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

[akanevsky]

Originally Posted by Princeton

Stop living in the past ...

• The internet is evolving.
• vBulletin is evolving. eg. it's a lot easier to add new features
• The way people surf the net is evolving.
• There are more programmers and/or newbies.
• There are more vbulletin resources.

Most sites "fall apart" because they do not change. If you cannot keep up with the "evolution" than you might as well give up.

The problem with vb.org is that it really hasn't changed.
Yea, some minor things but nothing concrete.
NOTE: I'm one that's been on this board since the start of vbulletin 2.

So, each time somone says, "back in the old days" ... I cringe.
I mean ... what is that suppose to mean?

I'll bet 5 years from now ... people will be referring to today as "back in the old days".

Signed under every word.

[The Geek]

*** Edited: No personal attacks on members please ***
[edit]I was making fun of myself! Am I not even allowed to call myself names here? [/edit]

Marco was spot on with the fact that the member base changing has had a radical impact on modification releases.

The new plug in system and methodology of coding for easy installing, installing and upgrading has opened the site up to be far more accessible for far more people that were previously scared crap less by the previous style of 'find and replace before/after' hacking.

This is obviously a plus for Jelsoft, but a potential burden for modification authors. Overall, I would say that it is more time consuming designing and executing a large scale modification now then it was before the plug in system. Couple that extra time and work with the additional support as more and more users that don't even have to know what a line of the code means and you can easily get overwhelmed and disenchanted.

Many modifications today are no longer 1 line template changes or even 5 find and replace instructions, but rather very long, complex projects that take a substantial amount of time to create and maintain.

You must stop expecting people to spend all of that time for free. Some people simply do not have it in abundance. Don't get me wrong, most would love to, but personally I would rather purchase a modification that had a reasonable price tag and the right functionality and support rather than not be able to purchase anything because what I was after did not exist!

Whether vb.org is the place for a commercial directory or not is not why I bring this up (however my opinion is that this is the best place) the reason I mention it is because I get a bit irritated seeing people that request time for their money being tarred.

Authors should pay Jelsoft for creating add ons for vBulletin? Ridiculous! I charge for some of my work because of the time and effort I put in creating, maintaining and supporting it. Did I learn everything I know about coding from vB? Hell no, I've been coding for 20 years as a hobby. Has coding for vB helped my php understanding? Crap loads (didn't really do much php before I started tweaking my own board) however thats like saying Adobe should pay Apple and Windows for creating Photoshop as they are invariably using parts of the operating system. Instead, products like Photoshop are a bonus for operating systems. 3rd party products encourage people to buy computer systems. For a designer a Mac is pretty useless without the software to run it on. Heck, to many, programs like Photoshop are far more useless without the amount of 3rd party plug ins available for it. Software houses champion 3rd party developers because they enrich the software for their customers.

Saying to someone they owe 25 hours a week to vBulletin because without vBulletin their modification wouldn't exist is silly. Without the 25 hours per week - the modification wouldn't exist. Without the time the coder has put into developing and supporting their product, it wouldn't exist. Or... perhaps it would only exist for a competing product.

And in closing...

This site can not go back to the 'good ole days' because your member base is primarily users that come here to get the end result (not be part of it). The good ole days is what made that happen. What needs to happen now is to evolve the site for all stake holders. The mods and admins need the space to try to make that happen.

nJoy

[Benj]

i think youve hit the problem on the head with that comment

primarily users that come here to get the end result (not be part of it)

[tgreer]

Define the "end result"? Again, I think that's one-dimensional thinking. If you believe the site's sole purpose is to distribute free hacks, that a plugin you can download is the "end result", then you'll always have three groups: the users, the coders, and people who are neither and leave here disappointed.

If you want to code a plugin to share, nothing here stops you from that.

If you want to download a plugin to use on your site, nothing here stops you from that.

If you want to learn vBulletin, engage in coding discussions with other programmers, to learn to develop your own plugins or just to become more familiar with the software running your site... there is a definitely a barrier to that. Two barriers: that discussion is private/hidden, and threads here aren't managed professionally.

The latter is being addressed. It certainly appears the staff is trying to put policies into place to make the threads more civil and productive. I haven't seen any staff-hijacked threads lately. While there may be growing pains and missteps, I applaud the effort and will patiently give it a chance. The former issue, the hidden Coders Discussion, still needs to be rectified.

