I've come back to these boards with good intentions to start helping people with phpBB like I used to and to catch up on what I've missed while I've been using another (commercial) forum software, and as I look around the ideas section and the suggestions forum, and in the responses above, I'm seeing a recurring theme: I know this is hard to hear so I apologize for any hurt feelings, but I think phpBB has a serious cultural problem of telling people how to use their forum that's used as a club to hit anyone who suggests new features, and that this is what is holding some development back and causing phpBB to lose market-share.
Example 1: WYSIWYG
When people ask for WYSWYG here, which has been happening since way back in phpBB2, often argument against it is basically "Well,
I don't like it." Look, the people who post on phpBB are generally admins and power users who know how coding works. But the average forum Joe user is probably going to be used to formatting in Microsoft Word (i.e. visually) and their needs are not the same as ours. To paraphrase that fireworks stand scene in
Joe Dirt, it's not about what you like, it's about
the consumer.
When people ask for WYSIWYG they're probably asking for the
option, not to completely replace the traditional phpBB posting method. The other forum I'm using now gives users
both WYSIWYG and BBode options and they can just chose which they prefer. Choice is good! Now I can accommodate more types of users.
"Why not both" - little girl in Taco commercial
Example 2: Anonymize Moderation on Post Edit Time line
In
this idea thread, it's suggested that moderator edits be changed to "moderator" instead of specific user names. Instead of considering this as a configurable
option for admins who don't want their moderators to get harassed (it happens) some of the responses are basically "the solution is to run your forum the way I run it."
Example 3: This Thread
Push notifications? Nah, I visit my boards(s) regularly, that's what they're there for. If everybody sat waiting for notifications to pop up nobody would ever visit.
A lot of my users are really big on email notifications, to the point where if they don't get an email (due to a mail system error or something), they don't check the forum. But everyone's got smartphones now and email has become a unwanted middleman between my forum and their phone's notification system. The point is that how you use your forum isn't true for everyone and we need to anticipate future (or current) trends better.
Summary
In summary, (and please don't take this as an insult because it's not intended to be one) I feel like you guys attitudes are stifling innovation and I'd like to see phpBB be more receptive to new ideas. I love phpBB and I've been with you guys for a long time, but I've also watched as phpBB has been slowly eclipsed by other forum softwares in terms of capabilities and user experience. To reverse this trend, we on the phpBB forums just need to be more encouraging instead of disparaging. Instead of "that idea isn't any good," how about "here's how we can make this workable." There's been huge improvements with 3.1 and 3.2 and if we want phpBB to thrive we're going to need bigger and better options and capabilities for 3.3!