Followers Are Superior To Friends

[opentype]

​And again I will not discuss that here …

So why have you brought it up in the first place and continue to talk about it? 

 

But if you really must know find and ask them.

No one of us “must” know it. You brought it up. You wanted to make a point. Either it is convincing or it is not. 
Just suggesting that there other other “hidden” reasons wont lead anywhere. 

 

But like so many others before you don't try and shove it down my throat I won't swollow.

People here just express their different opinions and talk about technical details – that’s what this discussion forums are all about. In what way is expressing an opinion or talking about specific technical details of a software “shoving down something someone’s throat”? 

[SJ77]

YES, THIS!!!

[Jυra]

As a side note why does my "Jura" mention lead to someone's profile other than Jura? Is this a bug?

​I asked years ago if I could have that user's username and IPS declined. That person hasn't been on since 2005. I believe it's a policy thing.

[CheersnGears]

There's nothing to say if compelling feedback with sound reasoning is provided, we won't consider an actual "friends" feature in the future -- but ask yourself what you're really after. Many community admins aren't keen on the idea of footing the bill for their members to create private personal content only to be shared with a limited group of friends that willfully excludes the majority of the community. So beyond private content limited to friends only, what would you envision a "friends" feature doing that following can't accomplish? Is it more of a concern that you don't have control over who follows you? If so, I would argue that you're on a public community -- everything you're posting is viewable to the person that follows you with or without the ability to make it easy for people who find your content interesting and enjoy your contributions. The follow system isn't some mystical feature that exposes your social security number and a live video feed into your home nor is it an indication of worship to the individual you're following - it's merely a shortcut to content that's already public.

​Boatload of assumptions there about how we admins run our communities. Here are the flaws in these assumptions that I see:

1. Not all communities are public, some are quite locked down to outside viewers.
2. It has been discussed at length, but friends v followers is very different levels of control. Anyone can follow you Lindy, but can you restrict what we see?  Gallery currently has the feature that allows gallery sharing only with "friends" (so the assertion that friends does nothing currently is false) and a rather obvious addition to that could be users setting up a blog or downloads that are only visible to friends.   If I "friend" you it is because I want you to be able to view certain content that I post that I don't want the general public to see. It is a positive granting of permission.  
3. There are plenty of communities types where user control over who sees that user's posts is very important. Sites specializing in emotional support, adult oriented sites, artwork and authoring sites, Instagram style sites, and recovery and addiction sites are just a few that I can think of in the 10 minutes it is taking me to type this.
4. What many admins are keen on dictates the way the rest of us have to run our sites?  Really?  

I've seen this idea before that IPS seems to assume all of the content on all of our sites is meant for general public consumption... or at least consumption for all members of that site.  That may be the case for many sites, but certainly not all sites.   

[Lindy]

As the admin, you have full control over your member's permissions. If you want user-level control to allow end-users to recreate a mini-Facebook within a community suite via "friends" - that's not currently possible. If there's compelling feedback, we'll certainly revisit options -- but it's a niche request at present. Most do seem to consider a community... a community, with the admin creating division as necessary (such as we have sections for contributors.) 

You should recognize that just because not ALL admins run their communities the same way does not mean we can, or should, accommodate all the various ways people could run their community. I'm sorry you feel we should expend the development effort to create features and functionality that, in reality, only a relative handful may use. What one considers critical to their community is a waste of resources to another. 

That is, however, the purpose of feedback. You have some that prefer followers. A few that prefer friends. Another suggestion to create a bond between mutual followers. If there's overwhelming feedback that leads us to believe a good amount of users want to have a community in which users can essentially create their own private social network within your suite, we can certainly explore that further -- it would be foolish to ignore demand and opportunities. Conversely, we don't do things just because or based on a few rants and raves. Believe it or not, we do have a pretty good idea how our customers from all walks of life generally use our software (recognizing that not all sites are equal.) We don't always get everything perfect and we do prefer to start with a base that we can build upon and fine tune based on feedback, but we develop for the masses and rely on the third party marketplace for niche features. 

[CheersnGears]

if there's overwhelming feedback that leads us to believe a good amount of users want to have a community in which users can essentially create their own private social network within your suite, we can certainly explore that further -- it would be foolish to ignore demand and opportunities. 

​This.

I think this is the essence of what most here who are "Pro-Friend" are arguing for.  The technical mechanics may vary slightly... but in the end, I think this is what we/they are aiming for. 

