Chris Anderson

I find very little to laugh about as an American. There are so many things wrong in America. Some of our own making and some caused by outsiders to know which one to tackle first. As soon as you embark on fixing one problem another one comes to the forefront and you are left wondering how to tackle that problem. On and on it goes, leaving the average citizen a little shell shocked and averse to embarking on any form of advocacy to affect change as it is likely the moment you start your attention is focused on something more pressing. Some people laugh not because they find things funny but as a coping mechanism. If you are laughing you're not crying. Have you actually been successful in getting anyone you know to completely shun Google? If so will that approach work on your butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. If so please share.

It might be nice to create and make a updateable list of all third parties utilized by IPS and the marketplace complete with links to their privacy policies that we could readily copy and past into ours.

I spent numerous hours crafting my Terms and Privacy Policies and and thought I had a pretty good handle on covering all of my bases. I would like to implement the IPS Community App and various Community Enhancements and Login Handlers in the future. I happened to come across the article below this evening and it got me thinking: How much personal data or inferred data this app might be trackable for each user and how one might best let members know so they can make an informed decision whether or not if they want to use the app or other third party services. Can another installed app interact with this one to extract data? As the amount of apps in use would be on the small side it probably wouldn't be worth it but the possibility still exists. Study reveals the scary amount of personal data apps can collect without your permission – BGR We have to trust that IPS, Google and Apple wouldn't use any data (or any bad actors with access to their systems) that could be conceivably extracted from the app or inferred from it but our customers should be made aware that data has the potential from being extracted during app usage via an entry in the "Third Parties" section of the privacy policy and probably in the Terms as well. I'm not sure exactly how that might best be communicated to protect ourselves and inform our customers. I am now using the following blurbs in my Terms and Conditions: Links to Third Party Sites/Third Party Services These Sites may contain links to other websites ("Linked Sites"). The Linked Sites are not under our control as such, we are not responsible for the contents of any Linked Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Linked Site, or any changes or updates to a Linked Site. Clicking on a Linked Site may expose you to various tracking services which might infer various personally identifiable details about you and your surfing habits. By clicking on such Linked Sites you accept such consequences and will not hold these Sites responsible for any adverse outcomes. These Sites provide these Linked Sites to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any Linked Sites does not imply endorsement of these Sites or any association with its operators. Certain services made available on our Sites or mobile app may be delivered by third party sites and organizations. By using any product, service or functionality not originating from our Sites or mobile app, you hereby acknowledge and consent that we may share such information and data with any third party with whom we have a contractual relationship to provide the requested product, service or functionality on behalf of our Sites or mobile app. Third Party Accounts While using your account on these Sites or mobile app you will likely utilize third party services. When such third party access occurs, you acknowledge and agree that you are consenting to the continuous release of information about you to others (in accordance with our privacy policy and published third party site privacy guidelines). If you do not want information about you to be shared in this manner, do not use these Sites or mobile app. A good start but probably could be improved upon by the community. Please note I depersonalized it in order to be suitable for other sites. My Terms and Privacy Policy is filled with legalize. Believe me I would prefer to keep things simple but being too simple opens one up to potential legal jeopardy. If the mobile apps is enabled in the ACP one would hope that entries for Apple and Google would be added to the Third Parties Section with links to their privacy policies. Also any login handlers or community enhancements should have entries posted as well. If such functionality doesn't exist or we can't add to the list ourselves, then not including such functionality might be a better approach. We could simply add a "Third Parties" section ourselves and populate it with all of the appropriate third party services used by IPS as well as any utilized by marketplace or custom apps.

@breatheheavyI like this idea a "lot" as well as your other ideas and many others here in the community. Unfortunately they may never get implemented as IPS has limited bandwith and the marketplace developers are pretty much maxed out for the foreseeable future. There is also the concern of how many of the total customer base would utilize any particular idea. I think this one would prove popular and should be considered for inclusion. The big question is does it get added to the core or would a new app be built akin to clubs that members would purchase to help offset the additional development costs. Could enough additional apps be added for sale to warrant bringing on an additional programmer or two? Probably... Querying the customer base as to what "great ideas" they would like most implemented would determine demand. Once that number has been quantified then you would need to determine the development and yearly support costs. Divide those costs by those individuals that pledged to purchase the app to figure out how much each person would have to front to get the app developed. This would allow IPS to bring on additional developer(s) knowing that all of their expenses would be covered for the next year eliminating the financial burden of bringing in a new developer and hoping they pay their way. This would allow for a hybrid marketplace model. Some high value apps would be sold directly by IPS and all others would be sold in the marketplace. This would lift some of the heavy burden off of IPS trying to include every suggested feature into the core and the high value apps would be minded by full-time professionals. Please don't let me derail the conversation, please continue on...

