You know, while i find it funny that you're laughing at XF, being disappointed with VBulletin's progress shouldn't be equal to saying XF has better developers because they aren't :0) but whatever. You're going to stick with what you like until you find out the hard truth a year later.

As of now Xenforo hasn't released any or better feature than VB that is worth noticing or saying that they are unique or better. There is a difference between praising someone who is really skillful in web developing and and someone who just knows how to code (XF) like others.

At the end of the day, we know Kier and Mike use to work for VB for 9 years, so any disappointments you had with VB for the past 9 years, better blame it on them, after all you said they were better.

Hilarious. https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2015/08/1.gif

I don't see any problem with XF's backend at all. In any way. Other than if you've had your head buried in vB's backend for 5+ years. But that would be true of ANY software. Once your eyes become accustomed to something, you sorta expect it to always be that way. But if you take a step back and get out of your head about it for a moment, you'll find XF's backend is probably the way it should be. Simplified, and with a search function. The search function is what puts it over the top. I see a lot of people saying it doesn't have a lot of features. This is true. But a lot of things I initially though it didn't have were layered within subcategories in the ACP. I just had to get out of my head about where I thought I was supposed to look for them. Once you do that, it's pretty darned intuitive.

You're going to find things you like about software one way or the other. Visiting each other's forum boards, or simply going back and forth about how wrong each other person is for disagreeing with you is fruitless, and you ultimately miss a greater point. XF is the best thing to happen to us as admins right now. Because competition breeds excellence. When a product is essentially the only game in town, than it has no real incentive to get better. And even when they do try to improve things, it's from a very insulated position. Competition creates an environment where each other's mistakes and each other's triumphs cause the other to rethink, improve and expand upon things in a way their insular way of thinking may have never directed them. And the people who end up benefiting are the consumers.

But you'll never get to enjoy or appreciate that if you're caught up in an "us vs them" mentality. You'll magnify "their" faults. Conflate "our" triumphs. And, basically, miss out on opportunities to direct genuine, constructive feedback to developers of the script you're partial to. Factor that lack of feedback and the generally off-putting nature of these types of discussions towards new consumers, and this kind of back and forth is more of a detriment to the product you like, then it is helpful.

It doesn't matter which developers are better. It matters which systems were built better at the time they were started. Since vBulletin 5 is basically vBulletin 4, which is basically vBulletin 3 (as far as baggage goes), XenForo is miles ahead. Until either system is largely rewritten, this will remain true.

XenForo is still a few years behind what I consider modern PHP development... composer for dependencies, a full unit test suite, business tests, proper dependency injection (that isn't a registry), etc. But, it's workable.

vBulletin feels closer to 5-10 years behind. Thousands of silently discarded errors, because you know, that means less defects in the system. :rolleyes:

However, this gap is hard to fill until consumers either become more comfortable with modern tooling (git, SSH, etc.), or it becomes as easy as Wordpress (one-click installs for everything, composer packages behind the scenes). That is probably a ways off still, so it won't be for a few more years until we see it mainstream.

Or, you know, everyone can continue to do their own thing and maintain their massive gap in modern development. I sure love editing plugins in a database, through 8 layers of abstraction, all while being unable to track what I'm changing. It's still the early 2000s.

</rant>

Katie, I would love to enter a reasoned debate with you, but your boardering on the realms of fantasy with what you write.

You also seem to have some weird belief that: quality code = features.

And I suggest you look into the vbulletin history a bit more.

Yes Mike and Kier worked at vb for 9 years. In that time they wrote the most successful forum software in the world. Vbulletin 3.

It was only however in the final 2 years of their employment that vb was purchased by internet brands, and thats when things started going down hill, for reasons well documented. So who do I blame? Internet brands.

I'm just wondering, have you moved your site to vBulletin 5 yet? If not, why not?

