What happened to the vb modding community

**Darkus** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 3:46am

Yes, I totally agree, it was a much different atmosphere back then. Now its mostly unsupported, preview, or even demo products that are released with the full versions usually costing 30$ upwards. I understand that developers need money but with a paid for product already, why make it even more expensive for a small forum to expand with mods that would make it more attractive for a wider community?

**El_Muerte** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 5:33am

Time is money
Time is just like money, it can be spend only once
People are jerks
People are greedy
A lot of people are bad programmers
People are egocentric

A lot of mods are intended to be shared, not released as a product. Pretty much every time I build a mod for a certain need I will share it with others through vb.org. This is seen as a released product, and people expect you to support it or something. But my intention is: "I made this because I needed it like this, feel free to adjust it to your own needs". The "support" check box on vb.org is ambiguous.

A lot of visitors on vb.org are operate on a for-profit basis. They usually only take, and don't give back. This has a negative effect on the people that give. These for-profit leechers often care much about SEO, page/search rank. And usually little about their actual members.

**Fusion** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 7:25am

Originally posted by El_Muerte

Time is money
Time is just like money, it can be spend only once
People are jerks
People are greedy
A lot of people are bad programmers
People are egocentric

A lot of mods are intended to be shared, not released as a product. Pretty much every time I build a mod for a certain need I will share it with others through vb.org. This is seen as a released product, and people expect you to support it or something. But my intention is: "I made this because I needed it like this, feel free to adjust it to your own needs". The "support" check box on vb.org is ambiguous.

A lot of visitors on vb.org are operate on a for-profit basis. They usually only take, and don't give back. This has a negative effect on the people that give. These for-profit leechers often care much about SEO, page/search rank. And usually little about their actual members.

This may not be the proper place to open up this can of worms, but what the hey..
Perhaps it's time to consider a coder-pool where people in need of a mod or mods subscribe and the money goes into the pool to be shared amongst those coders that actually contribute mods. This may help alleviate the "me, myself and I" trend this thread is discussing.

**dodgeboard.com** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 7:46am

I see time and time again, people demanding something for nothing. Why, right now there are tons of posts over on vb.org, from posters that have upgraded their board to 3.7, despite the warning, and now demanding the authors publish an update to make their broken mod work.

Those are the same people that will not donate a dime to the author but will ridicule the mod and the author when there is a flaw, patch, or tweak.

People will take and take and then get rude for not being given support for free mods. It's a huge hassle now to develop a mod and then give it away. Just like this thread, people actually think they are owed something for nothing.

I have never developed a damn thing- but if I like a mod and I install it on my board, I ALWAYS use the support the developer link to send him/her 10 or 20 dollars for helping me to improve my board. It's the right thing to do.

So many people don't donate, and they are the first ones to post a complaint in the mods thread when things don't go right. It's really no wonder why developers are turning their backs on the whole "free" thing. The honor system is not working.

**Lynne** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 8:16am

Originally posted by El_Muerte

A lot of mods are intended to be shared, not released as a product. Pretty much every time I build a mod for a certain need I will share it with others through vb.org. This is seen as a released product, and people expect you to support it or something. But my intention is: "I made this because I needed it like this, feel free to adjust it to your own needs". The "support" check box on vb.org is ambiguous.

This is my problem. I have made a ton of mods on my site that I have seen people ask about on vb.org. However, I made them specific for my board and I don't want to deal with the people saying "can you change it so it also does xxx" or "but I NEED it to be changed to do yyy also for my board - NOW". So, instead, I just PM the users with instructions on how to do the mod (I always keep notes on my mods) and tell them that they are welcome to use it as is but that I am not willing to customize it.

**Zachery** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 8:27am

You can always release a mod with no support and just a set of text instructions.

**kentaurus** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 11:24am

Looking deep into vb.org, I find a lot of mods that are supported, a lot of mods for which they authors care a lot, and they update and improve them. To me, there are even people that enjoy developing mods for vbulletin and don't care about the money.

And to those people... as way of saying "thanks", we criticize hardly the mod, we demand (not ask) for certain bugs to be fixed, others leave nasty comments as "this mod is useless, I'm uninstalling". And some people *actually* expect the author to spend countless hours debugging their custom installation and their special setup of their forums, so the mod won't have conflicts with their other 20 mods, and all of these for nothing.

No wonder some people would get discouraged.

Checking vb.org, I see a better community. Mods for every latest version of vbulletin, released daily, more and more... some very simple, some complex. I will not change it for the community we had back in the 2.0 series.

True, there are some people there that will ask for money, but there also a lot of people that will not ask for anything. Of course, if you expect to walk in a forum, ask for a mod for some functionality, then return the day after and find your mod ready by someone that was passing by, for free... I don't see that happening.

