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.