Current state of XF and the participation of the XF Team

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@The Dark Wizard worked his ass off since XF launched to make his site what it is now; it is literally not luck, it comes down to the fact that he has invested a lot of time and money into his community and has a niche that grew in popularity, but still managed to not lose out to his many competitors. Just as you are saying he is being arrogant and talking down to people, you are being dismissive and downplaying the work that was put in to get to where he is now.
???
I didn't say anywhere that he didn't work his ass off at all. Also didn't say it is luck.
I am not downplaying or being dismissive about the work he has done. I didn't talk about his work at all. Actually, I would like to learn more about it since there is definitely things he could teach me/us. As I said, I am struggling with user engagement a lot and can't seem to solve this problem. So, pretty please teach me, I would be eternally grateful.

But not once or twice but multiple times he talked out of nowhere about people being unhappy because of unsuccessful sites and the result of that is such threads like mine. And I disagree with that and it comes off as arrogance to me. Because hard work or not, it is easy for a big successful site to talk down the struggles/problems since he doesn't have them. So it must be us according to that logic. And I think this is not true. Successful or not, my points made on here have nothing to do with that.

Again, I didn't say a word about his hard work. This thread has nothing to do with renewing or being successful or not.

Not really interested in replying to your response to my prior post as it's basically you just cherry picking for a narrative and makes assumptions and false equivalencies (such as comparing micro transactions to resource sales, or resource development to platform development).
Okay. Noted. Would have been nice to be lectured about my wrong opinions but why communicate it, right? Who needs communication? I am riding my narrative anyway. It must be nice to label everyone and anyone like that and then going back to the corner. Not arrogant at all, you guys know it all, sorry.

It is just like how @Starbucks said it here. Instead of attacking people, labeling people, trying to silence people, or trying to intimidate, can't we just have a normal discussion about this?

So far I didn't personally attack anyone here.
But I was called a stalker, whiner, being sad because I don't get attention from Mike and Chris, cherry picker and other things. Just why?
 
Hello everyone, I'm here for general information dissemination and rumour management.

Let's start from the basics.

XenForo Ltd. is doing just fine. The developers are hard at work developing 2.3 and beyond, and the support staff are busy doing their thing too.

Yes, the volume of our postings on the forums has dropped but that is to be expected. We are now running a mature but still small company with roles that are far more clearly demarcated than those in a startup where everyone does a bit of everything. You may think you want to hear more from the developers here on the forums, but to do so would be at the expense of getting code completed.

A point has been raised about the volume of bug reports left outstanding, but I think it's important to balance that observation with an analysis of the severity and seriousness of those reports. XenForo 2.2 is a supremely stable piece of software and a decent quantity of the bug reports outstanding can be considered edge cases or trivial issues. When serious issues are reported, especially when they are security-related or have the capacity to affect large numbers of sites, we deal with them very swiftly.

I commonly see complaints that XenForo doesn't yet have feature x that person y desperately needs for their site and bemoaning the lack of a roadmap to see when and if that feature might become part of the core system. To this, I can only say that XenForo has a feature set that more than delivers the requirements of most communities, but it was always built as a platform upon which third party developers can build new application code that is in no way disadvantaged against core, first party systems. We are meticulous in maintaining backward compatibility wherever it is feasible to do so, even when it means that core development is held up as a result of having to maintain legacy systems. If your site requires a particular feature that is not currently part of the XenForo core product, post in the Resources and Add-ons forum to see if a third party developer is interested in building it using the XenForo add-on framework and best practices - that is really the essence of what XenForo is about.

I regret that 2.3 has taken longer than I anticipated to come to fruition. A combination of Mike stepping away from day-to-day operations, and the need to divert some development resources to building our Cloud platform has unfortunately resulted in 2.3 being later than we all would have liked.

To avoid a lot of unnecessary speculation with regard to Mike, he has been winding down his commitments to XenForo since before the release of 2.2 and hasn't been part of the active team for over a year. Like me, Mike has been building forum software for over twenty years, ten of them with XenForo and simply felt the time was right to move on.

