What's going wrong with vBulletin and vB.org?
 

Hello,

Maybe in my profile appears that I'm register user since Jul 2011, but the true is that I'm active user here since early of 2003, much older from most members. So I believe that deserve to write my thoughs and speculations about the future of vBulletin (as Software) and vB.org as top site for vB addons.

Today is Saturday, a day that most users have day off, so I was expecting to find the community here to be active. What I seen instead? A photo is worth of 1,000 words, so check the attached screenshoots.

Forums that a couple of years ago had ~2 posts per minute, not need hours and maybe days to have something new. So, is the vB sales droped or just users don't spent so much time as the golden days?

Maybe you'll ask "Why you care for it?". The answer is simpe as 1-2-3. I've invest years (~7) for coding addons for vB. This is a real investment, and as all investors I want to have a clear sight on what I'm investing. Ok, I know that I can bring back the years that I already spent, but infront there is a new vB version. Is it worth of value to spend my time learning a totally new way in programming addons, or not? Does vBulletin (company) will focus only to this new version, or, once more, they will add a competitor in the field, keeping 3 versions active? Because, what I know now is, that the worst competitor of vB4 is ...vB3. Strange but true.

Any honor comment (or advice) is highly recommented. And something that I left for the end, as I want to be 100% clear with all. Even if I wrote it somewhere else here, I'm reposting it, to work as an additional proof. Forget about Mary (aka MicroHellas). There is no such coder (but still exists as real person). For my own reasons I had to use someone's else the name for doing business. And of cource the best choice was my daughter's mother, even if she is ex-wife and not current.

PS- I decided to start this convertation afrer reading somewhere (most probably was a blog post) a post from Cole Lawrence that the CMS version of vB5 will be delayed as there are only a few clients using it. So, I had to wait 4 years to know that CMS (like Project Tools) where down on sales?? And what about vBulletin5 as Forum software. Is it a growing product or going down to the earth (I'm talking for vBulletin 5 Connect)?

Chris

I totally agree with you. I come here regularly to check what is up and sometimes to get some needed information. It makes me a bit sad that there is less and less threads, especially the useful ones with some new ideas or the code extending vbulletin functionality. Not to mention there are almost no new mayor modifications especially for vB 3.8. There is so much things that could be still done but yet this place reminds more and more a dead desert.
I think the part of fault is by vbulletin themselves, they make the future of this great software uncertain. Many users switch to other solutions with better support, more bright future views more social networking options or free/cheaper solutions. I don't blame them but it's sad because I think vbulletin especially 3.5-3.8 series are the best forum software you may get there. So why the hell it's dying. I too invested a lot in it, since last 4 years I've been playing with it day after day, developing my idea (still not ready, but I'm very close to finish) which after careful research I based on vbulletin. Why? Because vbulletin was best, most extensible, most reliable, most scalable software out there. Unfortunately, I'm not very good coder and I can't code everything myself. I believe they could still reactivate it if they wanted. It just a matter of hiring a few talented coders, going back to what was almost perfect, rewriting what is necessary and extending the whole thing. Just my thoughts...

Can only speak from me, it's long time ago I had a wow factor when seeing a new add-on.
Additional a lot of coders are not very steady in the long run.
Reason might be the time to spend for it and the low income for the add-ons if they are paid.
Examples like thegeek (personal issues), morgan (personal issues?), Brian from vbadvanced has gotten very quiet since some times (guess he has to do another job to earn money because he can't live only from coding) .
Forumsmods I bought an add-on from, a great coder too but I don't know what's going on with him.
And, sorry to say that Chris, some of your products were really great too and you could earn a lot more money if you would offer a contiguous support for your products.
I can't remember how many names and different websites you've had over the years and how many products you offered on vb.org and removed again after a short time because of impulsive reactions.
Don't take it as an offense Chris, at all I like you and I think you're a nice guy.
What I want to say, it's really hard to find long time supported add-ons and trustworthy coders, be it free or paid.
My last experience with a coder I hired from here for a gars port to vB4 (500$ offered and payed 50$ in advance) was a fail because he still couldn't deliver after 4 months so I canceled the work.
And not to say, most of my questions I asked on vb.org get low responses or keep unanswered at all.
vB5 doesn't look like a big success, could be one more reason for the situation here.
That's it from my viewpoint, sadly it's long time ago when I really enjoyed this place or vb.com but time has changed.

