Big board will not go live with XenForo due to lack of maintenance

[Cal]

I agree with the OP and a lot of the members in this thread. There's not enough information on what is going on with this project. Is it still active or is it stalled due to the case? Where are maintenance releases? Where are the staff members that used to be on the forums - there is no staff interaction anymore since Brogan left. There's a lot of unanswered questions that make a lot of us as paying customers a little anxious, especially the "media blackout" of this lawsuit.

 

[TheBigK]

The reality is, all of that has stopped. The developers are nowhere to be seen. The former senior mod as much as admitted that something was terribly wrong and ended up resigning.

Could you please point to the post/message where Brogan said that?

 

[TheBigK]

I'm not defending XF. Just preparing to save my own a$$ by first knowing what's going wrong, and what's going on. For us, anything that goes wrong with XF affects our business and I should better be alert.

I'd 'like to believe' that all's well with XF. I'd like the Dev team to be around and engage with the community but I understand that they may have very strong reasons not to do that. Ultimately, it's the announcements section that I can believe.

 

[Nasr]

I believe that everyone that bought XF was aware of the fact that XF may lose at some point and took the plunge regardless. To come here and cry foul is childish. We took a risk with XF. ALL of us. And, to blame the team is unfair. No one promised us a bumpy-free ride.

 

[D.O.A.]

I'm a big board admin who recently paid for XenForo and enhanced search. Imported my VB3 forums just fine onto a test site. I love the look and the features, way better than VB3, and it seems clear the performance advantages could save me a bunch of money. Love the software.

However, my feedback as a customer is that I cannot actually go live with it in the present state of no releases. Without the proper cycle of identifying and fixing bugs, from a security and stability point of view it would be irresponsible of me to switch.

I stuck with VB3 rather than upgrading to VB4 because I didn't need the new features or the new slowdowns/instability, and VB3 was a well-tested product with a commitment to releasing security fixes well after they stopped selling the product. With a less established product I can't go live with it in a "frozen" state, I have to expect more bugs and it's only safe if those are being regularly addressed. I'd be very happy to go live with XenForo if maintenance was ongoing.

you want to talk about performance?



that is no issue, pumping out 30,000 inline attachments, streaming our own video etc. same box I have 260,000 people a month hitting a bridged wordpress install with no static caching involved.

Do you know how properly configure and optimize your server is the question.

Bugs? go read the bugs submitted I'm sure that eases your mind. They get dealt with.

Security is anyones guess really, who knows what exploit comes tomorrow, it could be vbulletin or vbseo, two well developed & maintained (arguably) products, so a freeze on development as you see it is meaningless unless you talk about new features or mods you think are lacking, and that is something else altogether. You brought up a lot of points, but none of them were really valid. the only thing frozen is your ability to make decisions.

 

[HWS]

You may be quite prepared to prentend that nothing has changed, that the devs are still in regular contact with the customers, that the Twitter feed is still updated with tantalising news about forthcoming releases, that the "Have You Seen?" forum is regularly updated with screenshots, videos and teasers.

The reality is, all of that has stopped. The developers are nowhere to be seen. The former senior mod as much as admitted that something was terribly wrong and ended up resigning. Kier himself said upgrading his spacebattles forum took ages partly because he had no time due to babysitting!!! Not developing XenForo. Babysitting! And yet you STILL think that somewhere hidden away is an imminent wonderful fully featured release and the developers are going to say "shucks guys we wuz just teasin' ya"?

Sorry but you're going to be very disappointed.

And even if a major release DID now appear, it still doesn't make it right because this is supposed to be a serious business that commercial enterprise sites can use and rely on, not for hobby sites like mine but for their INCOME, and going completely silent for months with no semblance of real communication, after 18 months of the exact opposite, is absolutely NO way to do business. It might be acceptable on free solutions run by teenagers but not on what purports to be a professional solution.

Just clicking "Like" is not enough. May Kier, Ashley or Mike read and think about your statement.

 

[Lone Wolf]

You may be quite prepared to prentend that nothing has changed, that the devs are still in regular contact with the customers, that the Twitter feed is still updated with tantalising news about forthcoming releases, that the "Have You Seen?" forum is regularly updated with screenshots, videos and teasers.

