We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3
ZetaBoards dying..
Topic Started: Oct 15 2014, 05:37 PM (2,855 Views)
Stephen
Member Avatar
Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall.

Lout
Oct 18 2014, 04:55 PM
I completely agree that the nature of any support board is that the vast majority of users won't visit, and of those that do, many will visit just once or twice, get the support they needed and be on their merry way.

What I find odd Stephen is that you claim "The bulk of the issue is one we've gone over: time. Many have grown and moved on. Life happens and so things change."

So what - people come and go all the time. If they grow and move on they would be readily replaced with new members wouldn't they? Unless the software wasn't really attracting that many new board owners, which given the issues the server that new boards are placed in is hardly surprising.

As long as I can remember the server for new boards has had issues, it was 13 once, then 4, now 11 - kind of off-putting if you are thinking about joining the service and have done your homework.

But the bottom line (in my opinion) is this - the service just isn't evolving as fast as it needs to in this day and age. As for the whole "hold you to ransom" attitude about moving your data elsewhere - it's really easy to get a database dump if you know what you are doing, but surely it would make sense to offer it, obviously at a cost?
The difference between then and now is this. When we started, the service was support board driven. It is now TICKET driven. When we started, certain forums required registration to view. They don't now. When we started, documentation was just beginning and was not as thorough. It is now. So for most board owners, they get what they need but it doesn't necessarily require registering on this board to get it. They come when there is a problem generally. So board owners are replaced. New blood does exist. Plenty of communities across this network are doing just fine. Some of our largest have nothing to do with forum services - sports, rpg etc.

The servers. I am on an s11 board daily. It's one of the communities I am part of. So too are other support team members. While we are well aware of issues with servers, these are minimal. Especially from the point of view of someone who can recall the old server crashes and issues we've had. There is no loss of data. The down time is not hours on end. The problems are caught and resolved quickly. But this is the trade off for a free service. All we can continue to do is mitigate these issues, protect the data and reduce the downtime that occurs.

As to your last comment, the fundamental flaw in this is that Zetaboards is NOT a standalone software. It was never designed with one single message board in mind. It was designed with thousands in mind. So to make that data valuable, it would actually have to be put into a structure that makes it useful for the owner. It would have to be dumped in a way that doesn't cause stress on the servers. And it would need to be done in an easier way. Because the cost is time. Time away from bettering this service. These are not conversations that I'm unfamiliar with. We've already mentioned that there are things going on behind the scenes- some you've already seen the results of and some you will see soon. That's why I argue the service is not only very much alive, but actually growing.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonface
Member Avatar


Lout
Oct 18 2014, 04:55 PM
As long as I can remember the server for new boards has had issues, it was 13 once, then 4, now 11 - kind of off-putting if you are thinking about joining the service and have done your homework.
I agree on the surface, it can be off putting. This is why earlier I made mention of the fact two newly made boards, both on S11 which we all know has its fair share of problems nowadays with DDoS attacks, managed to create a community large and successful enough to place very well in a large site battle. While there are problems, it doesn't necessarily spell immediate doom to any board made on it, but at the same time, this isn't something very obvious to users of the service nor does it make the problems excusable.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Billamen
Member Avatar
Member
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
By nature, this board will have a large amount of viewers that don't register. I would say that the activity on this board, although mostly guests, is alive and well. I have watched the online list and see lots of people viewing topics. This board can be a spectator sport, you can easily learn a whole lot just by reading and not registering. Registering for a lot of people takes longer than finding what they want to learn about.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mickawall
Member
[ *  * ]
Arrogant
Oct 17 2014, 10:38 PM
I wouldn't say ZetaBoards is going strong. The official updates are months apart, there's very little in the way of announcements by staff unless there are ongoing issues with server stability, themes and codes aren't being released regularly, and most of the discussion that is happening is between the same group of people.

ZetaBoards is dying (has been for a while), and pretending as though it's not is doing more harm than good.
This. Zeta/Invision failed to keep up with changing times re mobile apps etc. Brandon and the powers that be thought they had it made and failed to adapt.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
skyline.
Member Avatar
Member
[ * ]
Zetaboards is merely going through a phase, no big deal.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · Service Discussion and Feedback · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3