Jelly Belly™

So far, every time someone says they've been with Invision for years and want to keep certain features, the only argument against is, "Too bad, get used to it or go use some other platform."
Our Site has been with IPS so long, we had a Lifetime License that we paid for and THAT went away with the same argument, "Too bad, go use some other platform if you don't like it."
Yes, it is their platform, and they have every right to make any changes the want for whatever reason they want.
But shouldn't the preference of people who have stood behind IPS for so long be considered?
Here's my argument, we want the option to keep these features. it doesn't matter why they're being removed. it doesn't matter if it's "Better for us. We just don't know it yet and we'll get used to it". We've stayed with you this long and, whether anyone believes it or not, we deserve that option.
The fact is, we'll all probably stay with Invision even AFTER we're told, "Too bad, use something else if you don't like it."
Must be nice to know that you don't have to care what loyal customers want.

But you’re not doing that. You are just saying, you didn’t notice any problems with it, so you declare that there is no problem to begin with. That’s not how that works.
It very much depends on the age and type of community. On my bigger and older communities, I get hundreds of bounced emails every time I send out a newsletter, even though I clean up bounces instantly. So, it’s just a fact that I have thousands, if not tens of thousands of users per community with discarded email addresses – with hundreds more each month. You stating that people don’t use inactive addresses during registration doesn’t change that many people go through many email addresses quickly, especially to sign up on websites. In some areas of the world, this seems to be common practice.
And by the way: Pointing to all the improvements in 5.x is irrelevant. If there are 100 improvements and one problem, we can still talk about that one problem and possible solutions to it. Suggesting we shouldn’t because there are also good things is a logical fallacy.

same here, login method should be down to admin/user choice not forced by the software

Its putting me off upgrading as this pretty much breaks the forum for a lot of old members

a transition page where old members are prompted to update their email and are informed that is their new log in ?

Alerts are useless foe older members who haven’t logged in for a while and no longer have access to their email, its these members we need to cater for on older communities

Definitely should show how many members are online

The reason is its not just the admin, I have lots of active members that registered well over a decade ago using emails no longer in use, and inactive members who may return sometime but won't be able to log in

I'm pretty sure my fellow admin has an out of date email address which he used in 2004 to register with, so he won't be able to log in after upgrading to IPS 5. Of course I can notify him, but I've had the email address confirmation app on my site for over a year now which users just seem to click yes to, I shouldn't be having to tell him to change his email - I can only imagine how many others are in the same position that I won't directly ask
I've not had a single hack in 20+ years, I will never understand making it more difficult for members to log in. It's one of those things like dark mode, online status that you appear 100% against despite my complaints, but those two features are finally here now. Username log in should at least be an option

Although Invision's position on this is understandable, and even sensible, I have similar concerns to you. I've been warning members about this for well over a year (via a banner), but I fear many have failed to take action. Further, we have members who return after many years of absence (it is the nature of our community) and a good proportion will not recall the email address they used (and perhaps no longer have access to it anyway). A better approach, I think, would be force this on new accounts and force returning legacy members to check that their email address is current and alert them that, going forwards, they can login using only their email address as their login ID. Alas, I expect a reconsideration by Invision is now too late.

how do you inform members of 20+ years if they no longer have access to the email they used ?
Some of these members have stayed logged in for years or they rely on their username to login when they visit
the first they will know of the change is when its impossible for them to log in anymore

surely a better transition would be something along a prompt page warning people that next time they login they will need an up to date email rather than just being locked out ?
Its hardly the way to treat loyal old time visitors and members

how do you inform members of 20+ years if they no longer have access to the email they used ?
Some of these members have stayed logged in for years or they rely on their username to login when they visit
the first they will know of the change is when its impossible for them to log in anymore

surely a better transition would be something along a prompt page warning people that next time they login they will need an up to date email rather than just being locked out ?
Its hardly the way to treat loyal old time visitors and members

same here, login method should be down to admin/user choice not forced by the software

Its putting me off upgrading as this pretty much breaks the forum for a lot of old members

same here, login method should be down to admin/user choice not forced by the software

Its putting me off upgrading as this pretty much breaks the forum for a lot of old members

I'm sure I have lots of members using dormant emails too, as my forum goes back 20 years with many members from the start still around now

Exactly, many people have multiple emails and it's already such a hassle tracking the email - password combination across all of your accounts on the net.
Username has simplicity going for it and if you were trying to get access, you would get blocked within 5 failed attempts anyway (atleast on our forums).
Forcing an email just doesn't make any sense in our situation, it's a gaming forum and so let your clients make the choice!

