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Rikki

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  1. Like
    Rikki reacted to BankFodder in 10 Tips For Converting from vBulletin to Invision Community   
    I absolutely confirm that it is worthwhile doing a number of test conversions and having a test site where plug-ins and applications can be installed in order to understand how they work and whether they cause any problems.

    The idea of modifying your existing site to look like your forthcoming Invision site is brilliant – and I don't know why I hadn't thought about it myself. Unfortunately, we carried out our conversion about a week or so before the above article was written.

    Our old vBulletin site was pretty heavily modified after 13 years of use and so it's taken a lot of work to find plug-ins to replicate their functionality. I agree that too many plug-ins probably slow down the site – and we probably have too many plug-ins! But I shall be looking to rationalise them over the forthcoming weeks/months.

    It's certainly true that traffic seems to reduce a lot after the conversion and I hope it is also true that it will pick up again.

    There are various things which are confusing – including the huge number of notification possibilities. It is worth understanding how they work.

    Also, the business of configuring administrators and "super admins" took a bit of getting used to – although it is starting to come together.


    Finally I have to say that the support here is excellent. I felt rather embarrassed with the amount of questions I was bombarding the Invision team with that even if they got fed up, they never let it show.

     
  2. Like
    Rikki reacted to Florent Bouillon in The hidden cost of doing nothing   
    I was exactly in this situation a while ago, out-of-date softwares and server on a big community. Just because updating was a lot of efforts, and I always had bettor to do of the little amount of time I had. Then a server crash brutally accelerated the process, and I worked a lot to migrate on some brand new hardware and software, including migrating on Invision. All what you are saying in this article came true: better safety, better SEO, better engagement. Soon the statistics began to grow rapidly after years of stagnation (in particular on mobile), administration was much simpler and time-sparring, and I could enjoy developing much more complicated functions.
    So, long live invision 🙂 
  3. Like
    Rikki reacted to GTServices in How to beat your competition   
    Another great article Joel! You should have your own column by now. 😁
    This is the type of content I love reading about. I love that I can find it here. I love that IPS finds it useful enough to post here.
    Being an admin/owner of a board is hard enough. It's time consuming.
    The more time you put in the more ROI right?
    That's not the case with most admins.
    What I recommend...
    You don't have to do this alone. It's impossible to know everything that is going on. 
    Every board admin has a team. They could be paid or volunteer staff. It doesn't matter.
    Start having weekly/monthyly team meetings.
    Each team member has their own task. Talk about them ... 
    What is the progress? 
    What news do you have to share?
    How is the project coming along?
    Etc.
    By doing this..
    You will find that you will learn from your staff.
    You will find that you are getting things done on time. 
    You will start creating new opportunities.
    More importantly, you will start reacting opportunistically to changes that you may not have been aware of.
    (Yeah, that's often the case for many admins - they didn't know about ABC/XYZ until it's too late.)
    For small board admins, ask questions. There is no such thing as a stupid question. 
    I've been doing this for 20 years, I still ask stupid questions. I still make mistakes.
    I'm still learning.
  4. Like
    Rikki reacted to GTServices in Team Talk: Your favourite 4.4 feature?   
    Big Board admin/developer ... longtime lurker ... becoming bigger fan these days. I just have to post...
    Email banner ads? Outstanding! (I haven't read about that one before.)
    Lazy loading? SEO improvements? WTF PWA?
    Holy COW!
    Letter avatar - I thought was a great idea ... But now, SVG letter avatar? Yeeeesssss!! Letter avatars are a great way to personalize each account with little effort. Bravo 👏
    I've been impressed with the 4 series and it keeps getting better.
    I think I will finally take the plunge and purchase a license.
    All this is just icing on the cake. What I love about IPS these days is that they are thinking of the admins....
    GEOlocation free Social Login free ( At one point, I was paying close to $6000 a year for similar ser'vice) Built in Advertisement System free (Less work to develop in-house system) Store Commerce (Woocomerce alone cost over $200 with some basic extensions) amazon S3 Integration free Security Enhancements such as Google Authenticator free (previously paid for DUO) etc EXCELLENT JOB!!!!
  5. Thanks
    Rikki got a reaction from beats23 in The incredible power of anonymity when growing your community   
    It's a CSS selector 🙂 
    .ipsType_richText.ipsType_normal > p:first-child:first-letter { ... }
  6. Like
    Rikki reacted to Davyc in The incredible power of anonymity when growing your community   
    Top notch statement of facts regarding privacy and anonymity on forums vs social media platforms.  This is one of the issues that I promote to people when they consider joining; THEY are in control of what is and is not seen.
    This is why I prefer forums to any other kind of social interaction between people; the opportunities of flexibility are almost endless with forums, whereas social media is rigid and contrived.
    I believe that this is an important and relevant statement in a world where privacy almost often comes with a price, but not on forums; it's been there since day one and remains today - it's a shame that more people out there do not realise and appreciate this simple fact.
    Great article and one which I will happily link to and promote from my own site. Thanks Matt, job done!
  7. Like
    Rikki reacted to Joel R in 2019 Year of Community   
    Ha, so true! There's a theory of 90-9-1 participation inequality in online communities that goes something like this:
    90% of all users won't do anything (lurkers)