And for the biggest mods.... some people might not agree with me, but I'd actually prefer to PAY for them than to have them released for free. Why? Because, sadly, paid mods, and mods in which the author gets some money for his work are better developed, better tested, and there is some motivation to continue development, to upgrade it after a new version of vbulletin is released and to add new features. And most of the times, also better support and a bigger commitment, since there is a monetary transaction in place.

**dodgeboard.com** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 11:29am

Originally posted by kentaurus

And for the biggest mods.... some people might not agree with me, but I'd actually prefer to PAY for them than to have them released for free. Why? Because, sadly, paid mods, and mods in which the author gets some money for his work are better developed, better tested, and there is some motivation to continue development, to upgrade it after a new version of vbulletin is released and to add new features. And most of the times, also better support and a bigger commitment, since there is a monetary transaction in place.

I agree. I'd rather pay and have things done right. Then I have some right to complain when they aren't.

**El_Muerte** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 11:31am

Originally posted by Zachery

You can always release a mod with no support and just a set of text instructions.

That's how it currently works on vb.org, but this is clearly not working well.
I also get the feeling a lot of people think "It's not my mod, so I won't help others out". Or at least for the smaller mods. Maybe they think they're not allowed to upload modifications to the mod, or something. Time for a some Creative Commons license like mod attributes at vb.org (like an option "Attribution + ShareAlike" to let people know they can release modified versions of the mod as they see fit.)

Originally posted by kentaurus

And for the biggest mods.... some people might not agree with me, but I'd actually prefer to PAY for them than to have them released for free. Why? Because, sadly, paid mods, and mods in which the author gets some money for his work are better developed, better tested, and there is some motivation to continue development, to upgrade it after a new version of vbulletin is released and to add new features. And most of the times, also better support and a bigger commitment, since there is a monetary transaction in place.

Heh. Paying for stuff doesn't guarantee you quality. With free stuff you know for sure that you get at least what you paid for, and usually you get more.

**Wayne Luke** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 7:56pm

Originally posted by El_Muerte

That's how it currently works on vb.org, but this is clearly not working well.
I also get the feeling a lot of people think "It's not my mod, so I won't help others out". Or at least for the smaller mods. Maybe they think they're not allowed to upload modifications to the mod, or something. Time for a some Creative Commons license like mod attributes at vb.org (like an option "Attribution + ShareAlike" to let people know they can release modified versions of the mod as they see fit.)

They're not allowed to upload modifications unless you as the author check the "Re-usable Code" box on your original submission. If that box isn't checked and someone modifies your addon and re-releases it, the re-release will inevitably get reported and deleted.

**kentaurus** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 9:29pm

oh... so that's what "Reusable code" means!!!!!

Sorry.. I feel like some kind of knowledge have been magically passed to me

I have published some hacks and I had NO idea of what that box was for. It needs to be explained somewhere... somewhere accessible that I can't miss, that's it.

Being a J2EE developer, I thought that "reusable code" meant that the code was developed in a modular-fashion way, or using the data managers, or providing custom classes. And since it is grouped with the "uses plugins, add new templates, add new files"... all atributes of the hack.....

But enough of that. Myself, I always include a disclaimer in my hacks, they are free for all for the taking and to do whatever they want with it. But I agree that a "creative commons" license in place would be a relief, I'd feel more comfortable with taking someone else's code, modifying 3 lines, adding more changes, and releasing as a new hack.....

**Wayne Luke** · Sun 6 Jan '08, 10:06pm

You could always slap a Creative Commons license in your release or put it under the LGPL. Its a thought. I've always thought that if a few key addon developers did that for some of their addons that the community would be more open there. Once it started happening, more people would follow suit.

**Dean C** · Mon 7 Jan '08, 2:34am

Why would anyone spend their free time offering support, and maintaining a product when they could get paid for it? vB.org is a community full of takers nowadays, which is why I don't bother releasing there anymore. It was a community mainly consisting of developers, people who knew what they were doing. I gave back and I took. I didn't need to get paid as I was learning. Now when I give back, no-one gives back.You know in over 5 years I only ever received one donation for $10? I have bills to pay too

**El_Muerte** · Mon 7 Jan '08, 11:04am

Originally posted by Wayne Luke

They're not allowed to upload modifications unless you as the author check the "Re-usable Code" box on your original submission. If that box isn't checked and someone modifies your addon and re-releases it, the re-release will inevitably get reported and deleted.

never noticed that option. Must have been added after my last new mod release. For updates I usually only check the version field. However, that option also applies that people can turn your free mod into a commercial mod, and I don't like that.

What happened to the vb modding community

What happened to the vb modding community

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