Fast Lane!

Oh wow.  I didn't realize it wasn't upgraded. 

Mail Bouncer app hasn't been updated for 4.5, does it still work? This would be great to be able to use this as well.

Will this work with the mail bouncer app?  Not sending emails to dead inboxes is huge. 

Btw, cheers to the IPB support staff and management.  They took care of me!!  Wonderful folks and in this case were willing to go a little out of the way for a long time customer.  This is the type of support that won me over when I started using IPB 1.x 17-18 years ago.  Wheew!!
Pulled a screen shot from the "original skin" below, from the way back machine!  hahah!  version 1.3 in 2003!

Btw, cheers to the IPB support staff and management.  They took care of me!!  Wonderful folks and in this case were willing to go a little out of the way for a long time customer.  This is the type of support that won me over when I started using IPB 1.x 17-18 years ago.  Wheew!!
Pulled a screen shot from the "original skin" below, from the way back machine!  hahah!  version 1.3 in 2003!

This is a very fair point.  Very fair.

I love Pages but WP is FAR more seo optimized.  I can't compete with my competitions site on SEO. Also, they due AMP via a plugin which gives them extra Google love on mobile search. Pages is also SUPER heavy on page resources (not needed JavaScript and css) which kills the pagespeed scores lowering things further.  
Again I use Pages but would suggest IP developers take heed if they ever want to woo people away from WordPress. 

I love Pages but WP is FAR more seo optimized.  I can't compete with my competitions site on SEO. Also, they due AMP via a plugin which gives them extra Google love on mobile search. Pages is also SUPER heavy on page resources (not needed JavaScript and css) which kills the pagespeed scores lowering things further.  
Again I use Pages but would suggest IP developers take heed if they ever want to woo people away from WordPress. 

While your competitors add AMP support and jump ahead of you in rankings, they will cheer your defiance all the way to page 2 or 3 of Google's search results.

I think ALL periods are ignored in emails. Right?  If so then IPB should strio them first then compare. Not just a straight up select mysql search on the email field. 

I think many of us are sitting back while the kinks get worked out of the new version. No major reasons to rush. 

The message is extremely annoying. I believe this is deliberate to force users to upgrade, but they can only do it if they have any active subscription.
I hope you (IPS) understand that you cannot force upgrade throat down on the people. Admins are not willing to keep upgrading every minor update, they have more things to do.. like running their communities. Other times they depend on 3rd party apps that don't get updated so soon. Please be Nice to your customers and allow the notice to be dismissable. You can remember the user from time to time (it can even appear every time we log in to ACP, but please make it dismissable), but nagging the users like this, with a non dismissable message that takes 20% of the screen just shows a total lack of respect for your users and clearly shows you want to force them to do something. 
Yes, yes... I know... Security reasons, updates and whatever... we all know that, nobody is stupid. Everyone knows the risks of not upgrading, self hosting admins have enough knowledge of that.
 
Lets be honest and straight to the point: at the end of the day, we all know that the main reason for annoying the users like this is to keep the money flowing in. We are fine with that, that's why we are buying and keeping licenses with IPS. But...
...stop bugging your customers.
We can easily defeat the message with some template editing or browser script, yet as a matter of principle, please respect your customers by giving the users the options to dismiss the warning.

I think many of us are sitting back while the kinks get worked out of the new version. No major reasons to rush. 

I think many of us are sitting back while the kinks get worked out of the new version. No major reasons to rush. 

I think many of us are sitting back while the kinks get worked out of the new version. No major reasons to rush. 

best comment so far, fully agree with you 👍

Not useful... but motivational.... to users
I could have a very well punctuated, grammatically correct, and informational post about bean seeds in China that could be useful to 10 agricultural people in Kansas.
Or I could make $10,000 on one post that some horny teenager posts of Kim Kardashian's derrière. 
I honestly forgot the point I was trying to make with this post.... but I'm sure it's relevant.... somewhere.

I think users go by views...  Are they imperfect. Yes. 
But in comparison to "Day it was most popular"..... it's a no brainer. What motivates a user to post? To be seen.... what metric is "closest" to that motivation? # of views.
 
Is Google Analytics better.... sure. I trust their numbers more. Can I share those numbers to motivate users on a per topic basis? Not that I know of.
So I'll take what I can get. 
 

It's still a relative metric, maybe just not absolute.  People's eyes are drawn towards posts with higher views then ones without. It drives organic traffic towards interesting items versus people having to read every topic. 

# of views is critical for readers to know what's more popular in a relative sense when your forum has hundreds to thousands of posts a day. In fact hot topics can be deduced by considering post post count and views within a certain time. 

# of views is critical for readers to know what's more popular in a relative sense when your forum has hundreds to thousands of posts a day. In fact hot topics can be deduced by considering post post count and views within a certain time. 

