Chris Anderson

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It goes without saying that we all want every one of the marketplace apps to be updated within days of a new release. We need to better manage our expectations as Adriano has a very large collection of marketplace and custom apps that he supports. They will all be updated when they get updated and not a moment sooner. Coding and testing works best when you are in a good frame of mind. Being constantly pestered for updates is unlikely to put Adriano in such a state. Be of good cheer@Adriano Fariaand the other marketplace developers, we appreciate all of you...

Somewhat akin to having a doctor's visit via your phone. The doctor can only check you out for only the obvious things that might be amiss. Leaving you only "somewhat" diagnosed. Both the doctor and IPS needs to manage expectations as to what can be accomplished using their diagnostic tools.

<on soap box> I wrote my post with the intention of inspiring a dialogue among the community around the issue. It wasn't meant to be taken too literally... People need to be better informed as to when there are possible issues with a new release. Unfortunately once a release leaves beta the bug tracker disappears and we don't know what issues are being encountered by others until: Release Notes - Invision Community gets updated. There were a great deal of issues from the 4.5 release that got rolled into 4.6 that I was totally unaware of. I thought by then 4.5 was remarkably stable, when in fact it really wasn't as I didn't know of "any" of the problems that got fixed. As we don't know what the "real" state of affairs are with each new release we all need to be cautious with upgrading. As only a third of the marketplace apps have been updated there is a potential the developers will discover additional issues (and don't forget all of the trouble ticket submissions) that will necessitate additional 4.6.x releases. Based on@Stuart Silvestercomment it appears the issue was server related and not due to the new update. It appears that this particular release will require special attention with our sever configurations which isn't a bad thing for the community to know as well as with the advisability of testing out new releases on a non production instance and knowing how to backup and restore. Postings like this have value as it is the only way we can communicate amongst ourselves that there "might" be potential problems with a particular release. There are certainly better ways that IPS could manage the situation going forward. <off soap box>

As much as we all wish that IPS releases bug free code they consistently show they they are not up to the task. Just like the rest of the software developers out there... If anyone chooses to upgrade their site within hours of a new release they are likely to encounter problems and it will take time for IPS to investigate and fix. If you want to minimize the potential for downtime, delay upgrading to allow for "all" issues to be discovered and addressed on people's test installs before updating your production site.

"If" IPS is careful with their coding practices then there shouldn't be the need for security patches all that often. Providing security patches for prior versions for 3 to 4 months after a major release should encourage folks to continuously upgrade their sites while at the same time allowing those sites that want to hold off on upgrading a secure environment.

If you check the description of this app you would see that it hasn't been updated to be compatible with 4.6.2 as of yet. Please exercise some patience with Adriano and all the other marketplace developers, as they all have lot of apps to update all of which are important to one person or another.

@Jordan Invision It might be nice to alert the entire customer base of these changes instead of putting the marketplace developers in a tough spot having to explain your business decision and deal with the customer angst that's bound to happen in the days ahead.

There are over half a dozen topics already started discussing this topic. This platform is deceptively easy to install but does require an understanding of the underlying hardware and operating system/software stack in order to ensure it's secure and operates efficiently. The knowledge is readily attained through extensive internet searching but requires a great deal of one's time to master it all. Unless you have a "very" small userbase and traffic you will likely encounter issues like the one described above that may be beyond one's ability to easily figure out or take more time than you readily have. Most of the problems you will likely encounter will be beyond the scope of support here and with your service provider(s). When that happens and they will, you need to secure the expertise of someone that has mastered the requisite skills, unfortunately such skills come at a price. There are lots of hidden expenses running a successful internet site. Everyone needs to ensure they have sufficient funds in their budget to be able to hire "experts" to address issues that are beyond one's ability to readily deal with on their own. Hosting plans that most folks can readily afford do not have the requisite power and configurability to be both secure and support a sufficiently large enough user base that you can generate enough revenue to offset your expenses. There is an old saying, "It takes money to make money". If you want any chance of earning a profit on your site you will need to spend some money on consultants and upgraded hosting and other products and services in order to have a platform that can support rapid user growth. Scaling a website using this software platform isn't cheap or easy but can offer a great return on one's investment of time and money "if" it is done correctly.

https://invisioncommunity.com/4bugtrack/

I checked again. No matter which version you choose here it shows it's only compatible with Version 4.6. The app doesn't show up in the ACP marketplace even though it did prior to you releasing Version 5.6.0 and 5.6.0.1

Unfortunately this app is showing that it is no longer compatible with 4.5 as such I can't install it. Please make a version available for 4.5 as I won't be upgrading to 4.6 until it has been officially released and the marketplace apps I will be using have all been updated to be compatible with 4.6. Thanks...

