What's Happening To vBulletin.org?

[Wordplay]

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.

so sad, i chose vbulletin for my new project because of the great things possible through vbulletin.org (i used to frequent here in 2005-7) when it was still pretty active. but now i guess i chose wrong. it looks like the majority of coders really did abandon vbulletin. too bad i realized it too late.

where did they all go to?

or is it just that they grew out of it, and no new people seem interested in vbulletin?

[ericgtr]

I have to say that I am too surprised at the lack of participation here lately, granted I lurk most of the time but typically check in once or twice a day to view new mods, etc. New mods have all but stopped being released, with a trickle of what it used to be. Not sure how much vB4 plays a role with this, new features and less mods needed or what but judging by the lack of participation it's probably that fewer people are using vb, it's not just here either I see it happening with a lot of boards. With FB being most people's primary source for social networking it's hard not to see why, I think the days of forums being the staple for internet discussion are behind us. Just my .02

[Jack12]

Yeah, I agree to an extent. Facebook has dealt a blow to many forums on the internet, but at the end of the day it depends who you're catering to and what kind of community you have.

Facebook is a very general thing. You rarely see lengthy discussions on something productive. It's generally full of people updating their statuses and commenting on photos. Not to say that's all too it.

If you ran a general and broad forum then you're in trouble, but if you're in a good niche and can provide a good resource for it then Facebook 'stealing' traffic will be the last thing on your mind.

Anyway, I haven't really seen a lack of activity on this forum, but then I only jumped in on VB4 aswell so I don't know about the good ol' days.

[Alfa1]

Many people are on xenforo or IPB. Plenty of activity there.

[borbole]

In my opinion the problem is not facebook or other forums. The problem is the users themselves who ask for support here. From what I have noticed here during my year as a member at vb.org 85-90% of the questions asked are things which have been asked and answered countless time before and can be found very easily with doing a search. But do they do that, no. What they do is they don''t bother to help themselves and expect others to do the work for them. And when they don''t get any answers they start to moan and complain how bad the support is here etc etc.

But even when they get help, they don''t bother to say a simple Thank you to those who helped them.

It is no wonder than no one feels like heling around anymore.

This is something I have raised before but so far it has fallen in deaf ears.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=241258

[Wordplay]

is it true that xenforo and ipb are so much more active?

@borbole, since you have only been a member for a year i would like to circle out the fact that it would seem impossible for you to relate to how it "used to be".

let me try to make your other points a little more invalid as well.

i have been a member here for years, posted a 4 paid requests in my lifetime. all 3 i posted before 2010, filled up by inbox with more than 10 different coders wishing to take on the project., regardless of how big or small it was the one i posted a week ago got me 1 real coder to offer me his services.

secondly, i did do my search found a lot of threads were people were asking other questions regarding the same topic i had 2 questions on, sadly non asked my question, so instead of hijacking someone elses thread (which i was sure wasn't going to get me any replies considering the inactivity of the board), i started a new thread, 2 never before seen questions, and still no answer.

i'm not placing any blame on the vbulletin.org staff, or anyone else for that matter. i mean if some many migrated away from vbulletin there must be various reasons for that. such as stated before, with facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc, a lot of people no longer have the time to run around forums. luckily i have another solid forum idea i'm sure will take off.

my only disappointment here is that i chose vbulletin for this project rather than look into it's competition first. if it is really doing much better, i'm sure there is a reason for it. if it does have more coders lurking around it's forum, for example, that would be enough reason for me.

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by borbole

From what I have noticed here during my year as a member at vb.org 85-90% of the questions asked are things which have been asked and answered countless time before and can be found very easily with doing a search.

While you are certainly right in the respect that people often show too little effort, it does not help that modification discussions are just 1 thread to handle bug reports, feature requests, questions about tweaking the mod, problems & answers, etc. And some answers reside in the thread that relates to another vb version.
Some threads have thousands of replies and have been read over a million times. This makes it virtually impossible to keep up with all information in a modification thread. Its madness to do that.
So while people should definitely throw in some effort to research, the infrastructure to find things with relative ease is missing.

[vijayninel]

The most active and contributing members of vbulletin.org/com may have accounted for a very tiny portion of of the license holders but they contributed to most of the activity here.

Unfortunately, some of the most brilliant minds of vBulletin.org started leaving 2 years back and this has been continuing ever since. Also the vb community has split and many have changed loyalties sometime back.

