Why does everybody hate forumotion?

HawkPokemon

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I've been using forumotion for 2 years and it seems fine for me. So why does mostly everyone on here hate it? Can't I find a promotion forum where people can help me with forumotion forums instead of telling me to switch hosts?
 
You can try the official support forum for forumotion.

Why people hate forumotion :

1. They got banned or a warning from the support forum.
2. They don't like the limitations forumotion offers.
3. They act like (censored by me) because they're using another host.
4. They don't like phpBB2 coding.
 
The limitations of Forumotion is probably the main reason, if you just look at the technical aspect. Only recently did they introduce "global announcements" whereas the REAL PhpBB had it for over 7 years now. If you want things like transferring forum cash, the admin needs to go to their admin panel to transfer cash; users can't transfer, not even moderators/team leaders.

In fact, they are not even running on a real version of PhpBB; it has several snippets of other softwares such as vBulletin, SMF and IPB. You are not able to install modifications; you must ask the Support Forum, but even then you may not even get it, even with popular support.

Domains with them cost over $20 and there are strict requirements as to if you can transfer the domain. You can't edit the interface structure of their alleged PhpBB3, only the outdated PhpBB2 and PunBB.

Because they have hundreds of thousands of forums on their servers, any one site over using resources can force the whole server down, thus your site will go down as well.

Security wise, if you are spammed with 500 spam posts, you must delete them one by one; you can't even delete the member to delete the posts. The list goes on...

Infernhawk said:
Forumotion has punbb, invisionfree, phpbb2, and phpbb3
They are not REAL copies of those versions; they are all edited copies of different softwares.
 
These are the only real things that bother me:

If you want things like transferring forum cash, the admin needs to go to their admin panel to transfer cash; users can't transfer, not even moderators/team leaders.

And...

Security wise, if you are spammed with 500 spam posts, you must delete them one by one; you can't even delete the member to delete the posts. The list goes on...

I defienetly agree
 
DavidL said:
The limitations of Forumotion is probably the main reason, if you just look at the technical aspect. Only recently did they introduce "global announcements" whereas the REAL PhpBB had it for over 7 years now. If you want things like transferring forum cash, the admin needs to go to their admin panel to transfer cash; users can't transfer, not even moderators/team leaders.

In fact, they are not even running on a real version of PhpBB; it has several snippets of other softwares such as vBulletin, SMF and IPB. You are not able to install modifications; you must ask the Support Forum, but even then you may not even get it, even with popular support.

Domains with them cost over $20 and there are strict requirements as to if you can transfer the domain. You can't edit the interface structure of their alleged PhpBB3, only the outdated PhpBB2 and PunBB.

Because they have hundreds of thousands of forums on their servers, any one site over using resources can force the whole server down, thus your site will go down as well.

Security wise, if you are spammed with 500 spam posts, you must delete them one by one; you can't even delete the member to delete the posts. The list goes on...

Infernhawk said:
Forumotion has punbb, invisionfree, phpbb2, and phpbb3
They are not REAL copies of those versions; they are all edited copies of different softwares.

I used Forumotion as my first host in 2008, and if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times over the years: I hate them with a passion. More Forumotion hosted sites seem to get hacked over the summer months than just about any other host out there. Why? Because they lack in necessary security measures, making your site vulnerable to hackers. I don't recall ever having the server issue, DavidL, when did this start happening, or has this always been a problem? I remember a friend of mine saying he once had a forum hosted on them, and his site got shut down by the host because he was hit with a lot of spam. Well, not having the means that advanced hosting or even real free forum hosts does to clean the spam up, his site got shut down for violations of their TOS, and he didn't even do anything wrong and was planning and trying to clean up the mess! So in actuality, they are really strict about certain situations. Also, that is NOT real phpBB3. Some newbie forum owners think it is, but in actuality, it's not. It's just a seriously modified phpBB2, and it's crap. Also, the ACP looks as though it was thrown together in about five minutes. Not very attractive at all in any shape or form.
 
I don't recall ever having the server issue, DavidL, when did this start happening, or has this always been a problem? I remember a friend of mine saying he once had a forum hosted on them, and his site got shut down by the host because he was hit with a lot of spam.

I never said it happened, but it certainly can. I was more alluding to early 2010 when Forumotion had transferred all forums to IBM servers. The transfer was not a complete success with many forums losing hundreds if not thousands of posts and members, and this was a result of high usage of the many forums on their previous servers.
 
