Suggestions: How to bring vBulletin.org back to what it was before...

[TECK]

Originally Posted by Princeton

They are not trying to sell you the same jeans from the 70's ... it may look the same but the product and the message is different...

Excellent point Princeton. That's what we have to do also, apply the old vB.org traditions to a new product, being used by new users

Originally Posted by Princeton

Can you provide us with a detailed list on how vb.org changed?

Since the site growed gradually, there were no taken mesures to increase the staff and improve their hacker skills.
The staff remained small while the site growed exponentially, into a different direction.
No decissions were taken to help the Staff with the vB.org coding, Stefan (Xenon) was the only one who hammerd the hole vBulletin.org site, doing hours and hours of upgrade code.
Did someone offered him help from Staff? It's a question not an agressive remark.

Before, the vB.org administration used to ask the users if they want for example the forums displayed in a different way or if they want any extra features.
The new decissions were without involving the hacker community. vB.org exists because of the hackers. No hacks, no visitors, is that simple.
You outline the hackers, they will leave and your community loses.

In the old time we did not have private forums, for hackers.
What if I'm a newbie and I want to learn? Why would you outside me from the speciffic discussions?
As a matter of fact, we used to encourage newbies to learn so our hacker community grows stronger.

In the past, the personal vendetas between users were not allowed.
Now, anyone can say anything about anybody, especially newbies.
If you are a "coder", you "have the right" to threat a newbie as idiot with remarks like:
How clearer do you want me to say it? Can you read this line: (Quote from the hack)...
Why not be kind and professional, encouraging him/her that he did a great job but he missed a certain line in the help file?
The "hero" attitude does not help in a community.
This phenomenon happened because the Staff let it go, instead of being in control, like in the old days.
You will tell me that the forums growed a lot. Well that's why we hire more mods. I don't see any lose of control at vBulletin.com site.

I cannot think of other reasons for now... but they will come to my mind and I will post them here, promise.
I'm not here to degrade people, especially you, Princeton.
I was simply highlighting the facts. You cannot improve a community if their Staff does not participate activelly into it. Like vB.org staff used to be, in the "golden days".
But I simply try to reflect the the lack of interest/responsability that patrons as we speak at vBulletin.org site.

All the best,

Floren

[MJM]

Unfortunately turmoil, agitation, anxieties and loss of sleep are a natural process in the evolution of making changes.
We just have to hope that we make it through the other side and still retain our dignity and reasons for making change happen.
My wife and I work as a team when it comes to installing mods and doing upgrades, and I can tell you that dealing with software applications is one of the most difficult challenges of retaining our marital bliss.
I suppose the fact that we have made it this far has made our relationship even stronger, which is what I also hope for with this site.

All the best,
Mark

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by TECK

So far you are the only one feeling like that. I don't feel like living in the past, but I do want to see at vB.org the same atmosphere like 4 years ago. That's not called living in the past, but applying something that was working for the community.
An example for "people living in the past"... How do you explain those TV commercials that pass now on and they look like the 70's commercials?
I guess the producers are living in the past also...

First, how can you explain that people are not happy with the shape vB.org is taking?
vB.org changed a lot, that's the reason many good people left. And many people complain because the actual changes.
In short, there is no support like it was before and the forums are a mess not the mention the people's attitude.
There will be a ton more of users complaining if they would be registered and active users since 2001-2002.
Second, you cannot know the golden vB.org years because you were not here to post and and interact with hackers activelly, even if it shows into your registration date.
You started being active at vB.org when VB3 came out. Visiting only to download a hack and post one reply/week is not called active.
As a matter of fact, you consider yourself active with 1.16 posts/day?
And you are part of the support Team? What kind of support you offer to people with 1.16 posts/ day? I'll let you be the judge...

So telling people to stop living in the past is a little insulting, don't you think?

Personally i would not have used the sentence "Stop Living in the past..". It is not up to me to tell you in what time you should live.

I however do share the thought behind it.

In my view:
- vB.org did hardly change in the last couple of years.
- vB.org Community however did change a lot.

In the past vB.org Community consisted for a big part of people who where either a Coder or someone who wanted/needed to learn coding at some level. The active part of the community where communicating because they shared the same interest, or where forced to be interested if they wanted to run their boards how they wanted. This gave a common topic to talk about.

