Jump to content

Feature Creep on IPB 3.x?


Fast Lane!

Recommended Posts

I love many of the new features but I get the feeling that IPB has become stuck in "Feature Creep" mode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep

I am worried that some of the more basic elements of the forum design are getting overlooked, in addition to releases taking longer. There are so many "small" updates that seem to span everywhere with no cohesiveness other than to make the site as "social" as possible (good in a way). It just seems like the IPB Forums software is now something different with the forums as an "add on".

One of my biggest gripes is the "clean cut" skin that was "made official" is still in beta a YEAR later. I now see other skins being talked about being final. My conclusion is that IPB has no desire to support it. They would be happy to see it die and to be forgotten. I have been waiting a year nearly to upgrade to IPB 3.x (awaiting cleancut to go final). Cleancut has had good feedback from my members when they take a look at the design. With the end of life for 2.3.4 coming in about 4 months I will be forced to upgrade and this really irks me given the cleancut situation and overall lack of skin support for something that keeps the previous look and feel for people (changing the look so drastically is akin to re-branding the look of a site so many like me are very hesitant).

My thoughts: When you try to make everyone happy and add in a lot of things, you end up not doing any of them very well. IPB may want to consider (IMO) staying focused on their "core" first and then adding these other elements second. If I were them I would have a guy full time making and supporting the official skins. They are the "forward facing" element of IPB that the end-users see. If they suck, then the forums "suck" regardless of what cool coding is behind the scenes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 51
  • Created
  • Last Reply

If you don't like the features added, you can turn them off. We aren't charging you extra for them, or anything like that. ;) Nor is it "taking a long time" as you indicated. We've actually been putting out updates more frequently and more openly than at any point I can remember since working here.

As for the skin, is the only reason you're hesitant to use it because it's labeled "beta"? Many people are using Cleancut, and to my knowledge there aren't many open issues with it at present. If I rename it from "beta" to "final" in the client center, would you be willing to use it then? It is, after all, just a label. :)

We do, for the record, have a full time skinner. But he's tasked with more than simply maintaining the IPB skin. He deals with the website, some custom skin projects, the front end skin for IPB and all our first party addons (IP.Content, Gallery, Blog, etc.), the mobile skin, and so on. Most of our customers are happy with the default skin in IPB3 - very few have told us "it sucks", as you put it. :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites


If you don't like the features added, you can turn them off. We aren't charging you extra for them, or anything like that. ;) Nor is it "taking a long time" as you indicated. We've actually been putting out updates more frequently and more openly than at any point I can remember since working here.



As for the skin, is the only reason you're hesitant to use it because it's labeled "beta"? Many people are using Cleancut, and to my knowledge there aren't many open issues with it at present. If I rename it from "beta" to "final" in the client center, would you be willing to use it then? It is, after all, just a label. :)



We do, for the record, have a full time skinner. But he's tasked with more than simply maintaining the IPB skin. He deals with the website, some custom skin projects, the front end skin for IPB and all our first party addons (IP.Content, Gallery, Blog, etc.), the mobile skin, and so on. Most of our customers are happy with the default skin in IPB3 - very few have told us "it sucks", as you put it. :unsure:




Beta == not supported. Final == Supported. Beta == May no go final and be gone in the next release. Final == confidence it will be there for a while.

The title does mean something. I do not mean to be rude (sorry) but this does affect people and actual businesses so these things are simple but important.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


If you don't like the features added, you can turn them off. We aren't charging you extra for them, or anything like that. ;) Nor is it "taking a long time" as you indicated. We've actually been putting out updates more frequently and more openly than at any point I can remember since working here.



As for the skin, is the only reason you're hesitant to use it because it's labeled "beta"? Many people are using Cleancut, and to my knowledge there aren't many open issues with it at present. If I rename it from "beta" to "final" in the client center, would you be willing to use it then? It is, after all, just a label. :)



We do, for the record, have a full time skinner. But he's tasked with more than simply maintaining the IPB skin. He deals with the website, some custom skin projects, the front end skin for IPB and all our first party addons (IP.Content, Gallery, Blog, etc.), the mobile skin, and so on. Most of our customers are happy with the default skin in IPB3 - very few have told us "it sucks", as you put it. :unsure:




I think the new skin is nice. It is just a radical change from before and there is not similar skin (other than cleancut) that is similar to before. The fact is, third party skins are nice but I do not want to have to worry about the 3rd party no tsupporting updates for every revision of IPB (official skins are supported and updated by IPB so no worries on those).
Link to comment
Share on other sites


I think the new skin is nice. It is just a radical change from before and there is not similar skin (other than cleancut) that is similar to before. The fact is, third party skins are nice but I do not want to have to worry about the 3rd party no tsupporting updates for every revision of IPB (official skins are supported and updated by IPB so no worries on those).