Also previously there were many forums and sites dedicated to discussing vbulletin. Many of those are also gone or are in decline now. There were also many sites making skins for vB and most of which too are gone now.

There is nothing much we can do about this except stick around and hope that new members join and start contributing. vB still has a lot of potential in it.

I will try to post more and answer questions in the coming days.

[borbole]

Originally Posted by Wordplay

is it true that xenforo and ipb are so much more active?

@borbole, since you have only been a member for a year i would like to circle out the fact that it would seem impossible for you to relate to how it "used to be".

let me try to make your other points a little more invalid as well.

i have been a member here for years, posted a 4 paid requests in my lifetime. all 3 i posted before 2010, filled up by inbox with more than 10 different coders wishing to take on the project., regardless of how big or small it was the one i posted a week ago got me 1 real coder to offer me his services.

secondly, i did do my search found a lot of threads were people were asking other questions regarding the same topic i had 2 questions on, sadly non asked my question, so instead of hijacking someone elses thread (which i was sure wasn't going to get me any replies considering the inactivity of the board), i started a new thread, 2 never before seen questions, and still no answer.

i'm not placing any blame on the vbulletin.org staff, or anyone else for that matter. i mean if some many migrated away from vbulletin there must be various reasons for that. such as stated before, with facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc, a lot of people no longer have the time to run around forums. luckily i have another solid forum idea i'm sure will take off.

my only disappointment here is that i chose vbulletin for this project rather than look into it's competition first. if it is really doing much better, i'm sure there is a reason for it. if it does have more coders lurking around it's forum, for example, that would be enough reason for me.

You are right that I don''t know how it was here before, but I guess that mybe the other coders and those who provided support put up with the selfishness and the ungratitude that they got in return for their efforst and now they are fed up with it. I will speak for myself, I used to be very active here in way of pruducing mods and giving support. But after a while after I saw that my efforts were not appreciated, I had more than enough of it.

I will give you a few examples. Look at My mod thread here. I extended a mod with an extra feature and placed the download link to my forum, for free. One had to register only to download it. Look at this user''s post demanding that I put the extending version here as well as he couldn''t be bothered to register at my forum.

Please read this post and a few others that follow.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....0&postcount=23

Or at my other mod.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....6&postcount=34

As if it is not enough that they get the mods for free but they have to moan and complain and demand all kind of new features that they like without a single regard to the fact that all the mod authors here do this on their foree time.

Or here, one this user doesn''t bother to respond if the solution I posted for him worked or not.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=257913

But when someone doesn''t get an answer to their support questions and threads for a few minutes they are very quick to yell how bad the support is here and what not.

Maybe other persons who provide support here and create modifications don''t mind that other users don''t appreciate their time and work, or maybe they are used to it or whatever. But not me. Where I come from we are used to be appreciative of others time and efforts that they put in for things that help and benefit us. And it is the same for the other way around.

Originally Posted by Alfa1

While you are certainly right in the respect that people often show too little effort, it does not help that modification discussions are just 1 thread to handle bug reports, feature requests, questions about tweaking the mod, problems & answers, etc. And some answers reside in the thread that relates to another vb version.
Some threads have thousands of replies and have been read over a million times. This makes it virtually impossible to keep up with all information in a modification thread. Its madness to do that.
So while people should definitely throw in some effort to research, the infrastructure to find things with relative ease is missing.

It doesn''t matter how easy or not the information is to find. Most of them just won''t use the search feature. They simply want others to do the work for them.

If you would look at my posting history, you will see that I have never asked a single support question here. And believe me, I had like a zillion questions. But I searched and searched until I found what I needed to know. And the information is there, very easy to find if one really wants to do that and put a little effort.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by ericgtr

New mods have all but stopped being released, with a trickle of what it used to be.

There have been 79 new releases in the last 30 days. I dont think that quite counts as a trickle just yet.

The vb4.x add-ons forum has 1053 mods in it, compared to 1025 for vb3.7, or 1157 for vb 3.8 - so not really much of a difference, esp given that 3.8 has over a years headstart on 4.x.

Most of the stuff released for 3.x is now available for 4.x. The greatest release activity is usually after a vb version change - but due to the way IB do this now, the change from 4.0 to 4.1 didnt require a mass re-release.