Your idea might be implemented by IPS in a phased approach. Your suggestion might come in the first release. The site would pay out any monies from their current subscription model as the payouts would be minimal to start. About the time communities are embracing this new functionality IPS releases an update that provides a blanket subscription model akin to Medium. As the communities embrace this new model and star contributors start gathering a following IPS could release an Patreon like functionality to support them as well as club support In this fashion IPS could spread out development over time taking in feedback along the way to release exactly what is needed based on community response. Having three different implementations would allow sites to pick and choose which one would work for them or allow for implementing an phased approach for their own communities.

Thanks for your kind offer to consider suggestions for the upcoming update. Unfortunately I don't have sufficient understanding of the apps capability now to know how it might be improved upon. Once I put the forthcoming update through its paces I "might" offer up a suggestion or two for a subsequent release.

Having all of your contributors being paid out of one big pot might not bring in enough money for high value contributors. Having separate subscriptions for these contributors might bring in enough money to make it worth their time. They might start out contributing content for the general community to garner an audience and switch over to a subscription model once they have sufficient readership and proven that their content is worthy to pay for. More of a Patreon model for these folks. So we are looking at a melding of Medium, Patreon and the IPS Suite. Implementing this at the club level would also be super useful.

Simply reading content doesn't necessarily bring value to a community. The real value is the quantity of positive member engagements elicited from it and the quality of said content. If content proves useful to readers then "that" content and only "that" content should be rewarded.

I was just thinking about you @opentype as I was reading this. You periodically drop by here on the forums and give great advice, but only in small dribbles and drabbles as your time and expertise should be compensated for if you were to take on answering more substantive questions. If someone like you were to have the means of being fairly compensated for your time I suspect you would contribute more and the folks here would benefit from your knowledge. Sometimes it might be answering questions or it might be via an in-depth article. If one person stepped up and took advantage of @breatheheavyidea then more and more might come out of the woodworks. This would encourage more substantive dialogs and knowledge transfer among the membership. As @opentype mentioned this would be better suited towards very large sites if someone was to try to make a living at it or make a nice second income. But there would be some folks that would be tickled pink to get even a few cents for their contributions as it would be a great validation that their contributions mattered to at least "some" folks. If their "tip jars" started increasing over time they are likely to become more engaged and the community would benefit from better and better content being made available. So, I think this idea warrants fleshing out...

Unfortunately this marketplace developer has decided to vacate the marketplace and is in the process of selling all of his apps to "anyone" willing to buy them. It is anyone's guess who might buy any of his apps. Continued support and updates for this app or any others may or may not come to a complete halt while new owners are sought. What the future of any sold apps will be will remain a complete mystery until such time as the new owners let us know. I hope this inspires the community, IPS Staff and the remaining marketplace developers to come together in an effort to improve upon the marketplace and recruit a handful of new developers to be of service to the existing developer community and one day create apps of their own. Let's not spend a single moments time complaining and worrying about our apps and the marketplace as a whole and instead come together to collectively craft a marketplace that works for us while being mindful how hard it can be to be a developer.

Another marketplace app you might want to browse through the feature list to see if it might meet you needs: Chat Application - Applications and Plugins - Invision Community

@TheJackal84 You've ended up creating a number of apps that are extremely well received by your customers and their community members, as such their continued availability and timely updates to be compatible with each new IPS update takes on an increased level of importance in their minds. The price of success. Try to be of good cheer during these trying times. I agree with @liquidfractalthat the occasional Hi Folks, here's where things stand every week or so would be appreciated by your customer base.

@Adriano FariaGoing forward could you please let folks know the moment you decide not to continue updating one of your apps. This would give us some time to figure out an alternative solution if one can be readily had and if not give our members a head's up that your apps functionality will be disappearing on a certain date.

Not all of the community members visit this site on a regular basis. As such, a very small subset of them read your posts and even fewer commented on it. IPS and community members have been known to downplay ideas initially but eventually come around to embracing them in the end. That's where being more specific with how an idea can be implemented can be important in swaying opinions. So I take exception to your statement "The interest is not there". In the grand scheme of things that might be how things might play out but it's too early to tell in my experience witnessing other attempts at advocacy here. Other folks might drop by in the coming days or weeks who might in fact be inspired to join in with you in advocating that your "needs" be met as it just happens to mirror their "needs". In time I might be one of those advocates. It's your choice if you bow out or engage with any other folks that might drop by and want to engage in a conversation with you. I've been known to get on a soap box on occasion in an effort to effect change, sometimes my efforts go nowhere and sometimes my advocacy changes minds and my suggestions get implemented. I've yet to see a "need" be readily embraced by others in the span of a few days. Unfortunately it usually takes weeks or months before any idea gets fully fleshed out and embraced by the community and IPS takes real notice. Cheers...

