Dennis Tsang has been with the team for a long time, playing numerous important roles and having a lot of input over the years. He took some time to answer your questions!

Being one of the more active, long-time members, what keeps you coming back to MyBB?

MyBB is so easy to work with. The core is easy to understand and use; it’s lean and lightweight. It’s simple to customize. In terms of the community, it’s the perfect size where people can get to know each other and help each other out. There are wonderful developers and themers who produce awesome themes.

Other than MyBB, what are some of your hobbies?

I volunteer with a couple of youth groups, namely youth ministry at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Vancouver, B.C. I am on the council of the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Youth Leadership Millennium Program.

I am a transit enthusiast and photographer. I love buses and trains. My transit photography can be found at BusTrainFerry.com.

What is it about public transport that you’re so interested in?

I’m most interested in the systems behind public transit operations. For example, here in Vancouver we have a metro line called the SkyTrain, which is fully automated. The automation has intrigued me since I was young and I’ve been trying to figure out how it all works. The vehicles themselves (both buses and trains) are also an interest of mine — the skill required by operators to maneuver the buses through traffic is astounding.

What is your favourite movie?

The Matrix.

Are you as excited about MyBB as you first were about it?

Yes of course. The advent of MyBB 2.0 is very exciting as it’s the first rewrite we’ve done since the inception of the project itself. The web has changed very dramatically in the past few years from both technical and social standpoints. MyBB 2.0 will hopefully take forum software to the next level by harnessing new concepts and technologies and making a usable package in the age of Web 2.0 and beyond, while still maintaining our core roots of powerfulness, simplicity, and extensibility.

What career do you hope to achieve after completion of your course?

Later this year I will be starting as a software developer at A Thinking Ape. Software has always been an interest of mine, and that’s why I went into Computer Science. My particular interests are in mobile and web technologies.

The best day of your life was…

The day I was born.

In your opinion, what is the most underused feature of MyBB?

Threaded Mode on the show thread page. I’ve never used it. Do you use it?

How long can you hold your breath for?

At least the length of the George Massey Tunnel.

Anything else you’d like to add?

It’s been a pleasure to be on the MyBB team. It’s always enjoyable to see people who use our software and love MyBB as much as we as staff do.

Get your questions answered

They can be general to all/any staff or specific to one member, either way, post them in the Questions for team members thread and I’ll ask them if appropriate. A lot of staff have been answering questions in the thread too, so it’s a great ‘open discussion’ thread too! Thank you.

It’s been a while since we’ve had an interview post, so let’s kick things off again with a big one!
Our new product manager, Tim B. took time to answer some questions.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Well, I’m an Aussie to begin with, I’m a Software Engineering and Business student at university and I work from home.

Besides MyBB, what are some of your hobbies?

When I’m not at my computer (which is very rarely ), I like to be on my Yamaha dirt bike, or my mountain bike (but I’m usually too lazy for that these days). Some strange hobbies also tend to gain my interest for a short period of time, for example lock picking (my own locks, don’t worry) and petrol powered remote control cars.

What made you join the MyBB staff team?

I had been a member here for quite a while before I joined the team so I had a bit of an attachment to MyBB. When a team member mentioned to me that they were looking for people to join the support team I decided that it was something I wanted to pursue because I felt it would allow my contributions to be more far reaching than I could achieve as a regular member. Upon joining I found that I enjoyed making long lasting improvements to the things that often get thrown in the too hard basket, but were nonetheless important, and so I made a number of suggestions that were adopted (and some that weren’t). I then took on a number of initiatives to improve sections of the wiki and the forum rules and soon after this Dennis announced that he had to step down due to time constraints. As I was doing a lot more behind the scenes stuff at that stage then actual support work I decided to put my name forward and eventually I was chosen to take over from Dennis, an opportunity which I am very grateful for.

The most memorable day of my life was…

Yesterday (I would say today, but it’s not over yet).

What is your dream job?

No job, I would be retired with a considerable fortune. That way I could pursue whatever interest I desired. On a more realistic note, I hope to one day work in the management side of the software development industry, hence why I study business along with Software Engineering.

What do you do to kill time?

