Aussie Trucker wrote:
While I have used free forum software for years I also don't see the cost of VB as a problem but over the years the one thing I do know is that the majority of problems on all forums are based on personal opinion. "I don't like the background colour.", "The headings are not bold enough.", "When I hit send a fluffy bunny should pop up and thank me for my valuable input.", "The free money button should be at the top of the page.", "Forum XYZ does this differently and I like it so you should implement it here." The list is as endless as the "learn to use the search button" replies that every forum has but the biggest difference is that unlike the often rude and inconsiderate search button replies the "problems" usually come down to personal preference and changing for one person even on a small forum like this is unlikely.
Don't get me wrong I'm but kicking you for thinking changes can be made or having an opinion, we've all had at least one, but at the end of the day if one can type a message and have it appear on the screen (without the fluffy bunny unfortunately) sometimes it's easier to ignore personal preferences and likes, even if they appear to be glaringly obvious flaws, and just accept that change doesn't always happen.
I'm not talking about style changes. Most of the time I don't care about it, unless there's obvious flaws like bad contrast etc. Besides it's easy to change CSS by any admin and user alike (I use Stylish browser extension for a number of sites).
What I mean is real backend functionality (written in PHP), and like my 3 examples show, there are certainly glitches with it. And it's not unreasonable things like fluffy bunnies either. Seeing your message on the screen is not enough. The read/unread post functionalities are what make a forum forum. They have work properly because without them you can't monitor a forum properly. Might as well use one stream for everything then (think IRC) or a mailing list, google groups etc.
I do have some skill with PHP but not the time. It takes a huge amount of time to contribute to any FOSS project simply because you need to figure out how the project is structured first. Only then you can find the bug and fix it.
It's not worth it for me personally because I don't maintain a forum myself. It's best to make a bug report and leave it to people who are acquainted with the system.