XenForo 2.3 has been bubbling away for quite some time now and we are coming close to being able to show you the fruits of our labours. I'm confident you will all find something valuable in the new version when all is revealed.
Look. This is a proper communication style. It took several entire thread discussions, but here we are. Proper communication.

Look @Brogan, instead of calling a customer publicly a stalker, this is the correct way of dealing with a situation.

With these kind of messages we know where the company stands. Both the license holders and Add-on developers have now information they’ve been waiting for, through a clear, well-written post.

Well done.
Well Done Thank You GIF by Spotify
 
Some comments from my perspective.

I think Jake left the company a while back... so, don't count him in the stats as staff (unless i'm wrong).
Gemma, no idea about her. heard she joined, then never saw her anywhere. i wouldn't count her either.
Moderators, like Slavik -- they aren't really staff. They just help keep spam and what not out.

Content under the bugbot or https://xenforo.com/community/members/xenforo.1/#recent-content are probably kier/mike/chris, so you should probably include them in your stats. It's not much, but it's something.



I feel the SBJ point. It does feel a little abandoned in here. I think we all miss the hayday's of 200+ new posts every time you log in, 2 new addons to look at, and all the rest.
XF has plateaued - but is that such a bad thing? We have the features most of us need. All products plateau. And then a disrupter comes in, whether that's an outsider competitor or a new way to run the internet, or a new feature that levels-up.

If i look at a generic product lifecycle chart, we're somewhere in lifecycle 3.

red line was vb

SBJ is looking for the yellow line to some extent.

Product_Life_Cycle-.png


I don't really care about speed, 2.3, or anything else. I can't name 1 thing i need that isn't a custom addon with my data, not a generic thing everyone would want. I don't really need the extension.

What I would LIKE is more discussion around forums, the state of collaborative ecosystems, and perspectives from the leaders, and those leaders could be staff, but honestly, i don't think it's a solo effort there.

I think they tried to to this with the TH partnership videos, but that all fell apart. not sure the backstory there.
I also liked the hour-long chat sessions they held a year or 2 back. maybe it was a lockdown thing.


The disruptors are not ipb/discord/etc. That's like a ford/chevy argument. admins like what they like and folks moving from platform to platform are slim these days. it's not even facebook, really. it's the shift in how people want to use the internet.
web 1 - creator driven text for consumption
web 2.0 - user-generated content and discussion. We as admins got lucky here as others did the work for us.
web 3 (ignoring the meta/distributed title web 3 seems to hold) - it's creator/influencer driven media and 5 word comments/responses.

And so with that in mind, i ask you, what media are you creating for your community to keep it relevant in this modern age? And how are you delivering that to your users?

If you're hosting it on youtube, why do you need xf at all?
if you're hosting it on your own server, how are you monetizing it?
if you're not creating rich media content for consumption, why not?

if you're stuck in 2.0 in a 3.0 world, how are you going to get out of it?

what is xf 2.3 going to offer to help you? (Probably nothing).
 
???
I didn't say anywhere that he didn't work his ass off at all. Also didn't say it is luck.
I am not downplaying or being dismissive about the work he has done. I didn't talk about his work at all. Actually, I would like to learn more about it since there is definitely things he could teach me/us. As I said, I am struggling with user engagement a lot and can't seem to solve this problem. So, pretty please teach me, I would be eternally grateful.

But not once or twice but multiple times he talked out of nowhere about people being unhappy because of unsuccessful sites and the result of that is such threads like mine. And I disagree with that and it comes off as arrogance to me. Because hard work or not, it is easy for a big successful site to talk down the struggles/problems since he doesn't have them. So it must be us according to that logic. And I think this is not true. Successful or not, my points made on here have nothing to do with that.

Again, I didn't say a word about his hard work. This thread has nothing to do with renewing or being successful or not.


Okay. Noted. Would have been nice to be lectured about my wrong opinions but why communicate it, right? Who needs communication? I am riding my narrative anyway. It must be nice to label everyone and anyone like that and then going back to the corner. Not arrogant at all, you guys know it all, sorry.

It is just like how @Starbucks said it here. Instead of attacking people, labeling people, trying to silence people, or trying to intimidate, can't we just have a normal discussion about this?

