Tripp★

Did you know that the most magical community in the world runs on Invision Community?
For close to 12 years, Invision client @Michael R  has been spreading joy through the Santa Claus Network (ClausNet.com), the world’s largest community for Santa and his followers.
He started building the site in November 2006 and went live in the beginning of 2007, using Invision Community as his platform of choice since the beginning. Michael also founded the James D. Rielly Foundation in honor of his grandfather – a non-profit organization that provides charitable and emotional support to military and first responder families.

 

As a tribute to the holidays, Mike was gracious enough to be interviewed by Joel on behalf of Invision Community on how he uses Invision Community and engages with his unique community.  

J:  This is such a wonderful community of passion.  How did you get started?
Back in October 2005, I attended the world-famous Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School. It was a Christmas present I received from my wife. At that time, I had already been portraying Santa for 34 years but was a bit skeptical of what I would get out of attending a “Santa School.” 
 
He’s already nailed the Santa look.

At the school I got to meet Santas from all over the World!
It was a wonderful experience and I am still friends with many of the folks, but what I enjoyed most of all was the camaraderie I felt with my fellow brothers and sisters in red. This was the catalyst in creating ClausNet – to recreate the same feeling of fellowship I felt at the school. 

J:  Your membership must be very unique. 

ClausNet is the world's largest online community dedicated to the faithful portrayal of Santa Claus.  Our membership also includes Mrs. Claus, Elves, Reindeer Handlers, and all others who devote their time to bringing the magic of Christmas to children and adults throughout the world!
In comparison to other sites, 2,900 isn’t a lot of members. But based on some estimates it’s about two thirds of all the Santas and Mrs. Clauses on the planet!

We are very selective who of we approve for membership. In addition to Invision’s validation process, I personally email each person who registers for an account. I do this to help eliminate trolls and other Grinchy people, but mostly to keep out the prying eyes of children to preserve the Secret of Santa and keep the magic alive for children of all ages!

J:  What Invision apps do you use, and how do you use them?  
We have all the Invision Community apps and rely upon them for many purposes.
  
We don’t sell products on the site but we do use Commerce for donations. Members can purchase Supporter Level Memberships at varying prices. We use Pages and Blogs for posting short stories, opinion pieces, and even business advice. We use Downloads for sharing files such as example contracts and business card templates. The Calendar app is a great resource in notifying and scheduling regional get-togethers, workshops, schools, and training sessions. 
Articles and short stories written in Pages.
J: What are some of the most innovative features of Invision Community that your members have embraced?

I believe Invision Community is the most robust platform for building online communities. Our members really like the new Clubs feature.  We use Clubs for regional and local groups as well as specific topics such as prop making and costuming.  


From the Long Leaf Pines to the Northern Pacific, ClausNet uses regional clubs all over the world to foster closer relationship.
J:  There must be seasonality with your niche. How do you keep your members engaged throughout the year and what are some special events that you host?

Throughout the year we run several activities designed to keep up engagement.
Member of the Month - Each month, I select a different member of our community to featured. We interview the candidate and post the interview on the site.  ClausNet Gazette Monthly Newsletter - We send out a monthly newsletter of content from the website. Surprisingly, it’s the first time many of the members see the content. It is a great way to keep members coming back to the site. Christmas Card and Ornament Exchange – These are two of the most anticipated events we hold.  Members sign up and are randomly paired with another, so they can exchange cards or ornaments.  It’s very exciting to receive Christmas ornaments from another part of the world! We also run several other programs such as an Annual Raffle, Countdown to Christmas, Picture Contests, and Latest News.

J: As a longtime Invision client whose passion is the holidays, what are your holiday wishes to other Invision clients and clients-to-be?

As many of you know, Christmas is my favorite holiday – a holiday that lives in my heart year-round! May this holiday season be one of health and happiness for you and your loved ones. Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Festive Festivas, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Nollaig Shona, Boas Festas, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas!

J:  Thank you Mike for graciously spending your time with me and other Invision clients to learn how you engage with members using Invision Community.  Hopefully this interview has helped inspire and motivate other clients with some extra cheer during the holiday season!

