The State of this Forum

[Modshack]

BTW can I just add that when I first came on vb.org I regarded chen as and I aint ashamed to say it "A KID" and my perception of him was wrong from day 1.

If anyone should be TOP HACKER then it should be him and only him as he has turned this place into something worth while and I credit him with all the hard work.

He has gone above and beyond what I would call the JOB and he has impressed a fat bloke like me who is set in my ways on many things.

In short I admit I was wrong about Chen and he has done a kick ass job here and trust me it takes a lot to impress me .

BTW I aint but kissing I am just stating the truth.

[Smellycat]

Well there is no harm i guess in kids making a bit of pocket money is there!

But only if someone asks them to do some direct work to their board.

maybe be a idea to setup a forum for work requests and stop all the signature adverts all together.

Cos I have requested some php work from the forums at times, and really didnt feel there was a good area to put it in, and dont like to bug people with private messages.

Just an idea anyhow.

[Reeve of shinra]

Freddie raises some very valid points....

This community is what we make of it. Its in our own best interest to develop it into something meaningful. A place where we can exchange idea's and assist one other with projects that will in the end benifit us all.

[Sadie Frost]

I know I'm not a big poster here but I thought I'd throw my 11 cents in and give the 'non-hack-writer' perspective.

Completely agree on not selling hacks on here. My personal opinion is, if someone wants a hack and wants to pay someone to write it for them, that's fine but they should conduct that via pm, email or similar. Once you start selling things, people get really petty and the community is lost (imo).

I really think there's a good community here. Yeah, sometimes someone comes on and makes inappropriate comments, but for the most part, the people here are great and very willing to help out each other. I joined another forum for vb and although I highly respect the work of the board founder, the behavior of the members (towards me and also towards each other) just did not make me feel comfortable or like that is even a place I want to spend time at.

Firefly, Freddie and all the staff here are terrific and will help out people like me with their dumb questions (lol) - and though I may feel a little stupid asking things, I never feel like I'm going to be ridiculed or put down for asking it. I always feel comfortable asking questions or trying to help out others if I have a suggestion.

And I completely agree with Reeve that this should be a place for us all to exchange ideas and help each other, rather than people constantly saying "That's mine! or You stole my idea!"

[Steve Machol]

I just wanted to add that I think Chen is doing a great job with vb.org. However he is just one person. A successful forum of this size needs more than one active Moderator.

I try to help the best I can but I'm not a PHP programmer. Obviously this severely limits my usefulness here.

[Overgrow]

<wacky idea>
Install Karma here
</wacky idea>

It would stop the bad attitude from older registered members as they watch their karma get whacked to the red.

It would let you reward good hack writers with a little appreciation and could replace hack count.

Anytime you give special recognition to someone who does something alot (could be posts or releases hacks) then someone will do it alot, shoddily, just to get on the top 10 list. With karma, you don't show any raw numbers and there is no top 10 list.

As one of those who 'sells' his work, why should everything be free? You paid for vBulletin because you saw it was a product that took a lot of work to produce. They can offer it for a very reasonable price because of the volume they sell. If someone has a hack that took 4 weeks to perfect and 4 months to test, this is a free market planet and if they can make a buck for it, great.

I honestly don't hang around the Requests room so perhaps I am missing the point of this argument if people are always replying to requests with bidding wars.. that is not the point.

I release almost every useful feature that I write for vBulletin.. free of charge. It's not always the prettiest code or the simplest install because I write for MY OWN site. I love this community really, but as with everyone else here, our own sites take up a great deal of our time. I don't always have the time or patience to make a nice install file for my hacks... so should I not release them? I will take a look at Chen's masterpiece of vBhacker soon.

I know what you are talking about though with quantity over quality.. I've seen more than a few hacks that were written in a bass-ackwards way or caused far too much dB load when it wasn't necessary.

Despite the attitude, I prefer this place to vB.com and spend at least 10 times longer here each week.

[Freddie Bingham]

I was not implying that you should not be able to sell a hack, just not on this forum. If this site is here to foster vBulletin hacking than capitalism should be be left at the door.

The 'free market planet' does not help this community grow as a hacking resource for vBulletin unless we want that hacking resource to be only open to those that are willing to pay to play. A lot of the 'pay' stuff isn't even worth being paid for to begin with. Perhaps the Karma is, but not much else (of what is being offered for sale).

I also wan't saying you should go crazy with 'nice installs' or psycho like Kier did with all of his hacks. I was talking about the quality of the code and the queries. Personally, I could care less what the install or instructions look like or if it uses 'vbHacker'.

Just my opinion, Firefly is free to do whatever he wishes with this site.

[Overgrow]

Points taken, you are correct.

I guess I differentiate between "hacks" that I write and "software" that I write (karma, gallery, faq, etc) that would not be released for free.

[heretic]

I see a few things. I'm not a hacker, I don't have time with a family and a full time job learning php code.

I don't se much to help with, but if I can sometimes I try. I see people getting bitter when someone requests a specific hack in the requests forum. I see other hackers laughing at less expierenced hackers.

This is because I don't see any real sudden moderation in terms of attitudes. At ubbdev I never saw this problem. I moved to vB in november because of this site and the support of vB. The past few weeks I've been tempted to move back just because the general concensus of non-hackers are scared to ask for anythign because they're scared of getting yelled at.

[Scott MacVicar]

I have been unable to post for the past week due to my stupid cable modem screwing up, though I agree with freddie, too many people are creating half hearted attempts at hacks then just posting them and there is a lack of support for these hacks.

Non-hackers should just simply post in the requests forum asking for a certain hack, but I see more and more people bumping topics just because no one is replied. Maybe hackers should consider posting requests and explaining if they are unreasonable.

Scott