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
ZB is great, but can have flaws
Topic Started: Feb 21 2017, 10:13 PM (1,802 Views)
Link2013
Member Avatar
Scientist
[ *  * ]
I see that the ZetaBoards team has done a great job hosting services for people to use to make their own masterpieces. However, ZB can have flaws though. One of the flaws such as the email confirmation systems which can be improved. Other than that, I think the system is working great and is usable.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Cory
Member Avatar
Member
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Sorry to be the one to complain, but you mentioned flaws, so I thought I would chime in:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Stephen
Member Avatar
Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall.

Not to sound like a broken record, but this all comes down to money really. A free service still costs money to run. And features, while great, are no good to anyone if the boards can't run. The servers have sucked up two years of development time thanks to malicious attacks and the hassle of domain name directing. Honestly if we cut the ability to have your own domain, we'd probably have had features that are nearly done released by now. But because of all the Cloudflare domain pointing issues, that's where developer time was spent.

Mobile. There are two: the app in development and the tapatalk app. One has more in it and the other was supposed to be quicker- due to a security flaw it wasn't. I was last told that Tapatalk had reconnected with us and we were close to resolving that issue.

zIFBoards is not in active development and will never return to active development. It is software that is well over ten years old. Even Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7. I would strongly encourage board owners to upgrade to Zetaboards. Bug fixing still occurs but it is difficult and time consuming with this software.

The Resource Database, API and several other features took a backseat to (in order) the server upgrade, Cloudflare protection for the servers, and mobile support. Would we like to see faster results? Of course. But without another full time developer, progress is slow.

As to the staff team- most are more active than they appear. But we've mostly been removing spam, answering tickets and trying to more quickly resolve abuse reports because those are things we can do. We can't develop. So we've directed our energy into other areas of the service.

No one disputes these issues. However, short of a paid development team, this is the reality for the moment. We hope to at least make it easier for our part time developer and certainly my view is the API will allow more self development. But these are the realities we face.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Link2013
Member Avatar
Scientist
[ *  * ]
My mistake, there wasn't a flaw in the email system. It was because I typed my email address wrong. The email systems are working fine. So I still give five stars to the ZetaBoards team for hosting a great service. However, I did encounter viruses on someone else's board located in the menu. Viruses will make the business look bad. :(
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Helena
Member Avatar
M is for Mod

If you can give details about the viruses you encountered, please open a new support ticket so that it can be investigated.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Link2013
Member Avatar
Scientist
[ *  * ]
It's not my board, so I can't open a support ticket. I would love to post the url to the board here, but that would be against the rules since I'm not supposed to advertise outside of This is... forum.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
DaPizzaMan
Member Avatar
#TeamSupport

You can create a Personal Support Ticket, which only the staff will see so we can look into the issue for you. :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chelonian
Member
[ *  *  * ]
Stephen
Feb 22 2017, 01:58 AM
Not to sound like a broken record, but this all comes down to money really. A free service still costs money to run. And features, while great, are no good to anyone if the boards can't run. The servers have sucked up two years of development time thanks to malicious attacks and the hassle of domain name directing. Honestly if we cut the ability to have your own domain, we'd probably have had features that are nearly done released by now. But because of all the Cloudflare domain pointing issues, that's where developer time was spent.

Mobile. There are two: the app in development and the tapatalk app. One has more in it and the other was supposed to be quicker- due to a security flaw it wasn't. I was last told that Tapatalk had reconnected with us and we were close to resolving that issue.

zIFBoards is not in active development and will never return to active development. It is software that is well over ten years old. Even Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7. I would strongly encourage board owners to upgrade to Zetaboards. Bug fixing still occurs but it is difficult and time consuming with this software.

The Resource Database, API and several other features took a backseat to (in order) the server upgrade, Cloudflare protection for the servers, and mobile support. Would we like to see faster results? Of course. But without another full time developer, progress is slow.

As to the staff team- most are more active than they appear. But we've mostly been removing spam, answering tickets and trying to more quickly resolve abuse reports because those are things we can do. We can't develop. So we've directed our energy into other areas of the service.

No one disputes these issues. However, short of a paid development team, this is the reality for the moment. We hope to at least make it easier for our part time developer and certainly my view is the API will allow more self development. But these are the realities we face.
I think there needs to be more in the paid service to make it appealing.

As is, the premium service adds very little in the way of enhancing the forum. From the free 6 months premium given for the downtime (probably not the best idea financially in hindsight) I have not used any of the features as they aren't really enhancing forum or admin cp experience in anyway.