Its all about context and how a site structures the interactions between its members and the content being shared. It can take a member awhile to get a feel for a site and whether there might be any value to identifying their gender identity to others or referring to someone's gender correctly. I agree that prompting a new member to identify themselves before gaining access to a site is grounds for me to not join. Empty fields give me a moments pause but there are times when those fields may provide value add to a site. A good site admin will highlight their value to the community which should prompt more members to fill them out. I haven't found value in knowing for sure what gender anyone might happen to identify with here. On the other hand I do see value of properly identifying and addressing people on LinkedIn as it can matter to some people. As one doesn't know which person may be more sensitive than another its best to make an effort as that person could have a positive impact on my life or other's I care about.

It's respectful to use the appropriate pronoun when it's use is called for. This was difficult enough when it was a choice between using a masculine or feminine pronoun as it is difficult to determine which an individual might be based on their choice of username. Pronoun choice becomes even more difficult when someone like "Morrigan" identifies as being a "Rainbow Princess Unicorn of the Fourth Order". If that makes Morrigan happy, who am I to judge <insert unknown pronoun>. It's a tough social issue to address as people are resistant to change, there are a boatload of value judgements that are likely to come into play and way too many exceptions being offered up to know how to deal with them all. Unfortunately some individuals are skipping the advocacy phase and went straight into the implementation phase. This will likely engender even more resistance to change ensuring the effort has no chance of being universally accepted. It will likely take many years before conditions are right to try a more disciplined advocacy approach. It will require an extremely gifted team of advocates and access to lots of money to have even the remotest chance of encouraging even the slightest of changes.

Unfortunately you haven't provided sufficient details to be able to help narrow down the problem. What browser are you using? Are you using a desktop PC or mobile device? Are you using keyboard commands or a mouse? If you are using a keyboard command, which one are you using? Is it possible you are pressing the wrong keys? Can you successfully paste text on this site? Have you ever been able to paste text on the site you are having problems?

@Adriano F Hello, I'm thinking of purchasing your app and if both of my questions below are a "yes" then your app will meet my needs. Does this app work with your Invite App and can "Group" as shown below be changed or is it hard coded? If it can be changed would you please provide the key name I would modify. Thanks...

Until society as a whole agrees to stop communicating primarily in the masculine form and chooses to fully embrace feminine and gender neutral pronouns then listing one's pronoun preference is unlikely to cause people to change their communication style in a meaningful way. Maybe in a hundred years or so communication styles will become more inclusive but today being inclusive is the exception rather than the rule. I am in favor of improving upon the field that @SeNioR-is illustrating to show the pronoun He/Him so that it might be used for a variety of different use cases. Having a plugin created that meets multiple needs is more likely to interest a developer as it will likely yield a few more sales.

I have an idea that might be a great addition to the marketplace. it would be nice if you could reference a particular, book, movie, album or game within a forum topic posting. The example below is for a book but the idea could be expanded for movies, music and games as well. For example if a forum poster wrote the following sentence below and embedded a book title "Battle of Hastings". In Battle of Hastings, the author states on page 22, "This battle is the most defining event in English History". Anyone reading the forum posting later hovers their mouse pointer over the underlined book title and a popup dialog box appears with more information about the book. When done reviewing the book they exit the dialog box and return back to the forum posting. The reader can better determine how reliable the quoted text is based on reader reviews on Amazon. Another example might be to embed a book as part of a book review introduction and subsequent community discussion. This idea is inspired by Wikimedia. I'm thinking that the forum poster would click on the "new" book icon in the toolbar as shown above. Permissions should be provided in the ACP for which groups can view the "Add Book" icon in the editor toolbar. If the idea was expanded upon an entirely different icon could be created instead or some other means of calling the program. A book choosing dialog box would appear. After the appropriate book is chosen an Amazon Affiliate code is entered in a field that is made visible only if user is in the appropriate user group defined in the ACP. If an affiliate code is not entered the system defaults to the affiliate code provided in the ACP. This idea might be expanded to provide one dialog box to choose between an Album, Movie, Game, or Book or be able to type text into a dialog box and embed a photo. If you mouse around an Wikipedia article and see the variety of different popup types you should readily see what I'm talking about. I could of swore that Wikipedia made the popup code available to the public but I'm not sure where I saw that.