Nowadays Coders or people interested in coding are by far in the minority. Also a big number of the non-coding part of the memberbase has become more interested in receiving help/answers/solutions that don't require much effort from their side. All they want is a simple and direct answer to any question they ask. Also because they mostly don't talk the "same language" as coders anymore, you will get more and more misunderstandings or failures to communicate with each other. I think coders still want to communicate, and even want to help out people who don't know much about coding, but if 99% of the posts are not "interesting" to read/answer, their input will often be reduced over time, simply because they don't have the feeling they belong in this conversation. Or simply because there are nowadays so many posts each day, that they get overwhelmed, and stick to only reading/replying to those topics they find interesting.

In my personal view we can never go back to how it once was, simply because the memberbase has changed to much.

PS I am generalizing in the above. Where i write Coder, you could also read Designer or any other member that is helping out the community for example by answering questions.

[Cyburbia]

I really don't like the new forum layout/hierarchy, where the mods and mod requests are buried.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Oops i almost forgot to add my conclusion to my story above:

vB.org has too long not changed, simply because it once was running fine. We now have to do some "overdue maintenance" in how we run this site. That must be done, and it is ok to look back at our history, and try to take all the good parts from it. However it is in my opinion not possible to simply say let's turn back time, because then we had so much more fun, with such a changed memberbase.

[MJM]

I mostly certainly agree that since the advent of plugins/add-ons that you will get many more know-nothings looking-for-a-quicky members (like me :blush frequenting this site.

[joeychgo]

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

In the past vB.org Community consisted for a big part of people who where either a Coder or someone who wanted/needed to learn coding at some level. The active part of the community where communicating because they shared the same interest, or where forced to be interested if they wanted to run their boards how they wanted. This gave a common topic to talk about.

I agree.

And I for one and glad I was around back then. Because it forced me to learn a bit of coding. Im no coder, but I can install a hack and follow instructions. I have some basic knowledge. This is all thanks to vb.org and how it used to be.

[TECK]

Let's keep this in mind:
Without the hackers, there is no vB.org community, period.
Now, what will vB.org Staff do to keep them here happy and posting?

If nobody is interested in the actual coding, but only into easy plugins installs, where is the fun for hackers to interact with the hack users?
Most of users would not understand what the hacker did because they don't even touch the piece of code, just a few clicks and it's all done... The drive to learn code was gone from vB.org site, even for basic elements only.
The result? No more hacks published, member tensions, lack of presence.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by TECK

Let's keep this in mind:
Without the hackers, there is no vB.org community, period.
Now, what will vB.org Staff do to keep them here happy and posting?

If nobody is interested in the actual coding, but only into easy plugins installs, where is the fun for hackers to interact with the hack users?
Most of users would not understand what the hacker did because they don't even touch the piece of code, just a few clicks and it's all done... The drive to learn code was gone from vB.org site, even for basic elements only.
The result? No more hacks published, member tensions, lack of presence.

We are trying to make changes that will benefit everyone in this community, so that all will feel part of the community. Not just for Coders or any other group here on vb.org.

If we can do that, then the fun will also come back, hopefully for all groups.

[Gio~Logist]

Originally Posted by TECK

Let's keep this in mind:
Without the hackers, there is no vB.org community, period.
Now, what will vB.org Staff do to keep them here happy and posting?

If nobody is interested in the actual coding, but only into easy plugins installs, where is the fun for hackers to interact with the hack users?
Most of users would not understand what the hacker did because they don't even touch the piece of code, just a few clicks and it's all done... The drive to learn code was gone from vB.org site, even for basic elements only.
The result? No more hacks published, member tensions, lack of presence.

Which is probably why you liked it better back in the 2.3.x days when people had to go through literally 50 steps for a store hack or an average of 10 steps for others. However, things change and the user interface is a lot better and it's now easier for them. In the end, we are the coders and they're the users. They don't care what code is behind it. Even if they did, they can always resort to the plugin itself.

I highly doubt that releasing hacks again with 10-50 steps for an installation will help in any way to change vb.org's atmosphere to a positive one.