Dealing with spam can be an annoying problem for community moderators. It's bad enough that our inboxes get clogged up with it daily.
Invision Community comes with several tools designed to mitigate spam, and make it hard for spammers to get a foothold in your community.
This short video takes you through several key areas:
The Invision Community spam defense system CAPTCHAs Question and Answer challenges Group Promotion Flagging a member as a spammer Do you have any tips on dealing with spam or spammers? We'd love to hear them. Let us know in the comments.

You have probably spoken to us in support tickets and on our community forums, and you've likely seen our photos.
But what about our workstations? What do they reveal about our personalities? Do none of our team have lights in their office?
Mark H
This is an old picture [Not as old as your Facebook photo -Ed], I now have a 4K monitor in the center, attached via Thunderbolt to my MBP. But that image was taken when I used my PC, a now-old EVGA x79 Dark mobo, i7 3930k, twin GTX 580's, and all watercooled.
When I game, I swap out the leads so the PC can use all 3.
At the moment I'm revisiting an old, but still apparently very popular game. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Where's the light switch?
Marc S
For my main machine I have a late 2014 iMac with 2 x iiyama external monitor, which I spend most of my day on.
When out of the house or just generally wanting a break from the office, I have a MacBook pro. Great for what it is, but I hate sitting on a laptop [You're supposed to sit in front of it -Ed], so I'm generally found hiding away in my office.
When I'm not responding to tickets from you lovely lot, I'm generally doing some of my own development. As a Windows developer primarily [That explains a lot -Ed], I have parallels desktop set up so I can work with visual studio and sql server as if they were native mac applications. I also spend a fair amount of time with Ableton live and Logic, where I play about with trance production, as its something nice to immerse yourself in during spare time.

Who let the dogs out?
Jim M
The few, the proud, the Windows users of IPS [We only keep them so we can assign all IE bugs to them -Ed]. Love my two 27" Dell monitors. Plan to add a third eventually. I may also be a big Tom Petty fan.

Our Tom Petty fan
Matt M
I switched from a desktop only set up to the new retina MacBook Pro last year. It's nice to work in the office with the LG monitors but have the flexibility of unplugging and taking the MacBook with me to work elsewhere [What? Like the garden? -Ed]. 

Clowns, Drug Lords and Funny Men
Daniel
It took hours to clean up for a picture. [This is literally all Daniel supplied as text for this month's blog. For example, he could have pointed out the little keypad thing shown under the right hand monitor which acts like an app launcher, but didn't. So thought I would -Ed]

Precise angles and a lot of work to clean up
Ryan
My office is actually going through a slow renovation process so that it can double as an office as well as a studio, so this will all likely change in a few months (you can see color swatches for paint options on the left) [We can't see anything. You have an expensive Philips Hue set up but clearly never switch it on -Ed]. I'm currently working through a Late 2014 iMac Retina 5k, and apparently I'm one of the few that doesn't have any external monitors (I used to, but I find them cumbersome most of the time, so I took them down [Were you holding them up yourself? -Ed]). When working remotely, I use a 2011 13" MacBook Pro.
My favorite thing, though, is the "poster" I have on the right - my father gave it to me for my thirtieth birthday this year, and it's actually a sheet of uncut one dollar bills (funnily enough, though, there are actually 32 rather than 30).

Coke and Coffee
Mark W
I'm currently in the process of moving from the UK to Australia so I don't really have an office right now, but this is what my office back home looks like [it's always this tidy. He is obsessive -Ed]:

Captain Raymond Holt
Jennifer
2 x 32" inch curved Samsung Monitors a 4K Samsung Smart TV. Razer Chroma Keyboard, Razer Chroma Death Adder, Corsair Yellow Jacket Headphones and a really awesome PC.
I am basically surrounded by screens [FYI, keep an eye on J.A.R.V.I.S, he has a Vision -Ed].

