Success or destruction stories with xenForo?

Digital Doctor said:
One thread was discussing that forums were becoming less popular because of social networking.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/are-forum-communities-obsolete.18977/
If your forum doesn't have a content focus, building a successful forum is difficult.
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You either didn't read my post or are talking to someone else but since you didn't quote anyone I'm assuming you are talking to me. We have TONS of unique content which is why we are doing half decent on IPB (not as good as I'd like and nothing like we were doing on vbulletin).

The people that say forums are becoming less popular are either stupid or in a niche that it would affect them. In my niche, people don't want their friends, classmates, and family members to know they are a gamer because they feel it will ruin their image. So forums are the BEST for my type of niche as it allows people to be around "like people" without allowing their peers to know what they are up to.

With my traffic I'm getting, I should be converting more, the members should be online and looking around the site more, and they should be posting more but I think IPB is just a crappy system to build a community on which has been the downfall of my site the last 2 years.
 
AzzidReign said:
The people that say forums are becoming less popular are either stupid or in a niche that it would affect them. In my niche, people don't want their friends, classmates, and family members to know they are a gamer because they feel it will ruin their image. So forums are the BEST for my type of niche as it allows people to be around "like people" without allowing their peers to know what they are up to.

With my traffic I'm getting, I should be converting more, the members should be online and looking around the site more, and they should be posting more but I think IPB is just a crappy system to build a community on which has been the downfall of my site the last 2 years.
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Actually I find Social networks, somewhat antisocial LOL. If I add loads of people with huskies onto my facebook in order to meet a few more who like huskies then I just end up witha facebook full of people I dont know ... Whereas a forum you build the content people want and they find you. Social networks are generic, if you want something specific you get a forum ..... So it short, I agree with your first statement. People that say forums are becoming less popular are stupid ... Either that of extremely ill informed.

Anyone else find Social Networks almost feel like talking to yourself?
 
I was reading you posts in the IPS forums until recently, and you've pretty much tried everything I have and still no dice. (I can't respond any further on that thread because my IP.Board license has expired and I didn't see much point in renewing since I'm converting to XF).

There's just something about the way Kier and Mike approach things. Features seem to work via the least-hassle route, and they don't overly complicate things.

I'm looking at LN Blog to replace my IP.Blog - http://xenforo.com/community/threads/ln-blog.12701/ - different, but same end result in that it'll allow members to blog.

Gallery is likely to be replaced with XFR User Albums - http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xfr-user-albums.14033/ - which is individual galleries, but better than nothing. (y)

Chatroom is being dropped for now as I've had nothing but hassle the past 8 months with it. As and when I do re-introduce it (for selected longer-term trusted members) it will likely be Ajax shoutbox - http://xenforo.com/community/threads/taigachat-ajax-shoutbox.7339/

I'll be manually converting the gallery and blogs - there's no importer for them - but to start with we're going back to basics and just having the forums. Once I'm happy that everyone is settled back in, I'll ask for feedback on what the community want to add back on and we'll see what they say.

I've used the IPB stats feature to check how things have gone since before the move and after, and whilst we're still growing, it's nothing like the pace it was before - when we were on vB3.

Simple works and people like it. I'm hoping they'll love XF as much as I do and that it will give CycleChat a boost.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Social networking is just totally different case but I find it more like ego war. Social Networking is for promoting your forums but nothing more then that. Both are different and used for different purposes.

CycleChat (that's how I know you), do you have any suggestions to replace IP.Tracker? The reason, i am waiting for official add ons from XF is because over time 3rd party developers go inactive due to real life and then all issues start.

Also I am pretty much sick of new IPB editor. God damm all time HTML tags, slow opening, etc. First I need to make a list of things which I need to convert. I guess, my major issue will come with IP.Nexus.
 
It's look like to "replace" the tracker, you'll just have to use prefixes in a specific forum.

@GeekChat - Yes, I've tried quite a bit. I personally don't like the system that much. It was impressive on the demo board and since I had used IPB2.1 back in the day, I was impressed by some of the things they had implemented and how things worked (especially loved the report center at the time). But, in real life and a live a board, nothing was practical. Nothing worked like it should. They are getting closer but it's like standing next to the ocean and wanting to be at or in the ocean, but you are turned and looking the other way. You are so close but yet so far at the same time.

I was really hoping I could get some statistics with people converting. I'm quite upset that there isn't many people that have any great stats that I could analyze. But...I'm almost at the point where my stats are doing so bad that it can almost not get as bad as they are right now. We shall see....time will tell. I'm hoping that Kier releases this big board search so I can feel better about moving. In fact, I would feel confident if he actually moved his board over to his own software :P
 
Things went great, thanks to XenForo. One site has hit over 200,000 msgs, xenfans hit 10,000 msgs and wetalk grown another 20,000 (though currently turned off). One community due to lack of management has not made more than 3 posts, so we've closed that one and sold the license to a friend who started a minecraft board, which now has over 100,000 msgs since the summer.

Nobody except perhaps 2 or 3 ppl per board complained that it wasn't vB or IPB , .. majority really enjoyed the modern forums.
 
AzzidReign said:
I was really hoping I could get some statistics with people converting. I'm quite upset that there isn't many people that have any great stats that I could analyze.
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I think most IPB big-board owners have been waiting for 1.1 to arrive. A few sites have made the leap and they seem to be doing well.

1.0.x has been a good start for XF but I couldn't put CycleChat on it - it needed those extra 1.1 features to help me manage a larger community.

