vBulletin vs. IPS, from your average user's perspective.

[Endersmens]

So, it's been a few days since the forums got migrated to the new forum hosting software, IPS. Many of you are displeased, some of you like it, and some of you don't care. However, I'm going to try to put together the best comparison between the two that I can. I consider myself somewhat unbiased, since I have participated in many other forums on different softwares than vBulletin, so I'm not a fanboy. And I've also never been on an IPS forum, which means this is all new to me. So, here goes:

NOTE: This comparison isn't just IPS vs. vBulletin. This is a comparison between what we had with vBulletin on the KSP forums and what we have now with IPS on the KSP forums. 

Firstly, lets compare just the main features. No opinions here, just a direct comparison between the two.

Feature:	vBulletin	IPS
WYSIWYG editor.	Yes, although buggy. (Backspace would delete all the characters since the last format change)	Yes, and not buggy.
BBcode in editor.	Yes, there was a BBcode only mode, edits and unposted quotes still contained the code.	Yes. You can use BBcode in the editor. The only drawback is that once it is posted it is converted into WYSIWYG. (excludes certain codes like tables)
Reputation.	Yes. Rep power was determined by post count and rep given, maxed at 5 per rep. You couldn't give rep to the same person until repping 5 or so others, and couldn't give out more than 10 per 24 hours.	Yes. Rep power is 1, but there are no limits besides you can't replike the same post twice.
Notifications upon being quoted or mentioned:	No.	Yes, and they are configurable and can be turned on or off.
Ability to keep up with your friends:	Sort of, by becoming friends with someone their posts would pop up in your feed.	Yes, you can "follow" users and keep up with them.
Thread subscription notifications:	Sort of. Sometimes failed to work, especially email notifications.	Yes, can be configured. Not sure about email updates yet.
Search:	Yes, but it was terrible unless you knew exactly which 17 options to choose to find the content you want.	Haven't tested, please give your experiences with the search feature.
Blogs:	Yes.	Sort of. You can post "Updates" to your profile, although not in a specified place like a blog.
"Who's Online" list	Yes, and in nice alphabetical order.	Yes, but random, extremely hard to check if someone's online using only this.

That's all I can think of for now for the basic feature differences and important points. Now for opinions.

Styling:

vBulletin: It looked OK, but a bit on the older side. Wide body text, fills up 16:9 aspect ratio.

IPS: I kind of like it a bit. Of course, I have the style addon that you can find [url=http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126808-made-a-user-style-to-increase-forum-contrast-and-available-space/]here, which makes contrast better and widens it to fill screen space. By default there is a lot of space on the sides of the forum, as the entire screen is not used. However the addon I linked works to fix this.

Editor:

vBulletin: WYSIWYG was a bit broken, upon hitting backspace it would delete all text that was typed since the last format change. BBcode was ok, if a bit time consuming.

IPS: WYSIWYG works well as intended, and is easy to use. BBcode is still an option for those who prefer it.

Reputation:

vBulletin: I liked the old system. You could give up to 5 rep per user post, and there were restrictions in place to prevent rep spamming. 

IPS: Only one rep point per like slows things down from the old system, and isn't totally offset by the no limits on repping someone. You can go rep every post they're ever made in one day if you've got the time. Just not the same post twice.

Thread Pages:

vBulletin: default was 10 posts per page. Made it easy to gauge how many posts were in a thread by looking at the page number. It also made it easy to scroll to the top and bottom of the thread, while still allowing a good bit of reading before clicking to the next page.

IPS: Default is 25 posts per page. This means less "next page" clicks, but it also means its a workout to scroll to the top or bottom of a thread with over 15 replies.

 

Well, that's all I got off the top of my head. If you've got something else to add, let me know! If I think the same thing, or if it's just blatantly obvious, I will add it. For me, the ultimate conclusion is this: I was skeptical at first, but its growing on me. I miss a few features of the old forum, but I also very much like the features of this new forum.

Well? What do you think?

Edited December 4, 2015 by Endersmens
Fixed formatting.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

What do I think?

IPS4 is decent. We get basic BBCode and WYSIWYG. Though I want full BBCode plz. The style by default is ugly, please, do kill it with fire. The reason I'm calm about that is because I'm using that Stylish addon for the forum. Reputation? Make it actually feel like the reputation I remembered from November. None of the "Like this" crap or anything. I want my bars and funny texts for rep back! Thread pages? Meh, don't really care. The notifications are nice, wish vBulletin had 'em.

 

Just wish for some visual updates to this, to make it look less "Facebook-y". Would like some change so that it says "Give some Rep!" instead of "Like this". 

