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.
*Update*Based on some feedback as well as more personal thought, I’ve decided not to pursue the idea of paid memberships. Instead, I’ll find another way.
If you blinked twice after reading the headline of this post, I don’t blame you. I’ve had some time to think about different ways in which I can generate another revenue stream and the forum sprang to mind. So with some research along with a bit of brain storming, I’ve decided that it’s time to try paid memberships for the forum.
I’m in a difficult position. I don’t offer any products. I don’t offer any services. The only thing I have to offer is my passion for talking and communicating about WordPress. On a world wide web where everyone wants everything for free, this puts content producers such as myself in a predicament. At least there is no room for GPL debate regarding this decision!
While one of my goals has always been to be a leader of or create a great community, the other goal was to see if I could make content production a full time job. I’ve made moves in my personal life to try and achieve that goal such as working one night a week at my other job to provide more WordPress time. While I have advertising spots spread across the site and the forum, it’s simply not enough income. I don’t have a ton of affiliate links to throw in anyone’s face or special ebooks to give away. All I have is a passion to foster an enthusiastic bunch of people around the WordPress software.
The subscription rates for the forum I believe are fair. Starting next Sunday, October 11th the WordPress and Other Projects forums will be locked down from the public, only to be available to paying members. The WordPress Tavern section will remain open to all registered members. I decided to opt for flexibility between pricing and the number of options to choose from. No refunds will be available for any subscription. Here is the list.
1 Month $15.00
6 Months $60.00
1 Year $90.00
2 Years $120.00
Lifetime Membership – $199.00
These payments are not recurring and go through paypal.
No one has to tell me that the forum has been a blast thanks in large part to those participating there. I sincerely appreciate everyone that participates on the forum. For all members of the forum that registered an account between February 2009 to September 31st 2009, you will be able to purchase a discounted Lifetime membership for $79.00. Please don’t view this as a slap in the face for helping to make the forum what it is because it’s not. I had monetization on the mind ever since I launched WPTavern and although when I started, I couldn’t predict what would happen, this is one of the ways I have decided to monetize. The discount is a token of appreciation that I hope you’ll accept and continue to be part of this ongoing effort. If not, I understand and thank you for your previous contributions.
I’m hoping that these membership fees will ultimately help me to continue what I’m doing and perhaps, pay for a few more wordcamps that I can attend/cover. We can either discuss this development here in the comments or in the forum here. Update
This post is part of an ongoing series called Ask Jeff. This is where I’ll take a question someone within the WPTavern or WordPress community gives me and provide my thoughts/answer to. This question was submitted by Rob.
How did you get the vBulletin template so similar to your main site. Like header and footer wise?
Well Rob, the hard part was getting the WPTavern site design to a point where I could stop focusing on the actual design. So, I opted for this brown and reddish color scheme. Thankfully though, I was in luck as I found a vBulletin style that pretty much matched the design of the website. The style is called gfx_v3BrownGold and can be located for purchase at GFXStyles.com. I removed most of the images and replaced the containers with CSS colors. I also edited the header file so I could add the same links to the forum header that are the same as on the blog. The background for the forum is the same as the site which was just a CSS edit for the background property in the style. The header is not exactly the same as the site since it does not stretch across the entire page. It doesn’t stretch because of the way the style has been coded but it’s close enough for me.
To make a long story short, I designed the site first, then found a style that was as close as I could find to the site design. I then replaced images, deleted images, and edited the forum styles CSS until I got it matching pretty close to the site. It took me about 30-45 minutes to edit the forum style to match the site which at the time, I was really thankful for.
Submit Your Question:
If you have a question regarding any aspect of WordPress you would like me to answer or at least, hear my take on, you can either contact me using the following contact form with your question or you can follow WPTavern on Twitter and send me an @reply with your question. If the WPTavern account is following you, simply send me a Direct Message with your question.
The poll this week deals with bbPress because that’s what this weeks episode of WordPress Weekly will be about (hopefully). I’m wondering whether or not you think bbPress will someday change from being dedicated software, to a feature packed WordPress plugin. I can see the day when the architecture of bbPress reaches the point that most of it’s functionality can be placed into a plugin which is administered through the WordPress backend. Perhaps such an extended integration would be able to replace the commenting system in WordPress with one powered by bbPress which I think would be pretty cool. Of course, I say this without knowing anything about the underlying infrastructure of the bbPress software. What do you think?
Do You Think bbPress Will Evolve Into A WordPress Plugin?
Justin Tadlock who uses bbPress to power his support forums for the Theme Hybrid framework has published a tutorial on how to create custom views in bbPress. Custom views are pretty cool as they allow you to create different ways of viewing topics on a bbPress powered forum.
Speaking of bbPress, don’t forget to tune into WordPress Weekly this Friday evening as my scheduled guest is Sam Bauers, lead developer of the bbPress project.
Unlike blogging software like WordPress which usually feature good on-site SEO even from a default install, forum software typically has never featured good on-site SEO features. Default themes with nested, non-semantical tables, inappropriate use of headings, lack of any real attempt to use semantical code and appalling use of permalinks are standard features of off-the-shelf forum software.
The bbPress.org support forum demonstrating the pretty permalinks available in a default bbPress installation.
However, unlike it’s more bloated counterparts, bbPress has extraordinarily good SEO features straight out of the box. The only other forum software I know of which is capable of doing Pretty URL’s/permalinks straight out of the box is Vanilla. There is a free MOD available for SMF which accomplishes this, but for vBulletin this requires a paid MOD.
