vb386 vs. SMF -payed membership, spam protection, albums etc.

[snoopy5]

Hi

I use on some of my forums vb 3.86. Now I am looking for new alternatives for new forums. No conversion needed. I do not want to use vb in the future. I looked also a IPB, but this costs again a lot. PHPbb3 is for me too complicated with too many security updates. Implementation of hacks is a nightmare.

Since I use also Joomla 1.63, I would like to look now more into the free forum world.

The 4 most interesting features with vb 3.86 for me are:

1. PayPal integration for differnt user access levels/ features available
2. Spam protection (thanks to vbhacks)
3. Easy integration of Google adword (thanks to vbhacks)
4. Album features (certain usergroups can have photo-albums linked to their profile)

My question is now: Does SMF offer something similar to these 4 points? How does it differ in this regard?

Thanks in advance

[CapadY]

1)  Yes, by default
2) Yes, by default
3) Not sure but I think so, You need a MOD for it
4) Yes, there is a MOD for it.

[snoopy5]

Hi

I just installed the latest stable version 1.13, but can not find any paypal feature in the admin interface. Where do I find it?

If this is only available in the beta of version 2, when will it be stable for production sites?

[Illori]

it is a 2.0 feature only by default. and 2.0 will go gold before this month is over.

[snoopy5]

it is a 2.0 feature only by default. and 2.0 will go gold before this month is over.

Hi

Thanks for the information. I installed now SMF 2 RC5. I found a place to activate the PayPal option in general.

But I do not find any indication, where I can manage the settings for different usergroups. i.e. that I set a a payed usergroup in which the normal registered user is automatically transferred after he payed with PayPal.

Second question: As far as I can see, SMF 2 is since 2008 in beta. Is there any specific reason for such a long (almost 3 years) beta phase?

Thanks

[Illori]

for your specific questions about features in 2.0 i would suggest you open a separate thread in the 2.0 support board.

[Nick Whetstone]

SMF 2 is since 2008 in beta. Is there any specific reason for such a long (almost 3 years) beta phase?

Not one specific reason, but a collection of them, including:
1) Drama
2) The opening of a Non-profit Organization
3) The transfer from the former LLC to the new NPO
4) Team changes (for example, none of the current SMF Devs were SMF Devs in 2008).
5) License changes (from a custom, technically-not-open-source license to the open source BSD license)
6) The fact that this is a volunteer project, unlike vB and IPB (Money is a big motivator, after all.)

However, as it has been stated, the Team has announced that the Gold version of 2.0 will be released by the end of the month.

[snoopy5]

SMF 2 is since 2008 in beta. Is there any specific reason for such a long (almost 3 years) beta phase?

Not one specific reason, but a collection of them, including:
1) Drama
2) The opening of a Non-profit Organization
3) The transfer from the former LLC to the new NPO
4) Team changes (for example, none of the current SMF Devs were SMF Devs in 2008).
5) License changes (from a custom, technically-not-open-source license to the open source BSD license)
6) The fact that this is a volunteer project, unlike vB and IPB (Money is a big motivator, after all.)

However, as it has been stated, the Team has announced that the Gold version of 2.0 will be released by the end of the month.

Hi

thanks for the answer. I am a little scared if it comes down to "political" acvtivities. I have made a lot of bad experience with vbulletin. Everything was fine until 3.8x, after that Internet brands changed everything, coders got in fights, vb version 4 is a nightmare with a lot of bugs etc. pp.

So this is a very important point for me. The decision for a forum is a strategic one, which affects everything else and which influences the likelyhood whether you will be able to cover your costs and the time you invested in or not.

I searched the net and it seems that at SMF is also some fights going on. I did not dig deeper into it. But what scares me the most is the information, that there are many coders at SMF, who have the same rights. Which means everybody can vote for everything and everybody has to agree first on something before a new feature can be worked on.

I find it impossible to have a fast and meaningful agreement about features, if 60+ people want to add their 2 cents to each question/ feature request.

How is SMF planning to do this in the daily business? Is there one person who makes the decision, and who keeps an overview about the progress and pushes a strategic raodmap?

I like how SMF looks like, but I can not afford to wait always 1-3 years for a new release or important features. There is just no time for this in internet competition

Can someone explain how SMF is addressing this inherent risk?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

The fights and political drama within SMF are mostly done with, and the transition to NPO and other changes like that, are the result of that - and an effort to make sure things keep going smoothly...

