Joel R

Go to ACP > System > Posting
In General tab, look for 'rebuild existing images' in description of "Maximum image dimensions to display" 

If IPS is serious about gamification, here are some foundational points:
Entire suite -- Not just forums. Not just apps.  But the entirety and power of the full Invision suite: uploading a cover photo, filling out a profile custom field, writing a status update, making a blog post, RSVPing to a calendar event, getting a post marked as best answer, creating an album, renewing a subscription for the sixth time, winning second in the leaderboard, getting an item promoted.      Weighted -- Writing an in-depth long-form blog is very different from uploading one image, but IPS weighs them the same as one content item.  They shouldn't count the same.   Customizable -- I would like a gamification system to be customizable to exclude / include nodes, categories, and apps.  How I reward my users is very different than how you run your community or how Invision runs its community.  How we offer member journeys will be as diverse as our communities.   Clubs -- I would like a gamification system to include clubs.  Not nearly at the same amount of customization, but each club deserves its own basic set.   Meaningful -- The rewards should be: Immediate, Recognize the relative difficulty of the accomplishment, and Provide the steps needed to get to the next reward.   Typical reward: "Congrats, you won a badge for making X posts." Better reward: "Congrats, you won a badge for making X posts, an accomplishment that puts you into the top 10% of users.  Your next badge is at Y posts." Attention Grabbing -- If a tree falls in a forest and no notification is sent out, does anybody care?  Gamification needs to have movement, to have excitement, to be dynamic, and offer a call to action.      What I'd like for gamification to address:
Profile onboarding - I've logged in to the accounts of multiple users over the years, and every single one has totally ignored the Profile Completion.  I would love to actually see usage statistics on larger sites, but at least on my site, most users don't care about Profile Completion.  I'd rather deprecate Profile Completion in favor of Gamification.   New user activation - There needs to be multiple calls to action within the first X minutes, where X is the site's average session duration. I've seen first-hand how if I can talk live to a user when he first joins, his posting skyrockets at least over that session. There needs to be activity, excitement, and movement within that first session duration.      Member pathways - Users find fulfillment in many ways in our communities. We need to empower them to both progress along certain member pathways while encouraging them to also explore other pathways.  

The engagement and feedback in the Feedback forum has been much better recently.  
I also want to affirm that telling clients "no updates at this time" is useful and welcome.  While we may die a little inside when we don't hear our ideas get picked up, it gives clarity to users.  

4.6 has improvements to load time for emoji menu, particularly on mobile.

The engagement and feedback in the Feedback forum has been much better recently.  
I also want to affirm that telling clients "no updates at this time" is useful and welcome.  While we may die a little inside when we don't hear our ideas get picked up, it gives clarity to users.  

Invision Community has an exciting opportunity for an experienced PHP developer to join our team.
The Role
As a back end PHP developer, you will be working closely within a tight nimble team. You are a clear thinking problem solver and are able to demonstrate skills in creativity and innovation with the ability to meet deadlines. You thrive when given a brief and create well structured efficient code.
Key Responsibilities
Write well designed testable efficient code by using sound development processes Cooperate with other team members to develop new features Gather and refine specifications are requirements based on technical needs Create and maintain software documentation Skills & Experience
Significant experience as a PHP developer in a commercial environment Experience with MySQL Experience with github Experience with various web services such as OAuth, SAML, REST, SOAP, etc. Experience working within a team with a strong culture Some experience with HTML, CSS and JS. Location
Remote but must be available for a significant portion of 9-5 EST working day
 
 
Application Form
 

Just buy Radical tags.  
I'm almost certain IPS privately comissioned the app because they know the functionality is needed, but it's been a third party function forever.  

Are you asking ... 
1. Cancel their account registration? 
2. Cancel their paid subscription where they pay money? 
 
If #1, you need a third party tool like Account Deletion by @Makoto or the user contacts the admin, and you manually delete.  
If #2, yes users can cancel their paid subscriptions from their Purchases.  

