Yet another customer lynching by fanbois at Xenforo

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/update-on-xenforo-development-status.30992/

Xenforo community at its worst. A customer and licence holder asks a perfectly legitimate question and is lynched by the bigots and fanbois.

The community there does have some talented and helpful people (Brogan, Jake Bunce etc.) but the posters in that thread need to be shown the door. Why? Because that kind of behaviour is counterproductive to XenForo. It is off-putting to potential customers and, for licence holders like me, really makes me think twice about posting there anymore.

These people have no interest in fellow customers, they obviously cannot see the reality of the situation (XenForo does NOT appear to be actively developed, Mike hardly posts anymore, and Kier on his return is not talking about development, but rather his babysitting kids and migrating his own personal forum over). If they don't agree that is a problem then fine - we all have an opinion - but their treatment of the OP in that thread is disgusting.

Great! So business as usual then - licence holder and customer asks a perfectly legitimate question as it is his right to, and gets "raped" (to use a phrase from a previous post here) by the fanbois.

Thanks XenForo community - the joke is you are collectively worse at times than anything ever seen on vB or IPB.

 

Indeed. And Floren is a well respected member of the forum "world" and yet STILL he gets treated in this way, mainly (I notice) by silly teenage hobby boardists who have absolutely no idea of the economics and harsh realities of business.

The fact that Kier's made it very public that he's working on his personal forum, whilst still there is no development update despite the large clamour for one, is very worrying. Quite frankly, it suggests that XenForo has given up and they aren't that bothered any more.

 

I don't think Xenforo has "given up" at all. I have had direct personal conversations with both Kier and Mike recently so I know that not to be the case. I think Kier working on spacebattles has been in the works for a very long time and now seemed like the right time for him to do it. I just want a snippet of an update made publically, I don't need to know all the state secrets. I do agree the atmosphere there in the last year or so is not always a pleasant one...but I find that to be the case just about everywhere I go in the forum world so it doesn't surprise or bother me anymore.

 

That may be the case, but most customers don't have that privilege and you can't blame people like Floren for raising it as a concern.

They have become no better than vBulletin in this regard, leaving customers effectively stabbing around in the dark. I appreciate they have the lawsuit on their plate, but your average customer does not care about that, and frankly it would take no time at all to post a development update.

Personally I am not fussed, hence me not joining in the calls over there, but I can well understand why many customers have concerns.

 

Yep, a community manager with power is sorely needed.

A short update would put a lot of minds at ease. Not sure why one isn't made, tbh. Not saying anything sometimes speaks louder than saying something.

 

Similar to AWS, my view is that this is how they have always worked.

Back in the "old" vBulletin days, I long had the suspicion that the more people demanded an update, the less likely they were to provide one. To a degree that didn't matter, as they were just the developers. Now, however, it is their business. And they are rapidly alienating more and more customers by the day.

Either there's something legal stopping them from posting - in which case, it is likely that XenForo is finished - or else they are simply adopting the same stubborn attitude they had at vBulletin - in which case XenForo is finished.

You just cannot run a software business this way. I can't believe they don't know that, so there is something else afoot here.

 

There could be a settlement being negotiated. That would explain alot.

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head Mark - it's great to be stubborn and arrogant in some respects (coding, self motivation, starting a new business) but you can't bring that to the table with your customers. I also get a sense the more people complain the more they dig their heels in, as if so say "This is how we are doing it, if you don't like it, sod off" but that does not work with paying customers. For all the great skills they have as coders - and I rate them as the industry's best for forum software - they lack the skills needed to interact with customers. They just don't seem to have any idea of how to treat people. Above all they don't seem to have any comprehension (and this is the arrogance aspect) of how their actions, or inactions, are perceived by customers, even when these customers post quite blatantly time after time about these issues in their own forums! As an example, did Kier not have any idea that in readily responding to questions about Spacebattles that all the customers waiting/wanting for some development update or reassurance are going to ask WTF???

 

I hope to see some movement on the development front by the end of spring, that is their committed to date for 1.2. Time will tell, I suppose.

 

Think the same as you, would explain why they are avoing posting any fresh updates. Might explain why he's also decided to convert Spacebattles to XenForo now, also curious why he did wait till XenForo 1.2 is here soon, if coming of course.

