On NulledBB: My Arrogant Opinion

I get that starting off yelling isn't gonna be productive, so I'm going to try to be civil here. To give a bit of background on me, I've been a website admin for over 8 years. Currently using XenForo off-shore, used SMF 2.0.x before that, and vB 4.2.x before that. I came here to download vBulletin 4.2.x for posterity's sake because I have a big soft spot for that forum software both as an admin and as a user, and also because I don't want to give Internet Brands any money. (There's a good reason the XF team left IB.)

But what do I run into when I come here? "YOU NEED TO REGISTER." Ok... Fine. I guess I understand. So I register. Go back to the resources threads. "THREAD IS LOCKED. YOU CAN'T DOWNLOAD." What? I click on the rules to maybe find some explanation, and I do, thankfully. Turns out, you guys want me to be an active user. But I don't wanna be an active user. Why? I don't like your rules. I'm huge on freedom of speech. Just who I am since I'm one of those people who came from the TOTSE community all those years ago. Regardless though, I don't think I'm a good fit for your site.

But I can't download... Now, you may say, "Cry some more. We don't care." That could be a response, and you know what? Fair enough. At the end of the day, this is your site, not mine. Your content, not mine. But if you want ACTIVE USERS, then you gotta be at least a little diplomatic. I know that you have a very low opinion on what you call, "leechers." People who come in just for the downloads and nothing else. Again, understandable, but if we're really gonna get into this, you are ALL leechers as well, because as shitty as Internet Brands is, vB is still THEIR software, not yours.

You have removed copyright protections on it and have posted it up for download on your site. Which is actually fine. I don't have an issue with that for obvious reasons. But then, you try to, in a way, DRM your own pirated content, except people apparently need to pay for it in posts and attention instead of money. Although I see you still have a cash shop as well. Don't you guys think this is a LITTLE hypocritical? I get that you want people here of course. You want them to give you all a chance (or else you would not have blockaded the downloads as you did) and I sympathize greatly and am willing to evaluate your site. I'm always on the lookout for good communities after all.

But on the other hand, your site rules are not set up for broad appeal. "No trolling"? How do you know someone's trolling? I could really get into them a lot more but it's not really important to what I'm trying to get at here. Again, it wouldn't matter at all if you had just allowed downloads to registered users and left it at that, but you have explicitly asked people to come onto here and participate in the community. Fine.

Well here's me participating.

I don't like your site. I think it's hypocritical that you're forcing people to be active users just to have access to downloads, and I don't like your community rules. What you do with this thread and me is up to you now.

Hello,

Appreciate the feedback on your experience on the forums, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I did notice you implied that the team members here post download links and that we're basically responsible for those etc based on your usage of the word You when this thread is directed toward members of the staff team.

Anyone including you can sign up and share a download link using the hide tags, when someone uses credits and unlocks it you get credits. Meaning you can skip commenting/sharing if you don't want to. In other words, it's a give-and-take procedure, you don't want to share content that is hosted anywhere apart from here? (see what I'm saying there, we don't host content, nor do WE stripe and leak every download ever seen on this website) then you can contribute by making a few posts here and there. We don't like people coming here to just download stuff and leave when members of the community have contributed by sharing these download links.

Quote:You have removed copyright protections on it and have posted it up for download on your site.

You mean our members as mentioned above. People have shared content (download links) that is in no way, shape, or form hosted by us.

All Rules on our forum are basis of what not to do, staff have their own discretion when reviewing posts such as trolling etc and can act on their own discretion. If a member of staff warns someone for trolling etc they can appeal it and I'll likely be the one to review it. We try to have multiple staff members review reports and decide together based on a conversation how to proceed where possible.

The honest truth of the matter falls down to if you don't like how this website operates you can leave, we're not going to hold you hostage and make you stay. We have a fairly simple process of contribute and download (give and take), if you don't want to be part of that then don't be. Not really sure how what else can be said in that regard since it is what it is and won't change. It's been this way since the forum was founded, it was this way on our older forum boards and won't change. In order to avoid a flame war I'm going to lock this thread. Simply because I don't see anything productive coming from it. If you feel you want to continue this or have the last word as it were you can send me a message on the forums. Like you said though you don't like our site or our rules etc that's fine not much I can do there to facilitate one member, you can log out and leave the community. As I said before we're not holding you hostage and making you stay on the forums.