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If we were to move away from vBulletin, what would you recommend we use?

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XenForo seems pretty good. I spend a good bit of time on BushcraftUSA, which uses it, and (please don't take offense at this, admins) my experience there from a user experience perspective is far more positive than this new forum software here.

I would ask to please NOT use Discourse. It is terrible.
 
I don't have many strong feelings. XenForo seems to be popular and has a reasonably good vBulletin import function, and a number of heavily-customized VB sites have moved to XF (for example, https://forums.freebsd.org). OTOH, if this site were to switch to Discourse I would run away screaming and never look back.

However, I frequent a number of forums still running varous VB releases and the things that are broken here are not broken there, so...
 
Anyone else getting freezing when trying to load VCfed? Ive been getting it prety bad for a week now. Just happened when trying to read this post.
 
Almost all the sites I visit have switched to XenForo. No surprise since VerticalScope, which owns many online forums, has been migrating all the forum communities they own to their forum product.

68kMLA was the latest one to move to XenForo. I don't know the reasoning behind it as they had recently abandoned phpBB for Invision. One forum I frequent uses Simple Machines, but the editor is irritating, namely the quick reply lacks formatting tools and preview forces you to the advanced reply page anyway. vB was fine until version 4.x came out, its just been slow since then. I think the program has suffered a bit under Internet Brand's ownership.
 
Dunno, perhaps you should post this on a Discourse BB and find out how hard it is to use--and any reliability problems. I can see performance problems with vB here, when I click on a topic and it take 40 seconds to load.
 
Dunno, perhaps you should post this on a Discourse BB and find out how hard it is to use--and any reliability problems. I can see performance problems with vB here, when I click on a topic and it take 40 seconds to load.

I use a couple of discourse based sites, and I never had any real problem with any of them.
 
I use a couple of discourse based sites, and I never had any real problem with any of them.

My point is that the view from a user and one from an administrator could be quite different. If the admin says "trying to do anything is like getting a root canal with a rusty deck screw", you'd best take that under consideration.
 
...and admins, the last simple edit to the above post took nearly two minutes with the "Working" blob at the top. I submit that vB has some issues...
 
I use a couple of discourse based sites, and I never had any real problem with any of them.

We’re civilized.


Our trust system means that the community builds a natural immune system to defend itself from trolls, bad actors, and spammers — and the most engaged forum members can assist in the governance of their community. We put a trash can on every street corner with a simple, low-friction flagging system. Positive behaviors are encouraged through likes and badges. We gently, constantly educate members in a just-in-time manner on the universal rules of civilized discourse.

This sounds incredibly cringe
 
...and admins, the last simple edit to the above post took nearly two minutes with the "Working" blob at the top. I submit that vB has some issues...

Our own vb5 site has had the same issues. It has taken endless tweaking of my.cfg to get it to a functional state. The benefit is that our other forum (a read-only archive running UBBThreads 7.7) is blazing fast now.

lutiana, thank you for this thread and everyone for your responses. It really lit a fire under me. I have been playing with the Xenforo demo for the past two days. I have a question out to their support team to learn if the importer supports vb5.6. If the answer is satisfactory, then we will be moving to Xenforo.
 
For the admin types: Why not create a sticky, list the board choices and let members select their choices? Maybe that would help sway the powers the be. It seems almost every other post here is a knock on the vBulletin, and most are certainly warranted. Members shouldn't have to spend considerable time attempting fixes. I belong to a few boards and have never encountered that. Also, members shouldn't have to resort to using their own personal email accounts when dealing with VCF business.
 
For the admin types: Why not create a sticky, list the board choices and let members select their choices?

That would be the next step. This thread was to build that list.

We do intend to demo a few other options, probably around 3 and go from there.
 
BTW, just wanted to say thanks to the mods for being clear and up-front about this and getting the community involved. Vastly preferable to having things sprung on us from On High as with the vb5 "upgrade."
 
My point is that the view from a user and one from an administrator could be quite different. If the admin says "trying to do anything is like getting a root canal with a rusty deck screw", you'd best take that under consideration.

Yea, I can't speak to the admin side at all. I've never hosted it.

This sounds incredibly cringe

This is no different than our "first 10 posts are moderated" policy. It's more dynamic. The fundamental premise is that the longer you participate on the site, the more rights you get. If you get sanctioned by an admin, you can get bumped down.

Simple examples is that you can't post graphics, or links to unauthorized sites until your "trust" level had improved.

I'm sure it can be readily disabled if that's not what the folks wants.
 
I don't have many strong feelings. XenForo seems to be popular and has a reasonably good vBulletin import function, and a number of heavily-customized VB sites have moved to XF (for example, https://forums.freebsd.org). OTOH, if this site were to switch to Discourse I would run away screaming and never look back.
Please note that XenForo upgrades aren't friction-free either - solely based on posts read in the Feedback forum on forums.freebsd.org; I have no experience with the admin side of things.
Other than that (from my user-only point of view) keep it simple, stable and easy to use. Of course, that goes for the admin side of things too,
 
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