[d8tabyte]

I came here as someone with limited coding experience - through installing hacks and reading the posts, I can now navigate the code dang near blind folded. And while I would be hard pressed to code something from scratch - I can modify confidently and understand what is wrong when something happens - That is what VB.org and its coders have given me. Beyond all the enhancements, beyond all the toys - through your experiences you have made me a better admin.

Thats what everyone needs to remember. Sharing these hacks is important to the development of the Vbulletin community. While you will always have the leeches, you also develop a solid core group of users who will always come back and who will support you in any way they can. Some donate, some help in the bug testing that is so important to making quality hacks and some help by adding on to your hacks - which in the end is better for everyone.

I agree that there needs to be better moderation - either develop it so the coders can moderate thier own threads, and have a site moderator monitor them, or continue down the line they are walking now and just let the chips fall as they may.

[TECK]

Originally Posted by The Geek

You must stop expecting people to spend all of that time for free. Some people simply do not have it in abundance. Don't get me wrong, most would love to, but personally I would rather purchase a modification that had a reasonable price tag and the right functionality and support rather than not be able to purchase anything because what I was after did not exist!

Sure, there is nothing wrong to create paying hacks.
Personally, I would not allow them to be advertised at vB.org anywhere, like in the past.
Google is pretty good on catching your pages, so if you do a search for "vBulletin hacks" you should be able to get results.

Originally Posted by The Geek

This site can not go back to the 'good ole days' because your member base is primarily users that come here to get the end result (not be part of it). The good ole days is what made that happen. What needs to happen now is to evolve the site for all stake holders. The mods and admins need the space to try to make that happen.

We are talking about principles that worked in the past and got abandoned (for some obscure reasons) to be resurfaced and adapted to the new users.

You tell us what it needs to happen is to evolve the site.
But you don't tell us what exacly you want to see it happen for vB.org to be a better place for you.
Me to I can say: Hey, I don't like the site... but don't ask me why because I can't tell you.
This is not constructive at all for anyone.

Originally Posted by The Geek

Primarily users that come here to get the end result (not be part of it)

This is a really really really bad optique. Then, I'm not surprised why all good guys resigned recently and all hackers left.
We have paying/non-paying plugins available to sites... I like it simple, no time for my brain to warm it...
Soon, all of you who like the "simple things" will have to pull out all the time your credit cards and pay for the hacks... because they will the only ones who will exist.
You guys push it into this direction, can't you see it?

All the above remarks are ment with respect, no harsh intended to you, TheGeek.

[The Geek]

No harshness taken Teck.

Just out of curiosity, I did the google search you mentioned.
I suck. Out of 400 results, my site doesn't appear at all. vBSEO appears around after about 70 links (same with photopost). My point being that it isn't as easy as you think to find 3rd party modifications. Regardless, an interesting vote already took place regarding the issue of a commercial directory and if I recall correctly, more wanted it than not.

Regardless...

You ask what I want?

1. To win the EuroMillions
2. To see a directory listing with support, functionality and value ratings.
3. To lose about 76 of the 82 forums here
4. To see a professional modification database complete with bug tracker and FAQ/README wikki.
5. To see people cease demands on people giving their time freely
6. To see 3rd party developers treated more like partners and less like rusty sheriff badges.

I would be happy to forgo all the others if I could at least make off with the first one.

I don't want to see it like the Golden Days because for that to happen you would have to ditch 80% of the members here to move the ratio back to what it was. Since I have as much chance of getting my first wish as I do of ditching 80% of the members here, why go on about it? Move onward and upward.

This site has 2 core demographics: Those that code (or want to code) and those that want to find some free functionality.

The more people code and release stuff here, the more useful the site becomes for users thereby increasing their number out of proportion to the coders. In the future, this will not change, it will become even more out of balance as the users will grow exponentially.

Coders forum

Having a forum for coders is a perk. It's silly and its small, but I guess it's nice. I could care less if it was public or private, however I am going to take a guess that 90% of the members of this site would rather not get their 'new posts' diluted with datamanager discussions because they couldn't give a rats toot about it or coding in general. Therefore look at it as a community service for the masses that it's hidden. If you want in so badly, contribute to the community and release a dancing banana modification. I don't know why the forum is of help to anyone that has never released a modification.

[MJM]

One thing I'd like to address before bowing out of this conversation.
I remember the good ole days, in the early 90's, hearing about the coming information super highway. At that time you were charged by the hour for time spent on the net.
However for various reasons I didn't get a computer till 2000, when it became more affordable. I also got my first digital camera, and as my site/interests are highly image dependent I was at last able to do what I wanted to do on the net.
Instead of creating my 'own' website, I started an interactive community, first at yahoo - that sucked, so I searched extensively for a software application. Knowing nothing about computers, I by-passed all the free scripts and went for a commercial product, choosing vB. Because vB provided no gallery app. I chose PhotoPost because it was 'integrated' with vB.

