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Close to Moving Back to Vbulletin


RonR

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I think you misinterpreted what Brandon actually said, he was saying that we don't actively scout vBulletin for features we don't have that they do and include them - we don't clone other products. If a feature isn't suggested much and we don't feel there is much of a need for it, we're not going to include it, regardless whether or not vBulletin has it.

That said, if a feature *is* heavily suggested and we feel it is useful - we will see about including it, again regardless whether or not vBulletin has it.


Edit - someone expressed some confusion about this reply, so to clarify - a feature does not have to be heavily suggested AND we agree with it to be included. We simply take suggestions our community wants, gauge them against our future plans for the product and determine on a case by case basis the merit of each idea individually.

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Oh I understood his comments perfectly. Yet, time and time again, some good suggestions seem to be discounted just because vB does it that way. I can understand some suggestions being rejected due to coding requirements, but it seems that many good suggestions are rejected just because "someone else" does it that way. That's a poor excuse for rejection, and one that is remembered for a very long time.

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I think it's up to us board owners (and customers of IPS) to provide positive feedback and make clear and concise suggestions.

I'm still adjusting to IPB but do miss a number of features my vB board had and where I feel IPB would benefit from including them I'm saying so.

If enough of us ask IPS for something I'm sure they'll accommodate us, but we have to address things in a reasonable way and give constructive arguments for spending the time and effort to code then.

We can help shape the software and in doing so everyone benefits.

Cheers,
Shaun :D

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Wow, my comments were really taken out of context, or at least misinterpreted. Let me clarify...

I did NOT say, and never would say, that we won't add something because a competitor has it. That would be silly. VB has the ability to post topics right, after all?

All I was saying is that customers should be mindful when they post "do this because xyz system does it this way" that we don't consider this alone a good argument. You should post what you would like to see and why, not "you should add feature x because so and so has it". That's all.



I would very much like to switch over from vb to IPB, but I would need to find a way to manage 5.000 active infractions and 3.000 active bans(including temporary bans). Reading the above, it seems that is not possible with IPB out of the box. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding.



I would like to add that vb users have been begging for a report center like IPB has. Its too bad to read that its not yet working as well as it could. Its still a major improvement from vb though.




IPB has a system similar to infractions (at least what I understand of it) called "warnings". The warning system does not necessarily automate everything you may want to do, but does allow for a central place to apply a "warning" to a user that other moderators can review, issue points with the warning, and take action on the user (as well as notify them of the warning).

IPB does include temporary bans - they're called suspensions. This is accessible through the warning center. When warning someone, you can issue (or remove) a temporary ban against any user.

Sounds like both things you are referring to can be accommodated in IPB.



There's stuff in VB3.8 - I'm thinking specifically of moderation (think the moderation queue, the ability to select posts across multiple pages / tabs), user banning / warning process, post reports integration - that makes the admin experience much smoother than it is with IPB. I spend much more time running my forum on IPB than I ever did on VB, end of story, to less effect. I'm willing to put up with that as I have more faith in IPB going forward, but it's still fact.



You're quite right to say that a feature's presence in VB does not mean it should automatically be in IPB. But there's some incredibly useful stuff that I miss badly.




IPB has a moderation queue, ability to select posts across multiple pages (I actually selected 2 posts for multiquoting in this topic on separate pages), user banning, warning process, and report of posts. There is nothing at all in your list that IPB doesn't handle. Now, if you feel any of this needs improvement, you should specify which parts should be changed, how you want them to work and why (if possible - sometimes we may not see reasoning to a suggestion until it's outlined).
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It shouldn't be hard to come up with a system that works better than the vbulletin system. You dont have to copy vbulletin.



However, the experiences above are terrifying to read for a big board owner. I would very much like to switch over from vb to IPB, but I would need to find a way to manage 5.000 active infractions and 3.000 active bans(including temporary bans). Reading the above, it seems that is not possible with IPB out of the box. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding.



I would like to add that vb users have been begging for a report center like IPB has. Its too bad to read that its not yet working as well as it could. Its still a major improvement from vb though.




Just to add, here are a few screenshots from the warning system. The first three show the warning screen itself, where you can see the huge variety of options available:








The warning system itself is accessible on the members profile and posts. You simply click the + or - buttons as appropriate.

Here are two screenshots to illustrate this. Also clicking on the 'warn status' text brings up a small popup detailing their warns (who and when)



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My problems with the warning system are bellow...

They don't expire, give an option to the moderator if they want to PM the member, shows in topic view, or give much notice to other staff about the new warnings. If I was given a warning, I'd just get back to posting without that big oppressive warning bar on every one of my posts. If there's ever an option for warnings to expire, it would be nice to have an option for keeping the warning notes or having them disappear completely.

Then you have bans, yet no way to leave notes to why a person is banned or a ban message. A suspension can come from warnings, but at least the member had warnings that tell them what lead to their suspension.

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If you have to constantly warn your community, something is wrong.



Ban your most obnoxious member and make an example out of them. Problem solved.




The system should be robust and feature-rich enough to cope with light or heavy use; someone who uses the system heavily would, IMHO, be somewhat better placed to give experienced feedback on it's possible failings or weak points and the net result of this feedback would be improvements that would be of benefit to lighter users too.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
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My problems with the warning system are bellow...



They don't expire, give an option to the moderator if they want to PM the member, shows in topic view, or give much notice to other staff about the new warnings. If I was given a warning, I'd just get back to posting without that big oppressive warning bar on every one of my posts. If there's ever an option for warnings to expire, it would be nice to have an option for keeping the warning notes or having them disappear completely.



