Where is the members list ?

[Cyrem]

Forums are about more than informational topics these days, they are about people and community.  Let me just say that again. "People and Community"

How can we even pretend to care about people and community without a proper member list? (member grid)

I can use my car as a pot for a plant. If people want to make some sort of hipster facebook meetup tinder hybrids using a forum, so be it... but that doesn't mean IPS needs create their software towards that direction if it is not in their vision. "Community" is subjective, but "Internet Forums" were designed to fulfill a purpose, IPS has provided the tools and platform for people to go beyond the purpose of forums, it's up to you to utilize that.

To me, using a forum as a forum... a member list is "fat" and I'm glad it's been cut. The removal of the member list was made evident all the way back when the first IPS4 demo launched, you're all pretty darn late to the game.

[Hitori Bocchi]

5 Years ago ~1 of 10 websites had a forum. Today ~2 of 100. I doubt that it was a choice to go away from forum-only.

[Flo44]

The problem is that the member list is not convenient at all for members (maybe not for every admins as we know everything about IPS) =>

If you need to see the members list :

1 : you don't know it exist as there is no link to it.

2 : if you know there is one, it is hard to find it because nobody will check out the parameters in the search system.

3 : nobody use the search system. PS : the search system in IPS 4 is very unefficient because when you made a search you don't know how many post there is, nor the numbers of vue in a topic (so how to know if it is relevant) ! =>

In IPS 3.4

In IPS 4 : I know absolutly nothing about the relevency of the post. it is just blent with other similar posts but it is absolutly unefficient and therefore the search system is absolutly useless. Everything is far more complicated for members. They need to find the result quickly and fast otherwise they don't use it anymore.

The search system works like Google but it is not a good idea. : When we do a research  personnally i want to know if it is relevant for me ( i don't trust algorythms) and i like to check the number of vue, of posts, when it has been created and all others informations there are when we are in a forum or subforum (as it was in IPS 3.4.X) . But here there is nothing, IPS choose for us as google do it, but google has an algorythme much more efficient than ips i think.

4 : Therefore, if a members list exist it is as if it doesn't exist.

4 bis : a members list is useless ? So why a member list exist in the search system ? if IPS don't want it, delete it or change something.

 

[jackflash]

The members table, for the most part seems to work in search

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/

I clicked on the members button and it offered the different member groups to search and other fields.  I assume that it might also show custom fields in there too?

I cannot really see where this is that different than what's in 3.4?  If you need to create a members tab in navigation, can't you add a tab and link it to the members table:

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/?type=core_members&group[__EMPTY]=__EMPTY&group[43]=1

[Christophe]

I asked before but I don t think anybody answered...can you build a page that would for example show all members in a certain Custom Field like Country or City?

If so that would be the first custom work I would pay someone to write for me. Our members are only interested in people in their own city an especially the ones who have photos in their profiles...not that it is a dating site at all but having a face on a profile is better than an avatar. Anyway, I will build a drop down on the navigation and it will point to individual pages that will list all the members in that city.

How easy is it to do with pages? If I have that then all our members have no reason to use the search function to find people because we would provide the results already for them

[Square Wheels]

I cannot really see where this is that different than what's in 3.4?  If you need to create a members tab in navigation, can't you add a tab and link it to the members table:

http://community.invisionpower.com/search/?type=core_members&group[__EMPTY]=__EMPTY&group[43]=1

​Try sorting that page by post count.

[jackflash]

​Try sorting that page by post count.

​You can search by post count.  It appears though that unlike version 3.4, you cannot sort by ascending or descending order.

[Woodsman]

Here is an easy way to get your Members tab back.

If you have CMS "Pages" this is as easy as falling off your tricycle....

ACP - Pages - Menu - Create New -

Type = Pages change to URL

URL http://example.com/index.php?/search/&type=core_members  example.com = your URL

Title = Members

Permissions = set your permissions to your needs

Click Save

[Square Wheels]

​You can search by post count.  It appears though that unlike version 3.4, you cannot sort by ascending or descending order.

 

It wouldn't let me.   I get an error. 

[jackflash]

Here is an easy way to get your Members tab back.

If you have CMS "Pages" this is as easy as falling off your tricycle....

ACP - Pages - Menu - Create New -

Type = Pages change to URL

URL http://example.com/index.php?/search/&type=core_members  example.com = your URL

Title = Members

Permissions = set your permissions to your needs

Click Save

​GREAT solution if you have pages. For those who do not though, you can still create a tab in the nav bar and link as I have suggested several posts back.

Either way, I think there is a sound solution for this - no?

It wouldn't let me.   I get an error. 

​Me too.

[Woodsman]

​GREAT solution if you have pages. For those who do not though, you can still create a tab in the nav bar and link as I have suggested several posts back.

Either way, I think there is a sound solution for this - no?

