The future of SMF

[Siirist]

I doubt there are 'dozens'... so you say there are what, 30-50 themes that are responsive... rolling over 

The recent ones that were provided have plenty of issues with the menu - do not work properly.


I made a point that development has slowed a lot (The future of SMF) and the theme is well outdated.
The replies are very negative - suggestions of 'stop complaining', or 'what do you want'.

It sounds like any critical comment is not wanted. So sorry, SMF is wonderful, best thing since sliced bread. Dont even bother changing it. One 100% satisfied user (of  another forum soon).

Greetings,

This is just my point of view.

This is (in my opinion) someone that is asking British Motor Works (BMW) to at "good pace" design and manufacture a similar SUV to those that Subaru, Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge/Chrysler have been manufacturing for some time.

BMW responds, "We are looking to create a comfortable, dependable, and efficient vehicle that will give our customers peace of mind, and have a high resale value.
In order to accomplish the enormity of this task, we are being methodical to ensure that we reach those goals.
To those that desire to have a SUV at this time, we can only ask that you wait, or purchase a SUV from one of our competitors.
We want to assure you that the end result of our work will provide a superior SUV that will fulfill the needs of our customers."

Just the way I see it.

Regards,
Cloud

PS ~ I have found that the SMF Default theme is responsive on my Samsung S3

[Kindred]

ok... maybe dozenS is a slight exaggeration
However, there are AT least A DOZEN...   probably more.

And I have no issue with the menu on the three that I use (by Bloc)

As for "You made a point..."  um... nope... You made a comment (opinion) which you attempted to pass as fact (which we have since explained and/or proven to be mere opinion, not fact)
The only negativity here is your refusal to accept that your opinion does not constitute fact nor does your (individual) opinion have a large influence on the path that we have already established.

We welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.... and while SOME of your commentary has been constructive - for the most part, it has been nothing more than complaining that "you don't like X or Y" or "someone else does what I want, why can't you?" or "You guys are so slow...."
None of that is particularly constructive... 

and our answers of "Well, if you don't like the default theme, you can use an alternative theme or icons quite easily" hardly seems negative, in the least...  as a matter of course, I find that to be rather positive. We offered an alternative to your complaints that you did not like the new defaults.


So, your snark here, and in other threads is pretty much uncalled for.

[Suki]

So.... instead of bickering to each others words, why don't we try to focus on the points you are trying to make huh?

I would change that to say the number of contributors has declined. I still think SMF development has slowed down a lot and it is taking too much time to release new versions (compared to other similar open source forums). That's just my opinion and those replying have theirs.

This needs to be addressed though.

Other forum softwares don't have multiple versions to attend to. Don't have an already established userbase, don't have the contractions any seasoned software has. A better comparison would be against other seasoned open source forum, so go check any other seasoned forum out there, everyone struggles the same as us.

It is pretty easy to "Stand on the shoulders of giants", to take advantage of everything SMF built over the years, make it your own and release it as new without having to take responsibility for everything else,  yeah, thats quite easy, its an easy way out, thats why you see more activity.

But its only temporarily, any open source software will begin to struggle as soon as they start to grow, bigger userbase equals bigger team, equals mayor chances of discussions and drama and splits... its inevitable unless of course you don't want to ever expand but I highly doubt that, anyone wants to see their code being used by everyone out there.


So yeah, you can have your opinion I just want to make sure you have plenty of evidence to get yourself informed.

[青山 素子]

Other forum softwares don't have multiple versions to attend to. Don't have an already established userbase, don't have the contractions any seasoned software has. A better comparison would be against other seasoned open source forum, so go check any other seasoned forum out there, everyone struggles the same as us.

I think that's the key here. There is a ton of interest by developers in "greenfield" development. They can make a huge impression on how the software works that way. There isn't a huge support and maintenance demand. There isn't a ton of fighting with older development methodologies used back with older tech. It's everything SMF is not.

Some forks like Elkarte can do what they want because many of those issues aren't present. They don't have a legacy userbase. They can easily rip out a ton of stuff that a more conservative project like SMF may want to slowly refactor or has to support for some reason or another.

