Ramsesx

It looks very well designed, great job, thanks.

Include in title that it's only for biggest clients and you are screwing self-hosted clients. Would save me some time - just another thing you do not care about. 
I'm a client for 9 years and I'm getting more and more anoyed with your solutions for self-hosted clients. 

Not to derail this, but I agree with your sentiments @ufshane.  IPS must be aware of the impact to their self hosting clients and the viability/affordability aspect will become the litmus test for their chosen approach, and client attrition will be the proof of it.  The math is the math when it comes to cost and if clients are priced out, suddenly IPS becomes non-competitive compared to other products.  To effectively force cloud hosting pigeonholes clients who may have needs beyond what IPS offers in cloud hosting.  I'd imagine they have awareness around that, otherwise they'd be sabotaging their own business, which is why I can't get my head around this assumed path of eliminating self hosting.  Just seems like a terrible business decision, but IPS has access to data I don't (in terms of their customer base, profit margins, support overhead of self hosting vs ROI on self hosting support within the product, etc).  In that regard, if they somehow identify an opportunity whereas they'd make more money from cloud hosting by eliminating self hosting, then that's simply a strategic business decision on their part that improves their bottom line.  But they also can't be penny wise and dollar foolish, having MORE of IPS out there (ala self hosting) is free advertising and exposure for them to acquire more clients.  A similar analogy is Amazon eating shipping costs for loss on smaller products to gain in the bigger business of getting eyes on higher priced items and selling those too.  Even if the math shows you're losing money in one area, that loss may be gaining you more in another facet of your business.  Exposing that between cloud vs self hosting is a difficult connection for them, but again the "common sense" (opinion) side of me believes simply ending self hosting would be a terrible decision and just push your existing self hosting clients to your competition and then propagate your competitions products to the forefront of the market's visibility.  Guess only time will tell, but just as IPS offers conversion services, so do their competitors and their competitors will see the trend and ensure they offer conversion paths (even for those clients who have a lot of customization).

We do want to bring more updates to the messenger. This was just a little change to make handling alert replies easier.

I agree with everything you say, but the caveat is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to launch a successful forum based community in the current climate, at least for hobbyists or people who want to present something that interests them personally.  I'm not, and never have said throughout this discussion, that it's impossible.  However, there are a whole bunch of people who come into the arena with great expectations and little understanding and end up disappointed when they see their efforts fall by the wayside.  And there is no getting away from the fact that SM is the main reason; before SM forum communities of all kinds were springing up and achieving their owners expectations.  The landscape has changed dramatically since then and it is incredibly difficult to achieve expectations.
I have stressed throughout that I'm not forum bashing, quite the opposite I'm SM bashing.  But I do think it is irresponsible to big up expectations when they are seldom realised - and, again, I stress that this is in the hobbyist (for want of a better term) arena.  Businesses are in a completely different league, especially big businesses who have huge sums of money to spend on marketing and advertising. 
There are some forum sites that have been around since before the rise of SM and they are still there today and the IPS community suite has grown beyond forums, if it hadn't I have doubts that you would still be around today.  The IPS suite of apps can be applied successfully in many ways from Blog sites, to Websites, to Commerce sites to galleries for artists and photographers; there is a wide range to choose from.  I'm a great advocate of the IPS range of apps; some of my clients have adopted the IPS model, but not the forums because they have tried them and they did nothing to add value to their venture.  If you want an example try https://www.thenationalchefsunion.co.uk/ which I designed and help manage for them.  They use Pages for articles and sponsors and commerce for their member subscriptions.  So I wish to make it absolutely clear that I am not IPS bashing, because I get the feeling that some in this discussion are being incredibly defensive of the software when there is no reason to be.  Hell, I even run two sites myself with the IPS software so if I were against it then I would most certainly not use it, nor continue to pay for it.  I also run a Xenforo site simply because a third party app used there is not available on the IPS platform, otherwise it would be.
As @Rikki mentioned success is measured by a site creators own expectations and because they vary wildly it is not possible to put a figure on it, so to speak.  I just wanted to make it clear to prospective site creators that it is not as easy a task as throwing everything you have at your project and expect it to drive into action and that a long term commitment is required and a not so insignificant sum of money.  Advertising is not cheap and if it's included in your budget it needs to be directed in the correct way to maximise your ROI (return on investment).  It's tough out there and getting tougher.  If anyone wants to try, I say good luck to them as everyone loves a trier. 
When I started into this arena Google had only been around for a few years and there were 2,410,067 website listed (source for these figures is Google itself)  as of Jan 14, 2022, there are currently over 1.92 billion websites. So there is a monumental number more and covering just about every imaginable topic.  Numbers may not be relevant in many instances but sometimes they do tell a story and paint a different picture between one time and another.
Power to the elbows of the triers - I keep trying lol.