So far I didn't personally attack anyone here.
But I was called a stalker, whiner, being sad because I don't get attention from Mike and Chris, cherry picker and other things. Just why?

I tell people the same thing he said all the time; rather than fixating on things that really do nothing for your community, focus on your community and find what makes it work. Every community and every niche are different, and each requires a different approach; if you have younger users, focus on gamification or rewarding content; older users focus more on information and long-form discussion while also maintaining ease of use and usability.

Not saying he was right to say what he said; however he is not necessarily wrong in a general sense. These threads, like the threads about social networks killing forums, generally have an undertone of "this is why my community is failing" or "this is why forums are failing". Rather than addressing why their community is possibly failing, people like to pass the buck and look to place the blame elsewhere. If you do have issues with your community, ask someone to help you who has experience, though you may need to offer them something depending on the scope of what you want or what they offer.

Removing most of what is said and selectively choosing what supports a narrative is cherry picking; it is not a way to have a discussion as it will only end up going in circles or devolving into arguments. When the bulk of my post is personal experience and personal reasons as for why I no longer offer services here, having you try to use bits and pieces to say something else is not worth my time. You are telling me disengaging from a discussion I see no point in is arrogance, but I feel it is arrogant for you to cherry pick what I said of my personal experiences and reasons 🤷‍♂️.

What exactly did I say that is an attack? Pointing out that you cherry picked my post to support what you wanted to say, while purposely removing nuance that was me saying the opposite? Or saying that you were making false equivalencies (and providing examples)? If I had gone through to 'lecture' you I would have come off as arrogant or condescending, so I chose to not do so. I am about as blunt as a bat to the face, so when I attack someone it's pretty apparent.

🤷‍♂️ what other people have called your or implied doesn't matter to me, I was only giving feedback specific to my reasons as to why I and others close to me left. You wanting to argue a narrative is your own thing, not mine.
 
Yeah @Brogan .... you and your Amaury comments.... sheesh... lol

Even he would have agreed with your assessment.

So, with Kiers answer, this thread has run it course. About normal amount of posting too. Proud of you guys. You didn't disappoint me. Heh.
 
Hello everyone, I'm here for general information dissemination and rumour management.
Thanks for taking your time, always appreciated.

Although sorry for the communication being in this way and in this thread, but perhaps more participation and communication would prohibit such threads before they start happening? Not saying that we have the right to see behind the curtains, but more interaction with us, a tiny bit, would resolve most frustrations? I mean as you see your one post here already dissolved many things. Waiting for the last drop all the time only activates such threads, no? Because otherwise we can't seem to get any responses from you guys at all. Only if we cause a drama or something, then we get a "slap on the hand" and the cycle starts again?

Especially right now your statement sounds very formal with all due respect. Nothing wrong with that of course, and I don't seek for your (or anyone else's) attention, but it feels like we had to spawn the superintendent of the school to resolve an issue in the class. This type of communication is the opposite of a "community". It was not used to be like this and I fear that this one post will not make a difference if every time we have to wait for the superindentent to show up.

XenForo Ltd. is doing just fine. The developers are hard at work developing 2.3 and beyond, and the support staff are busy doing their thing too.
Can we know who the support staff is right now? To me it looks like Brogan is the only one, correct?

You may think you want to hear more from the developers here on the forums, but to do so would be at the expense of getting code completed.
Of course you guys know it better and who am I to question it, but honestly, without any agenda or narrative or anything, purely from my heart, I feel like we have 0 communication channels with you developers. I believe that our ideas, voices, thoughts, questions, etc. are not getting heard.

It is not about person x needing feature y. Just in whatever direction you guys go, 1) we never know in which direction you go anyway, and 2) we would like at least get our ideas across and get a feedback. Or give you guys a feedback. Any kind of input.

Of course, the company is yours, it is a business, you are out there to make profit, you need to be professional but as a part of the community it just feels like we are not a community to you guys. In essence this product sells a community management software while showcasing its product through its own community. But leaving us in dark all the time, without any communication, it just feels like we are just collateral damage. I don't know how else I can explain it.