Just wanted to say that serious skinners are usually very prompt and update their skins regularly. Also, our community skins include two skins that look very much like the Pro and Blue themes from the 2.x series. Not sure about the status of these though.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


So then, is it safe to say your hesitations aren't so much about the direction of 3.1, but rather the CleanCut skin mainly?




It just seems like IPB has so many little nuggets they are adding that they are forgetting a promise to us, the community, that the winner of the "super" skin contest will have it become a new fully supported skin for IPB.

April 2009: IPB announces Skin Contest: They say, "In summary, we are after a very professional skin with a nice, clean look and feel...
First place will receive $2,000.00 and their skin will be featured along with IP.Board as an alternate skin choice!"

July 2009: Cleancut wins.

July 17 200: You (bfarber) say, "It will be included by default, but I don't think we intend to make it *the* default skin. " ...and, We will keep the skin updated just as we do the default skin, yes." ..and, "
We're not ignoring the skin, forgetting it completely, etc." and then six months later in January, "I'm not sure why there is such anger over a skin here" and... "We have simply been distracted with core development on new versions and have not had an opportunity to focus on the skin and such. "...

Sept 2009: Member asks Charles, "Why is it taking so long to release a skin? 2 months at least have passed since this competition ended and you release a beta now?". Charles says, "This will end up being more than just another skin. CleanCut will be included along with IPB3 so it has to be well supported. ".

Jan 26 2010: Member says, "IPS have not released an official version yet.. When I asked on the forums, my post was ignored by IPS in the feedback forum, having waited until the new blogs etc. came out and still nothing. I then asked in a ticket and was told it was not an official skin at all and it was a community skin, and that it was dependant upon the community. It was only when I pointed out Lindy's post above that they agreed it was an official skin, but gave no indication of when it would be updated." page__st__20


Bfarber, I know you mean well, but documented above is a pretty clear case that you guys have no intention after nearly a year to support nor release this. I could dig up plenty of old posts to further support this and find many more promises from IPB staff broken. Lots of talk... no action. Many many people have just given up. Seriously you would make so many people happy if you released it as a fully supported final skin included in the release.

At least IPB can get the DN2K Vaporware award for this IMO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

%7Boption%7D
%7Boption%7D
Link to comment
Share on other sites


It hasn't been 10 years of waiting yet, too early for the award.




True. I just hope IPB remembers its roots. I have been a customer since IPB was free. The support used to be great but now they seem to be acting a little like the "new" vBulletin. They say enough in their replies to get you to shut up (and hope you forget or give up), only to focus on what matters to "them" vs. their promises or commitments to "you" the community / customer.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The OP has raise some very valid points and the fact that he has been neg rep'd several times for the post really demonstrates the overall maturity of this community.

To expand on his post: nothing has been complained about more than the quality of the IPB3 search results. And while the main culprits to the horrendous search have been identified repeatedly as a combination of the logical OR rather than AND, and the results returned as posts rather than threads in the default search, and IPS staff's response here in the forums that this would be an easy thing to remedy as a settings change, here we are many months later and several versions later with no improvement, and no word on what improvement to expect. But what we do hear a lot about are enhanced status updates, the ability to add BG images to user profiles etc. So yes, the OP, myself, and probably many others are getting frustrated. How about it IPS - where are the core functionality changes that are REALLY going to make this product the clear industry leader?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Uh, Ditchmonkey? Matt said in a post that they are changing the search to use logical AND rather than OR in 3.1. how is that "no word"?




Despite your usual snarky know-it-all style, I'll respond anyway.

1. I didn't see that, was that in an official dev update?
2. was the issue of results as posts rather than threads addressed?
3. Has Matt addressed the numerous threads about this issue with the information that you have revealed?
4. Given that this was "an easy fix" as revealed by IPB staff, why haven't we seen it before - especially in light of the fact that this is probably the most complained about feature of the software?
5. Do you think that if you communicated in a less abrasive manor, people would be more interested in what you have to say?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me ...the search functionality and the skins are the biggest issues. 2.3.6 still works ok so i have stuck with it for my main sites. The search function is the only significant flaw in this version.

I upgraded one forum to IPB3 and was a bit disappointed with it. Mainly because of the skin. Maybe the skin has been improved since the release but I did not hear about those improvements via the company blog (or did i? maybe i forgot).

