The Geek

I am an IP.noob (I am getting immense mileage out of that one) fresh from vBS. My site is a mid sized (1m post) site. I have just spent the last few hours with my mod team and we have come up with this list. Some are duplicates (yes, I read all 18 freaking pages), but all important to how my mods are used to working.

- Soft delete. This is mega important to our site as it allows us to comment and undelete if needed. Also allows users to delete without us going "wha?". This isn't just for threads, but posts as well.

- Reputation comments. This is missed right now. People LOVE to get thanked and know who did it. Maybe even an option to make it public so the + rep and comment could show in an activity stream and/or profile. That would be win.

- Ajax quick reply. With how jaxed up IPB is, would have thought this would be a given. Saves a lot of bandwidth and time + IMO it creates a more user fluid environment. On that note, I do like how vB4's quick reply would pop up under the post you were replying to. That was a nice improvement in usability.

- Delete as spam - this is a much missed option that allowed us to delete a thread inline, ban the spammer and delete all their other threads all in 1 go.

- A 'whats new' portal page that will give you a snapshot in configurable blocks of whats new before focusing on specific areas of the site. I am kind of assuming this can be done with IP.Content, but haven't gotten a chance to try yet. This could also serve as a member home page. Maybe not configurable per user, but configurable via admin - that would be very hot.

- A contact page? I sort of assumed there would be a contact us page. Didn't realise until reading this thread there wasn't

- Easier way to view watched content

- Easy way to manage a 'global' sidebar.

- Swap between editors via ajax

- Inline edit via ajax

- When using the RTE editor, be able to select a block of text and use the list button to turn it into a list.

- Another user mentioned a vB mod called 'Live topic'. That was very swish and popular. The idea made the forums (and other areas governed by comments) very interactive.

I saw a few other suggestions that I have had experience with so I thought I would share. Clearly this is only my opinion and what didn't work for me could work for 99.9% of other people. I just thought I would share my experience through running a fair sized board as well as working on a lot of other vB sites. Take it with a pinch salt.

- Social Groups. We tried social groups and it just didn't work. At least don't use vB as an example as I honestly do not know of 1 vB site where social groups are a success. With some more thought I am sure they could have been made more prevalent in the community.

- I have 6 moderators on my site. I don't think any of them have ever used the ModCP.

- I don't know of many vB sites where tags have really worked well. Its one of those things that everyone wants, but no one really seems to use. In order for tags to be effective, they need to be used consistently. Forum users are not consistent with tag entry. There are mods on vB that helped with this, but then you end up with a lot of superfluous tags too.


Anyhooo - Hope this helps. I may be back with more as we play more :D

Well, I would say that its not a leap to say that email notifications bring people back and therefore regardless of what forums did it before, it is a good idea.

Dare I say in vB it was easily switched off in your usercp which could be also be overridden via a setting option in the post editor.

Hi,

I've noticed the option to:
Automatically subscribe to every forum

But you can imagine the horde of unwanted emails people get, so is it possible to add another option to automatically subscribe members to every topic they create please? There is an option for them to subscribe manually but would be better in a lot of cases for them to automatically be subscribed - then ubsubscribe shouold they want to.

Cheers, :)

I'd love to see "ad blocks" that can be switched on and off, but rather, I'd like to be able to choose my own ad code (eg, other than Google). I think this is the one feature missing from IPB that a lot of people would use out the box. Sure, sure, IPB is designed to look pretty, but a lot of forums have ads and they often don't "fit" into the board. IPB by default can handle one or two banner ads at the top and bottom, but smaller ads elsewhere...it takes some work to move things around to make them fit in. A custom designed system built in would, IMO, work a lot better.

I am an IP.noob (I am getting immense mileage out of that one) fresh from vBS. My site is a mid sized (1m post) site. I have just spent the last few hours with my mod team and we have come up with this list. Some are duplicates (yes, I read all 18 freaking pages), but all important to how my mods are used to working.

- Soft delete. This is mega important to our site as it allows us to comment and undelete if needed. Also allows users to delete without us going "wha?". This isn't just for threads, but posts as well.

