Some tough questions for the XF Team

[Reeve of Shinra]

Hey guys, first off congratulations once again on your latest endeavor. It looks great for an alpha and its creating quite a buzz.

Underneath the buzz of it all, a few people expressed some concerns and as I'm somewhat curious about the response myself I thought I would take the liberty of asking.

A lot of core team members that worked on vbulletin in the past appear to be involved with xenForo now. Obviously that is a strength given the fact you work well together and have tremendous experience in this area but Jelsoft way prior to the IB days was not a perfect company. How do you see yourselves avoiding the mistakes they made?

More to the point, and not to sound rude but sometimes candid works best:

1. What can Kier do now that he couldn't do when he was product manager of vbulletin?

2. Jelsoft always had issues communicating with their customers about upcoming changes (even prior to IB getting involved) and at times it was like pulling teeth to get yes and no types of answers. On the flip side, I think IPB has done an outstanding job of keeping their customers in the loop with their developments without necessarily giving away crucial info to competitors.What are your thoughts about this (if any) and where does XF plan to be in this scale of things?

3. I'm going to beat an old horse... the CMS ... vb customers have wanted one for over 10 years and half ***ed or not, they only got on last year.

I'm sure there are NDA's in place and you probably can't speak towards the specifics of why it took 10 years to accomplish. I'm equally sure that there are probably technological reasons for the delay. It even sounds like XF is being built with this kind of expansion in mind. My question is -- under your guidance, how will we avoid a situation where we are left hanging 10 years for a highly demanded product that never materializes? Will the communication be clear enough that if someone asks for product z tomorrow, you could say 'yes its in the works for later this year' or 'no, we don't plan on doing it this year'.

Thank you,

- John

 

[feldon30]

Kier wanted to rewrite vBulletin for 4.0. He was blocked at every turn by Internet Brands who wanted incremental updates. 1 year later, we've seen the end result of both approaches. I know which one looks smarter to me.

I hope Kier and Mike will not waste one second considering writing blogs or CMS. Joomla is 5+ years effort. Wordpress is 5+ years effort. I want the best possible forum, not 3 half-hearted rushed products. The vBulletin Blog add-on was obviously meant to make vBulletin marketable to an outside company, such as IB. No disrespect intended, but it does not touch Wordpress functionality.

Integration FTW

 

[Enigma]

I hope Kier and Mike will not waste one second considering writing blogs or CMS. Joomla is 5+ years effort. Wordpress is 5+ years effort. I want the best possible forum, not 3 half-hearted rushed products. The vBulletin Blog add-on was obviously meant to make vBulletin marketable to an outside company, such as IB. No disrespect intended, but it does not touch Wordpress functionality.

Don't mistake the past with the present. Once the forum product is completely stable and mostly feature-complete, I'm convinced they could whip out a CMS that rivals Joomla in 6 months to a year while maintaining and improving the forum, since the underlying framework (which is the hard part) is already there.

 

[jmurrayhead]

Don't mistake the past with the present. Once the forum product is completely stable and mostly feature-complete, I'm convinced they could whip out a CMS that rivals Joomla in 6 months to a year while maintaining and improving the forum, since the underlying framework (which is the hard part) is already there.

I think they have proven that they are capable of great things and would be plenty capable of providing a solid CMS system.

 

[Safin]

I hope Kier and Mike will not waste one second considering writing blogs or CMS. Joomla is 5+ years effort. Wordpress is 5+ years effort. I want the best possible forum, not 3 half-hearted rushed products. The vBulletin Blog add-on was obviously meant to make vBulletin marketable to an outside company, such as IB. No disrespect intended, but it does not touch Wordpress functionality.

Integration FTW

I have to agree. There are plenty of very very good CMS solutions already out there and a huge comunity to support them. What we need a robust forum solution that can integrate with the already existing CMS solutions (like wordpress, Drupal, mediawiki; all of which are incredibly powerful for any kind of frontend). Most people demand a CMS presently because there is really no tight integrated bridge available. If there was one, that was oficially supported, i am sure a lot of users would be happy with using a third party CMS.

I am not saying XenForo should not develop one, but i really hope they don't waste ay tie doing so now. Instead the aim should be to develop an api that can easily allow developers to integrate the forum with other cms's (single sign on etc). An official bridge would be even better for the more popular third party CMS's (like wordpress, drupal)

 

[Deriel]

I think they have proven that they are capable of great things and would be plenty capable of providing a solid CMS system.