Perhaps ad free bundled in with premium may be more enticing? As well as something that makes premium seem worth it. I'm not sure what that would be. A custom domain name? There must be something good that can be added to premium to encourage more users to buy it.

As for other avenues of money, you can always have a donate button. Even a small amount of donations is something. Plus maybe someone out there who knows coding etc may be willing to offer their services for free like some of the coders here. Or a smaller amount of income.

There's also looking at other advertising options - maybe there is a higher paying advertising service than you are already on. Another idea would be to allow users to add their advertisements to the rotation for a fee. I know a few other board providers do this. Or it could be a feature for premium.

Lastly, if your time is being stretched on the things you mentioned, I would recommend recruiting a member who is on regularly for spam removal - I've noticed that spam can sit there for a few hours or more before it is removed. That at least would free up more time, albeit a little, for other things.
Edited by Chelonian, Mar 9 2017, 07:19 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
skyline.
Member Avatar
Member
[ * ]
Stephen
Feb 22 2017, 01:58 AM
Not to sound like a broken record, but this all comes down to money really. A free service still costs money to run. And features, while great, are no good to anyone if the boards can't run. The servers have sucked up two years of development time thanks to malicious attacks and the hassle of domain name directing. Honestly if we cut the ability to have your own domain, we'd probably have had features that are nearly done released by now. But because of all the Cloudflare domain pointing issues, that's where developer time was spent.

Mobile. There are two: the app in development and the tapatalk app. One has more in it and the other was supposed to be quicker- due to a security flaw it wasn't. I was last told that Tapatalk had reconnected with us and we were close to resolving that issue.

zIFBoards is not in active development and will never return to active development. It is software that is well over ten years old. Even Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7. I would strongly encourage board owners to upgrade to Zetaboards. Bug fixing still occurs but it is difficult and time consuming with this software.

The Resource Database, API and several other features took a backseat to (in order) the server upgrade, Cloudflare protection for the servers, and mobile support. Would we like to see faster results? Of course. But without another full time developer, progress is slow.

As to the staff team- most are more active than they appear. But we've mostly been removing spam, answering tickets and trying to more quickly resolve abuse reports because those are things we can do. We can't develop. So we've directed our energy into other areas of the service.

No one disputes these issues. However, short of a paid development team, this is the reality for the moment. We hope to at least make it easier for our part time developer and certainly my view is the API will allow more self development. But these are the realities we face.
Is there no option to remove some of the old forums which no longer serve any purpose for years now? And the hundred thousands test boards which have no use. Should save some money, no?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JamieMN
Member
[ *  *  * ]
I do agree with Chelonian regarding the Premium. It does come down to money, and that the majority of the Zetaboards Staff (Well, all except one) are volunteers (Which do a cracking job at that). I do think a revamp of the Premium features would make Zetaboards much more appealing and get up to scratch with competitors. Just for some examples, as per the documentation, this is what Premimum has:


  • Larger Board Wrapper - The number of characters allowed in the board wrapper is expanded from 20,000 to 50,000
    Didn't even realise this was a feature.. and I don't think many would really see much use of it, unless it had directly affected them as they have too many characters.

  • PM/Email based topic subscriptions - This expands on the current ZB topic tracking system. Two new options are introduced; Email and PM subscriptions. Members can manage their desired subscriptions via their preferences, or when adding a subscription.
    This is quite forum-specific on what you want, so I haven't got much thoughts on this one. Cool little feature, although I'd have thought it could be a freebie. But I'm not overly fussed about this.

  • Board email frequency - ZB Premium boards will have unrestricted use of the bulk email function.
    This is a feature I was actually hoping to use, until I realised that there's no real way to design the emails sent out. It's just text, no options to use bbcode/html in it etc to make it look good. And for anyone wanting to do so, and make their emails sound/look any kind of professional -- this would limit that. So this would be more appealing if it had the ability to have code included in it to design emails. Although I've seen topics on the reasons, just my thoughts.

  • Updated ZetaBoards copyright - An Admin CP setting will allow you to change your copyright to read : Powered by ZetaBoards Premium.
    This isn't exactly appealing either. Why not remove it? I get the need for advertising and such, but if not for the see Edit History/PM.. I probably wouldn't have invested into Premium. This would be a big thing, if it removed the "Powered by Zetaboards" entirely. The only thing this actually does is tell people "We pay for it to say we pay for it".

  • Removal of the second ad for large boards - The bottom ad on the Index page will be removed. This ad is normally only present on boards that display multiple forum sections on the index page.
    This would be great -- if it removed all ads. You can buy premium but then you still need to buy Ad Removal Credits. I echo the suggestion to remove all ads for anyone who pays Premium.