Regarding their advertising, maybe. But it is actually not really reflected in the product itself. The apps and the features are still very much rooted in the traditional niche/hobby forum world and continue to work well there. There is some advanced stuff for something like a corporate support community, but most of the features are still typical for niche communities, like a forum for a car brand with user galleries, clubs, discussions to maintain the specific models and so on. It can still work well, but starting fresh now will mean a significant investment. Real-world example: My youngest community project started in 2016 with social media and apps already well established. (In fact, I created it specifically because I was so annoyed by people in that niche using Facebook groups.) Building the community website took 4 years until I even started to monetize it. Now it has over 100,000 members and pays for itself. (The secret was what I said in my first post: I added something to the website that users in my niche needed so much that they would register to get it. All other tips – as mentioned in the original blog post – are correct and useful too, but that one thing was 90% of the success.)

 
I argued before that the distinction between forums and social media is misleading, as it is about scale not type of website:
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/447615-the-future-of-forums-lets-talk/?do=findComment&comment=2856772
Pointing to the “king” is kind of irrelevant to me, just as the indie hard rock band doesn’t point to Justin Bieber album sales. If the band is happy and their audience is happy, the big players don’t matter. Niche communties are small(er) by definition. Nothing wrong with that. Chances are, the most active members of our communities stay loyal to us for years to come while they might have already deleted their Facebook account. 😉 

No no no! Looking at at the successes doesn’t teach you how to do it. This is a common misconception with an entire industry of “coaches” build around it. 
If you have some time, watch what this video teaches about the “survivorship bias”. 
 

@Sonya* everything you say is true 'if' you are a business or service provider, but again this does not apply to hobbyists.  And it's never about competing with SM because there is no competition, SM has almost everything else beat hands down.  Not because it's better or that it offers everything you mention, but because that's where everyone is who wishes to engage with others.  There is an abundance of sites out there that cover all the things you mention.  It's a consumer's market and if you can provide what consumers want then, most likely, you're a business.
Take this very community - I would hazard that there are thousands of registered members (I know there were before IPS stopped showing the numbers) but only a very tiny proportion actively engage with others in topics such as this, most will probably only visit for support.
Even if you offer something that people cannot do, or even would not do, on SM is no guarantee that they will visit your site, providing they know about it and can find it. The issue that has been mentioned a number of times often seems to take a back seat when, in fact, it is probably the second reason after SM why people don't want to engage in forums - mobile phones.  SM is suited to that medium whereas forums can be difficult to navigate on a mobile.  Gone are the days of the desktop, even the once preferred replacement the laptop is being superseded by mobiles.  It's easy, and practical, to have a mobile sitting next to you on your desk at work watching for comments, posts, likes, etc on SM and react to them swiftly and this carries forward into home life where people rely on their mobile phones for contact with the outside world.  This is taken from a Google search:
I believe that statement is quite profound.  So, I say again that all the fine words, all the inspiring methods to get traction, they don't work for the average Joe who wants to carve out a little space in a vast ocean of content on the Internet.  I wish it were otherwise, but at some point we have to be realistic and understand that this is not the age of the forum community anymore.  Do it for yourself, do it for the pleasure of creating something that you feel passionate about, but be under no illusion that what you do is going to set the world on fire.  If you're a business intent on selling something then having a community for support issues and suggestions is probably fine providing you have a reasonable budget for promotion and advertising, otherwise it falls back to creating something for personal pleasure.
I'd love to hear from community admins who have succeeded in creating a vibrant and active community, rather than the fine words of 'how to'.  When I say vibrant and active I mean with more than a handful of die-hard active members.  Add them here and say when you started, how many members you have in total and how many are active on a regular basis. Provide a link so we can see what it is you are providing.  These will be more useful to prospective and current admins - when you see something in action it speaks far louder than words.
I missed the above bit, but I did say in my original post that I add a comment, question and a link to the album and I get comments, likes and retweets from others that follow me, but they have no desire to go further by registering.  Why that is, well, it's an unknown.  The other issue with Twitter is the limited number of characters that can be used so it's not easy to give a blow by blow reason for choosing the album 🙂

