MyBB Community Forums

I migrated away from MyBB for a variety of reasons.

First of all it appeared as a platform to be lost and without a purpose, developers working on two different upgrades at the same time, is to put it bluntly a complete waste of time, who wants to put a load of effort into 1.8 when they know eventually 2.o will come along and kill it, kill one of them, preferably 2.0, it's so far behind now, by the time it is released it will be out of date anyway.

Next comes the MODs, there are too many MODs ( and themes) that have been abandoned, when you post for support, because of the amount of questions coming in, a request can get lost.

It would be far better if each MOD had it's own support thread, like they do with VB, phpBB3 and almost every other software out there, the same questions are being asked all the time, and answers are are being given to the same problems all the time, so have an FAQ post fixed at the top of the thread. If you do this, developers will know where to go to solve problems, it would be far easier for them and the users if it were done this way.

Themes should be treated the same way.

If a developer or designer doesn't sing in for a month, then his/her MOD/Theme gets moves to the abandoned section, it can only come out if they or another person offer to take it on.

I abandoned MyBB because of the lack of support, sort that out, make it easier to get support and people will come back.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]First of all it appeared as a platform to be lost and without a purpose, developers working on two different upgrades at the same time, is to put it bluntly a complete waste of time, who wants to put a load of effort into 1.8 when they know eventually 2.o will come along and kill it, kill one of them, preferably 2.0, it's so far behind now, by the time it is released it will be out of date anyway.

MyBB 2.0 is still in planning stage, the development will start after the release of 1.8. I am surprised you say 2.0 is out of date as it currently doesn't even exist...

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]It would be far better if each MOD had it's own support thread, like they do with VB, phpBB3 and almost every other software out there

There are currently dedicated threads for most plugins and themes however most users still create new ones instead of using them.
Our new mods site which will be introduced with the release of MyBB 1.8 creates threads automatically.

Quote:First of all it appeared as a platform to be lost and without a purpose, developers working on two different upgrades at the same time, is to put it bluntly a complete waste of time, who wants to put a load of effort into 1.8 when they know eventually 2.o will come along and kill it, kill one of them, preferably 2.0, it's so far behind now, by the time it is released it will be out of date anyway.

That's completely incorrect. As Stefan said, 2.0 doesn't exist at this point. MyBB 1.8 is a small upgrade to the 1.x series which brings a handful of features and some much needed changes. It's a bridge towards 2.0.

1.8 will be supported for a generous amount of time after 2.0 is released, with bug fixes and security updates included. It won't have as much priority as 2.0 but we understand the need for 2.0 to evolve before people decide to upgrade.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]First of all it appeared as a platform to be lost and without a purpose[...]

I hear some people saying that but I can't see it. There are a lot of people depending on the MyBB forum software and in general it doesn't let them down.

Could it be better? Of course. The good news is that is exactly what the team is doing: making it better. The change may not be coming as fast as anyone would like, but what can you expect to be done to change that? Volunteers are universally allowed one basic privilege and that is the right to take their own time. That will never change.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]Next comes the MODs, there are too many MODs ( and themes) that have been abandoned, when you post for support, because of the amount of questions coming in, a request can get lost.

Okay, I have to agree for the most part, but where to draw the line? I think clean up would need to be done delicately or not at all.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ][...]the same questions are being asked all the time[...]

That is the nature of the world, my friend. Plugins do have their own release threads and that is controlled by staff as it should be, but people will always post in the wrong place. It is simply a fact.

If I had a suggestion, it would be for mods on MyBB to merge any support threads into the release thread automatically. This would help keep things easier to find imo.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]If a developer or designer doesn't sing in for a month, then his/her MOD/Theme gets moves to the abandoned section[...]

One month? So if I get sick then all my plugins will be invalid when I return? I think you are being way too hard on this.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]I abandoned MyBB because of the lack of support, sort that out, make it easier to get support and people will come back.

I find the people who are here to be very helpful and it partly due to the amount of support that I received here that I decided to stay with MyBB and also to try to develop plugins for free. I simply cannot relate to your statements to the contrary.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]I abandoned MyBB because of the lack of support, sort that out, make it easier to get support and people will come back.