 

I knew it wouldn't be long before Floren said something after seeing his "tweet" sent to Kier asking for an answer to his post made before on forums. He got no reply back in twitter from him, so had a feeling he would say something soon. It's a shame the fan-boys keep jumping in ruining threads getting them locked, don't they realize they are just playing into the hands of staff on XenForo giving them a perfect excuse to lock them. About time they woke and realized some answers are more than overdue and the fact they keep avoiding posting any updates on purpose is strange to say the least, and how Kier can find time to convert his own forum spread over days, but not spend 30 minutes posting a quick.announcement.

Been slow reading this because my PC kicked the bucket last night, think PSU is on way out or motherboard is cracked. I'm using a borrowed laptop for the time being, very hard for using being a small one. So won't be posting that much this week until PC is repair, too hard on eye-sight using this small Notebook laptop!.

 

I have some reading glasses, but have no idea were I put them. I'm running this thing in 800x600 screen res to read the text, but means forum scrolls sideways. LOL!

 

Then what is stopping them?

 

Money, I would imagine.

 

That's all it would take really, just as long as it's worded so nothing else can be read into it splitting the communities understanding of it. Keep to simple facts, something everyone can understand which cannot be taken out of context. No cryptic vague announcement!. This thread is now the second one spanning over a few pages long on XenForo, I though with the first one maybe they was taking in some customer feedback first before posting announcement but none came, now we have this second one being allowed to run and bet the same thing happens again, no news.

I don't know what to think anymore, but my gut feeling tells me they have given in until I read otherwise posted from KAM now. They need to say something plain and simple, there's no excuse for not doing so anymore. It's really starting to look like they're playing games with customers - until whatever happens?

I think what Kier did making it public on Xenforo he was converting his own site to it was "very clever", it's given many there the impression it must mean it's still under active development without him saying anything of the sort "planting a seed in peoples mind" to think that. For all we know, he might just be doing it before IB own Xenforo, who knows. But I question why convert to that version of XenForo, if he knows a newer 1.2 version is coming soon?

 

Back using the PC now, thank god. You can read my story here about it here.

Right now though, the fan in old PSU is broken, but have that taken out ready to get a replacement PSU fan tomorrow, fit it then job done!

 

I have no sympathies with anyone, I still run 4 VB sites and 2 XF (yes, i do belive XF blows every other script out of the water, but that's a personal opinion, everyone is entitled to use whatever script they like)

I dislike such threads though. George, have you opened such a thread on the XF community? Was it closed down? Can you please link us to it? I don't allow such threads in my forums since it's their business how they manage their forum, not mine to gossip. If the developers are not members here or at least linked to this, it's just gossip to me.

The question has been asked like a thousand times. Each week there's a new 'Floren' or how the member is called, who can't sleep at night of out care for the new release. You know what? I don't want a new release. What if they'll get to the smart ideea to ask me to pay almost full price on it? I haven't asked for VB4, which is pretty bad anyway, but I had to pay almost full price, even if my first license was bought in 2005 if I am not mistaken. I am VERY pleased with how XF works. I have modded the theme, it looks modern and professional. I have added features, I am working DAILY on getting more content, wrote a book etc. I really can't find the time between my sites, the web design business I run and personal life to track the new XF version development and cry for it. As long as the script works amazingly well (which it does), I see no reason for something new.

With the current installation I can run the forum for the next 5 years with no problems. I don't need a new versino with some new stuff and a lot of bloated features, that will probably mean some of my few plugins won't work and the theme might need a redesign. More working days down the drain for me

So I think I'm the only crazy admin who doesn't want frequent updates. I HATE IT when it happens and it messes up my sites all the time. Let them manage what's now to manage, provide support to current license holders (which they seem to do, I was helped out nicely couple of times) and solve their legal problems. I'd rather have them help me keep my site up and running, than mess up my current work with new 'versions' I really don't care for.

I agree there's not always a good communication on the forums there, but our focus should be on our forums anyway, not to see who's doing what.
Hope I am not offending anyone, but such drama never helps. And, when you're keeping your eyes on someone else's site, it means you're not keeping them on yours