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/
http://www.simplemachines.org/about/smf/

[snoopy5]

Hi

thanks for the quick reply.

But I still do not really understand the structure from now on regarding features requests, decision making of which feature will make it in the next release, responsibilty for roadmaps etc. pp.

Could you or someone else please elaborate on who is exactly responsible for what to make sure that in the future a faster feature und bugfix release is guaranteed?

If everybody is entitled to discuss and decide about everything, no progress will be possible in real life. Endless discussions will take place without decisions (or back and forth decisions) and without real progress. That is my experience. So I am very interested in this point.

The advantage of payed forum solutions is, that they need to sell also a next version to be profitable. So it is in their own interest to add fast new features in new releases. And they need to be as bug-free as posssible in order to keep a good reputation and beeing sold also in the future. If you look in compariosn at phpbb3 you know what I mean

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

The whole team is allowed to take part in discussions on such matters,
matters like what we wish to see in future versions, where do we want to see the project go, etc.
but that is really a good thing - not something that slows things down around here,
because the discussions are usually early on, before actual development and
the final decisions on coding related things are done by the devs in the end.
http://www.simplemachines.org/about/smf/team.php#dev

[Deaks]

snoopy, I can speak well on drama from this site, as I was one of the main people against the actions that caused the issue, many of the team distrusted me, I lost many friends (granted I gained new ones), I was even banned for a while like many of the people who stood out, but the fact that I am here today with a purple team badge, and not a grey one indicates people including myself are moving past the drama.  The team has grown massivley over last few months, many people who were grey (aka smf friends) have rejoined the team and have been welcomed, now dont get me wrong there are various people on the team who still dont fully trust me, and I them, but we are working together and building the trust again, so please do not worry about the drama that caused the slow down, as its only a few people who dont know the full story that are keeping it going

As fr your other points Lex has answered them fully

[Lou69]

Snoopy5 has written what I have wondered about for a year or so now.

Just what is the hierarchy and decision making process? Is it the buddy system where the guy with the idea and the most buddies gets his or her way? Seriously, not trying to be ugly about this but I seriously wonder what the process is. A 3 year beta and infighting and folks, at least me, do not know what the path of SMF is. What are the future projects and target dates? Are there 3 people at the top that make the final decision on direction?

The user base at large, are not coders, etc. and many of us make decisions based on the known direction of software and often on the unknown direction of software. I sense that here at SMF, most of the 'badgies' lose site of the fact that most of the SMF users are on the outside and looking for answers, not only on how the software works but also on the short term and long term goals of the team.

As for the drama/infighting, I could care less about the issues with that, I had no dog in that fight, but, I do have four SMF forums and it would be great to know the short term and long term future goals of SMF.

[Kindred]

Read the new pages under the about link....

[Lou69]

Well, now I know who the people are, more or less. Not a clue as to the decision making process or the future of SMF.

Now, just how difficult is it to get someone to mention what the future goals of the team/board of directors/etc. are? Where this a for profit organisation and there were a IPO pending, then I would understand the utter secrecy, more or less. But that does not seem to be the case.

People on the outside really would like to have an idea of where SMF is heading and what features will be added to the software. It would be nice to know if we can expect an integrated chat, gallery, improved vendor/business section and more.

[Antechinus]

Well, now I know who the people are, more or less. Not a clue as to the decision making process or the future of SMF.

Now, just how difficult is it to get someone to mention what the future goals of the team/board of directors/etc. are? Where this a for profit organisation and there were a IPO pending, then I would understand the utter secrecy, more or less. But that does not seem to be the case.

Briefly: will do a 2.1 next (already in progress) which will clean up a few things that have become important since 2.0 was conceived. 3.0 will also be underway, which is, among other things, a complete rewrite of the codebase in OOP. There will also be a couple of other related projects under the wing of the NPO.

It would be nice to know if we can expect an integrated chat, gallery, improved vendor/business section and more.

You can't expect an integrated chat or gallery for 2.1. You can still expect to have them available as mods. If you want particular improvements to the paid subs feature or anything else, make a suggestion in the Feature Requests board.

Gallery and chat may be available as modules (official plug-ins) for 3.0, but the precise number and type of modules for 3.0 has not been decided yet.

