sbj
Well-known member
Hello,
I am concerned about the current state of XenForo and I am starting this topic to see if I am overreacting or if my concern has some merit to it.
I always try to be helpful, supportive and positive on here. So the last thing I want to do is to start a drama. On other sites I have a more direct and sharp tongue, but on here I want to be a part of a warm-welcoming family. I feel like I owe it to XF and all forum owners. One day I help someone out, another day someone else will help me out. Give and take. We are on the same boat, this way everyone benefits. But lately I am struggling to be supportive on here because I feel like "why should I care when the XF team doesn't care anymore?".
Of course right now this sounds like there is no basis for such a claim. So I will try to present my view. I am following this forum pretty closely since 2013 (active daily). Before that I was watching it from the outside. Over the years with the decline of all forums unfortunately this forum has also declined. That would be okay because nobody can control that really. But for quite some time there is pretty much no interaction by the XF team with the community anymore, or much less (like 90% decrease). They may be more active in nodes where we have no access, but I can only judge what I can see. So I took the time to collect some data from public records.
*Brogan is too active to count his numbers manually. In all these last 12 years he is pretty much always online, always active.
Let's take Mike as example. He hasn't posted over a year now. Someone with 27104 posts, who averages 2227 posts a year, hasn't written a single post in 2022. Leading dev and owner of XF, who used to be a machine in 1.X days, hasn't been "seen" since 2.0 came out pretty much. If I would go further back in time, I could prove that, but it takes too much time to do that.
Kier (I love you), but since July '21 there is pretty much almost no interaction from you. Also the previous years (1.X years) you were not seen. But I love the video series you started, thank you for that. This is the kind of activity I wish we had all the time.
Chris, who was always extremely active since he joined the team, has also cut interaction this year drastically. 90% decrease from his normal numbers.
Brogan is an alien.
Jake Bunce hasn't written a single post for 2 years now.
Slavik wrote 561 posts per year on average. It means in the 12 years he is registered on here, he was very active normally. But in 2022 he wrote in total 29 posts and in 2021 34 posts. Where is the man who wrote 500 posts a year and where did the man with 30 posts a year come from?
Jeremy P is the only one maintaining his activity constant throughout the years although he is very new in the team. So it doesn't say much.
NixFifty has had almost no interaction with XF customers from what I could see since he joined the team. Only with his own 3rd-party addons' customers.
This is concerning to me because I feel like the last 4-5 years the devs of this forum doesn't communicate with us anymore. I just went back to 2021, so my numbers show only the time in the last 2 years. But if I went back further, one could easily see the decline in the last 4-5 years, too.
In addition to the "participation of the devs", it was said that XF 2.0 will make development faster. And 2 new devs were added to the team. Yet XF 2.3 is yet to be seen. 2 years no new version. Communication/participation/interaction is at the lowest it has been from all 3 main devs. I have never seen the bug reports forum this abandoned. It looks like the last 1 year the bugs hasn't been resolved as quickly as it was used to be. So it accumulated to ~300 reports now. I remember a time where that forum node has had 8 active reports. Usually 2 pages at most, right now 15 pages.
The progress of XF was in my opinion too slow, but right now it is beyond slow. Okay, maybe I am expecting too much. But at least having the devs being active in the community could spark joy, motivation, activity or make us feel supported. But not only are they not talking to/with us anymore, the 3rd-party devs are also not participating anymore. The biggest one Audentio left XF. And checking every day XF, addons are not released anymore almost and the support threads of addons are not popping off anymore. Like everyone has left this place it feels like. I see the same 30-40 names in every thread. 167000 members and 50 active users? Where is everyone? Am I being paranoid here?
What do you think @all? Am I exaggerating? Am I trying to be dramatic? Maybe I am too biased somehow? What do these numbers say to you?
Thank you.
PS: I hope this thread is taken postively like as a feedback and criticism from a concerned supporter of XF. Even with all the shortcomings (if there are any), I still am here and will be here.
I am concerned about the current state of XenForo and I am starting this topic to see if I am overreacting or if my concern has some merit to it.
I always try to be helpful, supportive and positive on here. So the last thing I want to do is to start a drama. On other sites I have a more direct and sharp tongue, but on here I want to be a part of a warm-welcoming family. I feel like I owe it to XF and all forum owners. One day I help someone out, another day someone else will help me out. Give and take. We are on the same boat, this way everyone benefits. But lately I am struggling to be supportive on here because I feel like "why should I care when the XF team doesn't care anymore?".
Of course right now this sounds like there is no basis for such a claim. So I will try to present my view. I am following this forum pretty closely since 2013 (active daily). Before that I was watching it from the outside. Over the years with the decline of all forums unfortunately this forum has also declined. That would be okay because nobody can control that really. But for quite some time there is pretty much no interaction by the XF team with the community anymore, or much less (like 90% decrease). They may be more active in nodes where we have no access, but I can only judge what I can see. So I took the time to collect some data from public records.
*Brogan is too active to count his numbers manually. In all these last 12 years he is pretty much always online, always active.
