We welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.
What do you folks think of this phpBB's moderator comment?
Gene
Personally I think absolutely nothing. But I think that you must have some personal beef with phpbb or the staff there. If so, go and resolve it in private or whatever. It is not so nice if you bash another forum software like this in public. We got that you are unhappy with phpbb but there are some ethics involved. It would be the same if smf 2.0 came out and the phpbb fans would bash it or talk ill about us as well. So, give it a rest
Well I think it was wrong. I believe to make a good product, or service, you have to listen to the users of it. I do that on my own forum, I don't tell people off if they say they hate the forum (though it's never happened) or if they say they hate my website (that's happened a few times, but only once since I redesigned it lol). If people say stuff to me I get right on it, or I at least look at it. If there is an error I jump on it, if there is a problem, I jump on it, If someone has a question someone WILL answer it (If I don't beat them to it

).
And that's why my forum loves me. Because I WANT them to be happy, and I strive at it. To me, phpBB does NOT want the users to be happy, and it does NOT strive to make them happy, and that is why they aren't.
SMF, they STRIVE to make people happy, to offer support, to do everything the users want. What they choose to do or not doesn't matter, they LISTEN and they don't fob anyone off. THAT is why SMF users are happy.
The cold hard fact of the matter is there are TWO free forum software packages (phpBB and SMF) talked about in this thread. A fair amount of the users on SMF moved from phpBB because they were unhappy with either the software or the treatment they got from the staff. and guess what? NOW [on SMF] THEY'RE HAPPY!