Maybe Forums Site Are Condemned to death and vbulletin team know that?

[ShyGuy82]

I also forgot to mention that in my explanation facebook was not the only social networking site, there are others where in groups you create discussions (thread/topics) and people post there, exactly the same concept as forums. People join groups because they share the same interests. I was not talking about having friends and sharing pictures. I was talking about groups and discussions. What I also like about social networking groups is that the creator of the group is an administrator for the group. Most forums (don't bash me, I didnt say ALL ) have administrators/moderators with inferiority complex (same thing on game servers), they use their ban/infraction button way too often. There is a HUGE difference when you come to forums and you come to social networking site. On social networking site the content belongs to the USER. He/she can do anything they want with that content. In forums, administrators/moderators rule and sometimes they rule like an emperor (kill the peasant) and this is another point I forgot to mention in my initial post. Nobody likes to come to the site and be watched over all the time. I can go on and on about it but I doubt it will serve any purpose , it took me a while to realize and come to a conclusion that forums in their form get a lot of people frustrated.

[Andy]

I also forgot to mention that in my explanation facebook was not the only social networking site, there are others where in groups you create discussions (thread/topics) and people post there, exactly the same concept as forums. People join groups because they share the same interests. I was not talking about having friends and sharing pictures. I was talking about groups and discussions. What I also like about social networking groups is that the creator of the group is an administrator for the group.

I just checked my daughters tumblr site, appears to be a waste of time, I guess it's sort of like a blog. Is this what you mean by "social networking site" ??

Most forums (don't bash me, I didnt say ALL ) have administrators/moderators with inferiority complex (same thing on game servers), they use their ban/infraction button way too often. There is a HUGE difference when you come to forums and you come to social networking site. On social networking site the content belongs to the USER. He/she can do anything they want with that content. In forums, administrators/moderators rule and sometimes they rule like an emperor (kill the peasant) and this is another point I forgot to mention in my initial post. Nobody likes to come to the site and be watched over all the time. I can go on and on about it but I doubt it will serve any purpose , it took me a while to realize and come to a conclusion that forums in their form get a lot of people frustrated.

Excellent observation. I see you have many years of forum admin experience.

[acwatts]

Why is it when people start a Facebook group they come to advertise it on forums. If it's that good they should not need to try and get traffic from us forum owners. Someone on my forum asked if he could advertise his new facebook group as it was based on the same content as my forum. When I looked at the group he had only stole loads of my content. My reply was no and you can delete all the stolen content as well. Something else will come along one day and Facebook will be in the history books, I wonder if VB will copy that as well.

[doctorsexy]

No im not a fan of farcebook....

[ShyGuy82]

I just checked my daughters tumblr site, appears to be a waste of time, I guess it's sort of like a blog. Is this what you mean by "social networking site" ??



Excellent observation. I see you have many years of forum admin experience.

Andy there are many social networking sites (tumblr, twitter and facebook are not the only ones).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rking_websites

About admin experience. I've done my share (and still do with vB, have my site since 2007) and I don't treat my users like that (almost 500k and counting). But my point still stands. There are many forums where admins are just power hogs, nothing more. And this breeds rebellion. Unless these forums already have huge traffic, people abandon them.


Btw, I don't use facebook, twitter etc but I do recognize the power of them. I wrote my site with social networking in mind, most people use it more than forum now. It's all statistics for me

[iyama]

If you're not a fan of social networks vBulletin 5 doesn't need to be that for you. The forum software is still there.

I think the users of vb can made that decision not vb.
Vb is trying to make vb a social media, what it is not for made in the beginning.
I'm thinking that FB is paying vb a lot of money to trow it in vb.

Just like the other thing what is becoming in the last updates in vb.

[Zachery]

I think the users of vb can made that decision not vb.
Vb is trying to make vb a social media, what it is not for made in the beginning.
I'm thinking that FB is paying vb a lot of money to trow it in vb.

Just like the other thing what is becoming in the last updates in vb.

vBulletin 5 is still very much a forum, if the software doesn't meet your needs I would encourage you to suggest improvement requests in the tracker on how to make it suite your needs. If another software does meet your needs now, I'd suggest you use that.

Running around these forums posting the same thing in every thread does not help you get your point across.

[Andy]

Yesterday I purchased vB5 and spent a day learning about some of the new features. I must say that I'm very impressed. The vB5 demo page does a great injustice to the product.

Here's an example that shows the power of vB5, it's an instruction page that explains how to create an About Us tab for your navigation bar:

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...e-Site-Builder

In vB4 this was extremely difficult to do. Also note that a custom tab (aka Page) can be setup to call a PHP script. This will make customizing your forum much easier than it ever was in vB4.

[iyama]

vBulletin 5 is still very much a forum, if the software doesn't meet your needs I would encourage you to suggest improvement requests in the tracker on how to make it suite your needs. If another software does meet your needs now, I'd suggest you use that.

Running around these forums posting the same thing in every thread does not help you get your point across.

I'm thinking my message is making you mad.
I'm thinking i just made vb a -1 forum and your answer is 100% to my ears.

Thats why you deleted some around postings.

[Solitaire]

I have seen usenet and newsgroups morph into messageboards, forums, and now we have social media platforms. Honestly I think all the "you can pry my forum from my cold dead hands" talk is the same talk that people were having back in the day when newsgroups started to really go out of style. Give it up, unless you have an older site with a loyal fanbase, you are just not going to be successful in launching a new forum. People just don't have the attention span as they once did! LOL! Its all quick status updates that you can ignore 90 percent of the time.