I have also been with IPB since the start. I love running forums. I love the interaction with other members. I like them to be fairly simple. My members don't like big changes in the software... and neither do I.

I look forward to getting a nice "old school" skin finished and on the table. Then I can be confident in upgarding my main forums.

Cheers :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Despite your usual snarky know-it-all style, I'll respond anyway.



1. I didn't see that, was that in an official dev update?


2. was the issue of results as posts rather than threads addressed?


3. Has Matt addressed the numerous threads about this issue with the information that you have revealed?


4. Given that this was "an easy fix" as revealed by IPB staff, why haven't we seen it before - especially in light of the fact that this is probably the most complained about feature of the software?


5. Do you think that if you communicated in a less abrasive manor, people would be more interested in what you have to say?




Despite your usual confrontational and unnecessarily antagonistic (and most ironically, know-it-all) style, I'll actually respond also. I won't do so again.

1. It was not in an official dev update, but then I don't believe there's been one covering search yet. I'd love to see one on this topic, since it took me 5 minutes to find the thread I was looking for and I eventually just gave up and trawled through the forum I knew I saw it in anyway, to find it: [url=".
2. No, that hasn't been mentioned.
3. Only the one thread. But then I'm not one hundred percent sure why there even is multiple threads. They're posted close enough together that there should be only one thread.
4. I've seen it mentioned that it's actually not all that easy of a fix, due to difficulties in working out what's meant to be a word break and stuff like that. I don't recall where though.
5. Do you ever think that if you weren't so confrontational, people would be more interested in what you have to say?
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Despite your usual snarky know-it-all style, I'll respond anyway.



Despite your usual confrontational and unnecessarily antagonistic (and most ironically, know-it-all) style, I'll actually respond also. I won't do so again.



Children, children, please, can we all get along?



how is that "no word"?



Dm, while I think this part of his response wasn't exactly pleasing, it's not really all that bad. I can see why you'd be a bit put off by it, but I'd say to just let that part go, it's not worth getting into an argument about.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Children, children, please, can we all get along?





Dm, while I think this part of his response wasn't exactly pleasing, it's not really all that bad. I can see why you'd be a bit put off by it, but I'd say to just let that part go, it's not worth getting into an argument about.





Lets definitely keep this on topic. I will be honest, I am tired of IPB giving half answers, meaningless promises that they do not follow up on, and in general saying enough to pacify us "until next time". Lets not give them a reason to let this thread run and get off topic. For once lets get IPB to stand up and make a commitment to us the customers. Saying things like "it is coming", or "soon" is BS marketing talk for "we will get to if and when we damn well please". How about a technology road map. Say WHEN things will be added in. I understand for business strategy to keep the long term road map private, but we (admins, webmasters, etc) need to plan too. We need information ahead of time. This is how business works. I know IPB has grown from a small company to a medium sized small company, so maybe this is honestly new. That said it is time to adopt some standard business practices like this (IPB, it WILL help your company and its products -- seriosuly). If you announce a roadmap integration date and it slips, fine. At least be honest. If it will not be considered for the next release do not string us along like you have with cleancut for the last 8 months or more.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm fairly sure the OP got Negative point's due to the way he (or she) is approaching the topic at hand..

Half Answers? If you know where to look I've seen them provide some pretty in depth and insightful comments and responses to Active customers


In terms to your comment saying its BS marketing talk.. No no its not, saying it's being worked on they don't have a final time line because it is NOT in beta yet.. That's like Apple saying "Oh yah, were in Alpha 2 right now on OSX 10.9, so it will be in FINAL June 2rd.." Won't happen, ever.

As they create and code the new features to ensure it works into the software they announce it will be there, but until they've actually started designing it you wan't them to promise features they may not be able to deliver so people can cry about that to? Guess what, they ARE saying when things will be implemented.. it's in a version basis, but they aren't just going to blow smoke saying features will be there because people want to hear it.. (Remember how pissed people were when WinFS wasn't available on Vista or 7?)

You're acting like they're out to dick us around, they have one of the most reasonable pricing and best support platforms for their products out of most CMS/Forum software providers (Go look at VB's support and pricing) including not charging for new major version releases if your keeping your subscription up to date.. This is not something that can be said for most of their competitors.

CleanCut is included with 3.0.5, it's an addon something your not paying for.. something they didn't HAVE to include nor is it in any way a Core Function or product of Invision.. But hey, if you want to whine about it being called a Beta when the template bits are all there by all means.. It doesn't mean its any less ready for the public and people who properly test things on their Production instead of just installing them because they're "final" would realize this..