- Reputation comments. This is missed right now. People LOVE to get thanked and know who did it. Maybe even an option to make it public so the + rep and comment could show in an activity stream and/or profile. That would be win.

- Ajax quick reply. With how jaxed up IPB is, would have thought this would be a given. Saves a lot of bandwidth and time + IMO it creates a more user fluid environment. On that note, I do like how vB4's quick reply would pop up under the post you were replying to. That was a nice improvement in usability.

- Delete as spam - this is a much missed option that allowed us to delete a thread inline, ban the spammer and delete all their other threads all in 1 go.

- A 'whats new' portal page that will give you a snapshot in configurable blocks of whats new before focusing on specific areas of the site. I am kind of assuming this can be done with IP.Content, but haven't gotten a chance to try yet. This could also serve as a member home page. Maybe not configurable per user, but configurable via admin - that would be very hot.

- A contact page? I sort of assumed there would be a contact us page. Didn't realise until reading this thread there wasn't

- Easier way to view watched content

- Easy way to manage a 'global' sidebar.

- Swap between editors via ajax

- Inline edit via ajax

- When using the RTE editor, be able to select a block of text and use the list button to turn it into a list.

- Another user mentioned a vB mod called 'Live topic'. That was very swish and popular. The idea made the forums (and other areas governed by comments) very interactive.

I saw a few other suggestions that I have had experience with so I thought I would share. Clearly this is only my opinion and what didn't work for me could work for 99.9% of other people. I just thought I would share my experience through running a fair sized board as well as working on a lot of other vB sites. Take it with a pinch salt.

- Social Groups. We tried social groups and it just didn't work. At least don't use vB as an example as I honestly do not know of 1 vB site where social groups are a success. With some more thought I am sure they could have been made more prevalent in the community.

- I have 6 moderators on my site. I don't think any of them have ever used the ModCP.

- I don't know of many vB sites where tags have really worked well. Its one of those things that everyone wants, but no one really seems to use. In order for tags to be effective, they need to be used consistently. Forum users are not consistent with tag entry. There are mods on vB that helped with this, but then you end up with a lot of superfluous tags too.


Anyhooo - Hope this helps. I may be back with more as we play more :D

I am an IP.noob (I am getting immense mileage out of that one) fresh from vBS. My site is a mid sized (1m post) site. I have just spent the last few hours with my mod team and we have come up with this list. Some are duplicates (yes, I read all 18 freaking pages), but all important to how my mods are used to working.

- Soft delete. This is mega important to our site as it allows us to comment and undelete if needed. Also allows users to delete without us going "wha?". This isn't just for threads, but posts as well.

- Reputation comments. This is missed right now. People LOVE to get thanked and know who did it. Maybe even an option to make it public so the + rep and comment could show in an activity stream and/or profile. That would be win.

- Ajax quick reply. With how jaxed up IPB is, would have thought this would be a given. Saves a lot of bandwidth and time + IMO it creates a more user fluid environment. On that note, I do like how vB4's quick reply would pop up under the post you were replying to. That was a nice improvement in usability.

- Delete as spam - this is a much missed option that allowed us to delete a thread inline, ban the spammer and delete all their other threads all in 1 go.

- A 'whats new' portal page that will give you a snapshot in configurable blocks of whats new before focusing on specific areas of the site. I am kind of assuming this can be done with IP.Content, but haven't gotten a chance to try yet. This could also serve as a member home page. Maybe not configurable per user, but configurable via admin - that would be very hot.

- A contact page? I sort of assumed there would be a contact us page. Didn't realise until reading this thread there wasn't

- Easier way to view watched content

- Easy way to manage a 'global' sidebar.

- Swap between editors via ajax

- Inline edit via ajax

- When using the RTE editor, be able to select a block of text and use the list button to turn it into a list.

- Another user mentioned a vB mod called 'Live topic'. That was very swish and popular. The idea made the forums (and other areas governed by comments) very interactive.

I saw a few other suggestions that I have had experience with so I thought I would share. Clearly this is only my opinion and what didn't work for me could work for 99.9% of other people. I just thought I would share my experience through running a fair sized board as well as working on a lot of other vB sites. Take it with a pinch salt.