​Me too.

​It has been done in 3.4.x for other uses so I don't see why not....

and Me too???

[BomAleold]

How to "serve" the list of members? (Context) Raw list, map, tree (grouped by predefined field), intelligent (graph) or custom (leaderboard...minecraft https://www.minecraft-italia.it/categorie-crafting/oggetto or psn http://psnprofiles.com/leaderboard for example or gallery/slideshow or a list with a % of rilevance of term progress bar)

I think is hard to develop a full featured that include all this thing and other types of context.

i have seen more time ago a app that permise to find a near distributor of gpl

http://www.ecomotori.net/distributori/gpl/

and similar related to ip.content database.

A memberlist that i would could be all user that is going to Italy, the ips 4 thanks to geolocation could serve me a list of that user without a fill of a field? Yes, could you use search but now is not ready.

On future the "simple" of ips4 permise some of us to extend with some widgets a memberlist and with small block to track the many activity from members. I hope that this is it

Personally a page dedicated is useful to advertise some users, but if search on ips4 include this for me a page is not required.

[craigf136]

I might be a bit late to the party here and it may have been covered previously. However, is it not possible to utilise the staff directory for members. All you would need to do is create a menu within pages (url) and then link that to the members list created within staff directory (it may even be possible to do this outwith the staff directory function with an add on?).

 

[SJ77]

I might be a bit late to the party here and it may have been covered previously. However, is it not possible to utilise the staff directory for members. All you would need to do is create a menu within pages (url) and then link that to the members list created within staff directory (it may even be possible to do this outwith the staff directory function with an add on?).

 

​This is a grid, which is exactly what I think an improved member list should look like. Nice idea.

[Rikki]

No-one sat there clicking through hundreds (actually, tens of thousands in our case) of pages of members to find people in 3.4. The actual 'list' part of the member list was useless on any sizable community. Instead, what people valued was the search capabilities. It makes much more sense to put that in the search engine so that members can be found alongside everything else on the site.

@superj707 You've been mentioning that a grid looks better, which is fine, but it doesn't address the actual purpose of having a member list. Other than what it looks like, how would you imagine using a member list that shows thousands upon thousands of profile photos? What would your goal be when you visit that page? What would you expect to do on that page that our member search system in 4.0 doesn't support? This goes deeper than simply what a page looks like - it can look like anything with the theme system of course (you can make the 4.0 search system look like a grid, if you wish). It's about working out the purpose of a page, and the sole useful purpose of the old member list is now part of the search system.

I can understand that if you had a close-knit community of a few dozen members, such as on a company intranet, a directory might be useful. But that isn't a common use unfortunately, so it is probably better suited as an addon. Then again, we have the new 'staff directory' functionality which lets you curate a list of important members and customize what information is shown, so I'm not even sure that's a popular use case any more.

[SJ77]

@Rikki Firstly thank you! I appreciate you taking a genuine interest in considering this.

Funny thing is, I would consider a member search mostly useless. In the rare occasion I need to search for a member outside of an ACP I am glad to have it but mostly it's unrelated to what I envision for invision (sorry, poor pun)

Most forum software suites are really great at presenting tens of 1000's of posts and other information by leveraging topics, and forum categories. TOPICS are front and center. This is no surprise since organizing the posts of it's users into logical threads has always been the root purpose for having a web forum. However, what hasn't yet been done in a forum suite is to make use of an integrated system that brings the wealth of PEOPLE a community has to the fore-front. As mentioned many times  in this thread, member lists have largely been a useless after thought as opposed to a primary structure. Communities focused on people are fun and I think it's the way to succeed in the future. We all like to be famous. Just as people enjoy pushing their followers on instagram, we would love to push our popularity within a community!!!  We have an advantage here too over instagram because forum based communities tend to have a focused purpose. Can you imagine a member being able to rise up as a respected authoritative figure on a specific topic due thousands of community followers? That would be good for a community. You might be aware that forum software and it's use are floundering in general. Many sources site that forum software is being used increasingly less. I believe this can turn around by meeting what people want out of the internet and feeding user ego seems to be a big component of what is in demand.

So how do we improve on the member list? Well this is certainly open for many ideas but I think it's a conversation worth having. I can offer my ideas as a starting point. Firstly calling it a member list would be a disservice. It's a culture shift, It's a complete shift in strategy. A strategy that brings importance to members as well as topics and merges them in a synergistic manner. This is a people focal point and needs a more appropriate name. One thing is to bring this visually into at least 2015. A Grid will bring focus to members and their personality. However, as you rightly pointed out this won't make it more useful. So what does it do? Well for one lets give the opportunity for everyone to have a short headline. This will bring personality. Secondly lets not have people listed who don't have avatars. Let's rank people by followers so they can build popularity. Let's allow sorting by location. Let's have leader lists. in order by likes this week, most posts this week, most friends ETC.. This will provide healthy competition and increase activity. Let''s have activity feeds so we can see what members are up to. It's all about the Buzz. Let's have all time leader awards. Most pictures posted. Oh and I said synergistic right? How does this help a forum with topics? well I can find a member with the most followers and I can start reading his or her posts/topics. Get to the good stuff right? This is especially useful for picture based forums.  The ideas can go on and on, how about "most quoted".. maybe even auto promote to article, or snippets of the quote.