Link to comment
Share on other sites


I will be honest, I am tired of IPB giving half answers, meaningless promises that they do not follow up on, and in general saying enough to pacify us "until next time".



Like what half answers and promises?



For once lets get IPB to stand up and make a commitment to us the customers. Saying things like "it is coming", or "soon" is BS marketing talk for "we will get to if and when we damn well please".



I don't see that. I see it as meaning that they are working on it and trying to make sure they get it right before giving it to us. Anyone can give you a package and say, "It's in there" and instead of it being what you expected, it could be what they consider to be 'it' and 'it' could be some really lame watered down version of what you really wanted.



How about a technology road map. Say WHEN things will be added in. I understand for business strategy to keep the long term road map private, but we (admins, webmasters, etc) need to plan too. We need information ahead of time. This is how business works. I know IPB has grown from a small company to a medium sized small company, so maybe this is honestly new. That said it is time to adopt some standard business practices like this (IPB, it WILL help your company and its products -- seriosuly). If you announce a roadmap integration date and it slips, fine.



You obviously haven't heard of the unofficial (but apparently trademarked) response of "When It's Ready" for release dates. I'd rather get it when it's ready, rather than get it by a promised date but full of problems. ANYONE who has done ANY sort of programming can tell you, it's easy to set a date based on actual and realistic development experience, but it's hard to meet those deadlines because you will always have the unexpected events come up that force a delay. Real life events can cause delays, along with unexpected programming defects/issues. Now, most tend to try to add in extra time to account for potential bugs, however even with that added time, it's no guarantee that it'll be enough time to correct all the bugs found.

Also, whenever they announce any sort of a release day/date, even if it's not a PROMISED release date, then an angry lynch mob forms if it's not delivered as 'promised'.

Whenever I try to get some sort of a 'feel' for when to expect things, I do it in a reverse fashion. I try to get a feel for how long to NOT expect something. It doesn't mean that it WILL happen right after that, just that I know I can just 'chillax' until that point before looking for another update. Unlike many people, I'm interested in updates to get an idea of when to check back for another update, not when to expect the actual release. That way as the times get closer, I know a release is getting closer and what may be holding up the release itself.



At least be honest. If it will not be considered for the next release do not string us along like you have with cleancut for the last 8 months or more.



Where have they lied? Also, you can download CleanCut in the Customer Area.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Jan 26 2010: Member says, "IPS have not released an official version yet.. When I asked on the forums, my post was ignored by IPS in the feedback forum, having waited until the new blogs etc. came out and still nothing. I then asked in a ticket and was told it was not an official skin at all and it was a community skin, and that it was dependant upon the community. It was only when I pointed out Lindy's post above that they agreed it was an official skin, but gave no indication of when it would be updated." [url="




I really don't think the bolding and supersizing of letters was necessary personally :P, but to address this specifically, I can only apologize that you were given misinformation. Nobody was intentionally trying to mislead you I'm sure. Everyone working here is human, and prone to mistakes, just like anyone else. We are not perfect.

We have community skins that ARE developed and maintained by the community, in addition to CleanCut, and I'm positive whoever told you that was simply confusing the two.

That said, I'm really not sure what else I can tell you here. I don't work on the skins, at all. I know CleanCut is in the client area and is a very stable release. I'm more than happy to go rename it to final (we do support CleanCut in the same manner we support our default skin right now - any bugs with it we report to the bug tracker to be fixed in the next release) if that's the hold up. Many many customers are already using CleanCut and as I said before, I've not heard any complaints about it.



Bfarber, I know you mean well, but documented above is a pretty clear case that you guys have no intention after nearly a year to support nor release this. I could dig up plenty of old posts to further support this and find many more promises from IPB staff broken. Lots of talk... no action. Many many people have just given up. Seriously you would make so many people happy if you released it as a fully supported final skin included in the release.



Actually, no, not at all. We don't have "no intention" of doing anything. Why, tell me, would we put ourselves out publicly and state we are going to do something, only to incur the wrath of the community when/if we don't? That's not smart business sense from us.

I don't know the exact plans with the skin. As far as I know, it's very stable and only "beta" by label. I understand this beta label is holding you back, for your own personal reasons. I will discuss renaming it to final later today with the rest of the team. Perhaps that will resolve the oustanding issues you are having, since they seem to be entirely related to the secondary skin's label.




To expand on his post: nothing has been complained about more than the quality of the IPB3 search results. And while the main culprits to the horrendous search have been identified repeatedly as a combination of the logical OR rather than AND, and the results returned as posts rather than threads in the default search, and IPS staff's response here in the forums that this would be an easy thing to remedy as a settings change, here we are many months later and several versions later with no improvement, and no word on what improvement to expect. But what we do hear a lot about are enhanced status updates, the ability to add BG images to user profiles etc. So yes, the OP, myself, and probably many others are getting frustrated. How about it IPS - where are the core functionality changes that are REALLY going to make this product the clear industry leader?