Between the overall decline of forum usage and the maturity of SMF, there are a dearth of developers that can be called upon to contribute. Luckily, there are still some dedicated developers doing great work, even if it's not highlighted prominently on this site.

[OCJ]

I do not know any other forum (or OP CMS) that dwells on past versions so long. It is a drain on mod and theme contributors as well.
With limited resources it doesn't seem like a good choice to keep supporting old versions so long. They can upgrade.

[tpgames]

I may have some issues with SMF, but I LOVE the fact that I can have child categories many miles deep if I want to. I also love that fact that I can actually ADD custom smileys to the Nth degree. I've tried other forum software and it was horrific trying to get it to do what I needed it to do. It was so sandboxed that it was impossible to customize hardly anything with my lack of ability to program from the back end, and force the issue. phpBB I think was the most hated. Yabb was okay, to a point, but SMF just hit the ball so out of the park, that I never looked back a 2nd time. (I went from SMF to Yabb back to SMF). BTW, Oxwall has its own social network platform with blogs and forum. Their forum is not as intuitive as SMF, and has lots of buy-me features. SMF even beats THEM!

What I'd love to see, is smiley categories, as switching which folder I get to use for smileys, and then editing the post is doable I think, but is a bit of a hassle. Even the option of having the smiley pop-up have more than one page where I could just click on which page number of smileys I want. I might try and figure out how to get page numbers for smileys. With any luck, I might be able to figure it out by August of this year. (Slow brain )

[Steve]

I also love that fact that I can actually ADD custom smileys to the Nth degree.

You might want to read this thread.

What I'd love to see, is smiley categories, as switching which folder I get to use for smileys, and then editing the post is doable I think, but is a bit of a hassle. Even the option of having the smiley pop-up have more than one page where I could just click on which page number of smileys I want. I might try and figure out how to get page numbers for smileys. With any luck, I might be able to figure it out by August of this year. (Slow brain )

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2782

(That mod does have a least one glitch which I can tell you about if you're interested.)

[tpgames]

I am familiar with the one glitch concerning moving the 1st smiley on a tab and the work around for it.
Is there another glitch I should know about? (Besides the one where I am having issues getting it to work at all on 2.0.11?) [part of that issue might be a width issue in CSS that I have to check out.]

[Steve]

I am familiar with the one glitch concerning moving the 1st smiley on a tab and the work around for it.
Is there another glitch I should know about?

The first smiley glitch is the one I was talking about.

[badon]

I do not know any other forum (or OP CMS) that dwells on past versions so long. It is a drain on mod and theme contributors as well.
With limited resources it doesn't seem like a good choice to keep supporting old versions so long. They can upgrade.

This is actually why I like SMF so much. It's somewhat of a FreeBSD development style, as opposed to a Linux style. FreeBSD doesn't have all the latest features, but what it does have works the first time you try to use it, and you don't have to worry as much about security because it's well-tested. The antithesis of SMF would probably be something like PHPBB that has a lot of features and a Linux development style, but is not so good for security and reliability.

I think the choice of name, "Simple Machines", says it all. SMF is simple, tough, well-tested, and will probably be supported far enough into the future that you don't have worry about constant upgrades, inadequate testing, and incompatibility problems. You're still right, of course. But it's a trade-off. For me, I would prefer to have SMF be plain and reliable, instead of having rapid advances.

[engrz]

Very good.. Keep it up

[BiGBLiZZ]

(That mod does have a least one glitch which I can tell you about if you're interested.)

I am interested... :/

[Steve]

We're getting off topic so pm me and I can explain it.

[dingaling]

and there are, at this point dozens of responsive themes for SMF 2.0.x

what else do you want?

but you don't see me over there demanding that they change the default to suit my desires.

I doubt there are 'dozens'... so you say there are what, 30-50 themes that are responsive... rolling over 

The recent ones that were provided have plenty of issues with the menu - do not work properly.


I made a point that development has slowed a lot (The future of SMF) and the theme is well outdated.
The replies are very negative - suggestions of 'stop complaining', or 'what do you want'.

It sounds like any critical comment is not wanted. So sorry, SMF is wonderful, best thing since sliced bread. Dont even bother changing it. One 100% satisfied user (of  another forum soon).

