Proposal: The vBulletin.org Commercial Services and Addons Directory.

[Wayne Luke]

Over time, websites evolve to serve their members. Lately there has been a lot of heated discussion about commercial hacks and addons for vBulletin and this site. Currently they are not allowed in the forums but a good portion of the membership would like to see them here according to recent polls. What I would like to propose is an equitable solution that hopefully addresses the major issues.

Several solutions have been proposed from new sites, commercial forums, advertising on different pages and a directory. After discussion with the Jelsoft Staff, we have decided that a Directory is probably the best course of action. This satisfies two things. First, the forums on this site will be reserved for free and colloborative development. Second, the directory will be self-contained within vBulletin.org and use its permission system as well as the vBulletin Licensing system. This means we can deny complete access to non-licensed members and those advertisers would be known vBulletin users.

The Directory will allow people to advertise their commercial add-ons and hacks to the tens of thousands of vBulletin customers. It will give those same customers a centralized location to find these resources. In addition, links can be purchased by style designers, webmasters, and other service providers so people can have easy access to the resources they need for the best community sites on the Internet.

This will be a main section of the site and any customer will be able to participate. The links will be purchased for a moderate fee but that has not been determined yet. The directory will be moderated by myself and vBulletin.org staff and there will be guidelines for submission. I also want to institute ways for people to get links in the directory through community involvement on this site. Things that would allow this would be free of charge addon releases and template/style modifications released.

This however is not going to be implemented roughshod over the community. We want your feedback. We want to make a solution that everyone can live with and support as part of the community. In order to do that, I want to hear your concerns and comments. For that purpose I open this up for townhall discussion. In this discussion, you will be able to address the proposal directly according to the following rules:

Proposal Discussion Rules:

1. You may post one reply to address the proposal. If I update the proposal or post within the thread, then the count starts over.
2. You may not address other community members at this time. Keep it on topic and directed to the proposal.
3. Any multiple posts will be deleted.
4. You are to remain civil at all times.
5. There will be no deviation from these rules.

Let me hear your comments.. Make sure they are thought out and clear, you only get one chance at this. This thread will remain open until January 1st, 2006. That gives you about 3 weeks to make your comments.