A full mature system like WP will take many years to build... and in that time WP will be years ahead. I think there is many priorities besides a CMS. Money? Just make a really good bridge and sell it. I surelly would pay $50 for a supported bridge xF + wordpress

 

[jmurrayhead]

A full mature system like WP will take many years to build... and in that time WP will be years ahead.

I think it can be done without taking many years. They now have a few platforms to see what functionality people expect and how it can be achieved.

I think there is many priorities besides a CMS. Money? Just make a really good bridge and sell it. I surelly would pay $50 for a supported bridge xF + wordpress

Of course there is. We all understand that and Kier has mentioned himself that they are focusing on the getting the forum ready. And as I said earlier, I'm all for a good bridge for WordPress or other system.

 

[Ahmed]

Looking to this product makes me imagine how unique and awesome the CMS, Blog, Gallery are gonna be. Let think about it again, now vB/IB and IPB -which they are they are miles ahead- have all of that (CMS, Blog, Gallery, and many more), So XF needs to keep up, and needs to provide all of that but of course in their own way, and of course after they got the forum stable and ready to other stuff to be added.

 

[pipedreams]

.And as I said earlier, I'm all for a good bridge for WordPress or other system.

Ditto!

 

[feldon30]

Don't mistake the past with the present. Once the forum product is completely stable and mostly feature-complete, I'm convinced they could whip out a CMS that rivals Joomla in 6 months to a year while maintaining and improving the forum, since the underlying framework (which is the hard part) is already there.

xenForo + Joomla 1.6 + thousands of Joomla plugins = Win
xenForo + Wordpress 3.0 + thousands of Wordpress plugins = Win
xenForo held back for a year while they write a CMS or Blog? = Starting from scratch, and frankly, a huge compromise for users.

Joomla 1.6 fixes all the architectural limitations that have been holding it back. Think of the popularity of Joomla 1.5. Now realize it has no usergroups other than Global Author, Global Publisher, Global Editor, and Global Administrator. And content cannot be arranged in a tree. Despite these two massive limitations, Joomla is popular.

 

[Ahmed]

xenForo + Joomla 1.6 + thousands of Joomla plugins = Win
xenForo + Wordpress 3.0 + thousands of Wordpress plugins = Win
xenForo held back for a year while they write a CMS or Blog? = Starting from scratch, and frankly, a huge compromise for users.

...

I don't think they are going to start from scratch, I think they build the form with CMS, Blog, Gallery, etc... in mind, so they can build on the existing forum.

 

[Walter]

I totally disagree. Many nowadays need a CMS to become or stay successfull.

1. Big CMS are like Winword and other molochs.
   90% of the people only use 10% of the features so you can name 90% of the features bloat. Unneeded.
   xenForo != bloat. xenForo = light. So why not add a light CMS? If someone needs a full scale CMS let them take Joomla.
2. Times have changed.
   In the past it was way easier to start a successfull site. What we now need is an equality of arms - give us a simple version of a CMS, a way to publish.
3. vBulletin went the bloat way and this is one of their main problems. They added feature after feature into the forum itself, many half baken. on the other hand, many cusstomers begged for years for a CMS.

 

[Mark.B]

We expect to be making road map-style posts

Kier used THE 'R' WORD!

 

[DoctorWatsOn]

Don't mistake the past with the present. Once the forum product is completely stable and mostly feature-complete, I'm convinced they could whip out a CMS that rivals Joomla in 6 months to a year while maintaining and improving the forum, since the underlying framework (which is the hard part) is already there.

This certainly is what I am hoping for.

To steal the words of Dragon’s Den….. let me tell you where I am.

Whilst most on here are coders, designers and forum owners, I am not and come from a magazine/newspaper background, I don’t want to bugger about with different software solutions and trying to get them to work together – I’ve had enough of that with vb4, which is far from a ‘publishing suite’.

I want to buy a ‘one-stop’ product out of the box and plug and play, not plug and pray, and I am sure there must be many hundreds of thousands out there that want the same.

The future, I believe, is true integrated software for the web, and that’s where, from what I am seeing here after such a short period in development XenForo could be in a year or two.

If they can do this so well and so quickly, once the cash starts to flow it will be possible to bring in more developers and they could race ahead with a calendar system, blog, CMS, gallery, etc whilst still tweeting the forum software.

I am sure the market for fully integrated web-publishing solutions is massive compared to just forum software, and they could blow the competition out of the water if they can continue with the start they have made.

