Group/Rank Promotions based on more than just post count?

[esquire]

I know friends and QA top your list (believe me, I know ) -- I'm going to demonstrate a point here. After seeing it in practical usage, we've recognized that the QA features we want to incorporate can't be done to our standard within the confines of the "forums" app. Our intent (and this of course is subject to change) is to split QA off into its own app where those features can truly involve and introduce a separate solution in the suite for handling basic things like "Best Answer", "Most Liked" etc. See, now the problem is, I know it's not going to end there and that's one of several reasons why we're hesitant to "air" things until they're fully vetted and we have a solid game plan in place... you're going to want to know things like: can existing QA be converted? what would the app cost? how will it work? what will it look like? what are we talking here, 3 months, 6 months? I need to know for planning purposes, etc.  We don't have all of that information available yet and I'm reasonably confident someone is going to make me regret even mentioning it at this point.  

Lindy, I truly appreciate the willingness to try to bridge the gap and try to share what IPS is considering doing here. I'd much rather hear that and possibly be disappointed than not knowing anything at all. In such a fashion, I can at least understand early on whether you'll cover my need and, if not, I'd consider undertaking my own effort to accomplish same and hit the ground running. While I'm frustrated that the QA Forum will require a wait, I'm hoping you can confirm the "big picture" things that aren't really a secret, e.g. tying together use of up/down and BA tied in with Reputation and awards. And in doing so, I think you have the opportunity to receive well rounded feedback and make a fully informed decision. on what IPS feels is paramount for the greater good/needs of its customers. I'm sure there would be fewer complaints with the satisfaction of having been heard. See - no grief. Wasn't that easy?   

The same principle applies to things like friends. I've said before, we're not going to (re)add a list of friends that does not benefit virtually the entire suite. We do have a lot of plans on the internal roadmap for social engagement and I can say I think your itch will be scratched. That's as much as I can say right now. Am I being too vague and secretive? Perhaps, but I don't feel a compelling obligation to share every detail of our operation beyond what's available in the release note tracker for several reasons: 1) It can become confusing and misleading if we outline something and we get into it and decide we need to do it differently, or another feature suggestion comes in (like this one) that we can incorporate, but changes the scope of the initial task somewhat.  2) Believe it or not, we do have competitors that are following us and we do prefer to keep things that are still a few months off under our hat.

Understood about the competition. I think virtually everyone with the Friends has the same issue here - the ability for users to create private content areas using a user-created private group to restrict one's content. For those who are using Friends for that purpose, whether you can come up with something that will accomplish the same and hopefully import those associations into your new privacy thigamajig. I understand that private content was something you were trying to move away from. And if the above is what you're considering accomplishing, it would help to know yay or nay because if it's a nay, at least customers know what to expect and interested customers can consider making a plugin right now. Being totally honest... I was planning on moving to IPS 4 because the extensibility of IPS 3's system of Friends/Private Content has no bona fide competitors - even the commercial scripts were mostly junk. So thanks and hopefully you can provide a commitment to certain broad strokes and non-secretive details everyone is expecting.

PS - I'm really sorry about your iPhone problem. If you're going to regret anything it's your comments about how you kept trying to use Android phones but just had to go back to an iPhone. You could potentially face a lot more abuse for that. 

[MARIO BLACUTT R]

User Awards is something that is very important because it adds some extra motivation to post more. IPS should be doing as many core features so we don't have to rely on silly plugins that are not updated. Plugin authors can't be relied on, your download section is a graveyard for plugins that are short lived.

Maybe IPS should offer bounties and try and keep plugins up to date by having intial control, it can be done, developers know it. Low quality plugins should be abolished.

[Brian K.]

Did IP4 ever address this? We just switched from VB to IP4 and are in the middle of migration and this is something that just came up w/our staff. If IPB doesn't view this as a priority item then that's disappointing because you cannot fully gauge the usefulness of a core feature just by seeing how much traction it gets in a forum post. I guarantee there are thousands and thousands of forum admins out there that want a versatile user promotion system but do a cursory look for it and see that it doesn't exist and end up settling.

IPB should strive to be the best by including these features and not making its users settle for third party add-ons which can fall off by the wayside and are dependent on the whims of its author. Part of the reason we skipped Xenforo and chose IPB was because Xenforo is much too dependent on third party plugins for features that should be part of its core. To be honest, we were quite pleased with VB and its wide array of core features but unfortunately they stopped listening to their community. I hope IPB doesn't fall into that trap.

[Kevin Carwile]

37 minutes ago, Brian Khan said:

I guarantee there are thousands and thousands of forum admins out there that want a versatile user promotion system but do a cursory look for it and see that it doesn't exist and end up settling.

You can already do that. Versatility is a core feature of IPS4. Any stock feature of the suite can be easily customized to fit your needs, as well as the needs of those thousands of other admins. Just because it is not a stock configuration doesnt mean you cant do it.

All you have to do is configure it the way you want. Custom configuration mode is available to anybody with a self hosted license. You can configure your member promotions to happen however you please.

As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to create a configuration for you for free that will allow you to promote members however and whenever you see fit.

Thats the beauty of IPS4.

[Izaya Orihara]

18 hours ago, Brian Khan said:

. Part of the reason we skipped Xenforo and chose IPB was because Xenforo is much too dependent on third party plugins for features that should be part of its core.

That's another reason why XF is not good imo, simply because their lack of features pushing you to the marketplace to download(And even features that are expected in a premium software like that are in free software but in many cases you have to buy an add-on with Xenforo).

IPB is sort of falling into that same path though...not as much. But I am noticing a few things they removed that are requiring add-ons if you need them. But it differs because in XF, these are features a software should have universally. Whereas many add-ons with IPS4, I am noticing(Such as page numbers and post preview) are simply for a niche/small group of admins.

[Brian K.]

On 12/2/2015, 12:17:13, Kevin Carwile said:

You can already do that. Versatility is a core feature of IPS4. Any stock feature of the suite can be easily customized to fit your needs, as well as the needs of those thousands of other admins. Just because it is not a stock configuration doesnt mean you cant do it.

All you have to do is configure it the way you want. Custom configuration mode is available to anybody with a self hosted license. You can configure your member promotions to happen however you please.

As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to create a configuration for you for free that will allow you to promote members however and whenever you see fit.

Thats the beauty of IPS4.

Hi Kevin,

That's very generous of you and I may take you up on that offer. Essentially I need a user promotion system that places certain restrictions on newly registered members:

1. They cannot send a PM
2. They cannot download attachments
3. They cannot like another post

To get around that restriction, they'd need a combination of:

1. Time account has been registered (preferably 2 weeks)
2. 10 posts 
3. 2-5 likes from regular registered users, admins or mods. 

If you could suggest how to set that up with IP4 I'd appreciate it.