Tony Stark's first set up
Stuart
Up until this month my wife has been studying in Cardiff, so half of my time has been spent working on a dining table in our apartment [Can't wait to see how the table turned out, if you've spent a month on it -Ed].
Now, back home I have my desk set up with the worlds largest laptop [Dear reader, you have no idea -Ed](i7-4720HQ, GTX960M, 16GB Ram, 17.1" 1080p)  connected to an external 22" 1080p monitor. We're still in the middle of restoration so my office is really the lowest priority buy my long term plans include a standing desk, Surface Book 2 (or similar) with twin external 4k displays. Those two PC towers aren't really used anymore (one is Windows Server 2008 which used to be used as a local file server, the other is my old gaming PC)

We're huge fans of LEGO®
Andy
Like Mark I’m constantly on the move so my working environment tends to be wherever I can find that’s quiet with a good Internet connection. When I’m “home” though my office looks like this: [Seriously, switch on a light -Ed]

Dark and moody, just like his coffee
So there we go. We've exposed our team's set ups, expressed our concern about a lack of lighting in many offices and found out who had to tidy up their desk before taking a photo.

We'd love to see your workstations too, post them below!

Do you have a community but are looking to move to a more modern and feature rich platform?
There's a lot of ways Invision Community can breathe new life into your community. With our engagement features, advanced promotion features and mobile ready responsive themes, your members are going to love the changes.
Invision Community can power your entire site, from the content management front end right through to your download areas and shopping carts.
Imagine not having to juggle a dozen plug-ins and make several different applications talk to each other.
We offer a range of migration tools for vBulletin, xenForo, phpBB, Vanilla, bbPress and more. These tools convert your data such as members, passwords, forums, topics, posts and more across to Invision Community.
But first, let's look at how to make your migration a success.
Take our demo for a spin
Hands down the best way to get a feel for Invision Community is to take out a free demo. Once you are comfortable with the suite and know what it can do, the more confident you will be in discussing it with your members.
There's a lot of functionality to discover. Keep in touch with our sales team to get the most from the demo.  We recommend that you consider three uses.
Your community. Look at how they will settle in with the new interface and how they will use the new features on offer.
Your moderators. Take a moment to look in the Moderator Control Panel. Run through all the tools that are available, such as the warning system and content review system.

Moderator Tools
Your administrators. Probably the largest change between platforms will be in the Admin Control Panel. It's worth spending a little time getting familiar with it and looking at what's new, and where common tools are such as forum and member management.

Tip: Invision Community's Admin Control Panel has a global search bar to look for settings, members, invoices and more. If you ever feel a little lost, enter in what you're looking for.
Make your plan
Using the demo and speaking to our sales team will help you draw up a migration plan. You'll know which apps you'll need, and what data can be migrated over.
You may want to browse the marketplace to look for apps, plugins and themes to extend the functionality even further.

Tip: We offer a VIP migration service where we work closely with you to draw up your plan and take care of the conversion for you.
Educate your community
Keep your community up to date with your migration plan. Show them the platform they'll be using. Take videos and screenshots showing them the exciting new features coming soon. Make it a positive and fun experience.
Post something new every few days to get your community used to the idea and get them involved by asking them if they have any questions. Our sales and support teams are here to help you if you have any further questions at this point.
Getting the majority of your community excited about the change is the best way to make the transition a smooth one.
Make sure you explain the benefits of the switch too. If there's a good reason for it, your community will get behind it quickly.
Some benefits may be:
It works better on your mobile device and tablets, so you don't need to struggle with pinch and zoom to get around.

