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Feedback on Clubs

Joel R

By Joel R
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Joel R Mentor

Joel R

Posted
Posted

Not happy.  

That summarizes my feelings on clubs.  I investigated clubs three times in the past and last night I officially converted my group from Group Collaboration over to IP.Clubs, and I'm still deeply unhappy.  I feel like I went from driving a top-of-the-line Mercedes to a Kia.  The only thing going for the Kia is that it's company-insured to always be supported.  

This is an incredibly sensitive topic to me, because the reputation and features of my community are now critiqued by a third-party Club Leader who has entrusted me to move his 12-year group over to my community.  

I don't even know where to begin:

  • No homepage - Your dinky little text box doesn't cut it.  My Club Leader understands the concept of a homepage, wants a homepage, and deserves a homepage.  A homepage with full ckeditor capabilities with image attachments, bold, colors and all the other wild and outrageous formatting that he wants.  He wants it more than an Activity Stream, which we can't customize anyways.
  • Follow - no club-wide follow.  These external members have no bloody clue what your features are, and asking them to follow each node is ridiculous.  Getting them through a two-step process to register on my community and then join the club is already a huge ask.  But once they join the club, they don't get notified on any of the content even though that's the whole reason why they joined.  Once a member joins a club, they should auto-follow the club.  
  • Members
    • No custom moderator permissions.  I have no idea what moderator permissions were just given to the moderator.   
    • No member outreach.  How does my club owner actually message or mail his members to market outside of his club?  
  • Nodes - no reordering, which means you're screwed on ordering.
  • Nodes - no categories within nodes, which is a major pain point for me.  I had to convince my Club Leader to reduce 70+ categories into 3.   He had detailed categories for each letter of the album A-Z, and now all albums are mixed together in 39 pages of albums.  Content is king, and the inability to organize and categorize within nodes is a huge pain point.  
  • Conversion - no conversion of existing nodes.  I have no idea how IPS expected me to manually move 49,700 content items into clubs.  Content is king, and clubs is not easy to transfer content in / out.  
  • Delete and Move/Delete - In the ACP > Community app nodes, club nodes are not an option when using Delete or Move / Delete. 
  • Node Settings - I, as root admin, don't have full node control over settings or permissions.  For example, in galleries I can't enable "only use albums".  I have no idea how or where these nodes are inheriting certain settings that are beyond even my control as a root admin, and that's a big problem.  

I am asking a Club Leader to trust me to move his content, his members, and his loyalty over to me, yet these are the real challenges that I'm facing: his members aren't notified of new content; his members can't find content in 39 pages of albums; and his moderator and members can do whatever with whatever permissions they want because I can't control user, moderator, or node permissions.

Joel

SammyS Rising Star

SammyS

Posted
Posted

Im launching a really big project next year and I also found Clubs quite dissapointing so far. Hope it receives much more love in 4.4 or Ill have to use group collaboration

Joel R Mentor

Joel R

Posted
  • Author
Posted
3 hours ago, opentype said:

That was added a while back. It’s on the homepage with the club feed. 

Yes.  I'm still going to yell at IPS though.  

I want these members to auto-follow the club's content.  I'd rather be more aggressive with my marketing than less.  

3 hours ago, Adriano Faria said:

You can reorder features and get a home by using a plugin from marketplace. 

I know.  I installed your plugin before I even enabled Clubs.  It's the only way I didn't have a complete meltdown in clubs.  

jair101 Experienced

jair101

Posted
Posted (edited)

Pretty much, yeah. I also want to invest heavily in Clubs, but find myself underwhelmed by its current status. Thank you for taking the time to summing some of the issues in an organized and structured way, hopefully IPS takes notice. 

And in general, if one of the best selling apps on the marketplace is called "X enhancements", where X is an app you develop...you need to think hard if there is something missing from your offering. 

To me, I hate to be dependent on 3rd party resources, so far it seems that I am either dependent on Group Collaboration or on Clubs Enhancements. 

@Joel R Was the switch from GC to Clubs easy? I think I might try with GC as there is a lite free version afaik. If things goes south with its support (which I frankly expect as Kevin's apps have not seen any recent development lately, barely any bugfixes), then I want to be able to fallback to Clubs. 

Edited by jair101
Joel R Mentor

Joel R

Posted
  • Author
Posted
36 minutes ago, jair101 said:

To me, I hate to be dependent on 3rd party resources, so far it seems that I am either dependent on Group Collaboration or on Clubs Enhancements. 

