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Invision Community's latest update, 4.6, is officially out! 
To celebrate, we hosted a live event on Zoom.
I, alongside two of the three Invision Community co-founders @Charles and @Matt (shout-out to @Lindy) sat down for a roundtable talk to chat about some of the slickest features 4.6 has to offer.
If you'd like to refresh your memory with exactly what features we implemented in 4.6, check out our detailed blog post (after you're done watching our live event above, of course). 
It includes:
Achievements Spam Improvements Health dashboard Web app and push notifications Anonymous posting Solved content Show when a team member has replied
Did you catch the low-key Smart Community announcement? 🙃

We also wanted to take the time to answer a few questions we received during the live event that we couldn't get to in the moment.
Question: regarding the anonymous posting... is it completely anonymous (like no record is stored of who posted it) or is just a pseudo thing, like it shows "anonymous" but admins/mods can see who posted it?

Answer: The community owner can choose whether moderators can see the true identity of the user. This uses the built in moderator permissions so they can have it so all moderators, just specific moderators or nobody can see this info.
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Question: Is the translation service be hosted by IPS or do we need to use Google or Bing services on our community?
Answer: It will be a turnkey service provided by Invision Community.
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Question: Does Achievements show how many x Points are left to the next level?
Answer: Yup!

 
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Question: When will Smart Community be available?
Unsatisfying Answer: We are excited to share more details on Smart Community soon!
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We appreciate you participating / watching our first-ever live event. We're planning on doing more, so keep an eye out for the next one.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Drop us a line in the comments!

Invision Community has an exciting opportunity for an experienced PHP developer to join our team.
Invision Power Services, Inc. is behind the leading community software platform, Invision Community. Our tailored solutions serve clients of all sizes, from smaller communities to the world’s biggest brands.
We have been on the forefront of independent and white label engagement communities since 2002.
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.
Your role will be varied and involve bug fixing, peer reviews, helping refine a technical specification and contribute code towards new functionality for Invision Community.
The position is remote, but it will require significant overlap with the EST working day. We offer a friendly relaxed environment with an established team who have a passion for what they do. There is an opportunity to learn from others and progress into more senior roles.
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 The most important characteristic is a willingness to learn and to take on new challenges. The role is varied and you can be working on a launch with an enterprise customer or crafting code for our latest features depending on priorities.

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, etc. Experience working within a team with a strong culture. Some experience with HTML, CSS and JS. Worked on large scale applications. Confident with modern OOP standards including traits, etc. The depth of experience can vary between developers. Please apply even if some of these areas are not your strongest points. We can offer training and mentoring for the right candidate and our team is very supportive.

Location
Remote but must be available for a significant portion of 9-5 EST working day.
Salary
Dependent on experience. Please submit your salary expectations on the application form.
How To Apply
Please complete the application form giving us as much information as possible.

Minor releases are almost always just maintenance releases. We gather up a fistful of bug reports and fix them to ensure that every month or so, our clients enjoy more stability and efficiency with Invision Community.
However, more recently we've noticed that we're running low on bug reports, so we've managed to squeeze in a handful of improvements in Invision Community 4.4.5.
Let's take a look and see what's new in Pages.
How should the canonical tag behave?
While this isn't the most exciting name for a feature, it does explain it reasonably well. We had a recent discussion on the forums where it was pointed out that the canonical tag directed search engines to the first page of any record. While this makes perfect sense for an articles or blog system where the content you create is more important than the comments, it makes less sense if the user-generated content (aka the comments) is more important than the content you put up. A good example here is where you put up a video or link for review. You don't want the canonical tag pointing to the first page as it will ignore the reviews themselves.

If you didn't understand much of that, don't worry. The idea behind this feature is to provide Google and friends with a better hint about which content is more important. A happier Google bot slurping your site is a good thing.
How about that Admin CP menu?
When you create a new database in Pages, it is shown in the ACP menu under 'Content'. This is fine, but when you get a lot of databases, it starts looking a little cluttered, and it can be hard to find the correct one.

We've reworked the menu so items have their own section, and can be re-ordered using the ACP menu re-ordering system.
Member fields are now filterable.
Pages allows specific field types to be filterable. This means you can sort by them with the table's advanced search box, and you can drag and drop a filters widget next to the table to refine the rows shown.
Now a member custom field is filterable, which is handy if you use them in your databases.
Other areas of the suite.
Messenger search
A while back, we made a change that removed the ability to search messenger by the sender or recipient name. We also limited the reach of the search system to one year and newer.

Unsurprisingly, this wasn't very popular. We've restored sender, and recipient name searching removed the one year limit and re-engineered the internals of search, so it's more efficient and returns results much faster.
How many members do you have?
You can see quite quickly if you have the member stats widget on the front end, but finding out via the Admin CP is a little more tricky. 

 
Until now! We've added a dashboard widget that not only shows the number of members you have registered, but also a break down of their email opt-in status.
A happier autocomplete.
Apple has this cool feature where if you receive a text message for a two-factor authentication login, it offers to auto-fill the code box for you.
We've had a sweep throughout the suite to ensure two-factor authentication fields allow this autocomplete to happen.
While we were at it, we made sure that other fields are more easily autocompleted.
That wraps up the new features in Invision Community 4.4.5. How many have you spotted after upgrading?
Let us know your favourite below.

One of the first things I do when visiting a site that I know has a community is to try and find it.
More often than not, it's hidden away in the footer links or buried in several sub-menus and labelled something relatively obscure like "Fans" or "Support".
This is a massive lost opportunity!
We all know that social proof is incredibly important when making a purchasing decision.
When I buy something on Amazon or book a holiday, the first thing I do is scour the reviews. Are the reviews mostly positive? What did other people think about the product after receiving it?
I might see two almost identical products and the reviews, not the price that'll always sway me.
It's that urge to herd to keep safe at play.
So why bury all that out of the way?
Your community should be full of fantastic social proof — hundreds of customers using your product and creating a buzz.
Is it a fear of criticism? We all have had bad experiences with clients who are less than rational with feedback, but that's OK.
The Harry Potter series of books are beloved by millions, made J.K Rowling a fortune, made a celebrated movie series and opened up several themed attractions which are always busy.
Yet, there are a significant number of 1-star reviews on Amazon.

Not everyone will get you or your business.
You always have the opportunity to reply and explain your side, and you are always in control with moderation tools.
Let's face it; if you are to handle negative feedback, it's better to manage it on your community than see it all over social media, Google reviews and review sites like TripAdvisor.
Maybe you're a little embarrassed because the community platform is old and doesn't match your branding.
If that's the case, then come and talk to us! We specialise in migrating communities from legacy platforms with poor mobile support. We offer brand matching services too.
Maybe it's just that you're unsure of what to do with your community.
I get that too. It can be hard to know how it fits in with your brand. I'm happy to help there also. Feel free to drop a comment below.
Our product has several ways to pull content from the community and feature it on your site.
We've helped big brands like LEGO®, Sega, Warner Bros. and more nurture a prosperous community that enhances their business.
The bottom line is that a well manage community should be central to your brand and website.
Hiding it among the "Privacy Policy" links is a huge missed opportunity.
- Matt