Mobile ready out of the box
The built in embed system allows you to post images, YouTube videos more easily and you can preview it instantly as you type.
The crowd sourced moderation makes reporting bad content more beneficial. It'll help to keep the community clean from undesirable comments and moving a positive direction.
More features on the way. Invision Community is always adding new functionality based on our customers' wishes. These releases happen often so there's always something to be excited about.
Pick a day
The best migrations are planned down to the date and time when the data conversion will occur. Our team can give you a rough idea of how long the data conversion will take. It will vary but we can give you a ballpark. 
Your members will feel happy knowing what is going to happen and when. There will be some downtime while the data is converted, so it's always best to announce this well ahead of time.
Set up a test site
Once you are committed to switching, set up a test site. A single Invision Community license can be used for a development installation as well as a live installation.
This is the perfect time to work on your theme and look at any tweaks you'd like to make.
Invite in your team and a trusted few from your community to offer feedback and advice. It's worth taking the time here to make sure everything is perfect for when you do the final conversion.
Make it comfortable
Take some time to theme your new Invision Community so it has a similar look and feel to your existing community. Change resistant members will feel more comfortable if there are areas that are familiar to them.
Ensuring your branding is up, and the colours match what you had before is a good start.
The easy mode theme editor is a great place to start.
Mind your language!
There are always little differences in the interface language that may throw some of your older members off. For example, some systems use "threads" instead of topics and "messages" instead of posts.

The easy language editor
Invision Community has a built in translation system so you can change our interface language to match your existing site.
Help your members
Set up a temporary questions and answer forum where your members can ask how the new system works and give you feedback.
Pin a handful of topics explaining where common items are now, such as how to edit your profile, how to send personal messages, how to mark the site as read and so on. Think about the daily activities your members make and explain how to do them with Invision Community.
You can use the pre-move time to ask your community what actions they do daily and may need assistance with on the new platform.
Be patient
Some of us dislike change. We are creatures of habit. You may find some members are very resistant. That's OK, they'll come around in time as long as you continue to make them feel valued and understood. Take the time to explain how the new system works and what the benefits of Invision Community are.
In our experience, members love the following Invision Community features:
Notifications
Invision Community has a variety of granular notification options, from browser to email so you're sure to not miss a thing.
Mobile Friendly
We're mobile friendly right out of the box. Our theme has a responsive framework, which means that it resizes perfectly to any device you're using. No need for extra themes or styles, it's all baked in.
Gamification
We all love a little friendly competition don't we? Invision Community has features like the leaderboard and member titles to reward activity. Who doesn't want to win the day?

 
Reactions
Liking content is fun, but being able to express thanks, laughter and more is even better. It's all baked into the system ready to use.
Educate your team
Invision Community has a whole host of moderation tools that your team will love as it makes their daily routines much easier.
From the comprehensive warning system, to the crowd sourced moderation feature, which can automatically hide content and notify moderators once it has been reported multiple times, Invision Community makes your moderators lives easier.
The best approach is to pin topics in a team area that explains how to use these new features and where to find them.
Summary
Investing in a new community platform and migrating your community across is a big decision. With the right planning and forethought, it will be a smooth and positive migration with lots to look forward to once complete.
We offer free conversion tools for you to use, or we offer a VIP conversion service where we take care of it for you and you get one-to-one help and support throughout the process.
We'd love to hear from those who have successfully migrated across from other platforms and how they made it a positive experience for their members.

 

You've no doubt heard about GDPR by now. It's a very hot topic in many circles. Lots of experts are weighing in on the best approach to take before the May 25th deadline.
Which reminds me of my favorite joke:
"Do you know a great GDPR expert?”
Yes, I do!
“Could you send me his email address”
No, I'm afraid not.
I wrote about how Invision Community can help with your GDPR compliance back in December. I've seen a lot of posts and topics on GDPR in our community since then.
First, let's get the disclaimer out of the way. I'm a humble programmer and not a GDPR expert or a lawyer. The information here is presented to assist you in making decisions. As always, we recommend you do your own research and if you're in any doubt, book an appointment with a lawyer.
It is also worth mentioning that GDPR is very much a living document with phrases like "legitimate interest" and "reasonable measures". None of these phrases have any real legal definition and are open to interpretation. Some have interpreted them severely, and others more liberally.
GDRP is about being a good steward of the data you store on a user. It's not designed to stop you from operating an engaging web site. There's no need to create stress about users linking to other sites, embedding images, anonymizing IP addresses, and such on your site. These don't impact any data you are storing and are part of the normal operation of how the web works. Be responsible and respectful of your users' data but keep enjoying your community.
Let's have a quick recap on the points we raised in our original blog entry.
Individual Rights
The right to be informed
Invision Community has a built in privacy policy system that is presented to a new user, and existing users when it has been updated.