Then you have bans, yet no way to leave notes to why a person is banned or a ban message. A suspension can come from warnings, but at least the member had warnings that tell them what lead to their suspension.




Some points in your post are inaccurate.

1) You CAN send a PM when issuing a warning.



2) You can leave notes when suspending (or "banning") a user from the report center. You can also leave arbitrary notes on the member account in the ACP without issuing a warning.




So that leaves the following suggestions (which are not presently features in the warn system)

  • Ability for warnings to expire - I'm curious though...what would "expiring" warnings do exactly? Would it just remove the points that were previously issued?
  • "Shows in topic views" - I do not understand what you mean by this
  • "Give notice to other staff" - what exactly are you looking for? We do actually have some plans with regards to this already, but I'm curious what you were thinking of.
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[list=1] [*]Ability for warnings to expire - I'm curious though...what would "expiring" warnings do exactly? Would it just remove the points that were previously issued? [*]"Shows in topic views" - I do not understand what you mean by this [*]"Give notice to other staff" - what exactly are you looking for? We do actually have some plans with regards to this already, but I'm curious what you were thinking of.


[/list]



As for sending a PM. I think defining a standard message which is sent automatically after giving a warning with the option to add additional text is what he meant.
  1. [*]Yes. You can set an expiration time for each misdoing. So if a user doesn't do anything wrong the points will expire at some time. You can specify this for each warning. [*]I don't know, either. [*]A forum set in report options in which a thread is posted automatically after a user was given a warning. When, which measure, who etc.

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An RSS feed maybe, but there should be a display that all moderators can see regardless of which forums they moderate on. A list with a see more link in the report center would be nice. It adds transparency, keeps staff better aware of happenings, and can make the report center more important if integrated with. I don't think it would be viewed often if it were in ones user settings area like announcements.

You'll likely will add notifications, but that would be wild on a busy forum.

I really haven't used the warning system in ages.

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  • Management

To expand on my post from last night:

We mostly have all the functionality that is required but it can do with an interface clean up. We do want to do this for a near future release to improve the moderator's workflow and make managing the forum a little easier.

Like most things, if you are used to doing it in a vB-centric way (set infractions) then you want to emulate that in our software. As Brandon and others have pointed out, we do have similar functionality but it's just presented in a different way.

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To expand on my post from last night:



We mostly have all the functionality that is required but it can do with an interface clean up. We do want to do this for a near future release to improve the moderator's workflow and make managing the forum a little easier.



Like most things, if you are used to doing it in a vB-centric way (set infractions) then you want to emulate that in our software. As Brandon and others have pointed out, we do have similar functionality but it's just presented in a different way.






That's good to hear Matt :)

Not that I personally give a hoot about the warning system, my forum is very well behaved :P But it's always nice to see an organisation responding positively to customer feedback :)
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To expand on my post from last night:



We mostly have all the functionality that is required but it can do with an interface clean up. We do want to do this for a near future release to improve the moderator's workflow and make managing the forum a little easier.



Like most things, if you are used to doing it in a vB-centric way (set infractions) then you want to emulate that in our software. As Brandon and others have pointed out, we do have similar functionality but it's just presented in a different way.




Matt for President! Such a perfectly diplomatic answer, instead of just saying "No, we don't want to." and shoving everyone into the defensive.
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We mostly have all the functionality that is required but it can do with an interface clean up. We do want to do this for a near future release to improve the moderator's workflow and make managing the forum a little easier.


I look forward to improvements in this area. :)

..Al
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  • "Shows in topic views" - I do not understand what you mean by this



Contrary to popular belief, there are power users who use View New Content and Today's Active Content as their primary links for new posts and threads. Since new reports and active posts from the report center are not included in "search", often times new items in the report center can go unnoticed. This has been one of my primary beefs with the report center and how it was implemented, and the biggest reason I and others have requested the option to send reported posts to a specific forum rather than that #$)(*&#$)(*& report center.
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You sir please have a +1 as that is "View New Content" and "Today's Active Content" are the primary means I use to view new posts and threads on my forum. I don't necessarily want reports to be sent to a particular forum, but it would be nice if a thread/post that is reported is somehow highlighted in these queries.

..Al
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An RSS feed maybe, but there should be a display that all moderators can see regardless of which forums they moderate on. A list with a see more link in the report center would be nice. It adds transparency, keeps staff better aware of happenings, and can make the report center more important if integrated with. I don't think it would be viewed often if it were in ones user settings area like announcements.



You'll likely will add notifications, but that would be wild on a busy forum.



I really haven't used the warning system in ages.




All good ideas here, and honestly things that we are considering already. :) We've got some other ideas for the warn/report area too, so stay tuned.





Ah, so your interpretation was to show the warnings in the view new content? He said "topic views" so I was thinking he wanted to see the last warning underneath the username when viewing a post in the forums. That's why I was asking for clarification. :)

BTW - most of this discussion has been about warnings, not reports. Would it really be useful to see recent warnings in view new content? :unsure: I can understand reports, but not sure about warnings?
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To expand on my post from last night:



We mostly have all the functionality that is required but it can do with an interface clean up. We do want to do this for a near future release to improve the moderator's workflow and make managing the forum a little easier.



Like most things, if you are used to doing it in a vB-centric way (set infractions) then you want to emulate that in our software. As Brandon and others have pointed out, we do have similar functionality but it's just presented in a different way.



I formed a focus group for our forum. They have a wide variety of backgrounds, they really help me decide how our forum should be set up, and for selecting which software we should use. I would not know what to do without that input, in fact, I would have made entirely different decisions without that input.


Perhaps a focus group to get input on this? Possibly other things as well?
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