@Davyc this is only partially true, what you say. 
I am often asked how to compete with social media. This is a wrong question.
The wrong question: how to compete with social media and try them to do in my community the same they can do on social media?
The correct question: how to exploit social media to promote something in my community they would not or cannot do on social media?
Some suggestions:
they want to discuss something that require them to be anonymous. Like medical issues, NSFW, games... There are many topics, that people do not like to associate with their real names. These are still perfect niches for the communities.  they need extended support from experts including knowledge base, tutorials, guides, docs. they would like to share something where they can control the access for (e.g. paid files, videos, music) they look for access to exclusive content through membership site (courses, coaching etc.) they need a place, where they can collect things (links, offers, companies, reviews, events) and can contribute to the data they eager to promote themselves or their products and services by contributing to your community (showcases, interviews, use cases) they look for competitions, raffles, quizzes,  crowdfunding, voting - just to name some apps from Marketplace ... (add here your unique point) All these points above are not covered (or only poor) on social media. These are the added values that make the communities still strong. Even start-ups. Even from zero. This is where the journey goes in my humble opinion. 

That is key to opening any site - you have to deliver what others will want and, importantly, want to get involved with.  So, this begs the question can an inspired site creator generate something that is not on SM that people will gravitate towards?  That's a big question to which the answer is most likely no.  Even businesses are taking to SM to promote their wares simply because that's where most people are.  There is a place for niche markets but for those interested in what they would have to offer it then becomes a logistical problem of letting them know you exist and to do that you have to know where 'they' are now.  It may be on SM but simply going on SM doesn't mean that you will be found.
There will be loads of ideas propagated as to 'how' to engage with people, there has been for many, many years - but for most people they just don't work.  The huge graveyard of abandoned sites out there is testament to this.  This is why I do what I do for my own personal pleasure and if by doing what I do, someone else gets something out of it, then I'm happy.  But people should not be under the illusion that there is a 'magic bullet' that will help out.  All of the things mentioned I've tried over the years since SM took hold and none of them have worked for me.  The big issue is that people are consumers now, not contributors, and the Internet has pandered to their needs by generating huge amounts of material that they can consume, so why would they want to contribute when it is easier for them to just meet up with people in a place that everyone goes to.
The important issue at hand is that IPS had geared it's model towards business - big business.  The small fry may still hold a place in the developers hearts, after all it's thanks to them that IPS is where it's at now, but in all seriousness the contribution of the small fry pales in comparison as to what can be gained from big business.  I'm not saying that they don't care, rather it's a case of doing what needs to be done to survive and grow the business.  Hobbyists are no longer the cash pot they once were, and IPS's ambitions have grown alongside the software.
It's a matter of being realistic - it's one thing to fly the corporate flag and make all the right noises, but it's really important to be clear who those noises are aimed at.
If anyone is going to buy the IPS software (and there is no better) and open a site, do it for yourself and for the pleasure you will get from creating something special and close to your own heart, but be under no illusion that you will attract many hundreds or thousands of people - it won't happen.  I tend to me more pragmatic in my old age and I can see which way the wind blows, but, if by some miracle someone can come up with something so unique that loads will want to partake, I say good luck to you and I'll join up as soon as I know about it 🙂

Is there a way it can be even more personalised by detecting the username from the original topic?

[USERNAME], thanks for your reply.

<then insert the stock reply>

As far as I can see, only product categories can be selected, not individual products, correct?
Also, It doesn’t seem to honour product subscription renewals, which is a huge bummer for me. I want to give members a badge if they buy any of my “support products” (product subscriptions or one-time donation products with fixed prices), but it looks like the Commerce badge is only given for new purchases, so members who support me for years by renewing their product every year will never get the badge. 
What I would expect is that all payments in the category are considered and the badge is given once. (To be clear: only once. A renewal shouldn’t give another badge or multiple products in the same category shouldn‘t create multiple badges. But adding that rule now should consider running product subscriptions either instantly or at least when the next renewal is paid.)

Are there settings for that? Is it on by default? 
I would rather not send out those emails. 

It would be really cool if you could save a search as a stream, aka I could search for "hump day" 😉 then create a stream which I could subscribe to keeping up to date with the results either on the site, rss or email digest.
I understand this might possibly be a little heavy for mysql searching but it could be a feature that required elastic or at least disabled by default.

It's nice to see the team in videos. I value the openness very highly. Please more of it.

Very cool stuff, does this work with database record items too? 
And a suggestion, the current rank display should contain a link to the profile.
 