I've tested XF and didn't like it, it is really that simple. Two years later, i might look at it again and see where they are at, but i doubt they would make that much of a difference for staff who censor topics discussing future features or closing topics. I found XF messy to track options or settings and a bit simple yet cluttered in the same time when it comes to the admin cp. I found XF doing that XF wants to do not what customers wishes to see, so their conservative mentality of saying they know better what customers wants was really disturbing, that was in Kier's interview. As the product stands out, XF is inferior to VB and now others are not talking about the product but speaking about the developers, seriously.

I never moved my site to vb 5.x because as of now vb 4.x is perfect for me and my users, while vb 5.x needs another year or so to shape up better. Just like i never moved to vb 4.x when it came out, i only moved from vb 3.7.6 to vb 4.x just last year when i felt that it is completely stable now and i won't face issues. I am not someone who rushes and try to test out products, i usually give it a good 2 years or so to see everyone's feedback.

While I want to use VB 5.x for a new project, i can't right now, and my option is looking at Discourse forum but a year or two later, i will see where vb 5.x is at.

If anything XenForo listen to their customers and implement changes / suggestions quicker than any other forum software going.

When a HYS goes up, useful feedback is usually rapidly implemented.

Just look at the resource manager, from first HYS > customer feedback > release was phenominal.

Or the new smily management system. Same thing, first HYS > customer feedback > a new HYS a week later with a lot of the feedback implemented.

Well may be your experience was different than mine. Will just let the days prove it, a year from now to see which product progresses better. I am personally happy with my Vb 4.x, my users love it and are used to its features and I would love to see major changes to Vb 5.x or 6.x so i am sticking with Vb.

I am also not fond of XF renewal policy

The resource manager and enhanced search aren't needed by everyone. The resource manager is more for product downloads and such. I use it, but none of my clients do.

Anyway, personally I like the renewal model. There's less of an outlay for the base software and if you add it up over time, it's about 4 years before XF roughly equals the cost of vB.

Now if you add in mods, I'd place vB and XF on equal footing. Many, many vB mods are premium mods to get all of the features. Granted there are more 'crippled/lite' and free mods for vB, but so far as premium mods go, IMHO XF and vB are about equal.

From my personal standpoint. When I release an add-on for XF it's either going to be free or premium. There will be no 'crippled/lite' mods released.

What about the inferior search function ? Why would they charge for a superior search function when they can include it in their core product, after all, they want to sell a good product, right ? I think anyone who stumble upon the XF search addon/plugin, will say "Why am I buying a search addon that should be part of the core function of XF? Are they giving me a product with a weak search function ?"

Now regarding what you said about addons being on equal footing and the price being the same, that is not true but that is your opinion. I see XF as a starting company applying bad policies and we know that, in order for them to generate more revenue. No one wants to be forced to renew for higher price or lose what he or she already purchased if he or she wants to reduce the renewal price.

XF is allowing coders to sell their addons directly on their site. But that doesn't make their product better, in fact it makes it look inferior because look at their pre-sales forum. You have a new customer curious about XF and he or she asks normally this "I use such and such features on VB, does XF has the same functions?" Most of the answers that appear "Yes, you can do this with addons, there are these addons you buy and these addons you can request for and yes we have these as well" So as a new customer, he or she looks and find himself or herself having to deal with tons of addons just to meet VB default functions + some of vb free mods/addons. You think he or she will switch ? Most probably not.

https://tools.digitalpoint.com/cookie-search

Scroll down to

Commercial Forum Platforms
relative marketshare
Invision: 12.3 %
XenForo: 21.8 %
vBulletin: 65.9 %
XenForo21.77%

Commercial Forum Software Migrations
detected migrations
vB to XF: 74.0 %
IPB to XF: 11.0 %
XF to IPB: 7.0 %
XF to vB: 5.0 %
vB to IPB: 3.0 %


Seems like most "probably do".

Reading this below, i would say this source isn't reliable at all.

Also there is a difference between small forums migrating to try something new and between big communities actually migrating, as far as i am aware, many of the big communities in the anime, manga and video games niche, hasn't migrated to XF and still uses Vbulletin.

