My forum is upgrading to VB Yayyyyyyyyy

Congrats on going from one of the worst free forums available to one of the worst paid ones. Good job at following the herd imho.

Amazes me all the people that like VB and rush to give them money for a bloated forum software that well..isn't even forum software anymore.


Taking a look at your forum...they seem perfectly fine with phpbb. Why the excitement over the change?

 

Why are you against the VB software?

Do you think the programmers of VB software are making crap and getting Huge $$$ from it? I am sorry but you are wrong. They have built a best software that's why they are leading. PhpBB is also great, no doubt but as compare to VB it will always come at second or third place.

 

Don't mind vb haters. You simply made the best decision to choose the best forum software with very good support and amazing free mod community (vbulletin.org). You'll never regret your decision.

But as I told you in your other thread, don't assume moving to vb, will help you on traffic building and content creation issues. You are on your own about these.

 

Yes, I Understand. Using VB will not drive traffic to my forum but whenever a new user will visit my forum he will see that I am using VB and having an active community he will join immediately

Only 1-2 days left in the upgrade. It should be ready by Monday or Tuesday.

 

Beat Dp within a week? Easier said than done.

It can be done, but you will need a lot of advertising. And some usefull posts so visitors stick around.

 

I was just kidding

My aim is not to beat any forum. Why should I beat them? They have their own place to run and people are happy with them. I am just making my own circle of friends and inviting people to join my forum if they find my forum good.

 

So you believe because they are making a lot of money they are the best?

But you just said making money makes it great but phpbb makes zero. So which is it?

Here...I will explain for you since you may have trouble with keeping a consistent opinion. What makes a software great is how well it's applied by the forum admin. The software used has very little to do actually with the success of a forum. If the admin is capable the forum will succeed no matter what software you run.

Exactly.

I still stand by my statement that VB is bloated software that's not even forum software anymore.

No they won't. Often forum members don't have a clue to which forum software you run. If you run a great forum...they don't care what software you use. VB just has a lot of stuff built in but how much is useful? How much is actually more of a distraction? How much distraction does it take for navigation to begin suffering and lowering the quality of the site experience?

If you are so excited because you think you will get more members..you are wrong. That's reality.

 

I think www.vbseo.com is only 160 and worth every penny!

Dave hasn't messed with forums in a long time, let alone zoints, which he sold

 

Congratulations. Did you know that VB is the best?

 

Why am I not surprised at your reply?

RectangleMan seems to have something against VBulletin. Look through his post and you will find a lot anti-VB replies. I am really surprised that he did not throw in a pitch for mybb while he was bashing VB.

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One of the biggest drawbacks to VB - it can take its toll on a server, but, it is also one of the best forums on the market. To use VB properly, one must first understand VB. Do not expect to just install VB and live happily ever after.

Expect to update your forum several times a year. Unlike other forums, VB releases updates on a regular basis. This also means you have to update on a regular basis. If you are used to dealing with forums that are only updated a few times a year, this might become a little bothersome. But then again, you will a secure site.

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Congratulations on picking on of the best forums on the market. You have made a good choice.

 

Just tired of all the kiss-assing that VB gets around here. It's like God himself wrote it. It's not that great of a software. It just isn't. Anyone can create a similar forum software from scratch with a team of 3 coders and a year development. There is absolutely nothing "special" about VB. It's JUST ANOTHER FORUM SOFTWARE WITH LOTS OF BELLS AND WHISTLES.

That's one drawback and imho that's a big one. You need to pay for license and then pay more for hosting than other software.

So you pay, then you spend time learning it, then you upgrade it all the time. When do you actually manage the forum? With VB you manage the software and not the community. More time should be spent on promotion, nuturing members, and participating in the forums than worrying about how to run VB, updating it, and modifying it to your needs.

Now comes my MYBB pitch you mentioned. Mybb updates fairly frequently. However their updates are painless. The plugins are pretty much plug and play and from update to update don't break. The exception being major updates like the recent 1.4x which has so many changes and upgrades that older plugins required updating too. However it's been only 2 months since release and just about every major plugin is updated. Plugins are added in admincp by the click of a button. They don't require core file changes.

Obviously Kev you know what you're doing but I have a feeling you would have successful forums if you used just about any decent forum software (including mybb).


Oh here is an example of that kiss-arsing I mentioned:

I mean c'mon isn't it all get a bit sickening to read constantly?

 

Thank you.

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Just with anything else, people will have their favorites. Some people like Toyota trucks (such as myself) while other people like chevy, ford, nissan and dodge. Just about all of them will get the job done. So its a matter of what you want in a truck.

The same goes with forum software - its what you want and need in a forum. Some people want a simple forum that is easy to run and maintain. While others want a forum they can run like a business. And with any other business there is overhead and operating cost.

