If it aint broke...

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We went through a few bumps in the road when we switched over to vbulletin. Took us a little bit but we got everything straightened out. Odds are if the other forum is run well they will get it sorted out too.
 
It's always tricky to define the word "broke" when dealing with software. While you may say TFP isn't broke I promise you I'll find you several other users who say it's been broken for some time now. There's a line that's gotta be looked at from MANY different directions to determine just when the website is broke and when it's working we'll enough for the majority. As somebody looking at things behind the scenes there are many different things also one must take into consideration that the average user never sees. Depending on the version of vB the other forum may have been running there's a possibility their hand was forced to upgrade to SOMETHING newer. Depending on the version they may have found themselves no longer getting security updates from vB, they may have simply felt making a switch was needed as the majority of it's users wanted more modern features, they may have wanted to take advantage of newer responsive themes for mobile devices. I cannot say for sure just why the other forum updated to certain software, but I will say there are MANY items that likely came into play that's easy to overlook once you're used to something and cozzy in how it operates.

That said, I've also seen MANY failing forums attempt to update to newer software in the hope that it will rejuvenate the users and save the forum. This never seems to work. If a forum isn't focused first on it's members and content the forum will struggle. Attempting to create a popular forum by focusing on features will cause users to have a difficult time and really hate somebody behind the scenes....................
 
I feel that pain - I assure you! I'm responsible for moving our 15,000 users to a new email system this summer. It's been interesting to say the least. It's ironic that those who complained the loudest about the old system are also the ones most fearful of change...

The new forum software though... it just kinda sucks! Forums are out of my area of expertise. Is vbulletin losing market share or pushing away customers somehow?
 
I would say the biggest detriment to TFP (and other forums) is that the older versions of vB and other types of forum software are NOT mobile friendly at all. More and more people are moving their digital lives to mobile platforms. I probably spend the majority of my time on my phone and loved going to the larger screen on the iPhone 7 plus. I have Microsoft Apps and Adobe Apps for accessing any kind of document I need to, e-mail access, access to my bank, my auto loan, my mortgage, my retirement finances, my kids college savings plans, my healthcare, etc, etc, etc, all in the palm of my hand. But, because vB4 (the current version TFP uses) is not mobile-friendly, I have to suffer using Taptalk to access the forum (although it does have some features that makes posting to threads and following the threads I'm subscribed to easier).

Honestly speaking, when the new iPhone8 comes out in Sept (or whenever...) it is going to be a more powerful device than the MacBook I'm currently pecking away at....at some point, these boat-anchors we call "desktops" are going to become very obsolete for the average, everyday person. Obviously at work people will still need access to higher end machines but, even then, I see more and more tablet computers in the hospital my wife works at being setup as "desktops"....some day, this fine MacBook I'm working on right now, is going to look and feel like this -

ibm-pc.jpg

SO, with that said.....Lee, you'd better get cracking on that mobile interface.....
 
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