 
What should your privacy policy contain? I personally like the look of SEQ Legal's framework which is available for free.
This policy covers the important points such as which cookies are collected, how personal information is used and so on.
There may be other services out there offering similar templates.
Right to erasure
I personally feel that everyone should listen to "A Little Respect" as it's not only a cracking tune, but also carries a wonderful message.
The GDPR document however relates to the individuals right to be forgotten.
Invision Community allows you to delete members. When deleting members, you can elect to remove their content too. There is an option to keep it as Guest content, thus removing the author as identifiable.
It's worth using the 'keep' option after researching the user's posts to make sure they haven't posted personal information such as where they live, etc.
Emailing and Consent
Invision Community has the correct opt-in for bulk emails on registration that is not pre-checked. If the user checks this option, this is recorded with the member's history. Likewise, if they retract this permission, that action is also recorded.

 
When you edit the terms and conditions or privacy policy, all users are required to read it again and opt-in again.
Cookies
A lot of GDPR anxiety seems to revolve around these tiny little text files your browser stores. If you read the GDPR document (and who doesn't love a little light reading) then you'll see that very little has actually changed with cookies. It extends current data protection guidance a little to ensure that you are transparent about which cookies you store.
Invision Community has tools to create a floating cookie opt-in bar, and also a page showing which cookies are stored and why.
This is the page that you'd edit to add any cookies your installation sets (if you have enabled Facebook's Pixel, or Google Analytics for example).
Your GDPR Questions
Now let's look at some questions that have been asked on our community and I'll do my best to provide some guidance that should help you make decisions on how to configure your Invision Community to suit your needs.

Alan!!
Is the soft opt-in cookie policy enough? What about the IP address stored in the session cookie?
Great question. There's conflicting advise out there about this. The GDPR document states:
The ICO states that session cookies stored for that session only (so they are deleted when the tab / window is closed) are OK as long as they are not used to profile users.
This is re-enforced by EUROPA:

My feeling is that GDPR isn't really out to stop you creating a functioning website, they are more interested in how you store and use this information.
Thus, I feel that storing a session cookie with an IP address is OK. The user is told what is being stored and instructions are given if they want to delete them.
Given the internet is very much driven by IP addresses, I fail to see how you can not collect an IP address in some form or another. They are collected in access logs deep in the server OS.
Finally, there is a strong legitimate interest in creating a session cookie. It's part and parcel of the website's function and the cookie is not used in any 'bad' way. It just allows guests and members to retain preferences and update "last seen" times to help deliver content.
Do I need to delete all the posts by a member if they ask me to?
We have many large clients in the EU with really impressive and expensive legal teams and they are all unanimous in telling us that there is no requirement to delete content when deleting a user's personal information. The analogy often given is with email: once someone sends you an email you are not obligated to delete that. The same is true with content posted by a user: once they post that content it's no longer "owned" by them and is now out in public.

Ultimately, the decision is yours but do not feel that you have to delete their content. This is not a GDPR requirement.
What about members who haven't validated? They're technically not members but we're still holding their data!
No problem. The system does delete un-validated users and incomplete users automatically for you. You can even set the time delay for deletion in the ACP.

 
What about RECAPTCHA? I use this, and it technically collects some data!
Just add that you use this service to your privacy policy, like so:
I see many companies emailing out asking for members to opt back in for bulk mail, do I need to do this?
Short answer: No.
Since Invision Community 4.0, you can only ever bulk email users that have opted in for bulk emails. There's no way around it, so there's nothing to ask them to opt-in for. They've already done it.
There is a tiny wrinkle in that pre 4.2.7, the opt-in was pre-checked as was the norm for most websites. Moving forward, GDPR asks for explicit consent, so this checkbox cannot be pre-ticked (and isn't in Invision Community 4.2.7 and later). However, the ICO is clear that if the email list has a legitimate interest, and was obtained with soft opt-in, then you don't need to ask again for permission.
What about notifications? They send emails!
Yes they do, but that's OK.
A notification is only ever sent after a user chooses to follow an item. This falls under legitimate interest.
There is also a clear way to stop receiving emails. The user can opt-in and opt-out of email as a notification device at their leisure.