Lacking that ability is a substantial limitation to a suite that is supposed to be incredibly flexible.  It takes a substantial number of site concepts away from being able to be run on 4.0.   The "it's a forum, everyone can see what the admin wants them to see" permissions concept is an antique.  End users today expect some level of control over who sees their content because they have used that ability with Facebook, Instagram, Linked-In, Vine, Google+, and enumerable others.

You broke the forums out of the core so that it is not just forum software with add-ons into a new software where it is core + whatever flexible features we admins want.   Let us use it that way.

[Woodsman]

​Boatload of assumptions there about how we admins run our communities. Here are the flaws in these assumptions that I see:

1. Not all communities are public, some are quite locked down to outside viewers.
2. It has been discussed at length, but friends v followers is very different levels of control. Anyone can follow you Lindy, but can you restrict what we see?  Gallery currently has the feature that allows gallery sharing only with "friends" (so the assertion that friends does nothing currently is false) and a rather obvious addition to that could be users setting up a blog or downloads that are only visible to friends.   If I "friend" you it is because I want you to be able to view certain content that I post that I don't want the general public to see. It is a positive granting of permission. 
3. There are plenty of communities types where user control over who sees that user's posts is very important. Sites specializing in emotional support, adult oriented sites, artwork and authoring sites, Instagram style sites, and recovery and addiction sites are just a few that I can think of in the 10 minutes it is taking me to type this.
4. What many admins are keen on dictates the way the rest of us have to run our sites?  Really?

I've seen this idea before that IPS seems to assume all of the content on all of our sites is meant for general public consumption... or at least consumption for all members of that site.  That may be the case for many sites, but certainly not all sites.  

​

​This.

I think this is the essence of what most here who are "Pro-Friend" are arguing for.  The technical mechanics may vary slightly... but in the end, I think this is what we/they are aiming for.

Lacking that ability is a substantial limitation to a suite that is supposed to be incredibly flexible.  It takes a substantial number of site concepts away from being able to be run on 4.0.   The "it's a forum, everyone can see what the admin wants them to see" permissions concept is an antique.  End users today expect some level of control over who sees their content because they have used that ability with Facebook, Instagram, Linked-In, Vine, Google+, and enumerable others.

You broke the forums out of the core so that it is not just forum software with add-ons into a new software where it is core + whatever flexible features we admins want.   Let us use it that way.

​@CheersnGears Thank you.

This is where I was heading until I let my personal views over ride my train of thought.... There are more than a few here that @Lindy speaks of that would rather keep quiet and not take a chance getting mocked or upsetting the apple cart where they have posted their preferences in other topics. Instead they got the "Show Me a reason" line from non IPS personnel. And in other cases  their views were called "Rants" So they backed down. But those I got the biggest kick out of were those who turned when the boat started to rock a little. Stopping here personal views are trying to take over again.

As far as Development goes Friends feature was already in place there was nothing to add. And again worked awesome for those who knew how to make it work. For those who didn't take the time to understand it, sure it was added bloat. Now you have something new called Followers not even nearly the same in in context or functionality let alone security. What may be great for every 10 people may be a downfall for the next 2 or 3.... Personally I think those odds suck crab water.

 Damn here I am thinking personal gain.

‌

[Lindy]

I think you're off the mark on this one, Woodsman. All along, you've been referring to the philosophical meaning of friends and detesting followers while saying you've made "some darn good friends" through the community and wanted that list of said friends maintained. That's unfortunately not a reason for adding or maintaining a feature and I think other members were not mocking you, but instead calling you out on the perceived lack of substance for your feedback and asking for more... such as what CheersnGears has provided. There's many things this community has, but an overabundance of silence is likely not one of them.

It's perfectly natural for one to consider their opinion so sound that it's unfathomable to imagine any rational person having a differing opinion on a particular subject. To a conservative, it's mind boggling how someone could actually follow liberal principles -- and vice-versa. It's sheer human nature and there's nothing inherently wrong with it until we don't know when to say enough is enough and accept differing viewpoints. 