I am a master of wasting time. Sometimes that is a good thing, but unfortunately usually it’s not. I have so many favourite time killers, facebook is an obvious one (but who doesn’t love to waste time on facebook these days), another one is a website called Moonbuggy which has random (and hilarious) pictures (if you go googling for it then be warned, it’s often NSFW). I enjoy some really simplistic games, like line rider and various other flash games, plus I occasionally get into Call of Duty and Minecraft. In terms of TV, I almost exclusively watch sitcoms, I have seen every episode of the The Office, The Big Bang Theory, Community, Parks and Recreation, Better Off Ted, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Outsourced, The IT Crowd, Seinfeld and Trailer Park Boys, plus a few others I probably forgot. I also have to mention that I love buying (pretty random) things off the internet, usually from Deal Extreme or eBay. For example, I have one of those clothes folders that Sheldon has in The Big Bang Theory.

Name an item you wish to own one day, and why.

A yellow Lamborghini Gallardo with black GT stripes, just because I’m cool like that. If you had have asked me a few weeks ago I would have said my new computer but I just bought that.

What made you initially want to learn PHP/MySQL?

I enjoy programming, it not only stimulates your mind but it produces something that can improve the lives of millions of people across the world and I think that’s pretty amazing. I never specifically made the choice to learn PHP/MySQL but through my involvement with MyBB and other things I have been a part of, learning PHP/MySQL became a necessity. I am certainly still learning, but I think that is the way for any programmer, looking back at my programming from a year ago I was a total n00b, and I’m sure I’ll think the same in another year about my programming now.

What do you have for breakfast each day?

I just eat whatever is in the fridge/pantry (left over pizza, pancakes or waffles always go down well). One of my favourite breakfast combos is Vanilla (or Chocolate) Up & Go on Weet-Bix (if you’re not Australian you probably won’t have heard of either of those two things), it sounds a bit strange but it’s awesome, trust me.

Anything else you wish to add?

I don’t think so, other than that I would like to say thanks to the team for making MyBB possible and to the community for making MyBB as successful as it is.

Get your questions answered

I’m always struggling to think of new and interesting questions, so please help me out and post what you would like answered! They can be general to all/any staff or specific to one member, either way, post them in the Questions for team members thread and I’ll ask them if appropriate. Thank you.

Hello MyBB fans!
So it’s been a while since the last “Staff changes” blog post! We’ve had quite a few changes recently and thought it would be a perfect time to give you all an update on our great team.

Welcome our new staff members

Please welcome Fábio Maia to the support team, more commonly known as faviouz to us all. faviouz has been a very helpful member on the community forums and has released several plugins and tutorials.
Also welcome Pirata Nervo to the development team! Pirata has been an extremely helpful member and has also developed many great plugins.

Thank staff who have moved on

Our long-time contributor Alan Crisp has left after many years on the team. A while ago he took a job as a PHP developer with skills that he learned while on the team. This very job is what has led to him resigning from the team, with little free time to continue contributing. He thanks us for all the opportunities he was given here, and we thank him for his efforts, sincerely.
We’re also sad to see Conor Calby leave, after a very helpful year on the team he has left due to time constraints as well. We hope he finds the time in the future to return.
Unfortunately one of our more recent additions to the team, thebod, also had to leave due to other commitments.

We are very thankful to anyone offering their time to MyBB and we wish those who left the very best of luck.

Applications are always open

If you would like to be a part of one of the teams we have here at MyBB (development, support, SQA), please take a look at this page for more information.

We are pleased to announce that MyBB has decided to develop an official mascot which will be used for a variety of purposes including promoting MyBB and on possible official MyBB merchandise.

As a result, the MyBB Group is in search for a great creative artist “doodler” who can help sketch and design the MyBB Mascot. The artist must have the creative ability to not only sketch the mascot, but be able to make a high resolution digital copy of the sketch(s). The artist must have the ability to work with a team and have the time to bring the MyBB Mascot to life. In addition, the artist must be willing to assign all copyright for their work to the MyBB Group.

Although this is a volunteer position and will not be a  permanent position on the team, their are benefits to joining:

• The artist will gain access to a specific private forum on the MyBB Community
• The artist will receive an official team badge
• The artist will receive due credit on the MyBB Wiki pertaining to the mascot created

If you think you might be the one to fulfill this position, or if you have an inquiry regarding the position,  do get in touch at the following email address: imad.jomaa@mybb.com. Be sure to provide some samples of your work, both sketches and digital copies of the sketches. In addition, be sure to provide some background information about yourself, and any other information you feel necessary to share.