I am sure others have ideas but first we need to align to the idea that members are largely being ignored and this must change. Members are an integral element to success. After all members drive ALL the posting, and ALL the topics and ALL the content. Ask yourself "Why even post on a forum in the first place???" We need to be better at providing a reason to participate or people will continue moving to Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram.  I can't say it enough MEMBERS ARE IMPORTANT.. MEMBERS , MEMBERS , MEMBERS ,MEMBERS ,MEMBERS  !!!!!

[Rikki]

I think what you're really after is a way for member content to be better recognized, rather than a 'member list'. A member list to most of us is simply an alphabetical (or other sorting) list of everyone in the community, and that's what we're saying isn't very useful. However, you're asking for ways for member contributions to be recognized - show those with the best content (voted on my other members), those with most followers, and so on. I don't think those are solved with a member list, but you'll be pleased to know we already have ideas on how to address those kinds of needs.

One of my favorite buzzwords is 'gamification' (everyone laughs at me when I use it) - i.e. encouraging people to participate by rewarding them for doing so. We've made some simple steps towards this in 4.0 (such as showing the reputation count next to all of their posts and content), but there's a lot more we can do in future, and we already have some internal discussions about possible approaches.

So I think we've solved the argument here - most are against a 'member list', but you're asking for better ways to recognize member contributions, which we do agree with  

[SJ77]

I think what you're really after is a way for member content to be better recognized, rather than a 'member list'. A member list to most of us is simply an alphabetical (or other sorting) list of everyone in the community, and that's what we're saying isn't very useful. However, you're asking for ways for member contributions to be recognized - show those with the best content (voted on my other members), those with most followers, and so on. I don't think those are solved with a member list, but you'll be pleased to know we already have ideas on how to address those kinds of needs.

One of my favorite buzzwords is 'gamification' (everyone laughs at me when I use it) - i.e. encouraging people to participate by rewarding them for doing so. We've made some simple steps towards this in 4.0 (such as showing the reputation count next to all of their posts and content), but there's a lot more we can do in future, and we already have some internal discussions about possible approaches.

So I think we've solved the argument here - most are against a 'member list', but you're asking for better ways to recognize member contributions, which we do agree with  

​Well stated and much appreciated. You've filled me with hope!

[Rob.]

I used member list to show total posts. I know you can get hooks to show the top 5 or so posters, but I used to like seeing how I compared to others when I joined a forum from new. I never used member list as an a to z.

[Woodsman]

The members list on my board has been disabled to the general public for many of years. Only Admins and staff have had access to it for quick reference in moderation. And even then it is just an extra tab now...

I created a members list in a dropdown in my RC's at the moment for design purposes but other than that I don't have what I would call a Good enough reason to make it a live version.

 

[esquire]

No-one sat there clicking through hundreds (actually, tens of thousands in our case) of pages of members to find people in 3.4. The actual 'list' part of the member list was useless on any sizable community. Instead, what people valued was the search capabilities. It makes much more sense to put that in the search engine so that members can be found alongside everything else on the site.

@superj707 You've been mentioning that a grid looks better, which is fine, but it doesn't address the actual purpose of having a member list. Other than what it looks like, how would you imagine using a member list that shows thousands upon thousands of profile photos? What would your goal be when you visit that page? What would you expect to do on that page that our member search system in 4.0 doesn't support? This goes deeper than simply what a page looks like - it can look like anything with the theme system of course (you can make the 4.0 search system look like a grid, if you wish). It's about working out the purpose of a page, and the sole useful purpose of the old member list is now part of the search system.

I can understand that if you had a close-knit community of a few dozen members, such as on a company intranet, a directory might be useful. But that isn't a common use unfortunately, so it is probably better suited as an addon. Then again, we have the new 'staff directory' functionality which lets you curate a list of important members and customize what information is shown, so I'm not even sure that's a popular use case any more.

​This is very true. A bare directory you can sort by letter or by number is totally useless on any sizeable community. As others pointed out above, if the search system wasn't so useless the member directory would be more useful. The real purpose of the "members" area - at least to me - is some type of visible landing page which can provide users with some useful place to search for other members. Unless you specifically inform users about how to find users, they will assume they can't do it. And the current search system is very frustrating (such as the seeming inability to properly search for strings by enclosing in quotes.) And the searches I'd actually want to do (by profile field, e.g. type of doctor, type of coder, etc.) may not be offered that would make the IPS search useful.

