R
ragtek
Guest
Yes, it seems so.
XenForo needs a blog with regular updates from Kier & Mike
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Ryan Kent
Well-known member
This thread is a distraction for everyone, and serves no beneficial purpose. Personally I'd prefer it locked and/or deleted. Discussion is healthy, but this thread is just bickering.
Mike and Kier are active on these forums. They answer posts from regular XF users, and add-on developers. They do this on a daily basis. Is that not enough?
They regularly offer regular updates and training in the "have you seen" section. Additionally there is Announcements, Development Tutorials & Resource sections, and the rest of these forums. Detailed articles, excellent videos detailing how to code, how to use the moderation tools, and what is being developed with the product. I suspect this is far more then any other forum software provider offers, and you want to trade it for a blog?
The blog serves no point. This issue comes up with every product ever produced by any software developer. Users want to know what is coming and when. Users want commitments. The better software developers have learned to put quality first, take their time, and keep any updates to be very vague. It's how the real world works.
Those other vendors who are being praised for their blog updates and such offer an inferior product and service overall. You know that too, or otherwise you wouldn't be here.
Mike and Kier are active on these forums. They answer posts from regular XF users, and add-on developers. They do this on a daily basis. Is that not enough?
They regularly offer regular updates and training in the "have you seen" section. Additionally there is Announcements, Development Tutorials & Resource sections, and the rest of these forums. Detailed articles, excellent videos detailing how to code, how to use the moderation tools, and what is being developed with the product. I suspect this is far more then any other forum software provider offers, and you want to trade it for a blog?
The blog serves no point. This issue comes up with every product ever produced by any software developer. Users want to know what is coming and when. Users want commitments. The better software developers have learned to put quality first, take their time, and keep any updates to be very vague. It's how the real world works.
Those other vendors who are being praised for their blog updates and such offer an inferior product and service overall. You know that too, or otherwise you wouldn't be here.
Ingenious
Well-known member
I don't think most of us non-licence holders want Kier to blog every time he sneezes. We just want some sort of hope if you like, that XenForo is going to (or not) include the basic feature set already in other packages, the features most "liked" in the suggestion forums.
You see it all boils down to whether we should wait or not. XenForo created a lot of hope for us vB refugees and with that hope came a lot of goodwill and patience on our parts to give XenForo a really good chance of bagging our communities. It's not quite suitable yet for me and some other established communities which have grown fat on, or depend on, certain features which are already in other packages.
A blog was only suggested as a way of letting us know what's happening with the product. But anything will do, just a forum post here and there, or maybe a weekly announcement to keep us interested. As it is, I'm sorry to say I spend more time at IPB now where I feel more valued as a potential customer. This is just my opinion, but I think XenForo's silence is wrong, and it is bleeding them goodwill and customers.
Of course, if you already have a licence you have already decided the product is for you. However you will no doubt still take posts like this as criticisms of the product. But they are not, we are just saying to you all, this is what we would like to see to make this product better. I mean, do you think all of us non-licence holders who have posted so much in this forum for so long, do it for fun? We're here because we like the product and are desperate to see it grow into a state we can use. We are trying to help. We are trying not to spend our hard earned money on IPB and vB. But please, give us something in return - some product and development news.
Sooner or later, the goodwill and interest dies away, we give up, we move on
You see it all boils down to whether we should wait or not. XenForo created a lot of hope for us vB refugees and with that hope came a lot of goodwill and patience on our parts to give XenForo a really good chance of bagging our communities. It's not quite suitable yet for me and some other established communities which have grown fat on, or depend on, certain features which are already in other packages.
A blog was only suggested as a way of letting us know what's happening with the product. But anything will do, just a forum post here and there, or maybe a weekly announcement to keep us interested. As it is, I'm sorry to say I spend more time at IPB now where I feel more valued as a potential customer. This is just my opinion, but I think XenForo's silence is wrong, and it is bleeding them goodwill and customers.
Of course, if you already have a licence you have already decided the product is for you. However you will no doubt still take posts like this as criticisms of the product. But they are not, we are just saying to you all, this is what we would like to see to make this product better. I mean, do you think all of us non-licence holders who have posted so much in this forum for so long, do it for fun? We're here because we like the product and are desperate to see it grow into a state we can use. We are trying to help. We are trying not to spend our hard earned money on IPB and vB. But please, give us something in return - some product and development news.
Sooner or later, the goodwill and interest dies away, we give up, we move on
Akrion
Well-known member
Is sounds like social marketing/product promotion is not for you.
Markos
Well-known member
Ok Kier, you have convinced me. I trust you. But if for Xenforo the dev community is very important, more important than vb and IPB, you have to regularly educate/inform this devs of the incoming news of the platform and with a better developer resources.
You said: "We don't anticipate the news because we don't want to have our ideas copied". Ok, you're right but we know some of the news, and you know that it's not question of what features have a software, but how there are implemented. I think the majority of xf customers don't have the need to know "the details" of the new features and ideas.
