Invision Community 4: SEO, prepare for v5 and dormant account notifications By Matt Monday at 02:04 PM
The Jimmo Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Seems many are making lots of assumptions about what the "majority" want/need.I still have yet to read a good case to retain the same "member list" that can't be rebutted by "it is available but slightly different."Do not take this as being "mean" or trying to discredit you. If you want this by all means fight for it but in order for me to agree with you, I need to see a good use case and frankly I can't come up with one or have seen one from someone else that the current list doesn't provide.
SJ77 Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I still have yet to read a good case to retain the same "member list" that can't be rebutted by "it is available but slightly different."I see where you are coming from but stated many times in this thread very few (if any) want the "same" member list. There is much opportunity to make this thing useful.Many of us believe that PEOPLE are a key part of community and PEOPLE ought to be front and center in a logical way. It's no longer all about topics. People matter.
esquire Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Does this fit everyone? Eh, probably not. No software does.Does it fit the majority of who IPS has to tailor their software to? I think so.I'd like to hear more about is how the community will be featured going forward. In this iteration, the removal of the members page entirely seems to reflect a bit of a movement away from showcasing members and focusing mostly on content. The removal of Friends makes the relationships between users completely different in IPS 4. On other software, the members page - a dedicated page - is more of a selection of top members who have pictures and the ability to see the most active, highly rated and most popular members of your community. I think that some thought that IPS would go in the other direction, that IPS 4 would be IPB3 plus more features. As such, I'm sympathetic to those who built their IPB 3 based on that premise and not dismissive of their concerns.
Izaya Orihara Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Seems many are making lots of assumptions about what the "majority" want/need. That would be @esquire LK and others trying to tell us the importance of a memberlist and post numbers that most of us have proven not to care about as per the discussions.What I've noticed and what bothers me most about a lot of these complaints is this is a vocal MINORITY speaking for the majority and I've seen comments from various users who want to use their 'experience' and the 'investment' they have in their own sites to try and devalue or dismiss other users who don't agree with them. It's such a huge honor I am sure to be recognized for your forum's success in life but I dislike the entitlement that 'big board' owners have that somehow makes their needs stronger/more important than others. This member title list thing has been like that since the very first beta. It's been like this on IPB site. So you mean to tell me NOW it is a big deal to people? I believe it's been nearly a year since the preview site. And people are just NOW complaining about it. Which goes to show that this is not a majority that wants this or even needs this. When Microsoft released Windows 8 without the start button...I am pretty sure people didn't wait till months later to start complaining about it. What bothers me even more is that we have a temporary fix for some feature that was added to the Marketplace and that still wasn't good enough because it isn't apart of core. So we get more complaints about that. Instead of just letting them perfect what we have now and fix the remaining bugs....and then let them address this stuff in 4.0.1(please don't wait till 4.1) we're demanding this and we're demanding that. When a lot of us are perfectly happy and have no issues or little issues. We still have a memebrlist in IPB4....it is there, a little different but still there. Perhaps a compromise could be: IPS releasing some of these improvements as mods until they move it into core. But 6 pages of going on about a MEMBERLIST that still exists is just.....no. And when I see threads like this That bothers me. Big Boards are important and influential but I don't need/want any big board forums dictating for me what features should or shouldn't be added because in the end you need to realize you are a big forum but you are using a software that still needs to cater to the lowest common denominator and your 'experience' or 'success' does not make you any better than those of us with smaller communities who ARE fine with the software.
The Jimmo Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I'd like to hear more about is how the community will be featured going forward. In this iteration, the removal of the members page entirely seems to reflect a bit of a movement away from showcasing members and focusing mostly on content. The removal of Friends makes the relationships between users completely different in IPS 4. On other software, the members page - a dedicated page - is more of a selection of top members who have pictures and the ability to see the most active, highly rated and most popular members of your community. I think that some thought that IPS would go in the other direction, that IPS 4 would be IPB3 plus more features. As such, I'm sympathetic to those who built their IPB 3 based on that premise and not dismissive of their concerns.Reading this makes me think you haven't had time to fiddle around with the software enough. The member list is just a directory of members, in essence the "top rated members" or "active members" can be represented by widgets in IPS4 (which can be placed on any page).I do agree the removal of friends makes a relationship a little forceful but it is following common industry practices, e.g. Twitter, Instagram. Which focusing more on a community and content, I can follow someone I am interested in hearing about but they don't necessarily be forced into following me. This allows more freedom to notifications and different things that I'm sure the 3rd party developer community will take advantage of.Anyway, personally on my forum, we have moved closer towards content. Our member list has been of no use, it rarely gets a pageview in a week by an actual member.
