Lets get Modern!

[Chromeozone]

Hey Guys!

Nowadays you rarely see any PhPBB forums because they have all moved on, phpbb does not have the latest features which most forums have now and this topic is to talk about maybe upgrading to Vbulletin!

All ideas are welcome but I was thinking if everyone donated $1 - $5 to Halls he would be able to buy a new forum, which has its own website on it, so he would actually be able to update his stuff!

What do you guys think?

*Please no hate..

[Jackolantern]

Nah, there is no reason. I personally actually like phpBB more than vBulletin. It just looks a little fancier, but it doesn't offer many more features. And actually phpBB forums outnumber vBulletin by about 10 to 1, so it isn't about "moving towards the future". You also have to keep in mind that in any IT operation, such as moving to a new system, there is always a risk of catastrophic data loss. A big part of Project Management is weighing what the benefits of the move are, and if they outweigh the risk, and in this case I can't say they do. Plus, vBulletin actually costs $250+ for a license, so 50 people would have to pitch in $5 a piece, and I don't think that will happen

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a vBulletin forum in probably over a year, and I end up on tons of forums Googling for programming info.

[a_bertrand]

I'm running a vBulleting forum somewhere else, and personally, I'm not sure I would actually buy it again. The admin side of the software is quiet a mess, and some features are simply not up to par. Yet I do miss a few features here as well, for example the "what's new" is poorly implemented in this forum and the code tag is primitive.

I also miss bigger file uploads (but that should be a setting of the forum).

[hallsofvallhalla]

There are hundreds and hundreds of extensions to add to PHPBB forums and I am a HUGE fanboi of PHPBB. It would be a hard sell to make me move. It is not PHPBBs fault it is my own for not updating as often as I should. I have a list I need to get to to update here and will try to get to them.

[Darius]

If you would change, get a nulled version.
It's not worth the money if you compare it to other free solutions.

[Jackolantern]

Do you ever actually buy a perpetual license for vBulletin, or is each $250 only for a set period of time?

[a_bertrand]

It's a perpetual version.

[Jackolantern]

Well, that is good at least lol

[Lord Rahl]

I don't like vBulletin all that much either. As has been said the admin side is not what you would expect, and honestly you don't get much for your money you couldn't do yourself easily. I don't see the advantages of it over free forum software.

I like SMF, and mybb over phpbb.

[Jackolantern]

Wow, we are not getting a lot of love for vBulletin lol! But then again, that is often how it goes with commercial products in domains ruled by open source. You really have to offer something special to get away with fairly steep fees for something people can get on the open source backed by vibrant communities.

I would go down on record that I am completely against changing the forum system. There is just far too much to lose (years of knowledge, answered questions, tutorials, and the essence of our community) for what we would gain (some new embedding systems, more smilies, other non-mission critical features). No transfer process can ever be 100% guaranteed.