 
Do I need to stop blocking embeds and external images?
No. The internet is based on cross-linking of things and sharing information. At a very fundamental level, it's going to be incredibly hard to prevent it from happening. Removing these engaging and enriching tools are only going to make your community suffer.

There's no harm in adding a few lines in your privacy policy explaining that the site may feature videos from Vimeo and Youtube as part of user contributions but you do not need to be worried. As stated earlier, GDPR isn't about sucking the fun out of the internet, it's about being responsible and transparent.
Phew.
Hopefully you've got a better understanding about how Invision Community can assist your GDPR compliance efforts.
The best bit of advice is to not panic. If you have any questions, we'd love to hear them. Drop us a line below.

This month, we turn sweet sixteen!

We made our own card this year.
I know, it's hard to believe with our youthful looks and energetic personalities, but it's true. Charles and I have known each other longer than I've known my own children and we still make each other laugh on a daily basis.
Over the past 16 years we've seen a lot of trends come and go.
When we started, AOL dial-up was the preferred method of choice (and probably the only method of choice). Compuserve were flying high and I think I'll stop this walk down memory lane before I turn into my own grandfather and start talking about how things were better in my day.
A lot has changed. We've seen the rise of social media and how it disrupted habits. We've seen MP3 players become iPods, and iPods become iPhones and iPhones become iPads (other digital devices are also available).
It's crazy to think that our company pre-dates Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Click on this image to see it unless you have excellent eyesight
We're still here because we are always innovating and adapting. The software we're working on right now is vastly different from the one we started out with. And that is how it should be. We listen to our customers and we implement the great ideas.
Of course, we'd not have lasted a year without our customers. We're genuinely thrilled to still be doing a job we love and serving customers who have trusted their community with us.
Thank you all for choosing us and we're looking forward to the next 16 years.

We released news of Clubs just under a year ago for Invision Community 4.2 and it has been the best received feature to date.
Clubs opens up new ways to run your community by allowing members to create sub-communities away from the central forum area.
Since the feature was released, we've collated an immense amount of feedback on the feature. Here's what we're improving for Invision Community 4.3.
Paid Club Memberships
If you have Commerce installed on your community, 4.3 adds the ability for members to create paid clubs. Users wishing to join the club will be required to pay a membership fee (which can be one off or recurring) which will be paid to the club owner, minus any commission you want to keep for the site. You can choose which groups can create paid clubs.

Paid Club Settings
If enabled, the club directory will show the price for membership in each club.

Club directory with paid clubs
The process for joining works a little differently depending on the type of club...
For open clubs, the user will immediately be prompted to pay the joining fee. Once they have paid, they are added to the club as normal. For closed clubs, the user will need to request to join as normal. Once they have been accepted to join the club, they will then be able to pay the membership fee, after which they'll be added to the club. For private and read-only (a new type in 4.3, which we'll talk about below) users have to be invited to join the club Public clubs have no membership, and so cannot be paid.
Joining a paid club (a closed club in this screenshot)

Paid club after request to join has been accepted

Paying for club membership
Club leaders can also waive the membership fee, allowing certain users to join the club for free.

Waiving fee when approving request to join

Waiving fee when inviting members

Waiving renewal fees on an existing member
If a member fails to pay their renewal charge, they are moved into an "expired" state. The club leaders can see the status and renewal date for all members, and use the filter tools to just see active or expired members.

Club members management
Paying out membership fees works just as it does with paid files in Downloads. Users receive the amount as account credit. If enabled, they can then request a payout of this via PayPal or a manual payout method you want to use.

