Chris Anderson

The amount of time since joining should show the actual amount of "Years In". The system shows I've only been a member for one year when I have been a member for seventeen years. Long-time members will be put off if the amount of time they have been members isn't accurate. If it isn't going to be accurate don't bother having such a badge.

Why not something like: Required: This post meets Site Guidelines. Site Guidelines would be a clickable link to your Site Guidelines Page This way if someone does post something clearly in violation of your Site Guidelines. you can readily hold your members accountable for their transgression(s) as they can't readily feign ignorance of your community standards. Instead of being always active you might consider toggling the "kindness plugin" on only during times when your members are a little more emotive than usual.

@AlexWebsitesUnfortunately, @bfarberis no longer affiliated with IPS. Check out the posting below:

"I would like" a whole bunch of new functionality built into the IPS Suite, but I don't submit them to the Feature Suggestions forum as I don't believe enough other communities would use it to justify IPS including them. Please add more information to your feature suggestion(s) with the mindset of getting most of the community to buy-in on your idea(s). Without that I'm afraid your suggestions are unlikely to be seriously considered by IPS. For feature suggestions to be seriously considered we have to be a bit of a salesperson to sell our ideas.

Based on the various weekly recaps from @Jordan Invisionover the last few months it appears this release is yet again chock full of bug fixes, new features or changes big and small and various code depreciations. With the absence of a bug tracker and formalized process of community testing and bug submission, it appears for this release IPS has chosen sole ownership of the process. I applaud them for reaching a state in their development process that their team can discover and correct any problems entirely by themselves. That's something the whole community should applaud them for,

Here you go:

@Jordan InvisionI imagine you were feeling a bit sad at the thought of leaving us one day... Well the feeling is mutual. Instead of expressing that "sadness" you didn't write words, you resorted to a single emoji as there wasn't an appropriate reaction to capture what you were feeling. Why did you not write something out like you advocated for above? Don't you deserve that little extra attention? How many different interpretations of a single emoji are there likely to be from everyone that skims through this thread? Did I read your emoji accurately? Maybe, maybe not. Alas, forum communication can become quite nuanced and what might seem obvious to the writer might not be so to the intended reader or the rest of the community.

@The Old ManYour original posting could have benefited from further elaboration. After many comments its becoming quite clear that the issue you brought up is a lot more complicated and nuanced than it appears at first glance. I gave your pizza comment a "like". Speaking of pizza, its great 24 hours a day hot or cold. Everyone: A community can add value to a conversation via commenting or reactions and sometimes both. "If" reactions are to be added to the mix then they should offer a wide variety of ways to express support or lack thereof for a particular comment or exhibit various emotions. As humans express a multitude of good and bad emotions there should be means of expressing them in ways that convey an emotion without the weight behind it that might stir an overly averse reaction from receiving it. If a reaction choice is a tad on the negative side it should convey a value of 1 out of 10 scale. Using such a reaction should be meant to make a subtle point not as a means of moderation. That's a job that should be reserved for the forum administrators if someone shows a propensity of straying outside of community norms. In those cases where a reader is feeling less than positive about a topic or situation being described there should be a way of expressing that via a reaction. Doing so shouldn't mean they feel less than positive about the commenter overall. We can agree to disagree on occasion and still get along if we are to be a successful community, whether here or your place. If you limit the reactions too much you limit their overall usefulness. If you click on the reaction button there should be an option for every conceivable "useful" use case. Their usage should be of value to the recipient as well as the rest of the community. Limiting reactions is akin to asking a wordsmith to limit themselves to only using 1000 random words to convey every conceivable thought or emotion. It's simply too limiting. If a reaction appears to be under utilized it might not mean its a poor choice for inclusion in the grand scheme of things, it simply might mean there were few instances where that reaction was appropriate. The choice of reactions should be readily identifiable by the whole community and shouldn't be tied too closely with any particular administrator as they come and go. If someone reads an old comment and sees a bunch of reactions from a prior community admin they might not understand the significance of a "cat" reaction for instance, or some other favored reaction from the past. That's not to say reactions can't be fun and whimsical, I'm simply saying they "might" have a short life span of usefulness or understood by the whole community, especially if it has an international membership. Reactions should not be implemented exclusively from the top or by a group of power users. That's why I've refrained from making specific suggestions on changes, additions or deletions of the reactions here. The entire community should be included in the conversation as "they" are going to be the ones to use them or not if they don't meet their collective needs. Maps have keys to convey the various icons used. There might be value in providing a page (or pages if you have different reactions throughout your site) that shows each reaction along with their appropriate usage. This should help set community-wide expectations on their usage.

I launched my first BBS in 1988 using the Wildcat BBS software. So I've actually been around forums for 33 years.

Sounds like a great blog topic for @Jordan Invisionto cover.