This is exactly how I feel. I mean I like SMF and have been running it for quite a while, but it really is pretty outdated and awkward to upkeep. The devs shouldn't be here complaining about users complaining, they should be doing the devving. They sound really jealous and angry and .. tense for some reason. I have been thinking about participating but the community seems quite hostile, so I think I'll pass. No one wants to work with a bunch of whiners and reading about dev team internal politics and drama is a big turn off. I guess it's a problem with many FOSS projects when some devs think the product is their personal 'baby' and get all jealous about changes and hostile towards criticism.

Well, just that was my 2 cents as a new user here.

[Kindred]

Ummm... Actually, you are wrong.

First, the devs are not the ones responding here, for the most part. They avoid this thread because of the idiots like the one you quoted. Reading crap like that is disheartening when they are giving their time and effort to build code.

I am the former project manager and have been a team member for nearly a decade...  And attitudes like that get my goat, because the devs ARE working.  Remember, we are all volunteers. No one gets paid for smf.

The whiners are not the ones on the team, I might add... And the community is only really hostile toward those whiners...

So, basically,my our two cents can be retrieved, because the comments you posted seem to be based on your misunderstanding of the situation and the crappy post of some whiners who want their cake now...

Regarding upkeep... How is smf awkward?  It's a one click update when patches are released.

[dingaling]

Ummm... Actually, you are wrong.

Well, this pretty much sums up the feeling I get of this place; you are right because you are a "team member" or whatever and I'm wrong. What a ******ty attitude, if you will excuse my French. Just. Wow. I mean, I might have volunteered, I might have wanted to help get to the mythical 2.1 faster but you just managed to refine everything that is wrong about this community into these words. I guess you're doing so well you can manage to spit on new users here. Good for you.

First, the devs are not the ones responding here, for the most part. They avoid this thread because of the idiots like the one you quoted. Reading crap like that is disheartening when they are giving their time and effort to build code.

Devs, team members, whatever. You represent the whole SMF organization to the newcomer and you just spat on my face and start doing semantics. Who are you to call someone "idiot"? Are you a better person? You, sir, are a neckbeard and not a gentleman. Hows that for an insult? I'm a developer and I don't get disheartened by end users because I know what I'm doing. And there's a proper process in place in my development so my end users know when to expect the next version.

I am the former project manager and have been a team member for nearly a decade...  And attitudes like that get my goat, because the devs ARE working.  Remember, we are all volunteers. No one gets paid for smf.

As a project manager, you have been doing a poor job. Sorry. We all know the devs are working, but due to poor communication, community steering, voluntary participation coordination and milestone and project planning as well as apparent issues with mod libraries and such, it doesn't show. And the project manager is to blame.

The whiners are not the ones on the team, I might add... And the community is only really hostile toward those whiners...

Here's a free tip: stop calling your community "whiners". What an absolutely horrible, elitist and condescending paternalistic approach. Why are you even here commenting? What is your goal? To destroy all input to the SMF project? Because I for sure won't be reading your reply to this message, because frankly I don't care.

So, basically,my our two cents can be retrieved, because the comments you posted seem to be based on your misunderstanding of the situation and the crappy post of some whiners who want their cake now...

Regarding upkeep... How is smf awkward?  It's a one click update when patches are released.

I don't understand the first part, but I can comment on the awkward upkeep; I have been using SMF for years and it really isn't very user friendly. The menus are all over the place, the structure is a mess and often updates require manual editing / coding. It really isn't top notch and it's ok. But if you add to it a toxic community with arrogant "team members" who like to bully new users, potential developers, community builders and other interested people, then yes, you're in trouble. I don't expect you to understand this as it's obviously been said to all the forum staff here many times and it seems to continue.

I'm sorry if I've offended you guys but this is honestly how I feel and I will go back to lurking now. To all the devs though, keep up the good work.

Oh yeah and one more thing, for crying out loud, update these forums, they're your calling card and a potential new users cannot even register because of your antiquated verification system (ReCaptcha, there's a mod for it)! Create some confidence in your community instead of bullying them.

[Kindred]

You haven't offended me, because you still don't seem to get it...  And ignorance is curable.

