MyBB Community Forums

I know I just like using phpbb as they are the largest free forum script(I'm pretty sure).

I would love to see more people join but honestly how is another story. Personally I don't think we need many more plugins but I also like to keep the forums as light as possible on get the features I think I need. But, there are still ones that show and I say oh this is nice why didn't I think of it earlier.

I think our best bet would be getting CMSs to join in on MyBB. That's the best form of advertising there is. I mean you take a huge community and say here a great forum you can use with our CMS.

I would personally target Drupal as it's the largest CMS I know that needs a forum the most.

Just going back to the discussion from a few pages ago. Making a member that already develops a lot of themes or plug-ins staff doesn't change anything, it's only aiming to make them feel more important, so that isn't going to help anything at all. Really, Theme Designer and Plug-in Developer staff positions is just not a good idea at all, because it'll just give them a higher sense of worth and they'll think they don't really need to finish plug-ins as fast as they previously had because they've got no where higher to go.

Just my two cents.

(2009-07-29, 01:08 AM)Ooka Wrote: [ -> ]Just going back to the discussion from a few pages ago. Making a member that already develops a lot of themes or plug-ins staff doesn't change anything, it's only aiming to make them feel more important, so that isn't going to help anything at all. Really, Theme Designer and Plug-in Developer staff positions is just not a good idea at all, because it'll just give them a higher sense of worth and they'll think they don't really need to finish plug-ins as fast as they previously had because they've got no where higher to go.

Just my two cents.

Let me clear this up. I more or less mean a team of people who basically know the in and outs of those areas. Not saying they have to develop plugins/themes. Just be there to help guide new people/help etc in those forums sorta like phpbb does if i am not mistaken.

I personally think it's best as-is. Meaning, if you know how to develop plugins, great, develop them. Same for themes. And if someone wants to learn, help them out. Help the Mod community grow. We can all pitch in regardless of who/where we are

Quote:You seriously gonna tell me that 5yrs isnt enough? Come on now. Sorry but there is no reason why the best free forum script doesnt have the #1 spot or heck even #2 in popularity.

HarryWx, you seriously need to chill out. This thread is going in a really productive direction and it's not fair to the people contributing if it gets locked because you couldn't restrain yourself. For you to say, "some of us need to lose the attitudes [before we can begin to work together as a community]" is fairly ironic.

I sincerely do not care whether MyBB is #1 or #2 or #3 or whatever. Realistically, if MyBB was overrun by users the already strained development process would probably crumble under the pressure. Let's take Apple's for example: OS X has what, a 10% or so marketshare? Does that make it a less legitimate product? A less powerful piece of software? No.

The deficiencies in MyBB's plugin and theme libraries are certainly contributing factors to the perceptual "lack of popularity", but marketshare isn't as big of an issue right now as two other things:

1. The perception of MyBB in the eyes of administrators and users.
2. The ability for users of MyBB to accomplish what they need.

The perception of MyBB is a bit of a problem due to its "brand image." MyBB has a bit of a reputation as being a forum software for "noobs" due to several factors. There is a serious lack of successful, professional websites running MyBB, and I sincerely believe showing those off more would help strengthen MyBB's brand -- hence my promotion of the idea of a MyBB "Spotlight." Most of the sites seen with MyBB are either quickly thrown together general, gaming etc. sites made by people with no serious interest, or fly by night operations.

I know this is rather a contentious issue, but is there really any denying that MyBB's default theme is rather childish looking? Not that I have a problem with these, but in comparison to pretty much every large forum software I can think of, it's the odd one out. Most of these forum software have sleek, modern, "Web 2.0" (I hate that phrase) skins and MyBB seems a little left behind. It's why I pushed so hard for MyBB to reconsider their layout and logo for 1.6; alas, it looks like we will not see a change in this department for at least two more years.

As I spoke of before, the "cash-in" attitude of some of the members here trying to monetize MyBB as much as they can without offering a "retail-grade" product is just going to push people away from MyBB even more. As I've stated again and again in the past, I don't have any real issue with the idea of paying for plugins, but it seems to come down to either:

A) 90% of the plugins that occur to me that do exist have to be paid for.
B) Most of the sites charging for themes and plugins are not selling product of higher grade than even moderately professional free additions to MyBB.

There is also of course the same old point of there not being any decent themes and plugins for MyBB. I sincerely wish I had the ability to help MyBB in this regard, and I am trying to help with the Cornerstone project, but for me to learn enough PHP to develop decent plugins would take years of time that I don't honestly have. So I'll continue to commission when I need something, it seems.

It is hard to convince yourself to begin building a site with MyBB when you begin looking for plugins and either cannot find what you need or need to make such a high initial investment that the project becomes unappealing in comparison to other free software, or it begins to look more viable to purchase IPB or VB instead.

I know this was a really long post, but I hope I've been able to shed some insight into the situation. I am not trying to be derogatory towards MyBB. I've spoken to several of the developers here and I hope they understand that I truly do love this project and have no intentions of leaving it. However, the reality of the situation needs to be acknowledged and we all need to ask ourselves what we can do to strengthen MyBB so that it still exists when we need it.

Quote:Most of the people who want plugins and themes are those who can't don't have the knowledge to make them.

Is this not the case with pretty much any service? Mechanics fix cars owned by people who do not know how to fix them. Chefs make food that patrons generally cannot prepare similarly at home. Plugin developers develop for people who do not have the ability to. I commission plugins because I do not possess the capacity to design them myself.

You got me there Brad .

However I would disagree with 90% of the plugins being paid. Although I would say 90% of the good/useful ones are paid or require a little posting(mybbsource).

(2009-07-29, 04:41 AM)NetSage Wrote: [ -> ]You got me there Brad .

However I would disagree with 90% of the plugins being paid. Although I would say 90% of the good/useful ones are paid or require a little posting(mybbsource).

I did not say 90% of plugins are paid. I said 90% of plugins that would occur to me to use are either paid or don't exist.

How can you even include them if they don't exist?

You know what nvm we'll get no where .

(2009-07-29, 04:44 AM)NetSage Wrote: [ -> ]How can you even include them if they don't exist?

You know what nvm we'll get no where .

I didn't put that properly ... just reread my original statement ...

Quote:A) 90% of the plugins that occur to me that do exist have to be paid for.

Obviously if I think of a plugin and can't find it because it doesn't exist, that's irrelevant.

o.o Long post is long.

Um, I agree with most of what you said, although I don't think "childish" is quite the right word for the layout. XD