The key things for me - when I boil it all down - is ease of use. And that's where XF wins, for me. It's clearly laid out and you can get into the swing of using it next to no time. I've got a community that spans the whole age range and the easier I can make it, the more they will take part.

Hell, even I don't use my forums as much since moving to IPB (I feel I've had to do much more admin and management with IPB than I ever did before when we were on vB)!!!!

I'll be skinning the test site this next week, presenting a video to my membership, and inviting them to play with it; but it's being presented as a fait accompli because I know that things will be better on XF (lol ... famous last words eh!!).

We will be missing quite a lot of the finer control settings, but they really don't matter if you site isn't growing and people aren't taking part. THAT is what counts, and I know XF will develop well and add more "stuff" as we move forward with it (you only have to look at the new 1.1 features to see how well the boys here do things ... (y) ).

I'll keep you posted on my move and let you know what sort of feedback I get and the numbers as we move forward after migration.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
@GeeksChat With what add-on are you going to replace IP.Gallery & IP.Blog. The XF 3rd party add-ons for IP.Gallery & IP.Blog are not comparable.
 
My only issue with using 3rd party add ons is what will happen if they will stop supporting it? Got burned out with 3rd party add ons before and I am too afraid to repeat same mistake 3rd time...
 
AzzidReign said:
Yes, I've tried quite a bit.
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And everything you tried proved to be as trying to you as it has to the rest of us. You were saying things in that topic I've been trying to say for the last year and you were being ignored almost as much as I. The bottom line is they just don't want to hear it. Customers were expressing very real issues, yet the decision was made the topic had run its course?

I have weekly records of Analytics data I've been keeping for the best part of four years. Over the last 5-6 months, those records became daily records. I have data for my sites on vB, those sites after vBSEO was added, those sites after the conversion to IPB 3.0.4 and the disaster those sites underwent at the time of the 3.1.3 update. I presented them with the data, to back up what I was saying about 3.1.3. It went ignored. I spent a considerable amount of time editing the 3.1.4 files and saw nearly immediate and positive results. I am kicking myself for updating to 3.2.2, because there's been nothing positive come out of it. Indexed page counts are plummeting like a rock, keyword positioning worsens on a daily basis, my longtail numbers are suffering and ad revenue has taken a huge hit. I presented them with all the data since the 3.2.2 update and that also went ignored. When I saw them suggesting your worsening numbers were an indication of their improved keyword targeting, I could see it was time to make some wholesale changes. When I initially converted to 3.0.4, my experiences were excellent. When I was happy and telling people how well things were working for me, I got the kid glove treatment. When I (privately, mind) pointed out there were some issues needing immediate attention, I was thrown under the bus.

My licenses expire next week and I've determined I'll not be throwing any more good money after bad. I'm not sure what direction I'm going to take, to be honest. I had a lot invested in vB, only to turn around and invest a lot into IPB. I do like how well Content and Gallery integrate with IPB and would like to continue offering my users the added functionality. But I'm not going to sit back and watch my sites suffer, either. If that means finding alternatives for those add-ons, so be it. I've considered just going back to vB/vBSEO, but a step backwards isn't my definition of progress.

Hellreturn, I hear what you're saying about 3rd party add-ons. That concern was one of the features that drew me toward IPB.

Shaun, it's good to see you and to hear you're getting closer to the conversion. I'm very interested to hear how your conversion goes for you. Actually, I'm like Azzid, I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has converted from IPB.

Hi Floris! It's been a while. I hope everything is going well on your end.

OK, time to spend some time seeing what XF has to offer.
 
Hmmm.. we are about to convert from VB4 to IPB3.2 in a couple of days. The forums have over 2M posts. Not shifting to XF as we feel it will take the platform a good 2 years to mature.
 
Renegade said:
Hmmm.. we are about to convert from VB4 to IPB3.2 in a couple of days. The forums have over 2M posts. Not shifting to XF as we feel it will take the platform a good 2 years to mature.
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Really? How did you come to that conclusion? I guess you are missing some form of functionality like a Gallery or Blog. The core system performs superbly as a forum.
 
Deebs said:
Really? How did you come to that conclusion? I guess you are missing some form of functionality like a Gallery or Blog. The core system performs superbly as a forum.
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Yes forums are fantastic and probably the best. There are several other concerns like official and unofficial add-ons. Also we would first like to see that the platform is here to stay before we take a long term decision, which can only happen over time.
 
Renegade said:
Yes forums are fantastic and probably the best. There are several other concerns like official and unofficial add-ons. Also we would first like to see that the platform is here to stay before we take a long term decision, which can only happen over time.
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That is a fair comment but I just moved my 8 year community to XF from vB.
 
You need to be sure what is your web page about. Does it center around a gallery then xenforo would not be a good option. Would it center about a cms, then again - see how any forum platform can be a cms or choose a cms. If your web page is mainly about a forum, you should concentrate on getting the best platform available for this.
 
Renegade said:
Hmmm.. we are about to convert from VB4 to IPB3.2 in a couple of days. The forums have over 2M posts. Not shifting to XF as we feel it will take the platform a good 2 years to mature.
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Don't buddy and if you do you will bang your head against wall and will regret much in 2 years.

Slow forums, confusing UI, very bad SEO, etc will make you loose your users. The day I see official add ons from Xenforo, it would be my last day with IPB and I will converting my 4 forums in a heartbeat.

Why you think IPB and vB customers have started moving to Xenforo? It's not one admin is saying that they have lost there add revenue, search engine referrals, etc. It's many. Before we had no choice. Either vB or IPB but now XF has changed the market. :)

Either ways good luck with conversion in whatever you decide to choose. I know it's not easy task with that many posts.
 
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