There are probably a hundred and one good ideas you can implement before having to resort to inactive members, which personally seems to be a punitive measure (and a hot mess of permissions later on!)
1. Make sure you clearly define your value proposition in your registration block.
2. Try out bulk mailers.  Write well crafted, thoughtful newsletters to send out via bulk mail.  Rinse and repeat.  
3. In regards to social media, go and join every social media group or site that deals with your topic.  If you can't join 'em, then beat 'em at their own game.  
4. Really think through your new member journey.  Start a new account and join your own website with a fresh set of eyes, and see how you can improve that experience.  
5. Go into your Google Analytics and evaluate which pages have the lowest drop off.  Add blocks or feeds on those pages that can entice members to explore elsewhere in the site.  
6. Figure out how you can become (if not already) the definitive resource on rosacrean. This will give you a steady stream of new visitors.  Deploy Pages and build the world's largest directory on rosacean medical providers, or terminology, or whatever.  
7. Start launching new topics, interviews, case studies, etc. Ask emotive questions.  Ask open ended questions. Ask relevant but off topic and fun questions. 
Etc. Etc. 
The journey to member engagement can be accomplished in so many ways.  
Also, if your revenue is dependent upon affiliate links, you should re-evaluate your revenue strategy.  Are there links you can add in a sidebar block on every page? Are there affiliate links you can add to the bottom of the page? Are there custom banners and ads you can design to add into the ad slots or into your newsletters? 
Communities need to be fighting to succeed.  Good luck.  

Some thoughts:
1. IPS does offer indirectly offer this data in the ACP > Statistics. I think all communities should be internally measuring the conversion of all visitors : registered members : active members on a monthly basis. 
2. I'm not sure how this statistic is important on the front end to anyone.  I can see it being useful to admins to manage the effectiveness of their community strategy, but as a user, I'm not sure how useful it is to know that 90 other members visited at some point in the past month.  It is, however, useful to know the number of online users and who they are, in case my friends are online for immediate chat.
3. Creating groups for inactive members: In theory, I think its okay. In practice, it turns out to be a mess of permissions and I'm not sure what real value it provides.  Why are you spending your time penalizing members who haven't visited? It would be a better and more effective use of your community management to encourage them to re-visit in the first place.  
 
If you can define real value and purpose behind inactive members, then go for it.  But to be blunt, I don't think you should confound "available in vbulletin" with "good community strategy." 

I agree

Wow, Joel R. Good points!  
Our 501 c 3 non profit is totally volunteer. I can ask volunteers to do the steps you mentioned, but volunteering just isn't a rosacea sufferer's idea of engaging. I wrote a page and a post on this subject and include a video. I understand what you are saying about 'punitive' measures, but since they are already 'inactive' only those who really want to read the content will make any effort to comply with these new compliance requirements to be active. I will give this six months and see if it improves the engagement. I forget who mentioned 'engagement' (it was either you, DavyC, christopher-w, or cfish) the point being it may be possible to increase registration (since I have closed out a lot of content to members and guests I have had two registrations in the last 24 hours since implementing it - and compare with 10 registrations from Feb 1 - 21 and only 9 registrations in January and absolutely none of these new registrations engage in the community with posting) but the bottom line is 'engagement' with the community is what saves a forum,  so I think I am on the correct track, thanks to the thread I mention in the first post. No member has complained yet, and if I do get complaints I will consider the complaint and think about it, write a post about it, and try to get some engagement with the complainer that might stimulate a discussion in the community.  I don't think we have much to lose, since, 'when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.' 
So I do thank you for your seven step recommendations and your thoughts and will use them as a list for our volunteers who MIGHT do something for our non profit as a 'things to do list' for our volunteers. I have given volunteers assignments of things to do and never hear from them again and become 'inactive.' Volunteering for non profits has shown a downward trend (probably coinciding with the advent of SM) and continues to spiral down and is one of the complaints being heard by other non profits administrators. 
As for revenue, I am thinking about applying for Apple Pay for Non Profits which requires a developer account and going through all those hoops so we can place the Apple Pay button on our donor page. Hope that works, since we rely mostly, about 95% on donations, not affiliate links. 
Basically I am the Lone Ranger keeping this non profit organization going and one other volunteer spends some time posting and serving on the board of directors, and maybe a handful might post one post in the last six months. I like this idea of 'punitive' measures and want to try it to see if it works. When an active member sees a post that was made by an 'inactive' member, without a doubt that is going to raise a flag in that active member's mind and hopefully will engage in a discussion so that their post doesn't turn into an 'inactive' member's post and that they are active members of the community. Hurrah for rewards that are actually earned! 
You wrote in the aforementioned thread on September 17, 2018 the following: 
"Communities - Based on content.  I think it's a more transactional relationship, which is initially strong but fades fast.  Users come for the knowledge and once they obtain the knowledge, I'm not sure if there's a compelling reason for them to stay unless there's another need for the knowledge.  In which case, they leave and not come back until necessary.  The hard thing is empowering users to take the leap from a content consumer (aka Lurker) to start offering content themselves (aka Contributor) or to build social connections with others (aka Friends).  An alternate way of looking at the problem is to ask what emotional or social triggers are in your knowledge to 'activate' users to share their content or to develop bonds."
You simply state it above, there has to be "a compelling reason for them to stay" and won't "come back until necessary."  I have given them the reason. If I continue like I have been, there is absolutely no reason to engage. To transform a lurker to to a contributor requires clicking a button designated START A NEW TOPIC or REPLY TO TOPIC. These lurkers need some motivation.  

