Who's Who, and What's What?
I'm looking to go hog wild learning one dating/community platform and I'd just like to get an accurate read as to how mature and stable the 6.1 platform is. I understand 7 is not even RC yet so I can't rely on it for some time, but I look forward to the day. And I hear of some major overhaul already coming after that. Sounds good, but that has to be completely beyond my radar view for the moment.
Anyway, I see a lot of what I might consider "obvious" defects in 6.1 and I know I'm not alone; I see similar posts in the forum but they seem to go largely ignored. My concern is that although there seems to be a spactacular support community here, there are some textbook issues that don't have solutions. Some are pretty deep impact matters, like AJAX or cross-browser glitches, SEO, enabling/disabling deal-breaker functions, etc.
Also, I can't get a feel for how proven the platform is - I did a search for "powered by BoonEx" and such but that will mostly return people who haven't licensed the software. I'd like to see a handful of examples of people who are actually running a popular community that is generating more than trivial revenue, as I hope to build a business and not a charity organization.
Finally, I don't see much in the way of mods to continually tweak the out-of-box version into submission. I see that Expertzzz is a BoonEx site, and they sell mods, I'm cool with that too. But before I start paying for mods I'd like to see a good, stable default site. So far all the examples I can find look the same, work the same and have the same challenges. I searched for templates/themes and I found two: "plain" and "Christmas" which concerns me. And if Expertzzz is a BoonEx site, why do they sell AbleDating stuff? Those ABK guys are crooks...
I wouldn't insult the creators or the community by asking what's better out there. Besides, for the most part I think the Dolphin platform is impressive and I'm sure it's made it this far because of the team's passion for the craft. Despite some issues it looks fairly robust and well-built, and most of its users are getting years of effort for virtually nothing. I appreciate their work. I would just like to get a "once more, with feeling" pre-flight checkup so I can make a go/no-go decision on popping the hood.
Perhaps some veterans can comment on these concerns, for the benefit of all the soon-to-be licensees? Thanks.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.
Becareful what company to host your dolphin software, just ask for people's oppions and I for sure you that you will get tons of ideas
Aedating
yes boonex are the ones who ran that
(you said:
Anyway, I see a lot of what I might consider "obvious" defects in 6.1)
yes its been like this to earlier stages of dolphin 5.1 and before dolphin was ae dating 4.1 and earlier
to be honest with you after seeing this all unfold, the programmers who get paid money on here are doing nothing but collecting the suckers on here and if you do not believe me look around on how many complaints people asked and no asnwers see more
6.1 was stable by far but 5.6 was much more stable then anything higher so far
2) Although there are many technically minded individuals here to answer questions, actual support from programming staff is lacking for a main-stream software publisher. They have been unable to separate their own "community" of hangers-on from their attempt at providing a support site.
3.) The software platform is stable and robust enough for a commercial site. The see more
I suppose the bottom line is, does the product work for *you*? Can you get the level of support you require, and can you turn the software into something you require? see more
Here are some successful Dolphin based website examples - http://www.boonex.com/about/case_studies/
Expertzzz.com was launched to be a support platform, not only for BoonEx products, but for other Community software as well. That's why there are different categories such as AbleDating, phpBB etc. It is simply a list of software created for those, who own, are familiar with and are able to support those softwares.
For more information about licenses and Dolphin websites, feel see more
I began with version 6.01 and eventually patched it to 6.01RC3. It has run fine for over 2 years now. Modified the hell out of it with many free and paid mods from expertzzz site and others. Learned a LOT over the course of 2+ years about Dolphin coding and have contributed several of my own mods (free and paid).
IF you want something different from the cookie-cutter version of the software, you better plan on working a lot to see more