Charles

@Ehren nice work as usual, and I cannot wait to see what you are going to make for IPS 5.0. 

Can we talk about the terrible music on the video? 😅

I'm in the process of building a new project and have it started in Wordpress + BuddyPress + bbPress... part of the way through the bbPress setup I was kinda disappointed in the forum features and was thinking to myself "I could do this in a full suite version of IPS self-hosted".
Thanks for removing my doubts of why I went with Wordpress in the first place.  No point starting a new project on software that is destined to get starved of features by the developer in order to push more clients into $549/m plans.

Congrats 🥰 Was such a joy to be part of the team for 8 of those years.

I love it when the comments are better than the blog itself. 
 
Outstanding contribution! Thanks Chris. 

Although there are lots of settings and features built into the suite to programmatically encourage "connectivity", it takes a great deal of finesse to keep both the early adopters and those that join later "truly" connected.
If a site admin "wings it", then...

It will likely lead to a "very" bumpy ride for one-and-all.
It takes thought and experimentation to hit upon how to create an overall environment that encourages members to connect with each other at the various stages of a site's development and long-term existence.
Eliciting feedback from early adopters is important but there is no guarantee that the first cohort's personality and interests will mirror that of future members. As such, it's wise not to build-out a site utilizing their input exclusively.   One should continuously elicit input from folks that have been around for varying periods of time. When you get a handle of the needs of your overall membership new and old you will have a better sense of how to guide the community towards ever more connectivity around areas that matter to the group as a whole.
As people's interests change (and you factor in short-lived trends) a site needs to constantly figure out how to address those changing interests and possibly differences in how members engage with each other. This is especially important if a site caters to a demographic that encompasses multiple generations and geographic regions.
Adopting a top-down approach to community engagement is unlikely to work much past a site's launch. A site admin should refrain from thinking this is "my site" and instead of think of it as "our site". What should "we" do to make this site far more engaging for all of us in comparison with our competitors?  Does "our" content "engage" and "inform", and does it feel like a place to hang out and make "real" connections with others.
Instead of admins setting the tone for a site by ensuring members adhere to a complex set of community standards one might consider changing their roles to be facilitators. They could be utilized to facilitate great dialog and introduce various members to each other they think might benefit from getting to know each other and elicit great conversations.
Getting to know other members in meaningful ways may require revealing a little more about oneself than just one's screen name. Profiles with just the right kind of fields filled out can go a long way towards helping ferret out fellow members with similar interests. This is a feature that often isn't utilized to its fullest extent as the value proposition isn't properly communicated to one-and-all from my observations of this site as well as others.
I've had 12,719 profile views here but as very few other people have filled out their profiles, I've followed suite and left mine almost blank.  People appear to want to know more about other fellow members here, but IPS has chosen not to promote the use of profiles.
Being in regular contact with your entire community (not just your early adopters and power users) is important. This will better allow you to find common ground amongst your entire membership. You might have to make a special effort to draw some folks out but it's worth it in the long term.  Many new members are a bit shy at first but in time may become quite active when they reach a certain comfort level. Who knows, some of these folks might be some of your best contributors in the years to come.
Society seems to instill a strong sense of independence in the populace.  Although that has many positives there are negative aspects as well.  One being that we are often reticent of asking for help from others.
Collectively we can accomplish so much more than what we can do individually, so don't be afraid to ask for assistance from your membership to help create a "community". You might be surprised by how many folks will offer to lend a hand if it is being used in a truly useful fashion and a task can be completed in a short span of time.
@Matt made some great points above, I would recommend folks check out more of his blog postings along with Joel R and Jordan Miller.
 
 

Good idea 🙂 

The AdminCP has a dark theme now.

Good idea 🙂 

Good idea 🙂 

Reactions here don't have a frowny option.

Lol'ing at the Charles like there though
 

Good idea 🙂 

Looks nice 🙂
Any plans to add a search to that select in the future? I can imagine some people (like me) probably will have quite a few of those 🙂

UUhhhaaa. One more resource is dead!
🙂

From a cis male ally, I loved this! I've been a client from the very, very beginning, and have always wondered about Charles, as Matt seems to be the one in spotlight more often. (I imagine Charles prefer a more private life.) I also grew up in Virginia, and it's pretty unusual to see a large company from one of these Virginia towns, so more curiosity for that reason.
@Jordan Invision you're a star! You have great energy and presence. (I saw one of your posts on an outside forum about Invision, and also loved your responses there.)

It uses the operating system methods so it varies by OS. Generally they look like all the other notifications you get in the course of a day 🙂

It uses the operating system methods so it varies by OS. Generally they look like all the other notifications you get in the course of a day 🙂

It uses the operating system methods so it varies by OS. Generally they look like all the other notifications you get in the course of a day 🙂

It uses the operating system methods so it varies by OS. Generally they look like all the other notifications you get in the course of a day 🙂

It uses the operating system methods so it varies by OS. Generally they look like all the other notifications you get in the course of a day 🙂

Stop this pls.
You spend time on blogs and not on the dev.

I like the new way. Prominent options should be the ones we want as admin, e.g. creating new posts. Editing posts can count as a “secondary” option. 

You can filter by language in the application. Here you set what languages your website supports.

Using the Member Note in the Warning system without assigning any points or actions is really the same thing. In that case it's just a note.

It's not as bad as it seems. You're only charged if Zapier does something for you. Example that we use:
We use Github internally for software development. If something is being added to the software that any of our staff thinks will need extra testing in beta, they add a special beta-test label in Github.
Every single action we do to Github is sent to Zapier for processing. We have rules in the Zapier Zaps that look for our beta-test label. Only if it's seen does an action happen.
So in this case, Zapier might analyze 100 things we do in Github a day but may only take action on one of them (one we labeled beta-test). It's that one we get charged for.
 
Also, the amount of really cool things you can do with Zapier makes it worth it. I'm not a programmer and I have really cool workflows in place that help bridge all the services we use at IPS to interconnect with our internal site (running Invision Community) so we all know what's going on.