In this case -- we're not developing Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ --- what do every single one of those services have in common? They're all geared primarily, if not entirely, around the user, not your content and not the community as a whole. CheersnGears - for what it's worth, you can still (as an end-user) create albums specific to certain people. I believe I've seen you mention losing traffic to Facebook and the forums becoming less of an interest; I'm not trying to tell you how to run your community, but perhaps the "recreate private social network" philosophy is, with all due respect, a reason why. If your site becomes about cliques and private content (I'm not suggesting it is) -- what's the incentive for remaining on it when virtually everyone already has Facebook if they want to privately converse and share general things with "friends?" I'm personally a believer in fully leveraging social networks, not duplicating them. This appears to be what interests the majority of customers as well... All? No. Not everyone runs their community the same way, but if we tried to accommodate every unique need and desire while recreating Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and Google all bundled into one suite - we'd have to distribute the software on DVDs and it would require a beowulf cluster to operate.  

We absolutely have great plans for far greater social features and gamification, but remember that the heart of what we do is communities. We provide a means for you to take an interest or purpose and share it with others and allow them to share their contributions or otherwise interact with you and other community members in return. I completely get that some want a subset of features that allows a virtual clubhouse of sorts for select friends and we may very well do things like social groups, but our job is to establish a baseline for the software that works the way the majority would expect. I can say we don't get many requests from big boards, enterprise or even that many individual hobbyists that want the ability to isolate content between friends and outside the benefit of the community at large. To the contrary, many ask for less user control. If market demand changes and there's genuine interest, of course we'll consider anything. There's certainly no incentive to not creating what your customers want, but we also have an obligation to the big picture. 

[CheersnGears]

You are right, you are not developing any of those social networks.  You are developing software to run social communities.    We admins are the ones building the next instagram or facebook or tumblr and we are trying to use your software to do it.  However the software lacks the flexibility to do it. 

Lindy, it is really interesting that you say this:

I'm personally a believer in leveraging social networks, not duplicating them.

And then this

 It's perfectly natural for one to consider their opinion so sound that it's unfathomable to imagine any rational person having a differing opinion on a particular subject. 

... in the same post.

 You've misinterpreted my statement about the ability to add friends the same way facebook does into thinking I want a full facebook, youtube, google+, instagram replacement from the IPS suite.  I am not aiming nor asking for that.  You are wrong about needing to distribute such a package on DVD.... clones of all of them plus many more are available in the Softlicious installer today. 

-----------------------

I'm not trying to tell you how to run your community

Except you are when you say things like:

"I'm personally a believer in leveraging social networks, not duplicating them"

"if your site becomes about cliques and private content .... what's the incentive for remaining on it when virtually everyone already has Facebook if they want to converse "

There are certain niches that users would not want to share with their friends and family on facebook.  Entirely separate social networks that operate like facebook but are separate are entirely appropriate here.  Addiction social networks, adult themed social networks, emotional support social networks, health support group social networks are all scenarios that come to mind.   If someone wants to join an alcoholics anonymous support group... Facebook is the very LAST place they are going to want to do that and having privacy controls via the friends feature is going to be a very important feature of such a site.

------------------------

Here is what I think bothers me by far;  The lack of vision of what IPS software could be.   Your entire last paragraph, Lindy, indicates to me that you are maintaining that "We build forum software" mentality even though IPS 4.0 is clearly moving beyond that.  You mention that your enterprise customers don't seem to care about a friends feature... well of course not! They are happily running their forums as is and are likely to continue doing so for a while.   Enterprise customers also tend to lack imagination. "That's the way we've always done it" is not a valid reason for continuing to do it when there is the potential for so much more. 

And here is the irony that bothers me so much.  The bones of 4.0 are such that it could absolutely be the basis for another Facebook, Pintrest, Instagram, Vine, youtube, or Tumbler in functionality if not size.  I've toyed around enough with 4.0 to realize just how much potential there is in the code to be any or all of the above. Sure it would take other plug-ins and mods from the marketplace, but all of the important stuff is there.  With one crippling caveat....... no friend system.  

I am fairly certain, that with a 4.0 RC6 install with Gallery, Pages and maybe Blogs, I could build a functioning Tumblr, Vine, Instagram, or Pintrest clone today....  However, it is missing a friends system. Missing that ability, missing that flexibility, means that there is no way to build the software to perform the way end users expect it to perform. Friends system is an essential bone of this software that really shouldn't be handled by a 3rd party app. Adding a friends system will not cause huge (any?) amounts of server overhead. 

Please... think outside the forum.  I can see the huge non-forum potential in 4.0, it surprises me that you don't seem to. 