Are you asking ... 
1. Cancel their account registration? 
2. Cancel their paid subscription where they pay money? 
 
If #1, you need a third party tool like Account Deletion by @Makoto or the user contacts the admin, and you manually delete.  
If #2, yes users can cancel their paid subscriptions from their Purchases.  

Thanks Joel for your insight into all this. I agree that the members really don't need to know all this, that is why vBulletin puts this at the bottom of the home page ONLY, and most of the 90 members who are active don't pay any attention to it anyway, and certainly the 38K inactive members don't pay any attention to the site stats anyway. 
As I mentioned in the first post, after reading the thread mentioned in the first post of this thread, and I noticed your name in that thread a lot (!!!), the concept I didn't realize is that these younger rosaceans (those who suffer from rosacea) are mostly comprised of the SM mentality who only engage when rewarded and will only 'consume' and not give anything. Our non profit organization relies totally on donations (we receive a tiny bit of revenue from affiliate links) and when the members don't engage our forum is dying. I have to do something and this thread has woke me up. I will give the members a taste of what is in our website with content, but if you want to eat the meal you have to be part of the community and offer something to the community, otherwise, you are out and can do all your eating at SM. Our website has some well balanced, fortified meals to eat and not the junk meals offered at SM. 

If IPS is serious about gamification, here are some foundational points:
Entire suite -- Not just forums. Not just apps.  But the entirety and power of the full Invision suite: uploading a cover photo, filling out a profile custom field, writing a status update, making a blog post, RSVPing to a calendar event, getting a post marked as best answer, creating an album, renewing a subscription for the sixth time, winning second in the leaderboard, getting an item promoted.      Weighted -- Writing an in-depth long-form blog is very different from uploading one image, but IPS weighs them the same as one content item.  They shouldn't count the same.   Customizable -- I would like a gamification system to be customizable to exclude / include nodes, categories, and apps.  How I reward my users is very different than how you run your community or how Invision runs its community.  How we offer member journeys will be as diverse as our communities.   Clubs -- I would like a gamification system to include clubs.  Not nearly at the same amount of customization, but each club deserves its own basic set.   Meaningful -- The rewards should be: Immediate, Recognize the relative difficulty of the accomplishment, and Provide the steps needed to get to the next reward.   Typical reward: "Congrats, you won a badge for making X posts." Better reward: "Congrats, you won a badge for making X posts, an accomplishment that puts you into the top 10% of users.  Your next badge is at Y posts." Attention Grabbing -- If a tree falls in a forest and no notification is sent out, does anybody care?  Gamification needs to have movement, to have excitement, to be dynamic, and offer a call to action.      What I'd like for gamification to address:
Profile onboarding - I've logged in to the accounts of multiple users over the years, and every single one has totally ignored the Profile Completion.  I would love to actually see usage statistics on larger sites, but at least on my site, most users don't care about Profile Completion.  I'd rather deprecate Profile Completion in favor of Gamification.   New user activation - There needs to be multiple calls to action within the first X minutes, where X is the site's average session duration. I've seen first-hand how if I can talk live to a user when he first joins, his posting skyrockets at least over that session. There needs to be activity, excitement, and movement within that first session duration.      Member pathways - Users find fulfillment in many ways in our communities. We need to empower them to both progress along certain member pathways while encouraging them to also explore other pathways.  