- Social Groups. We tried social groups and it just didn't work. At least don't use vB as an example as I honestly do not know of 1 vB site where social groups are a success. With some more thought I am sure they could have been made more prevalent in the community.

- I have 6 moderators on my site. I don't think any of them have ever used the ModCP.

- I don't know of many vB sites where tags have really worked well. Its one of those things that everyone wants, but no one really seems to use. In order for tags to be effective, they need to be used consistently. Forum users are not consistent with tag entry. There are mods on vB that helped with this, but then you end up with a lot of superfluous tags too.


Anyhooo - Hope this helps. I may be back with more as we play more :D

I like this idea. Avatars are the visual representation of the user. I find it inconsistent to sometimes see an avatar and sometimes see a picture.

I like this idea. Avatars are the visual representation of the user. I find it inconsistent to sometimes see an avatar and sometimes see a picture.

Allow displaying the profile picture in topic view (a replacement of the avatar).

Click My Settings, then click the Forums tab. "Manage Watched Topics" and "Manage Watched Forums"

http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=forums&area=topicsubs
http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=forums&area=forumsubs




Ah, I use FF usually. I'd submit that as a bug report in that case.

I am an IP.noob (I am getting immense mileage out of that one) fresh from vBS. My site is a mid sized (1m post) site. I have just spent the last few hours with my mod team and we have come up with this list. Some are duplicates (yes, I read all 18 freaking pages), but all important to how my mods are used to working.

- Soft delete. This is mega important to our site as it allows us to comment and undelete if needed. Also allows users to delete without us going "wha?". This isn't just for threads, but posts as well.

- Reputation comments. This is missed right now. People LOVE to get thanked and know who did it. Maybe even an option to make it public so the + rep and comment could show in an activity stream and/or profile. That would be win.

- Ajax quick reply. With how jaxed up IPB is, would have thought this would be a given. Saves a lot of bandwidth and time + IMO it creates a more user fluid environment. On that note, I do like how vB4's quick reply would pop up under the post you were replying to. That was a nice improvement in usability.

- Delete as spam - this is a much missed option that allowed us to delete a thread inline, ban the spammer and delete all their other threads all in 1 go.

- A 'whats new' portal page that will give you a snapshot in configurable blocks of whats new before focusing on specific areas of the site. I am kind of assuming this can be done with IP.Content, but haven't gotten a chance to try yet. This could also serve as a member home page. Maybe not configurable per user, but configurable via admin - that would be very hot.

- A contact page? I sort of assumed there would be a contact us page. Didn't realise until reading this thread there wasn't

- Easier way to view watched content

- Easy way to manage a 'global' sidebar.

- Swap between editors via ajax

- Inline edit via ajax

- When using the RTE editor, be able to select a block of text and use the list button to turn it into a list.

- Another user mentioned a vB mod called 'Live topic'. That was very swish and popular. The idea made the forums (and other areas governed by comments) very interactive.

I saw a few other suggestions that I have had experience with so I thought I would share. Clearly this is only my opinion and what didn't work for me could work for 99.9% of other people. I just thought I would share my experience through running a fair sized board as well as working on a lot of other vB sites. Take it with a pinch salt.

- Social Groups. We tried social groups and it just didn't work. At least don't use vB as an example as I honestly do not know of 1 vB site where social groups are a success. With some more thought I am sure they could have been made more prevalent in the community.

- I have 6 moderators on my site. I don't think any of them have ever used the ModCP.

- I don't know of many vB sites where tags have really worked well. Its one of those things that everyone wants, but no one really seems to use. In order for tags to be effective, they need to be used consistently. Forum users are not consistent with tag entry. There are mods on vB that helped with this, but then you end up with a lot of superfluous tags too.


Anyhooo - Hope this helps. I may be back with more as we play more :D

+1


This is VERY useful. I used to have this on my VB board, and it saved us TONS of times. Disputes have no leg to stand on. I, the site owner, can VERY easily see when a user complains, or when I check up on a mod, what he did, and what he removed. +10 for this one.



I would just like to sort the tabs into my own order, and move tabs into a global tag called (applications - let me just name it what I want) and then have it be a drop down tab if hovered over. The number of tabs are going to be a HUGE problem very soon.



