[In Omnibus]

Originally Posted by SilverBoy

I'm not agree with you Dave and In Omnibus ..
vB4 not missing anything in terms of being a forum which is exist before 10 years, but it is not meet today web standards and the global mood for new generations of users.

vBulletin 4 was coded using desktop first coding because that was still industry standard ten years ago. So was HTML 4.0 and CSS 2. It wasn't until relatively recently that mobile use exceeded desktop use. When that happened most developers began to code mobile first using the newest industry standards, HTML 5 and CSS 3.

You can find mobile themes for vBulletin 4 but they were usually coded by third party coders who may or may not have elected to charge for them. I know at least three third party designers who made very good vBulletin mobile themes but they are not free, nor should they be free. Designing a theme from scratch takes a good deal of time and effort.

I don't know what you expect from a forum but they don't build themselves no matter which software you use. If your content is quality everything else falls into place. Bells and whistles may get people to look but it won't get anyone to stick around. Even as a designer I can tell you that window dressing is not going to keep people coming back.

Forums are an entirely different niche from social media and it's a mistake to try and compete with social media at the things they do well. You can't compete with Facebook for traffic. It has something like 1.5 billion users. You can't compete with Twitter for simplicity. It allows 280 characters or something like that.

Everyone here has an opinion and I'm sure people will be lining up to disagree with mine but I think the key to success as a forum is to be passionate about what you are doing and to emphasize the benefits of a forum over social media, such as a wealth of focused knowledge and in-depth discussion. You don't get that on social media.