[esquire]

In this case -- we're not developing Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ --- what do every single one of those services have in common? They're all geared primarily, if not entirely, around the user, not your content and not the community as a whole. CheersnGears - I believe I've seen you mention losing traffic to Facebook and the forums becoming less of an interest; I'm not trying to tell you how to run your community, but perhaps this is why - if your site becomes about cliques and private content (I'm not suggesting it is) -- what's the incentive for remaining on it when virtually everyone already has Facebook if they want to converse and share general things with "friends?" I'm personally a believer in leveraging social networks, not duplicating them. 

I agree with everything @CheersnGears just said ^^^^. Lindy, all the social networks you listed and pure UGC sites all have very good content sharing tools. Is there a need for anyone to do YA public facing user generated content model yet again?

I think there is a fundamental disconnect in understanding why CheersnGears' long list of site types and privately owned forums in general is not Facebook or even LinkedIn forums which is fine for the task. The most patently obvious difference is that people don't want to use their real names -- and they don't have to. They don't want to worry about a large public corporation selling every piece of data and content uploaded. They don't want to discover why the content that they thought was private really isn't private. They trust the community member running the site whom they believe is like minded. That is a need - a very large niche which Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Instagram do NOT serve. And then there are large niche communities -- support, recovery, addiction, nightlife/adult (huge), etc. -- typically extend into having a private content area. It may have nothing at all to do about "leveraging" relationships. It's about feeling comfortable sharing private content with another nameless person they are confident isn't going to use it against them and shouldn't appear in a search engine. It could be a sexy photo, a photo of a skin problem, marijuana plants (even if/when legalized) or a blog/gallery of a car you're making for a car show that you only want a couple of fellow auto modders to see and provide critique. By not providing a stock option, users will go elsewhere to fulfill this desire. And the appeal of IPS 4 is smaller to current/potential customers than IPB 3 due to less flexibility.

But our job is to establish a baseline for the software that works the way the majority would expect.... There's certainly no incentive to not creating what your customers want, but we also have an obligation to the big picture. 

​If you polled the IPS customers, how many would have expected to have stock features in IPB3 for many years (like Friends, BA) removed without being notified or even polled in a newsletter? One might think caution in this direction would be advisable if IPS 4 becomes incompatible with IPB 3 in areas which may have been used by customers.

That is, however, the purpose of feedback. You have some that prefer followers. A few that prefer friends. Another suggestion to create a bond between mutual followers. If there's overwhelming feedback that leads us to believe a good amount of users want to have a community in which users can essentially create their own private social network within your suite...

​There is no "preference" -- Friends and Followers are not alternatives. Do admins prefer permissions groups or subcriptions/notifications? For different issues you use a different tool. If you've got an adult/dating/social site, you either have friends or some easy to use private permissions group to allow users to privately share content between each other. In fact, you're doing that with IPS 4 -- why? Because you recognize that there is plenty of demand for "cliques" with regard to Gallery. If it's not offered, you have very little practical ability to keep that type of community on your site because they'll need to use another medium or another site to provide the same.

I was asked to respond as a last effort, even though it's clear Friends is not in the plans for IPS 4. I don't recall any customer ever saying they didn't want Friends in the software (which could be hidden by creating a toggle switch in the Admin CP if so desired.) But I do see several surprised members saying it's essential for their sites and that no amount of finessing is the equivalent. Gut feeling tells me that 2 years was spent going in another direction making Friends a difficult add, only to be even more difficult as more cement is laid on top of it. Sincerely hope it's not too late. Takeway is IPS 4 may be "better" in some ways but it is certainly a very different product than IPB 3. IPS 4 might be a "niche product." Perhaps the best way to discover customer feedback is with a release, which appears to be imminent. Best of luck and look forward to it.

[CheersnGears]

@esquire brings up another good point.  Privacy at the big guys.  I've had at least 6 of my closer friends quit Facebook over the last few months over concerns of privacy.   Not privacy among the people in their friends list, but privacy from Facebook (the company) itself.  Those people still have social interests online. There are likely sites out there to fill that need. 

[Jaymez]

Cheers is spot on. On one hand there are niche communities that are in need of an organic friends system. On the other hand we have enterprise clients that use IPS everyday and will never use the friends system (or forums). Nonetheless an on/off feature for such a mechanism is a point of sale for both types of clients.

[Tom S.]

