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Where is the members list ?


Flo44

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The members list was removed really early on, IPS felt it didn't benefit the suite enough to warrant adding it so it was one of the features removed in version 4. Like Adriano mentioned above, unless someone codes a modification then you can't get the members list back in the form it was pre-release 4.0 :)

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OH no, not sure how this slipped by me. I would love to hear the logic behind how a member list is not an important part of a community. It's one of the most used things in my community. YIKES!!! this is a deal breaker for me. I hope someone can get a mod going that brings back a sophisticated member list.  Browsing people is FUN especially with the increased profile capabilities.

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OH no, not sure how this slipped by me. I would love to hear the logic behind how a member list is not an important part of a community. It's one of the most used things in my community. YIKES!!! this is a deal breaker for me. I hope someone can get a mod going that brings back a sophisticated member list.  Browsing people is FUN especially with the increased profile capabilities.

​Well IPB4 isn't the only software that removed it(Other competing products also have it removed).
I remember reading something about it when one of the software removed it...Something about it being used for spammers or something(People going through a list and spamming users and what not).

Most people I believe simply search the user and not go through the entire user list.

I know I have 1500 members and I am not going to go through an entire list of people, because I dont' really see a need to do so. Though of course,  usage and your mileage may vary :D I am sure someone will make a mod for it.

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OH no, not sure how this slipped by me. I would love to hear the logic behind how a member list is not an important part of a community. It's one of the most used things in my community. YIKES!!! this is a deal breaker for me. I hope someone can get a mod going that brings back a sophisticated member list.  Browsing people is FUN especially with the increased profile capabilities.

​Every community software (exept vbulletin but not sure) use a member list. I don't know why ips don't want to add one. they should maybe add a featuer to enable or disable the member list to let admin choose how to deal with it.

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OH no, not sure how this slipped by me. I would love to hear the logic behind how a member list is not an important part of a community. It's one of the most used things in my community. YIKES!!! this is a deal breaker for me. I hope someone can get a mod going that brings back a sophisticated member list.  Browsing people is FUN especially with the increased profile capabilities.

​What do you "use" a member list for? We have never heard of anyone giving us a compelling use case for it.

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/?type=core_members

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​What do you "use" a member list for? We have never heard of anyone giving us a compelling use case for it.

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/?type=core_members

​I honestly don't even see what the real difference is between the page you linked and IPB3's member list. If you wanted to add that page back, you could just create a new "Members" tag that links to this search page.

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​What do you "use" a member list for? We have never heard of anyone giving us a compelling use case for it.

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/?type=core_members

​Hi Charles, allow me to take a stab at answering this. 

Firstly, you're correct, from a traditional forum perspective a member list is irrelevant. Fundamental, classic forum use is about topics. A classic member list offers limited information such as name and post count and doesn't add much to the already narrow purpose of forum function. However, forum based websites are expanding their purpose. They are increasingly more focused on communities as a priority. Thread topics have been matched with members of interest in a community. Certainly you wouldn't ask why a list of members would be important to Facebook? In a similar way, we want to get to know members of our communities that have similar interests to us. We would like to browse members looking for one's near by, or members who have great profile pictures. We are looking for folks who we can send friend requests to. It's about people. We want to reach out to people not just topic information.   

Additionally we are trying to get a general sense of how popular the community is. How active it's members are, who is contributing what etc. Powerful profiles for members gain momentum and have increased purpose when supported by a really powerful way to browse members. A member-list that is well designed works synergistically with great user profiles. Those two things working together are how forums can go to the next level and be about personal connections not just forum topics and information. A well designed member-list can be a gem of any website.

Albeit the member-list you linked above is about as worthless, and boring as tits on a boar.  I would probably choose to leave that hidden too, if that were my only option for a member-list.

Hope that helps.

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Facebook does not have a global list of members :)

I still do not see from your example how a raw list of every member of a community adds any value. I cannot imagine sitting there randomly clicking people's names to see if they are interesting. I would find someone through a normal method of discovery such as seeing someone make an interesting post that makes me want to learn more about the author so I click their name.

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@Charles Facebook doesn't have a global member list as that wouldn't be practical but it certainly does have a great member list with beautiful, well designed layout. Finding people is an important aspect of facebook.

Again, the global lists you might be thinking of (such as what you linked above) are crap. You and I agree. A great member list that is useful requires thinking outside the box, delivering a presentation that is useful and fun for the end user.  Nobody care to see a list of members with their post count. That's very 1997 forum based member-list logic.

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Facebook doesn't have a global member list as that wouldn't be practical but it certainly does have a great member list with beautiful, well designed layout. Finding people is an important aspect of facebook.

​I guess that begs the question: what is the root purpose of a community software like ours?

Is it finding people or finding content?

