XenForo needs a blog with regular updates from Kier & Mike

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Sorry Brogan, didnt mean to upset you. Really do mean that - you are a good guy just dont think it is the best way to communicate updates.

And Shelley - i dont have all the time to sit trawling for tidbits. Sorry for mentioning a competitor who i feel communicate in a good way to their customers. I wont do it again.
 
I'm not upset, it's just the roadmap question arises every other week more or less.
The response from Kier and Mike has been the same each time.

Which is why I took it upon myself to at least document those instances where they do mention future features.

This latest suggestion to put it down in a blog is a non-starter for several reasons, primarly because XenForo doesn't include blog functionality.
So that would either mean coding the feature, installing WordPress or similiar, or doing it on another site.
 
It is fair to say, a blog doesn't have to be a roadmap. It can be discussions about new features added, asking about proposed features - or even talking about how someone may extend the system - i.e. pretty much linking in with the "Have you seen" articles. it could be about PHP or coding in general or suggestions for tweaking mySQL.

It could be about anything, to be honest - although the point of taking them away from coding is a fair point. When they're working on the week's blog post, they won't be coding.
 
Look at how IB did the vBulletin roadmap...yeah. ...they failed.
no expectations, prepare to be amazed!
Remember...it all started with "good things come to those that wait"
 
Folks,

Brogan is correct folks. A blog, a roadmap, a highlight list, a recap, it's all the same thing. Ultimately people are requesting better communication about what is going on, what is going to happen in the future. The requests however are going to continue to go unaddressed.

XenForo is a fantastic piece of software, written with some of the latest code. However, from a community/customer management standpoint, things are pretty much being handled as if it were still the year 2001.

The notion that potential customers should have to dig around for information is schizophrenic. The subsequent comments by Brogan prove a point.

Brogan said:
Not that I expected you to ever have anything positive to say, as usual.
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This is an epic fail from the customer relations perspective. Really, you're insulting a customer on your own forums? I'm sure that looks fantastic to other potential customers whom pull up your profile to look up information about the products future. Personally, I hope you do better in the future, mostly because I think you can. Maybe you just slipped up.

Ultimately, when a customer lobs a criticism of a product, or even when a vocal customer fires off what seems to be a suggustion that you might be at odds with. It's important to distill what is being said and figure out what is the underlying complaint. In this case, it's pretty obvious Carl was just pointing out a desire for the XenForo folks to communicate better.

Anyway, there's some great stuff in this thread, keep it up customers.
 
Shelby said:
Folks,

Brogan is correct folks. A blog, a roadmap, a highlight list, a recap, it's all the same thing. Ultimately people are requesting better communication about what is going on, what is going to happen in the future. The requests however are going to continue to go unaddressed.

XenForo is a fantastic piece of software, written with some of the latest code. However, from a community/customer management standpoint, things are pretty much being handled as if it were still the year 2001.

The notion that potential customers should have to dig around for information is schizophrenic. The subsequent comments by Brogan prove a point.

This is an epic fail from the customer relations perspective. Really, you're insulting a customer on your own forums? I'm sure that looks fantastic to other potential customers whom pull up your profile to look up information about the products future. Personally, I hope you do better in the future, mostly because I think you can. Maybe you just slipped up.

Ultimately, when a customer lobs a criticism of a product, or even when a vocal customer fires off what seems to be a suggustion that you might be at odds with. It's important to distill what is being said and figure out what is the underlying complaint. In this case, it's pretty obvious Carl was just pointing out a desire for the XenForo folks to communicate better.

Anyway, there's some great stuff in this thread, keep it up customers.
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Its alright, I'm pretty sure any customer that has read Carls or your post would feel he was well within his rights to be short with you.
 
I'd rather them just work in silence until they know what they're going to ship the next version with, and then they announce it. What I don't understand is that people want a roadmap, but if Kier and Mike do what was done at vBulletin, you already get that.

When they finish a version, or close to it, they'll likely make an announcement. This is usually ahead of the main site (here) running it by a day or so, if not the same day. Right there is your update. It would be another 1-2 weeks before customers get access to it, and then another 3-5 weeks before it become stable or is at least the RC stage. Each time an update is released, you get a general update about major things fixed/changed/added. Look at the announcement forum building up to XenForo 1.0 stable.

I find that much more effective than reading a small block of text saying "Oh, we're working on this, here's a picture. That's all." The weeks building up to a major or semi-major release (such as 1.0, 1.1, 2.0), you get quite a bit of information handed to you, and you know that that will be what sets the tone for the rest of the year (I'm talking on average), and you know the release won't be stable until at least 2-3 months after it's announced, which is a decent amount of time to start getting things ready to update. Otherwise I don't see the real need to highlight tiny chunks of info here and there.
 
