I’m often asked the question, why do you use VBulletin?
When WPTavern was under construction, I had the chance to try out a few different pieces of forum software. During my experiments, I used phpBB3, SimplePress, and I think I gave bbPress a look through as well. At the time, phpBB3 didn’t have syndication built-in which was a deal breaker for me so I didn’t use it. SimplePress was nice but it was a real pain to style so it matched the design of the website. Previous to WPTavern, I’ve had the pleasure to use VBulletin in the past for various projects. I figured that if I was going to start a community forum from the ground up, I better use software that I most likely won’t need to migrate from due to lack of features or some other reason. Also, I’ve been looking for any reason to finally purchase a VBulletin owned license since I enjoy using the software so much. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons that I went with paid non GPL software to power the forums.
Inline Administration – I can do most administrative tasks without logging into the administration section of the forum. The best part about some of these inline administration tools is that they use AJAX meaning there is no need for a page refresh. For example, I can double-click a forum thread title and edit it inline and save the edit without reloading the page. Last but not least, most of the tools I need to administer the forum are a drop down box away.
Most Of What I Need – When comparing my options, it was easy for me to see that VBulletin provided the most of what I needed from forum software straight out of the box. This includes multiple options for content syndication, email notifications, easy user group management, easy to use permission system, etc. To date, I only have four plugins added to the forum.
It’s my opinion that VBulletin is the best forum software available whether it be paid or free. If my knowledge on other forum solutions is not accurate, it’s because VBulletin has yet to give me a reason to look into other options. Don’t get me wrong, I love open-source solutions but just because something is open-source doesn’t make it the best option available.
So what would make me switch to something like bbPress? Tough question considering I just recently purchased the owned license for VBulletin 4.0 but if I were to be swayed, bbPress would need to provide easy integration between the blog and the forum. I would also like to have the option to replace the commenting system in WordPress with the forum system in bbPress. Each post I publish on the blog side of things becomes a new thread in the forum with the comments acting as thread replies. This provides the flexibility of steering the conversation on the blog side of things while the community still has the ability to start conversations of their own. A killer feature for bbPress which the VBulletin publishing suite recently added is widgets. Seems like a no-brainer to me that bbPress themes should be able to support widgets just as WordPress themes do.
Overall, I’d like to get the same user experience out of bbPress that I get out of WordPress. With WordPress I can install themes, plugins, perform auto upgrades all from the backend. I want to do that in bbPress as well. Also, I’d like to see bbPress become more of an end users forum software rather than a developers toy box. WordPress appears to do both quite well.
Those are just a few ideas that might get me to think about switching from VBulletin to bbPress. Of course, the last thing I would need for it to ever happen is a migration tool that works.
In episode 82, I geeked out with 
For the past year or so, we’ve all been hearing this term ‘canonical plugin‘ at numerous WordCamps and in interviews Matt has conducted. I’ve struggled with understanding what this term means in relation to the WordPress ecosystem and how plugins are developed but after months of hearing Matt talk about the idea and of course, reading the 
Ajax Edit Comments Switches To Paid Model
By Jeffro on December 24, 2009
I was a bit surprised when Ronald got in touch with me to let me know that Ajax Edit Comments would now be a commercial plugin. Intrigued, I sent Ronald a few questions to find out what his plans are.
I noticed you now have an entire site dedicated to this awesome plugin. What are your plans to take AEC to the next level?
The first priority for the next version is performance enhancements. I want to cut the size of the JavaScript, CSS, and PHP that loads. I’d also like to significantly decrease the Database queries involved.
As far as front-end features, several users have asked for do-follow to be added. Although it seems out of scope for the plugin, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to implement. I’d like to look at other comment plugins out there as well and see if it would make sense to implement those features into Ajax Edit Comments.
We just added a two-column drop-down in version 3.2, which makes the options even more less cluttered. I also plan on improving the e-mail feature introduced in 3.2, and add a “whitelist” feature, which will enable admin to select certain trusted users who can skip the spam and moderation queue.