Still don't understand changing to email only log in, the big social media sites like Instagram / X etc are not bothered about this. It was a bad move two years ago and still is now.

The username vulnerability is limited to logging into an account on our forums. Why can't we make that call ourselves? Force email on AdminCP sure but why demand it of the users when we don't want it?
As long as accessible alternatives exist for PHP and Tagging, that is OK.
But Status Updates was universally loved among our users. Holdover or not, please consider not removing features that already exist and are accesible to members, in the future.
I just realized Plugins won't work either. Is there any way for us to convert them to applications? Many of our plugins have no developer around. Are we to just accept losing all of that? What are our options?

The removal of the old IP Chat service pretty much killed my site for months and its never got back to previous levels, it was a really popular part of the site, nobody got confused between live chat and the forums, the chat really was just for social which is what I thought the whole point of running a niche community ?

Even now all these years later we still get at least half a dozen queries  a week asking when I'm bringing live chat back

As its already been said that it wouldn't be difficult to reintegrate then why not offer us the option, either as a stand alone cloud extra or into the cloud packages ?

I'd gladly swap the Live Topic which serve no purpose that I can see for a Live Chat that the members loved

Agree with you on some of these points. Chat content is private data between 2 people, should not be exposed to search engines for indexing and hence not valuable to the site in any way.
Here are some validations in Chat's favor -
Chat is chat and does have its uses and value. Otherwise, Teams, Zoom, WebEx and other conference apps won't be having chat modules built-in.
Chat is used for quick, back-n-forth messages (mostly insignificant, unimportant small talk) and not suited for PMs or Topics and not meant for being catalogued or indexed for searches later. PM on an IC site is like "email" and cannot considered as chat.
Users know when something is worth sharing with the entire forum, they would rather post it as a Topic for everyone to see than chat with just one or two people. But when the matter is relevant only between a couple of people, chat is more ideal - when both users are available simultaneously (which is less frequent), otherwise it becomes like a PM (email).
At times, people ask another user in a topic irrelevant things like, "Hey, how did your trip to Mexico go?" and the topic get side-tracked that could have occurred ideally inside a private Chat between them. They know it is irrelevant to the topic but they also don't know how else to communicate with the other person privately and quickly in the absence of Chat module.
Chat is more useful on sites with more users but Chat module will also attract more new users!
Live Topics has its uses and value too. However, some of the small talk clutter during Live Topics like "Hi", "Thanks", "Ok", etc. would get posted as individual comment records which are insignificant (I haven't used Live Topics yet but assume this is how it gets converted into a topic).
Chat app can be offered as an app like many other apps inside IC that can be deployed with its switch turned OFF and site operators could turn it on/off as they see fit after monitoring its effectiveness.
More time spent by users on the site is better for analytics reducing the Bounce Rate rather than driving them to an external site like Discord, WhatsApp, etc. for chat and losing that activity to another site. I don't know anybody's WhatsApp or SnapChat ID on this forum as users are mostly anonymous on online forums and not all forums are same.
At the end of the day, Chat is just an extra convenience for users and it will keep them on the site much longer.
Since Chat data is private, not indexed and not valuable to the site, it needs to be purged periodically at least once a month or based on a setting in ACP to also keep it performant optimally.
When a user expects a feature in a software and s/he finds it in the software, that makes it a successful software.
You can scroll down in our article for Chat communication method -
https://www.telugus.com/articles/effective-communication-methods

I get asked about 5 times a week since Invision chat was discontinued when is the chat room coming back
it was an important part of the site, was busy 24/7 and a lot of my regulars just drifted away so I'd love to be able to replace it and had hoped the live chat mod would be a solution but its seems its not possible on cloud

I can report the same experience(s) today.

It appears that the cloud hosting was down again about 1H1/2 ago. 
Something's just not right. 

twice in the last hour my site has gone down and dumped all the users, it's a daily occurrence just lately☹️

this is getting painful now, everyday I have to explain to my members that the upgrade and hosting they paid for is  becoming unreliable and every day I assure them that the problem is fixed only for it to to happen again

My site (and this site) are again very slow on and off right now. Some pages load fast, some take 4-6 seconds to load. 

this is getting painful now, everyday I have to explain to my members that the upgrade and hosting they paid for is  becoming unreliable and every day I assure them that the problem is fixed only for it to to happen again