vB - Why?

I was wondering, why is sythe.org even using vB? MyBB has a tonne more options and customisations, as well as a cleaner look once custom themes are installed. It's also more user-friendly.

 

Probably more suited for the community input section.

Regardless, what else does sythe need? In terms of options and customisations anything that is cool like the donation centre, etc needs to be custom coded. What other additions is sythe lacking?

 

If you've ever been a part of a MyBB site that's quite large, you'd see the literal tonnes of plugins that they have access to that sythe doesn't. Things like awards (known as miniranks on here) being able to be purchased and handed out by users as well, personally owned groups with their own subforums, reputation systems, ability to open/close threads, a cleaner look, tabs for each different forum category with forums listed underneath them, the list goes on and on.

 

Hmm in that case I'd suggest that you post this in suggestions for Sythe. If it is viable for a switch to MyBB then it has my full support. It sounds like it would make things easier and despite reputation systems being denied in the past (not sure if it was due to not being viable or that they simply did not want one or not), I think it would be a welcome addition to the site.

 

All of those are possible on vBulletin. vBulletin has plenty of hooks available to plugin developers.

Also Sythe uses vBulletin because of various plugins they already wrote, including but not limited to security features. Dropping all of those plugins to switch over to MyBB now, would be stupid.

Also the current version being used(3.6) is arguable one of the best versions of vBulletin available.

 

Regardless of which version of vB is being used, MyBB 1.6 has a greater range of features. Various plugins used on sythe are almost all available already for MyBB, things like Miniranks could easily be re-implemented. The donation centre is about the only thing that would be harder to re-implement, and even then, donation page plugins are available. Award trading would not be needed if Sythe introduced user owned awards anyway. The only thing that would be needed is to have some form of donation system, and then it could be done through the implementation of either manually checking bonds, or getting another plugin (I've admittedly never checked the range of plugins available to handle other users holding bonds), or even getting a coder to do it. In my opinion, it's worth it. Look at other MyBB forums, they get tonnes of unique traffic a day, and things like user owned groups were sold in large amounts for 4k+ by the owner of the largest MyBB forum because users enjoyed the freedom to have their own sub-section.

I just navigated over to vB's website, and found out it costs $250. This blew me away, because MyBB not only has the features I listed above, but is open source and is 100% free. That's nuts that you'd have to pay for something that's inferior.

 

Of course all that sounds great, but almost none of that is suited to what Sythe is used for. Sythe is a trading forum, it pretty much exists so people can post their skypes. Rep systems fail (+ rep is already available on VB), closing threads can be done by mods, etc. A few aesthetic features you listed would not be worth the switch.

 

You haven't posted a single thing that can't be done in VB.

 

So you want Sythe to throw away his $250 investment, all his current code and current plugins, switch to MyBB, then reimplement his code(the user center isn't a small thing), all because you want users to be able to create custom sub-forums, which if it was brought up as a suggestion, it would be shot down, feasible or not.

 

I'm going to go ahead and say most of what is available in the usercentre at the moment is useless. Things like the SVU aren't, but the majority of which (minirank trading, donation ranks or perks) all come standard in MyBB or the My Awards plugin. Throwing away a $250 investment is irrelevant if it allows for technological advancement. You don't sit there with a phone from the 1990s because you're worried about your initial investment, you'd take a free iPhone if it was offered to you. Custom sub-forums not only spark interest, but also generate revenue for site owners. The majority of his plugins could be replaced with MyBB variants rather easily. Your entire thought process as to why this shouldn't occur so far is - "what about the work invested?" rather than "is this actually a good idea?"

My debate of vB vs MyBB is not just over aesthetic enhancements. Rep systems don't always fail, and to say they do is not only ridiculous, but discredits the rest of your argument. Sythe being a trading forum is irrelevant, I could point you to sites where the market activity is much greater than Sythe's which are coded in vB, but that would be offsite advertising. Sythe is not JUST a trading forum, and that's why you'll see the SF being one of the most active sub-forums on the board, because the community of a website is what determines its future, not whether people buy and sell items on the site.

I'm not debating that it CAN'T be done in vB, but I'm saying that it would be pointless to do it in vB. Why waste all the extra time coding such specific plugins for vB when they already exist on another platform? If you want to sit there and code all the plugins that would be necessary for the features that MyBB and its plugins offer, then be my guest, but until such a time as the functionality of out-of-the-box vB and the plugins that can be implemented to it is greater than the same functionality of MyBB, MyBB still wins.

 

My mentality towards whether your initial $250 is worth maintaining is irrelevant. I also guarantee that it would not take thousands of hours to replace any plugins lost that are not already in existence for MyBB. Mobile phones are indeed a relevant analogy due to their technological advancement, in much the same way that your analogy of operating systems are relevant. So far everybody who has posted in this argument besides Jack Goff has held the point of view of "what about the work we put in?".

There are times to cut your losses in life, and sitting back and thinking about the work you put into some things is pointless. If you sat back and thought about all the hours of TV or video games played throughout your life, they technically have contributed only a statistically insignificant amount to your current personality, intelligence and motor skills, yet you don't sit there and hang onto them and refuse to stop playing them because of the levels you have attained in specific games.

Nobody has come up with a single argument or EXAMPLE of a plugin that would be difficult to code into MyBB that doesn't already exist in some form, or one negative besides "the masses would revolt". Your post is basically a personal attack rather than a logical argument/explanation, which is something I aimed to receive when creating this thread. If you read the OP, it wasn't even a suggestion, it was a question, however once you start reading the replies it becomes apparent that others have seen it as their duty to be patriotic to sythe.org's current infrastructure without either understanding it or having a relevant reason to rally behind it.

Sometimes things don't need to be broken in order to fix them.

 

Because simplicity is better.

 

By that logic, we should detonate a world-wide EMP and bring ourselves back to the Middle Ages.

 

I've seen the coding that goes into plugins etc, and if it takes you 1000 hours or more to restore the functionality of all of sythe's plugins into even an out-of-the-box MyBB, you're doing something wrong.

Here we have another personal attack. Also, I've never visited powerbot's website, let alone registered on it. Your well-oiled and working machine could be compared to the horse and chariot, it's going to work, but there are better viable alternatives.

Your argument here seems to be that your time is more important than mine. That's basically what I'm getting out of that part. The first sentence is stating an obvious fact. The sky is blue. There's another one of those for you.

Another assertion that my time is spent staring at my screen expecting your reply and not at all afk, which was the reality, whilst yours is spent doing more important stuff that commoners such as myself wouldn't understand. People put considerable time and money into Ponzi schemes, yet they don't work out. Your opinion that this is the best way forward is actually the first valid point I've seen thus far, but it's not backed up with evidence. You know, that thing used to actually prove an argument rather than personal attacks.

I mentioned Jack purely for the sake of context, I don't feel that an attack on his views or those who may side with him is warranted here. All I'm asking for is a non-attacking, valid, reasonable answer to my original question, backed up with evidence.

 

Here we go, the my forum my company line. That sounds familiar. That eight line of codes per day is also as you said, bug free, but at an alpha level, or at a level useable for a site like sythe.org (which is insignificant compared some microsoft.com or other industry leading sites), you would be able to output more than eight lines of WORKABLE code per day unless your IQ is roughly equivalent to that of a squirrel.

Okay, I'm done with this thread, I'm not going to get anything backed up by evidence and examples pertaining to sythe.org. Thanks for responding to my posts, even if 95% of your replies were personal attacks or you getting defensive over what should have been a two reply thread.

 

I can vouch for this based on real-world jobs I've had.