Goodbye, XenForo!

Hello!

I regret to inform you that I'm quitting XenForo. This means:

• No more new features for add-ons
• No more new add-ons
• Prices for existing add-ons will drop
• Free add-ons will become paid or no longer available

The reason for this was the unprofessional behavior of the XenForo administration.

For the last 4 years I have been an active member of the XenForo community and one of the few developers who release major add-ons for this platform. During this time, I have encountered many times the speech freedom restriction on their community forum and, to put it mildly, strange decisions on the administration part. Yesterday I again encountered this behavior of the administration. In response to this post, I sent a joke about what we got a 100 character limit on reviews. It has been deleted, 3 times, in the Off-topic section, then I was banned in this section. My post does not violate the rules, I did not receive any verbal warnings or comments on these actions.

Over the past years, I have encountered:

Deleting positive reviews without notice or reason​

One of the most absurd cases that I encountered in this regard was when people who did not buy my products posted negative reviews, after which all reviews on my resource were deleted altogether. I turned to the Brogan and some reviews were restored. And then they were deleted again silently! Cause? "I don't know which reviews were valid and invalid" © Brogan. As usual, I was ignored.

Deleting posts that do not violate the rules​

At any time, you can fall into disfavor with the administration and your posts will be deleted quietly and without notification. If you pay attention to this, you will get a ban. The reddest flag you can see is unpredictable behavior.

No updates or roadmap​

The last update improving functionality was released 3 years(!) ago! During this time, the community has not even received a roadmap, and dissatisfaction with this situation, as always, is simply ignored by the developers. As a developer, I understand that it is possible to develop XenForo from scratch in such a time period and XF developers are simply not interested in developing their product.

Ignoring the community​

They implement less than 10 small suggestions per year (only 2 this year), with dozens of popular suggestions that have been around for over 5 years.
Any feedback and criticism are taken in a negative way.

Thanks to everyone who supporting my developments financially and morally! I hope our cooperation will continue in a friendlier environment!

---

Inappropriate behavior after a conflict​

I am updating the post on March 21, 2024, six months after the conflict...

Aug 31, 2023
My attempts to prove that there was no objective the rules violation
Banning my account and insults from the administration

March 21, 2024
Ridiculous attempt to remove a review on TrustPilot

🍿🍿🍿

 

[Richardo]

You have all my support @021 , i hope that you will resume the development of XenForo addon because some of your addons are really great and all of your customers are not responsible what has been done, but would be fair to get the services/addons they have paid for.

It's a pity.

I hope you changed your mind, would be good for those who bought the products and paused, get access again to them, many thanks

 

[Cedric]

So, did you get an apology yet?
It’s quite hilarious to see how they protect certain members on the support forum and yet drive others away.

 

[021]

So, did you get an apology yet?
It’s quite hilarious to see how they protect certain members on the support forum and yet drive others away.

Hahah, I don't think I'll ever get an apology :D

 

[Cedric]

They have been censoring me too. 🙈

like I said, they protect and drive away the wrong people.

 

[021]

They have been censoring me too. 🙈

Wow, you are being notified about the posts deletion, you are an important person :D

It turns out that they closed the older topic in Off-topic by redirecting everyone who wants to criticize XenForo to the new one and simply delete the criticism in the new one?) They just need to prohibit the use of symbols, pictures, audio and video content in the rules when criticizing them :D

 

[021]

"There are too many articles in your post, deleted"

 

[Cedric]

It's actually weird though. They allow their own company to be bashed, but they don't allow you to bash a certain person who's been doing the same and asks to be bashed. I'm pretty certain you'll get the idea who I'm talking about. It's quite ridiculous how they protect that person.

 

[021]

It's actually weird though. They allow their own company to be bashed, but they don't allow you to bash a certain person who's been doing the same and asks to be bashed. I'm pretty certain you'll get the idea who I'm talking about. It's quite ridiculous how they protect that person.

I think it didn't go without saving someone's life here :D

 

[xoop]

Wow, you are being notified about the posts deletion, you are an important person :D

It turns out that they closed the older topic in Off-topic by redirecting everyone who wants to criticize XenForo to the new one and simply delete the criticism in the new one?) They just need to prohibit the use of symbols, pictures, audio and video content in the rules when criticizing them :D

Don't care about them Xenforo needs a lot of improvements. But that's great for an addon author, isn't it? If everything worked perfectly, all features were added out of the box, there would be nothing for addon authors to do.

If a fool is at the helm of the company, there is no reason not to take their products for revision =)

Your addons are great, develop them, earn money yourself and keep making people happy.

 

[Will]

don’t blame you mate. XenForo is the worst product I ever purchased. Sadly I realised too late. Won’t recommend them to anyone, the staff are even worse with false information which are misleading their customers. Good luck in your journey. To be honest, you made right dec to quit xenforo , it’s waste of time.

 

[FaeWhisperer]

I love your plugins, and I got both the real time threads and real time chat with websockets from xenforo. Going forward, will these still be available here? I was noticing a hiccup with my notifications and now I know why 😢

 

[021]

I love your plugins, and I got both the real time threads and real time chat with websockets from xenforo. Going forward, will these still be available here?

Yes, over time I will publish them here on a paid subscription.