    9% of all users contribute a little
    1% of all users contribute most
    That's the nature of human participation in online communities and ... That's okay.  It's okay if most users don't participate or contribute.  It doesn't mean they don't feel valued or a part of the community.  There's research that shows Lurkers still feel a bond to the community and enjoy reading, even if they never write anything themselves.  
    In terms of asking users for help, there are some interesting insight that might be helpful. 
    1. Users actually feel a greater connection to the community the more they participate. There was an article awhile by Matt on gamification and building a "loyalty program," and in a way, you should think of your users' interaction with your community as a loyalty program.  How are you cultivating stronger loyalty and progressing them on a value curve? 
    2. Leadership sets the way.  I've discovered that people tend to be followers.  There are very few true Alphas.  We all follow rules for everything ... On the road, social etiquette, workplace professionalism, our life is ruled by rules! So it's hard to ask users to create something truly brand new.  What I do, especially on large projects, is do the first couple of items myself.  It not only shows them what to do, but it breaks the mental barrier of how to do it.  It's small but an important psychological opening.  
    3. Don't over-ask.  I view my user's time and attention and clicks as a gift, not a privilege.  There are plenty of things in their lives that probably deserve more attention than my little community, so any attention they give to me is precious.  I'm always respectful of their time before I ask them to take on a large project.  
    4. Nobody cares as much as you, but you can set the tone.  I laughed at your picture because it's so true.  In behavioral economics, there's the dilemma of the principal-agency problem.  Hiring a person to do the job is never as good as doing the job yourself, since they will never care as much as you.  To combat this, I spend a lot of my time talking about how to go about something, the best way of doing it, and the standards that we should have.  It helps establish a common framework of high standards.  I run a private club for my community's superusers.  And all we do is talk about best practices to activate the community ... We talk about how club leaders can more effectively run their clubs, how they can post differently for more engagement, etc.  It sets the tone for my community so that if they DO see a problem, they don't just ignore it, they have a way of getting it resolved -- and I thank them for taking the time to report or fix issues to reinforce the positive behavior.  
    You're asking users to overcome their innate laziness and achieve a higher potential.  
    You've noticed the problem.  How are you going to spend 2019 to overcoming it? 
  8. Like
    Rikki reacted to Hexsplosions in 4.4: 6 New Micro Features   
    Based on that logic, IPS may as well shut up shop right now.
    Companies like IPS are not here to 'kill' social media, but these small enhancements improve the quality of the user experience for administrators and users alike, so for some of us they are indeed noteworthy.
    I've been somewhat vocal elsewhere about the things that social media gets right, and where I see IPS could make improvements, but credit is due to the team for their ongoing efforts to improve the suite.
  9. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Markus Jung in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
  10. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from SeNioR- in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Not quite. It looks like that plugin replaces the video with a screenshot until the user clicks it to load the video. Our built-in approach will always load the video, but only once the user has scrolled down far enough to see it.
  11. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from BomAle in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Not quite. It looks like that plugin replaces the video with a screenshot until the user clicks it to load the video. Our built-in approach will always load the video, but only once the user has scrolled down far enough to see it.
  12. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from The Old Man in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
  13. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Markus Jung in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  14. Thanks
    Rikki got a reaction from sobrenome in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  15. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from rllmukforum in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  16. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from David.. in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  17. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from BomAle in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  18. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Matt in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  19. Thanks
    Rikki got a reaction from SammyS in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  20. Thanks
    Rikki got a reaction from PrettyPixels in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  21. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Joel R in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    Just to note, we decided to go ahead and support lazy loading for external embeds like YouTube too for 4.4. Most embeds (Facebook, Twitter etc.) already lazy loaded because they routed through a local URL, but external embeds will also lazy load now. You're welcome, @Mr 13 🙂 
  22. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from sobrenome in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
  23. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from media in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
  24. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Numbered in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
  25. Like
    Rikki got a reaction from Real Hal9000 in 4.4: Turbo charging loading speeds   
    @Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
    @Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
    For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 
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