to promote their products. I understand there is costs involved, but as a student myself. I do a lot of stuff JUST to learn or for others to learn or heck even for fun. As a student you don't get paid to do much of the work anyways...

So I agree it's more of a high school area, where your learning and sharing with others.

This thread is straying all over the place for no really good reason. The OP's point ("i posted a thread a week ago. i posted another thread almost 2 days ago, replied to 10 or more and couldn't even get a single reply to any questions or inquiries in any of my posts.") is often asked in different ways, but the answers are usually the same:

1. I didn't respond because I didn't know the answer.
2. RTFM.
3. I've seen that question asked and answered so many times I'm sick of seeing it; learn to search before you ask.

All the philosophy about plugins and forums and past members won't change those answers. And these days most of us won't dare to use answers 2 or 3 for fear our response will be misinterpreted as hostile.

I know when I'm searching I find unanswered questions from 2006, 2008, and recently- so some questions have always gone unanswered over the years- not new.

What's happened?

IMO plain and simple... many need to learn the definition of the word TACT, in the second sense - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tact

:cool:

That is caused by conditioning from the past years. It seems people get lazier the more time they spend here.


And probably for very good reasons.


I do agree that tact is a fine line that seems to get crossed now and then. You have 2 main types of coders here: those that remember when they were first learning to code, and those who can't remember a time they couldn't code.

Very well said and I couldn't agree more!

Whats happened;

1.) Facebook and twitter has captured a lot of the micro-blogging (status update/tweets etc.) market and grown it in a different direction. Forums remain strong but more so in niche areas and are probably going through a bit of an identity crisis. Certainly in my opinion vB4 isn't quite sure right now whether its a forum, a blog, a cms, a profile/microblog, a social network or a mobile app. Because these were all internet trends at various times and vbulletin incorporated them (usually about a year down the line). But the end result works in a way that doesn't always unify each of them very well. It's a problem for all forum software not just vB.

2.) Web users have over the past 10 years slowly transitioned away from enthusiasts towards casual consumers and continue to do so. Not every casual consumer wants to spend hours participating in a forum helping to build up its content. If the content isn't already there they F-off somewhere else till they find what they want. This makes getting a forum off the ground quite a challenging enviornment these days. Gone are the days of "make the site and they will come".

3.) Some coders who used to work on websites and plugins have since transitioned to more profitable and/or developing areas like apps. vBulletin is a complex platform that doesn't immiediately make sense even to seasoned coders and the loss of some of the experienced hands has made the transition harder than it might otherwise have been.

4.) As vbulletin has grown and branched out lots of people have used it in different ways. It puts jelsoft in a position where moving forward in a decisive direction is very hard, because its bound to upset someones vision of what a forum should be.

Its more then just difficult, its almost close to impossible getting a forum off the
ground if you are in a niche that is already saturated. My forum has been up for at
least 6+ months, and I have spent a ton of money on advertising, article marketing,
paid posters, vb, vbseo, other paid mods....and when i look back, the only posts
that I really have are from the paid posters and that is about it....then I ask myself,
well, why would they want to come to my forum when they can go to forums that
have 1million+ posts...hell I would...so I am really in a catch 22....

then I have to ask
myself is this really worth it...for money? hell no...one of the first members that I did get
,maybe about 2 months ago, he has been the only regular member to my forum, until
the other day he starts insulting me, and telling me that my forum will never go anywhere...
ok, I think this dude is one of charlie sheen friends, maybe he is on drugs/crack/cola....
and I am pretty sure he only comes to my forum because he knows that I may buy some
of his themes/coding/graphics, etc...its funny how people will come around when you are
buying, but when the money dries up, opps, "I gotta be someplace else now...."

nobody really contributes anything to the forum. They have no problems creating self-serving
posts with 5 links within a very short post, then they complain when I remove them....
its like "Why are you removing my spam dude...."

What was I thinking....

And that is why I set up my forum to what I want to see, without having to worry about what anyone else says about it. Once you start relying on it for an income, then the game changes and you have to start answering to others. Like most jobs, they aren't nearly as fun or rewarding as a hobby you enjoy participating in.