You are right, you are not developing any of those social networks.  You are developing software to run social communities.    We admins are the ones building the next instagram or facebook or tumblr and we are trying to use your software to do it.  However the software lacks the flexibility to do it. ​

These days, most social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Vine etc. operate on a "follow" basis. Even Facebook shows me more from pages I "like" i.e. "follow" on my news feed than content from actual friends. That's just how the Internet is moving. Users are more accustomed to using a "follow" system. So, to me, it makes perfect sense for IPS to offer a "follow" system over a "friends" one. Having both would just get confusing from a user's stand point.

I would hazard a guess that the average user of IPS's products is primarily focused around offering content to as wide an audience as possible. Therefore, a "follow" system is the most practical for this type of community/business. Some might be more niche and aim to cater to a small audience. However, you must accept that that will be a very small portion of the IPS client base. Also, if a community is that small, a friends system might not even be necessary.

I do want to say though that I understand your frustration to wanting/needing a feature for your site that's currently not available (I've been there). What makes it worse is the feature used to exist. In a perfect world, IPS would offer the option for users to turn on/off a "friends" feature. I am not against that happening. I just feel that's the way social media has evolved and IPS are responding to that accordingly.

[CheersnGears]

These days, most social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Vine etc. operate on a "follow" basis. Even Facebook shows me more from pages I "like" i.e. "follow" on my news feed than content from actual friends. That's just how the Internet is moving. Users are more accustomed to using a "follow" system. So, to me, it makes perfect sense for IPS to offer a "follow" system over a "friends" one. Having both would just get confusing from a user's stand point.

I would hazard a guess that the average user of IPS's products is primarily focused around offering content to as wide an audience as possible. Therefore, a "follow" system is the most practical for this type of community/business. Some might be more niche and aim to cater to a small audience. However, you must accept that that will be a very small portion of the IPS client base. Also, if a community is that small, a friends system might not even be necessary.

I do want to say though that I understand your frustration to wanting/needing a feature for your site that's currently not available (I've been there). What makes it worse is the feature used to exist. In a perfect world, IPS would offer the option for users to turn on/off a "friends" feature. I am not against that happening. I just feel that's the way social media has evolved and IPS are responding to that accordingly.

​Actually, most of the social networks mentioned work on a friends system with follow being the default setting.  Every user has the ability to limit their content to just people who they follow or mutual friend request.   For example, an instagram user can set their profile to private, but if they add you and you add them, then you can see each other's food pics.  Twitter, Vine, Facebook, and Google+ work the same way.  Tumblr is follow only but followbacks are an important part of the culture there, so it seems to be a missing feature.  You can follow me on Facebook, but unless I accept a friend request from you, you won't see anything. 

Having both is not confusing at all.  They are different tools for different jobs. I'd say that most users understand the difference. 

Context is also important here.  Most of us aren't going to be building the next Facebook, however one of us could be building a niche site where privacy and user discretion is needed.  That's where the importance of the friends system comes in. 

[Lindy]

I thought you were on hiatus, esquire. I feel like my posts are becoming esquire-esque in length and substance.

I'd first caution against confusing my opinion with that of all that represents IPS. From a product standpoint, no one person makes decisions and we do not let our own egos shape the product against the grain. In fact, there's several things that I would personally do different in the suite if I could, but they prove to be in contrast to the expectations of most others. Products are shaped according to our customers' needs... and by that, I mean not just the most vocal customers, but the customers we "visit" throughout the course of our day for support, sales and follow-up as well as those whose feedback we obtain from here. You guys seem to think we have no idea what we're talking about here and we work in a vacuum because our views don't always line up. We might not fit your current needs perfectly, but perhaps your needs don't necessarily represent the tens of thousands of others we're trying to meet. That doesn't lessen or take away from your feedback, but please, genuinely consider the above and trust that we haven't just been beating our heads on the walls for the past 13yrs and actually might have what resembles a clue... and if not, you can at least tell us "told you so."  

I'll repeat again... we never had a "friends system" - we had a "friends list" that again, essentially served no purpose other than to seemingly recognize relationships via an entry in the database. Admittedly, we underestimated how seriously a few people take the ability to require approval to be listed as a "friend" and I'm sorry for that frustration. The point remains, you're asking for all new functionality or to bring back an arbitrary list (I'm sure we could do that with a hook, if really desired.) 

