Just because things are said to be changing, doesn't mean that people still shouldn't tell it like it is.

A little late to this party, not a veteran admin or coder, but I have quite a bit of experience in e-commerce and webmastering. I hope those credentials pass muster.

It's too bad this thread devolved for the most part into OT joking around. This is a very important thread for vB.com, vB.org and licenced users.

I'll agree. I found some of the coders who offer a modification and abandon support really disheartening. The fact that JumpD has jumped (pun intended) sets my upgrade and expansion plans for the summer back significantly. Enough so, that I may look at another software to provide the functionality I need because paying for custom dev will eat up all of my budget.

Was he right to jump? Was he wrong to jump? It's really not my place to say. But it does affect my board because we have become reliant on the functionality one of his mods provided, and our expansion path because we planned to utilize more of his contributions. I can guarantee that if his mods become commercial, I will be paying for them rather than take the hard road of migration and re-education of my members to a new forum system.

vB has an obligation to manage this forum and custom development properly. There is no way I would have purchased vB without the functionality available here, and in fact, the plugin/product system was the largest part of my decision making process. I realize that it is all non-staff contributed code and unsupported by the mother company, yet all the same they do monitor and own this site, and provide it as a *potential* avenue for custom solutions. You can't have it both ways selling a base product and then expecting to in some way control the development of 3rd party add-ons without responsibility for the value, availability or quality of those add-ons.

The worst thing that can happen is problems with staff. My take on this in the brief period that I have been a vB owner is that this site is the refuse bin for the stuff that .COM doesn't want to deal with. They just send you over here rather than release add-ons themselves. The core product is commercial, with an API and yet the developers themselves does not make use of their API in a commercial sense (at this time) besides providing the functionality as a key feature. It smells a little of, "go develop and beta test at vB.org" because we don't want the added hassles of enhancing our own product.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that vB is run or owned by bad people. I just think they have taken a bad business approach to the development of add-ons and the management of the community that has turned into the biggest selling feature of all time.

The good news is that they can address it. The fact that this thread wasn't locked and trashed makes me feel great about their attitude. I used a shopping cart system with both the support and 3rd party development handled through a forum. That the mods and veteran members had to provide all of the code solutions and support wore out a great many of us. Once they banned, ran off many off the great folks who built the board and developed their software that company is now in a freefall hemorraging users to competitive solutions that are less fully featured but maintain a better customer/moderator/supporter rapport.

There should be a lot of staff here. They should feel like they have an open and constructive channel to the mother company. They should be in teams, and there should be room for camarderie amongst them. And some paid staff, who have to be civil, constantly prowling in customer service mode would be a tremendous benefit to the vB business. Even if they are just guiding members towards "how to install a plugin" stickies or addressing redundant request threads by linking to the original discussion.

Take it from someone who did the volunteer thing. Cutting back that workload on the volunteer staff would probably make them more effective. Gee, effective volunteers. What an asset!

Folks should tell it how it is. But being right, is never an excuse to be mean/rude/crass/short/ignorant. I'm not saying you are (barely read many of your posts), just that I saw too much of that early in this thread. Folks more concerned with being right than effecting change. Ego is the enemy of change.

Communication of great ideas is salesmanship and marketing. No positive results come from having a great product (idea) if you can't effectively tell (sell) people about it.

No truer words have ever been spoken.

Excellent post, sir. ;)

Now that quote is telling it how it is. :)

This is the thread that never ends,
Yes it goes on and on my friends,
Some people, starting posting not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue posting forever just because

:banana:

Of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"?

Nope. He is just dancing to the tunes. Don't mind him.

All threads of such nature should end with a dance.

I realize that the staff is probably keeping this thread open as to not look like they don't care about members opinions.... but I think it's run its course...

I think I've had enough of the I think I've had enough thread.....

It has rather served it's purpose now.