If you do not receive a direct response from the MyBB Group it doesn’t mean we haven’t received your application, rather, because we receive many applications, we cannot reply to each one individually. Applications sent in the form of private messages on the community forum will not be evaluated or considered.

Thank you for your time, and best of luck for those that apply.

All,

As a few have noticed, Ryan Gordon, the lead developer of MyBB has parted ways with us. A message from Ryan is below.

All of us here at the MyBB Group wish Ryan well in his future endeavours, and I personally am extremely grateful for the role that Ryan has been able to step up and fulfil over the past few years whilst I’ve not been able to dedicate much personal time toward the project. Ryan’s dedication and passion for everything he did, as well as bringing us some of the greatest MyBB releases to date, will be missed.

What does this mean for MyBB?

The most important thing to keep in mind is whilst this is a big change for us, you can still look forward to exceptional releases of your favourite forum software. Work is underway planning out MyBB 2.0, and from our top-secret prototypes, it’s already looking great.

We’ll have more to announce shortly, but again thank you for your continued support.

A message from Ryan to all…

Dear community,

It is with time that with every profession, interest and passion fade and something new comes along to take over it’s place. It is with this in mind, among other things, that I have decided to enlist my resignation from the MyBB Team.

Over the past 5 years I’ve had the unique experience of journying with this team and working on this product that has taught me so much. Together we have built hundreds of thousands of communities and I know that this will continue for a long time into the future.

I wish the MyBB team and the community best of luck in the future, as I open up this new chapter in my life.

Sincerely,
Ryan Gordon

There has been a great deal of curiosity about the recent additions to the MyBB family so finally I am proud to formally introduce all our new developers to you.

Ryon H

Ryon is an enthusiastic PHP developer with a unique sense of humor. He also happens to speak several languages and apparently lives in a town between a tree and a rock (those are his words). We are also very glad his parents decided to name him Ryon rather than Ryan because that saves us a lot of confusion.

Morgoth

Update: Unfortunately Morgoth has had to leave us already due to some unforeseen issues. We wish him the best of luck with his future.

Morgoth (also known as -Calypso-) is an experienced PHP developer and has come to us from the IPB community where he was well known for developing a number of highly successful plugins.

Sacred

Sacred has also come to us from the IPB community and also has many brilliant plugins to his name. By day he is a Digital Media Manager for a leading online advertising agency and specializes in SEO and e-commerce as well as PHP development.

Dylan M.

Dylan has extensive programming experience and prior to joining the team was well known for his work with extending the MyBB merge system. We are very glad to have him aboard the team as the lead developer for the merge system.

So, please make all our new developers feel welcome and if you see them looking lost and dazed out on the forums don’t hesitate to lend them a hand .

Imad Jomaa has answered in some detail a few questions.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

As you might have guessed, my name is Imad Jomaa; I happened to be one boring college Student studying to obtain a B.S. degree in Computer Science as well as a degree in Mathematics. I have been working on a start-up Company for two years now with two other partners, hoping we open our doors sometime soon.

What does your dream job look like?

I am hoping one of my ideas end up going somewhere. However, to be realistic here, I would love to end up working for a Company who love to innovate and share ideas, and possibly have a catchy mission statement. The other side of me wants to work for an organization aiming for global change in education as I believe education is a key factor in anyone’s life. Furthermore, whichever of the two directions I end up in, you can call it “my dream job”.

In your opinion, what is the most useful and simple feature of MyBB?

This is a tough decision since I have recently been using many features in MyBB I thought I would never use. However, to correlate with “most useful”, I have to say it is the mark as read feature used on forum icons. I use that feature whenever I am on the forums and it saves a lot of time from entering each individual forum to perform such task.

Other than MyBB, what are some of your hobbies?

Despite programming, I love the great outdoors where I am always mesmerized by the vast lands of beauty. I also enjoy expanding my knowledge in wide varieties of subjects ranging from chemistry to biology to marketing and pretty much anything else I find interesting.

Your favourite piece of hardware/software is… Why?