Guys, what you have to understand is that vb5 is a live beta, it's constantly evloving as those brave enough to use it in production report bugs, wants or wishes, vb5 was always touted as more a social software akin to facebook or other social networking sites.

Those that buy teh vb5 license get vb4 and can use that in production while beta testing vb5, it's a long way off being ready for use in the real world, so if everyone took that on board then great!, we're helping shape the product for our future. On the other hand it looks like another IB shot in the foot asking folk to pay to beta test and report bugs. It depends on how you see it, i for one wouldn't buy a product that isn't fit for it's intended purpose.

I think vb3 (i'm biased of course ;)) is the best in the series and still has loads of scope, developing facelifts and functionality for vb3 should have been the way to go - lets face it, you can pretty much code anything to look like something else, the money would have still rolled in as it's a sound stable product with great flexibility.

Check it out for yourselves, there's lots of vb4 licences for sale on the net but not one vb3!

@Ramsesx
--------------
First of all, just for the history, The Geek and Morgan are the same person, the Calorie who was Moderator here.
As for your comments. For sure you didn't offended me in anyway. Nothing can offend me when it said face to face, following with explanation. I do agree with you. Totally I agree. The only problem is that for everything that you said (which I accept as real), there is an underlying reason, that in most cases has nothing to do with my personality.

For example about moving in-out my mods from vb.org. Even if I do admit that vb.org is a superior site, the way that is working is not frinedly for coders. For example instead to give a thread to coder for supporting a mod, they must give a Bug Tracker's thread. It will reduce the amount of double posts.

Another frustating situation for coders (much be more for designers). So many changes in the core files (vB). I'm ready to give time for adding features to my mods, but why to waste so often my time to change something that working before? I've 2 PHP Scripts, 3 Facebook applications and 2 WHMCS modules. I never had to change the code other than adding features.
In any case, is a long story.

Finally about my sites :) Sure there is a reason for it too, but offcourse not easily understandable from endusers. I always had a problem. A site per product, ... a site per platform, ...or one site at all? Don't forget that I've scripts in 5 platfors: PC Applications, PHP Scripts, vBulletin Addons, WHMCS Modules, and last .. Facebook applications. And if you add to these 5 that I'm testing on coding addons for xenForo and IPB, you'll understand how difficult is to decide. What to do... Coding is my passion... I've i total around 50 applications. If I had the money, I should operate a site per platform. But.... :)

@Simon Lloyd :)
-----------------
Yes, vB5 Connect is in Beta. But comparing it with vB4 betas, I can say for sure that vB5 is much more stable than vB4. Actually, if I had a valid license (now I'm working with the Alpha Tester's version), I had to put it in live site.
The question is... how many will move on?.... That's the problem :)

Chris

Hi Chris, you are absolutely right it is indeed a very important point I have forgotten to mention, the many code changes during the vB4 release cycle. And the bad, it looks like vB5 will continue this way or makes it even more worse for a developer.
Regarding The Geek and morgan/calorie, they are different persons.
The Geek is male and morgan/calorie is female, she took over his add-ons from www.thevbgeek.com because he had to concentrate on his main (non coding) job.
But again to the question "What's going wrong with vBulletin and vB.org?", I think there are two main reasons responsible for the bad situation: vBulletin is no more the No. 1 community solution and the community spirit is gone.
As an example you can see it in this thread, the participation is near zero.
Try the same over on xenforo and you see the difference.

I do agree, and in my opinion 4 are the main reasons:

1. Sometimes I act like crazy, but they're kms ahead me:). I never adopt a stable product (vB3), to build something that just looks like a forum (vB4).
2. As you said, more players in the field
3. vBulletin became a Share in Silicon Valley. Grow the price and sell it. If the author is not present, then anything else is just Business.
4. FACEBOOK. Bad but true. Have got a big part of the field.