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​Xenforo nor Woltlab have a member list :)

https://xenforo.com/community/members/ (not a real member list :p)

And as said @superj707 a member list let other members the choice to know each other and look their profil.

Facebook does not have a global list of members :)

​Face what ? :) 

But just a question : if you allow admin to add or remove this members list as they want what is the problem ? :P 

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​I guess that begs the question: what is the root purpose of a community software like ours?

Is it finding people or finding content?

​Great question Charles and I assume 15 people have 15 answers. It's rather philosophic in nature and I think it's an important question to ask.

I might suggest that it's a false dilemma as maybe the software is about both. Finding people who share interests in the subject matter and content presented on the website. 

The site I've used IPB for has had many people connect, meet and even marry & have kids. There is no end to the impact a well designed website can have. Community matters!

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https://xenforo.com/community/members/

And as said @superj707 a member list let other members the choice to know each other and look their profil.

​Face what ? :)

But just a question : if you allow admin to add or remove this members list as they want what is the problem ? :P

​that's still not a member list though. A memberlist is what we presently have now on 3.X

Their way of doing it is akin to what we have now on 3.X(The moderating team, top posters, etc etc). So no they don't actually have an Member list. They just have a "notable' member list :)

As Charles said, I am not going to go through a memberlist to get to know people. You get to know people through the forum themselves and content they post.

A forum is not a dating site or social networking where you'd need to find someone based on their age, gender, sexual preference, etc etc to find common interest lol :P

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I'm glad they got rid of it; it was unnecessary :) On 3.4.7 I used to not include the link to the memberlist in my custom theme, so yeah...

It might still be possible to add back with a plugin though, which is where I think the feature belongs, and not as a default part of IPS.

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A forum is not a dating site or social networking where you'd need to find someone based on their age, gender, sexual preference, etc etc to find common interest lol :P

​Why not? Things, cannot evolve?  I would like to use my forum based software for all of the above.

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I do not see a benefit of a singled-out "member's list." You can search for so much now to deal with a user or subject that is irrelevant to the typical user. Only reason to list all users would be to go through and spam them or something not really natural.

Facebook's functionality is very similar to what IPS4 has. If I want to find "Bob Dole" I type that in the search and find all users related to that "name."

I can say I only used the member list once in the long history of being around forums because I forgot someone's name and knew it started with "M" and the search was not capable of that time to list all users with "M" in their name. In all logic, I could have just went back to one of their topics.

In all honesty, I don't give the member list a second look on even my own forum. Every time I visit a profile it is through a post or the admin panel.

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I'm glad they got rid of it; it was unnecessary :) On 3.4.7 I used to not include the link to the memberlist in my custom theme, so yeah...

It might still be possible to add back with a plugin though, which is where I think the feature belongs, and not as a default part of IPS.

​Or we can stop pretending that there is no option to improve the member list and actually make it beautiful, and useful. I agree what was there should be hidden as it's worthless. I thought this was above evolution though.

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​Why not? Things, cannot evolve?  I would like to use my forum based software for all of the above.

​That is true, but that is why we have SOCIAL NETWORKS and forums. While to a degree, Social networks are competitors to forums, I'd rather see forums continue to evolve their identity and being unique instead of trying to emulate social network.

From what I gather, this lack of a memberlist and the need of having one is not something most people are bothered by.

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I'm not seeing any difference between using the search and looking through a list of members. You can find members through the search — it's essentially the same thing. @opentype mentioned that you can add it as a link. If you're aiming for a Facebook, Google+, or other social network-esque feel, 90% of the time they won't have a list of members either. I didn't even realize IPS 4.0 didn't have a member list until I saw this topic.

I won't argue that forum software and the Invision Power Suite can be used for anything, though. It can absolutely be used for whatever you'd like to use it for. But a member list being absent isn't really breaking or improving anything from what I'm seeing.

I've never really seen a member list being used for anything other than what was mentioned. Spam. Admins still have access to a full list of members through the ACP as well, if that's an issue.

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From what I gather, this lack of a memberlist and the need of having one is not something most people are bothered by.

​Certainly this is true so far in this thread, but I think everyone is asking themselves if the "classic" member list is useful. No, it isn't but I am asking myself  can an improved member list be useful and I think YES, It can.

Why use a member list is a valid question. Finding out who made what post is not the only reason


What about finding friends, connections, people to talk to.
A forum has been about finding topics to talk about, what about finding people to talk with about topics?

What if a member list looked like this:
First, forget about list. Let's make it a grid, let's focus on having bigger profile pictures and less useless stats. Lets be able to sort by who''s online, male female and location and last logged in. Let's add some healthy competition too so active people can be listed under some super star listings. Hot weekly topics or whatever. This builds community and makes random passer by users want to stay!

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