I've made a few suggestions for this in another thread. Quoting here:



And now, a list of changes that I want to see in future releases:

Trash Can: Have some kind of link to the topic where this was deleted from, please? In my setup, I really need to be able to see this, as I like to be involved in every decision my mods make. Also a restore button or link or something? Multi moderation extras - allow me to PM the user as well. Basically, when I use multi moderation, I want the following to happen. Post deleted (moved to trash can), user PM'd and/ user given warning. User Images depending on groups belonging to - So, like you have a "Staff" badge, allow a badge for secondary groups as well, set up by an Admin, but perhaps selected by user which ones they want to show up on their post (maybe set a limit option by ACP option too, to only allow 3 secondary badges, for example) Rep System is currently pretty useless without anyone seeing your rep. Put rep in the profile, put up a highest rep user thing, and perhaps even rep in the post bit under the avatar. I know there are 2 hooks that does this, but it should be included in the standard, IMO. Extra tab on profile page, which must have watched forums/posts. This is a pretty often requested feature on my board. My members want to watch certain forums and posts, and then just refresh their profile page, seeing both these on the same page. Currently, you have the two tabs in the side bar, but people prefer not clicking between these two. If it's on the profile page, it could be on a separate tab, which shows watched posts first, with a separation after this, showing the watched topics second. It could even refresh via AJAX (really, I want to have AJAX's babies some day), which would stop the spam refreshing that users tend to do while they wait for new posts to pop up. Option to put sidebar blocks on every page, not just forum home page - please, pretty please. Link to ACP member record from member profile page (admin only, obviously) Option (user selectable) to reverse sort order for posts in topics - newest on top Mass add or remove members to a group. If I want to, for example, search for email addresses that has the word "facebook" in it, and move them to a new group, it's a REALLY long process at the moment. Check all boxes EVERYWHERE - moderated posts, and everywhere in the ACP as well - subscriptions for example. Basically, if there's a checkbox, I want a check all above it. Multi quote breaches topic borders - currently, if you multi quote a post on page 1 of a topic, and press the reply box on page 2, it'll include multi quotes from page 1. However, it will not do this over 2 separate threads. Basically, when someone clicks a reply box, while there are multi quotes selected all over the forum, it must only include the current topic's multi quotes in the reply, but have a little link below the box, asking the user if he wants to include the other x number of multi quotes from different topics in this post as well, or if he wants to clear multi quotes. VB does it this way, and it's quote useful. Live Ajax post feature - see below
Josh touched on it a little bit in the quote below:



However, there's a better way. It's called Live post (it was available as a hack on Vbulletin) and it basically refreshes the topic automatically every X seconds. It's got a few options that you can set:

Refresh topic every x seconds Timeout for refresh - if user leaves the page (click on another tab in browser for example) or becomes inactive on his computer (goes AFK) or whatever, it times out the refresh. Live topic time out - X seconds after the last reply, the topic stops being a live topic, and refreshes like a normal topic.
Now this sounds like a gimmick. I know when I first saw this hack, I thought that I'd give it a try, but I'll probably uninstall it after a day or so. However, let me tell you that this is now the most missed feature on my board since I've moved to IPB. The first week, I was sitting in front of my computer, waiting for the replies to happen, and not understanding why I must keep on pressing this F5 button all the time to see who replied to the thread while I was typing something in the quick reply box. This feature is the single biggest improvement that I've made to my board, and MANY of my users miss it incredibly.

There are also a ton of benefits of this Live topic feature. For one, it saves a crap load of bandwidth. In stead of refreshing the whole page, it only checks every 5 seconds (or whatever), which takes up about 4k or less) and adds a new post only when there is one. If IPB adds this feature, I can only imagine how many more Vbulletin (and many others) users they'll draw (not that you necessarily want them. They're a pain to deal with! Look at me! I've probably logged 20 tickets in the last 3 weeks, since moving to IPB, and now I'm testing the post size limits with this suggestions list - sorry about that, btw).

Anyways, thanks for an awesome piece of software, and I hope to see some of these in future releases. :D