As for vB5. Soon I'll see people who bought it to install ...vB3 :(

The problem is people are losing faith in vBulletin even more than ever. People are worried if vBulletin 5 will be released unfinished and rushed just like vB4. Im really crossing my fingers that they complete the stylevars 100% when it goes gold because if they don't, it will be exactly like last time where us designers had to rework so much of our skins with every update. The first year of vB4 for a absolute nightmare, the amount of changes they did to the stylevars system was crazy.

vBulletin 4 has not even had a update since May, thats a long time for no updates for software that has many many bugs, I asked about it today on the forum and was told that they are waiting for the mobile coding to be completed which sounds all good until you research their forum and find out they been saying the same thing for the past 4 months :/

Some of us aren't commenting in this thread because we see this same type of thread pop-up every six months and we get tired of posting our same comments. :)

I think that there are some differencies here:

1. For sure there is no way to have a similar thread before 6 months as vB5 has just a couple of months live.
2. The said question is not about if (or not) investing $250 to buy a license something that I'll do even for curiously, but if I'll invest my time to learn the new coding style of vB5. And as everybody who is in this field of business, is logic to know if there is market or not. To make it simplier. Having in mind my experiance from vB4 beta release when a lot of users upgraded even from first minutes, I like to know if the same happens with vB5. Because if I count only to vB5 forums, then is better to kick off any plans for spending my time.
3. I've at least 20 addons (the most populars) to move to vB5 in case that I'll decide to do it. Sure I'm one the "Big Supporter", but for sure will bring some more interest to other members to upgrade.

Edit:
PS 1: I don't think that Ramsesx was meant participation in the discussion from moderations, but rather from regular members
PS 2: Talking for vB5 Forums I mean the low amount of downloads in all addons. If for example there only 20 who downloaded a free addon, means that there is 0 potential client for commercial addons.


With full respect
Chris

First, I find on my own forums weekends are the slower days. My traffic is highest on Tuesdays through Thursdays and lowest on Sunday... So I am not sure Saturday is the high traffic day here, either.

As for people expecting to see new mods for 3.x, I hate to break it to you but you are on a sinking ship. (I too have a 3.8 forum mind you) but 3.x is very old. Only 3.8.7 even works on PHP 5.3 and it's only a matter of time before PHP 5.4 becomes the standard effectively ending the use of VB 3.x on shared hosting which is the vast majority of sites.

I LOVE my VB 3.8 forum, I do but this is not new nor unexpected. Even a year ago as I was releasing identical mods for VB 3.8 and 4.x at the same time as a coder I would see my 3.x mods get 1 or 2 downloads in the same time period the same mod for 4.x easily had 10 or more downloads. Looking at my own profile my 4.x mods have 3 to 4 times as many installs as the same 3.x mod, and those are ones released a year+ ago. The issue is even more dramatic for those more recent mods.

If I didn't have a 3,x forum of my own I personally wouldn't even bother making 3.x versions anymore- they only complicate upgrades and support. Even for one I am currently working on I strongly considered skipping the 3.x version.

3.x was great software, but the truth is 4.2.0 does everything 3.x did and more. You know in 3.x for every single "pip" of reputation on an entire page there is a separate template being called? In 4.2.0 it's all done in 1 existing template per post.

I see a lot of activity picking up on VB5 on vBulletin.com. More than I expected to be honest- and we're not even recommend people use VB5 on live sites yet. VB5 is going to be a virtual clean slate from add-on and modification perspective- old code won't work. New customers, new to VB, are going to vbulletin.com with modification questions. As they become more familiar with vBulletin and the code of VB5 stabilizes I think we'll see both increased traffic and questions here on vbulletin.org.

The vast majority of VB3 forums and a lot of VB4 forums are "mature" forums these days. Their Admins have them setup and working as they like them- they don't go looking for new modifications or changes like they used to. When I started my 3.x forum I'd come here and go through all the mods, get ideas, make additions, etc... But after several years I like where I am and I still love this site but I'm just not looking for new mods anymore.

My 2 cents.

How serious of a problem is this and how long do you think, before it does become a serious problem?

If you're not running 3.8.7 I think it's already an issue. You can't just assume all hosts have PHP 5.2.x available anymore. The "work around" is a cheap VPS where you can run any version of PHP you like but not everyone who Admins vBulletin wants to or is able to setup a VPS.

I think there's probably only another year or so before we see PHP 5.3 starting to get dropped as options from shared hosts. PHP 5.4 is out now and PHP 5.5 is currently in Beta.

The reality is you can't expect to be running your 3.x forum in 2 or 3 years unless you are in control of the software running on your server.

PHP 5.4 and beyond will bring performance enhancements that hosts will want to support.


The above is my OPINION only.