Viewing an invoice in the AdminCP where some payment has been given to a member

Viewing account credit with options to withdraw funds
 
 
Club content throughout the community
Currently content in clubs is only visible within the club itself. In 4.3 a new setting allows you to show the content from clubs throughout the community - for example, if a club contains a forum, that forum can show in the main forum list.
 
Club forums showing on main forum list
This is a single toggle: if enabled, all content from clubs that each user has joined will show throughout the community, appearing below the normal categories/etc in that application.
 
 
New Club Type: Read Only
In addition to Open, Closed, Private and Public, we have added a new club type in 4.3: read only. In a read only club, everyone can (without joining) view everything in the club, but cannot participate unless they are invited by a club leader.
 
Following
Users can now follow a club, and will then receive notifications about all new content in the club - the same as if they followed every content area in the club.
 
List View
In addition to the current grid layout of clubs, there is a new list-style.

Clubs List View
The admin can choose which views are available and what the default should be.
 
AdminCP Approval
You can now filter the list of clubs in the AdminCP to clubs requiring approval and approve clubs from within the AdminCP.

Approving clubs in AdminCP
 
Deleting Content Areas
Club leaders can now delete content areas within their clubs. This can be useful if, for example, the leader added a club feature by mistake.
Content areas can only be removed if there is no content within it, or if you have granted club leaders the ability to delete content in their clubs (since they would be able to empty it).

Ability to remove features from clubs
 
Other Minor Tweaks
You can now set per-group the maximum number of clubs a member in that group can create. A member invited to join a club can now delete the invitation if they do not want to accept it (rather than just ignoring it).

Emoji: built in to Invision Community 4.3! ?
Invision Community has a long history. We remember the early days of forums, back when graphical "emoticons" or "smilies" were added.
We have always shipped our products with a basic set of emoticons with the ability to add your own images and has supported emoji from mobile devices.
Emoji has become a standard across mobile and desktop devices so it made sense to bring them to Invision Community fully.
You can choose from 3 different styles of Emoji:
The native style provided by the user's operating system (if you choose this option, users on different platforms will see different styles) Twitter style EmojiOne style
Emoji Settings
Once you have chosen one of these options, all of the available Emoji will show in the emoticons selector when making a post. Unlike in older versions, the entire list is scrollable (the categories drop down will jump you to the category rather than filter), you can search, and standard Emoji features like skin tone modifiers are fully supported, and of course, you can make them as big as you like.

Navigating Emoji

Skin Tone Modifier

Make Emoji any size
 
Autocompleting Short Codes
In addition to using the selector, you can also use optionally enable standard :short_codes:. These will be autocompleted as you type.

Autocompleting Short Codes
You can also enable more conventional ASCII emoticons to be automatically replaced too:

ASCII Short Codes
 
Don't Worry: Custom Emoticons Aren't Going Anywhere!
You can use custom emoticons either instead of, or even alongside Emoji. If you give your custom emoticons a text replacement starting and ending with : they will even show in the autocompletion alongside Emoji.

Custom Emoticons
 
Technical Details 
Whichever style you choose, Emoji is stored in the database as the actual Unicode characters, so you can even change the setting and all Emoji, even those in existing posts, will immediately change.
If you choose to use the native style (so the Emoji will match the style provided by the operating system), the system will automatically detect which Emojis are supported and the selector will only try to show the ones the platform can render.

Our recent release of Invision Community 4.2 was the most well-received version ever! The feedback we received on new features like Clubs, Reactions, and Promotes was better than we could have hoped and we really enjoyed seeing all the creative uses as people implemented them on their own communities.
We have been hard at work on version 4.3 with a goal of improving on all the great new features. It is well under way and we are happy to able to start announcing what's new over the next few weeks.
Invision Community 4.3 will not only contain new features but also have a core focus on refinement from 4.2's new features. You will see many improvements to Clubs, new integration options, large application improvements, new promotional features, and more changes large and small.

 
You can expect to see news posts about new features and changes very soon with a release date in early 2018. Follow our news section or subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates.