Quote from Index

I like the thing in vBulletin where you can open the individual pages of the forum and edit the code. does phpbb have that? I remember the admin panel just having a lot less stuff, and it took me forever to figure out how to install.

Quote from Jeff

It's most likely just personal preference. I've never seen vBulletin as anything other than a mediocre bulletin board system that somebody wants me to pay them for. Being free doesn't make something lesser in quality, and it should be noted that phpbb is an open source project, which means you've generally got excellent documentation and a large community working to support each other. Being open source allows me as a programmer to easily integrate phpbb into my site without draining time, and even taking the whole system a step further by writing my own mods for it. You could do the same with vBulletin, but I doubt it would be as fast or efficient. Besides, most "professional" companies don't use any pre-made forum system, they all program their own, which is a step I'd like to take in the future. vBulletin just seems like it's there so someone can look down their nose at someone else using a free solution as if cost is a factor in how good something is.

Beyond that, it's hard to argue that vBulletin has a better system for administration and moderation, and as an administrator that's what's most important to me. Nothing in vBulletin is clearly outlined. When I first IP banned someone I had to google how to do it because there was no clear-cut "IP BAN" option under any heading. Instead you have battle the god-awful admin panel layout that uses bloody iframes to get to Options, and then browse a giant SELECT list of shit you can customize, find the User Banning Options, and then go to the page and add whatever you want to that list. The list doesn't give you any information beyond what IPs are listed, so I can't see why certain IPs were banned, and I can't see who added them.

This is how I feel it is like for every seemingly little feature on vBulletin. You have to jump through 50 hoops to get shit done, which ends up making administrating the forums very counter-intuitive. I don't even have access to reliable logs more than half the time, so it's hard to look back at events when a problem comes out. Even if phpbb may seem outwardly cheap to some (which it really shouldn't), their admin panel alone is worth installing it.

I ranted a lot more than I planned on but fuck this admin panel shit is getting to me.

Quote from Ahmad9383

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