Also edit- When I say "you" and "your" I mean any VB 3.x customer, not talking about any specific setup- I don't have any idea how "your" forum is setup or running.

I have a 3.8... You're saying a time will come soon where the PHP version isn't used, and we will have to upgrade to version 4?

Please keep the thread clean from offtopic posts. Compatibility between vB3x and PHP has nothing to do with thrad's topic. You can start a seperate thread for it.

Thank you
Chris

Yes, when you are on a shared host.

Im on a dedicated box so no worries there :)

Apologies ChrisTERiS, and to get back on topic....

I often see people say things aren't like they used to be... Not only here- but everywhere in life. In high school teacher's would say we weren't like the students a few years earlier used to be. In college the professors said the same thing. Even Alumni from my fraternity would say things aren't like they used to be (2 or 3 years earlier before they graduated.) When I got my first real job and I'd talk to people who have been there for years they'd tell me how things weren't like they used to be just a few years earlier. When I was in the hospital, nurses and hospital staff would tell me things in the hospital weren't like they used to be... When I was moved to rehab, the nurses there said the rehab wasn't like it used to be... And when I started with vBulletin the more senior coders used to tell me about how it used to be.

It's like my entire life I'm 2 or 3 years behind "what used to be" and had I been born a couple years earlier I would have been living some sort of dream life hitting everything at their "highs" instead of being just a few years too late to see how great they used to be.

The fact is though... No matter when or where you find yourself it is likely you will always find people saying it's not like it used to be- because the fact is- they are right- things change, there are no constants- Whatever vBulletin.org is like today I can only promise next year it will be different. Whether you consider it better or worse will be up to you but it will never be like it used to be. That is an unattainable dream.

I no longer worry about how it used to be... and I take what I hear about the "old" days with a grain of salt.

I need just a couple of hours to modify vB3's core files to work with the new PHP version. Not only me but the mayority of PHP coders can do it.

Chris

Ziiiiiiiiiiing *Shocker*

lol

My 2 cents you ask? Your over thinking things, Christeris quit being "nosey" per say and just code something I mean seriously we have threads like this still? These threads continually going up every six months is actually bad for community morale because before this post I'm sure many new members were quite happy here yet now you've managed to sew a seed of corruption in them (play on words).

Also quick heads up for those who are not reading - vBulletin 5 is in Beta, don't judge a company based on a product that's not even complete yet and still has plenty of room for improvement. If you would spend time helping submit ideas, bugs, and more... me? What am I doing? Yeap you guessed it personal issues however that only slammed my workload not made it barren like a wasteland.

Chin up, heads high and wait for vB5 Gold before you skin it alive ;).

The issue is the 95% of users who aren't coders...

I think that all (maybe first of all me including) came out off topic. Maybe my bad English don't help me alot to move my thoughts to text. So let's try with a simple example, even if many users will not like it.
Example: When vB4 came out for a very long time (years I can say), vBulletin were continuing releasing new version of vB3 with new features and not just with bugs fixes as is the most common in software (any type of software including PC applications).
This brought a strange situations. vB3 users didn't moved to vB4 because they were getting 90% of the new features. For me, this was I***t (I added the asterics on my own).
As I'm seeing now, vB does not follows this route (something that I encourage). As long as vB5 came in life, anything new must be on this version. Didn't seen any update for vB4.
So, is this the new status? If yes, then me (and most coders I believe) will move to vB5. Simple because all vB4 users we will wish to move on. But if vB keeps updating vB4 with the new features, then will make a cicle. Endless..

Hope that the example was more clear (I want to believe).

Chris

--------------- Added [DATE]1354476556[/DATE] at [TIME]1354476556[/TIME] ---------------

As long as a product has officially reached its EOL and there is no official sales and official support, everybody has the right to release FOR FREE such patches.

It has been officially announced and confirmed VB4 will see further development. 4.2.1 will be released and even a 4.3 is planned. Also confirmed 4.x will get an update to make it PHP 5.4 compatible.

As for releasing your own patches, that can be done at anytime so long as you don't distribute already copyrighted code- the reality is it is unlikely anyone will and using such patches would nullify any official support someone had.

I'm not so sure about that... EOL or not vBulletin 2 sites who have copyright shown are still abiding by the license agreement to this day. I would check on that before simply doing so WHEN it's EOL ;).