With the comparison of truck and a forum. Just because someone owns a truck does not mean they know how to drive it. With vbulletin, do not expect to jump behind the wheel and be an instant professional forum operator - it just does not work that way. There is a learning curve, just as with driving a truck. You have to take it slow and easy, driving around the slow lane. Then finally inch your way over to the fast lane.

 

Toyota trucks...ewww.. Dodge man myself.

However I would never say "Dodge is the best". I might say "I prefer Dodge" or "I really love Dodge". IMHO it's important not to overstate.

But yeah...Toyota in all fairness has some highly rated trucks.

 

Mybb did exactly what you told. Got 3 coders and "cloned" vbulletin 2.x and moreover they distributed it for free. And it has been quite a long time too. So let's ask this question: why vbulletin is still leading the market when there is great "3 coder team" which gives you the "perfect" free alternative? Moreover why doesn't this perfect free alternative can't even compete with non-leaders of the market is I'm sure another mystery for you.

The answer is really very easy: Take a forum database like digitalpoint's with 1.000.000 threads, 10.000.000 posts, 2000 online members at all times and try mybb to power this board. When your server(s) gets into its knees and your server admin hollers for help, you'll know why vb is leading the market, powering largest communities in the internet and is the preference of professionals.

 

Let me apply my "Truck theory" as an example to your question. Logician, you already know the answer, this is for the people who need things cleared up a little bit.

Small trucks, such as the the Chevy S-10.

Mid-size, such as the Toyota T-100, and early model toyota tundra and the dodge dakota.

Full size, your chevy 1500 & 2500, ford F-150 & F-250, Dodges trucks, Nissan titan and now the full size tundra.

Then you have the tractor trailer rigs. These are the Mac trucks, Kenworth, Peterbuilt and Freightliner.

Some forum software does well in the small and mid-size market. While other trucks do well in the full size market. But when you have a load to pull, you get an 18-wheeler. A truck owner can not expect a small or mid-size truck to pull 80+ tons like a tractor trailer rig can.

Forums like Invision Power Board and Vbulletin are the tractor trailer rigs. When you need hundreds of thousands, or millions of post handled, you call in the big boys.

Some forum owners over estimate the amount of traffic they can dive to a site. They buy VB, work and work on developing and promoting the site and it never grows. In this case, one of the free forums would have worked just as good. On the other hand, sites like Digital-point would not work as well as it does if it used one of the free forums.

 

Actually that's false that it's a VB clone.

http://www.mybboard.net/about/mybb

Forum features are pretty common place across the different platforms. The more developed the closer to being VB as it is the most feature rich forum software available.

Maybe it's a mystery for you but not for me. Mybb is less than 3 years old. phpbb and vb are both from 2000. That's a big head start in the market. Mybb is just less known that doesn't make it lesser software.

I guess you aren't up to date on the latest news of mybb. Version 1.4x is the only free forum software that supports master/slave databases without modification. And VB is the bloat master. Pound for pound a site will run better with Mybb than VB if just for one simple reason. It's only forum software. VB is beyond that. That's great if that's what you want. I don't need myspace style profiles for members. I don't need a gallery. I don't need social bookmarking integration. I don't even need a CMS. I just need a forum. Notice how DP pretty much runs VB as a pure forum.

Also as big as DP is...it does go down from time to time and that's pretty much directly related to the bloat of VB.

VB is still php and mysql. There is no magic in the code making it special. Sure most the queries are optimized but that's not rocket science. I am sure most wouldn't believe that gaiaonline is phpbb but it is. He just tweaked it some to use master/slave and optimized some queries. That forum is a BILLION posts and well...runs just fine as php and mysql.

I think that's changing as VB is becoming increasingly bloated. It automatically creates the need for a better host and more admin work just to set it up. It's great software and you point out well Kev that every forum has it's needs. I gotta convince you to start your next forum with Mybb and see how you like it. You can always go VB in the future. That's one strength of VB imho. If the free forum software you use isn't cutting it you can easily switch to VB. That can even be a plus as members will see this as an "upgrade" with lots of new bells and whistles to play with.

Kev...if you ever want to try mybb on a new site. Let me know. I can totally help you setup and I would be happy to give you a free subscription (normally $5 a year) to mybbcentral.com (my exclusive plugin site). I see you have a TF2 forum starting. I plan to get a DoD:S forum setup by end of year. I love that game. dodforums.com

hehe

Nice discussion overall. Too bad OP was banned. hahaha

 

You can always use some other optimization options for vB like TF URL's. There are many other mods for free which you can use.

Good news for you!

 

Yes, for some reason I got banned for 7 days

Anyways, My forum has finally upgraded to VB and now it is 100% ready and running

 

Congratulations on the upgrade and can you recommend someone to do the job?

Thanks

 

Good choice using vbulletin.

Been using it since 2001/2 .. never turn back.

jonny, i have pm you in regard to the vb upgrade job.

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joseph