Yes, the badges you see here will be included by default in Invision Community 4.6.
There are many pages in the ACP. On the front end, viewing a member's profile shows you which badges they've earned.
I'm not sure if we are going to do a "here's all the possible badges you can earn". I'm not sure of its value. We don't want to turn the community into a game. It's designed to reward good contributions and not encourage pure engagement for engagements sake to win points and badges.
Yes, it does work across all apps. The profile link is also in this screenshot 😄
Not yet, but we already have this down as a future expansion idea.
You can rebuild points and ranks at any time including post upgrade. It's what we did here. We had 21 million data points to look at, and it took about 5-6 hours.
Reputation and points are still separate. One thing to keep in mind is that we don't want to turn a community into a game. An early rule I put in place was that we were not going to show point logic and show people how to specifically earn points, and which actions earned the most points because that will start to erode the purpose and people may decide, if you said that you earn 5 points for a post and 10 points for a gallery image, to reduce posting and start uploading random pictures just to earn points and rank up.

We do not want this. The achievements system is meant to be a reward for great contributions, and not the purpose of the community.

To this end, we will not be showing how you can earn points, and the rank thresholds.

We do have on our list a way to give you a weekly update about how many points you earned, so you may get an email with "You earned 205 points last week, that's 20 more than the week before" for example to keep you updated on your progress.
You can opt in to notifications to get a push notification / inline notification / email when you rank up or earn a new badge.
You are seeing the entire system from the perspective of a user. There is a "recognise" system that allows you to manually award points and/or badges for content.
Yes you can manually give points and/or badges.
Yes, you can add a "location" "and" clause to specify just forums, or whatever app and set up points per thing differently.

Very cool stuff, does this work with database record items too? 
And a suggestion, the current rank display should contain a link to the profile.
 

Very cool stuff, does this work with database record items too? 
And a suggestion, the current rank display should contain a link to the profile.
 

Very cool stuff, does this work with database record items too? 
And a suggestion, the current rank display should contain a link to the profile.
 

Earning points is cool, but the only thing a member can earn is "Badges"?

Members Shop is the perfect gamification plugin, because it offers 'abilities' to the members, ways to spend their points. 

-Pin a Topic (For set amount of days)
-Change Member Title
-"Purchase" an item in the Downloads section with points
- So much more.


In my Downloads, I have made custom desktop and mobile wallpapers that can be purchased with points. I also offer custom made profile photos, cover photos and signature banners. I plan on offering more soon.

This has been working out great on my forum. People love earning enough points to collect them all. Thank god that @Adriano Faria has taken over Members Shop. Hopefully it will continue to grow. If there was a way to use the Points earned from the IPS Achievements, but then use them with the features Members Shop has to offer, this would be a great method of utilizing both systems. 

 

Before the question comes up..
Rules are handled via extensions, so 3rd party apps will be able to implement own rules in their apps :)

I've been with you since the days of Ikonboard, so you I love you. However, I'm starting to grow concerned after reading that IPS have made a specific, conscious decision to start restricting features (albeit with the first) to cloud-hosted SAAS customers. It's perhaps akin the to the controversial Marketplace changes. As a multi-license customer, I'm saddened that there is a visible "It's our way, or the highway" style approach that seems to be increasing these days.
This statement feels like it could be the start of a paradigm shift, and if so, one that I'm concerned is edging gradually towards a pretty slippery slope. I'm concerned that a moment of realisation will inevitably follow such a shift, where more of the latest, long awaited or most requested features could no longer be available to self-hosted clients.
I realise with SAAS you have more or even total overall control of the environment which is good from a support perspective, and it's been stated that if you could have a do-over with today's tech, SAAS would be the way to go from the outset.
SAAS certainly has its benefits, to both sides of the provider/customer fence, don't get me wrong, but I still find the cloud-hosted IPS on offer here (which as your main showcase, it should be super slick, speedier than The Flash using a bathroom and instantly responsive), to be more sluggish and generally slower than many self-hosted sites I come across; even though I'm using a 40Mbps fibre connection (thanks rip off, overselling BT, I'm still paying for that 80Mbps Infinity 2 connection, you know... yeah, that's right, you hear me!).
And then there's this risk, it does happen...

On the way to the point where more features are restricted, how many restricted features will it take before self-hosted clients begin to feel like they are getting the light version or feel less valued. The software is expensive (aside from a couple of the recurring add-ons which a fairly priced), self-hosted clients money is of course just as good as that of SAAS clients, and after all, wasn't it the self-hosted user base that helped get IPS to where it is today? So I would ask IPS to at least consider this approach and also, if you propose removing lesser used large features from products (like Commerce) that's fine but please don't forget to reduce the price accordingly.
Thanks for listening.

Nowhere, you can't test the acp.

Can you redesign the profile page so it looks like this.