SMF vs MyBB?

[Arantor]

But, not everyone is satisfied with the "good enough" philosophy. They want to push for "better".

You literally told me that if I wanted to offer better, the only choice was to go paid. Make your damn mind up already.

(Hint: SMF‘s failure to offer better is ideological, not a lack of resources.)

 

[Tracy]

You literally told me that if I wanted to offer better, the only choice was to go paid. Make your damn mind up already.

No, that is NOT what I told you... One of the things that I told you is you will probably have a higher acceptance level IF you go paid.... you see, folks expect value for their money and are more apt to spend on it instead of using "hand me downs" (free scripts).
I realize you have these fantasy ideals of how it "could" work... but you also want to ignore the reality of how it normally does.
You see, the very thing you bitch about SMF development (the soap opera involving the developers) affects most of those free scripts like you comment about SMF... if you are getting paid for the development of it there comes a different level of professionalism involved and you don't have the "dick measuring contests" that you do with those "open source" scripts... the comedy of idiocy that follows the drama of those free script developers are rarely as pronounced in a paid product.

 

[Arantor]

If I’m *doing* the development, I don’t treat it that way. Never did, never will. I’m the “miserable one” for not including Easter eggs in the things I build, because I don’t want to waste development time, effort or code on things that don’t improve the product. (I was vetoed for wanting to remove the Easter eggs in SMF for example.)

Everything I proposed is a reaction to having watched myself burn 16 years contributing to SMF and “actually I can do this better”.

 

[Tracy]

If I’m *doing* the development, I don’t treat it that way.

But even in your instance... it wasn't going to be ONLY you, now was it? Now, instead of heaving someone else in charge, you have you in charge... what's to stop the issues that plague SMF (and other free scripts) from plaguing yours?

 

[Arantor]

I don’t know, not being a democracy and turning everything into a committee vote is a good start. Not having “you’re only a developer, what would you know” as a prevalent mindset. Not having a support team who, certainly at one time, told the developers that they (support) were the most important team. Not being super precious about decisions made by other people 20 years ago as though they can’t ever be changed (like the search engine friendly URLs)

But honestly? Single biggest winning factor in my head is having a single cohesive point of view about the product. As in, consciously not trying to please all the people all the time, not feeling like I need to make every single feature optional just in case one person doesn’t want to use it. But then making it easier for people to make addons for where my choices don’t meet their needs. And having a roadmap of where things are going for people, so they can work out if the product is right for them, or not - and that it’s ok if it’s not, because it is not possible to be all things to all people.

It wasn’t going to be only me, no, but the small roster of people I’d started to line up are people I’ve known and worked with for years. They’re people who think along similar lines to me about what the product should do and how it should work. You know, cohesive shared vision stuff.

It‘s almost like I went away and put some thought into this beyond just running my mouth 🤔

 

[Tracy]

It wasn’t going to be only me, no, but the small roster of people I’d started to line up are people I’ve known and worked with for years. They’re people who think along similar lines to me about what the product should do and how it should work. You know, cohesive shared vision stuff.

It‘s almost like I went away and put some thought into this beyond just running my mouth

And the point still is... if you have the time and the desire/need to do it..... knock yourself out... but go into it with realistic expectations. You can see how "well" even the current paid scripts are <not> doing compared to even 5 years ago.

 

[Arantor]

Nah, you did a very thorough job of convincing me it wasn’t worth it. Realistically it has no chance of success therefore don’t bother… so I won’t.

 

[Jason]

No, that is NOT what I told you... One of the things that I told you is you will probably have a higher acceptance level IF you go paid.... you see, folks expect value for their money and are more apt to spend on it instead of using "hand me downs" (free scripts).
I realize you have these fantasy ideals of how it "could" work... but you also want to ignore the reality of how it normally does.
You see, the very thing you bitch about SMF development (the soap opera involving the developers) affects most of those free scripts like you comment about SMF... if you are getting paid for the development of it there comes a different level of professionalism involved and you don't have the "dick measuring contests" that you do with those "open source" scripts... the comedy of idiocy that follows the drama of those free script developers are rarely as pronounced in a paid product.

On phpBB, I've seen one excellent mod and one that was half-done. It depends on the coder. Also, of course, people abandon good mods and they eventually won't work.

 

[TwitchisMental]

Would prefer MyBB over SMF. Mainly because of past experience and customization. But I haven’t seen much nicely skinned SMF forums lately.

I would check the ThemeDB as of late .

@OP I would choose SMF all day. The development is still on going(slowly), the theme and mod db is growing for the latest version, and the overall team is working together quite well.

MyBB is unfortunately behind on alot of things. Eg not even having a responsive theme out of the box and yes I am aware there are many available for download.

Edit: An odd random thought, but I have wondered what it would look like if the MyBB and SMF devs came together... If history says anything it would probably end up messy, but dang it they both have such great ideas.

 

[Cedric]

I would check the ThemeDB as of late .

@OP I would choose SMF all day. The development is still on going(slowly), the theme and mod db is growing for the latest version, and the overall team is working together quite well.

MyBB is unfortunately behind on alot of things. Eg not even having a responsive theme out of the box and yes I am aware there are many available for download.

Edit: An odd random thought, but I have wondered what it would look like if the MyBB and SMF devs came together... If history says anything it would probably end up messy, but dang it they both have such great ideas.

I know. My opinion has changed rapidly after using MyBB a few weeks ago. It was a burden and then got more into depth with SMF which is far more superior than MyBB. 😅

 

[TwitchisMental]

I know. My opinion has changed rapidly after using MyBB a few weeks ago. It was a burden and then got more into depth with SMF which is far more superior than MyBB. 😅

That is good to hear .