I am not necessarily sure if I happened to favor a specific piece of hardware or software over others as each of such have different functions and purposes. However, if we were to compare apples with apples in relation to operating systems I would use for conventional purposes, I would definitely say Microsoft’s Windows since it seems like a complete functional package over others. However, if I happened to be after a great GUI, I would definitely use OSX by Apple since it seems to have that aspect well laid out.

What are some of your pet hates?

This is another tough question to answer, but I would say the usage of foul language. The usage of such language seems ever increasing especially with young children. It seems as if it became an ongoing trend whether they understand it or not, or whether it is appropriate or not; thus it definitely annoys me.

Is there a feature you’ve come up with (or seen elsewhere) that you would like to see implemented into MyBB one day? What is it and why would it be good for MyBB?

One of the interesting projects I have seen for security CAPTCHA is dragging and dropping objects. I found it very intuitive to have your potential users be able to bypass the sometimes-unreadable characters to something simple and easy to use. The whole idea behind it is asking your user to drag a certain shape from a pool of them to the right – it is simple, intuitive and depending on how it is developed, secure from today’s and possibly future bots.

What is your favourite TV series?

I definitely say it has to be the Mythbusters TV series since they put popular myths to the test and in the end, finally clear up some unanswered questions in an entertaining form.

What do you enjoy most about your life?

I think it has to be the motivation in me that always wants me to expand my knowledge into many categories which gives me a better understanding of many aspects of today’s world.

Anything else you would like to add?

None at all, I think the nine questions asked covered everything I wanted to mention.

We are pleased to announce some new initiatives that will be rolled out over the coming weeks to help in our search for valuable new additions to our team.

The quality of MyBB is largely dictated by the quality of our staff and as we look towards development of MyBB 2.0 we hope that these new recruitment strategies will help ensure the longevity and quality of MyBB in the future.

The main changes to our recruitment process is that we will be extending our search to outside our community and formalizing the process, making our selection process similar to applying for a regular job. As a result we will be actively advertising the positions available but also more stringent in our selection criteria.

We are primarily looking to fill development positions and we are looking for people will make a long term commitment to MyBB and hopefully become an integral part of the MyBB team in the future.

We are looking for the types of people who:

• Are  true industry professionals
• Have extensive and consolidated skills in PHP & SQL
• Are familiar with modern object oriented program design
• Understand security and how important it is
• Already have proven experience in the field
• Believe in the open source software model

Although developers are the focus of our search we will are also open to suitable applicants for other positions.

Below are some of our initiatives:

Setting up the MyBB.com/apply page

We have set up a page specifically for recruitment at http://www.MyBB.com/apply which will act as a gateway for anyone interested in a position here. It has information on the roles we have available and what we expect in our applicants.

Notice board flyer:

If you attend a tertiary education institution such as University then there will probably be a lot of notice boards around for community notices. We have prepared a simple flyer which your welcome to print and put up on Computer Science/IT department noticeboards at your University. You can find the flyer here.

Off-site advertising:

We will be identifying a number of websites and communities which are frequented by the kind of people we wish to recruit and have a section suitable for job advertisements. We will then be submitting articles to these sites outlining our organization and the positions we have available. Hopefully this will enable us to reach a broader group of quality developers who might be interested in a position here.

Ensuring the integrity of our team:

We realize many of our community members will be concerned that by recruiting outside our community we will be less familiar with our applicants and therefore there is the possibility of accepting someone who will be untrustworthy and detrimental to our product. We have recognized this and have implemented a number of new policies internally including an initial probation period and a revised permission hierarchy that will restrict the access of new staff to critical aspects of our project. As stated earlier we will also be more stringent in our selection process and ensure that only applicants of the highest integrity will be accepted.

How can I help?

Even if a position on the MyBB team isn’t for you then you can still help by spreading the word of MyBB to people you know who might be suitable for one of our positions. You can also put up flyers as described above.

One of our newest additions to the team, Huji Lee answered the next batch of questions. PS. Please welcome Huji.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m 27 (which probably makes the grandfather of the whole MyBB team), and I live in the United States. I’m a self-taught web developer with focus on Web 2.0 solutions developed using PHP and MySQL.

Besides MyBB, what are some of your hobbies?

Who said MyBB is a hobby?! Anyways, I used to play different musical instruments and listen to music a lot.