That is simply because paid mods can be listed on xenforo.com and can't be listed on vbulletin.org unless there is a free version.

As a result users don't get the benefit of a free version on xenforo.

I think what you mean is they helped, more people that those two were involved.

So just happens that the digitalpoint cookie spider, just happened by chance to spider a lot of vb sites that were going to convert to xenforo regardless? :rolleyes:

As for your specific niches, I think you need to look harder. When you have companies like IGN, curse, sony, EA etc converting and using XenForo, people take notice ;)

Are we now going to throw false facts just to make XF looks better? Really? :0) IGN does use XF but the others, doesn't use XF

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/categories/list.page EA
http://community.us.playstation.com/ Sony PlayStation

and so on. The way i see it and that is probably the truth, is that a bunch of coders who left VB are the ones constantly supporting XF and promoting it while downgrading VB, it also helps with their plugins sales over on XF but other than that, if you went to many regular customers, i doubt that they would enjoy XF more over VB, many are still using VB 4.x and waiting for 5.x to become stable and better. It just no matter how you guys turn it around, things aren't going to change all of a sudden. You can't change XF statistics --> Members: 52,209

What will be entertaining is when VB 5.x becomes better a year later and many will start upgrading, i know for a fact that those who left and code for XF will come back. Only days will prove it.

Unless you have invented time travel, you cannot know that for a fact, since you are refrring to events in the future. :erm:

Many times, I've said things that were true in the future :d will just let time tell Paul. Right. Unless Vb 5.x doesn't improve a year later and that would be a different story.. but considering that Vb is a product that wants to sell good, improvements will come.

Call it being optimistic may be.

Edit: Found XF official video channel , i guess they don't like youtube http://vimeo.com/xenforo

So far as I know Sony has converted all of their game community forums. Any forum starting with forums.station.sony.com is running XF.

IE: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php or https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php

I don't know if any stragglers are still running vB.

Hopefully you are right, but so far the vBulletin marketshare bleed hasn't even started to slow down.

In the "big vendor" commercial forum market space (vBulletin, Invision and XenForo), vBulletin is still the leader by a good amount. But at the same time, they have lost 10% of the entire industry in the last 6 months.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/03/15.png

I doubt even Blackberry lost 20% of the entire cell phone industry marketshare in their worst year.

Either way, I'm still hoping vBulletin does something amazing and is able to reverse the trend.

Like I said, you need to look harder. Someone else already posted the Sony links.

But seems pointless to continue this discussion, you seem so blinded by your hatred of XenForo, you only see what you want to see :)

You do realize the naivety of this statement right. Software that is released for use (i.e. not beta) should be stable and run without problems, not necessarily bug free since that's impossible. To say that you aren't upgrading to vb5 for 2+ years from release says a ton about the quality of the software, especially when you are saying the main reason you aren't moving is because it isn't yet good enough a year after release.

Again what does it say about the software if it took 4 years from release before you thought it was stable enough for you to use on a live site.

Could you imagine if say some software was release in 2014 but it wasn't usable until 2018? How many people are going to buy the product? How many of the people that do buy the product are going to hang around and buy the next version that gets released afterwards? How many are going to hang around for a third version after the second one is the same way? That's not a reasonable way to run a business since you have no income stream, or at least minimal income stream, for four years after a release.

You really summuarize vb5 by saying I can't use it now because it isn't good enough, but I'll hope it'll better in a year or two. No software can survive if that is the opinion of the people who are suppose to be using it, and you're a strong supporter of the software who's willing to stick around. Most people aren't going to stick around for 2-3 years after release (we're already 1 year past release now) to see if the software actually becomes usable, they're going to find alternatives.

What I find interesting is that instead of the main (and disputably the only relevant) focus be about releasing a quality, usable product in vB 5.1.0 --- It seems the focus was squarely aimed at the vBCloud option.

I too hope vBulletin will do something amazing. That hope is slowly fading though, as we continually see IB's inept handling of the vBulletin script!