I presumed that because I paid for commercial products, with annual fees for upgrades, who had staff working diligently to develop the most advanced products on the market, that we would be moving rapidly forward in the development of these applications.
Well, it turns out that development has been rather slow (in my view), and developers have instead relied on it's customer base to develop many of the features and functionalities.

Oh well, fair enough, I cannot afford to have an expert customize my site, so I have learned to be patient and accept gradual progress, and focus on the more important issue of developing actual content for my site.
Content is, after all is said and done, the primary reason for what this is all about.

So why am I here writing this lengthy (apologies) post when I should be addressing issues at my own site?

(Please don't take this as a 'blanket' statement)

Time after time I see a disconnection between what developers are coming up with and it's limited practical application.

It is for this reason that I feel it's important that non-coding dummies like me who are using these applications on a daily basis and know what works well and doesn't for admins, mods and ultimately the end user, are a crucial element in the development of features and functionalities.

I could provide many examples, but here is a recent example with a new function for vB 3.6 that was not hashed thoroughly with it's members prior to release of which I can only hope that brillant minds here at vB.org will be able to improve:
Automatically Remove Thread Redirects

There are other instances when developers come up with a great feature, but doesn't work correctly if you are using another feature.
I don't want to sound too harsh and call it lazy coding, but this is often the result of a developer looking for the easiest way to provide this functionality with out pre-beta testing it with it's customers to ensure that it will work as intended.
I can only guess that the reason why development is so often done behind closed doors is because competitiveness leads to secretiveness.

I guess this is the price I must pay for choosing a commercial product.

[tgreer]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Coders forum

Having a forum for coders is a perk. It's silly and its small, but I guess it's nice. I could care less if it was public or private, however I am going to take a guess that 90% of the members of this site would rather not get their 'new posts' diluted with datamanager discussions because they couldn't give a rats toot about it or coding in general. Therefore look at it as a community service for the masses that it's hidden. If you want in so badly, contribute to the community and release a dancing banana modification. I don't know why the forum is of help to anyone that has never released a modification.

Why leave the 10% out in the cold, when there's no compelling reason for it? Who decided, and when, that the only way to "contribute to the community" is to release a plugin? (In fact, I have, and can see the Coders Discussion, but I don't see a single thread there that needs to be private. In fact, some of the public threads, for example about 3.6 changes, have their answers in the private forum - unnecessary duplicate content.)

Many people code plugins for themselves, for their own sites. Coding Discussions benefit them, and benefit anyone else who participates in those discussions. Keeping such discussions hidden and private diminishes the overall value of the site, breeds contempt for those who don't release plugins, fosters an elitist attitude, and segregates the community.

If you, personally, don't feel you want to help someone who doesn't post plugins, that's your prerogative. However, the official stance by the site owner, Jelsoft, is that this site is the "vBulletin Customization" site. That includes coding discussions, and the site organization, with the primary coding discussions locked away, is at cross-purposes to that policy.

The equations that coders=public plugin developers and that value to the community = releasing a public hack are profoundly flawed.

As a case in point, Geek: I use GARS Lite. I've posted a bit on your forum, giving you good feedback on CMPS integration. I even found and corrected some bugs in GARS Lite, which I told you about. I consider that as contributing to the overall good of the community. But I guess if I don't post my own plugins here, then I'm a nobody, of no value to the community? Value to the community, contributing positively, helping other coders, is not incumbent upon posting a plugin.

[cheesegrits]

Originally Posted by tgreer

The equations that coders=public plugin developers and that value to the community = releasing a public hack are profoundly flawed.

Then of course there are folk like me, who are in the process of learning vB. I've written several useful mods for my site, and am in the process of writing three more. I could just throw something out there so I can get the keys to the Magic Kingdom, but I'd much rather take my time and make sure my code is up to par, and as upgrade-proof as I can make it, before putting something out for public consumption.

I would love to be able to participate (or at least lurk and search) in the Coders forum, to help me improve my vB specific coding chops before I release anything. But if the only way in is to release something ... well, can you say Catch 22?

BTW, I had no idea till I read the last few posts that there even was a super secret, cone of silence protected, Coders Discussion forum! How exactly does one get the necessary secret decoder ring? Send in five vBulletin mod box tops and sum up in 12 words or less why I want to be a vB coder?

-- hugh