Who's pretending anything? I quite clearly stated that if they're behind on 1.2 and they dont give us fair notice (more than a fortnight) then it will be poor customer service.

The reality is, all of that has stopped. The developers are nowhere to be seen. The former senior mod as much as admitted that something was terribly wrong and ended up resigning. Kier himself said upgrading his spacebattles forum took ages partly because he had no time due to babysitting!!! Not developing XenForo. Babysitting!

I have already said in the Brogan thread that there's no way KAM should treat Brogan the way that they have, especially after he busted his ass for XenForo. He was censored for saying it wasn't 100% of KAM who he had issues with but only two of them. Brogan's main gripe was that he wasn't any more informed than the customers which imho was a pretty fair gripe.

1) Doesn't the fact that it keeps coming up AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN tell you something? A great many people have genuine concerns that will not be silenced by the "shut up and use what you have, it's fine" attitude from many on here.

I've seen the discussions yourself, grtb, george, aws and others have had on sites outside XenForo and the 'fact' is that you will never be satisfied, ever.

First everyone was saying oh woe is me, kier has left. He has done a deal with vBulletin. He logs into vB but hasnt logged into XF for days. At that time Mike became so frustrated he came out and made a statement but that was jumped on as further proof that Kier has left. The naysayers now wanted to know why Kier hadnt made an announcement himself, why only Mike?

Then Kier logged in and egg was on everyone's faces.

Did they stop the speculation? No. They just moved the goalposts againby saying that Kier only logged in to stop the speculation. I mean what the hell? You say you want him to log in and when he does it's only because that's what you were asking for?

Then Brogan stepped down and everyone said it's because development has stopped on XF and that's why no announcement has been made. The doom mongers were insisting on a clear and transparent assurance that development was still happening.

So Ashley stepped forward, thanked Brogan for his involvment and said...

Some members are requesting an update and all I will say is that we are working towards developing and supporting XenForo. We are also dealing with a law suit and there are clearly many conspiracies already formed, ready prepared and this scaremongering is unhelpful, to say the least.

Clear and transparent, we are working towards developing and supporting XenForo.

Did that stop anyone? No they started saying, oh why is Kier quiet. The other thing that all the online Sherlock Holmes picked up on was Ashley's wording saying they were working towards developing XenForo, they claimed this meant that development had been stopped and was only now being restarted.

So guess what happened the next day? When Kier had time he logged on and posted the following...

Development of XenForo is ongoing. It never stopped. Thank you all for your support.

Did this satisfy the sandwich board guys?

No, they started to say, wow Kier only posted one line. One line! That has to mean something, what does it mean?

When it was apparent Kier was posting on the site again, the depressives turned their attentions on Mike instead. Oh 'someone' told me that Mike has left XenForo and I know it's true because he's posting on a leisure forum but not on his work forum. Then Jake (whom I trust) posted that Mike does log in he just does so in invisible mode. This is something all admins do when there is a big release or update coming and they dont want to get sidetracked. However it has been taken as a sign that Mike has left, even though he answered a support ticket last week.

The thing is Mark.B, people like yourself and grtb and george and aws and others will never ever be satisfied. Even if KAM turned up to each of your houses and went through every detail with you, you would find something. As soon as they left, you'd say did you notice that Mike and Kier left in different cars. You'd say why were Ashley and Kier sat on the same sofa but Mike was sat on a different sofa, what does it mean? Why didnt they all squash up and sit uncomfortably on the same sofa!!

Just face it you will never be satisfied. No-one is under any delusion that XenForo is running under the same steam that it was in year one. Even without the court case there are always stresses in year 2 or 3 of a new project. As Nasr has already pointed out, each one of us who bought a license did so under the raincloud that this may all turn sour at any time. We took the risk and continue to do so for as long as the product meets our requirements. When it ceases to do so or when release schedules arent met and no explanation is given, we will just walk away and let our feet do the talking.

 

[Slavik]

Enough is enough.

The original post has made his point that he won't be transfering due to lack of updates.

All this further discussion has been done time and time again. When KAM have any updates to make, they will make them.