The simplemachines.org support forum demonstrating the the standard SMF URLs. Note how the bbPress URLs describe the content whereas the SMF ones are simply a number.
Another major SEO feature which a default installation of bbPress is capable of is pingbacks/trackbacks. No other software is able to do this by default. There is no MOD currently available for SMF to do this and (again) vBulletin requires a paid MOD to to add the same feature that bbPress can do by default.
The default bbPress theme (Kakumei) features fairly semantical code which has led to most of the bbPress themes available featuring a high level of on-site SEO in comparison to their larger competitors.
bbPress is much maligned by it’s competitors and the average Joe web developer seems to dismiss it as being too basic and “not really useful for anything”. However they are missing the real point of bbPress. It may be a super simple forum system, but although it is lacking in whizz bang features which it’s larger more bloated competitors have, it does include extra more complex features under the bonnet which many do not realise are there.
Having said all this, I actually use SMF myself. Both my support forum and my site about Hockey in New Zealand run SMF. The reason I don’t use bbPress for either of these forums is because it would require too many plugins and the workload required to create a custom theme of high enough quality is simply not worth it. Some basic features I would like to have available in my forums are not currently possible with bbPress without considerable effort.
Despite the Tavern forum being located on the same domain as the site as well as looking the same, the forum seems to be a different world when compared to the site. For instance, there are quite a few people in the forum who are active but don’t comment on the blog and vice versa. I think the major reason for this difference is that the forum provides an avenue for YOU to start discussions while almost everything on the blog is initiated by me. At any rate, here is what is happening around the forum.
Standard Theme Hook Names – As mentioned in a previous article, Dan Cole is trying to figure out if Standardizing the names of theme hooks would be a good idea. If so, what would those names be?
WordPress theme Repository – This has turned into two threads in one. Ryan Hellyer asks that because WordPress 2.8 will have a built in theme installer if that will lead to higher quality themes in the repository. Further into the conversation, we find out thanks to Otto what information is sent to api.wordpress.org when as it relates to checking for updates to an installed theme. I remember when WordPress 2.3 was released which first provided plugin/core update notifications and people started getting worried because they didn’t know how much or what data was being sent back to WordPress.
Eyetracking Provides Inside Look – Eyetrack 3 was released and the official website conducted an interesting survey of 46 people with the top major news sites on the web to figure out homepage layout effectiveness, the effect blurbs have on the homepage compared to headlines., when is multimedia appropriate, and a bunch of other useful data.
Free Themes – Chip Bennett asks if there would be any interest in packaging up his theme and putting it on the repository. The overall conclusion is that the more themes the better. For example, Chip may have accomplished something in his theme that someone else wants to do but can’t because they don’t have access to the code.
Abandoned Themes – Our resident WPMU guru Andrea seems to have a little project on her hands involving abandoned themes on the WordPress Theme Repository.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due – After reading into Andrea’s project, I thought about how cool it would be to take a few outdated themes on the repository and revamp them to make them compatible with the latest version of WordPress. But, how would I give credit to the original authors of the theme? Thanks to some great people in the community, I’m on my way to finding out.
Join In The Fun
As of this post being published, there are 468 threads, 3,818 posts, 213 members, and 102 active members. Awesome stats and we just keep trucking along. I want to thank those who routinely stop by the forums to share their knowledge or opinions on various subjects. Without you, the forum would simply grind away. If you’re not a member, signup and get involved in the conversations.
Sam Bauers announced on the bbPress developers blog that release candidate 1 has been pushed out the door. According to the post, progression towards 1.0 will increase with these release candidates. Despite this version being a release candidate, Sam does not recommend using this on a live website just yet. If you want to see what’s changed, he recommends performing a fresh install.
If you find any bugs in RC1, submit them to trac so Sam can take care of them ASAP.
I haven’t published one of these posts in awhile so without further adieu, lets see what’s been happening on the forum as of late.
Checklist for Moving Domains -I’m thinking of moving everything from jeffro2pt0.com to jeffc.me. Instead of looking up all of the different guides to move the site, I’m looking to see what you would do in my situation.
Comment Filter Beta Testers Needed – Will Anderson over the Easter holiday took the time to create a plugin based on a request I had and some other feedback. Will needs some beta testers to try out the plugin.
Media System Revamped – While we have discussed the media system revamp on the site, we have also discussed it in the forum. Chime in if you can.
TalkPress – Conorp was the first to get this ball rolling and since then, we’ve discussed whether or not hosting forums is a viable business and who would do such a thing.
Long Term Consequences – Ever stop to think about what the long term effects from choosing one theme over another? This thread highlights things you should think about before deciding to go with a particular theme.
That about wraps up this edition of from the forum. Feel free to sign up and be part of the conversation instead of lurking. I don’t mind lurkers but trust me, it’s much more fun to participate in the discussions rather than read them from afar. We currently have 155 members, help us reach our Goal for the end of May at 200 registered members.
Community member Kim Parsell passed this along to me regarding a new WordPress MU Support forum that recently opened to the public. Andrea and her husband who run WPMUTutorials.com are the ones behind this new forum.
Anyone is free to register an account but to dive deeper into the forums, you’ll have to purchase a membership. Memberships cost 20$ for three months. Considering the breadth of knowledge that Andrea has regarding WordPress MU, this could be a drop in the bucket for those who have a tough time managing the software.
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This is a guest blog post written by Ryan Hellyer, who operates 