Izaya Orihara Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I'd like to hear more about is how the community will be featured going forward. In this iteration, the removal of the members page entirely seems to reflect a bit of a movement away from showcasing members and focusing mostly on content. The removal of Friends makes the relationships between users completely different in IPS 4. On other software, the members page - a dedicated page - is more of a selection of top members who have pictures and the ability to see the most active, highly rated and most popular members of your community. I think that some thought that IPS would go in the other direction, that IPS 4 would be IPB3 plus more features. As such, I'm sympathetic to those who built their IPB 3 based on that premise and not dismissive of their concerns.Other software has a dedicated page for their top members...you mean what we already have in IPB 3 with the top posters overall and today?...which according to my IPb4 install still does technically exist in IPB4 as 'top contributors'?
esquire Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Reading this makes me think you haven't had time to fiddle around with the software enough. The member list is just a directory of members, in essence the "top rated members" or "active members" can be represented by widgets in IPS4 (which can be placed on any page).I do agree the removal of friends makes a relationship a little forceful but it is following common industry practices, e.g. Twitter, Instagram. Which focusing more on a community and content, I can follow someone I am interested in hearing about but they don't necessarily be forced into following me. This allows more freedom to notifications and different things that I'm sure the 3rd party developer community will take advantage of.Anyway, personally on my forum, we have moved closer towards content. Our member list has been of no use, it rarely gets a pageview in a week by an actual member. Unfortunately it's common to misunderstand that this is not an "industry practice" at all. It's something completely different. Notice you said "twitter, instagram" but not "facebook." That's because they are two completely different types of models. Twitter and instagram don't focus much on the members and their relationships as they do on the content they produce. You can actually have both and they are not mutually exclusive. Where this becomes difficult is areas like gallery, e.g. you may have albums you only want friends to see. These types of forums may be in different demographics than yours.
The Jimmo Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Many of us believe that PEOPLE are a key part of community and PEOPLE ought to be front and center in a logical way. It's no longer all about topics. People matter.I think it is great that you have a goal but saying "I want people to be front and center in a logical way" is extremely vague and I don't believe an outdated members list accomplishes this. I think widgets such as "top reputation" and the alike reward PEOPLE of your community and encourage them to do well and bring them up front to the community.
Management Charles Posted March 3, 2015 Management Posted March 3, 2015 We are not planning on adding a member list at this time as we agree with much of the feedback that it serves little purpose. We are, however, researching member discovery features that help people find interesting members based on criteria other than a simple list of all members. We believe this is the goal that most people want - member discovery - whereas a list-o-members is just a list.You can of course search for members using lots of filters in IPS4: http://community.invisionpower.com/search/While I understand there are a select group of you who enjoy browsing a list of members it is not something we think is a good focus of resources at this time.
esquire Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Other software has a dedicated page for their top members...you mean what we already have in IPB 3 with the top posters overall and today?...which according to my IPb4 install still does technically exist in IPB4 as 'top contributors'?I'm just wondering why there wouldn't be a dedicated page that would feature top contributors and also make it easy to focus on finding members. I explained this elsewhere but I find search to be completely useless. For example, if I wanted to feature my community, I'd want there to be a dedicated page that makes it easy to find certain types of members, like an advanced search at the top of the page that displays several fields to find members. Right now all you can do is search by name related to content created, not the characteristics of members (profile fields, not just content they created) which is where the power to your community lies.
The Jimmo Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Unfortunately it's common to misunderstand that this is not an "industry practice" at all. It's something completely different. Notice you said "twitter, instagram" but not "facebook." That's because they are two completely different types of models. Twitter and instagram don't focus much on the members and their relationships as they do on the content they produce. You can actually have both and they are not mutually exclusive. Where this becomes difficult is areas like gallery, e.g. you may have albums you only want friends to see. These types of forums may be in different demographics than yours. This is going off topic now... my last comment. As you said and I said, going content based the follower is industry practice, why Instagram and Twitter were referenced. Facebook is a different being by itself, it is part old/ part new/ part all it's own thing.