 

 

And.

Please.

Give.

Me.

My.

BBCode!!!

[Endersmens]

25 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

And.

Please.

Give.

Me.

My.

BBCode!!!

There is almost full BBcode support. The only thing's I've found missing are tables and mayble videos and thread links. 

[mythbusters844]

Actually, there's a 24 hour rep limit of about ten or so.

Edited December 4, 2015 by mythbusters844

[steve_v]

Yeah, BBCode kinda works now, so I'll just revise that a touch

1 hour ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

And.

Please.

Give.

Me.

Let me see.

My.

BBCode!!!

It's cool that BBCode works, it's very uncool that we can't see it in BBCode once it's been parsed - this makes editing a complete pain.
Relentlessly campaigning for a non-WYSIWYG editor since new forum launch, and unlikely to stop any time soon.
 

I agree with everything else you mentioned too... KSP forums should not try to ape faceborg, it comes off as cheap and generic.

Edited December 4, 2015 by steve_v

[Endersmens]

@steve_v Yeah, the auto-perma parsing is a bit of a turn off, but at least it still works.  

[Hobbes Novakoff]

15 hours ago, Endersmens said:

There is almost full BBcode support. The only thing's I've found missing are tables and mayble videos and thread links. 

Tables work, thread links work (and are glorious in my opinion), and videos work too! Thread links and video links are auto-parsed, tables are super easy, and they can have titles! Examples:

Spoiler

Or, say, your post that I quoted:

Tables work too! And they have titles!

Look at my caption!

And	My
Far	Easier
To edit	Table!

Also quite like it!

 

Videos embed too! Just paste the link!

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I agree.  These things all match my experience, and the more I've played around with IPS the more I've liked it.

Here's how I've thought of IPS as I got used to it:
Ahhh!  IT'S DIFFERENT! My threads are all messed up!  Things are gone!

Oh, wait, it now has BBCode, my threads weren't the hard to fix, I could get an activity stream to work like before.

Hey, look at all these neat features!  A lot of stuff it better and more powerful, even if I miss some old stuff.

In short: It's grown on me.

[Tex_NL]

@Endersmens
EVERY negative you posted that table about vBulletin does work properly!

Reputation limitation all depends on settings. It can be changed IF you're willing to change the settings.
Notification on quote? There are mods for that. And they do work IF you're willing to install them.
Notifications in general also works. I KNOW it works on other fora. Why it never worked here is beyond me.

But since we're already getting used being force-fed bugs, errors, half finished and completely illogical features we're stuck with it. If only we had a feature to kill the WYSIWYG it might eventually grow on people.
Until that time I'll do my best to keep from vomiting.

[Endersmens]

@Tex_NL, those weren't for the software itself. Those were for the KSP forums specifically. You can't compare them based on what they can do, but on what they will do on the KSP forums. Does that make more sense? I should probably specify that somewhere on the OP...  

[Hobbes Novakoff]

1 hour ago, Tex_NL said:

If only we had a feature to kill the WYSIWYG it might eventually grow on people

What, you want to go back to an archaic method of formatting that's completely user-unfriendly and requires memorization of thirty different codes? The WYSIWYG editor can do everything BBCode can. There are two things that BBCode can do that this editor can't. Embed sketchfab models (Though Kasper is currently looking into this, so we should see it in a few weeks), and title spoilers. That's it. And the new editor can do far more. Table titles. Indents. Superscript and subscript. Far more font size options. Mentioning people. Links to other parts of the forum are auto-parsed and display the thread title, user, and number of replies. Not to mention, the new editor is far quicker to use and nicer-looking. Why anyone would ever want to use BBCode is completely beyond me.

Also, @Endersmens, There is a limit of 25 rep-likes per day that can be given out by each person. This actually means you can give out half as much rep as before, as on Vbulletin you could give out 50 points per day (5 points times 10 reps). 

[steve_v]

33 minutes ago, Hobbes Novakoff said:

What, you want to go back...

YES

I'm sure this WYSIWYG thing is all "modern" or something, it's also really bloody annoying. Please provide a way to turn it off.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

1 minute ago, steve_v said:

YES

I'm sure this WYSIWYG thing is all "modern" or something, it's also really bloody annoying. Please provide a way to turn it off.

What's so annoying about it? I honestly want to know.

[n.b.z.]

[Tex_NL]

1 hour ago, Hobbes Novakoff said:

What's so annoying about it? I honestly want to know.

What's annoying about it is that it does not do what we want it to do. All we want is the ability to opt-out and type our code manually if and whenever we want to.

