Ever used lesser known software to run your community?

[Darth-Apple]

Thats true, most forums I've seen with media galleries, resource managers or articles seem pointless and barely used. Its rare to see a forum with these add-ons being heavily or usefully used.

This is part of why I don't mind using a fairly "bare bones" software like MyBB. I had to develop a couple of features myself (the status updates feature was one of them, we custom coded it because no plugins like it existed), but it otherwise mostly focuses on the forum and less on the bells and whistles. MyBB is good at doing that.

Some CMS features would be nice. Some forums delve a lot into writing and publish a lot of unique content and things of that sort. Those kinds of forums definitely benefit from CMS-like solutions that IPB and Xenforo provide. But forums that can't populate it with a ton of very valuable content might be better served trying to get the forum itself off the ground first.

It's all about what builds value for your members. If the forum is what builds the value, that should be front and center. Some websites (websites like MacRumors, for example) also double as news websites in a lot of ways, and they build a lot of value outside of just the forum community itself.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

This is part of why I don't mind using a fairly "bare bones" software like MyBB. I had to develop a couple of features myself (the status updates feature was one of them, we custom coded it because no plugins like it existed), but it otherwise mostly focuses on the forum and less on the bells and whistles. MyBB is good at doing that.

Some CMS features would be nice. Some forums delve a lot into writing and publish a lot of unique content and things of that sort. Those kinds of forums definitely benefit from CMS-like solutions that IPB and Xenforo provide. But forums that can't populate it with a ton of very valuable content might be better served trying to get the forum itself off the ground first.

It's all about what builds value for your members. If the forum is what builds the value, that should be front and center. Some websites (websites like MacRumors, for example) also double as news websites in a lot of ways, and they build a lot of value outside of just the forum community itself.

Agreed, that being said... you're forum would be awesome on XenForo though!

 

[Darth-Apple]

Agreed, that being said... you're forum would be awesome on XenForo though!

We've considered it before. MyBB is still working very well for us, but it's not out of the question long term!

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

We've considered it before. MyBB is still working very well for us, but it's not out of the question long term!

Any software "works" ....over the years this forum has been on phpbb, vB, MyBB, IPB and XF. We did fine on all of them. If we stayed on any of the other softwares we'd probably still have the same memberbase and activity level, I just wanted the extra bells and whistles.

 

[PGen98]

Thats true, most forums I've seen with media galleries, resource managers or articles seem pointless and barely used. Its rare to see a forum with these add-ons being heavily or usefully used.

Yeah, and even then they're heavily modified to serve the purpose of the site in question.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Yeah, and even then they're heavily modified to serve the purpose of the site in question.

Well at least the admin had good intentions, its up to the members to use said features.

 

[PGen98]

Well at least the admin had good intentions, its up to the members to use said features.

Oh of course! It's hard to see admins putting in long, long hours and so much work only for it to be ignored by the members.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Oh of course! It's hard to see admins putting in long, long hours and so much work only for it to be ignored by the members.

Yeah, sometimes you need to stop and think if people will actually use whatever you're implementing. Either that or create a poll and ask your community if they would use the new features in question.

 

[PGen98]

Yeah, sometimes you need to stop and think if people will actually use whatever you're implementing. Either that or create a poll and ask your community if they would use the new features in question.

100%, every addition needs to make sense, either for the backend or for the members as a whole. Adding features just to add them is going to mean more overhead and wasted resources.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

more overhead

Thats for sure. Everything has a renewal fee. Hosting, domains, the software itself, add-ons, themes, etc.

 

[PGen98]

Thats for sure. Everything has a renewal fee. Hosting, domains, the software itself, add-ons, themes, etc.

Yep, it can get super expensive running a forum!

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Yep, it can get super expensive running a forum!

It can, unless you leave your forum in suspended animation for a while. No need to update the software and all the add-ons right away unless you want to. You can just stay where you're at and upgrade when its actually worth while. If you do that then all you have to do is worry about domain/hosting renewal.

 

[PGen98]

It can, unless you leave your forum in suspended animation for a while. No need to update the software and all the add-ons right away unless you want to. You can just stay where you're at and upgrade when its actually worth while. If you do that then all you have to do is worry about domain/hosting renewal.

Yep, that's pretty much what I do. Major versions only.