 

[DoctorWatsOn]

Kier used THE 'R' WORD!

 

[Dominik Ziegler]

Can't wait for the day XenForo is available for purchase.

 

[Safin]

I totally disagree. Many nowadays need a CMS to become or stay successfull.

1. Big CMS are like Winword and other molochs.
   90% of the people only use 10% of the features so you can name 90% of the features bloat. Unneeded.
   xenForo != bloat. xenForo = light. So why not add a light CMS? If someone needs a full scale CMS let them take Joomla.

I don't think that is entirely true. There are plenty of light yet powerful CMS's around. And you can extend them as per your linking to make them virtually do anything. Drupal is one. Its gota steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it and get the right plugins (for caching) its one of the best out there. Joomla is bloatware. I agree on that. But its also, as people who use it say, much easier to learn and deploy.

I don't know what would be a lite XenForo CMS. If and when they start making it, if at all that is, i gather the laundry list of things that the whole community wants would be quite large.

 

[David McHenry]

Why not have a short term goal of a bridge for popular products like Wordpress, Joomla, Subdreamer, etc etc.

Long term goal of an official CMS (with importers from bridges), Gallery, and whatever else the market demands.

 

[Vincent]

Why not have a short term goal of a bridge for popular products like Wordpress, Joomla, Subdreamer, etc etc.

Long term goal of an official CMS (with importers from bridges), Gallery, and whatever else the market demands.

Because the forum isn't done yet?

 

[Forsaken]

The first thing I'm having developed is going to be a CMS style Media Portal, which we could probably extend to cover articles as well.

Also, if its not offered by XenForo, I might be able to harass a friend into creating deep integration for Wordpress (He use to be a older well-known plugin maker, just hasn't done much recently).

 

[Grover]

2. Jelsoft always had issues communicating with their customers about upcoming changes (even prior to IB getting involved) and at times it was like pulling teeth to get yes and no types of answers. On the flip side, I think IPB has done an outstanding job of keeping their customers in the loop with their developments without necessarily giving away crucial info to competitors.What are your thoughts about this (if any) and where does XF plan to be in this scale of things?

I would like to point out that although the developers were the public face of Jelsoft, we were not the owners and therefore the features that were developed and the way the company operated were subject to the will of the owners.

Conversely, the XenForo team are the company owners and we believe it is in everyone's interest for us to be open and transparent about what we are doing and where we are going. Hopefully you will have already seen this playing out in our communication here on the forums.

Thank you Kier, for answering these direct questions. I am with Reeve on this: one of the biggest complaints I had with Jelsoft (indeed, even prior to Internet Brands takeover) the couple of years was the lack of communication. We as vBulletin enthusiasts spend our free time day and night on the Suggestions Forums to try to 'make' the product better by offering (often really good) suggestions. Almost never there was a reply from the developers on them, resulting in the Suggestions Forum to generate the same requests over and over and over again. We never knew what you guys thought about our requests and suggestions and I also understand you were not keen yourself (a vBulletin staff member mentioned this somewhere) on publicizing any information that could trigger the competition. But, in the last few years I had the feeling regardless of this that Invision seemed to browse our vBulletin suggestions anyway and implemented a fair amount of functionality in their own product. Functionality that we needed ourselves in our beloved vBulletin.

As more loyal active vBulletin followers, I became frustrated. It is not motivating to put so much time and energy into a Suggestion forum, and seeing little to none feedback or any direct results coming out of it. This was indeed all prior to Internet Brands takeover, unfortunately. Direct customer communication (developers <> customers) is essential in my eyes to create a product that every party can be happy about and at the same time it will bond your customers to your community much tighter, but this is an obvious 'open door' as the say in Holland . I know that not every customer is the same and a fair amount will not even care or bother as long as a solid product is delivered, but product enthusiasts like myself need to feel we are listened too, so we get a sense of involvement. The internet-software I use is of an essential value to my business/foundation. In fact, my income partly depends on it. So, I need it to be as good as and fulfill my needs in the best way possible. I can only reach this by voicing my suggestions in the hope it will be picked up to improve the product for myself and all other customers.

I am happy to see a much needed change in this when it comes to the developer<>customer communication overhere at xenForo, compared to the last years over at vBulletin. I just hope that with the enormous workload you guys have now (and it will only become bigger if you keep up this level of product quality) it will be possible to continue this openness and transparency in the future. I think it's an essential value in the success of xenForo.

Thanks!