Don't wake me up until 4.6 is stable and all the marketplace apps are updated.

@Jordan Invision Payment processors and social media sites experience periods of downtime or make changes to their APIs or change requirements for access. it would be nice to have a centralized location that customers could drop by to see if there are any upcoming changes they need to prepare for or to see if others are experiencing issues. Those experiencing issues could click on a report button and the site increments the total upward or downward if the issue resolves itself. This would help determine issues that seem to be of a temporary nature or something that might need to be addressed on an individual or community wide level. If IPS determines that site specific troubleshooting is required they could toggle a switch requesting those effected to submit a trouble ticket. As many people will forget to stop back and resolve the issue IPS could reset the stats at midnight. If the problem still exists on subsequent days the customers would need to drop by after midnight and indicate that fact. If a software fix is required IPS could toggle another switch indicating a fix will be provided via an upcoming hotfix or next dot release. With this knowledge a site owner could readily determine if a problem is only being seen on a small amount of sites or is wide spread and the necessity of submitting a trouble ticket or having to patch their site to address the issue. As it stands now there are often problems our sites might be experiencing that we are entirely unware of that could impact our site from collecting all the funds we expect and desperately need or being able to fully interact with the various social media sites. Having timely knowledge of problems will allow us to better deal with problems internally as well as being more transparent with our members that certain aspects of our site may not be fully operational and a better understanding when they will be resolved. If" API access is being limited for particular sites it would be helpful to see such a trend as quickly as it occurs so we can come together as a community to help those affected and to see if we can collectively come together to figure out ways to minimize such occurrences going forward and maybe winning back access through collective brainstorming of how that might be accomplished. Working together will help to more effectively deal with the vagaries of dealing with our big business partners.

Its hard to know based on a simple error code. There might be several reasons: The error could represent a temporary system glitch. Try, try again... Your ex-moderator might be making trouble for you with Twitter. Your members might be submitting content that Twitter doesn't like. Twitter might have actually had an employee review your site and they decided to restrict access. You should submit a support request with Twitter. I honestly don't expect a timely response or any for that matter but as the saying goes: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." I would recommend that you do a review of your entire site through the eyes of a Twitter reviewer. Is your site and the postings promoted to the Twitter site in Twitter's best interest. You and your members might find value with your site's content but there is a possibility that other people might not. With governments throughout the world in the process of placing more and more restrictions on big websites, this will likely cause them to place more and more restrictions on who they will grant access to their APIs. "If" continued access to these big websites are of "real" value to your website than you will need to match the "norms" being forced upon the big websites in the short and long-term. The challenge going forward is there is no telling how transparent these big sites will be with those wishing access to their APIs as to what is or is not going to be cause for losing access to their APIs and underlying account. It wouldn't surprise me if all of the big sites embark on a largescale culling of those sites requesting access to their APIs in the future as the overall value of the content promoted will likely be seriously offset by the money required to ensure it continuously meets the "norms" being imposed upon them.

If IPS holds true to that stand than its imperative that they don't remove items without a real buy in from the community. I suspect many communities that are still on old builds due to their continued reliance on various deprecated features. One would hope that IPS might modify their stand to say that as a rule mods aren't allowed to replicate removed features, but they will allow them if a select group of communities would be materially impacted by their loss and a mod could readily be created that wouldn't adversely impact the IPS Suite. If a programmer is creative enough to figure out how to accomplish such a feat than they should be able to help those impacted sites keep their sites up to date with the latest releases.