[snoopy5]

Hi

thanks for all the input so far. But unfortunately it seems that nobody can or want to answer the real question here: Who decides what from now on at SMF?

Sorry if this sound harsh, but as I explained earlier, the decision for a forum software is a longterm committment for an admin. The success of a community forum depends a lot from any "hassle" the admin has with the software & features beside the everyday forum-business.

As a side note I have to mention that I am not a fan of software strategies which try to offer all features you can think of in the core.

If you look in the forum-software market, you will see that every forumsoftware gets updates, major code changes etc. over the next 12 months. I do not see at the moment a specific reason to make rewrites of the code, but maybe that is because I have no clou about coding.

But from the client point of view, who has to use a forum software and run communities, I do care a lot about features & rewrites, IF they save me time im maintenance of my community and make money for me to cover my costs.

That means focus on speed, intelligent moderator features, excellent spam protection, PayPal etc. integration with different userleves & rights, easy advertising options, shared userregistration with other software etc. Just to name some as an example without knowing what SMF has already in the box.

I do not want to start here a feature discussion. I want to give only a hint what is the most added value if you are running 20+ forums at the same time. There is a lot of good software outside already for galleries etc. Do not waste time with reinventing the wheel.  Just make good bridges to those software or plugins (Photopost, Joomla etc.). Make/improve instead features which make a living of a site-owner easier. And make sure that the plugin/Mod community supports you because of clear communication of your roadmap and decision-hierachies for better & faster progress.

No matter how you structure it, at the end of the day, someone has to decide somethig. You can hide this with 100 developers who discus things until everybody is tired and a lot of back and forth programming or you implement a 3-4 person project group, which filters and propose their proposals to the decision maker to be able to act faster.

I only want to know how the structure in decision making is from now on and what you think shall be the direction SMF wants to go compared to PhpBB3, MyBB, Woltlab, vb, IPB, XenForo etc. By now the SMF team should have a clear view what their strenghth can be on the forum-software market, which market they want to focus on and why they think they can do this better then the other forums.

It does not matter whether a software is for free or not. At the end of the day, your customers will stay your customers because of the quality of your software, not because they save 100 USD

Just my 2 cents

[Kindred]

we are a volunteer project. As such, we have learned that sharing roadmap specifics and dates leads to crap from 90% of the users...  so we don't.

Who makes the decisions on where the SMF project is going?   The Steering Committee. Who's on the steering committee? The team leads and the Project Manager.

[MC73]

It does not matter whether a software is for free or not. At the end of the day, your customers will stay your customers because of the quality of your software, not because they save 100 USD

And that is the reason why "We" all love the SMF software. Many of us has "Tried" many "FREE" and "PAID" Forum Software out and we have found out that SMF is far better. Even though the 2.0 version has been in RC mode for a while, it is a sign of many improvements. Support is one of the best also, from both Team Members and Regular Members.  You cant compare VB and
ipb to SMF, that is like comparing Apples to Oranges when it comes to Simplicity.

There is always going to be drama in a Forum, always .... That is just "Human Nature".

[Lou69]

.
@Antechinus -- thank you for your openness, it does give one hope that SMF is considering some 'official' modules for the 3.0 release.
'


.
@Kindred  -- believe it or not, I fully understand not saying too very much about what is being considered. However, it is when leadership
attaches a date and a promise that the user base starts asking 'are we there yet'.     It never hurts though to throw a few
bones our way.
.


As Snoopy5 has stated, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Judging from the thread size for Ajax Chat and Aeva, there is most definitely a need
for a chat and gallery. If not integrated then a very good bridge to existing software. The existing gallery offerings are lacking and one requires that you
pay for advanced features.

As far as SMF being 'better' than the paid forum software available. That is questionable as that is based on the needs of the site and the user base. At this point SMF falls far short as I need a solid chat and gallery. To the point that I am close to buying two IPB licenses. Yep. The other two sites will remain on SMF. As for help, yes it is very good, but it comes often at a cost, the cost sometimes being snarky and terse replies. Remember, we are users for the most part and not coders for the most part. While we users all appreciate the help we get from the helpers, me thinks that they should have a mandatory one week off every so often. It would likely improve the tone of some of the help replies and keep the helpers from being burned out.