Too true, but if you have a small group of members that lack emotional intelligence (the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathically - Oxford Dictionary) then things can go astray. I suspect that there are some folks here that don't want to be a part of a "community" they simply want to post a question or suggestion and receive an answer or response as quickly as possible. They have no interest in getting to know the IPS Staff or other members or engage in various forms of levity. While others do want to get to know the IPS staff and members and drop by to engage with them and help out when they can. Every time a member logs on they will be in a particular "mood". Sometimes they will appreciate and engage in various forms of levity and sometimes they won't. Reactions, emoji, and gifs and emotions and feelings can add real value to a site or detract from it. Being too negative or too expressive will lead to troubles as it will alienate some segment of a site's membership at one point in time or another. I respect your desire for positivity, but sometimes a comment warrants a less than positive response. There should be some quick and easy way to express: "I respectfully disagree" or "Please for the love of pizza, no!" (or some other way of expressing lack of agreement or support) for a particular comment or feature suggestion. Bringing the entire membership into the "know" about your desire for positivity and various steps you will be taking in the short and long term will help a long way towards building a true "community". All the more important as your role is meant to be a bridge between "us" and IPS management. Be of good cheer one and all in these trying times...

Speaking of ironic: One would hope that everyone can be free to express an opinion here, even if it seems to be on the "ironic" side to some of us. As with many comments posted here, I personally disagree with some points made and agree with others, rarely do I weigh in completely one way or the other. As a consequence I rarely use reactions. If everyone consistently keeps their concerns to themselves "nothing" will change and there will be no chance of any knowledge transfer. What appears to be a waste of time to some may not be to others. Jordan's approach to community management may serve him well on his board but might not work 100% of the time here. The original poster was pointing out that in his opinion Jordan's approach might benefit from a little tweaking. If Jordan is to improve this community hearing contrary views will help him figure out how best to manage this community to be in service to "all".

Ideally we strike a balance somewhere between what I wrote above and what @Clover13wrote below: I took the extreme view because I suspect some of the forum visitors would like things to be a little more formal and they might not offer up an opinion one way or the other on the topic at hand. Some of the forum clientele would prefer a rather relaxed (fun!!!) environment. Some sections of this board and some topics should be formal and some could benefit from some levity. It's tough to enact a one size fits all approach to dealing with this. Reactions, emojis, and gifs may be appropriate in some area and not in others. I would encourage some more thought on where they might best be utilized and to what extent. It might be appropriate to have different reactions in different areas as a means of helping manage the flow of communication and gauging support for or against a topic.

This is a product support board, not an emotional support board. Enough with all the touchy feely emojis, gifs and any other means of expressing emotions, whether positive or negative. All communications should be done in a completely neutral fashion. To ensure neutral communications going forward, please remove all reactions and the emojis and gif buttons as well from the editor in these forums as a few people can't seem to help themselves from being emotionally expressive. The old saying goes, a few bad apples always ruins it for the rest...

I like this idea but there would need to be some way to end subscription (and revoke elevated access) if a member fails to complete one of the payments. A configurable grace period and set of warnings should also be included to gently prompt a member to complete their payment plan. There should also be a way to track these kinds of subscriptions in the ACP so the admins know which members are on subscription plans, and their status (such as: Payment 2 of 5, Days Late). This would allow the admins to know how much money should be coming in and which members are behind on their payment plans. "If" a member fails to complete a payment plan there should be a way to mark their account as such.

@CodingJungle This file is not currently available for purchase. What gives?

I will leave you with this: My condolences with your task at hand. Hopefully no one else has to go through your pain.

@Paul E.Have you considered utilizing a browser automation tool like imacros?

Integrating with other company's products can be quite tricky as they might change, add or deprecate features on a regular basis. An integration that works this week might not next week as that company released an update that materially changes their product necessitating IPS to quickly release a patch to restore the integration code they provided to us. That takes lots of time and effort on IPS's part and they might encounter a release they simply can't support. What then? If that is a strong possibility its hard to justify pressing on month after month never knowing when it will abruptly end due to the other company's actions. Deprecations can be jarring to those impacted by them but they are often necessitated by circumstances completely out of IPS's control.

Check out the IPS Community Suite 4.5.2 Release notes for deprecated features at the bottom of the page. Release Notes - Invision Community

Does IPS provide any feedback to a developer upon submission of an original app or update that based on their future update plans (at that moment in time) the app will end up needing extensive rework or warrant discontinuation as portions of their app's functionality will become core? How about an app that is in between updates, does IPS let developers know that future updates will likely impact their apps? I'm more concerned with apps that have sold well and have become integral to sites that have bought them.

How many members and active members online at one time can this particular solution realistically support?

How integrated does your functionality need to be with the IPS suite? Could you create a stand alone database driven webpage that you site's members navigate to via a menu choice? If so, then you have a larger pool of developer talent you could tap into. If you absolutely need to integrate fully into the suite you can post your project here: Requests - Invision Community