For people who know the codes and are familiar with them typing everything manually is often the faster and easier option.

Edited December 5, 2015 by DuoDex

[n.b.z.]

I can understand a preference for the more powerful, direct, technical way of doing things. A bit like comparing point-and-click interfaces to a command line: the fact that many people seem to prefer the "easy" route does not diminish the arguments speaking for the console.

As such, the wish for an opt-out is perfectly reasonable.

The "illiterate mob" part, however, seems to relate literacy with personal taste or preference, as as someone personally preferring the WYSIWYG way, I'm slightly less inclined to agree. I'm not complaining however, as I linked the "space bar heating" XKCD, which may sound like I'm accusing people who like BBCode of being the sort of weirdo in that comic.

Which I'm not, for the record. Apologies if that came across as... erm... less than constructive.

 

[Virtualgenius]

In three words

I HATE IT 

I hope they didnt pay for it 

Edited December 5, 2015 by Virtualgenius

[Hobbes Novakoff]

1 hour ago, Tex_NL said:

What's annoying about it is that it does not do what we I want it to do. 

Like what? I personally can't think of an example.

[Columbia]

2 hours ago, Hobbes Novakoff said:

Like what? I personally can't think of an example.

Let me quote @5thHorseman;

"Quote someone, and cut their quote into 5 pieces so you can answer them inline, in turn. Bonus points if you can do it without using your mouse.

Post no text but 3 YouTube videos. Then, change your mind and put the bottom one on the top.

Post a table and then later on change whether or not it's bordered, or how many columns it has.

Some of this can be done in the new forum. Some of it can't. All of it is easier if you have access to the source code.

Note: This is just the stuff I've noticed in the past day or so, of fairly limited forum use. I'm not even bringing up how hard it is to format my Squadcast Summaries now because I'd have to highlight a whole bunch of stuff and manually change the color to green over and over, instead of a quick and simple search/replace in Notepad++ before copy/pasting the workable code into the forum. Well okay I did mention it but I understand it's an edge case so am fine with just not doing it aymore. The things I posted above, on the other hand, are things you could want to do on a regular basis."

In other news, I don't know how to transfer quotes from one post to another. Anyone know how?

Edited December 5, 2015 by Columbia

[Bill Phil]

3 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

What's annoying about it is that it does not do what we want it to do. All we want is the ability to opt-out and type our code manually if and whenever we want to.

For people who know the codes and are familiar with them typing everything manually is often the faster and easier option.

*citation needed

And also, that's for people who do know how to use BBcode. I was forced to learn. Did I like that? Nope. Not at all. And you know what, I always had trouble using it. It's a clunky system. Granted, it has advantages, but I want to know what I'm doing as opposed to having to edit posts thirty times to do what I want.

*This is my experience, I can only speak for myself.

[Columbia]

Also, while I am personally not having a very pleasant experience, I must admit: Imgur album embedding is much less burdenous and head-scratching, especially to learn. In vBulletin the code wasn't too easy to remember but in IPS there's a button.

Also, it looks much more pleasant. The albums, I mean.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Columbia

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

And also, that's for people who do know how to use BBcode. I was forced to learn.

Who forced you to learn BBCode? The old forum had a wysiwyg mode. To do anything useful you had to use BBCode, sure, but the same is true now on this forum. Except you don't have the option to.

[Endersmens]

1 minute ago, 5thHorseman said:

Who forced you to learn BBCode? The old forum had a wysiwyg mode. To do anything useful you had to use BBCode, sure, but the same is true now on this forum. Except you don't have the option to.

WYSIWYG mode on the old forum was broken. Upon hitting backspace it would delete everything typed since the last format change. So if I were to hit backspace after typing the last sentence, it would erase everything back to where I switched to italics.

Also, I hope you've read my PM, BBCode still works on this forum!

[Bill Phil]

1 minute ago, 5thHorseman said:

Who forced you to learn BBCode? The old forum had a wysiwyg mode. To do anything useful you had to use BBCode, sure, but the same is true now on this forum. Except you don't have the option to.

There was WYSIWYG? Do you mean the buttons? Yeah, but those didn't even work all that well. If I backspaced after using italics on a previous word, it would go back to that word.

And to multi quote took a few minutes to write QUOTE everywhere. And images were things I couldn't figure out. I'm glad for the new forums, much easier to use on that front.

[Endersmens]

@Bill Phil, no, there was a button to switch to WYSIWYG mode, where ctrl+b would bold and such. But it was broken as we've both stated, and frustrating to use. Very, very frustrating to use.