My Opinion

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  • Zachery
    Former vBulletin Support
    • Jul 2002
    • 59097

    #31
    Originally posted by OhioDave
    It's already a forum only version.
    Not really, its a software suite, it is currently missing an article management system. However many aspects of the CMS are now part of the core system. This as a whole is awesome.

    Comment

    • Masterblaster
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2004
      • 106

      #32
      Originally posted by Sal Collaziano
      I'd like to hear from anyone who thought I was talking about two separate code bases. I mentioned in the post above that there should only be one code base for the "forum" and that it should plug into the CMS. I think we all figured that one day we'd have a forum with a great CMS but I think the focus has moved to vBulletin being a great CMS with a forum. There are lots of better choices out there for a CMS. NOT SO MUCH when you talk about forums. Why? Because vBulletin has cornered the market. Honestly - what forum software is better? None. That is going to change if we keep going down the road we're on.
      SIGNED!!!!

      All I can say is, that the greatest forum script I've ever used is going to suck because the owners don't listen to their clients opinion anymore... I am not in the mood to write my a** off right now because I see no meaning for doing this but to me everythig looks like that a lot of people will move sooner or later to another forum software, that's for sure.

      Comment

      • hornstar6969
        Senior Member
        • Aug 2005
        • 1818
        • 3.8.x

        #33
        Originally posted by OhioDave
        It's already a forum only version.
        It has blogs, social groups, profiles, etc
        Selling my BigBoard GamerzNeeds.net/forums Threads: 193 502, Posts: 1 540 045, Members: 718 566 It is listed here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showt...3#post18297060

        Comment

        • Deimos
          Senior Member
          • Oct 2002
          • 1517
          • 3.8.x

          #34
          Originally posted by Zachery
          Not really, its a software suite, it is currently missing an article management system. However many aspects of the CMS are now part of the core system. This as a whole is awesome.
          Hmm..

          rose-coloured glasses (British & Australian) also rose-colored glasses/rose-coloured spectacles (American & Australian/British)
          if someone thinks about or looks at something with rose-coloured glasses, they think it is more pleasant than it really is

          Comment

          • Wayne Luke
            vBulletin Technical Support Lead
            • Aug 2000
            • 73976

            #35
            Originally posted by Deimos
            Hmm..
            Not everyone's opinion has to match yours. There is no need to be snarky when someone disagrees with you. It is comments like the ones above that cause people to completely disregard what is said by certain individuals. The comment on rose colored glasses absolutely no merit nor is it constructive or provide any benefit to the community at large.
            Translations provided by Google.

            Wayne Luke
            The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
            vBulletin 5 API

            Comment

            • Solitaire
              Senior Member
              • Oct 2010
              • 124
              • 4.0.x

              #36
              There is no better forum software out there. But I completely disagree about having 2 separate products. Sorry. I think that if you want to turn all the features off and just run the forum, go right ahead. Conversely you should be able to turn the forum off and just run your CMS, Blogs, and Groups. I want one integrated seamless solution, and honestly I think vb has gaged the market right if that is the direction they are going in.

              I do agree that vb is currently failing as a CMS, Blogs, and Groups, but I am waiting for final judgement on vb5 even though I am currently disappointed. Still, I think asking them to go back to the way things were is completely counterproductive. They aren't going back so it's time people got over that, and the sun doesn't rise and set on 3.8 either. 4.2 is better. If it's too complicated for you, then you should get professional developer help or move to a software that is within your difficulty level.
              Vote for my suggestions here and here

              Comment

              • miner
                Senior Member
                • Jun 2005
                • 263
                • 4.2.X

                #37
                I agree there should be Forum only pack @less price and vB5 suite as choice, not all users needs them, there are many who just need a forums added to their existing site.