Here is what we do, at a high level.  We are fairly optimized but there are many alternate routes that can obtain great performance.  Ezoic is a good example.  Avoid passbacks -- use header/server-server bidding.  Passbacks kill CPM.
We leverage Google Ad Manager as our ad server (previously known as DFP).  We use header bidding via the opensource prebid.js script.  We have roughly 5 header bidding partners in the stack.  You have to negotiate these deals one by one and can get better splits with them (20-25%).  In addition to this we fold server-server bidding into the prebid header via both Amazon (UAM in this case, https://aps.amazon.com/aps/index.html) and Media.net.  Google adsense competes with everything on a price priority level.  Basically, Adsense has incredible fill (every impression almost always filled) but not always the highest rates (and they take a ~32% cut).  ref: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en
If you are not familiar with header bidding (or server to server) it works like this.  On every page load the header bidding code (prebid.js for example) will query all your header bidding ad partners for them to "bid" on your on-page inventory in a "blind" fashion (best bid without knowing what anyone else bids).  As a part of your header, the server-server auction occurs as well where those ad networks/partners will provide their bids.  After a set time (typically you set to around 700ms or so) the auction ends and all bids are passed back to Google Ad Manager.  Google also then bids on your inventory (blind to the other bids).  The highest bid wins.  Since your header bidding ad partners typically pay more but have less "fill" you end up with a situation where they win say 10-30% of the time and pay you a lot more on a CPM basis (and you may negotiate a cut of 20-25% with them versus 32% to Adsense).  The rest of the time adsense will win and fill the remaining inventory.  The net effect is you make more.
If I had to pick one network to use if you don't have time for many others, then I'd probably pick Amazon UAM in concert with Admanager, with adsense set up in price priorty.  AUM has a solid set of ad networks they pull in, and they also allow direct Amazon ads (re-targeting, yay!) to your users which convert and hence pay well.  There are no pass-backs since in this config its actually all server-server bidding w/ Admanager and adsense competing on price priority.
So back to the forum.  Some ideas.
Mobile:
320x50 (or 100) ad above the topic but under the topic title.  300x250 ad under post 1.  Another 300x250 ad somewhere around post 8 (assume 15 posts per page).  300x250 ad under the last post but before the reply box.  On the index and forums pages, put a 320x50/100 at the top and one at the bottom.  On the forum index if you have tons of forums then place an ad in the middle between categories.
Desktop:
Do the above, but use 728x90 ads instead of 320x50/100 and 300x250.  Also ad a 160x600 ad unit on topic pages on the right.  Make sure (this is important) that in the Admanager code you have custom ad sizes for each browser width. This is important so when someone shrinks the screen and IPB hides the right column in the responsive view, that ad is not called on a page load.  That can be a major no no. You do this as follows in the page header (ref Google docs for more info.. this is just the key code elements):
for browsers wider than 980 pixels show the 160x600 pixel ad.  Else show nothing (no ad)
var mapping_skyscraper = googletag.sizeMapping(). addSize([980, 200], [160, 600]). addSize([0, 0], []). build(); googletag.defineSlot('/123456/Forums-Topic-Side', [160, 600], 'div-gpt-ad-123456-1').defineSizeMapping(mapping_skyscraper).addService(googletag.pubads()); Also, to show mobile ads versus desktop it is as simple as mapping like below, where above 768 pixels wide will show the 728x90 ad and below that will show a 300x250 ad unit (on page load):
var mapping_leader_rectangle = googletag.sizeMapping(). addSize([768, 200], [728, 90]). addSize([0, 0], [300, 250]). Now more advanced, you can do things like put conditional statements in the templates to not show certain ad units to members with post counts higher than some amount.  I find that useful to reward frequent posters.  Or you can filter by groups.  This is all custom but not that hard.
Hope that helps some.  I didn't proof my above notes too well so pardon any short hand or typos!
 
 
Note, I'm not sure on the UAM minimum page views to be accepted.  If they don't let ya in then you can certainly find many header bidding partners that will let you in.  
https://www.google.com/search?q=best+header+bidding+partners

Make sure to tell your members too!

I would think it's far easier.  In quotes simply have the editor insert a tag for the member ID that's replaced when viewed. Something like ##MID-2245##.
Since it's tied to the MID which never changes, a quick strrplace would just insert the currently associated member name upon displaying a post (or if none found then just list "Guest").

I would think it's far easier.  In quotes simply have the editor insert a tag for the member ID that's replaced when viewed. Something like ##MID-2245##.
Since it's tied to the MID which never changes, a quick strrplace would just insert the currently associated member name upon displaying a post (or if none found then just list "Guest").