And also, Kier, permit me a little critique. I admire you, you are a great coder and surely a very good person. But sometimes you have problems on comunication, i understand that you work very hard, the problems of the lawsuit and complaints of customers, this is very stressful, but your words sometimes are a little "harsh". IMHO is a little problem because i understand the very stressful situation, but i'm that you can do best, try yourself to understand the critiques of your customers/members/fans/etc. etc.
a legacy reborn
Well-known member
I am going to pretend to lock the thread with my pretend abilities and everyone will pretend that they can't post in it, k?
I appreciate all the hardwork that you put into the community Brogan and I believe that most people including myself would say that you are one of the best moderators on any company forum, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I think people want something more professional like an update in the announcements section of the forum or maybe a new section titled "coming soon" rather than having to check someones profile page.
Kier has already stated the position on that: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...dates-from-kier-mike.14436/page-9#post-190467
Blogojevich
Member
A blog for updates? That's oldschool. You do know they invented a better tool for updates.
It's called Twitter:
http://twitter.com/kierdarby
http://twitter.com/mike_sul
http://twitter.com/xenforo
It's called Twitter:
http://twitter.com/kierdarby
http://twitter.com/mike_sul
http://twitter.com/xenforo
Oh, here's another Twitter account you might want to follow:
http://twitter.com/XenForoDev
http://twitter.com/XenForoDev
Vincent
Well-known member
And WHO cares???Not john doe and i also not ATM...
It can be the worlds best system, but if people
and they don't use it, it's useless.
- don't know how to use it because of lacking documentation and need to experiment around for months to see that it can't work and they have to wait for 1.1 which can be months away, OR
- don't want to code add-ons which COULD!!!(only kier,mike and some insiders knows...) be in the core soon (where's the thread prefixe add-on for example? i'm sure if coders would know what it will get it into the core in at least 1 year, somebody would code it, but not, if it's 1-2months away! But as said already, only the insiders know it)
That's why IMHO IPB3 is ATM the best platform for add-on developers => they have there tutorials, they have already there great mature core, with many usable components...
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, they have there blog where they share the new features, and not implement them "hidden" like the rss feed here (and which is the reason, why i stopped coding big customer add-ons)
My 0.02$
My 0.03$: Only 2 Developers.
I wonder if Kier sneezed today, or what he had for lunch, this is important information I need to know! Damnit man, give us answers!
Ryan Kent
Well-known member
So the big issue is the couple month window between updates?
XF's ACTIONS speak louder then any blog or announcement ever could. When each update comes out, then you have all your answers. You either trust the XF team (Mike & Kier) or you don't. If you do trust them, a blog isn't needed. If you don't trust them, then a blog wont help.
XF's ACTIONS speak louder then any blog or announcement ever could. When each update comes out, then you have all your answers. You either trust the XF team (Mike & Kier) or you don't. If you do trust them, a blog isn't needed. If you don't trust them, then a blog wont help.
Ingenious
Well-known member
What on earth are you going on about? I have no interest in "trusting" any company, I just want to buy a forum package which has all the features I need. XenForo doesn't have all the features - yet. So are these features coming? I don't know, I'm in the dark, because they decide not to publish development updates or any idea of what well-requested features are going to be included in future releases.
I'd be happy to wait for a future update and not in the meantime spend money on IPB or stay with vB, if I knew a future release would include features needed for my community.
So far we've had suggestions of looking at tweets (which have no firm future product details) or the information part of a moderator's profile (which links to some posts which are quite old) and links to a statement from Kier to say, in summary, they will remain silent for various reasons. Great!
Instead of suggesting a blog, why didn't someone suggest something like www.xenforo.com/community/pages/roadmap???
I understand their silence for any new/innovative features, but things like thread prefixes, ignore system, they could be put into an XF page with a release version (1.1, 1.2, etc).
I understand their silence for any new/innovative features, but things like thread prefixes, ignore system, they could be put into an XF page with a release version (1.1, 1.2, etc).
Russ
Well-known member
Can you not understand from a business perspective why they have to remain silent? Competitors are already taking ideas from XenForo just from the core product, let alone if the XenForo team make an announcement or a roadmap.
Even if XenForo decided to publish some sort of a roadmap... I still wouldn't base my decision to buy a forum software off features they say will come down the road. You said yourself you have no interest in trusting any company, so why take a companies word for features they plan to integrate at some time? Buy XenForo when it's ready for you...
Ingenious
Well-known member
What, silent about custom profile fields? A calendar? Other things which are already in other packages? I think some of you are missing the point. I'll say it again - I don't want/expect XenForo to divulge commercially confidential information about new features which the competition does not have and I don't see many people here actually asking for this. I'm talking about stuff which is standard in competing packages.
I'll ask the same question back. Can you not understand from a business perspective why they should communicate with potential customers to put their minds at rest they should indeed hold off buying a competing product because basic features found in those other products are coming to XenForo sometime soon?
I do think this is very much a "Licence holders are from Mars, non-licence holders are from Venus" situation
When you have a forum full of people so passionate about something I doubt we will ever agree!
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