What is going on with the bad vibs on here?

[John Campbell]

Ok since I am a straight shooter I guess I should just ask straight out.
I am starting to see a online vibe on this site.

I ask a LOT of questions I mean... I didnt design vbulletin and vbulletin does not have full documentation... (example... what are all the $ variables vb uses?) At first when I was new... Jack Bounce and Zac and Floris was there in a heart beat... Actually Jack, Lats, Kerby and a few others really helped me out BIG TIME on here. I dont know what to say... Thanks doesnt seem to do justice.

But recently when I started to learn vb and started asking detailed questions I am starting to see a distance becoming between me and the users.

This is not paronoia... Users that I used to pm with completely stop communicating and threads I post get no response or killed by the "you should goto vb.org" post.

Now I am not slow.... for example why would you need to goto a hacking site about sql tables or variables that are in vb???? Its really saying politically correct shut the **** up already.

I am a guy who honestly likes things clean. I dont personally like vbulletin.org but do a search with my name and vbulletin.org and you will see I am requested to go there quite often. BUT if you read what I am asking you can tell (NOT ALL OF THE TIME) that I dont need to goto vb.org. I am thrown as well how vb.org is marketed here even though they dont authorise usage of the site... I mean we all know you guys own both of them.

I have gotten a PM stating I am not liked here. That threw me.
My question is what happened. Lets resolve it whatever it is. I am here for business not to cause a ruckus and I am older. So lets just get it out... speak our peace and work together.

Every post I ask that has an answer I am sure another member will need at one point in time... (Questions for AOL email user query for example... We all know AOL bounces vb email) so its not like I am asking redundant information.

Im sorry I know people dont like online waves and netier do I. That is why I just had to ask. excuse the bad spelling...

[Andrew111888]

Well, if they cannot provide an answer for you here due to contractual responsibilites, what do you suggest they do other than send you to vB.org?

There's not that many options.

[Zonex]

I do notice a lot of unanswered questions lately or maybe it's always been that way. That being said, if it involves something outside the scope of a stock vbulletin php/sql stuff, it's best to try to get help at .org.

[free thinker]

I had a similar experience when I first came to this community.

All of my beginner questions were zealously answered. But when I got better at handling the basics and my questions became very complicated, my threads would go unanswered at times.

I got angry and argued with a few of the admins and mods over this.

Before long, I was corrected by Steve Machol, actually, who told me that this is not the "official" support center. I guess I knew that all along, but it didn't register with me "exactly" what that meant.

I now see all answered threads in this forum as a courtesy for which I am thankful. And the unanswered ones are few and far between because I pretty much have my forum where I want it now. So I am pretty acceptant of the atmosphere here. Let's face it, vBulletin is not that expensive and, judging by the price of vB, Jelsoft doesn't have unlimited resources to throw at helping everyone mod their forums all day long.

The way I see it, if I were an admin/mod in this community, I would only feel "compelled" to answer questions about the stock (out of the box) vB and not modding questions. This is not the official support center and it is most certainly not the official "modding" support center.

Maybe their brains just hurt from your questions. I certainly wouldn't take it personal.

*the above all written with the best intentions*

[Wayne Luke]

It could also be that support technicians do not know all the variables in vBulletin or their uses. We do not know what every single field in the database does. Not all of us even know PHP. None of this is really required though.

If there is a variable question we can't answer then we refer it to someone who can. If the question involves modifying functionality even in the littlest bit, it goes to vBulletin.org.

[Steve Machol]

I can say personally that about 80% of my time is now spent on support tickets. This used to be around 30-40%. With the release of 3.5.0 there has been a tremendous increase in the volume of support tickets and forums posts.

Since I always give first priortiy to support tickets, this leaves less time than usual on forum questions.

It's starting to slow down a bit and so I should be around the forums a little more. There's still a lot of work though.

After all, my post post isn't going up as fast as it was.

[Mephisteus]

After all, my post post isn't going up as fast as it was.

poor you

[free thinker]

...after all, my post post isn't going up as fast as it was...

What in-the-world is a "post post" ?

[Mephisteus]

What in-the-world is a "post post" ?

Its that thing you do after posting a post

[free thinker]

Its that thing you do after posting a post

roflmao - good one!

[Colin F]

But recently when I started to learn vb and started asking detailed questions I am starting to see a distance becoming between me and the users.

The thing is, easy questions are (as the name implies) easy. That allows other, non-staff users to help out on these as well. So if the staff is overly busy with support issues in the members area, more complex issues on the forums might seem to be overlooked.
I like to help out where I can, but I also prefer to answer easy questions if I don't have a lot of time or just don't feel like looking something up. That's the priviledge of not being staff . Additionally, once I look at a thread and don't have the time to follow up, I won't see it in my new posts anymore.

This is not paronoia... Users that I used to pm with completely stop communicating

Remember, that pm is not a means of support. Personally I don't like it at all if a user pm's me just because I helped him/her previously. I help where I can, but I like to decide for myself where and whom I help (not that it's personal of course ).

[Jose Amaral Rego]

Yeah, I got the simular thing too. I try to help this person by telling him other places to post to get better responce, but he pm's me and tell me not to send him to other forums. I ask that his question was suite in another forum like http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18 for SQL Queries and seem to get all puffy about or join other forums and post same question? It is better to have any question answered by as many people as possible to get a fast responce. I post in different forums so I can get my vbulletin question answered, if I do not get the help quick enough here that is if the staff is not busy.
Plus if I get the answer I want, I post the answer here for others. Strange people would you not say, John Campbell

[Jake Bunce]

me

3.5 = super busy support = less time to help with problems and questions that are out of scope (custom code, custom styles)

[Floris]

Hello John,

Thank you for your feedback as we value our customers and our customer feedback. They help us improve our products, services and customer services.