Actually, other things get complained about too besides search. We have many customers who have never mentioned any problems with search, but have problems with other areas. Are their problems less important? People tend to focus on the issues that affect them most, which is understandable. If I was running my site, I'd obviously only care about problems that affected me too. ;)

Having said that, we have many many customers and all issues that affect any customers have to be taken seriously. ALL (every single one) of the features we've discussed for 3.1 so far was requested/suggested by you guys, our customers (no, not you specifically). Just because a particular suggestion that YOU made wasn't worked on first doesn't mean we "ignore our customers".

Also note that we are not "several versions later" either. We have had 5 minor point releases for 3.0 - and that's it. Almost all of them focused exclusively on rectifying bugs reported in the 3.x series, which is generally what minor point releases are for, with very small feature tweaks and changes sprinkled in here and there. As a general rule, feature changes come in major point releases (i.e. 3.1, 3.2, etc.).


As for search results specifically, Matt has actually been working on them the last 2-3 days. 3.1 is not released yet; we are still working on it. As we publicly stated before, improvements to the search will be coming in 3.1. If you can be patient for a little while longer while we continue to work on them, I'm sure you will like the end result once we blog about it. At the point we blog about it, you can see screenshots and further comment on the changes that will be coming in 3.1 specifically, but we're just not ready to talk about them just yet.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Management

It seems this topic is mostly about CleanCut (which we have renamed from beta to final since it really is quite stable and supported). Search has been mentioned which we have said is being worked on. Sure, there has been no specific blog entry about it just yet but that does not mean we are neglecting it. Just because we haven't said anything about an enhancement or new feature YET does not mean it does not exist. I think it would be a waste of time to post a blog entry saying "yup going to work on search" or chase down every topic it is mentioned in to say "yup going to work on search" when we could ... just be working on search in that time.

Everyone has their pet-project they they believe should have utmost priority whereas others could care less about that specific area. It is our job to balance those various requests and work on creating a good product. Just because someone is very loud :frantics: about it does not mean we can deviate from our internal priorities :)

As for the whole "feature creep" thing... that's not at all true. Everything being announced for IP.Board 3.1 was planned back in December 2009.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Everyone has their pet-project they they believe should have utmost priority



Yeah, how dare they think that when everyone knows that all MY requests and ideas are the highest priority!
:lol:

(Just kidding).


Seriously though, I never really expect announcements of any kind about upcoming features. I consider it a bonus when it happens and know that not every single feature is going to get one. I do know that when the time comes, there will be a list of new features (completed, very nearly completed or very minor but are 'to do' for the final release), and I like seeing that list of features because then you get to learn about all the little things that add up to being an exciting new release.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, IPB Staff: Thank you for taking the time to read through the gripes I had as well as a few other members. That was professional and so were your responses. Much appreciated.

I still think that sometimes the information given is a bit vague, but maybe that is because I spend little time in the forums here versus reading your official community posts in the new section. I generally read there because I spend my time developing my site and only come here when a news update it pushed out. I have noticed that you have made a better effort to push news out that way in the last six months for consistency which is good. Expecting people to read the unofficial forums for product information is probably not the best route.

If you as a company indeed feel that Cleancut is "Final" and not "Beta" tagged from your QA standards (which is really the difference between the two IMO) then I am satisfied. I trust your QA judgement as you have not put a "Final" tag on anything half measured int he past. If you plan to continue support into the future on this skin as advertised then you have given myself and I assume many other members reason to finally upgrade to IPB 3.x. From an IPB company perspective this is a good thing as it gets a large number of people to upgrade off your legacy product path before the end of life cycle date this summer. I would bet that if you make a news announcement on this many people would be happy to hear it.

My last point is that for the roadmaps given to us the public, I am not asking for release dates as much as saying what will and will not be in the next version ahead of time. If things slip then fine. Many people do this such as:

Fedora Linux: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RoadMap
Red Hat Linux: http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/summit/tburke_1050_rhel_roadmap.pdf
Windows Server: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/roadmap.mspx
Adobe: http://2009.max.adobe.com/blog/2008/08/adobe-roadmap-sessions.html
Mozilla (Firefox): http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap.html
PHP: http://wiki.php.net/todo/php53

Road maps help the users plan for new changes ahead of time and helps you the company keep focused. Both are important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...