Another future enhancement is allowing admin to select which advanced editing options are enabled, and to make better use of CSS sprites to handle all of the icon effects.
I also plan on re-organizing the admin options page to provide better help messages and to make it less cluttered.
Are there plans to simultaneously develop a free version with the paid version or will the free version be discontinued in favor of the paid one?
I do plan to more-or-less discontinue the free version as far as features. However, I will continue to check the WP Extend version to make sure it works with the latest WordPress version.
Will the plugin continue to be licensed under the GPL?
Absolutely. What we’re trying to do with the new site is provide automatic upgrades (very similar to Gravity Forms), priority support, and affiliate opportunities.
We offer a 7-day free trial for all initial subscriptions, and those that choose to cancel are more than welcome to keep and tinker with the plugin.
With regards to the subscription plans, what are people paying for?
I would say priority support, automatic upgrades, and our affiliate program.
With version 3.1 (the last free release), there are four options in the Ajax Edit Comments settings that allow anybody using the plugin to become an affiliate, as long as they are a paying subscriber of the new Ajax Edit Comments plugin.
Affiliates can enable an option that will show a message below any anonymous commenter posted. If that person gets a lot of comments, there is a potential to make some money here through referrals.
All affiliates will earn 50% of any net sales via referrals. And just to re-iterate, all paying subscribers are automatically affiliates since the plugin has the affiliate options built-in by default.
What prompted you to start a subscription service around this plugin?
It’s probably the same-old story: donations were few if rare.
I tried to do periodic e-mails with the 3.0 version, but even then, the donations still weren’t coming.
At the same time, support requests were exploding, both on WP Extend and the official forums that Ajay D’souza was running.
In an effort to capitalize on the plugin’s large user base, we (Ajay D’souza and I) decided to centralize the support and set up a subscription based service for support and upgrades.
Who makes up the team behind Ajax Edit Comments?
Ajay D’souza (http://ajaydsouza.com/) and myself (ronalfy.com).
We are both co-authors of the plugin. Ajay is the lead on support matters, translator interface, and forum maintenance. I am the lead on overall site maintenance and feature additions to the plugin.
I understand that this plugin will have an affiliate program attached to it, how will this work?
Once a user is subscribed, he is automatically an affiliate. The user can access an authentication key and affiliate ID by accessing his member’s section.
Once he installs 3.1 or above, he can enter the key and ID into the plugin settings. If he enables the option to show affiliate text to his users, all anonymous commenters will see the affiliate text below their comment.
If a user clicks on the affiliate link and subscribes, the affiliate is given 50% of the net sale, no matter what amount it is. So if an affiliate purchases a subscription at $10 a year, then that affiliate will only need two-three of his users to make up for his purchase.
For those interested in the affiliate program, there are more details here: http://www.ajaxeditcomments.com/affiliates/
If I use AEC, will I still be able to receive automatic upgrades from the WordPress.org plugin repository, or will they come from somewhere else?
With version 3.1 or above, all automatic upgrades will come through the
AjaxEditComments.com website.
The automatic upgrade mechanism is very similar to the way Gravity Forms’ works (probably because I used some of their code :P).
Once you enter in the authentication key, you are good to go with automatic upgrades. All our plugin files are hosted on Amazon S3, so there shouldn’t be an issue with upgrade speed.
Anything else you’d like to say?
Sure. The cheapest subscription starts at only $10 a year, and for anybody who’s used the plugin, they will tell you that’s a steal. The discounted price will last until January 31st.
There’s a 7-day free trial involved for new subscribers, so if you aren’t satisfied with the plugin or the way things work at the site, you can cancel your subscription and not be charged.
For subscribers who cancel after the 7-day trial, the subscription will remain valid for a year after the initial subscription purchase.
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Posted in Plugins | Tagged comments, commercial, Plugins | 4 Responses