                Comment

                • Alfa1
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2005
                  • 4165
                  • 3.8.x

                  #38
                  Originally posted by hornstar6969
                  It has blogs, social groups, profiles, etc
                  Yes, but blogs and groups look exactly the same as forums...
                  I buy 420 forums

                  Comment

                  • worried
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2008
                    • 684
                    • 4.2.X

                    #39
                    I'm already running my forum with Wordpress as the homepage. Wordpress is more intuitive and customizable than vB's CMS.

                    Comment

                    • Bill Rini
                      Member
                      • Sep 2010
                      • 53

                      #40
                      Originally posted by worried
                      I'm already running my forum with Wordpress as the homepage. Wordpress is more intuitive and customizable than vB's CMS.

                      Which is the frustrating part. I remember when I first purchased VB4. I thought, "Wow, great that they integrated a blog and CMS but they sort of suck compared to WordPress or Joomla." All they had to do was copy successful products.

                      I think the big problem here is not that IB is including a CMS and blog with the forum software but that the CMS and blog aren't anywhere near as good as other products on the market. It's one thing if you're going to include a blog and the blog is on par with WordPress or Blogger. But if it's not on par, why charge a premium for including features people can get for free elsewhere? And seriously, if they released the blog component alone, they wouldn't be able to sell a single copy of just the blogging part of the software.

                      Not only do these additional features cost more but they detract from the core product development. I would have been much happier if instead of spending their time trying to build a blogging and CMS platform they simply built hooks into the product so you could bolt on that functionality via WordPress, Joomla, or whatever. Then they can get out of the CMS and blog business (where they have no place) and focus on building a great forum product.

                      At this point VB is sort of reminding of my experiences using the big "enterprise" level CMS systems with six figure price tags. On paper they look like nirvana but they never quite compete with freely available open source products. For instance, in the enterprise CMS systems stupid things like RSS feeds are a separate module (which you have to pay for) and leave almost zero ability to customize (like, if you wanted to omit certain types of content from the RSS feed). And then you look at some free product it either works beautifully out of the box or it's easily customizable to do what you want.

                      I'm actually currently dealing with a situation similar to what I just described. Some people want to continue on the enterprise CMS but everybody who actually has to use it on a day to day basis wants to get rid of it and move to an open source solution. It's so difficult to explain to the business side that most of the features being sold as modules or add-ons in the enterprise CMS don't measure up to the blogging and CMS tools most of the authors use on their own personal blogs for free. It's sort of hard to justify why we're paying several hundred thousand dollars for features that aren't as good as you can get for free.

                      Likewise, the VB blog and CMS lack a certain polish that one would expect from a premium product. It's not very exciting to hear that I have to pay to upgrade to get another suite of products that won't be on par with where things like WordPress were when VB4 initially launched.

                      But that's at the micro-level. From a macro perspective, a lot of forum owners are struggling with things like Facebook and other challenges for social eyeballs. Most of what's in VB5 does little to address this. VB5, on the social media competition side, is sort of in the same state as the CMS and blog parts of the VB package. In other words, it's adequate enough you can call it social media integration but it's already being done better in other products (i.e. WordPress).

                      And that's a shame. I would pay handsomely for a product that helped me get back some of the eyeballs that are currently going to Twitter and Facebook. Seriously, I would pay 4x or 5x what VB costs today if they could deliver a product that made my job easier in that regard.

                      I guess the funny part is that it's now become obvious that VB will never be a fully integrated site platform. The blog software won't be on par with WordPress. The CMS won't be on par with Joomla. Basically, even though it's being sold as an expensive package, the only thing it does well is act as a message board. That puts everything back at square one again.
                      Community manager at Thailand Friends

                      Comment

                      • Deimos
                        Senior Member
                        • Oct 2002
                        • 1517
                        • 3.8.x

                        #41
                        Originally posted by Bill Rini
                        I thought, "Wow, great that they integrated a blog and CMS but they sort of suck compared to WordPress or Joomla." All they had to do was copy successful products.

                        I think the big problem here is not that IB is including a CMS and blog with the forum software but that the CMS and blog aren't anywhere near as good as other products on the market.
                        And that's the issue
                        As I said a few times before, Vbulletin is a forum, it excels at making forum software, or did, until IB took over and changed the brands direction.

