Poll: The further development of vB5 – Which way would you prefer personally?

[TLMD]

It won't be too long until vB 5.1.0 is being released. No, there is no official release date available, but I am pretty sure it won't take six more months or something. Anyways, the release of vB 5.1.0 will fix a huge amount of bugs and bring back the CMS (for a first impression check out the Alpha). Now, let's have a look at the future:

Imagine you could influence the further development process of vB5: Which of the following options would you prefer, if you were able to decide?

Explanations:

1. "Mass bug-fixing":
The developers should look through JIRA and find issues that can be fixed with minimum time effort (let's say less than 15-30 minutes per issue). They should focus on these smaller things and do mass bug-fixing in order to reduce the amount of open vB5-JIRAs significantly. (= Many issues will get fixed.)

2. "Bug-fixing strictly based on votes":
The developers should fix bugs strictly based on votes (see Popular Issues) in order to guarantee that the wishes of the customers get fulfilled. (= This obviously is very time-consuming, so only very few issues will get fixed.)

3. "Feature-parity with vB4":
The developers should focus on feature-parity with vB4. All features of vB4 should be back in vB5. (= No room for new features or improvement, but the "old" stuff will come back.)

4. "Other" OR "continue the way it was done in the past":
This is kind of self-explanatory. There might be an idea that doesn't fit to the above three answers. Also if you want, you can tell your thoughts in a post.

Apart from bringing back some posibility to interact and to give feedback, the main purpose of this poll is to see, if there is some sort of consensus about what is actually wanted by most users/vB5 customers. Of course this doesn't mean that there will be any sort of influence on the actual development. However, this could be a good start to discuss what everyone prefers personally and I think this can be very interesting. Cheers!

[benhalkum]

Well, apparently the polls do not work?

[benhalkum]

I chose feature-parity with vB4.

Going to 5 was the biggest mistake I ever made.

I did the demo install, imported my vb 4.22 over before upgrading and played with it and it seemed to be a nice breath of fresh air. Then when I made the jump to my actual site and used it for an extended period of time it dawned on me...

I hate vBulletin 5.

I miss the ease of vB 4, the insane amount of customizable plug ins and templates (Which I know SHOULD come if we ever get 5.1, but it's not the same) and how vB 4's core items worked.

Online users really is a backlog item in the bug fix que? Are you kidding me? I am a program manager myself and the JIRA of vB5 is laughable.

The core items from vB4 should have been developed and strengthened for vB5's new structure BEFORE trying to bring in new stuff.

I get that we are only at 5.0.5 for the most stable release, but the sheer amount of broken and non functioning items in this "stable" release is mind boggling. Don't even get me started on 5.1 A7. How do you take a broken product, and release an alpha that is as broken?

Do you have a QA department? Does your program and project management team even care to properly ensure their portions of the project are being developed correctly? I'd LOVE to be a fly on the wall for a week to see how your teams really operate. I can tell you know, it is wrong.

If my team brought me an inferior and poorly developed product, as vB5 is, to sign off on before going into production not only would I not sign off, I would find where the issue is in the chain of communication and terminate it.

There are a lot of great things vB5 could potentially do, but you are not managing this right at all.

As for the CMS portion, it is irrelevant to my interest. I will stick with WordPress as my CMS system unless vB 5 gets an importer that works correct for WP to vB5. But I don't see that in the cards.

I guess I'm just too use to working with clients who expect you to do it right, quickly and efficiently.

I've used vBulletin since vB2, and ashamed to say this is the first time I feel like I was ripped off by purchasing a license.

[benhalkum]

Weird, now the poll shows results.

Oh vB5 you silly creature you.

[IggyP]

i chose mass bug fixes, but would pref some major ones as well even if they took longer, depending on functionality value....like being able to edit posts on tablet and no more issues with posting images/txt off the top of my head.....was thinking of making a list of the jira in backlog i think should come out asap, but basically we pref it to work first, then be super high tech advanced later...even if they delay some vb4 features

[importevolution]

i did some google searches and site after site and review after review was horrible for vb5 . it should be taken off the market until its bugs are fixed. its a shame such a widespread trusted product for many years now has its reputation and future in jeopardy

perhaps its too bloated with features/options and a focus needs to be on coding only the most important features of a forum and adding the newer stuff like facebook integration and smart phone compatibility.

[durruti]

I will vote but before that, what is the tangible worth of this poll?
If it's related to the "hope and excuse" department, then this poll is worthless.
If something concrete is going to happen with this poll, then it is worth it.

