Why boonex is a scam?
Boonex problem nr1. No coding standard
Boonex is writen by several people using different technologies. Its main base (Dolphin) is writen in pure php with its own template engine and forum (Orca) uses xlst. That has large negative impact to integration of forum in site and site in forum. When coding, please use single technology and template system.
Whats even worser, different parts of dolphins code itself is writen by completely different people, and very in the hurry. So everyone has its own imagination how to interact with different parts of the code. It is very tricky to modify code that way to suit site needs.
Boonex problem nr2. Template engine and separation of code/design/database
This problem in dolphin/boonex needs a point on its own. Boonex uses custom template system ( that should be called layout system). The blocks of generated html code are pased to specific places in the template. That creates a big headache for programers as they need to search through code for the place where some box is generated. It might be generated in template, or in specific function in one of numerous includes. And so on. Even pligg has better templating than this.
It is very tricky to rip boonex templating apart, as whole coding is based on such poor programming practice. They would be better off using existing template system like smarty or similar one.
This leads to problem nr3
Boonex problem nr3. Crapy use of Database
We saw serveral other competing sites launched on boonex, but we did not care much. Why? Becouse when they reach 500-1000 daily visitors they will break apart. The reason for it is very bad programming and use of database.
For example, boonex uses profile builder which assigns fields to profiles. So the output of profile uses more than one table and is quite inefficient.
Also, there is a nice 20-30 query overhead on each page display to fetch all the configuration values from table. Silly, isn't it? They would be FAR better of using a file for configuring sofware or caching it in php file like it is done in most of the systems.
Another simple problem. When boonex wants to display a profile being online it additionally check database for its status. But that data was pulled from database already. So 20 useless queries again.
Resume
I would not suggest using boonex if you want to keep your programmers sane. We have have changed the code almost completely for now, and you will need to do that too. Boonex is a scam.
BOONEX DOLPHIN ARE FRIENDS OF SKADATE ALSO KNOWN AS SCAMDATE AND KYRGIZ SCAMMERS! Andrey Sivtsov is a famous Kyrgiz scammer. Boonex states that it is a US-based company, which is A TOTAL LIE! (If you are a man who somehow still haven't heard anything about Scamdate, read http://www.topix.com/forum/who/scam/TCS27T4P67FRVPBB9 just to be in the picture).
Let us look at the whois info, to start with: http://whois.domaintools.com/aedating.com (it is one of the Boonex major sites).
Registrant:
Yulia Sivtsova
Mikroraion Asanbay d. 2 kv. 54
Bishkek *******
Kyrgyzstan
Nice, is not it?:-) (Cowards usually use the name of their wives to register domains by the way). If you go to http://www.aedating.com you will be redirected to Boonex.com, the main scam site of the scammer Andrey Sivtsov who now has changed the name to Andrew Boon, you can see it here: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/boonex, after registering an offshore in Australia:-)
You may ask, well, the script is "free", how does he scam people? It is very simple: to have the copyright removed, mods added, bugs (which are numerous) removed, you will have to PAY, PAY, PAY, and pay for a very long time. You will pay a lot of money. You will also frequently see such messages:
Product is available for contributors only
And so you become a contributor how? Thought you'd never ask!
"You can become a contributor by donating $40 a month to ExpertZZZ. Nice scheme, eh?:-) There is a lot to learn from Kyrgiz scammers Boonex Dolphin.
If you did not know the script Boonex Dolphin has bugs, you can check this link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=boonex+vulnerability&btnG=Search
It will show you the real state of things.
Please be warned, Boonex Dolphin is a buggy product made by a Kyrgiz scam company. Do not repeat my mistakes.