In all honesty, forums are dying. You don't need a forum to have a discussion when you have powerful CMS software where you can manage the content and drive the discussion around that, and then link it to specialized blogs, and have group discussions all on the same site. No one is going to play games on your forum or spam it with chat when they can do that much more easily nowadays with facebook and twitter. So in order to build a new community in the here and now, you need to have those social avenues in place to attract people and make them stay to contribute. People come to forums for information, and tutorials, but that doesn't automatically make them part of the community. They take that information back elsewhere and post to their facebooks, twitters and blogs, and discuss it there. If you really want people to stay on your site and lounge around, it's not going to be like the old days anymore with forums. You need something new. Vb4 was supposed to be that. Finally 4.2 is great but it still misses the mark in some ways. I am REALLY hoping that vb5 will be it.

I know that vb is catering to the old forummers and trying to make them feel better by positioning the forum part still as the "core product" but I just don't think it is necessary at all. Vb should just come right out and say that they are moving on. It is evident by the fact that vb5 is one product, no longer 2 different products. Which I prefer because I hate having to piecemail software. I want something that does what I want and is all inclusive.

[Zachery]

I'm thinking my message is making you mad.
I'm thinking i just made vb a -1 forum and your answer is 100% to my ears.

Thats why you deleted some around postings.

You're abusing our forum, that is whats not cool with me.

[TundraSoul]

Thankfully forums are not condemned to death. The best and most successful are those that embrace all aspects of what makes a community successful. It begins with an admin who puts in an absurd amount of effort and time into developing their forum. They embrace the community, listening to their members, glorifying the heroes of the community, and connecting to the services that extend the reach of their forum.

Additionally they understand that the software that hosts the forum, alone, is not the component that will make the forum successful. If you’re waiting for vBulletin to provide you with software that makes your forum super-popular and you a millionaire, you’re living in fantasy land. If the bulk of your forum membership resides in the off-topic forum, you’re forum has already taken a wrong turn. Well, unless you’re forum is called off-topic.

I have a unique perspective of seeing communities start from an idea, thrive, generate huge amounts of cash, and sometimes be sold for millions of dollars. My position with one of IB’s competitors takes me into these forums, and after speaking with countless admins, I've learned that they all have one thing in common.

They understood early-on that the heroes in their forum were the greatest contributors to their success.

I’ll write more about this later, but in the meantime, embrace what vBulletin is doing for you. They’ll give you many tools to host your forum, and extend its reach into social media. It’s up-to-you to make it successful.

[acwatts]

I have seen usenet and newsgroups morph into messageboards, forums, and now we have social media platforms. Honestly I think all the "you can pry my forum from my cold dead hands" talk is the same talk that people were having back in the day when newsgroups started to really go out of style. Give it up, unless you have an older site with a loyal fanbase, you are just not going to be successful in launching a new forum. People just don't have the attention span as they once did! LOL! Its all quick status updates that you can ignore 90 percent of the time.

In all honesty, forums are dying. You don't need a forum to have a discussion when you have powerful CMS software where you can manage the content and drive the discussion around that, and then link it to specialized blogs, and have group discussions all on the same site. No one is going to play games on your forum or spam it with chat when they can do that much more easily nowadays with facebook and twitter. So in order to build a new community in the here and now, you need to have those social avenues in place to attract people and make them stay to contribute. People come to forums for information, and tutorials, but that doesn't automatically make them part of the community. They take that information back elsewhere and post to their facebooks, twitters and blogs, and discuss it there. If you really want people to stay on your site and lounge around, it's not going to be like the old days anymore with forums. You need something new. Vb4 was supposed to be that. Finally 4.2 is great but it still misses the mark in some ways. I am REALLY hoping that vb5 will be it.

I know that vb is catering to the old forummers and trying to make them feel better by positioning the forum part still as the "core product" but I just don't think it is necessary at all. Vb should just come right out and say that they are moving on. It is evident by the fact that vb5 is one product, no longer 2 different products. Which I prefer because I hate having to piecemail software. I want something that does what I want and is all inclusive.

What utter trash, I have no social media on my site, no facebook button, no twitter button, no groups, no blogs. When people want info they search Google, not twitter or Facefart. Forums allow you to categorize your content for easy finding. I never use FB or Twitter when I'm looking for info, is that because it's mainly people talking such crap that Google does not even bother to make use of their content. I even tried pulling content from twitter to my site but that ends up people talking crap so not really worth pulling. Most people who join my forum came from Google or heard about my forum on another forum.
Social media is just people talking rubbish, it's just like going to the pub, where as a forum is like going to the library when you require some useful information.
Most people I know who use Facefart are using it just to chat with friends nothing more. A UK based website running vbulletin recently sold for £87m I wonder if a single Facebook group will ever sell for that kind of money.

[manebe]

Social media is just people talking rubbish, it's just like going to the pub, where as a forum is like going to the library when you require some useful information. Most people I know who use Facefart are using it just to chat with friends nothing more. A UK based website running vbulletin recently sold for £87m I wonder if a single Facebook group will ever sell for that kind of money.

I would send your wise words to the vBulletin marketing department.

I would also kindly require the vBulletin marketing head to come here and explain us what is vB5 for ?

[Deimos]

Social media to me, is basically instant messaging, on a website rather than a client.

Forums will always be the sources of information, like acwatts said, a library