In the confines of your own site, what is a document? Is it a forum post? A blog? A record in a database? Is it an attached file?

The good devs are busy.  The bad devs are busy too.  
You can reach out to developers like @HeadStand @DawPi @Marcher Technologies @CodingJungle who take on private clients.  
If you're an enterprise client, you can ask IPS for private referrals to help initiate the introductions.  
You may want to check with @CodingJungle on modifying his Keyword Tooltips.  When you hover over certain text, you can have a popup hovercard

The good devs are busy.  The bad devs are busy too.  
You can reach out to developers like @HeadStand @DawPi @Marcher Technologies @CodingJungle who take on private clients.  
If you're an enterprise client, you can ask IPS for private referrals to help initiate the introductions.  
You may want to check with @CodingJungle on modifying his Keyword Tooltips.  When you hover over certain text, you can have a popup hovercard

We utilize a very large gallery and at times there is a need for some mass cleanup.  We have noticed the following items could be improved:
 
Currently there is no option to select multiple images to change owner, must be done one by one. You can hide/delete/etc, but not alter ownership. Currently there is no option to move images into another users album if moderator/admin. You can only move them into albums you have created. If an album has ownership changed, there is no option to apply that change to the images inside the album. Therefore the album is under a new owner, but the images remain under the original album owner. This is ok in some cases, but undesirable in others, an option would be helpful here.

I think it would be extremely interesting if you followed up with the community in six months or one year with an analysis of your 26 emojis.  
Were they all used equally and actively? Or were only a handful of emojis used? 
My gut tells me that once you exceed 6 reactions, the marginal benefit of each additional reaction doesn't do a whole lot.  

IPS uses Pages for its Company Blog.  That should give you a hint ... 

Yes
You want Pages. You would create a single page, and then add a topic feed from News & Rumours.  
I would not recommend blogs, unless you have a community of bloggers.  

1. Webp is not a niche image format anymore. Full stop.  While I could understand that argument in 2015,  webp is now almost universally supported by all browsers: 
https://caniuse.com/?search=webp
2. The grand irony - or perverse absurdity - is that my own website delivers images as webp via my Cloudflare.  I literally have users who have downloaded my site's images, but can't upload them back to my site! That comes across as distinctly discrepant.  

So, just to make sure I understand what you understand, you think a user who sees Page 1 and Page 115 doesn't intrinsically understand there will be a Page 2, Page 3, and Page 4 in between them? 
More importantly, how does adding a Page 2, Page 3, and Page 4 help a user understand the magnitude of a long topic that is 115 pages versus 15 pages versus literally any page length of 5 or more? 
 
In any case, other thoughts:
1. Everyone is a critic of the default theme. 
2. The default theme is grossly inefficient in certain areas. On desktop, nobody cares. On mobile, we have to care. 
3. I think the better question to be asking is: based on heat analysis map or navigation pathways, do users actually click on Pages 2, 3, and 4 in a 115 page topic? My gut instinct says no.  I think the smartest approach would be to intelligently tie those pagination numbers to topic pages that are especially important, as per the Topic Summary.  
4. There's this whole area of research and investigation that should be done on ultra long topics.  How do we get users to be able to efficiently absorb the entirety of the topic? How do we create intelligent splits and divergences within the topic? 

So, just to make sure I understand what you understand, you think a user who sees Page 1 and Page 115 doesn't intrinsically understand there will be a Page 2, Page 3, and Page 4 in between them? 
More importantly, how does adding a Page 2, Page 3, and Page 4 help a user understand the magnitude of a long topic that is 115 pages versus 15 pages versus literally any page length of 5 or more? 
 
In any case, other thoughts:
1. Everyone is a critic of the default theme. 
2. The default theme is grossly inefficient in certain areas. On desktop, nobody cares. On mobile, we have to care. 
3. I think the better question to be asking is: based on heat analysis map or navigation pathways, do users actually click on Pages 2, 3, and 4 in a 115 page topic? My gut instinct says no.  I think the smartest approach would be to intelligently tie those pagination numbers to topic pages that are especially important, as per the Topic Summary.  
4. There's this whole area of research and investigation that should be done on ultra long topics.  How do we get users to be able to efficiently absorb the entirety of the topic? How do we create intelligent splits and divergences within the topic?