                        Now instead of excelling at a product, they've lowered the quality of the forum from Excellent/The best, to "Ok", with a poor CMS and Blog system which bolts on.

                        They could've reversed that trend with VB5 and learnt from the 2+ years since VB4 was released, but instead they seem to have not only repeated that mistake, but actually done a worse job of it, lol

                        I often wonder how awesome the forum product would've been, if they'd focused on releasing/maintaining a professional integration/bridge option for CMS and Blog software, rather than trying and failing to reinvent the wheel in both regards, thus, lowering the overall quality of the Vbulletin brand substantially.

                        I mean it's taken some 2 years (post gold status) for VB4 to get near an "Ok" standard, but it's far from the professional quality veteran customers like myself were used to, pre IB takeover.

                        Comment

                        • Bill Rini
                          Member
                          • Sep 2010
                          • 53

                          #42
                          Originally posted by Deimos
                          And that's the issue
                          As I said a few times before, Vbulletin is a forum, it excels at making forum software, or did, until IB took over and changed the brands direction.

                          Now instead of excelling at a product, they've lowered the quality of the forum from Excellent/The best, to "Ok", with a poor CMS and Blog system which bolts on.

                          They could've reversed that trend with VB5 and learnt from the 2+ years since VB4 was released, but instead they seem to have not only repeated that mistake, but actually done a worse job of it, lol

                          I often wonder how awesome the forum product would've been, if they'd focused on releasing/maintaining a professional integration/bridge option for CMS and Blog software, rather than trying and failing to reinvent the wheel in both regards, thus, lowering the overall quality of the Vbulletin brand substantially.

                          I mean it's taken some 2 years (post gold status) for VB4 to get near an "Ok" standard, but it's far from the professional quality veteran customers like myself were used to, pre IB takeover.
                          It's funny because I was really sort of hoping VB5 would be a better version of VB4. There are so many mods that should just be part of the product. One click spam cleanup, stuff like that. And, also, incorporating a lot more AJAX/JQuery functionality to make everything more polished and closer to what people have come to expect from products like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and other Web2.0 websites. And, I know this one was going to be a long shot, but make the Admin area something that is actually useful. I mean, how do you not have a graph on the control panel homepage with basic stats on signups, active users, etc that you can take a quick glance at and see how things are going. Yes, you can look at the raw numbers but I want to see trends over a week or a month or year over year so I can see how changes have impacted various key performance indicators.
                          Community manager at Thailand Friends

                          Comment

                          • Wayne Luke
                            vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                            • Aug 2000
                            • 73976

                            #43
                            Originally posted by Bill Rini
                            how do you not have a graph on the control panel homepage with basic stats on signups, active users, etc that you can take a quick glance at and see how things are going. Yes, you can look at the raw numbers but I want to see trends over a week or a month or year over year so I can see how changes have impacted various key performance indicators.
                            Not on the home page but you can do this under Statistics and Logs in the AdminCP. Since 3.0.
                            Translations provided by Google.

                            Wayne Luke
                            The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                            vBulletin 5 API

                            Comment

                            • Bill Rini
                              Member
                              • Sep 2010
                              • 53

                              #44
                              Originally posted by Wayne Luke
                              Not on the home page but you can do this under Statistics and Logs in the AdminCP. Since 3.0.
                              I was thinking more like Google Analytics sort of graphs. Actually, they have something like this in WordPress if you used the Analytics 360 plugin. You have to input your Analytics API key and your MailChimp API key and it shows you when you sent out an email and overlays that on top of Google Analytics traffic charts so you can see which email campaigns corresponded with rises (or falls) in traffic.