I am not really sure why did you said that. From own experience? As I can see on most of your threads in General support, you have the answer (few of them) with solution of course.

If there was only one place per MOD to get support, then it would be easier to move misplaced threads to the relevant place. I've always said that the best example of a support forum is VB.org or the phpBB3 one.

Yes support was forthcoming after a time, I'm not sure how this forum operates around the clock, but with the VB forum you get an answer almost within the hour.

Promising a dedicated thread system for 1.8 is like saying when pigs fly, 1.8 is already late, so how long do 1.6 users have to wait for a simple addition like that.

The one month thing is relevant, you have to be quite ill these days to be kept away from a computer for a whole month, even then, you could ask someone to contact the admins to let them know what predicament you are in. In any case there are some MODs that have been abandoned for a lot more than one month.

My unpopular opinion is that it's exactly these sorts of comments that are what's wrong with MyBB at the moment. People don't think things through or look at the bigger picture.

(2013-09-24, 04:11 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]I abandoned MyBB because of the lack of support, sort that out, make it easier to get support and people will come back.

We don't have a big red button that says 'sort it'. To be able to give support, we need people to give it. Are you willing to help out with that and make things better rather than just telling us we need to sort it out? Could you go over a few open support threads when you have some time and see if you can help out?

(2013-09-24, 09:08 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]Yes support was forthcoming after a time, I'm not sure how this forum operates around the clock, but with the VB forum you get an answer almost within the hour.

The last time I checked they also got paid. It's their job. I have a job, and it's not MyBB, and if I posted on here while at my job, I wouldn't have that job anymore. Comparing volunteer support for free software to support for paid software is not a fair comparison, and it's not fair on the people that help out here, any of them. I've been on this team nearly five years and have received a total of $0 in that time, yet have over 33K posts, most of which were helping people out for free in my free time. Please try and remember that we are volunteers here before making comments about having to wait more than an hour for a reply. And if you weren't referring to a response from a team member, then we can't force members of the community to respond within an hour.

(2013-09-24, 09:08 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]1.8 is already late, so how long do 1.6 users have to wait for a simple addition like that.

If you are concerned with the pace of development, you are more than welcome to sign up to Github and submit some pull requests with code changes or additions, and help get things moving. Here, this is a link to our repos, feel free to clone them and let us know how you get on: https://github.com/mybb

(2013-09-24, 09:08 PM)Spangle Wrote: [ -> ]The one month thing is relevant, you have to be quite ill these days to be kept away from a computer for a whole month, even then, you could ask someone to contact the admins to let them know what predicament you are in. In any case there are some MODs that have been abandoned for a lot more than one month.

If a plugin is abandoned, what's to stop someone taking ownership of it and continuing it? As far as I'm aware, it's a requirement that plugins on the Mods site have an open licence that allows forking and reproduction. If a plugin is dead, fork it, and support it. Just because someone has time when they make the plugin doesn't mean they'll have time forever, and you can't really expect us to deal with keeping track of the activity of every plugin dev and still want us to push out new releases quickly. It's not our job to keep track of how active a member of the community is just because they released some code for people to use, like we have to then keep tabs on them and make sure they stick around, or they then have to keep us updated on everything that happens to them.

The point I'm trying to make here is that recently, or even going back months, so many people have been saying what's wrong, but few of them have shown any effort to use what we currently have to try and make it right. When I started here, I took on loads of support requests even before I joined the team. Nobody asked me to, I didn't even really need to, but I wanted to help, so I did, and the community was better for it. That's what community means. It doesn't take much to respond to a few threads or put forward some code changes if you think you can help, and not everything is down to us. After being here for five years, what I can see is what's really declined here is the attitude of the community, which then brings all of us down, and gives the community more ammunition, and it's a viscous circle where we can never win. And that's the sad reality of it.

If you have some valid points or feasible suggestions to make, then feel free to make a thread in the private enquiries forum and I'll be happy to go over things in detail personally with you. We've had enough public discussions about this recently and it's easier to discuss things properly without the noise of other people trying to say their piece, so put your thoughts down in a private enquiries thread and I will get back to you on it.

Many thanks,
Matt