Couldn't have said this better.
I personally find it interestingly mind-boggling that someone would so blindly hang their hat on a software (vB 5) that may get better or may become production usable in a year or two, the whole criticizing the most prominent figures who helped create what arguably is the best series vBulletin: 3.x

Nice post.
If DP's cookie chart is a true representation of what's really going on -- and I have no reason to disbelieve its validity -- vBulletin's market share has taken a huge 10% dive in only the last 6 months. These are disastrous numbers for a script that has been considered THE ABSOLUTE BEST since it's inception... until IB took over and bombarded the world with the vBulletin 4 Gold flop.

To answer your questions above:

1. Certainly I can imagine.
2. Nobody.

J.

Don't put words in my mouth, i never said I hated XF, in fact you will see my answer below : ) I am going to do what i see best for myself and my users, not what you guys wants to hear to praise a particular product that is yet in development and inferior.

To answer both of you, i am someone who waits for a product to shape up better for my needs, these answers are flawed. The same reason why i didn't jump right away and bought Xenforo but the difference between VB and XF is that the XF community and their staff didn't like someone who is active on their community and critic their product yet that person didn't buy their product, they would rather get rid of that person. And the reason i didn't buy XF was because XF was not ready for me to use and needed 2 years in development.

When i said this over there, no body liked my comment and you will receive comments like "Why are you posting here then?" or "Why are you still active if you aren't buying the product?" and from XF staff point of view, their actions were "These threads are meant for customers feedback only, if you are a customer, add your license to your account, thread locked"

VB 4.x is ready for my needs.
Neither XF or VB 5.x is ready for my needs and both needs 1 - 2 years to shape up.

I joined XF on Sep 20, 2012 and never bought the product but i was active on XF. They didn't like seeing members who join and not buy their software because they think it not ready. XF is not ready for me and that is why i never bought it.

Anyone determined to find another person or group inferior can always find whole lists of grounds that demonstrate inferiority because we are all inferior to the ideals of humanness we have erected. ... Marilyn French

That didn't make any sense. We're talking about a product here. Just wow.

It's obvious no one is going to change anyone's opinions in this thread so no one should be trying to. Let people speak their peace and move on. There is no point in engaging in debate here.

I don't think thats true at all.

I believe you were originally warned or placed into moderation over this thread: http://xenforo.com/community/threads...xenforo.64602/ If I recall you kept re-posting it after it was locked, and then posted something up about the staff, both of which are against the rules (though looks like theyve deleted all those extra threads), so you only had yourself to blame for that.

You then only noticed recently as evident from your recent posts here and kicked off about it. You posted snippets from a ticket with the staff, but i'm pretty sure you only showed the ticket replies that backed up your arguements, for the staff to go from having you in moderation to deciding to ban your account, you must have done or said something to antagonise and provoke the situation.

Maybe post the whole ticket up? So we can see what really happened and not just your choice clippings.

Anyway what am I getting at. I don't think any of your arguements are valid, they're just what you want to post to try and rubbish XenForo due to them banning you for your own fault.

We have no interest in why someone may have been restricted or banned from other sites.
It is not our concern, nor could we verify the truth or change the result - do not continue down that route, the posts will be removed and if it persists, further action taken.

You know, I do like how you love to twist stories and make stuff up while changing the topic about XF as a product. As much as how Brogan, a XF staff saying lies to justify XF as a product when i never bought the product in the first place. But seriously, if you know better, some of VB moderators here knows about that story which is totally irrelevant to XF.

You don't have any rights to post nonsense filled with lies just to please XF as a product.

You can't change my mind nor my opinion about XF, I already said I joined XF on Sep 20, 2012 and never bought the product.

Move on.

The search add-on is supported Sphinx compatibility, the same type of add-on for Sphinx that is available for vBulletin and others with the difference being that the XF add-on is being supported as an official product. The stock search function can't really be considered "inferior" when it is the same type of stock search functionality as vB3/vB4 & others.