The answer to me wasn't removing the members page entirely but to make it actually usable and meaningful for communities. For example, if you run a professional skateboarding site, it would be fun and useful to have the top members listed by some profile field. For example, most posts/articles in the city/location of the logged in user. I'm from Chicago. I hit the "members" page and I see all the boarders from my hood, most active down.

Joe_from_Chicago 

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Latest Posts

While some forums don't care, many "communities" really would care. And isn't this community called a "community" here for a reason? How about a coders forum where a profile field prioritized is your core development language. And then on the members page you get to see all the top members who have contributed the most articles/posts to "PHP"? 

I don't understand the thinking behind removing options entirely, including post numbers. To me it feels like thinking in a small box that is in a much larger box. If you want to remove a stock user's landing page that doesn't have all this jazz, easy enough. I just wouldn't remove it and consider it not useful. Thank you for any consideration.

[Will Munny]

​I don't understand the thinking behind removing options entirely, including post numbers. To me it feels like thinking in a small box that is in a much larger box.

​It's a question of throwing time and resources at developing, and then maintaining, a function that harldy anybody uses, and is of questionable value in the first place. To me, removing it was the correct decision and I'm happy it's gone. I hope it stays gone. To me, making a bold decision to remove a useless feature is thinking way beyond the confines of the box you envisage.

[esquire]

​It's a question of throwing time and resources at developing, and then maintaining, a function that harldy anybody uses, and is of questionable value in the first place. To me, removing it was the correct decision and I'm happy it's gone. I hope it stays gone. To me, making a bold decision to remove a useless feature is thinking way beyond the confines of the box you envisage.

LOL. "Developing and maintaining" post numbers or just a link in the install to a members page (to avoid all the eventual questions)... yes, resource consuming rocket science.

Bold. LOL. Yes, ignore the content people have posted for the past 15+ years on forums that used page numbers. 

Now I understand why direction here took the turn that it did. Anyone with an attention span of more than 5 minutes has left the building...

[The Jimmo]

Most forum software suites are really great at presenting tens of 1000's of posts and other information by leveraging topics, and forum categories. TOPICS are front and center. This is no surprise since organizing the posts of it's users into logical threads has always been the root purpose for having a web forum. However, what hasn't yet been done in a forum suite is to make use of an integrated system that brings the wealth of PEOPLE a community has to the fore-front. As mentioned many times  in this thread, member lists have largely been a useless after thought as opposed to a primary structure. Communities focused on people are fun and I think it's the way to succeed in the future. We all like to be famous. Just as people enjoy pushing their followers on instagram, we would love to push our popularity within a community!!!  We have an advantage here too over instagram because forum based communities tend to have a focused purpose. Can you imagine a member being able to rise up as a respected authoritative figure on a specific topic due thousands of community followers? That would be good for a community. You might be aware that forum software and it's use are floundering in general. Many sources site that forum software is being used increasingly less. I believe this can turn around by meeting what people want out of the internet and feeding user ego seems to be a big component of what is in demand.

 

The issue here again is you do not go searching through an alphabetical list of people to find new and interesting photos on Instagram. They have "trending photos" and the alike. Completely different things. IPS already has some items like this and as @Rikki stated, continue to develop more.

[SJ77]

​This is very true. A bare directory you can sort by letter or by number is totally useless on any sizeable community. As others pointed out above, if the search system wasn't so useless the member directory would be more useful. The real purpose of the "members" area - at least to me - is some type of visible landing page which can provide users with some useful place to search for other members. Unless you specifically inform users about how to find users, they will assume they can't do it. And the current search system is very frustrating (such as the seeming inability to properly search for strings by enclosing in quotes.) And the searches I'd actually want to do (by profile field, e.g. type of doctor, type of coder, etc.) may not be offered that would make the IPS search useful.

The answer to me wasn't removing the members page entirely but to make it actually usable and meaningful for communities. For example, if you run a professional skateboarding site, it would be fun and useful to have the top members listed by some profile field. For example, most posts/articles in the city/location of the logged in user. I'm from Chicago. I hit the "members" page and I see all the boarders from my hood, most active down.

Joe_from_Chicago 

Latest Articles

Latest Posts

While some forums don't care, many "communities" really would care. And isn't this community called a "community" here for a reason? How about a coders forum where a profile field prioritized is your core development language. And then on the members page you get to see all the top members who have contributed the most articles/posts to "PHP"? 

I don't understand the thinking behind removing options entirely, including post numbers. To me it feels like thinking in a small box that is in a much larger box. If you want to remove a stock user's landing page that doesn't have all this jazz, easy enough. I just wouldn't remove it and consider it not useful. Thank you for any consideration.

​Quoted for Truth!!!