[Forum] People in My Forums are Responding....... to the Upgrade

[Cort]

I was just curious to see how members of other forums are responding to the upgrade. The response on my end has been almost uniformly negative - just one positive comment so far. I was surprised because I think - despite the glitches - that they're a lot better.

Attendance doesn't seem to have been affected and subscriptions went up dramatically although maybe that was due to the new year (?).

I wonder what kinds of comments other people are getting?

[MXjunk127]

I've gotten nothing but positive responses. Although I did release an entire new website with my own custom CMS and all of that. I personally am a little disappointed with all the broken stuff I keep finding, on the otherhand. haha.

[Beermonster]

I've had a lot of negative comments too, I've had 1 mod quit and I'm getting less visitors a day.

I don't know why I like vb4 and the basics like new thread, reply etc are all in the same place so I don't know what is putting them off

[xsquid]

Negative responses here.

[ninjashoes]

Alot of negative comments which were expected. Mostly because of certain mods dissapearing. It doesent really matter because eventually those mods will be replaced in 4.0.

[jadmperry]

Uniformly positive. It is hard to gauge how much is do to vb4.0 or to the new template (that is, it is hard to say whether people are responding to the functionality or the design).

[Num7]

I really like vB4, I've got one or two positive comments so far, but this period of the year is always very quiet. People are busy right now, I guess they'll visit more in the next few days.

[JamieinNH]

My community over all has been positive about the change. Of course though I always run most everything by them that will effect the site. I understand that the site is theirs, I just happen to be running it.

The biggest beefs I have with bugs are on my end and not the users side. They do find some like the search feature don't work as it "should" (they agree with me that the What's New should bring up everything within the site that is new)

They also have fussed about the font sizes.. I have added two styles that increase the fonts by 10% and another by 20% and from that standpoint, man o man it's terrible to get anything like this done in 4.0 The VB Team haven't definitely taken a step backwards for now in the ability to quickly and painlessly style the site. Again, that's on me the Admin and not the users so ...

Over all I believe this Suite could become something, but there are several things concerning me at the moment.

• No direction - Road Map from the team (silence as a matter of fact)
• It would seem that the social features that bring and keep people on your site are not seemingly important to the team as most of that as to be found at vb.org When they do introduce something, it's after a year of asking and by then it's 'old news' because other sites have it. Nothing New, Fresh and putting us at an advantage to other sites. Have a look at Ning and create a quick test site and see what I mean.
• It would seem that a lot of these bugs are ones that should have stood out like sore thumbs and been fixed before Gold. ie:

• No easy way to add new tabs to the navbar
• Sitemap not working with Google
• IE6 support or the lack of it
• Images not aligning right in the CMS
• and many more issues like this that shouldn't have made it out of Alpha/Beta

These things and the lack of communications from the VB Team are concerning me a little. I do believe in the product and have hopes for it, but I would like to see progress and better communications. My users like what they see so far but I am also honest with them and explain that we are still looking for better solutions if things don't change.

[JonUrban]

My members complained that the look was hard on the eyes. I changed the bright white backgrounds to a light gray, which helped. I also changed the white borders and some of the other bright things to darker colors.

Other than that, they are mostly positive. It does look more professional and I have been constantly changing things here and there to get it nicer. There are still some things I need to learn, but so far, I'm happy, and so are the members!

I frankly thought they'd all be complaining from the git go. No one likes change!

You can see how my forums look here: www.quadraphonicquad.com

[Cort]

nice Logo JonUrban! I had the same problem with brightness and toned it down. Overall, bugs notwithstanding, I really like the package. I'm sure over time my members will start producing more positive comments.

This would be a big win - No easy way to add new tabs to the navbar
This is a big problem - Images not aligning right in the CMS

[assaf]

Professional users will not give positive response

[express]

Come on guys have you not looked at all the issues under this forum?
vBulletin 4 Questions, Problems and Troubleshooting

While I understand some of them maybe user error, no way all of them are. Are you telling me that this many issues are good for a upgrade?
No way.....

[SuperGLS]

Mostly negative! People are scared of change. Same thing happened 5 years ago when we switched from vB2 to vB3. People will get over it if your content is good enough. And like someone already said, once all the mods get all straightened out people won't even remember your old forums. Of course, you have to be willing to listen to the complaints that are accompanied by suggestions and work on following them. That's what I'm doing. If people just complain but don't have any ideas on how exactly certain aspects could be better then forget 'em.

Also, I've been posting constantly about how we'd be switching to vB4 for months so nobody can say I didn't warn them.

but this period of the year is always very quiet. People are busy right now, I guess they'll visit more in the next few days.

Exactly, this is traditionally a slow period at my forums. No big deal.

[smirkley]

Positive with constructive feedback.

We are still on the oem theme and that seems to be the only negetive (or should I say constructive) feedback.

But one thing is I kept everyone up to date and informed long before we changed. And warned them that "some" issues may arise, and asked them to be patient.

[kat00]

Overwhelmingly accepted.

If I reacted everytime there was a positive or the negative comment in my forum I'd go mad.

My attitude is simple, I do it the way I like and I aim to please the majority but if you don't like it.........go else where, start your forum, off you go.

That is in no way meant to be arrogant. Fact of the matter is you will never please everyone, that's impossible and stupid to attempt so you may as well please yourself.