Carl said:
Sorry Brogan, didnt mean to upset you. Really do mean that - you are a good guy just dont think it is the best way to communicate updates.

And Shelley - i dont have all the time to sit trawling for tidbits. Sorry for mentioning a competitor who i feel communicate in a good way to their customers. I wont do it again.
Click to expand...

Let's just skip the crap because it'll probably lead into a thread that I recently posted in and went nowhere. It's clear you've had a problem with kier from day 1 so your obviously going to go out of your way to moan and groan and put 1+1 and come up with 10. What exactly have IPB got to do with this? Yes I agree they communicate well I'm not disputing that. So do Kier and mike. So again, why are you comparing IPB with xenforo? because at this moment in time Kier mike and ashley heck even the gorgeous Brogan communicates well with they're customer base.

If your going to mention something come out and say it don't post in the subliminal sense where your wanting to say something but you clearly can't just ask. They communicate well, that's a fact. You don't have the time but you certainly have the time to constantly get on the heels here and assume they don't communicate. They do, they help a lot of people and they still find time to post in the "have you seen area". So without any evidence of this "lack of communicating with they're customer base" I taking your post, your replies as another dig and a good ole moan and groan.
 
It's natural perhaps for members / customers wanting to know about the stuff that is currently being worked upon and features that shall be released soon. And I also appreciate Paul's efforts at documenting all those hints made by Kier and Mike regarding upcoming stuff on his profile. I think that itself should speak for his dedication as a voluntary moderator of these forums, and not someone from customer care etc.

What I do not understand is the need to be rude while getting your point(s) across. :confused:

As far as I know, and Kier and Mike have mentioned this themselves plenty of times on the forums, the current priority for them is to develop a stable forum framework upon which they can build and add many of the remaining features that most commercial forum softwares have. The only reason for XenForo not having them built in already is the fact that XF went "stable" only less than a month ago. So for me, the XenForo "roadmap" is nothing else than working and building on the current framework to ensure it has all those basic features in it. We all know that much and to be honest, I'm more than happy knowing that much. Yeah, perhaps 6 months or so when the developers are a bit free from all that, and want to add some xen features into XenForo, I'd love to hear what is coming in the near future...but as such I don't see any immediate need for a roadmap till we get the basic stuff.

Weird to see people complaining that they don't have enough time on their hands to gather tidbits from all over the forums. I mean, you are potential customers and every potential customer does have to put in some effort collecting information about a product he / she is interested in buying.
 
Shelley said:
Let's just skip the crap because it'll probably lead into a thread that I recently posted in and went nowhere. It's clear you've had a problem with kier from day 1 so your obviously going to go out of your way to moan and groan and put 1+1 and come up with 10. What exactly have IPB got to do with this? Yes I agree they communicate well I'm not disputing that. So do Kier and mike. So again, why are you comparing IPB with xenforo? because at this moment in time Kier mike and ashley heck even the gorgeous Brogan communicates well with they're customer base.

If your going to mention something come out and say it don't post in the subliminal sense where your wanting to say something but you clearly can't just ask. They communicate well, that's a fact. You don't have the time but you certainly have the time to constantly get on the heels here and assume they don't communicate. They do, they help a lot of people and they still find time to post in the "have you seen area". So without any evidence of this "lack of communicating with they're customer base" I taking your post, your replies as another dig and a good ole moan and groan.
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I guess I'm just used to how another company relates things to it's customers. I quite simply said to take a look at a way competitors relate things and once again I'm going to say I don't wish to trawl through a myriad of posts in the attempt I find something that is being/worked on etc

I'm not the only one asking for another more concise way to communicate things, so please drop this negative attitude towards me.

Im going to leave it here.
 
Shelley, why you get so mad when you see a comparision between XenForo and IPB? For me it's perfectly clear that you're a "xenforo fan person" but please don't allow your fanatism to prevent to see the facts how they really are and the fact is (at least to me) that IPB is doing an amazing job (better than XenForo) when communicating to it's customers.
 
Shelby said:
This is an epic fail from the customer relations perspective. Really, you're insulting a customer on your own forums? I'm sure that looks fantastic to other potential customers whom pull up your profile to look up information about the products future. Personally, I hope you do better in the future, mostly because I think you can. Maybe you just slipped up.
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He is a customer himself and gives free support, he is not a paid employee. Also he did not 'insult' a customer, he replied to a rude comment like I would expect any gentleman to reply. Being a customer doesn't mean you can be rude and expect a friendly reply back. The way some people here behave is nothing short of insolent.
 
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