Please also remember that in this industry, nothing is ever set in stone. We've said many times over that IPS4 was all about creating a new platform with a baseline approach that can quickly evolve and adapt to market needs and trends. I have never, to-date said we will not add a friends option and in fact, have repeatedly asked for folks to elaborate on what you envision an actual friends system to be. The desire to create a private clone of Instagram, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn is at least a tangible reason, though I'm not sure how actionable. I'd remind you, those services all exist independently for a reason.  

To be clear, I think we all agree on the desire for a powerful turnkey community solution that allows you to share all forms of content and engage with others. I think we disagree in your contention that end-users should be able to treat the site as a personal repository in which they can pick and choose who sees their blog entries or status updates or posts. That, in my personal opinion (and I stress that) is against the very premise of a community and you're once again full circle back to private social media and reinventing the wheel. You're clearly saying "IPS, why do you care, give us the option and let us worry about whether it's a silly idea or not!" That's a very fair-enough question/statement to make when you have a limited focus of what you want from the software. From the perspective of those who have to develop and support these ideas for the benefit of the masses, all angles need to be considered and represented. "Friends" didn't make the cut in IPS4 because it didn't fit the current scope of IPS4. It didn't do anything (and for Cheers' benefit, anything that can't be done in IPS4) and it was far more popularly requested to create a system in which one can follow another's content without the facade of "friendship" than to create a private replication of all social media networks in one or an arbitrary, non-functional list. Further, having both or a toggle without enough differentiation would just be utterly confusing to the user and as with anything, more confusion is more support overhead and end-user frustration. 

For what it's worth, there are hundreds of sites cited in your examples that already use the software. Mental health support, nightclubs, escort sites, you name it. Some have private VIP areas with permission masks, some have admin-approved registrations, some have access to more areas the more they participate, etc. It's generally accepted that if you're a part of a community, what you post is accessible to other members of that community and if the admin so chooses, to others outside of the community. In reference to Gallery, private albums were initially not in IPS4. It was a material feature in IP.Board and during the focus group and preview stages, there was a strong demand to bring them back -- so we did. 

There are immediate plans to improve upon the follower system (and I personally like the "bond" suggestion made by another customer for mutual followers.) There are overall plans to significantly improve social engagement. Whether these will include plans of a "friends" system is an unknown and will largely depend on what functionality could be tied to it. I for one don't envision the suite taking a direction in which an end-user, can say "I ONLY want my best friends to see my blog entries" -- but you never know. If that's the direction the user base takes us, that's where we'll go! I can tell you that at the moment, that's seemingly not what most want and thus the development and support time expended would have little gain and unnecessarily add to the software. 

I'll reiterate again, we're not done here yet and never will be. IPS4 is not a refactor of IP.Board - it's a new product line that will continue to evolve and mature. We've had an overwhelming sales response to IPS4, even in RC stages, but we understand some that grew very accustomed to the way IP.Board did certain things may have some, at least initial, hesitation or disappointment. Conversely, many are and will be excited about the flow of other areas and the new functionality and features. I would love to be something to everyone, but we can't and frankly, we're not going to pretend to try. At this point, I can only ask that you trust once we're over the initial release and stability hurdle, you will see marked advancement of the suite. It may not be entirely and perfectly suited to your every need (what is?) - but you certainly won't be able to say nothing is happening. In the interim, IP.Board/Blog/Gallery/Content/etc. still exists, is stable, fully supported, we still patch it and it seems it's fitting your needs relatively well -- there's no immediate need to upgrade, so why not relax and later revisit IPS4 to see if IPS is the right fit? 

 

[esquire]

I thought you were on hiatus, esquire. I feel like my posts are becoming esquire-esque in length and substance.   You guys seem to think we have no idea what we're talking about here and we work in a vacuum because our views don't always line up. We might not fit your current needs perfectly, but perhaps your needs don't necessarily represent the tens of thousands of others we're trying to meet.

​LOL.   Thanks for the unabridged. I think the "vacuum" tag some apply is more about IPB3 customers being left to incorrectly assume continuity of IPB3 features for a long time - IPS is still currently promoting features not planned for IPS4. Whether IPS 4 "might not fit current needs perfectly" may be underestimating the potential impact on existing sites and models and what drives these communities. Hopefully the overwhelming majority will not feel it.