                              The CP homepage should be something like that. A thirty-day view of your traffic, signups, uniques, new threads, etc. Then you would be able to see at one glance what activity results in what user behavior. Maybe you notice that 3 days after a big sign-up day (maybe you ran some ads), there are a lot of new posts. Great. If that pattern keeps repeating, maybe you schedule to hit everyone with an email 4 days after they signed up if they haven't posted. Or maybe one of the metrics is pictures added to albums and you notice that when lots of new pics are added to albums it corresponds with a rise or fall in another metric.

                              Or, an attrition curve graph. Showing how long people stay active on the site. Maybe in month 1 there's an X% drop off. In month 2, you lose another Y%. Then you can experiment with various campaigns and see how your efforts impact the attrition curve.

                              This is the kind of actionable data people can use. Most of what's on the CP homepage is a static snapshot. While helpful, unless you are keeping a separate spreadsheet or running your own DB queries to get the data yourself, the data isn't all that useful.

                              - - - Updated - - -

                              Originally posted by Zachery
                              Not really, its a software suite, it is currently missing an article management system. However many aspects of the CMS are now part of the core system. This as a whole is awesome.
                              Not sure I agree with the awesome part. I'm trying to think of any product that did better by bundling a bunch of stand-alone products into one massive product and only a small handful of examples come to mind. Even stuff like Microsoft Office can be purchased piecemeal. Yes, many companies bundle things together and offer you a discount to purchase them as a package but they're available individually at slightly higher prices if you don't want to purchase the entire suite.

                              I mean, if you look at cloud computing, Amazon hosting, apps in the cloud, pay for what you use apps, etc, the overall trend is exactly the opposite.

                              - - - Updated - - -

                              Originally posted by Solitaire
                              There is no better forum software out there. But I completely disagree about having 2 separate products. Sorry. I think that if you want to turn all the features off and just run the forum, go right ahead. Conversely you should be able to turn the forum off and just run your CMS, Blogs, and Groups. I want one integrated seamless solution, and honestly I think vb has gaged the market right if that is the direction they are going in.
                              Except you have to pay for all of those other features even if you don't want or don't use them. It would be like saying that because you want all of the products in MS Office, that everyone should have to purchase the entire Office suite even if all they want is a spreadsheet. Or, you have to buy the entire Adobe CS package even if all you want is Dreamweaver.

                              Originally posted by Solitaire
                              I do agree that vb is currently failing as a CMS, Blogs, and Groups, but I am waiting for final judgement on vb5 even though I am currently disappointed. Still, I think asking them to go back to the way things were is completely counterproductive. They aren't going back so it's time people got over that, and the sun doesn't rise and set on 3.8 either. 4.2 is better. If it's too complicated for you, then you should get professional developer help or move to a software that is within your difficulty level.
                              Why is it counterproductive if that's what the market is asking for? Obviously some people want a fully integrated solution but, as is being demonstrated in thread after thread here, there are still plenty of people who don't want to purchase or pay for a bunch of products (CMS, Blogs, etc are really separate products that integrate with the VB platform) you won't use. Shouldn't both options be available?

                              I don't think anybody is asking them to go backwards. Considering the modular nature of the architecture it should be quite easy to segment the functionality and offer people only the parts they want. That's not backwards. Giving your customers what they want is usually what most of us consider to be progress.
                              Community manager at Thailand Friends

                              Comment

                              • jdj
                                Senior Member
                                • Jan 2009
                                • 824
                                • 5.1.x

                                #45
                                Originally posted by carntheroos4eva
                                I agree but I think that it's more like joomla where you can have your own site builder that allows you to build your own site around the forum that you have. It's awesome and it's here to stay
                                Sorry...I didn't understand this. What's awesome? Joomla or the new vB5 with site builder?

                                - - - Updated - - -

                                Originally posted by Bill Rini
                                Analytics API key and your MailChimp API key and it shows you when you sent out an email and overlays that on top of Google Analytics traffic charts so you can see which email campaigns corresponded with rises (or falls) in traffic.
                                Something that is awesome is Mailchimp (Vertical Response isn't). I'd be happy to see better integration of MailChimp with vB5, via a plugin if necessary.

                                Comment

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