I would like to chime in on this becasue I have been a DNN users almost from the beginning. I have always recommended to anyone that would listen. I recently upgraded my companies website to the 9x version, only to find out a lot of stuff is missing and or relocated. Some of it I like and other stuff I find unnecessary. I really feel the old days are gone, lost in transition if you will. It seems DNN has geared itself to the enterprise level, and so has the module developers. Some of the prices are so far out of wack it makes it impossible for some. If I was to turn back time and start looking at DNN with fresh eyes today, I would pass it over.

This was compounded today as I was looking for the subscription feature that has been in DNN for almost all of it release that I am aware of. Only to discover it has been removed for some odd reason. When looking to see what modules were out there, all you can find is ones that either don't support version 9X, or others that haven't had an update in many years. The best ones are the ones that haven't had the code touched year only to show it was made version 9 compatible. So in reality the personal project I wanted to do has been put on the back burner.

So for what its worth here are main three reasons on why I wouldn't use DNN today if I could turn back time:

1- You have always had to dig and dig for information (has it gotten better... Yes and No) I personally do not enjoy spending hours reading through information to find a solution, There is no telling how many hours over the years I have dedicated to DNN research.
2- Tired of developers making modules and charging way more than what their worth with no recourse when they wither up and fade away or just loose interest.
3- Skinning DNN has always been a frustration, I really though Artisteer was the answer years back. However it seems they couldn't figure it all out for DNN either.

On a side note I would love to be able to grasp building my own modules, however I have never been able to get a successful development environment setup. The couple times I thought I did ended up making me frustrated with Visual Studio with all the cryptic error message. I don't see how Microsoft expects anyone to use Visual Studio IDE starting at a ground level.

I think in a way DNN and its own community have slowly eroded the very foundation on what it was built for. Dont get me wrong I completely get the product is community driven, I can only hope it gets better moving forward.

Anyway my personal thoughts regarding the matter, becasue personally it seems to me that DNN is on the course to a slow death.

I agree Joe! Great things happening in the DNN Ecosystem as we speak. The transition to true open source, the re-focus on community, the DNN TAG driving the future of the platform. It's all good to see and positive traction.

And I'll mention another way to stay in the loop with all the activity is to subscribe to the DNN Digest.

This is such a great dialog.  Thank you for making it happen.  First of all, I'm also a longtime DNN veteran, having started with it since the beginning.  It took me at least a year or two before I began to get involved in a public way.  Originally, I was a lurker.  

I remember the hay day when DNN was the only viable solution out there.  DNN is still the best in most cases (assuming you can use .NET), but with so many alternatives out there, our community has become diluted.  There are additional reasons for the dilution, but I'd prefer to focus on the positive moving forward. 

Many of the things cited in this thread already have one or more people tackling it - either in the Awareness group I lead or in another group.  We hear you loud and clear when you vent these frustrations.  We're in the same boat with you.  

However, as mentioned by others, we're now in a very exciting transitional phase.  We'll need the assistance of everyone possible in the community to help finish many of these initiatives.  I highly suggest joining one or more of the EAG's to lend a helping hand.  You don't need to make a full-time job.  I always tell my group, "Just do two things this month, no matter how small."  Every little thing helps.

The only thing said here that I personally don't agree with is the terminology of the forums.  It's all about perspective and context.  Any technical person will think of the word "forum," but our community is, should be, and should have more than technical people.  If we're to make our ecosystem attractive to a larger audience, we have to be careful of our use of technical jargon in places like that.

In closing, I'd like to say that I've brought this thread up with the Awareness group, and we have the following take-away's so far.  Also, the take-away's will likely be spread across some of the other EAG's.

• Need to make the community menu more usable?
• Need videos & documentation on how to get a development environment set-up.
• Need videos & documentation on how to get a DNN project up and running
• Need videos on how to get started with theme-building
• We need to re-establish the DNN Forge
• A community blog post summary should be on the DNNSoftware.com homepage
• Every time a blog post is added, the DNN twitter account should post it using IFTTT (or something similar)
• Blog comments could go out too? (edited)

Oh, and since someone else was very thoughtful with quotes, I think one of my favorites really applies here...

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

You all can help us make a difference!  :)

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Will Strohl

Upendo Ventures DNN experts since 2003 Official provider of the Hotcakes Commerce Cloud and SLA support