I think we disagree in your contention that end-users should be able to treat the site as a personal repository in which they can pick and choose who sees their blog entries or status updates or posts.That, in my personal opinion (and I stress that) is against the very premise of a community and you're once again full circle back to private social media and reinventing the wheel. You're clearly saying "IPS, why do you care, give us the option and let us worry about whether it's a silly idea or not!" ..... I'll repeat again... we never had a "friends system" - we had a "friends list" that again, essentially served no purpose other than to seemingly recognize relationships via an entry in the database. Admittedly, we underestimated how seriously a few people take the ability to require approval to be listed as a "friend" and I'm sorry for that frustration. The point remains, you're asking for all new functionality or to bring back an arbitrary list (I'm sure we could do that with a hook, if really desired.) 

I think IPS defined a subset of what community is in IPS4. ​​"Community" is just a group of people with the same interests. People in Podunk County will share many things publicly. But if they choose to share/trust items of a more personal/intimate nature only with a subset of the community, that doesn't suddenly mean Podunk County is no longer a community. Providing a platform to manage public/sensitive content for this natural course of human conduct means keeping users on your site - which you actually do. The Friends List you believe serves "essentially no purpose" serves a very important purpose on customer sites like Podunk County and like @CheersnGears runs. It's not new functionality. Not only did IPS foster this silly idea in IPB2 and IPB3 but IPS it is still promoting both Friends' and private albums as a feature in the IPS Gallery sell page - both of which were removed from IPS4! Doesn't exactly help 3.x customers set accurate expectations, does it?

@Jaymez explained it perfectly -- Friends generates an arbitrary list on sites where it isn't needed because it couldn't be hidden with an admin control. Relegating Friends to some possible future hook means no third party commitment to development (nor my own) and probability of limited to no use. Perhaps you're right -- the overwhelming majority of customers will never need Friends and private albums (which is now being brought back.) I don't know. From out here it just seemed like there may have been a number of broad assumptions.

At this point, I can only ask that you trust once we're over the initial release and stability hurdle, you will see marked advancement of the suite. It may not be entirely and perfectly suited to your every need (what is?) - but you certainly won't be able to say nothing is happening. In the interim, IP.Board/Blog/Gallery/Content/etc. still exists, is stable, fully supported, we still patch it and it seems it's fitting your needs relatively well -- there's no immediate need to upgrade, so why not relax and later revisit IPS4 to see if IPS is the right fit? 

If I only could wait even longer to hold off on development.   Unfortunately my competitors won't allow me that luxury nor will my already far too long delayed plans thinking IPS 4 was IPS3+. I'm sure IPS 4 will eventually represent a marked advancement and I'm looking forward to it. Anyway, enough talk. The release will probably provide more useful and tangible feedback on everything discussed. Back to the hiatus and best of luck with the release!

[CheersnGears]

There are immediate plans to improve upon the follower system (and I personally like the "bond" suggestion made by another customer for mutual followers.) There are overall plans to significantly improve social engagement. Whether these will include plans of a "friends" system is an unknown and will largely depend on what functionality could be tied to it. I for one don't envision the suite taking a direction in which an end-user, can say "I ONLY want my best friends to see my blog entries" -- but you never know. If that's the direction the user base takes us, that's where we'll go! I can tell you that at the moment, that's seemingly not what most want and thus the development and support time expended would have little gain and unnecessarily add to the software. 

Remember what I mentioned above about the bones of IPS4.0?  Here's where I'm going with this.  A Friends system really should be part of the suite as provided by IPS because it is something that I see as so core to the structure that is should not be left to a 3-party developer.   Even if all you do is get the code in that a mutual follow becomes a friend/match/bond that would likely be sufficient.  The reason it should not be left to a 3-party is because it needs to be universal for all other 3rd party modifications to hang off of.   

Hypothetical: If I'm using Marcher's "Private Blogs" mod that bases it's relationships on his "Friends and Family" app, but then I also want to use Headstand's "Gallery/Content Tumblr Clone" app that bases friendship relationships off of Adriano Faria's "Friendster" mod... then I get into a huge mess.   I'm dealing with a similar headache right now in Wordpress land and I regret ever agreeing to the project. 

Though I no longer use Blogs on my own site, I definitely see scenarios where a user only shares their blog with their BFFs. However, I agree with you that the private blogs need not be in the suite directly. Allow the Marketplace to satisfy that particular need, just provide the structure to make that add-on possible in the first place. IPS can keep the codebase light(er) and those of us with other ideas can modify from that.