Why does everybody hate forumotion?

[Kaynil]

'Everybody' is a strong word, but I guess the majority do hate it. I also get "switch" from them a lot if I am asking for any opinion.

FM is good in its own for a free service, but I have reach the point where I am seeing a point of getting my own database, which now I can't. Every year they put advs forced to everyone or do some weird stuff and won't tell with time, instead let it sneak like a bug. Unless many join to complain, the change is to stay.

I chose FM for the easy to work, the moderation and customization (I came from proboards), etc. I missed the multi-skins but I felt happy with all the new stuff. I specially loved the registration with few details. Now, in their Spanish version they made an alliance with canal mail (mailing 'offers') and the registration ask personal questions, and even repeats. It is annoying, so I never put the interface in Spanish by default with them. >.>)

IF they would tell you things staright, I would defend them more than now, but it really grind my gears to be minimized and treated as dolls. "some bug" when you see deliberated changes in your AC panel. That aside, I dound taht for a free forum it is flexible.

I am sure that if I had a forum out in MyBB or something I would also wouldn't want to look back. I tried brieftly MyBB and we really don't know what you can expect fro free until downloading a completely free for use software and not a self-hosted.

I have a nice database, and I wish I could get it and move. But FM has acted against crawlers and now they cannot steal templates or email address of the members list.

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.

Maybe it is a change for after 2008 but actually I recall you can change colours and images through the interface of the Admin panel, and also many people offer tutorial on Css to modify theappearance. Of course, I agree there is not comparison to having access to the files and doing things directly, but it is not like we can't change the images or modify its look.

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In the end, you may know me for typically jump in defend of FM, I accept its flaws, but I find some people hate it just for the sake of it and downright minimize the people that use them as dumb. For a change and following the thread I felt like venting about what I don't like.

 

[shamzblueworld]

There are few limitations that puts them down but I also feel they are very good for a free host and support is fine too. I used them for my first ever forum and the experience was good. I'll recommend forumotion to newbies.

 

[Connor L]

I'll admit I started on a free host similar to forumotion. I used MyFreeForum.org back in the day, but there are several reason why forumotion is bad. It's extremely cluttered, it's annoying to even visit a forumotion forum, you get there and see a random pop up asking you to either register or login, is that not annoying? It's extremely annoying. I also can't stand the lack of work people seem to actually put into their communities when they run on forumotion.

 

[shamzblueworld]

LOL! but the administrator of the forum can easily turn it off dude, that is not a reason. But yes your second point is reasonable, people using forumotion rarely work to make it better, I know a few who do that or did when I was there but it is rare mainly because forumotion dont give much liberty to code or develop and that is their biggest downfall.

 

[Naiwen]

because forumotion kinda sucks in terms of software?

 

[Kaynil]

I dislike that login pop up, I used to think it was a 'must' too, and that was the way to recognize a forumotion forum, but I am happy there are now many forums that will not activate this feature. It is too intrusive as it keeps coming back each page you load.

I also can't stand the lack of work people seem to actually put into their communities when they run on forumotion.

I don't think that it's Forumotion Flaw, the lack of work people put in their communities. I've seen plenty of vBulletin communities that are with the default skin, to the point they don't even take the logo out. Lazy admin are everywhere, so are inexpert people. The only reason it shows more in FM is because it is so easy to create a forum for free - you don't pay for the host nor have to spend time installing and manually setting it up - so many people create one... just because. Without a goal for them, or for testing purposes. I know what you mean though, it is discouraging many good names are taken with a abandoned forum that didn't even take the 'first thread' post down. However, If you are not going by their directory but through promotion sites like this one, you will find that people announcing will put effort into their communities the majority of the time. Even through the directory the top they have, will show the more active, or with more content or members registered either 3 last months or overall. So if you care to search for a good community in FM it is ]not hard to find them..

I also find unfair that some people say 'you don't put effort' when they are simply unsatisfied with our coding or graphics skills. We can be trying our best and still be no match to some other forums, but that depends on the person, I've seen pretty cool themes and community ideas around. I think it is unfair to leash a reputation on 'everybody' about how much we care or not on our community simply for the 'software' we chose for.

 

[Naiwen]

I dislike that login pop up, I used to think it was a 'must' too, and that was the way to recognize a forumotion forum, but I am happy there are now many forums that will not activate this feature. It is too intrusive as it keeps coming back each page you load.

I also can't stand the lack of work people seem to actually put into their communities when they run on forumotion.

I don't think that it's Forumotion Flaw, the lack of work people put in their communities. I've seen plenty of vBulletin communities that are with the default skin, to the point they don't even take the logo out. Lazy admin are everywhere, so are inexpert people. The only reason it shows more in FM is because it is so easy to create a forum for free - you don't pay for the host nor have to spend time installing and manually setting it up - so many people create one... just because. Without a goal for them, or for testing purposes. I know what you mean though, it is discouraging many good names are taken with a abandoned forum that didn't even take the 'first thread' post down. However, If you are not going by their directory but through promotion sites like this one, you will find that people announcing will put effort into their communities the majority of the time. Even through the directory the top they have, will show the more active, or with more content or members registered either 3 last months or overall. So if you care to search for a good community in FM it is ]not hard to find them..

I also find unfair that some people say 'you don't put effort' when they are simply unsatisfied with our coding or graphics skills. We can be trying our best and still be no match to some other forums, but that depends on the person, I've seen pretty cool themes and community ideas around. I think it is unfair to leash a reputation on 'everybody' about how much we care or not on our community simply for the 'software' we chose for.

me too kaynil, I immensely hate that.

 

[tronik]

I'll tell you why I hate forumotion, because you can't use a TLD domain. Also, I'm not sure if you can even get a backup of the DB if you wanted to move your forum from forumotion without starting over.

 

[Kaynil]

I'll tell you why I hate forumotion, because you can't use a TLD domain. Also, I'm not sure if you can even get a backup of the DB if you wanted to move your forum from forumotion without starting over.

I am using a TLD, they gave it to em for free as a Xmas gift for our activity points. You can also purchase one at any given time.
The database is true, by ToS you cannot take the database as it belongs to them.