Do you guys think paid software is more attractive to potential members than free software, in my forum topic although the biggest one is run on phpbb the others have vb or ipb and they get alot more sign ups and visitors than my little sitee, i seem to just attract spammers. Do you think that paid software such as vb/ipb get more registrations than the free alternatives.
This is a good question. I honestly don't know. I mean I'm sure some of us admin types would care what software would be used. But for normal folks I don't know. For me and i'm sure for many what dose turn members away is a free remotely hosted site. IE. www.yourforum.porboards.com. But otherwise I'm not sure. I've seen many good boards who where on free software.
I don't think - for bog standard forum members (the less geeky or technical minded ones) - it really matters. Most people I know aren't internet-savvy - if you talk to them the whole world revolves around facebook and should it go down, then the world has ended and they have no reason to be online.... when they do finally realise there's more to life than facebook, and discover a forum that covers a subject they like, so long as they can figure out how to register, post and reply they don't notice what the software is or how cheap/expensive it was.
Ya pretty much. What I find really funny is they make a big deal about face book. Like they are just finding out the internet has something social to offer. And the rest of are like ummm ya we've been on forums for years.
For the longest time, I felt that both IPB and vBulletin did not give me any extra advantages over MyBB. If anything, I had numerous people on my Rock Band Forum who said that my forum looked excellent and had more order than my two major competitors (well, one of them was the official forums, but the other was phpBB 2). However, XenForo has more or less regained my confidence in premium software. But what really is good about XenForo is that it has finally brought a competitor who cares. This is what will make IPB better (and vBulletin too, if they do care).
I've seen a bunch of free sites, all with more than a few hundred thousand posts each. Paid software is hardly recognized by the majority of posters and does not offer any higher guarantee of success. If we had known about mybb when we had started we probably would have taken it. gogo
It might if a user recognizes a software they are familiar with. I've met a few people in my time that were not what I would call tech savvy but preferred vBulletin to everything else because of the layout. They just knew where everything was, so they were more likely to join a forum running vBulletin if the owner hadn't gotten all crazy with the style and changed everything. Most people simply don't care though, as long as they can figure things out they are good to go. I think there is a tendency not to join sites that look dated for a lot of people now but it is simply my own speculation. For example, I think someone who is used to facebook would prefer xenforo to phpbb2.
My biggest, busiest forum currently runs on SMF so I don't generally think it makes much difference. I do however think forum presentation plays some part. I know I've signed up to a few forums in the past not because I have any interest in the forum content but simply because they look stunning e.g. http://forums.theory11.com/forum.php
No! And i'll never ever spend too much money for online software... (probably for some cheap second hand licenses, but i'll never ever invest too much for this... ) There was too too much bad experience in the past
I agree that large number of people wont bother about smaller forum features. Mostly they will just use the basic forum features. Infact 90% of the people actually just lurk about the forum and read the threads. They dont even participate in forum discussions or activities. However forum features will matter to many regular members and it matter very much to the tiny minority who are very active and spend a lot of time on the forum. Do not underestimate the importance of this tiny minority because they are the ones who generate maximum content and activity on the forum. It is here where the smaller forum features will help you to attract and retain more members. Also on larger forums you need better administrative and moderation tools than on smaller ones. So paid forum software will definitely help you to attract and retain more members
100% agree with the first quote, but paid software doesn't mean that it includes always better tools xenforo? lacks of many mod tools. vB4? also lacks of many mod tools ipb? also lacks of many mod tools IMO most big boards have their own mod tools and it doesn't matter if they're using vb,phpbb,ipb,mybb
The paid forum software usually have more refined admin and mod tools compared to the free forum software's and the official support for them is also there. Custom mod/admin tools are also very important and useful. But it is also important that those customised mods should be readily available for the forum software. Like there are a whole lot of very sophisticated free custom admin/mod tools on vbulletin.org. Those are not available readily on free software. Sometimes admins are not even aware of certain moderation admin concepts/ideas so the addon forums play a important part in bringing about this awareness. Even now after many years I discover new moderation/admin ideas when I visit vbulletin.org. Also admins are more likely to try out readily available addons rather than coding it themselves or paying someone to do it for them.
I agree once again with most of your post, but i don't agree with True for avarage joe, but IMO not for larger boards (which you mentioned in the previous post and which i'm talking about) Probably i'm wrong, but my experience in the last years(as addon coder and admin/forum manager for ~30 forums) til i left the business was, that big board admins /people making their very good living with their board, don't care if it's official/inofficial support... Official vB,xf,ipb support can't help you with customizations for your forum or "very special" questions... so if they want "real support" and not something like "how can i create a new forum category" they'll contact somebody else and it doesn't matter if it's commercial software like vB,ipb,xf or freeware like mybb,phpbb,etc... Also IMO (my experience) most of the big ones want to have "everything" customized and many don't care about available addons, because they don't have time to visit the official/inofficial forums or don't care about addons, because they have staff like me who was responsible for this... And i agree that most (i would even say that 100% of the users) of the users aren't aware of the features... e.g. i never noticed the IMO BEST moderation tool in ipb => multi moderation, till somebody at xenforo.com asked for the porting to xenforo (which i coded for xenforo http://xenforo.com/community/resources/thread-multi-moderation.883/ and now i'm trying to port the changes to ipb too, so yea, even it's IMO the best mod tool, it's not perfect and needs IMO improvements) As i said, maybe i'm wrong, but that was my experience in the 6 last years.
I read you are thinking of closing your site due to low traffic. Low traffic is from low content. Think of it like this: If I bought a lab, what *CONTENT* do you have on your site, that you either have better organized or in more depth than elsewhere ? If other sites have better content, the Google Searchers are going to go there.
It always comes down more to the content. You could buy the most expensive things in the world for your site but unless you provide quality content you won't get the members. You will probably get the software snobs but that is about it. Doesn't matter if it's on free or paid. if the content isn't there then you have no chance.
I'm of the thought that both content and initial impression (design, moderator interaction) will grab more people than what type of setup you're using. I'm new to admin of my own forum - well in comparison to most of you - since I have only been doing it for a year now: When I was just a user on the forum the biggest thing to me was... 1. The forum layout/design. A nice design showed they cared enough to put effort into it. 2. The content: quantity and quality both. 3. The forum moderators and how active they are.
I have mixed feelings. When I decided I was going to challenge my competitors and start running my own forum The big boy on the block was using the free phpforums. The #2 was using VB. I did a lot of homework and decided to go with VB. I think some of the free ones have that free look and feel. One thing that attracted me to VB was the large modding community of free mods. Now when I find myself landing on a forum somewhere I immediately notice or look for what they are running. I generally have a less favorable impression of the free ones.
I've got some bad experience with paid scripts. Let's think about vb4: Bad Bad Bad experience. Thought that they deliver quality, but it was very disappointing. Some other bad experience: photoplog. Bought the script for the gallery in vb. My site was once hacked due to a big security issue with the script. And after that I've read that the developer just stopped to support it. And now Xenforo which seems to be without any noticable development. So paid software is not a guarantee for either good quality nor support.
I don't think most members would know the differance. I as a admin would stick to sites using paid. As its shows they've invested in the site.