Ok since I am a straight shooter I guess I should just ask straight out.
I am starting to see a online vibe on this site.

Besides selling a top-notch and market-leading bulletin board system software and trying to keep doing that we also want to give top-notch and market-leading customer support for both sales and priority support. It is therefor a shame to hear you've experienced it otherwise then intended. Hopefully we can explain and give you our view now that we've got yours.

I ask a LOT of questions I mean... I didnt design vbulletin and vbulletin does not have full documentation... (example... what are all the $ variables vb uses?) At first when I was new... Jack Bounce and Zac and Floris was there in a heart beat... Actually Jack, Lats, Kerby and a few others really helped me out BIG TIME on here. I dont know what to say... Thanks doesnt seem to do justice.

You're free to ask a lot of questions, and through the feedback we get from customers we know where the demands are and try to do our best besides giving support to improve the support we give, to improve the products and services we make, and to work on additional information like manuals and howto guides. Unfortunatly time is a limit for us and the tasks we have since the 3.0 and 3.5 releases are at times a bit overwhelming us. Resulting in us having to give priority to customer support over writing indepth sql schematics or php variables. Jake, Zachery and myself are hired to do support, and Jake for example makes sure the admin help is accurate, indepth and up to date. Zachery and I try our best with the manuals and other extras but our priority lies with customer support and pre-sales. Hopefully in the near future we can do a lot more once the 3.5 rush has slowed down a bit.

But recently when I started to learn vb and started asking detailed questions I am starting to see a distance becoming between me and the users.

That's very good news, improving your software knowledge will definitly help you tweak your community to your needs and that will result in a better experience for your members on your own web site. Of course, it is a shame to read that people appear to be moving away from you. I do not know what the cause of this is. Personal note: I am not moving away from you or ignoring you. Every vBulletin customer gets as much attention from me as I can give them. To me everybody's equal.

This is not paronoia... Users that I used to pm with completely stop communicating and threads I post get no response or killed by the "you should goto vb.org" post.

I can count for the customers or staff that stop replying to your PrivMsg questions. But when I suggest you to try asking over at vBulletin.org it is because the question doesn't fit vBulletin support anymore as it is to help write a plugin or customize source code. If you have unanswered threads for longer then 12 hours or feel they are fitting generic vBulletin support please update them with a subtle bump or question and we will look into them (once again). The least we can do is explain per situation why we feel it goes beyond vBulletin support.

Now I am not slow.... for example why would you need to goto a hacking site about sql tables or variables that are in vb???? Its really saying politically correct shut the **** up already.

In regards to tables, customizing source code or databases is about PHP and MySQL, and that's not vBulletin support. And to be honest, we're not saying stfu, we're trying to guide and advise you so you can find the answers to your questions. We have the vBulletin.org sister web site so we can give beyond vBulletin support for those who need it.

I am a guy who honestly likes things clean. I dont personally like vbulletin.org but do a search with my name and vbulletin.org and you will see I am requested to go there quite often. BUT if you read what I am asking you can tell (NOT ALL OF THE TIME) that I dont need to goto vb.org. I am thrown as well how vb.org is marketed here even though they dont authorise usage of the site... I mean we all know you guys own both of them.

We're not marketing our vBulletin.org web site, as it is already our web site. It is part of our network, another resource for customers, and information that customers can use.

I have gotten a PM stating I am not liked here. That threw me.

Could you forward this PrivMsg to me please so we can look into this? I don't think our staff should be told that they're not welcome on our web site. If a staff member really told you this I will take this up in private and discuss it with the rest of the staff. I don't know the context of that conversation so I can't judge here.

My question is what happened. Lets resolve it whatever it is. I am here for business not to cause a ruckus and I am older. So lets just get it out... speak our peace and work together.

What happened is that the forum software has provided a lot of cool new features and options and we're quite busy with an extra percentage of sales questions, installation and upgrades, a lot more extra imports from third party forum software, and at least double the support questions (in both the private ticket system as well as the public forums). We experience this with every new version that comes out and we're slowly catching up. Our apologies if this has a negative effect on some of our customers who are more regular and notice the difference.

Every post I ask that has an answer I am sure another member will need at one point in time... (Questions for AOL email user query for example... We all know AOL bounces vb email) so its not like I am asking redundant information.

Yes, that's why we have a public support forum and a search feature. So each question and answer is a reference point for another customer. With each question we have to make sure we'v gone through covering the basics - we simply just can't assume things are as they are with a customer - I hope you understand.

Im sorry I know people dont like online waves and netier do I. That is why I just had to ask. excuse the bad spelling...

You're posting this with valid arguments and you're not just shouting and swearing, so I am sure we don't have a problem with you giving us constructive customer feedback.

I've tried to write out what I meant to say, what I wanted to explain. But after working twice as many hours on support this morning I am a bit tired, sorry if I have one or two of my lines explained incorrectly or if it confuses you. I hope you understand the general message and surely we can help you get the answers to your vBulletin support questions. And surely the vBulletin.org community can help you with the vBulletin questions that go beyond support.


All the best,