Encourage more community feeling

[Izaya Orihara]

I may do an overall review post for IPS but one thing in 2016 and something that could literally be done now is I think IPS ( @Charles hope you see this xD) could really work on encouraging community interactions. What I love is the fact that the developers from Charles to Lindy to the others(idk everyone's name tbh, sorry) are involved. Compared to the God Like way some other forum software community treat their developers Our IPS crew seems to be quite easy to approach and are easy to reach out to and talk with.

However. I've been here a few years and while I think our community is great...we could stand to be a bit more interactive with each other. It's a common criticism found on 'admin' forums that our community is a bit elitist and not exactly an engaging and helpful community.

For whatever reason, we keep the technical support forums closed. I personally don't agree and I honestly don't agree with the fact that people who are not with valid licenses are automatically shut out from the forum support. While the former probably won't change.....the latter would probably help the image of the community/product. Because it is a huge criticism.

What I would love to see more importantly is a SITE SHOWCASE.

There are so many people saying they don't know or see any forums running IPB4....we have a lovely thread for it..But it is in the client lounge...where non-active license holders can't see.

Why not have a forum that is visible to all and allow people to post their sites there....Not only get some traffic but it is also a good way to encourage interaction. Get some feedback from the community(and non-license holders) while showcasing your customers site, it also showcases the extensive ways the product has been utilized.

I would love to see a Forum Showcase(Since some other software support sites have it) and I would love to see IPS take a more proactive route in not being so.....conservative and being a bit more liberal and open and making the community(And the product) something that can have a broader appeal to those who think negatively. Because the product and the community is great....but we do ourselves no favors when we are so secretive and at times closed minded to others who are curious!

[Lindy]

I absolutely agree with you and we have many plans and ideas to cultivate a more positive community culture... it's just a matter of time to do it all.

A community showcase is definitely something we've considered and something we're happy to introduce if there's interest and enough willing to participate. I've moved the client lounge topic to general chat for more exposure. We can consider making it more of a top level site feature at some point if there's interest.

The support forums are closed because they were open for quite some time and clients pressed hard for us to close them because they were ultimately providing support (even viewable) to unlicensed users and those who weren't paying their dues so-to-speak. The support forums here are peer to peer supported; our only official support is via the client area. So, if clients don't want to support - directly or indirectly - people who haven't paid like they have, we'll honor that. If there's been a big change of heart and it seems like most clients would prefer them open, we'll honor that as well. Marketplace authors wanted expired licenses to be able to use the marketplace, so we opened it up accordingly. Much of what you see is driven by client feedback. 

There's a lot I would like to do -- an IPS "swag" store, community contests, more personal interaction like the 'Ask IPS' series we run on occasion. Again, it's just a matter of working it in. Right now, we're all hands on deck getting the product further stabilized, supported, documented and moving on to the "cool stuff" that 4.2 and beyond will bring. At that point, I'll personally have far more time to put further resources into the community and believe me, it is a priority. I enjoy the interaction here.  

[nodle]

I think the Staff around here does a pretty good job being active on the community. I see @Lindy always replying. I use to be on the Xenforo forums a lot and I didn't see their staff interact as much as around they do around here. If you want to check out some sites running IPB4 you should check out this thread:

 

[SJ77]

I feel like such a nerd but when I hear Lindy say "cool stuff" is coming I get really excited. This whole thing really is a lot of fun. I am happy to be here.

[jaeitee]

On 8 January 2016 at 4:55 PM, Lindy said:

A community showcase is definitely something we've considered and something we're happy to introduce if there's interest and enough willing to participate. 

This would be great, as sometimes looking at how other people utilise the suite can give you a better idea of possibilities and what's achievable.  Setting it up in Pages where we could submit to a form with some standard fields would keep it all nice and tidy.

[Tikkuy]

Given how expensive the initial license fee for IPB is, I don't think it's unreasonable to keep the support forums open. Most popular forum softwares - SMF, phpBB, Vanilla, etc. - are all free and offer free support. I hardly think it's asking too much for members who have already paid hundreds of dollars to be able to converse with other users about issues they are having, many of which are caused by the developers themselves.