DavidL said:
I don't recall ever having the server issue, DavidL, when did this start happening, or has this always been a problem? I remember a friend of mine saying he once had a forum hosted on them, and his site got shut down by the host because he was hit with a lot of spam.

I never said it happened, but it certainly can. I was more alluding to early 2010 when Forumotion had transferred all forums to IBM servers. The transfer was not a complete success with many forums losing hundreds if not thousands of posts and members, and this was a result of high usage of the many forums on their previous servers.

Ah, okay, that makes more sense. It seems to me that that's what happens when you try to move that many people over at once! I know I for one would not go back to them for anything. And really, more because of the security issues more than anything, I'm actually seriously reluctant to join any forum that's hosted with Forumotion anymore. That's not to say that I would NEVER join a forum hosted on them again, but I'm always a bit leery once I find out who that forum's hosted with, although if they have one of the subdomains and not a TLD, then that can be a bit of a giveaway right there. I still firmly believe that content is more important than looks and security measures when it comes to forums in general, but when it's a host that lacks security measures to that length, well, I'll be a bit reluctant to join up with that community, no matter how good it looks.
 
What I hate the most is lack of flexibility/customization.
That's on top of the Database control.

Looking at your current forum for example, I hate all those things listed down the left side.

I could be wrong, since I've never really used Forumotion, but every Forumotion forum I've seen so far, all look exactly the same because of that.

There's no originality/creativity.

There's several great "FREE" forum software out there.
You're better off using one of these free software with a properly paid host.
 
Aki-P said:
What I hate the most is lack of flexibility/customization.
That's on top of the Database control.

Looking at your current forum for example, I hate all those things listed down the left side.

I could be wrong, since I've never really used Forumotion, but every Forumotion forum I've seen so far, all look exactly the same because of that.

There's no originality/creativity.

There's several great "FREE" forum software out there.
You're better off using one of these free software with a properly paid host.

That's true. On Forumotion, you are very restricted as to how nice you can make your site look. All they have are the free themes to choose from, and even if you find one that a lot of people like, you can't do anything as far as customizing it. You can't change the imagesets, you can't change background colors, none of it. So it's very hard to make your forum look unique on that host, since you don't have Cpanel or other necessary tools needed to customize the theme to your hearts content.
 
Limitations would be the main reason I'm not fond of Forumotion. It was frustrating to know I couldn't change certain aspects because they wouldn't let me.
 
Forumotion is slow. They never update anything.

Look at the suggestion forum for forumotion. There are basic things in there that phpbb has from years ago.
 
What I'd suggest is take advantage of Amazon's Free 1 Year VPS for new customers:
http://aws.amazon.com/free/

Yes, you would probably still require a credit card.
Hopefully an older sibling, parent, or guardian is willing to let you use theirs if you're under aged.
There would be no charge for 1 year.

You'll be able to explore using your own server and the better forum softwares: MyBB, phpBB, SMF, and whatever else is out there.

For me, once I used real hosting, I just couldn't go back to the free garbage. It's a huge difference.

If your website can succeed, you may be able to generate back revenue with something like Google or Yahoo ads, and the site would pretty much pay for itself.
 
Aki-P said:
What I'd suggest is take advantage of Amazon's Free 1 Year VPS for new customers:
http://aws.amazon.com/free/

Yes, you would probably still require a credit card.
Hopefully an older sibling, parent, or guardian is willing to let you use theirs if you're under aged.
There would be no charge for 1 year.

You'll be able to explore using your own server and the better forum softwares: MyBB, phpBB, SMF, and whatever else is out there.

For me, once I used real hosting, I just couldn't go back to the free garbage. It's a huge difference.

If your website can succeed, you may be able to generate back revenue with something like Google or Yahoo ads, and the site would pretty much pay for itself.

or use crunch-host.com and get a free vps for life
 
WarStopper said:
or use crunch-host.com and get a free vps for life
Free for life sounds pretty darn shady.

The only "FREE" services from there I can see are post for host, and from my experience they're never much better than any other "Free" host out there either.

You still can't beat a properly paid host with any Free services.
 
Just like any other free forum site, because it has extreme limitations. Why use it when you can just get a free software and pay 10 dollars for a domain, or if you can't afford 10 dollars, you can work for it in a contest or something somewhere on the internet. Point is, there's no reason to use a free forum. They suck in every way possible
 
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