i'm one of these banned client...so?!
yeah, everybody knows me, nexialys... i'm banned from the service site of vBulletin.com... so?!
i was banned after i posted some discussion i started regarding my interest to switch to another script, Joomla, for a site that needed a cms really badly. as VB was late to deliver, i had to make a choice and that choice was to post a "feedback" regarding vBulletin... and my thread was constructive, compared to a lot of other threads built just to bullshit the company.
what made me ban?... not the comments i posted, not my opinion on the company, but my comments regarding the original staff of vBulletin, the Jelsoft staff, that i consider lazy and self-contemplating. they built a great tool, 9 years ago, but in the last 3 years the releases were just bug fixes and additions of completely pointless elements. people are requesting more, and they do the opposite. but hey, that's my point of view, and Wayne think i'm the wrong thing that happen to vB.
i just have to note that i was banned from the forum, not the whole service.. i have complete access to my licenses, i can download any version that is available, *(even the beta), i can still request support tickets and so on... they only thing i was banned from is the forum, because the forum managers, who are not IB employees but old Jelsoft staff, are not willing to see me post there... i have opinions, they don't like that.
compared to others, in my mind, InternetBrands is something postitive for vBulletin... the only ones to see it as a negative point are simple the ones not interested in a commercial development, the ones with no budget and the ones that know nothing about the internet. no my problem.
why Jelsoft staff left the boat?... because they were said that if they are not happy they just have to leave... they knew what would arise from the company sale. They sold a company to a business manager, what could happen.. they were not forced to sell Jelsoft to IB, they were suggested, a plan was suggested and they accepted it, they were paid millions for it... so if they say they were not happy with the new situation, it's because they wanted more money, that's all...
Why the vB 4.0 pre-release or pre-display is bullshit from the start?... because they hired a designer or two that was not a professional of vBulletin, who knew nothing about vbulletin and nothing about Kier's work. everybody knows it, they did a wrong move, but they had to do it... they just had less time than expected to do so. IB is now changing mind and switch back to a more vB design, with more of IPB's style, like Kier leeched from IPB at first -- and yes, Kier think i'm a complete moron, i don't care, he is the one who left the boat, not me.
I'm not working for IB, i even was pushed aside when i suggested the lead managers to take a look at my work to be integrated to the newer version, 9 months ago... that's also a loss, because with my tools, they would have a really enhanced vBulletin, with elements that are not even known in the other platforms like IPB, phpBB, myBB... a complete integrated calendar with events discussions and rsvp, social group rebuild, independant private messaging with email integration, and so on... things that would tease a lot of clients to purchase vBulletin for the right reasons.. enhancements.
what a great enhancement is announced, a cms... yeah, i have the alpha versions from the start... still in beta 1, more than 100 queries for the main page... yeah, you read it right. why?... because that tool is just an amateurish portal with independant structure that they merged into vBulletin.. they did not even think to use one of the existing solution and rework it... would've been too costly for them to purchase a tool already released, like vbAdvcanced or vbPortal... even some of their official staff have portals in hands, they hired coders and developers that already have solutions in hands, like mini-cms solutions with1 or 2 queries, fully coded in the vB protocol... but no, they decided that their own technique to build things would be enough...
IB said they would hire interesting people depending on their portfoltio... so why they refuse to hire the most competent coders in the vBulletin market?... they want to renew what here?... these good coders were leeched a lot in the last years, if you ask me. Jelsoft always told they never looked at vB.org for codes and ideas... but each new version since i'm in the project neighbour have had a lot of these ideas taken from vb.org, and we can all show you how and what... a lot of coders there left because they felt frustrated of the situation... a lot of great coders were releasing great tools but were hit in the back by some pointless rules, because that community is not permitting to make a penny of our work. no official support...
imagine, Jelsoft built a solid engine to permit addons and plugins to be integrated to the core of the engine... "Products and Plugins" they say... but the contract state that if you add even just a single addon to your vBulletin, Jelsoft is not supporting it anymore... you have to uninstall them to receive support from the company. How Pathetic. so they built that 4900 lines engine only to support their own addons, at the moment there was only the blog and the project tools... nobody purchased them because both are just crap.
same for the best example of lazyness... the Calendar... everybody today needs a calendar to show their events, discuss them, have rsvp so people can appoint to them, etc... we need colors and style to show what is the big event of the moment, etc... some calendars do it all, like the Google one, which integrate iCal, making the calendar very useful to the desktop. vBulletin is one of the few forum software to have a good calendar... but it's been 6 years since they added anything to it... 6 years.
another one, the FAQ... which are not the FAQ anybody can use anyway, it's more like a "HowTo use vBulletin" because that's all we can do with that, it's already filled with so much pointless informations... nobody ever use it, because people stop reading it after 3 lines. we need a real Knowledge Base, a Wiki, real useful tools for the communities, not some HowTo to drive the forum, which for my own idea is supposed to be hidden in the footer of the site where people search for last hope help... not one of the first elements of the navbar.
anyway, i may be banned forever with that post, i don't care, i posted that already on my site, http://vbenhancer.com ... where i also state that we're building a new project right now that is more than just a forum... i'm not copying vBulletin, i will not compete it, i want more, i want a tool for webmasters, for multi-sites managers, guys like me, who fail to find a real solutions right now. I'm selfish, i want to answer my clients needs... that may be a good thing at the end, because i listen to people.