This place and VB com have slowed down badly
 

I used to come here and over at vb com to offer what little I know helping. An alterior motive was to get some ideas about what I could do to my forum to make it do something different and unique. But sadly it looks like all the hubbub about some members of the VB staffers leaving has got a lot spooked to come in and ask questions.
I myself am concerned about whether or not VB is really going to make it past the end of the year. It appears that even being partnered with a capitol investment company that the investors are letting IB going on its merry way of self destruction. If I was pumping money in to a company my staff would be sitting on the board of directors and I'd be holding 51% of the stock. My ultimatum would be, Get your stuff together or be sending out your resumes.
It appears to me after working for a company that partnered with an investment firm, that this one didn't do that. That to me signals it took IB as a tax shelter or a blatant write off. Sad...
We don't need all the extra doodads they appear to have in store for users. Cut off the fat. Fix what is wrong. Then dazzle us with a product that works like it should have in the first place. Instead it appears to me the credo of IB has fallen to:

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls**t...

Im confused what the title has to do with the rant, but I think its safe to say vB will still be here at the end of the year, and beyond.

As in less of those posting. I know school is starting up and winter is fast approaching but I've never seen the places get so ghost town.

Loving the comedy of the OP. Well worth my two minutes to read today!

I've heard other people say that forums, in general, are just not busy like they used to be with all the social media sites these days. I honestly can't say I see this place being less busy, but then I've only been really, really active for about the last four years. About every two months or so, someone posts a thread just like this saying the place is not as active as it was 'back then'. Well, OK, fine, who knows.

Look at this positively, maybe more people are learning to code on their own and don't need our help? :)

I try.
As far as perspective goes, I like Lynne's comment that people are learning vb and not needing help as much.

As Lynne says, I think forums in general have slowed a bit since the mid/late 2000's.

Its fair (and accurate) to say vb.org is not as busy as the same period in 2008.

However, we get well over 2,000 people log in every day, 11-13 thousand posts per month, and there were 81 new releases in the last 30 days - so any talk of a demise is just a bit premature I think. :)

I guess it just depends on how you want to define "demise" or decline, or slow moving death, I'm sure myspace saw the same small decline and attributed it to outside factors and didn't really do much to recapture the market.

I'm not privy to the inside details at the .com but 2 changes of ownership, tons of management turn around, more/better competitors in the market, I could see some reason to be concerned with vBulletin as a whole.

As for .org, its always the same, it comes and goes in cycles. The .org will probably far outlive the .com in some way or another.

But like others have said, forums in general are a dying breed any more, they've served their purpose, and are still great in limited topics, but for the most part I'm pretty sure their riding their plateau out now and probably wont be around in another 5-10 years.

Personally if I had anything worth .02 in the forum game, it'd be on the market right now to be gone :D

I don't believe things have "slowed" here.

What *is* becoming a nuisance, (and it's an entirely different issue), is the increasing number of mods released that are basically just adverts for a premium paid version.

I'm not sure what the rules are on this, but we're even starting to get mods marked as "supported", where this actually means you have to go and register on an external site. No support is provided on vbulletin.org. To my mind mind this is not "supported" and if there aren't rules covering this, then the situation needs looking at.

Otherwise vB's modding community will end up like IPB's, where almost everything is paid.