Yes.

Case in point? The design of PBv5.

I say that if PBv5 comes out in the next 6 months PB will be fine but if they hold off for to much longer most people will leave.

If it gets released...any news about it so far?

There's news, just none that can really be discussed.. if that makes sense.

But v5 will give complete control over templates, which will create a whole new type of design forum, IMO.

While the designs might change to a large degree, I feel that the time of forums is largely dead. It's been killed by things like facebook. And while people do still discuss things on site forums, usually the sites have something else that cause them to go to that site in the first place.

I feel another reason that proboards in particular is also dead is because there is no magic there. I remember when I first started coding, it was like casting a spell. The knowledge was seemingly so arcane, and the only resources you had to learn to code for PB were other PB codes. So you read and you wrote.

The sense of community is also gone. It doesn't seem like it was before. People actively worked together to improve their skills (design battles, coding battles, collaborative projects). There was constantly discussion about some new technique or way of doing things. Now it's just dead, it's like nobody was there to pick up the torch when it was needed, and I don't think it will come back.

I agree with Eric that forums altogether are being phased out. And that the pb (coding) community is dead. In a sense, there is a mod for everything, so it's rare to see coders at all. Triad and Sub are the only new guys I can think of in the past three years.

If we had enough active members here (Chris, James, Eric, Fredy, Night, Richie, Sub?), I could start some 1k challenges or write js tips/optimization threads. And Fredy's busy with something already.

I think the default template itself will stifle creativity, though. It is just that freaking bad. The guy who is designing their stuff right now has absolutely no reason to even own Photoshop, much less use it.

What does v5 look like?

"The next major release, Proboards Version 5 is currently in development, and will weigh in at least 60,000 lines of code when complete.[3] No release date has yet been announced. The new Proboards Blog carries updates and information on the status of v5, primarily covering planned features."

And I can't believe it has been almost 6 years since the release of version 4....=P

They deff need to pick up the pace

Just look at the current PBS skin and Proboards.com and the blog. It's pretty much the exact same style and would not at all feel out of place in 2002.