@Charles Fischer In order for anything new to be seriously be considered one needs to take ones own individual's needs and sell it to the community. If a significant amount of customers clamor for its inclusion and it is something that can readily turned off by those that find no "need" for it or there are ways of tweaking the settings to meet their needs then it might seriously get considered by IPS for inclusion in an upcoming release. I'm afraid you haven't sold your need, at least not yet to me and based on some of the other commenters I'm not sure if you have won them sufficiently over as of yet. You have covered the why fairly well but not the how as of yet. What exactly is the programming logic you are looking for that would meet your needs and could readily accommodate others with varying moderation needs? How would that programming logic be implemented in a moderation user interface and requisite ACP settings? Does IPS have to rip out the moderation system currently in place and start from scratch or can it readily be updated? What exactly would need to be removed, changed, or added? Without a clear picture of what you want and how it might be implemented I'm not sure how this conversation will get you from here to there... Just my thoughts, I do want you to have every chance of getting your needs seriously considered by the community and IPS.

@opentypeGoing forward could you please let folks know the moment you decide not to continue updating one of your apps. This would give us some time to figure out an alternative solution if one can be readily had and if not give our members a head's up that your apps functionality will be disappearing on a certain date.

@Charles FischerCongratulations on garnering a large following and my condolences on the bad apples that spoil things for the rest. One thought came to mind. If you have access to your follower's email addresses or some other means of direct contact, you might consider culling your membership a little at a time. One way you might do that is to invite a block of users that you haven't had any problems with in the past to a clone of your site. Let those folks interact with you and each other and cull anyone not living up to your social contract. Invite the next block and do the same thing. Repeat the process until you have a group of followers that need little to no moderation which would fit well with the IPS moderation system as it currently exists. You might want to look at how you are acquiring new members. Maybe one channel seems to attract more bad apples than the others. If so you might weigh the value of continuing to use that source. Lastly you might consider evaluating how and what you write about. Can you convey your thoughts in a different fashion, one that might not cause folks with tendencies to stir up trouble from doing so on your site. Just a thought...

@opentype I'm not too familiar as of yet of all of the marketplace idiosyncrasies. I see that this particular app shows it compatible with 4.4 but not 4.5. Fernando mentioned above that it works like a charm in v4.5 but I'm curious if we might encounter problems from IPS if we install and use it going forward if it is still showing compatibility with 4.4 and not 4.5 as well.

@Nathan ExplosionI see that this app is on your to do list. Other than converting it into an Application and making it compatible with 4.5, what additional functionality do intend to add over and beyond what it includes currently? Has any of the functionality you included in the last version been added to the 4.5 version of the IPS Community Suite?

@Adriano Faria I just audited all of my purchased marketplace apps to see if they had all been updated yet to 4.5. I noticed that this one hasn't as of yet been updated. Is this an oversight on your part? Or is it on your to do list?

That is a conversation you should have with the theme developer.

I suspect that very few legislators or their staff have even read the text of these new laws let alone old ones. This will likely end up being a case of throwing the baby out along with the bathwater. One would hope that prosecutors will only target individuals that are flagrant offenders to make examples of them. Websites will need to change how they operate. They will need to ensure all of their content is based on original thought and content, not a rehash of someone else's thoughts or content. It will be a painful transition but those that can do it successfully will thrive and those that aren't up to the task will have to shut down their sites. It will likely require "really" involving our communities in the process for any kind of chance of success. If our sites don't have sufficient original content and members that respect other peoples intellectual property then one wonders what our site's real value to society is.

Developer has moved on to other endeavors and is unlikely ever to return.

Sites could readily come to rely heavily on your application working long term. How likely will your solution not require updating to continue working as IPS releases new updates in the coming year(s). If it ends up needing updates how likely will it be that you can readily figure out how to update your app to continue being compatible. If you bow out of the marketplace who will take over maintaining the app? We have had a fair share of apps being neglected or abandoned for various reasons (such as death of a developer) to place to much reliance on marketplace developers. If you can address those concerns you will garner my support and business.

The 4.5 version had a "lot" of changes, deletions and additional functionality added. This nescitated a great deal of changes to the code base. Some of it obvious and some not so obvious to third party developers. The vast majority of developers have full-time jobs and as such can devote only a limited time each week on their apps. If we want more timely app updates we would need to collectively pay "much" more for apps and updates to entice developers to code full-time for the marketplace. As folks complain quite loudly that the prices charged now are too high I don't expect things to change.