Table made in Sep 21, 2022
| Kier | Mike | Chris D | Brogan* | Jake Bunce | Slavik | Jeremy P | NixFifty | |
| Last Seen | / | / | Today | / | Aug 8, 2021 | Today | Today | / |
| Registered (months) | 146 | 146 | 130 | 146 | 146 | 144 | 146 | 113 |
| Total Posts | 6445 | 27104 | 33134 | 66255 | 16339 | 6740 | 2437 | 1370 |
| Last Post Date | Jul 21, 2022 | Jul 15, 2021 | Sep 16, 2022 | Sep 21, 2022 | Sep 7, 2020 | Sep 9, 2022 | Aug 16, 2022 | Sep 20, 2022 |
| Total Posts per Year avg. | 529 | 2227 | 3012 | 5445 | 1343 | 561 | 200 | 145 |
| In 2022 Total Posts | 38 | 0 | 393 | 0 | 29 | 182 | 64 | |
| In 2021 Total Posts | 128 | 392 | 1424 | 0 | 34 | 206 | 121 | |
| All Years Posts per Month avg. | 44 | 185 | 254 | 453 | 111 | 46 | 16 | 12 |
| 2022 Posts per Month avg. | 4 | 0 | 43 | 0 | 3 | 20 | 7 | |
| 2021 Posts per Month avg. | 10 | 32 | 118 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 10 | |
| September '22 Posts | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 11 | |
| August '22 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 4 | |
| July '22 | 12 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 5 | |
| June '22 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 5 | |
| May '22 | 7 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 24 | 7 | |
| April '22 | 2 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 5 | 21 | 10 | |
| March '22 | 4 | 0 | 57 | 0 | 7 | 68 | 2 | |
| February '22 | 8 | 0 | 169 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 8 | |
| January '22 | 1 | 0 | 95 | 0 | 1 | 22 | 12 | |
| December '21 Posts | 1 | 0 | 66 | 0 | 4 | 47 | 3 | |
| November '21 | 0 | 0 | 162 | 0 | 3 | 29 | 15 | |
| October '21 | 2 | 0 | 164 | 0 | 3 | 20 | 8 | |
| September '21 | 1 | 0 | 263 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 9 | |
| August '21 | 1 | 0 | 99 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 15 | |
| July '21 | 19 | 37 | 108 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 5 | |
| June '21 | 21 | 56 | 113 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | |
| May '21 | 46 | 96 | 89 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 3 | |
| April '21 | 2 | 64 | 57 | 0 | 1 | 33 | 4 | |
| March '21 | 18 | 29 | 117 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 3 | |
| February '21 | 16 | 19 | 106 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 33 | |
| January '21 | 1 | 91 | 80 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 19 | |
Let's take Mike as example. He hasn't posted over a year now. Someone with 27104 posts, who averages 2227 posts a year, hasn't written a single post in 2022. Leading dev and owner of XF, who used to be a machine in 1.X days, hasn't been "seen" since 2.0 came out pretty much. If I would go further back in time, I could prove that, but it takes too much time to do that.
Kier (I love you), but since July '21 there is pretty much almost no interaction from you. Also the previous years (1.X years) you were not seen. But I love the video series you started, thank you for that. This is the kind of activity I wish we had all the time.
Chris, who was always extremely active since he joined the team, has also cut interaction this year drastically. 90% decrease from his normal numbers.
Brogan is an alien.
Jake Bunce hasn't written a single post for 2 years now.
Slavik wrote 561 posts per year on average. It means in the 12 years he is registered on here, he was very active normally. But in 2022 he wrote in total 29 posts and in 2021 34 posts. Where is the man who wrote 500 posts a year and where did the man with 30 posts a year come from?
Jeremy P is the only one maintaining his activity constant throughout the years although he is very new in the team. So it doesn't say much.
NixFifty has had almost no interaction with XF customers from what I could see since he joined the team. Only with his own 3rd-party addons' customers.
This is concerning to me because I feel like the last 4-5 years the devs of this forum doesn't communicate with us anymore. I just went back to 2021, so my numbers show only the time in the last 2 years. But if I went back further, one could easily see the decline in the last 4-5 years, too.
In addition to the "participation of the devs", it was said that XF 2.0 will make development faster. And 2 new devs were added to the team. Yet XF 2.3 is yet to be seen. 2 years no new version. Communication/participation/interaction is at the lowest it has been from all 3 main devs. I have never seen the bug reports forum this abandoned. It looks like the last 1 year the bugs hasn't been resolved as quickly as it was used to be. So it accumulated to ~300 reports now. I remember a time where that forum node has had 8 active reports. Usually 2 pages at most, right now 15 pages.
The progress of XF was in my opinion too slow, but right now it is beyond slow. Okay, maybe I am expecting too much. But at least having the devs being active in the community could spark joy, motivation, activity or make us feel supported. But not only are they not talking to/with us anymore, the 3rd-party devs are also not participating anymore. The biggest one Audentio left XF. And checking every day XF, addons are not released anymore almost and the support threads of addons are not popping off anymore. Like everyone has left this place it feels like. I see the same 30-40 names in every thread. 167000 members and 50 active users? Where is everyone? Am I being paranoid here?
What do you think @all? Am I exaggerating? Am I trying to be dramatic? Maybe I am too biased somehow? What do these numbers say to you?
Thank you.
PS: I hope this thread is taken postively like as a feedback and criticism from a concerned supporter of XF. Even with all the shortcomings (if there are any), I still am here and will be here.
Last edited:
, but thanks for your opinion. I also agree more or less with you (although I would frame it with other words), particularly the last part is an interesting point.
