[leah_zero]

Howdy folks, great ideas in this thread you've got going here, it's an enjoyable read. I would like to add my two cents as a long-time vB user and hack enthusiast (that is, I love to add hacks to my forum, but couldn't write them myself to save the world)...

The thing that puts me off the most about vB.org is something that's already been mentioned: the fairly ubiquitous absence of peer review on hacks. I have often come here searching for a particular sort of hack, found several versions by different authors, read entirely through their support threads...and ended up leaving empty-handed, because beyond the author's initial posts and some patches to the hack, the only feedback I could find was people saying "Doesn't work" or "Great hack." Praise is great, it seems to be one of the few rewards of the difficult task of making hacks, but when praise is doled out too liberally and unaccompanied by constructive criticism, or when criticism is the generic "Doesn't work" sort, both become meaningless. I often find myself reduced to searching for a hack author's own forum and, if I can find it, registering a throwaway account just to see if a hack he/she has released actually works as promised. It's clutter for their database, clutter for my inbox and memory, and altogether too much trouble to go through to test out every hack that looks promising. It's quite disappointing to dig up some wonderful-looking hack, only to find no feedback on it but "It doesn't work" or "It works for me." What does that actually tell anyone?

Here's what I think. Hack authors put blood, sweat and tears into their creations. As hack users, we owe it to them to give something back: constructive criticism and feedback. I've decided that from now on (and retroactively, if I can find some specific old hacks), for every hack I install, I'm going to comment in its support thread whether or not it works for me after a reasonable effort at installation, what version of vB I'm using it on, any problems I ran into with installation or usage, and so on. Whenever I upgrade to a new version of vB, or just periodically, I intend to comment in those threads on whether or not the hack still works, and just to let the author know that I still appreciate the extra functionality they've let me add to my forum.

I don't think this is something you could specifically code into vB.org, but rather an attitude I hope to see espoused by vB.org members in the future. What simpler way to separate the wheat from the chaff in hack releases than genuine user feedback? vB.org already has features in place to record whether or not you've installed a hack...why not check back in every few weeks or months and show some support (or voice your concerns) on the hacks that make this great forum software even better?

I hope I've not offended anyone. In the end, I will no doubt continue to derive usefulness from vB.org no matter what you do (besides go offline, that is), but I did feel moved to throw in my opinion on the state of things around here.

Thanks for reading.

Humbly,
Leah