I would recommend studying all of the legalese that you must agree to follow on eBay and other established marketplaces as a seller and purchaser as well as any requirements your payment processor may require of you setting up and operating an online marketplace. This should provide a sense of the complexity and legal and financial risks you will take on if you choose to proceed. You will also need to look at how your business is structured to insulate you both legally and financially from things that might go awry for your business. The business type you choose to operate under will impact what paperwork is required as well as how you file taxes. There are expenses and lots of paperwork required setting up and operating a non-sole proprietorship business and setting up a bank account. Not only will you have to engage a law firm, but you also will need advice from a tax accountant as to what applicable local, state, and federal paperwork you need to submit throughout the year and how to figure out how much your tax burden will be based on your anticipated sales volume. Unless your sales volume is "extremely" robust the expenses of setting up and running a marketplace as described above will cost more than you take in and take lots of your time managing it. You might consider setting up a dummy site as a thought experiment and ask your members to submit items for purchase and see what items are bought by your members during a set time using virtual currency. You will need to figure out how to deal with shipping goods from one member to another and how shipping costs are addressed as well as tracking of packages, damaged goods, or failure to deliver by shipper or failure of seller to ship items "as described". At the end you could determine what demand there really is for the items posted for sale and any possible profit you might attain after initial and ongoing expenses (don't forget to factor in the cost of failed transactions) determined from your research and consultations with a lawyer and accountant. Your payment processor should be able to provide you with an approximate failed transaction rate from their other marketplace accounts as well as how many they will tolerate before limiting or closing your account. The amount of failed transactions could increase the cost charged decreasing your potential profit margin. There is also the possibility that you might not have immediate access to all the money owed to you or they might hold a certain amount aside to address any transaction abnormalities. You should setup a sufficiently funded reserve account to cover your ongoing expenses in the event of payment delays. Implementing a marketplace will initiate a more robust review process of "you" and your business to determine if you have the proper process and procedures in place as well as required written guidelines as well as the overall feel of the site to determine if you are a worthy of credit increases, decreases or outright cancelation of your account. As such it's important to weigh the value of adding additional product offerings against the possibility of losing access to your payment processor entirely or paying much higher fees. The Fed has recently telegraphed the need for increasing interest rates to stave off inflation and the credit market has been lowering credit limits and making it harder to qualify and/or keep various credit-based products. Over the course of the next year, I would recommend everyone to be especially mindful of their personal and business credit and take additional steps to minimize "any" adverse problems logged with your payment processor to ensure the longevity and profitability of your site. Most payment processors place limits on how much they will process in any given period. Those may increase in time but isn't a given. It's good to ask what the criteria is to advance to a dollar amount that will work for your needs. If the requirements are too stringent for your site or will take too long it's best to know upfront. If you figure you could reach profitability if you submitted 20k a month to the processor and you were limited to 10k than the additional 10k worth of transactions would be denied and your account wouldn't reset until the first of the next month. How much additional stuff do members have to offer up for sale in the months and years ahead that other members would be willing to purchase? What's the potential profit to you? People have a finite amount of stuff to sell. Eventually the marketplace offerings will dwindle to next to nothing as everyone will have sold off their good stuff and it will take time before they have something good again to sell or you will have to continuously recruit "lots" of new members with stuff to sell. Will these new members with "stuff" be the kind of members that fit in well with your community? Will switching from being a place to socialize to a place for doing business be in the best interest of your site in the long term? Tough questions need to be asked of yourself and your community to figure out if this is a good path to explore and something the "community" and not "you" want. You need to look at how you can extract the transaction data provided utilizing this solution in a format your accountant will require to fill out the obligatory paper trail of running a business and ensure everyone is paid all that is due in a timely fashion. There is a possibility that you might be missing key data points, or it will need to be structured in an entirely different fashion. This should be addressed sooner rather than later to minimize missteps in your implementation which could cost you countless wasted hours and expense.

As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I too am older now and getting more so by the second... ⏲️ IPS seems content with Clubs "as is" and hasn't communicated to the community (to my knowledge) that subforums or any other additional features are in the pipeline. They seem content on letting third-party developers step in and further develop it instead of doing it themselves. ☹️ At this point in time @InvisionHQ seems to be the only developer willing to take on the challenge of adding additional club enhancements outside of the functionality that the Members Shop provides.

The IPS Suite allows me to create nested forums as shown below: Your app allows you to create a forums only: Is there any way of creating nested forums within a club? If it isn't something currently available can such functionality be added? I would be willing to sponsor such functionality if it could be done.