First...  Your assumption of a formal development project is sadly confused. You seem to think that this is a company with paid employees that can be forced or threaten firing...  This is an open source, volunteer project. No one gets paid. Everything is done by volunteers and all efforts are GIVEN to the project, and thus the community.  So, demanding milestones, etc is just not going to happen. We tried a more formal project process...   The developers revolted, the team was unhappy. So, we stopped. Because, for us, this is a work of passion, not a job.

And that is why certain behaviors get the response that you see.  We spend our 8 hours a day at our normal jobs... And then we get online and spend hours more helping the community here... reviewing mods and themes... And developing code for both improvements to the current version and the next version.

So, yes...  We get a little testy when people show up and act entitled... Or pretend to know what it takes to develop and support a project of this size.  I am known for being extremely blunt. Yep... I get criticized for it fairly regularly...   I don't mince words. I say what I mean and don't sugar coat it with flowery language.  Usually, the only people that this actually offends are the ones who did something that deserved a slap-down anyway. Sometimes others, who are used to everyone acting all nicey nice. To them, I say: come and and welcome to the real world and the Internet.
Yup, I said that you were wrong.
How, in any real world is that "spitting on a new user"??
You made a statement. I told you that statement is incorrect and proceeded to explain why.
That's called education.

I also never called the community whiners.  I called very specific Individuals whiners and/or idiots. Those people who I have called such have established their credentials, and I am just calling it out.
So, no... I am not elitist in the least. I will gladly spend my time coaching a person through setup, configuration and customization of their forum and site... I, and the rest of the team welcome questions and seek to help those who are looking for help.   What I ( and I suspect others) are sick of and get snarky about are the entitled individuals who have nothing better to do than criticize... But are not actually willing to step up and contribute.

I have a sign which I just got for our local dog park...  We spent 7 years and $300,000 getting this park built, and, just like here, there are people who feel they have an entitled right to criticize the speed that things happen, without actually understanding and without actually participating.
"Before you complain...
... Have you volunteered yet?"

That pretty much sums it up.
No bullying involved.

Regarding the other comment on the awkwardness...   I agree to some level... But disagree with your global statements

[dingaling]

No offense, but based on your reply, I think the SMF team would be better off without you.

You say you want volunteers but who in their right mind would volunteer after such a response? Seriously?

[DJ Omnimaga]

SMF 1.0 Beta 1: September 29th 2003
SMF 1.0 RC1: August 10th 2004 (10 months)
SMF 1.0 Final: December 29th 2004 (1 year and 3 months from 1st beta)

SMF 1.1 Beta 1: March 28th 2005
SMF 1.1 RC1: September 20th 2005 (6 months)
SMF 1.1 Final: December 2nd 2006 (1 year and 8 months)

SMF 2.0 Beta 1: August 24th 2007
SMF 2.0 RC1: February 4th 2009 (1 year and 5 months)
SMF 2.0 Final: June 11th 2011 (3 years and 10 months)

SMF 2.1 Beta 1: November 21st 2014

Based on the trend above, the following is an estimate about when SMF 2.1 RC1 and gold will be out:

SMF 2.1 RC1: November 2018 (4 years, based on trend above)
SMF 2.1 Final: between September 2022 and September 2024 (8-10 years)


I think the main issue is that either the SMF team is understaffed or SMF 2.1 is much more complex than 2.0 and thus, takes more time. I am ok with waiting if it means we're gonna get a good piece of forum software that kept up with the times and can still rival competitors, but I sure hope the trend above is gonna be broken >.<


Regarding rude staff replies, I'M thinking that maybe that staff should spend less time on the forums so they can concentrate on their lives and SMF, and a new group of support staff should take care of customer support. I know that it's a free software, but rude support can give SMF a bad reputation via word to mouth. And people who come here sees this as disrespectful towards the community and might be even less willing to contribute to the SMF project as a result.


Regarding people who whine about how long it takes for SMF 2.1 to be done, maybe extra promoting of the Github repo is in order? Or maybe extra transparency?

[Kindred]

How much more transparent than GitHub can it get?

also, the only rudeness is in return to rudeness.
This is not a support thread...   Support is provided to those who ask for it.

As for new support staff...   That's a nice suggestion. Where do you suggest that staff comes from?