There is no need to release anything. Some instrcutions are enought. Anybody can makes a global search and replace. Only 3 words are needing change. One of them is ENGINE instead of TYPE and some very simple changes in mysql libary.

I would hope you would release a xml Mod that automatically does this for those of us who really aren't coders and who really, really don't want to lose their 3.8.X vBulletin installation.

I'd be happy with you just releasing the words that need changing, i already knew about ENGINE, it's just the others :)

TYPE and ENGINE are changes to MySQL not PHP.

It is my understanding issues with PHP 5.4 have to do mainly with character sets and string functions, but honestly I didn't look too heavily into the issue.

Me, perosnally.

vBulletin has made it harder and harder for us coders/designers to make things new without making us spend wayyy to many hours on simple stuff.

I am pretty much giving up on vBulletin myself -- I shouldn't have to redo my skin every .0.1 upgrade and shouldn't take 20 hours to make a simple widget that pulls universal data (skinning the widget I mean)


TL:DR -- vBulletin is making it harder and harder and the pro's and easier/easier to do stupid stuff for the noobies with 0 code experience

It was just an example. By the way. I wish you fast recovery Joe. Somewhere I read that you're hospitalization.

Chris

--------------- Added [DATE]1354515432[/DATE] at [TIME]1354515432[/TIME] ---------------

Not exactly a XML file, and for sure not original vb core files. But I can release a batch processing file (.bat files runing in DOS window), or (if I've time for it) a simple window application which will automatically makes all needing changes.

Chris

Facebook is a large organization. yet their shares have fallen badly. They thought they knew better than their customers,

Money-gram is a large organization but they are paying out many millions of dollars in penalties. They would not listen to their customers.

Ib is a large company but things are not going to plan. The reports on V5 are woeful. They did not put their customers first.

What went wrong? Simple, they all forgot the business rules as below.

A Customer is the most important person ever in this organization. in person or by email. - Listen.

A Customer is not dependent on us—we are dependent on him. -Listen.

A Customer is not an interruption of our work—he is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him—he is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so.- Listen.

A Customer is not an outsider to our business—he is part of it.- Listen.

A Customer is not a cold statistic—he is a flesh-and-blood human being with feelings and emotions like your own, and with biases and prejudices. -Listen.

A Customer is not someone to argue or match wits with. Nobody ever won an argument with a customer.-Listen.

A Customer is a person who brings us his wants. It is our job to handle them profitably to him and to ourselves.- Listen.

As long as the customer has the mental ability to understand the range of his rights. Where they start and where they end....

Yes, IB is a very large company, however, vBulletin is only a small part of it.

Just for laughs I checked how many unread posts I had pending since last visit about 24 hours ago, and it was 247. I'm on many other forums, and none of those had that many in the same time period.

Can't judge from that how active vB dot org really is, but compared to the other big boards in the same time period, it was more active than those.

A bit off topic, but I saw this and just wanted to note..

The host I work for, rather large and most of you may know who it is, is removing PHP 4 completely and making PHP 5.3 default. PHP 5.2 will be available along with PHP 5.4. Won't be much longer now and PHP 5.3 will be standard for most hosts.

I agree, I dont know why people are saying its going down, we have no true analytics to judge from except the whos online at the bottom of the site. Maybe that day was a light one.

I see over 700 online now and agree with you, its pretty busy.

On average, between 1500 & 2000 members login to vb.org daily.

That figure has actually shot up to over 2500 in the last two weeks, but thats partly due to spam accounts I think.

If you increase the "Show online time" to double, you'll double at once your online users. So never trust the currently online users to ANY site. Finally, I was talking for activity and not for online users. I compared the amount of new threads or the amount of posts. Not very long time ago, it was almost impossible to see in the forumhome "Last post: Yesterday". Now if very often and many forums, ever worst, have dates instead of Today/Yesterday.

Chris
PS- As for me, as thread' starter, I got the reply that I wanted, so any Mod can close the thread if he wish to. It was clear to me that in Forum software field there are no only 3 players (vB, IPB, xF), but 5 (vB3, vB4, vB5, IPB, xF). So I choose the vB4. I'll not support as coder vB5 Connect.

I would love to see someone update vBulletin 3 to work with php 5.4 and MySQL 5.5

.... May even be willing to fund such an adventure upon completion.

Keep an eye at http://www.vb3fans.com during weekend.

Chris