Izaya Orihara Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Somehow I feel like this won't be good enough. LOL
Management Charles Posted March 3, 2015 Management Posted March 3, 2015 Somehow I feel like this won't be good enough. LOL I was just providing a demo of what sort of things are available
esquire Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 @Charles - thanks for the screenshot. I think that's really cool!What I'm talking about is the ability to discover interesting people on your forum, not just the top 10 content creators. For example, many people want to put up profiles on my forums so they can be found. That's the whole purpose of the profile fields (hence I use Facebook more of an example than Twitter where profile fields don't really matter.) So if I run a professional medical site and I have profile fields like Type of Medical Professional, Location I'd be able to search for a General Practitioner who is in California State. Or perhaps I'm running a car forum and I had different types of car persons (dealers, owners, shops, etc.) and the types of cars they specialized. I'd be able to find a list of BMW dealers on my site and view their content.
SJ77 Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I think it is great that you have a goal but saying "I want people to be front and center in a logical way" is extremely vague and I don't believe an outdated members list accomplishes this. I think widgets such as "top reputation" and the alike reward PEOPLE of your community and encourage them to do well and bring them up front to the community. I was specific earlier on in this thread. You may view if it is of interest to you."I don't believe an outdated members list accomplishes this." Neither do I which is why I called it an opportunity.
Management Charles Posted March 3, 2015 Management Posted March 3, 2015 @Charles - thanks for the screenshot. I think that's really cool!What I'm talking about is the ability to discover interesting people on your forum, not just the top 10 content creators. For example, many people want to put up profiles on my forums so they can be found. That's the whole purpose of the profile fields (hence I use Facebook more of an example than Twitter where profile fields don't really matter.) So if I run a professional medical site and I have profile fields like Type of Medical Professional, Location I'd be able to search for a General Practitioner who is in California State. Or perhaps I'm running a car forum and I had different types of car persons (dealers, owners, shops, etc.) and the types of cars they specialized. I'd be able to find a list of BMW dealers on my site and view their content.Yes I agree. That screenshot was just a demo of one thing we have right now. As I said previously and is pointed out on our Feature Plan: member discovery (and content discovery) is an important focus we have for future versions.People post great things and it's our job to make it easier to find those people and those posts.
SJ77 Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I'm just wondering why there wouldn't be a dedicated page that would feature top contributors and also make it easy to focus on finding members. I explained this elsewhere but I find search to be completely useless. For example, if I wanted to feature my community, I'd want there to be a dedicated page that makes it easy to find certain types of members, like an advanced search at the top of the page that displays several fields to find members. Right now all you can do is search by name related to content created, not the characteristics of members (profile fields, not just content they created) which is where the power to your community lies.A sorted list of members can be quite powerful if done correctly. I must agree with you
We are Borg Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 You can put the IPS4 "search member list" as button, takes less than 1 second if you're experienced. Everything you mentioned is still available, it is not on page but if you want to see members with the letter "M", type in "M" to the search. If you want to see members in group "xyz" type in "XYZ". As IPS4 grows, I am certain that IPS will add more functionality into this search. Does this fit everyone? Eh, probably not. No software does.Does it fit the majority of who IPS has to tailor their software to? I think so. That is not an issue its useability when i want m i first need to go to the search box then press M, old situation goto tab M and just press. Under ipb 3.4.x you can also do lots of stuff if you press a button. In IPB 3.4.7 custom fields are included in the advanced button have no clue if thats the same under 4. What we havent talked about what is better for server resources the member list button under ipb 3.4.x or the search button that does a search everytime. also how do you know that majority wants what or even the minorty.
Management Charles Posted March 3, 2015 Management Posted March 3, 2015 What we havent talked about what is better for server resources the member list button under ipb 3.4.x or the search button that does a search everytime.Oh good I was worried we had not fully explored this topic.
The Jimmo Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Oh good I was worried we had not fully explored this topic.WE MUST GO DEEPER!
We are Borg Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 Oh good I was worried we had not fully explored this topic. Well its something you'll need to consider searches are in my eye always a bit heavier then a normal page.With the old member list i could have fun and it was easy access one click instead of 3 clicks, this could be fixed by ipb very fast make an option in admincp default disabled and enabled you have a button to member list. The fun with the old member list was that you coul access the template and show more info on the member list page other then join date and post count. How would i for instance add the website url next to join date in ipb4.
Management Charles Posted March 3, 2015 Management Posted March 3, 2015 I have a feeling an enterprising Marketplace contributor could make dozens of dollars if they submitted a member list app.
SJ77 Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I have a feeling an enterprising Marketplace contributor could make dozens of dollars if they submitted a member list app. Oh good I was worried we had not fully explored this topic.
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