I was noticing a hiccup with my notifications and now I know why 😢

Removing these add-ons from here should not affect the functioning of already installed add-ons in any way)

 

[FaeWhisperer]

Awesome, I'm relieved to hear so! Thank you for being an awesome developer :)

 

[021]

Awesome, I'm relieved to hear so! Thank you for being an awesome developer :)

Thank you too for being such an amazing user :3

 

[Upgrayedd]

Oh man.....this is terrible to hear. You're easily the best "new" dev that Xenforo had, hands down. One of the few that actually made new modern features.

 

[André]

🫤 Bloody hell! I'm surprised they're actually doing this same sniveling "censorship" crap to you as well mate.

Obviously it's easy for them to do it to some nobody like me because literally zero others give af and basically all gleefully jump aboard the XF weaponized silencing bandwagon to participate.

While you aren't a nobody and you do possess meaningful influence with which to direct as you will.

Spoiler: i

I don't know the full story, yet from what I have witnessed of Chris, Keir, Brogan and whatever the other ones name is—they oughta be treating quality devs like you with a great deal more respect than seems the case.

A long time ago I realized a fundamental requisite for success with my businesses is that no matter how awesome my employees are—if I failed to proactively prove to each team member just how greatly valued they actually are, by instead going full XF mode and treating them like garbage—the inevitable result as I'm sure y'all can already guess, is that productivity practically stalls overnight before suddenly plummeting.

😂This is exactly the "brilliant" business model XF proved by the way it treats even us as paying customers.

It's ridiculous imo for any employer (*or similar) to effectively blow holes in one's own feet by treating customers, employees or associated contractors and such so poorly.

Is it too farfetched to consider if the course remains unchanged, XF may end up fading away in a fraction of the time it took to achieve the preeminent position.

😂Tbh I actually see this as a major opportunity for motivated individuals to seize by the peanuts.

Spoiler: ii

Going off that earlier post mentioning a general time frame of a year and a capable team of developers to potentially create a foundation for a superior forum system,... I'm wondering why the hell we ain't already campaigning for such a project.

@Admin-Junkies.com you'd be good at leading the charge brah.

Off the top of me noggin a team of say 5 capable devs going hard 8 hrs per day—5 days a week—for 54 weeks would be what like just over a million usd(?)

I ain't got a clue what other costs may be necessary, but I'd lazily just say 5 mil might be a reasonable start for efforting towards a solid working base model within a year with which to present all those who've grown weary of the current low set bar.

Only been with XF for about nine months and I can't stand them, they're lucky to have a somewhat superior product and the numerous exceptional upgrades provided by hardcore web devs,...😎 frankly my opinion of the XF system is not good and I reckon it's the web developers who essentially make the generic XF model into something people are significantly moreso attracted to. At least for me it was. Yet I ain't no powerful computer nerd neither.
To be clear, I am merely opinionating in general terms here.

No doubt y'all would be far more knowledgable on this stuff and as aggravating as this long-winded post may seem, idgaf and simply hope it sparks inspiration for a forum system that is actually a serious challenger to the largely junk-fast food social media juggernauts of Meta, YT,...and ahhh,...🤔...oh yeah twittlified "X".

Or perhaps I'm mistaken to think we deserve a significantly better base product than we have now.

Maybe we should just settle for scraps.

😏Pfft. Fork that.



Can't see why a bunch of us couldn't just start campaigning independently or perhaps collaboratively for such a goal.

Spoiler: iii

As much as I would like to,...😂I ain't fυςκϊη payin for it all-my accountants would go supernova and I'm sick of paying for ungrateful others self assumed entitlements.

Spoiler: iv

I definitely would be keen to participate with others ballsy enough too.



😎That's if there are any others who've not morphed into bipedal sheeplike creatures(?)

Anyways that's all for today's extraneous rambling,...thank you very much for reading. Now go away.😛

Spoiler: v

 

[021]

XenForo continues to embarrass itself. A very vivid demonstration of their wrongness is the attempt to constantly end the conversation and the refusal to explain their position. I am posting a full discussion of this issue. It's unlikely I'll get an answer.

---

But what amuses me most of all is that my profile post, which was originally published after moderation (!) (that is, the moderator saw it and approved), was quietly deleted after 3 or 4 days. The post content was something like this: "All my resources have been removed due to unprofessional behavior of the administration. Details can be found on my website". The post contained no links, no discussion of the moderators actions (the 13th point of the rules that they like to refer to) and I can not find even an indirect reason in the rules for deleting it. The silent deletion and the lack of a rule for which this post could be removed clearly indicates ordinary censorship, and not an attempt to maintain a certain atmosphere on the forum. Who knows how many more objectionable posts disappeared without a trace and quietly 🤷‍♂️

What a shame...

 

[021]

And trying to comment on this thread ended with this, lol 😆
They deleted my post and another person's reply to it, who simply said that he was sorry that I left and he liked my developments. Obviously, this was done to hide the fact that I posted in this thread at all.


This situation motivates me. There will come a time when I will raise enough funds to invest in the development of a new communication platform that will put XenForo in its place - in a closet of obsolete garbage 😌

 

[021]

Hahah, it seems they found enough reason to ban my account 😆
They haven't forgotten to insult me yet :)

 

[gogo]

There will come a time when I will raise enough funds to invest in the development of a new communication platform that will put XenForo in its place - in a closet of obsolete garbage

Start raising money. Do it!