I can't, in good faith, recommend Group Collaboration by Kevin anymore.  It was a nice run while it lasted, and it's far more powerful in terms of its functionality, but I started catching template errors when I needed something solid to offer to my Club Leader.  At least with Clubs Enhancements, you can disable without any noticeable front-end impact besides the homepage.  The plugin's main benefit is in its backend utility, such as deleting / reordering / converting nodes.  

It's a choice between two very distasteful futures and I'm swallowing it because Clubs will be professionally supported. 

47 minutes ago, jair101 said:

Was the switch from GC to Clubs easy? I think I might try with GC as there is a lite free version afaik. If things goes south with its support (which I frankly expect as Kevin's apps have not seen any recent development lately, barely any bugfixes), then I want to be able to fallback to Clubs. 

 With Club Enhancements ... yes.  You can convert a community node into a club node, and vice-versa.  That saved me.   

With IPS default ... no way.  

LiquidFractal Mentor

LiquidFractal

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Joel R said:

I can't, in good faith, recommend Group Collaboration by Kevin anymore.  It was a nice run while it lasted, and it's far more powerful in terms of its functionality, but I started catching template errors when I needed something solid to offer to my Club Leader. 

Although I continue to use Collabs, every single atheist on this planet will witness the Rapture before you get honest to god support from Kevin beyond the "what, you aren't a developer!??" insinuations.  There are piles of sugestions on ipsguru.com for several of his apps which are simply ignored, and have been for over a year.

bpn Collaborator

bpn

Posted
Posted

We are missing:
Possibility for  club members to invite. As it is now, only Leaders can invite.
The forum setting " Increase Content Counts? " should be available for closed clubs as postings do not contribute to the general community.

  • 1 month later...
Joel R Mentor

Joel R

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Invitation - Allow club leaders to send invitations to external (non-community) users.  My club leader has an extremely active membership that exists on another platform, but he doesn't have a way of sending email invitations to them via my site and directly inviting them to join his new club.   

Join - This is probably the #1 pain point and I don't know why I didn't bring it up before.  External (non-community) users don't understand they need to register on my site and join the club.  It consistently causes a lot of confusion to new users.  I'm envisioning a streamlined join process that both registers on my site and joins the club in a single process.

Club Marketing - This is consistently requested by my Club Leader to be able to send out bulk mail to the members within his club, as email is the preferred way of communicating with his group.    

 

I also want to reiterate existing pain points of clubs, especially:

  • Node Control - I don't have full access to all category settings, which continues to be a problem.  This means I can't toggle "albums only" for gallery, which means users are spraying their pics all over the category and not organizing into albums. 
  • Default Follow - Users don't auto-follow the club when they join, which means they don't get club updates even though that's the sole reason why they joined.  I had to send out a lengthy tutorial that explained how to follow the club AND how to adjust their notification settings, although I'm resigned to the fact that most of those users will never be able to figure out those settings.  

 

Edited by Joel R
TDBF Experienced

TDBF

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2018 at 4:57 PM, Joel R said:

Not happy.  

That summarizes my feelings on clubs.  I investigated clubs three times in the past and last night I officially converted my group from Group Collaboration over to IP.Clubs, and I'm still deeply unhappy.  I feel like I went from driving a top-of-the-line Mercedes to a Kia.  The only thing going for the Kia is that it's company-insured to always be supported.  

This is an incredibly sensitive topic to me, because the reputation and features of my community are now critiqued by a third-party Club Leader who has entrusted me to move his 12-year group over to my community.  

I don't even know where to begin:

  • No homepage - Your dinky little text box doesn't cut it.  My Club Leader understands the concept of a homepage, wants a homepage, and deserves a homepage.  A homepage with full ckeditor capabilities with image attachments, bold, colors and all the other wild and outrageous formatting that he wants.  He wants it more than an Activity Stream, which we can't customize anyways.
  • Follow - no club-wide follow.  These external members have no bloody clue what your features are, and asking them to follow each node is ridiculous.  Getting them through a two-step process to register on my community and then join the club is already a huge ask.  But once they join the club, they don't get notified on any of the content even though that's the whole reason why they joined.  Once a member joins a club, they should auto-follow the club.  
  • Members
    • No custom moderator permissions.  I have no idea what moderator permissions were just given to the moderator.   
    • No member outreach.  How does my club owner actually message or mail his members to market outside of his club?  
  • Nodes - no reordering, which means you're screwed on ordering.
  • Nodes - no categories within nodes, which is a major pain point for me.  I had to convince my Club Leader to reduce 70+ categories into 3.   He had detailed categories for each letter of the album A-Z, and now all albums are mixed together in 39 pages of albums.  Content is king, and the inability to organize and categorize within nodes is a huge pain point.  
  • Conversion - no conversion of existing nodes.  I have no idea how IPS expected me to manually move 49,700 content items into clubs.  Content is king, and clubs is not easy to transfer content in / out.  
  • Delete and Move/Delete - In the ACP > Community app nodes, club nodes are not an option when using Delete or Move / Delete. 
  • Node Settings - I, as root admin, don't have full node control over settings or permissions.  For example, in galleries I can't enable "only use albums".  I have no idea how or where these nodes are inheriting certain settings that are beyond even my control as a root admin, and that's a big problem.  

I am asking a Club Leader to trust me to move his content, his members, and his loyalty over to me, yet these are the real challenges that I'm facing: his members aren't notified of new content; his members can't find content in 39 pages of albums; and his moderator and members can do whatever with whatever permissions they want because I can't control user, moderator, or node permissions.

Joel

The whole reasons you have mentioned are why we removed it from our forum.

It is half finished and undercooked and needs a lot more work which an expensive plugin from the market cannot fix.

  • 2 weeks later...
Joel R Mentor

Joel R

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Club Index - Recent Activity in My Clubs.  

Please allow this to be a block with configurable options.  It's killing the index layout, and I'd rather it be in the main layout rather than the sidebar.  

2018-11-04-14-06-www.adonismale_com.thumb.png.daba571b8a026ce060b19c04d259b4a9.png

Pete T Mentor

Pete T

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Joel R said:

Club Index - Recent Activity in My Clubs.  

Please allow this to be a block with configurable options.  It's killing the index layout, and I'd rather it be in the main layout rather than the sidebar.  

2018-11-04-14-06-www.adonismale_com.thumb.png.daba571b8a026ce060b19c04d259b4a9.png

Might have way to solve this not sure yet 🙂

Steph40 Proficient

Steph40

Posted
Posted
On 9/16/2018 at 2:03 AM, liquidfractal said:

Although I continue to use Collabs, every single atheist on this planet will witness the Rapture before you get honest to god support from Kevin beyond the "what, you aren't a developer!??" insinuations.  There are piles of sugestions on ipsguru.com for several of his apps which are simply ignored, and have been for o

That says it all for Kevin apps.

kmk Grand Master

kmk

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Joel R said:
3 hours ago, Pete T said:

Might have way to solve this not sure yet 🙂

 

+1 please

Edited by kmk
Pete T Mentor

Pete T

Posted
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Joel R said:

Let me know if you release a plugin

So i have moved the Recent Activity from the sidebar and now moved it below the clubs i happy few people just give test see if more tweaking is needed before making public.

Screenshot_56.thumb.png.54ada014e4ef7a675e987795152a3e33.png

Edited by Pete T
Davyc Mentor

Davyc

Posted
Posted

I use the clubs app but as @Joel R points out it's well undercooked.  Hopefully there will be a complete overhaul of the system for 4.4 but nothing has been said to assume that it will be updated.  I've meddled with the templates and the CSS to get a look that I want from the clubs app, but it has taken a good while to sort it all and even then some of my changes have affected other parts of the site requiring even more template editing, which most likely will be lost when the templates are updated.

I also use the clubs addon from the marketplace and it has helped considerably by extending the app features.

You can take a look at what I have messed with (bear in mind that this site is still a WIP and will change over the coming months) here >>>  https://lonelypeople.co.uk the clubs are on the home page as I made them the default, so just scroll down.

:rolleyes:

LiquidFractal Mentor

LiquidFractal

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, christopher-w said:

Perhaps, but I do like his Rules App, even if it does have a howling bug that knock it down from an 8 to a 6.

I really like it too.  But I'm seriously considering terminating the subscription for Collabs, for example, since it may well work out cheaper for me if I let it slide and repurchase it ohh, a couple of years down the road (since there likely won't be any revisions at that point either...:unsure:)

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