  • Resource Database - Our new theme and code database is currently exclusively available to ZB Premium members.
    Not online anymore

  • AMT Usage - AMTs will now keep track of the number of times they are run. This can help you remove or improve underutilized AMTs.
  • Admin Digest Length - The Admin Digest covers up to 14 days if you have not visited the board, rather than a single day on our standard service.
  • Admin Digest Availability - The Admin Digest is available to any admin, not just the board owner.
    Not really much thought on these either to be honest.

  • Warning System PM Tracking - Automatic tracking of personal messages sent via the warning system.
    As mentioned about subscriptions. I'd have thought this would be another free feature given it's literally just tracking if the message was sent. But again, this isn't so big of a concern. It's a cool little feature for premium but again -- nothing that'd make me want to buy it.

  • Increased Upload Limit - upload files up to 7MB in size - With yearly subscription only
    This would be more appetising if it was as apart of standard premium monthly payment.


That's just my thoughts on the premium features. I did intentionally miss two off, because they're the only reason I think I'd pay (aside from actually trying to support ZB). The viewing PMs and Edit History is the biggest reason my board paid for premium. Even though we know there are competitors who do it for free, we've been with ZB for 6 years now. We can't really knock it as we have little downtime, it's easy to run and manage.

I personally think -- make Premium more appealing, more interest and money comes in, more time can be put into updating it.

I do think as well that focus should actually be looking to the Zetaboards homepage. The first thing anyone sees when loading up Zetaboards is the "Latest News" which was from 2015. But I was looking earlier and checked Testimonials and most the forums don't even exist. If I was looking to start a forum, it's little things like that I'd look for (That's just me, personally).

I do have to also say that, without people like (Cory/Helena/DaPizzaMan/Joe/Quozzo) and others (They're the ones from the top of my head!), that Zetaboards may not be that appealing in itself because of the time they put in to answer coding requests/graphic requests. Without the Resources that premium offers (I do recall it didn't have much anyway) but the people who volunteer on the board and complete requests are probably helping Zetaboards continue in that perspective as people who don't really know code, or haven't got the means to do graphics. Can ask for help, and get it (Although they'll probably all be sick of seeing my name with requests. :P ).

I actually saw a thread on the RPG-D (Directory for roleplays) which had someone asking "Why does everyone hate Zetaboards?" -- I know everyone uses zetaboards for different reasons, but I do think it's missing out on a big community type by looking into what people who run roleplays want (Again, down to money and time. I get it!) with replies talking about features it misses compared to other free hosts.

That's it, really. I just thought I'd drop my opinion in. Zetaboards is a perfect host for me, but I can understand why it doesn't appeal to a lot of people. :)
Edited by JamieMN, Feb 28 2017, 02:33 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Moonface
Member Avatar


Chelonian
Feb 26 2017, 02:02 PM
There's also looking at other advertising options - maybe there is a high paying advertising service than you are already on. Another idea would be to allow users to add their advertisements to the rotation for a fee. I know a few other board providers do this. Or it could be a feature for premium.
I'd actually find that an advertisement that's useful and worth caring for, and probably the only time I would ever click on an ad on this service.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Stephen
Member Avatar
Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall.

skyline.
Feb 28 2017, 02:06 PM
Is there no option to remove some of the old forums which no longer serve any purpose for years now? And the hundred thousands test boards which have no use. Should save some money, no?
To be honest, that really wouldn't solve the cost issue. We stopped expanding the number of machines several years ago. Also while some may have a different number, they share the same machine. Deleting test boards could delete hosted codes, themes and graphics so that is not something we would risk.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
spiiike
Member
[ *  *  *  * ]
A bug I ran into today, but you got 4 years to fix :P

Apparently, Zeta doesn't recognise leap year birthdays? It didn't show up for one of my members today and theirs is a leap year birthday.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Revillution.net
Member
[ *  *  * ]
I like the idea of complete ad-removal for premium boards. If that occurs, perhaps premium powered boards can have adult content on them since there will be no ads in place? Similar to the premium service used by Jcink? I could see this being particularly useful for roleplaying forums on ZetaBoards. :)
Edited by Revillution.net, Jun 15 2017, 10:27 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ennui
Member Avatar
Member
[ *  * ]
There are a few minor things that need fixing (like pre moderation notification) but I just wanted to say that Zetaboards is great. Since we started using Cloudflare the forum has hardly crashed. If you want a simple reliable forum then Zetaboards is a good choice.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Service Discussion and Feedback · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1