[Mark.B]

The poll was started by a customer, not a member of staff, so in terms of "officialness" it has none.
However, it is always useful to gauge customer opinion.

[Infopro]

I will vote but before that, what is the tangible worth of this poll?
If it's related to the "hope and excuse" department, then this poll is worthless.
If something concrete is going to happen with this poll, then it is worth it.

The poll is a waste of time. Feedback has been being posted to these forums for a couple of years now, by many, many more users than will ever vote on this poll.

100's if not 1000's of comments, and suggestions, concerning "further development".

And we now need a useful poll to gauge customer opinion? I think the customers have spoken on these issues more times than ever should have been needed. If all those comments in all those threads didn't change anything, or the mass exodus of users that have moved on to more "Responsive" options didn't change anything, tell me why this poll would?


I would vote to add more developers, but that's not an option, clearly.

[TLMD]

I will vote but before that, what is the tangible worth of this poll?
If it's related to the "hope and excuse" department, then this poll is worthless.
If something concrete is going to happen with this poll, then it is worth it.

I didn't start this poll in order to create another feedback topic (there are already enough in this forum). This is simply about a question, which I have asked myself earlier, and I wanted to see what other people think about this and do prefer. Of course this is no official poll and of course there is a huge chance that it will have absolutely no effect on the actual development process. Therefore I started the question with "Imagine..." and I have also added the very last passage, which clearly states the purpose of this poll.

Anyways, we didn't have such a question in the past, so this is a chance to give feedback on this very topic. Of course one could also break this thread, e.g. by adding sarcastic comments like it was done in other topics. Then this poll will get closed and that's it. I am fine with that, but I'd prefer to have constructive replies here.

[FoundationalOne]

Voted. I just want it to work.
Screw the bells and whistles for now....I am already getting tired of people reporting problems....
- can't load avatars
- users online module broke
- table function totally broke
- constantly get this "ghost data"....as in, almost half the times I open a thread, it asks me if I want to keep or discard previously entered data
- I hear horror stories of performance problems on large forums

Forget the widgets....make the core bulletproof first.

[durruti]

Well, it doesn't seems worth voting.
If it's about mass bug fixing, isn't that what IB suppose to do by default since - I don't know - more than a year ago?

[feldon23]

5. Page 1 rewrite starting from a blank piece of paper.

[lorenii]

This is where I feel that VB5 is and has been for some time. A horrible mix with a fancy label. They can sell it because it has 'everything' you want included, but when you open it up, you realize that it is not a whole sandwich...

[jdj]

I chose feature-parity with vB4.

Going to 5 was the biggest mistake I ever made.

I did the demo install, imported my vb 4.22 over before upgrading and played with it and it seemed to be a nice breath of fresh air. Then when I made the jump to my actual site and used it for an extended period of time it dawned on me...

I hate vBulletin 5.

I miss the ease of vB 4, the insane amount of customizable plug ins and templates (Which I know SHOULD come if we ever get 5.1, but it's not the same) and how vB 4's core items worked.

Online users really is a backlog item in the bug fix que? Are you kidding me? I am a program manager myself and the JIRA of vB5 is laughable.

The core items from vB4 should have been developed and strengthened for vB5's new structure BEFORE trying to bring in new stuff.

I get that we are only at 5.0.5 for the most stable release, but the sheer amount of broken and non functioning items in this "stable" release is mind boggling. Don't even get me started on 5.1 A7. How do you take a broken product, and release an alpha that is as broken?

Do you have a QA department? Does your program and project management team even care to properly ensure their portions of the project are being developed correctly? I'd LOVE to be a fly on the wall for a week to see how your teams really operate. I can tell you know, it is wrong.

If my team brought me an inferior and poorly developed product, as vB5 is, to sign off on before going into production not only would I not sign off, I would find where the issue is in the chain of communication and terminate it.

There are a lot of great things vB5 could potentially do, but you are not managing this right at all.

As for the CMS portion, it is irrelevant to my interest. I will stick with WordPress as my CMS system unless vB 5 gets an importer that works correct for WP to vB5. But I don't see that in the cards.

I guess I'm just too use to working with clients who expect you to do it right, quickly and efficiently.

I've used vBulletin since vB2, and ashamed to say this is the first time I feel like I was ripped off by purchasing a license.

I also chose feature parity with vB4. I upgraded my licence then couldn't use vB5 because it doesn't have the calendar or the CMS, both of which we use. I thought that both might come along in six months or so when I upgraded but then they didn't. "Ripped off" is a very emotive term but I certainly haven't had value.