Who inspires you?

I’m not much an “inspiration” guy. In other words, everybody is an inspiration to me.

How long does it take you to fix the average bug with MyBB?

A few minutes.

What is your favourite type of music?

I listen to many kinds of music and I always want to keep myself open to new genres. You can find me listening to Bach, Metallica, Naruto (Japanese), Don Omar (Puerto Rican Reggaetón) and Lionel Richie in the same day!

Name an item that you one day wish to own.

If you asked this 15 years ago, my answer would definitely be a model helicopter! Right now, I’m thinking of an iPhone instead!

If you didn’t discover MyBB, what do you think you’d be doing with your free time instead?

Coding for one of the other projects I dedicated my time to.

What program do you use to code in?

Notepad++ as my editor, an old version of Aqua Data Studio for some DB manipulations.

Which type of weather do you prefer?

I like it when the weather is cool.

How does it feel knowing that software you’ve played a part in is being used by people all around the world?

It brings excitement and responsibility.

Anything else you would like to add?

Some people ask me how is it that you only had less than 50 posts in the Community forums and you end up in the Developers team. I benefited from a MyBB based forum about a real issue in my life so I felt I owe MyBB team for making that possible; I talked to the lead developer Ryan Gordon and he figured I might be of assistance. If anybody who reads this also feels like he owes MyBB a favor, I think they should step forward too.

Tom Huls, a true MyBB veteran, answers your interview questions.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Tom, as you might have guessed from the cute avatar I have been using for quite some time now. I’m 22 years old, from the Netherlands and a fifth year maths student. My MyBB experience started when I began using Messenger Plus!, which I must have been sixteen or something back then. For some reason I felt the need to post on the forum there, which was powered by a very early version of MyBB. After some time I made some comments about the bulletin board software and that’s how I ended up here.

Other than MyBB, what are some of your hobbies?

This question gets asked regularly by other people and usually I reply by saying that I enjoy reading and walking. However, the number of unread books on my shelf keeps growing and I hardly get out. That’s mostly because studying takes up quite a bit of my time, but I intend to shift the balance a bit in the next few months. In any case, solving maths riddles is not on the list

Being one of the more reserved MyBB team members, what are some of your duties regarding MyBB?

Basically, I am in charge of all that relates to internationalization and managing the translations. That includes uploading new translations when they’re finished, assisting translators in their joband also keeping the Dutch translation up-to-date, which I’m the author of. Apart from that, I do some basic stuff as changing usernames and giving support, although unfortunately I often find myself short of time so I have not been as active as I would like to be. In addition, I’ve helped beta test quite a few releases.

What are your three favourite MyBB features, and briefly, why?

- The search functionality, because although I tend to know fairly well that something was posted I can almost never find it again by simply looking for the thread in a specific forum.
- The edit button. It’s surprising to see how often I find myself using it, even though I’m also a great fan of the Preview button.
- Multiple PM recipients. Makes sending the same personal message to multiple staff members or translators just that tad bit easier.

What does your average day look like?

I always try to get up at 6 am. I wash up, quickly grab some bread and cycle to the nearest train station. The train leaves at 6.45 and after a quick transfer I arrive at university at 8.05. During the trip I often read some of the free newspapers distributed at train stations, listen to some music or podcast, skip through some math books or just enjoy the view. As there’s always something to do I rarely ever find myself bored or annoyed by the time it takes me to get to university. The day then consists mainly of studying, either on my own or by attending lectures. A bit after 5 pm I return home, where I eat, quickly turn my laptop on and deal with new emails, forum posts and so on. Then I take a shower at about 9.30 and go to bed quickly after that to get my eight hours of sleep.

Of course, in reality, I hardly ever manage to get up at six in the morning, trains are delayed, at university I get distracted by other students so don’t get much done and in the evening I go to bed way too late to get my eight hours of sleep

Many weekends are spent with my girlfriend, family visits or watching Formula 1 and snooker.

What is your dream career?

I wish to become a mathematics teacher. Indeed, not very spectacular

What is your favorite movie?

I can’t say I have a favorite movie. One of the more recent movies I saw was “La tourneuse de pages”, which I found a very nice one. One that also stuck was Elephant; not so much a nice movie, but certainly moving.