When buying vB4, did you question why you were being given a product with a weak search function? After all, as you know, vB4's own search needs a little help sometimes as well...

Yes, that is for VB 4.x but we know VB 5.x uses now Sphinx search, Vbulletin learned what would be best to use for search results and they've integrated Sphinx into VB 5.x moving forward.

On the other hands, XF is selling a product with a weak search built into its core and if you want the product to perform better, you have to buy a search addon that should have been part of the core function of XF not a plugin in the first place. That tells you a lot actually, that the XF developers think that by spending an x amount of time developing a proper function, they had the right to separate it from the main software and sell it as a plugin. I would never encourage this scheme.

I would encourage seeing new and complex solid features being sold as an addon like a "Gallery" for instance but not something that should be part of the core software.

This is like how Xbox 1 said we will start applying a new policy for those who bought used games, they would have to pay a certain fee to play those used games. Guess who won later E3 ? Playstation 4. That is how the market is, customers doesn't like it when they are being taken advantage of. They look for what is best and cost effective.

The point is valid though is it not? I think Katie is so blinded by rage at being banned from XenForo she can't see the product for what it is, despite her own critisisms and claims countering her own arguements!

Well, actually I have every right to post my opinion, as you seem to constantly remind others you are allowed to post yours.

But I know what I saw when you posted those threads and the fallout from Digitalpoint. I still assert my possition that you were banned from XenForo through your own actions, and now the only reaction to being banned you have is to try and rubbish the product, so none of your arguements carry any weight.

So, yes, you did question why vB4 had an "inferior" search function then?

In regards to XF, what it tells me is that the developers were realistic in that most forum installs aren't likely to even have Sphinx installed on the server and by separating the Sphinx add-on coding it allows for a leaner core at a lower price point while also offering an option for those customers who might need. You're right, that does tell us a lot.

Utilizing Sphinx on the backend, doesn't automatically make it work well. Sphinx is just a technology they can choose to use.

The only reason I point that out is I'm curious if you have ever tried to actually FIND something you were looking for on vbulletin.com? :)

Example... search for "digitalpoint" there, under vB4 there were over 1,000 results (which I know are still in posts there). Under vB4/Sphinx it shows 43 results.

Even Google sees exponentially more posts, and it doesn't even have access to things like License Customer Feedback areas.

Google shows 1,130 results for me:
https://encrypted.google.com/search?...m+digitalpoint

Long story short is that Sphinx doesn't necessarily make search good, and search under Sphinx on vbulletin.com is flat out terrible.

It doesn't translate that way. Read my previous reply.

VB 4.x didn't have Sphinx Search as part of its core search function
VB 5.x did have Sphinx Search as part of its core function without charging customers for it.

XF does have an enhanced Search Function i.e., using http://www.elasticsearch.org/ they aren't using Sphinx by the way. And so they are charging customers an additional $50 for it when it should be part of the core product. Not to mention being forced to pay for a higher renewal price and if you don't want to keep paying a higher renewal price, you have to actually get rid of the addon you already paid for, so losing the $50 you originally paid. Very very bad policy for money making.

If you had the choice between buying a product with a superior search function without needing to pay an additional $$ for it and a product with an inferior search function and you would need to pay an additional $$ for a better search, which one will you choose? Be honest with yourself.

Remember buying a VB license, grants you access to VB 3.x, 4.x, and 5.x so you have multiple choices and options.

The de-facto Mysql search is the standard search used in thousands of php applications worldwide. To say its weak is like going into a store and buying a new pet dog, then complaning when they want to sell you a brush to groom the dog because you think the brush should have come with the dog.

And the price point for vB5 is what again compared to XF core & prior versions?

I would buy the product that works. As you yourself said, that is not vB5, so buying a vB5 license to get access to vB4 would still require an add-on, whether free or paid, to the level of Sphinx searching that you're looking for.

vBulletin 5 - $249.00

XenForo - $140
XenForo Search Addon - $50
Total - $190

Yea id go with XenForo, its $60 cheaper :D:D:D