Again, I am part of other communities, other development related communities, and this one is the most I should care of because I love forums. But in other places the devs really try to keep a communication alive, even if they are very busy. Developer updates are always happening. But here everything is put under the "it would be at the expense of getting code completed" blanket. And then the code completing part is also not happening, which results in such threads like mine. I really say this with remorse.

If your site requires a particular feature that is not currently part of the XenForo core product, post in the Resources and Add-ons forum to see if a third party developer is interested in building it using the XenForo add-on framework and best practices - that is really the essence of what XenForo is about.
There are 2 problems with this approach in my opinion if I may say so with all respect.

1) It feels like you guys always resort to this comfortable position by pushing all sorts of things to 3rd party developers. I get it that it is impossible to implement all asked things, but even with your own implementations the feedback is not taken and "should be done as 3rd party". It feels so lazy when nothing is polished. For years the RM and MG have not seen any legit improvements not to mention the ES addon. For example when a 3rd party developer releases an addon and we say "but it would be better to do it like this and this is missing", then they consider it at least and if they get time, enhance the addon. With XF once HYS is released, it is like it is written on stone, impossible to change. And nothing furtger gets done anymore.

2) The 3rd-party development scene is shrinking and shrinking. There is no incentive, no plans, no encouragement, and from what others say no profit. So how is this suppose to work like this?


To avoid a lot of unnecessary speculation with regard to Mike, he has been winding down his commitments to XenForo since before the release of 2.2 and hasn't been part of the active team for over a year.
Will there be a replacement, new people hired? Mike is a very big loss sadly.


Thank you.
 
Can we know who the support staff is right now? To me it looks like Brogan is the only one, correct?
As has always been the case, support from staff is only guaranteed via the ticket system where you may well be greeted by any one of the staff including Jon (@Slavik), Paul (@Brogan), Me, Kier, Gems (@Gemma Eastwood), Aakif (@NixFifty) and Jeremy (@Jeremy P) depending on what the specific query is.
 
I regret that 2.3 has taken longer than I anticipated to come to fruition. A combination of Mike stepping away from day-to-day operations, and the need to divert some development resources to building our Cloud platform has unfortunately resulted in 2.3 being later than we all would have liked.
This is the crux of it. Thanks for explaining the situation to us, much appreciated.

A shame, but understandable if Mike wants to do something else as people move on in life. I hope he has success with whatever he's doing now.

The best thing is that the company is doing well. I was feeling all down about the possibility of XF being in financial trouble or something else gone wrong. Look forward to XF 2.3. 🙂
 
Technically, @Jeremy P and @NixFifty were both hired around the 2.2 release, which is when Kier mentioned Mike started winding down his commitments.
And we were celebrating it since then that we finally got new devs to the team which would make the pace of development much faster. But today we learned that actually Mike left, this means it got actually worse.



As has always been the case, support from staff is only guaranteed via the ticket system where you may well be greeted by any one of the staff including Jon (@Slavik), Paul (@Brogan), Me, Kier, Gems (@Gemma Eastwood), Aakif (@NixFifty) and Jeremy (@Jeremy P) depending on what the specific query is.
Thank you. I never use the ticket system so I never knew.

So it is not expected to get any help in the customers forum node anymore from the XF team, right?

In past like a machine you and Mike (besides Brogan) were always helping out there, especially when it came down to customizations and technical stuff. But as of proved, lately that is also not happening anymore. Should we ask such questions as tickets then? Thanks.
 
No, tickets are not for customization (loose definition) help. And I haven't had any issues getting that help on the forum. Once in a blue moon I may have to bump my thread, but usually not.
 
Some comments from my perspective.

I think Jake left the company a while back... so, don't count him in the stats as staff (unless i'm wrong).
He was listed yesterday. Guess they removed him today. And no mention of it so far. I will miss him, he helped me out with some SQL stuff many moons ago if I remember it correctly.
 
as it just becomes a nightmare trying to support them all over a long period.
And that has been shown historically here by several prolific add-on developers from the 1.x era that literally got burned out. Luckily several of them passed their add-ons to other developers to continue.
 
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