Big Board Thinking about switching from IP.Board

[beishe8]

Communities work best when everyone helps one another out.


Huge respect to anyone who prefers to tell another to their face than go behind their back. I like honesty, good or bad, always works best.

Please note the word in the above posts: Peace

There was no need for your comment to inflame the situation.
I hope that I am achieving your huge respect.

[anthonyparsons]

Sorry beishe... wasn't meant to inflame anything mate, and that respect was to you both about the discussion and the shake hands pic... My apologies for crappy wording on my behalf.

[beishe8]

wasn't meant to inflame anything

Sorry for my reply,Anthony.

[cfnet]

I think I'll stick it out on IP.Board guys. Whenever I asked presale questions there official staff responded to at least one of them always, and they don't seem to be such a disaster like vBulletin is right now apparently.

I dont think i can take the risk of switching to less features, and no plans on future development. thanks for your time though members..

[Alfa1]

cfnet. I would be very interested to know the reasons why you where considering to move from IPS to vb.

[BirdOPrey5]

cfnet. I would be very interested to know the reasons why you where considering to move from IPS to vb.

Besides vB just generally being better and users preferring it?

[Alfa1]

Besides vB just generally being better and users preferring it?

It's no use going into the debate with such general remarks. Everybody has his/her own needs and preferences.
The last 9 months IPB has been overrun by ex-vbulletin admins converting to IPB. I have been keeping an eye on IPS and the run from vb to IPS is not dying down. For the last year IPS has been pumping out new functionality weekly. Functionality we can only hope 3rd parties will release for vb. While IB is figuring over 2.000+ bugs in a non-working product out and rewriting vbulletin for the next X years, IPS has already rewritten IPB and keeps releasing new stuff. So I disagree with your statement. It's not that black and white. Things change. Fast.

I much like vb, but at this time I dont think I would choose vbulletin if I was starting a new community.

[Ramsesx]

I think I'll stick it out on IP.Board guys. Whenever I asked presale questions there official staff responded to at least one of them always, and they don't seem to be such a disaster like vBulletin is right now apparently.

I dont think i can take the risk of switching to less features, and no plans on future development. thanks for your time though members..

If it's such a disaster why you even considered to do a switch? Better stay with your IPB crap, wasn't this the forum software where's still no "go to first new post" function available?

[BirdOPrey5]

I don't know, after reading threads here I reid the IPB 5 day demo and my god it was awful... I could never see moving to it.

[Arkham]

5.x is not expected until end 2011 / 2012 some time.

Just to reiterate, there hasn't even been a suggestion of an approximate release date for vB5. The oft-misquoted "vb5 knocking on the door in 18 months" only referred to development, not release.

[Arkham]

And some people need to stop moderating without Moderator permission?
Instead report the post you not agreeing.

Good idea. Done.

[slinky]

If it's such a disaster why you even considered to do a switch? Better stay with your IPB crap, wasn't this the forum software where's still no "go to first new post" function available?

That's not really considered a 'big board' by VB standards... you'll be fine.

Besides vB just generally being better and users preferring it?

I don't know, after reading threads here I reid the IPB 5 day demo and my god it was awful... I could never see moving to it.

To the OP = I'm curious to know too why you'd want to change. Having 1 million posts is a great achievement and certainly a big board by any standard. I'm currently using both and realize that each has its own pros and cons. Under no circumstances is IPB crap and I'd like to hear anyone who says so justify that opinion.

As far as vBulletin goes, don't mistake vB 4 with vB 3. In some respects, I prefer vBulletin and think the CMS, as poor and buggy as it is, is designed to be more flexible for publishing than IP.Content, which is darn pretty but needs full HTML editing capabilities. It also should have had some better URL handling but, for the most part, is acceptable if you're creative. Regarding the forums, there are plenty of hacks here, yes, that is a benefit. But with that comes a lot of bugs, a style sheet that will definitely see massive change and, unlike IPB, virtually no direction where the product is going (at least this is my experience so far.) If our site does go to vB4 it's mostly due to integration with other products and the need to have the board enabled for social networking tools, which are planned here, Facebook is out but still has much work to do even on the basics and far inferior to IPB's efforts to date. Be sure you see a comparison to make sure you'll be happy with the results if this is important to you.

Digitalpoint covered a good deal in his reply but he's also a sophisticated, tech savvy user. If you don't have someone who can be your guru on hand, you should consider it. One reason we've shied away from converting some of our forums to IPB is the conversion issue of a large board. That said, I've read of at least 1 big board that recently converted from VB to IPB and the result is extremely impressive. Going in either direction will take work.

Best of luck with your decision and PM me if you'd like to discuss as well.

[kyrgyz]

The last 9 months IPB has been overrun by ex-vbulletin admins converting to IPB. I have been keeping an eye on IPS and the run from vb to IPS is not dying down. For the last year IPS has been pumping out new functionality weekly. Functionality we can only hope 3rd parties will release for vb. While IB is figuring over 2.000+ bugs in a non-working product out and rewriting vbulletin for the next X years, IPS has already rewritten IPB and keeps releasing new stuff.

What do you think about this?
IPB 3 Forum Second-Hand Licence Sales Increasing

Generally speaking, I think vBulletin users are much more experienced with coding matters than IPB users. What I spotted when a lot of vBulletin users left and went over to IPB. Was it wasn’t long before many of them where reporting Bugs found with IPB 3.
The level of expectation from vBulletin users (in wanting a bug free product). Seems to be a lot higher than IPB 3 users, simply because they don’t seem to have to more advanced coding knowledge in being able to spot problems as easy as vBulletin users.
And this was something IPB saw happening on their forums from many vBulletin users making the switch to them. vBulletin users are also much less tolerant with putting-up with issues that are not sorted out fast once reported. There is a huge difference between IPB and vBulletin users.
At times it even seemed some IPB Staff where losing their cool a little with Bug Reports flooding in thick and fast from the vBulletin exodus – because they just wasn’t used to it all. Even I reported that Portal Bug, where Guests names didn’t show-up if you allowed Guests to post on the forum, which got grabbed to the latest threads block on the portal page. That was later fixed though by IPB!

[slinky]

What do you think about this?
IPB 3 Forum Second-Hand Licence Sales Increasing

1. If there has been a huge overrun of ex-vBulletin owners buying IPB that has not been dying down, then even if 9 out of 10 keep the software, the increased volume of IPB sales will significantly increase the resale market for IPB. For example only, if 10,000 more licenses are sold for IPB and 9,000 are happy customers, you still have 1,000 more licenses on the market for resale than there would have been.

2. There is nothing I've read that indicates that the rise in resale of IPB licenses has to do with dissatisfaction. I've read very little dissatisfaction and I'm incredibly impressed by how quick their support is and how willing they are to try to make customer suggestions work. I'm not saying this to bash IB. I have the emails in my mailbox - even on weekends - to prove it. It's very impressive.

3. The reason there is no second hand market for vBulletin 3 licenses is because vBulletin decided to make the resale value of vBulletion 3 almost worthless. IB set the price of the upgrade at virtually the same price to buy a new forums license. This was very likely done so that IB can pocket the cash instead of vB licenseholders recouping some of their investment via a resale to a potential customer. Fortunate for IPB owners, there is actually value in their software, even prior versions too. vBulletin 4... the word is out. People will probably pick up vB3 or use an alternative and decide to go to vB4 if they will choose to do so after watching this all unfold.

[Floris]

I'd just wait a bit longer, and see how the market is at the end of the year. Who knows how vB improves, or IPB shapes up, or whatever else happens.

Don't fix what isn't broken.